Here are the main reasons I am not signing the Manhattan Declaration, even though a few men whom I love and respect have already affixed their names to it:
• Although I obviously agree with the document’s opposition to same-sex marriage, abortion, and other key moral problems threatening our culture, the document falls far short of identifying the one true and ultimate remedy for all of humanity’s moral ills: the gospel. The gospel is barely mentioned in the Declaration. At one point the statement rightly acknowledges, “It is our duty to proclaim the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in its fullness, both in season and out of season”—and then adds an encouraging wish: “May God help us not to fail in that duty.” Yet the gospel itself is nowhere presented (much less explained) in the document or any of the accompanying literature. Indeed, that would be a practical impossibility because of the contradictory views held by the broad range of signatories regarding what the gospel teaches and what it means to be a Christian.
As we in America celebrate Thanksgiving, and all the great freedoms, advancements, and benefits that the exporting of Christianity to this land brought with it, let us not forget about those millions of other people who are trapped in the bondage of their nations who are held captive to false religions and the human wreckage that those false religions bring.
Becoming Last had a post containing some pictures which reminded me exactly how thankful we should be, and exactly how starkly different the continent of North America may have turned out had the light of Christianity not pierced the darkness that covered this land.
The pictures in the post came from a piece in the Sacramento Bee. I’ve included some of these sobering but needful reminders below.
Let us not go to our graves having done nothing to see the advancement of the gospel to the uttermost parts of the world, where the worship of idols and demons keeps millions, if not billions, of souls in bondage.
A man may be sorry, yet not repent, as a thief is sorry when he is taken; not because he stole, but because he has to pay the penalty. Godly sorrow, however, is chiefly for the trespass against God, so that even if there were no conscience to smite, no devil to accuse, no hell to punish, yet…the soul would still be grieved because of the prejudice done to God. Spiritual sorrow will sink the heart if the pulley of faith does not raise it. As much as we feel our sting, let us look upward to Christ for strength and healing. We must grieve more for offending God than for the loss of dear relations. Sorrow for sin must exceed sorrow at the grave, and with good reason; for in the burial of the dead it is only a friend who departs, but in sin…God departs.
O Christian! the disease of your soul is chronic and frequently returns upon you; therefore you must continually cry out and repent. Christ counts as great beauties those who are tender-eyed; and well may sin make us weep. There are special times when we must renew our repentance in an extraordinary manner: before receiving the Lord’s supper, and at the hour of death. When the soul is going out of the body, it should swim to heaven in a sea of tears.
Your sermon of the week is another good one from Randall Easter entitled Our Identity in Christ. Again, pastor Easter steps on toes as he preaches the Word without compromise.
Error is like leaven of which we read, a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. Truth mixed with error is equivalent to all error, except that it is more innocent looking and, therefore, more dangerous. God hates such a mixture! Any error, or any truth-and-error mixture, calls for definite exposure and repudiation. To condone such is to be unfaithful to God and His Word and treacherous to imperiled souls for whom Christ died.
You know there are two great plagues that have distressed the church of Christ and it will never be quite free from them; a multitude of hypocrites on a fair day, and a multitude of apostates on a foul day.
1. Where do you place the importance of preaching in the grand scheme of church life?
I believe preaching is central to the grand scheme of church life (see Acts 2:42ff). Preaching/teaching sets the tone and the parameters for all other functions of the church. Our understanding of fellowship, evangelism, discipline, worship, etc., all arise out of our understanding of God’s word. Without sound preaching and teaching, all else will falter. Hence, preaching is of seminal importance in the grand scheme of church life.
2. In a paragraph, how did you discover your gifts in preaching?
As a young college student, I went on a preaching mission with several teammates of mine. I was a relatively new believer and had no experience sharing God’s word. Two of my mentors guided me through the week and helped me discover my gifts in preaching for the first time. I felt as though something in me was awakened for the first time. I’ve been preaching ever since.
3. How long (on average) does it take you to prepare a sermon?
When we start a series (preaching through a book or section), it can 15-20 hours or more. However, once we are in the midst of the text much of the background work builds upon previous studies and cuts the time dramatically. Nevertheless, crafting the message, adding illustrative material and mining the text for that last nuance, is a process that never really ends until the preaching moment. That’s the only time I can truly say I am finished preparing the sermon.
4. Is it important to you that a sermon contain one major theme or idea? If so, how do you crystallise it?
Absolutely! I am always looking for the central theme in a passage. There may be more than one, but I have come to realize that I am most effective when I limit myself to the main idea. I find that idea by analyzing the paragraph, then the broader context of the section, then the book as a whole, then its place in the broader revelation. Then I go through the process in reverse back down to the passage in question.
5. What is the most important aspect of a preacher’s style and what should he avoid?
The most important aspect of a preacher’s style is authenticity. When I started preaching, I thought my ‘style’ had to fit a certain category. As a result I mimicked some of my favorite preachers. I was constantly reinventing myself. Ultimately, I had to find my own ‘style’ and stick with it. That meant there was one less thing I had to manufacture. I had to realize that God gave me a unique personality and he intended to use it in unique ways. God gave us four gospels written by four unique men, from four different perspectives. I had to remind myself that it is as much of a travesty for me to try to be Tony Evans as it would have been for John to try to be Matthew.
A Christian, if he has not a care, may be proud of his very humility. It is hard starving this sin, because it can live on almost nothing. . . . Be much in meditation on death and judgment. A serious and frequent meditation on death will be a means to kill pride. Ask yourself: “What is man, but a little living lump of clay? And what is his life, but “a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away?”
I believe one of the greatest crutches in the church is the nursery. Parents who have neglected to train their children have very little encouragement to do so when there is a place to hide them. The father who should be up in arms by the time he gets home from church because of the embarrassment to which his child subjected him ends up going home with a clear conscience while the nursery worker takes a handful of aspirin.
Now I should like to know whether your soul, tired of it’s own righteousness, is learning to be revived by and to trust in the righteousness of Christ. For in our age the temptation to presumption besets many, especially those who try with all their might to be just and good without knowing the righteousness of God which is most bountifully and freely given us in Christ. They try to do good of themselves in order that they might stand before God clothed in their own virtues and merits. But this is impossible…Therefore, my dear brother, learn Christ and Him crucified. Learn to pray to him and, despairing of yourself, say, “Thou, Lord Jesus, art my righteousness, but I am thy sin. Thou hast taken upon thyself what is mine and hast given to me what is thine. Thou have taken upon thyself what thou wast not and hast given to me what I was not.” … For why was it necessary for him to die if we can obtain a good conscience by our own works and afflictions? Accordingly you will find peace only in him and only when you despair of yourself and your own works. Besides, you will learn from him that just as he has recieved you, so he has made your sins his own and made his righteouness yours.
- Martin Luther (From a letter to George Spenlein) 1483 – 1546
Catholics are totally dependent upon priests for their salvation. It is the priest who is said to cause regeneration and justification in baptism (CCC 1992, 1213); absolve mortal sins in the confessional; dispense the body and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist; impart the Holy Spirit in the sacrament of Confirmation; and offer the sacrifice of the Mass for souls suffering in purgatory. It is no wonder why Catholics trust their religion and their priests as mediators to usher them into Heaven.
But an evil eye shuts out the light and plunges you into darkness. If the light you think you have is really darkness, how deep that darkness will be! Mat 6:23 NLT
The New York Times recently published a story on Kenneth Copeland’s Southwest Believers Convention which highlighted the ongoing popularity of the prosperity gospel even in times of recession and economic uncertainty. The author interviewed a couple from Missouri who illustrate perfectly the darkness Jesus spoke of in Matthew 6:23
Stephen Biellier, a long-distance trucker from Mount Vernon, Mo., said he and his wife, Millie, came to the convention praying that this would be “the overcoming year.” They are $102,000 in debt, and the bank has cut off their credit line, Mrs. Biellier said.
