The temptation arises for a church to change, or at least hide, who they are so that they appeal to unchurched Harry. Additionally, the church is tempted to alter its message to correspond with what Harry wants to hear and thinks he needs. The end result is a felt-need gospel that appeals to Harry’s fallen nature in an effort to entice him to come to Christ, the ultimate felt-need supplier, so that he is fulfilled and feels better about himself.
– Gary Gilley
This is one of those videos that’s beyond words. It leaves you wondering what in the world did I just witness?
A Little Leaven calls it “Misadventures in Liturgical Dance,” but I call it “A Romish Mess.”
Your sermon of the week is the third edition of John MacArthur’s The Battle for the Beginning series with a two-part message entitled The How, Why, and When of Creation.
As a follow-up to Brother Michael’s previous post on Chuck Smith (found here), I’m presenting an audio clip of a critique that James White did in response to an audio clip of Chuck Smith and other Calvary Chapel speakers in which they attacked the Doctrines of Grace, equated Calvinists to cultists, and even opposed God’s sovereignty.
Let us beware of attempting to add anything to the word of God, as necessary to salvation. It provokes God to give us over to judicial blindness. It is as good as saying that His Bible is not perfect, and that we know better than He does what is necessary for man’s salvation. It is just as easy to destroy the authority of God’s word by addition as by subtraction, by burying it under man’s inventions as by denying its truth. The whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible, must be our rule of faith nothing added and nothing taken away.
– J.C. Ryle
1816 – 1900
You show me a wife who is not in submission to her husband, and I’ll show you a household in disarray. Can you imagine an army where sergeants openly disrespect generals, yet expect privates to respect them.
– Voddie Baucham
Your sermon of the week is Semper Reformanda: Children in Worship by Brian Borgman. This message is from a 1996 church service when the church decided that they would no longer dismiss the children and separate them from their parents during the main worship service. This is a very enlightening sermon as Borgman makes the case for why children and their parents should worship together in church. I highly recommend this message; it will challenge you to change the way you’ve always done things.
Joel Kramer and Sourceflix have hit another home run with their latest release, The Bible vs. Joseph Smith.
DefCon has been pleased to feature Joel Kramer’s past documentaries DNA vs. the Book of Mormon, The Bible vs. the Book of Mormon, and Lifting the Veil on Polygamy, and now The Bible vs. Joseph Smith continues in the excellence of quality, production, and product.
Joel Kramer sits down with a lifelong Mormon and puts Bible prophets and Mormon prophets to the Deuteronomy 18 test “to see which prophets are truly speaking for God.”
This video not only deals with such problems as the Book of Mormon error of stating that Jesus was born in Jerusalem, but it also deals with Joseph Smith’s problems of false prophecy, so clearly in fact, that I suggest to you that this video conclusively proves that Joseph Smith was a false prophet.
“In a conversation between a Christian and a Mormon, the prophets of both the Bible and the Book of Mormon are put head to head in a test to see which prophets are truly speaking for God. If even one prophecy fails to come true, that prophet is a false prophet, and must be put to death.”
While we do not affirm that everything modern is evil or that everything ancient was excellent, there is no doubt that the greater part of the boasted “progress” in Christendom of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was a progress downward and not upward—away from God and not toward Him, into the darkness and not the light.
– Gary Gilley
If your church is everything the world wants, and nothing what the Lord intended, welcome to Contemporvant.
If we are daily concerned in seeking to please God in all the details, great and small, of our lives, He will not leave us in ignorance of His will concerning us. But if we are accustomed to gratify self and only turn up to God for help in times of difficulty and emergency, then we must not be surprised if he mocks us and allows us to reap the fruits of our folly.
– A.W. Pink
1886 – 1952
This is the next installment on the subject of creation vs evolution by John MacArthur from his series The Battle For the Beginning. It is entitled God: Creator and Redeemer. Look for the next installment in two weeks.