They say the Copelands rescued them from financial failure 23 years ago, when they bought their first truck at 22 percent interest and had to rebuild the engine twice in a year.
Around that time, Mrs. Biellier first saw Mr. Copeland on television and began sending him 50 cents a week.
Others who bought trucks from the same dealer in Joplin that year went under, the Bielliers said, but they did not.
“We would have failed if Copeland hadn’t been praying for us every day,” Mrs. Biellier said.
The Bielliers were at the convention a few years ago when a supporter made a pitch for people to join an “Elite CX Team” to raise money to buy the ministry a Citation X airplane. (Mr. Copeland is an airplane aficionado who got his start in ministry as a pilot for Oral Roberts.) At that moment, Mrs. Biellier said she heard the voice of the Holy Spirit telling her, “You were born to support this man.”
She gave $2,000 for the plane, and recently sent $1,800 for the team’s latest project: buying high-definition television equipment to upgrade the ministry’s international broadcasts.
For those familiar with Paul Washer’s “Shocking Sermon” (featured on DefCon here), you will want to check out the following eleven-minute interview piece in which Paul Washer explains the circumstances preceding his delivery of that sermon to 5,000 youth.
You can watch the interview below, or download the audio by right-clicking here.
Richard Baxter said, “Don’t pretend to love your people if you favor their sins.” Any pastor who says, “We don’t deal with sin here” doesn’t love his people, and it’s questionable whether he loves his God. Anybody who loves God loves what God loves, and what God loves is holiness and God loves His people to be holy, and if you’re indifferent toward their sins, then you don’t love people. If you say . . . as you hear preachers say, “God loves you, God loves you, God loves you,” then you have to immediately say, “And if you don’t turn to receive His Son you’re going to Hell.” If you love God and you love people you say that. And if in the church you say, “God loves you, God loves you so much that He gave His Son,” you’re going to have to also say, “God loves you so much that He wants you to stop that sin, He wants you to abandon that sin or you’re going to be put out of His Church. He’s a man who expresses the true and the pure, not some mushy sentimentalism.
DALLAS,TX– The congregation of First Baptist Church Dallas today overwhelmingly affirmed recommended plans to proceed with a $130 million capital campaign to build an expansive new 1.5 million square foot, state-of-the-art campus, making it the largest church building program in modern history, according to church fundraising experts.
“If the church is to be God’s plan for the world, the vessel by which the Good News of his redemption spreads, we are going to need to learn how to reach out to culture without becoming it. Expensive buildings don’t scream ‘we have been redeemed,’ they scream, ‘we are just like you.’ And that certainly isn’t the message that Jesus was nailed to a cross for.”
Pastor Ken Eastburn also lists on his blog some of the amenities that this new church building is expecting to have:
1.5 million square feet
LEED certified (its green and energy efficient)
Glass structure
Stone water tower topped with a luminescent cross
Common area for downtown residents and guests
3,000 seat worship center (on the second story)
7 high-definition screens
Choir and Orchestra pit
Senior adult education center (under the sanctuary)
300-space underground parking garage
6-story education building for children/youth ministries
2 side-by-side gymnasiums
Children’s play areas
Outdoor concert space
Adjacent parking garage with 500-plus parking spaces
To imagine, therefore, so small a thing as a bee, a fly, a grain of corn, or an atom of dust, can be made out of nothing, would stupefy any creature who considered it. But how much more is it to behold the heavens, with all the troops of stars; the earth, with all its embroidery; and the sea with all her inhabitants of fish; and man, the noblest creature of all, and all to have risen out of the womb of mere emptiness.
Yet one more reason to support your local home school: a public school in North Carolina was actually selling grades. It reminds me of the Roman Catholic organization who sells indulgences; but I digress.
Roman Catholicism is the most evil perversion of Christianity Satan could devise. It is pagan, wicked, and deceptive. It is a works-oriented system that perverts the works of Christ in many blasphemous ways (the papacy being one) and was the reason the Protestant Reformation was necessary. How sad it is that many “evangelicals” today are trying to undo it.
Here is an edifying piece from Mike Gendron’s site, proclaiming the Gospel. It is worth reading…
Purgatory: Purifying Fire or Fatal Fable
by Mike Gendron
Catholics who believe a purifying fire will purge away their sins are deluded victims of a fatal fabrication. The invention of a place for purification of sins called Purgatory is one of the most seductive attractions of the Roman Catholic religion. Pastor John MacArthur of Grace Community Church described this deceptive hoax brilliantly. He said: “Purgatory is what makes the whole system work. Take out Purgatory and it’s a hard sell to be a Catholic. Purgatory is the safety net, when you die, you don’t go to hell. You go [to Purgatory] and get things sorted out and finally get to heaven if you’ve been a good Catholic. In the Catholic system you can never know you’re going to heaven. You just keep trying and trying…in a long journey toward perfection. Well, it’s pretty discouraging. People in that system are guilt-ridden, fear-ridden and have no knowledge of whether or not they’re going to get into the Kingdom. If there’s no Purgatory, there’s no safety net to catch me and give me some opportunity to get into heaven. It’s a second chance, it’s another chance after death” (from “The Pope and the Papacy”).
The Origin of Purgatory
There was no mention of Purgatory during the first two centuries of the church. However, when Roman Emperor Theodosius (379-395) decreed that Christianity was to be the official religion of the empire, thousands of pagans flooded into the Church and brought their pagan beliefs and traditions with them. One of those ancient pagan beliefs was a place of purification where souls went to make satisfaction for their sins.
This is another fine piece from brother Mike Ratliff, from his blog, possessing the treasure.
May it bless you as you read…
“Son of man, speak to the elders of Israel, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD, Is it to inquire of me that you come? As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I will not be inquired of by you.” (Ezekiel 20:3 ESV)
The Visible Church has become largely corrupt and apostate. Some are going the direction of Joel Osteen’s Word of Faith gospel that tells us that God wants to bless us, but cannot because we are not asking Him for it or we are not doing something right. Then there are those denominations that are affirming same-sex marriage, which is expressly condemned in God’s Word. There are apostasy examples all across the board and there is not room enough or time enough to address them all here. However, these things all have one thing in common. These are people seeking to be seen as “Christian,” but on their own terms rather than what the Word of God clearly teaches us.
Apostate Israel and Judah in the Old Testament are prime examples of this. God had clearly given them the right way to worship Him and the things that were an abomination to Him. This is all contained in the Law. Ezekiel was a captive in Babylon prior to the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. He was a priest. In Ezekiel 20 we are given a very long oracle from God spoken to the prophet to be given to the elders who came to him to hear God’s Word and to inquire or pray to Him. However, God gives them the exact reason why they are under His judgment and why He will not be inquired of by them. In other words, He was not going to listen to their prayers.
Your sermon of the week is Grace Needed: Total Depravity by Brian Borgman. This is part three of a thirteen-part series entitled Introduction to the Reformed Faith that Pastor Borgman gave in 1998. Look for each additional installment every couple weeks. See part one here and part two here.
Methods and terminology used in evangelism all over the world have so distorted the Gospel that Christians need to be taught afresh the basic fundamentals of God’s saving work in Christ, so their presentation of the Gospel will be according to the Word of God. Even though many people have been saved under present evangelistic methods, many others have not clearly understood the Gospel. The message they heard so emphasized man’s part in conversion that God’s perfect finished work and complete provision for helpless sinners in Christ was not understood and believed. If people’s attention is directed inward to their own doing, even those who are truly saved will often lack assurance of salvation. The question will constantly arise within their hearts, “Was I sincere enough? Did I do it correctly? Did I truly receive Christ? Did I really give my heart to Jesus?”
In all likelihood, most people would never even imagine a cartoon version of Genesis. Nevertheless, the cartoon version has arrived, and it is attracting no small amount of attention.
The Book of Genesis Illustrated is by famed cartoonist R. Crumb. Famous among cartoonists for his work as far back as the 1960s, Crumb has always combined cartoons and a social/political agenda. As David Colton of USA Today explains, Crumb is known for “subversive, turn-of-the-century linework, untamed libido, and obsessive social commentary.”
Indeed, Crumb personally attributes aspects of his style to experiences with LSD in his younger years. He became known for his “Keep on Truckin’” and “Fritz the Cat” cartoons. Disillusioned with the United States, Crumb took his family to France, where they now live.
Somewhere along the way, Crumb decided to take on the Bible, starting with Genesis. That is no small ambition. But why?
After Noah’s flood receded, God promised Noah that, “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease” (Genesis 8:22). If cold and heat remain, that rules out the possibility of runaway global warming, and I doubt that He chooses to show us this mercy due to the wisdom of environmentalists.
Here’s a great documentary on the real cause of rising or falling global temperatures–the sun. It also discusses the devastating effect of extremist environmental policies for those who have no access to electricity.
Please forgive the French subtitles and the old earth references.
This is an excerpt from a sermon by John MacArthur that all should take the time to read. One reason men of God should preach the word is because of the dangerous times in which we live. Here is John’s sermon…
‘It was in the Reformation, 1500, that sacramentalism was given a tremendous blow in the Reformation. As we said this morning, this is Reformation Sunday in the commemoration of the church. And Luther nailed his thesis on the door of the church at Wittenberg and launched the great Reformation.
But it wasn’t long after that, sad to say, the eighteenth century, there came the second dangerous epoch in the life of the church, rationalism. Coming out of the Dark Ages of sacramentalism when the Roman Catholic system oppressed people and told people that only the Church had the true knowledge, man after the back of the sacramental power was broken, after the time of the Reformation, man began to feel his freedom a little bit. And out of that came the Renaissance and man began to discover something of the image of God in him, and something of the incredible creativity that he had and something of his intellectual capabilities and began to develop all kinds of skills.
And out of the Reformation came the Renaissance and out of that came the enlightenment and out of that came the Industrial Revolution and man began to see what a mind he had. And out of that came Rationalism. And in the eighteenth century, man decided that he was God, for all intents and purposes, and that he could only believe what was rational. And anything that wasn’t rational or reasonable to him should be rejected. Man placed himself above God, human reason above Scripture. And rationalism came into the church. Rationalism corrupted the church, corrupted the Protestant church, corrupted the church that came out of the Reformation. Rationalism came into the church. The higher critical theory came into the church. They questioned the authorship of the Bible authors. They questioned the inspiration. They questioned the truth of Scripture. They questioned anything and everything in the Bible. One European scholar, one rationalist scholar decided when it was all said and done there was 26 verses that were true in the whole Bible.
Out of that came old liberalism, new liberalism, neo-orthodoxy. I remember when I went to St. Andrews with Eric Alexander, the third oldest university in the U.K. at Oxford, Cambridge and St. Andrews, an incredible place. I wanted to go to Saints Alvader’s(?) Chapel because they have John Knox’s pulpit there, the great preacher of the Scottish Reformation. And I wanted to see his pulpit, I wanted to stand in his pulpit. I stood in some amazing pulpits, John Calvin’s and John Knox, maybe a little of their power would rub off on me. I’m surprised either of those pulpits are still standing the way they beat on them. John Knox’s pulpit was in St. Andrews at Saints Alvader’s Chapel and I just stood there and my eyes just filled with tears, my heart’s in my throat imagining him stepping in to that Roman Catholic bastion and preaching the Reformation.
I walk out of that place and I go across the little street there and in the cobblestones are some initials. And I find a little plaque and the initials are the initials of three students in their teen-aged years…three students at St. Andrews University who believed the Reformation gospel and were on that spot burned at the stake by the Church. And there is a memorial right behind the first tee, you’ve seen the St. Andrews Golf Course? You’ve seen the Royal and Ancient Club behind it, that old building, right behind that is a great monument to those three boys, really, by our standards, but men by every standard. It’s called “The Martyr’s Memorial.” They died because they believed in the Reformation faith in their teen-aged years, they were burned at the stake.
You keep walking from Saints Alvader’s Chapel where John Knox preached Reformation truth, you walk across past the pub, right next to the initials in the cobblestones, you walk across the street you’re in the School of Theology at St. Andrews University, Protestant university by the power of John Knox and the power of God. Scotland went from Catholicism to Protestantism. You can go in to St. Andrews and you won’t find one person teaching there who believes the Bible. And they walk every day out of the School of Theology across the martyr’s initials into the pub. That’s the legacy of liberalism. That’s dangerous stuff. ‘
On 9/11/2001, terrorists flew the passengers on their flights into eternity. During the approximately one hour between the fall of the twin towers that claimed almost 3,000 lives, around the world another 7,800 lives went out to meet their Maker. Over the next 24 hours while America and the West struggled to understand the loss of almost 3,000 lives, approximately 256,200 more individuals crossed the line from life unto death. Hebrews 9:27 says, “And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.”
More recently on November 5, 2009, Major Nidal Hasan, an officer in the US Army walked into a military service center, jumped on a table, yelled “Allah is great!” (in Arabic), pulled out semi-automatic pistols and pumped out more than 100 rounds and sent 13 more Americans into eternity. In the six days since that event approximately 1.3 million have taken their last breath. This is a number 100,000 times more than the 13 who died in the service of their country.
Did any of those almost 3,000 people deserve to die on 9/11? Did the 13 people who were shot at Fort Hood, Texas deserve to die? Ask the majority of Americans and the general consensus will be, “Those terrorists deserved to die and face God!” They would continue, “Men like Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Nidal Hasan, and Osama bin Laden deserve to die. Let’s kill them all!”
However, there is a greater question we need to ask ourselves. Do men like Hitler, Hussein, Hasan, and bin Laden deserve to die more than those who perished at their hands? What made the people who died on 9/11/2001 or on 11/05/2009 in the terrorist attacks any less deserving than the 7,800 or the 256,200 or even the 1.3 million to go and face the eternal Son of God and be judged for their sins?
This is by no means to demean the sacrifice demanded of those who did not ask to be killed! Nor, is this a support of any terrorist group. Nor, is this intended in any way to demean the loss of life and the sorrow of those families who were left to pick up the pieces.
The purpose of my writing is because I have been doing some serious searching of my heart, and sadly I find I have not been meeting the criteria required of me as a true believer. Let me explain further.
As Americans, we are very patriotic, almost at times to an extreme. It is a trait that many nations of the world fail to understand about us. It is a large part of what binds us together in the face of a common enemy. In very short order, for example, after 9/11, the vast majority of Americans were ready to take on the enemies of our country by whatever means possible. Hatred and anger ran cold and deep in the veins of millions who were upset that our country had been assaulted. We were ready to hunt down the infidels and murder them all and make them pay for what they did to us! Even many who claim the name of Christ were standing side-by-side in the call to arms and had no issues with our government spending billions of dollars to bomb and attack two foreign countries.
However, I wonder how many of those same Christians were praying that God would bring sorrow and godly repentance to those who would inflict evil upon America. How many spent time agonizing over the true loss of life – 7,800 or the 256,200 or the 1.3 million? How many mourned the fact that the vast, overwhelming majority of those individuals perished with no hope of ever knowing or even hearing the name of Jesus Christ?