Scripture declares clearly, and without a doubt, that there is only one cleansing agent for the sin of believers. The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7). Yet, Rome diverts its people from the Savior’s blood and instead offers a place called purgatory as a dreadfully contrived hoax.
– Mike Gendron
For those dealing in counter-cult apologetics, if you do not have Bruce R. McConkie’s Mormon Doctrine you better get your hands on it soon, as it’s about to get harder to find and possibly more expensive to purchase. Anyone dealing with Mormons knows the value of this book, and now it will no longer be in print due to a decreased demand. I procured my copy a few years back and I won’t be selling it anytime soon.
Part of me wonders if the decision to stop printing it has anything to do with how much of the real Mormonism it reveals: God was once a man; you can become a God; the black race is cursed; Christ couldn’t atone for all sins and you yourself must atone for some of your own sins by your own shed blood just to name a few.
None of these teachings, I might add, were of McConkie’s own imagination; he merely expounded on already established LDS teachings and doctrines, even though the mainstream LDS organization has been back-peddling from many of these core Mormon doctrines in recent years as they’ve done a phenomenal job at PR in their attempt to look just like Christians. This, of course, is perplexing when you consider that the genesis of their very existence was precipitated on the idea that Christians are apostate.
Oftentimes when a non-Mormon quotes from Mormon Doctrine he is met with the typical Mormon responses that it is not authoritative, it is not scripture, it is not part of LDS canon, and it was only McConkie’s opinions. Ironically these excuses are never appealed to whenever they quote from the Mormon apostle’s work.
This selective use of LDS teachings by Mormons makes the following article from the Salt Lake Tribune even more revealing as they admit:
Although McConkie, an LDS apostle who died in 1985, took sole responsibility from the start for Mormon Doctrine ‘s content, it often was quoted over the pulpit and treated by members as quasi-official. The book, with its presumptive title, seemed to provide an answer to every question and left little room for ambiguity.
“Mormon Doctrine served two generations of the Mormon rank and file as the main authoritative source of LDS teachings,” said LDS sociologist Armand Mauss. “With its authoritative tone and constant promotion from high places, it came to be regularly cited in the church curriculum, especially in [Church Educational System] materials, and soon took on almost a scriptural stature.
You can read the entire article of the demise of McConkie’s tome on the Salt lake Tribune website by clicking here or below by clicking the following link:
Your sermon of the week is another must-hear powerhouse sermon by Randall Easter entitled You Must Be Born From Above.
If you haven’t heard Randall Easter’s previous sermon on Jonah (and I highly recommend that you do), you can find it on this post.
HT: The Bororean
I just saw this news piece in which a softball coach required eight of her players to drink soda out of a shoe. The matter is being called a mistake and the coach has apologized. Yet, when “Christian” youth groups in American churches participate in drinking foot bath water and licking peanut butter out of armpits and off toes, for some reason they view this as ministry.
This is a classic! The man in this satirical video uses some ingenious methods in an attempt to prove that Jesus is not God. Although the video is in jest, it illustrates the absurdity of how some go to great lengths to make the Bible say what they want it to say, including denying Jesus’ deity (like Jehovah’s Witnesses).
Although the video is funny, the ramifications of those who deny Jesus’ deity certainly isn’t.
We’re beginning a new series here on DefCon by John MacArthur on the subject of God’s creation (versus man’s theory of evolution) from his series The Battle for the Beginning. We begin with the following two-part message entitled Creation – Believe it or Not.
Creation: Believe it or Not (Part One)
Creation: Believe it or Not (Part Two)
Look for the next installment in two weeks.
Let me ask you, where in Scripture do you find the teaching that we are to treat false teachers with charity and the apostles of apostasy with Christian love? That is exactly the opposite of the teaching of 2 John . . . . Scripture terms the purveyors of false doctrine as “grievous wolves.” The faithful shepherds of history have not dialogued with grievous wolves.
– John Ashbrook
Christ Alone Wyoming 