Do we stop to think that every year since 9/11, an unbelievable sum of approximately 95 million (the equivalent of almost 1/3rd of the US population) go into eternity? Who mourns their loss? Why are they any more deserving to face a God of wrath than those we know and love, or than those who live on our streets? In the eight years since 9/11, almost 1 billion have exited this world, a number equivalent to a little less than the entire population of India!
Yet, we actually rejoiced when we watched the evening news from the comfort of our sofas and armchairs, and we saw the countless thousands being swept into eternity for their part in attacking our country. Oh, we were happy! Justice was being meted out by our brave men and women, and the judgment that was pronounced and executed was in our minds – “FAIR!”
However, does this stack up with the commands of Scripture that we who claim the name of Christ are called to obey? We as Christians are commanded to love our enemies. We are to share the good news of the gospel with those who have never heard. The apostle Paul loved his fellow countrymen of Israel so greatly that if it were possible, he was willing to be eternally accursed from God if only all Israel would place their faith in the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ alone for their salvation!
During His earthly ministry, the Lord Jesus Christ was asked what the greatest commandments were. He replied, “The first is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. And, the second is very much like it – LOVE your neighbor as yourself.”
Do we bother to realize that only God can hate the wicked with the demand for perfect justice that hatred requires? Who are we to think that we can stand in the place of the Almighty and condemn others to eternity where they will be in the lake of fire forever? What hypocrisy that our churches are willing to spend millions on new edifices and on entertaining the sheep while 3 people every second go to stand in judgment before the Holy, Righteous God of the Universe! What hypocrisy and lack of true Christian character that we can say equally with the lost of America that we hate our enemies and wish their deaths in whatever manner it comes upon them!
How are we ANY different from those of the Islamic faith? They are willing to kill for the ideals of their faith so that they might enjoy eternity in the bliss of earthly pleasures. Yet, we are willing to kill simply because we hate what others have done to us. We hate and kill indiscriminately because they made our lives uncomfortable. We hate and demand death as they make our trips through airport security highly annoying at best. We hate because we somehow believe what is coming from our pulpits – our sins are not as bad as those of the terrorists. Here in America, we are civilized. We do not deserve death like they do. They deserve justice. They deserve the wrath of God to fall upon them. They deserve hell!
Wake up Christians before it is too late! The world should know us by our love for one another and by the fact that we are willing to sacrifice our very lives so that others will know the love of God, and more importantly, so they will know it is possible to escape from the wrath to come!
We want to ask God to bless America, yet we refuse to obey His commands. May God forgive us for our hatred! The Lord Jesus Christ said that hatred is the same as murder. May the Lord forgive us for our lack of compassion! May He help us to see that we ALL deserve to die, but for the grace of God – His mercy endures forever!
We pass over many other individual maretyrdoms to insert that of John Calas, which took place as recently as 1761, and is an indubitable proof of the bigotry of popery, and shows that neither experience nor improvement can root out the inveterate prejudices of the Roman Catholics, or render them less cruel or inexorable to Protestants.
John Calas was a merchant of the city of Toulouse, where he had been settled, and lived in good repute, and had married an English woman of French extraction. Calas and his wife were Protestants, and had five sons, whom they educated in the same religion; but Lewis, one of the sons, became a Roman Catholic, having been converted by a maidservant, who had lived in the family about thirty years. The father, however, did not express any resentment or ill-will upon the occasion, but kept the maid in the family and settled an annuity upon the son. In October, 1761, the family consisted of John Calas and his wife, one woman servant, Mark Antony Calas, the eldest son, and Peter Calas, the second son. Mark Antony was bred to the law, but could not be admitted to practice, on account of his being a Protestant; hence he grew melancholy, read all the books he could procure relative to suicide, and seemed determined to destroy himself. To this may be added that he led a dissipated life, was greatly addicted to gaming, and did all which could constitute the character of a libertine; on which account his father frequently reprehended him and sometimes in terms of severity, which considerably added to the gloom that seemed to oppress him.
On the thirteenth of October, 1761, Mr. Gober la Vaisse, a young gentleman about 19 years of age, the son of La Vaisse, a celebrated advocate of Toulouse, about five o’clock in the evening, was met by John Calas, the father, and the eldest son Mark Antony, who was his friend. Calas, the father, invited him to supper, and the family and their guest sat down in a room up one pair of stairs; the whole company, consisting of Calas the father, and his wife, Antony and Peter Calas, the sons, and La Vaisse the guest, no other person being in the house, except the maidservant who has been already mentioned.
It was now about seven o’clock. The supper was not long; but before it was over, Antony left the table, and went into the kitchen, which was on the same floor, as he was accustomed to do. The maid asked him if he was cold? He answered, “Quite the contrary, I burn”; and then left her. In the meantime his friend and family left the room they had supped in, and went into a bed-chamber; the father and La Vaisse sat down together on a sofa; the younger son Peter in an elbow chair; and the mother in another chair; and, without making any inquiry after Antony, continued in conversation together until between nine and ten o’clock, when La Vaisse took his leave, and Peter, who had fallen asleep, was awakened to attend him with a light.
On the ground floor of Calas’s house was a shop and a warehouse, the latter of which was divided from the shop by a pair of folding doors. When Peter Calas and La Vaisse came downstairs into the shop, they were extremely shocked to see Antony hanging in his shirt, from a bar which he had laid across the top of the two folding doors, having half opened them for that purpose. On discovery of this horrid spectacle, they shrieked out, which brought down Calas the father, the mother being seized with such terror as kept her trembling in the passage above. When the maid discovered what had happened, she continued below, either because she feared to carry an account of it to her mistress, or because she busied herself in doing some good office to her master, who was embracing the body of his son, and bathing it in his tears. The mother, therefore, being thus left alone, went down and mixed in the scene that has been already described, with such emotions as it must naturally produce. In the meantime Peter had been sent for La Moire, a surgeon in the neighborhood. La Moire was not at home, but his apprentice, Mr. Grosle, came instantly. Upon examination, he found the body quite dead; and by this time a papistical crowd of people were gathered about the house, and, having by some means heard that Antony Calas was suddenly dead, and that the surgeon who had examined the body, declared that he had been strangled, they took it into their heads he had been murdered; and as the family was Protestant, they presently supposed that the young man was about to change his religion, and had been put to death for that reason.
The poor father, overwhelmed with grief for the loss of his child, was advised by his friends to send for the officers of justice to prevent his being torn to pieces by the Catholic multitude, who supposed he had murdered his son. This was accordingly done and David, the chief magistrate, or capitol, took the father, Peter the son, the mother, La Vaisse, and the maid, all into custody, and set a guard over them. He sent for M. de la Tour, a physician, and MM. la Marque and Perronet, surgeons, who examined the body for marks of violence, but found none except the mark of the ligature on the neck; they found also the hair of the deceased done up in the usual manner, perfectly smooth, and without the least disorder: his clothes were also regularly folded up, and laid upon the counter, nor was his shirt either torn or unbuttoned.
Notwithstanding these innocent appearances, the capitol thought proper to agree with the opinion of the mob, and took it into his head that old Calas had sent for La Vaisse, telling him that he had a son to be hanged; that La Vaisse had come to perform the office of executioner; and that he had received assistance from the father and brother.
As no proof of the supposed fact could be procured, the capitol had recourse to a monitory, or general information, in which the crime was taken for granted, and persons were required to give such testimony against it as they were able. This recites that La Vaisse was commissioned by the Protestants to be their executioner in ordinary, when any of their children were to be hanged for changing their religion: it recites also, that, when the Protestants thus hang their children, they compel them to kneel, and one of the interrogatories was, whether any person had seen Antony Calas kneel before his father when he strangled him: it recites likewise, that Antony died a Roman Catholic, and requires evidence of his catholicism.
But before this monitory was published, the mob had got a notion that Antony Calas was the next day to have entered into the fraternity of the White Penitents. The capitol therefore caused his body to be buried in the middle of St. Stephen’s Church. A few days after the interment of the deceased, the White Penitents performed a solemn service for him in their chapel; the church was hung with white, and a tomb was raised in the middle of it, on the top of which was placed a human skeleton, holding in one hand a paper, on which was written “Abjuration of heresy,” and in the other a palm, the emblem of martyrdom. The next day the Franciscans performed a service of the same kind for him.
The capitol continued the persecution with unrelenting severity, and, without the least proof coming in, thought fit to condemn the unhappy father, mother, brother, friend, and servant, to the torture, and put them all into irons on the eighteenth of November.
From these dreadful proceedings the sufferers appealed to the parliament, which immediately took cognizance of the affair, and annulled the sentence of the capitol as irregular, but they continued the prosecution, and, upon the hangman deposing it was impossible Antony should hang himself as was pretended, the majority of the parliament were of the opinion, that the prisoners were guilty, and therefore ordered them to be tried by the criminal court of Toulouse. One voted him innocent, but after long debates the majority was for the torture and wheel, and probably condemned the father by way of experiment, whether he was guilty or not, hoping he would, in the agony, confess the crime, and accuse the other prisoners, whose fate, therefore, they suspended.
Poor Calas, however, an old man of sixty-eight, was condemned to this dreadful punishment alone. He suffered the torture with great constancy, and was led to execution in a frame of mind which excited the admiration of all that saw him, and particularly of the two Dominicans (Father Bourges and Father Coldagues) who attended him in his last moments, and declared that they thought him not only innocent of the crime laid to his charge, but also an exemplary instance of true Christian patience, fortitude, and charity. When he saw the executioner prepared to give him the last stroke, he made a fresh declaration to Father Bourges, but while the words were still in his mouth, the capitol, the author of this catastrophe, who came upon the scaffold merely to gratify his desire of being a witness of his punishment and death, ran up to him, and bawled out, “Wretch, there are fagots which are to reduce your body to ashes! speak the truth.” M. Calas made no reply, but turned his head a little aside; and that moment the executioner did his office.
The popular outcry against this family was so violent in Languedoc, that every body expected to see the children of Calas broke upon the wheel, and the mother burnt alive.
Young Donat Calas was advised to fly into Switzerland: he went, and found a gentleman who, at first, could only pity and relieve him, without daring to judge of the rigor exercised against the father, mother, and brothers. Soon after, one of the brothers, who was only banished, likewise threw himself into the arms of the same person, who, for more than a month, took every possible precaution to be assured of the innocence of the family. Once convinced, he thought himself, obliged, in conscience, to employ his friends, his purse, his pen, and his credit, to repair the fatal mistake of the seven judges of Toulouse, and to have the proceedings revised by the king’s council. This revision lasted three years, and it is well known what honor Messrs. de Grosne and Bacquancourt acquired by investigating this memorable cause. Fifty masters of the Court of Requests unanimously declared the whole family of Calas innocent, and recommended them to the benevolent justice of his majesty. The Duke de Choiseul, who never let slip an opportunity of signalizing the greatness of his character, not only assisted this unfortunate family with money, but obtained for them a gratuity of 36,000 livres from the king.
On the ninth of March, 1765, the arret was signed which justified the family of Calas, and changed their fate. The ninth of March, 1762, was the very day on which the innocent and virtuous father of that family had been executed. All Paris ran in crowds to see them come out of prison, and clapped their hands for joy, while the tears streamed from their eyes.
This dreadful example of bigotry employed the pen of Voltaire in deprecation of the horrors of superstition; and though an infidel himself, his essay on toleration does honor to his pen, and has been a blessed means of abating the rigor of persecution in most European states. Gospel purity will equally shun superstition and cruelty, as the mildness of Christ’s tenets teaches only to comfort in this world, and to procure salvation in the next. To persecute for being of a different opinion is as absurd as to persecute for having a different countenance: if we honor God, keep sacred the pure doctrines of Christ, put a full confidence in the promises contained in the Holy Scriptures, and obey the political laws of the state in which we reside, we have an undoubted right to protection instead of persecution, and to serve heaven as our consciences, regulated by the Gospel rules, may direct.
Way of the Master put together a great video on Jehovah’s Witnesses, in spite of the fact that they’ve resorted to including Ravi Zacharias as an “apologist.” I noticed that on the other WOTM video on Mormonism (found here), Ravi was not included. Could it be because he’s sympathetic to LDS? For more on Ravi’s descent into heresy, click here.
You may as well see without light, and be supported without earth, or live without food, as to be saved without holiness . . . the one thing necessary (Heb. 12:14). And when this has been determined by God, and established as His standing law, and He has told it so often and plainly, for any man then to say, “I will yet hope for better, I hope to be saved on easier terms, without all this ado,” is no better for that man than to set his face against the God of heaven. Instead of believing God, he believes the contradiction of his own ungodly heart; and hopes to be saved whether God wills it or not. He gives the lie to his Creator, under the pretense of trust and hope. This is indeed to hope for impossibilities. . . . Who is so foolish as to hope for this? Few of you are so unreasonable as to hope for a crop at harvest, without ploughing or sowing: or for a house without building; or for strength without eating and drinking. . . . And yet this would be a far wiser kind of hope, than to be saved without the one thing necessary for salvation.
Jacqueline Kassar spent twenty-two years as a nun in an enclosed convent dedicated to adoration, reparation and suffering, trying to appease the wrath of God. She believed it was a nun’s calling to be a miniature savior of the world like unto Jesus Christ. Now, on camera, in her apartment into Brooklyn NY, she tells her story with compassion and care for sincere Catholics who truly live Catholic teaching. [Text from YouTube video posting]
To learn about Jacqueline’s experience, please watch the video below.
A while ago I wrote a post about an ecumenical meeting at Wheaton College between Francis Beckwith and Timothy George. For those who do not know, Francis Beckwith was baptized and raised as a Roman Catholic, where according to his web site, “…his faith journey led him to Protestant evangelicalism. He [then] became a philosophy professor at Baylor University and president of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS). And then, in 2007, after much prayer, counsel, and consideration, Beckwith decided to return to the Catholic church and step down as ETS president.” 1
Now, firmly entrench in Rome, Beckwith is doing his utmost to preach the merits of Catholicism with individuals like Timothy George and others in the “evangelical” camp helping the cause through their ecumenical discussions. For those who want to better understand some of the key doctrinal issues that separate Roman Catholicism from Biblical Christianity, I’ve included a link below to a series of messages by Tony Bartolucci, pastor/teacher of Clarkson Community Church in NY. These messages address in very detailed fashion Mr. Beckwith’s return to Rome, which he has documented in his book “Return to Rome – Confessions of an Evangelical Catholic.”
The messages are much more in-depth than the coverage given by James White on his Dividing Line program, which is I included in my prior post (they still are good to listen to). For those who take the time to listen to thee messages, I fully believe you will be greatly blessed and benefited. Not only so your faith is bolstered, but also so you can better minister to Roman Catholics. And so that you can rebuke those in our midst who join hand-in-hand with Catholics calling then brethren.
The messages can be found here, where I have included Tony’s introduction to the messages explaining why he took the time to give them.
As I have stated in the first part of this series, my motivation in pursuing this topic has nothing to do with personal animosity toward Dr. Francis Beckwith or Roman Catholics in general. I was a Roman Catholic. I know what it is like to have my religion challenged and attacked. I left the Roman Catholic Church kicking and screaming all the way. I wanted to remain a Catholic. However, God would not have it. In 1981 he drew me in, fighting all the way, to a repentance that is unto eternal life (2 Timothy 2:25).
Having come through the other side I now cherish the simple Gospel of grace and loath any system that would pervert this precious truth. I abhor what I know will appear to many as an attack on a man. The desire of my heart is to be humble and gracious, while not compromising a God-honoring tenacity for the faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3).
In fact, I don’t particularly enjoy having to do this series. I would be among the first to raise a hand in reply to the question, “are you ready for this series to be done with?” But I am literally compelled to address not only the book, but in doing so, a much larger issue: the Gospel of grace verses [sic] the gospel of Rome.
Like most anyone, I like flying under the radar. I don’t want to be a lightning rod for controversy, to have my name flamed on the internet. But I also know that the closer one gets to the front lines of the battle, the higher the likelihood that one will find himself in the proverbial cross-hairs. So be it.
I’m sure that, like so many Roman Catholics, Francis Beckwith is a very nice guy. I’ve listened to his interview with Greg Koukl on the latter’s program, Stand to Reason. I mourn for him; for his very apparent inability to see that which only those with the eyes of faith (eyes sovereignly granted by God) can see. I would welcome a phone call from Dr. Beckwith in order to discuss these things with him.
My prayer is that God will use this series, and perhaps a forthcoming book, to strengthen genuine believers in the most holy faith, bring faith to those who are doubting, and to save others, snatching them from the fire while hating the garment polluted by the flesh (Jude 20-22). Soli Deo Gloria! 2
Not content with being restricted to spreading their damnable false gospel on earth, the Vatican is now looking to the sky.
Four hundred years after it locked up Galileo for challenging the view that the Earth was the center of the universe, the Vatican has called in experts to study the possibility of extraterrestrial alien life and its implication for the Catholic Church.
“The questions of life’s origins and of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe are very suitable and deserve serious consideration,” said the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, an astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory.
Funes, a Jesuit priest, presented the results Tuesday of a five-day conference that gathered astronomers, physicists, biologists and other experts to discuss the budding field of astrobiology — the study of the origin of life and its existence elsewhere in the cosmos.
Today top clergy, including Funes, openly endorse scientific ideas like the Big Bang theory as a reasonable explanation for the creation of the universe. The theory says the universe began billions of years ago in the explosion of a single, super-dense point that contained all matter.
Earlier this year, the Vatican also sponsored a conference on evolution to mark the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s “The Origin of Species.”
The event snubbed proponents of alternative theories, like creationism and intelligent design, which see a higher being rather than the undirected process of natural selection behind the evolution of species.
Your sermon of the week is Encouragement for the Church by Pastor Randall Easter. This is one of those sermons that challenges both pastor and layman alike. Expect to hear more from Pastor Easter in the near future on DefCon.
The single foundation of a sinner’s hope is the merits of Christ, His finished work of redemption. Those who would add to the same by any doings of their own are headed for eternal destruction. Therefore any who teach men to do so are cursed of God and should be abhorred by His people.
Former Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson with Coalition for Life Director Shawn Carney (photo: Coalition for Life)
Planned Parenthood, the organization that kills babies for profit, is having more of its evil deeds brought into the light thanks to one woman who is not afraid to speak the truth. This woman is Abby Johnson, a former clinic director for the Texas Planned Parenthood branch. A woman who, after watching an ultrasound-guided abortion, courageously walked away from the murder mill (gives us hope to continue to pray for others).
Now, she is causing more of a stir by revealing Planned Parenthood’s abortion quotas. Yup, you read that correctly, quotas. Quotas where the murdering of helpless babies is tallied and forecast in heartless indifference like a company might do with their inventory. One can almost hear the directors telling their employees, “It’s just business boys and girls; we are behind our quota this month so get to it and round us up some more pregnant ladies so we can slaughter a few more babies and make the numbers.”
Although my quote is speculative sarcasm, the truth of the matter according to Abby in a WorldNetDaily article titled, “Planned Parenthood’s abortion quotas exposed”, is that,
There are definitely client goals,” former clinic director Abby Johnson said. “We’d have a goal every month for abortion clients and for family planning clients. 1
Later on, in the same article, Abby goes on to reveal that,
Abortion is the most lucrative part of Planned Parenthood’s operations,” she said. “Even though they’re two separate corporations, all of the money goes into one pot. With the family planning corporation really suffering, they depend on the abortion corporation to balance their budget, help get them out of the hole and help make income for the company. 2
As one can imagine Planned Parenthood is in an uproar about Abby Johnson exposing their darkness. To read the rest of the story, you can find the article here.
What you are about to read is disturbing and shocking, especially if you have children who attend a church youth group. Please be aware that what is detailed below is happening in many churches in America, and may be coming to yours very soon. Prepare to be outraged.
Those churches who rely on their slick marketing schemes to “draw a crowd” have sunk to new lows as of late. This is especially evident in the area of the foreign-to-Scripture concept of the church youth group led by the ever-so-popular (and equally absent from Scripture) youth pastors.
For those who have no idea what kind of shenanigans have been going on in the name of “youth ministry,” here are a few samplings that DefCon’s addressed in the past:
But these past examples are mild compared to what’s taking place now. Countless churches are going out of their way to pander to the youth culture by means of the basest of juvenile humor (the very humor formed, cultivated, and driven by the world).
Because these so-called churches are constantly chasing after the hem of the garment of their elusive mistress of cultural relevance, they must constantly come up with something new, something more radical, something more shocking, something more like the world in order to attract and keep their “customers.”
But as with all fads, what was hip, cool, and relevant yesterday loses it’s impact tomorrow, so something even more vile, shocking, and wicked (yes, wicked) must take the place of yesterday’s flavor of the month.
To see this spiral into depravity I submit two articles for your consideration.One was written by a Christian journalist for a Christian news source from August 2002, the other was written by a secular journalist for a secular news source in September 2009.
The following is the 2002 article from World Magazine’s Gene Edward Veith:
Stupid Church Tricks
by Gene Edward Veith
Four sets of parents are suing a church in Indiana for what happened at a New Year’s Eve lock-in. A youth leader chewed up a mixture of dog food, sardines, potted meat, sauerkraut, cottage cheese, and salsa, topped off with holiday eggnog. As if this spectacle were not disgusting enough (let the reader beware), he then spit out the mixture into a glass and encouraged the members of the youth group to drink it!
Some of those who did, of course, became sick, whereupon their parents sued the church. According to the Associated Press account, the youth pastor said that the “gross-out” game, called the Human Vegematic, was just for fun and that the church forced no one to participate. The lawsuit accused the adults in charge of pressuring the 13- and 14-year-olds into activities that caused them physical and mental harm.
Such “gross-out” games have become a fad in youth ministry. Since adolescents are amused by bodily functions, crude behavior, and tastelessness following the church-growth principle of giving people what they like as a way to entice them into the kingdom many evangelical youth leaders think this is a way to reach young people.
The Source for Youth Ministry, a popular and widely used resource center, posts scores of games on its website, many of which were contributed by youth group leaders in the field. There is Sanctuary Softball, which involves whacking a Nerf ball in church, with home plate being the area of the altar, and running through the pews, as the fielders then try to hit the batter with the ball to make an out. Another fun activity is Seafood Catch, which involves putting minnows in the baptistery, then catching them by hand. (“Extra points for eating them after it is done.”)
Then there are games designed to appeal to adolescents’ hormones. These include kissing games like “Kiss the Wench.” “Leg Line Up” has girls feel boys’ legs to identify who is who. Some of them have odd homosexual subtexts, like “Pull Apart,” in which guys cling to each other, while girls try to pull them apart. Another has girls putting make-up on guys, leading to a drag beauty show. Then there is the embarrassingly Freudian “Baby Bottle Burp,” in which girls put a diaper (a towel) on a boy, then feed him a bottle of soda, and cradle him until he burps!
These are presented as just ordinary games, good ways to break the ice at youth group. But there is another category of “Sick and Twisted Games.” Many of these involve eating and drinking gross things, like at the Indiana church. (“Toothbrush Buffet” has youth group leaders brushing their teeth and spitting into a cup. Each then passes it along to the next in line, who uses what is in the cup to brush his teeth. The last one drinks down everyone’s spit.) Others are scatological, and are too repellent to describe.
What do teenagers learn from these youth group activities? Nothing of the Bible. Nothing of theology. Nothing of the cost of discipleship. But they do learn some lessons that they can carry with them the rest of their lives.
*Lose your inhibitions. Young people usually have inhibitions against doing anything too embarrassing or shameful. These exercises are designed to free people from such hang-ups. For some reason, post-Freudian psychologists whose “sensitivity groups” are the model for these kinds of exercises maintain that such inhibitions are bad. Christians, though, have always insisted that we need to feel inhibited about indulging in things for which we should feel ashamed. This is part of what we mean by developing a conscience.
Though being “gross” may not be sinful in itself, overcoming natural revulsions can only train a child to become uninhibited about more important things.
*Give in to peer pressure. Defenders of these kinds of activities maintain that they help create group unity. The way they work, though, is to overcome a teenager’s inhibitions with the greater desire to go along with the group. In other words, these exercises teach the teenager to give in to peer pressure. Instead, youth groups need to teach Christian teenagers not to go along with the crowd and to stand up against what their friends want them to do.
*Christianity is stupid. Status-conscious teenagers know that those who are so desperate to be liked that they will do anything to curry favor are impossible to respect. Young people may come to off-the-wall youth group meetings, but when they grow up, they will likely associate the church with other immature, juvenile phases of their lives, and Christianity will be something they will grow out of.
Teenagers get enough entertainment, psychology, and hedonism from their culture. They don’t need it from their church. What they need and often yearn for is God’s Word, catechesis, and spiritual formation.
Here are some quotes from this article along with my commentary interjected in red.
As the youth leader held his arms aloft, the teenagers gaped at the hair, furred into a strip matted by sweat and deodorant. They watched as Pastor Turner dug into a jar of peanut butter and smeared gobs of it onto the exposed underarms, then turned to the audience. Did anyone, he asked, have the guts to lick it clean and swallow it down without puking? He got two volunteers. As the audience roared with excitement and disgust, the two male teenagers approached the youth leader and began to lick his armpits, burrowing their faces in the peanut butter and eating it. Neither puked. Their only prize was bragging rights. [This one needs no comment.]
It may seem hard to believe, but the genesis of the “Fearless” program was a marketing impulse.[No, it's not really that hard to believe. It's what we've come to expect from those who think they can "do church" better than God.]Pastor Turner and his creative team say they wanted to do something that would shock and astound their teenage audience. [If you really want to "shock and astound" the teens, try preaching the Word!] They hoped to get students talking about Celebration Church and about the Wednesday night service. [Because talking about Jesus and His finished work on the cross just isn't as cool.]They wanted a buzz that would go viral, that teens would text and Twitter about. They wanted the kids to share their cell phone pictures and videos. Ultimately, they wanted hordes of kids to show up the following Wednesday to see what crazy things the youth ministry would think up next. [Makes the church leadership feel good seeing all those kids show up to see what crazy world-mimicking things the youth ministry would think up next. What about the novel idea that kids should be showing up to church to learn more about God and to fellowship with the brethren? Oh, and don't forget, what you attract them with is ultimately what you have to keep them with. And here's the paradox: Take away the contrived entertainment and you lose the kids, "They're not doing what attracted me, dude, so I'm outta here." Keep the same level and you lose the kids, "They're not cutting edge, they're like so 5 minutes ago, I'm outta here." So the only solution is to push the envelope more and more.]
The program isn’t confined to the church’s Deerfield Boulevard campus. [Why not just say church? What is so offensive to all these megachurches that they hide behind the name "campus?"]Across town, at the Orange Park campus, another youth minister was hosting his own “Fearless” event. . . . Instead of an armpit, [22 year-old Pastor Shawn] Kelley smeared peanut butter on a youth leader’s feet and challenged two teens to lick it off. It was pretty gross, the pastor assures. “This leader’s feet are pretty bad.” . . . Still, Kelley says he did not, as Folio Weekly heard from a concerned parent, spread the peanut butter on his own feet, or between the youth leader’s toes. “We didn’t want to put it in between his toes,” he says. “That would be pushing it.” [Oh, so now we're taking a lesson on morality and what is and is not "pushing it" from Mr. Kelley. We'd love to know by what standard you rely on to define what's "pushing it" and what's not.]
Pastor Turner wants to send kids home from church thinking, “I don’t believe what just happened here tonight.” [Not thinking about their utter sinfulness before a holy God and the only propitiation for their transgressions being the spotless Lamb of God nailed to a cross because without the shedding of blood their is no remission of sins.] That’s a fair approximation of what one area mother felt when her son came home from the Orange Park service with video footage of the toe-licking. . . . She was so upset that the next morning she contacted Pastor John Wyatt, the head youth pastor for all six Celebration locations. She was stunned when he didn’t agree that having a child lick anything off an adult’s feet was inappropriate. . . . [She may have been stunned, but we're not. In fact, just wait till you see the comments start pouring in on this post defending this foolishness.]The mother suggests that the act between a minor and an adult in a private home would seem not only inappropriate, but perverse — and possibly illegal. [Wow, she hit the nail on the head!]But she says Pastor Wyatt, 37, and other church leaders didn’t concede there was anything wrong with what they’d done. [And they never will.] The woman decided not to allow her son to attend the church again. . . . [Although I question why she let him attend in the first place, this decision is wise.] “When you send a kid to church, you aren’t expecting they are going to be exposed to something like that. It just does not really make sense how Bible study turns into fish eating and eating peanut butter off a grown man’s toes.” [We've been trying to make sense of this foolishness too, but in the end, it's just silly men who have never grown up, getting paid to play silly games with kids who will eventually be inoculated against true Biblical Christianity.]
“The idea is to get students here to meet our Savior. They are getting all this crazy stuff out there in the world all the time. We are trying to show them that God is cooler.” [1. No, no, no. The "church" was never meant to be the place for people to "meet our Savior." The church is for the Believers, not the unbelievers. If an unbeliever attends a church service and he "meets our Savior" then great, but this was not the purpose of the assembly of the brethren. Actually reading your Bible would clarify the confusion.
2. So you're essentially using the old "bait and switch" tactic to sucker teens into your church? I guess if you're offering a fuzzy, non-offensive, feel-good Jesus then you can get away with it.
3. You're "crazy stuff" is somehow better than the "crazy stuff" in the world, how? Because you've "Christianized" it?
4. God is not "cool." For crying out loud, if you can't comprehend or even remotely understand the nature of God you have no business being a pastor. Have you forgotten that "cool" is defined by the world? Your god is an idol formed in the imaginations of your "creative team." You can keep your god. I'll stick to the true God revealed in Scripture who is not hip, cool, or what's happening now, but who is holy, holy, holy.]
Asked whether there was a religious lesson behind the grotesquerie, Wyatt offers, “It’s all about what it means to be fearless and know God is with you.” Pastor Kelley describes the “Fearless” stunts as metaphors for the courage it takes to be young and openly Christian. “It’s about being fearless, by allowing them to do something that took boldness, that they might possibly get made fun of for doing,” he says. “Standing up for Christ in the world requires you to be fearless.” [So let me get this straight. Standing up for Jesus requires boldness and fearlessness, but instead of instilling that in the youth by having them actually stand up for Jesus, or even showing them by example, instead you have them perform sick, twisted, and erotic games and this will somehow help them stand up for Jesus? And if they need to perform these juvenile games to stand up for Jesus then does that not mean that you're suggesting to them that their source of strength comes not from God but from them and their willingness to act like fools? Here's a novel idea: Try having them become "fearless" by actually proclaiming Jesus Christ, and start with you by boldly preaching Jesus Christ. Then encourage the one's that are really sincere to take missions trips to countries where standing up for Jesus will get you imprisoned, tortured and/or killed. Somehow I don't think the countless martyrs throughout church history and today needed to lick peanut butter off someone's toes in order to stand up for Jesus.]
Wyatt also points out that it’s much easier for a kid to talk about church with other teens when the conversation is about chugging a Happy Meal or bobbing for chicken feet. “They experience God here on Wednesday nights,” says Pastor Wyatt, “and they can’t always articulate that to their friends. This gives them something to say. ‘Wow, you’ve got to come to church, you’ve got to check this out. This is amazing! ’” [Of course it's easier to talk about Happy Meal chugging or bobbing for chicken feet if you're unregenerated. Preach the pure, unadulterated, hard truth of the gospel then sit back an watch the kids talk to other kids. A word of caution though, if any of them do get truly converted, they'll probably be telling other kids about Jesus Christ and his sacrifice instead of your church, and they probably won't remain in your church for very long either.]
“Unfortunately, somebody was offended, and we apologized right away,” says Pastor Wyatt. “But the other side of that is, there was a whole bunch of kids who gave their life to Christ that night. Ultimately, our goal is to get people into church and into a relationship with Jesus.” [Ah, the old "someone gave their life to Christ" card. Always employed when someone questions the worldly, Chirst-less, and wholly unbiblical marketing tactics of today's cool, hip, and relevant social clubs. Somehow, we're told not to judge them, but they are quick to judge others, claiming to know the hearts of these kids and pronounce that they're saved. Here's an experiment I suggest trying. Take these kids who you claim to have "given their life to Jesus," separate them from the toe-licking and armpit licking shenanigans, and teach them the hard things. Teach them the whole counsel of God. Teach them doctrine. Teach them that they are expected to lay down their life daily, that they're to die to self, that they're to take up their crosses daily and follow Christ. Teach them that those who choose to live holy lives will be persecuted. Teach them that friendship with the world is enmity to God and that those who love the things of this world are enemies of God. Then we'll check back in with you in six months and see where those kids who "gave their life to Christ" are. If they were truly converted they will be right there desiring more of the meat of the Word. If they were false converts they'll have left for the other megachurch down the street who has bowling/pizza nights, whip cream fights, rock concerts, gross-out games, and the weekly "rededicate your life to Christ" alter call.]
This article also interviews Karen McKinney, a director of youth ministries and associate professor at Bethel University who opposes the foolishness of what you’ve just read above. But just when you think there’s a voice of reason, we read this:
McKinney finds programs copying “Fear Factor” and other puke-inducing events to be a contradiction to the church’s message of stewardship. “What did we just teach?” she wonders rhetorically when told about the youth program. “What value is it when we know there are kids starving? … There are ways to teaching young people to be bold without wasting food.” [McKinney is about to offer an example of how she taught teens valuable lessons by means of a much better technique. Brace yourselves.] As an example, McKinney remembers how she was invited to speak about sexual boundaries to a teen group at a church in downtown St. Paul. After brief introductions, she broke the 12 students into two groups and told them they were going to play strip Pictionary. For every round lost, the losing group would have to take off an item of clothing. Before they even started, she says she could hear a 13-year-old girl say under her breath, “This is wrong.” But she said the group went through three rounds before the 13-year-old stood up and said, “I thought the topic was boundaries. We should not be playing this game.”McKinney then asked the other students if they also thought the game was wrong and why they didn’t voice those concerns. “They got the message loud and clear what it means to stand up when it comes to crossing these kinds of boundaries,” she says. Licking peanut butter off somebody’s armpit, she observes, crosses those boundaries without drawing valuable lessons for the Celebration students. “It’s just totally inappropriate,” she says. [So it's all right to "cross boundaries" as long as a lesson is learned? And encouraging 13-year-olds to play strip Pictionary is an acceptable ends-justifies-the-means lesson? Good grief, the inmates are running the asylum!]
Welcome to the American Christianity where worldly wisdom reigns from the pulpit and rules the day. Those who lower Christianity to such base levels are showing that they do not believe that the Gospel is enough to save as the Apostle Paul believed it was when under inspiration of the Holy Spirit he penned Romans 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes . . .”
Faith comes by hearing the Gospel, not by quaint little stories about how to be bold like Danielwhile having kids perform gross and even erotic acts before their peers.
The defense commonly used by proponents of this worldly behavior in church is usually that they’re trying to reach a certain group, and in order to do that, they say, “you must first relate to that group and become like that group.” But I have to ask: If you have to reach people where they’re at, tell me, how do you reach the abortionist? How do you reach the homosexual? How do you reach the intravenous drug user? How do you reach the pedophile? I’ll stop there as I do not want to give these youth leaders any new ideas for their next big thing.
In seven years we went from teen girls feeling teen boys’ legs in youth group, to teens licking peanut butter off an adult’s feet and playing strip Pictionary. I can only imagine what the next seven years will bring.
I conclude with a quote from Gene Edward Veith who summed up the whole problem in his article posted above:
Status-conscious teenagers know that those who are so desperate to be liked that they will do anything to curry favor are impossible to respect. Young people may come to off-the-wall youth group meetings, but when they grow up, they will likely associate the church with other immature, juvenile phases of their lives, and Christianity will be something they will grow out of.
The blessed founder of Christianity chose to make his advent among the lowly and the despised. This was agreeable to the spirit of that Holy Religion which he came to establish. There was a time when a multitude of his followers, astonished and convinced by the omnipotence displayed in his wondrous miracles, were disposed to” take him by force to make him a king,” but so far from encouraging their design, the inspired historian tells us” that he departed again, into a mountain himself alone.” (John vi., 15.) In reply to the inquiries of the Roman governor, he uttered those memorable words, “MY KINGDOM IS NOT OF THIS WORLD,” and his whole conduct from the manger to the cross, and from the cross to the mount of ascension, was in strict accordance with this characteristic maxim of genuine Christianity.
In selecting those whom he would send forth as the apostles of his faith, be went, not to the mansions of the great or to the palaces of kings, but to the humble walks of life, and chose from the poor of this world, those who, in prosecuting their mission, were destined like their divine master, to be despised and rejected of men. In performing the work which their Lord had given them to do, the lowly but zealous fisherman of Galilee, and the courageous tent-maker of Tarsus, with their faithful fellow-laborers, despising all earthly honors and worldly aggrandizement, were content to lay every laurel at the foot of Christs cross, and to” count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, their Lord,” for whom they had “suffered the loss of all things” (Philippians, iii., 8.)
A few centuries afterward, we find the professed successor of Peter the fisherman [i.e. the Pope], dwelling in a magnificent palace, attended by troops of soldiers ready to avenge the slightest insult offered to his dignity, surrounded by all the ensigns of worldly greatness, with more than regal splendor proudly claiming to be the sovereign ruler of the universal church the Vicegerent of God upon earth, whose decision is infallible and whose will is law. The contrast between these two pictures of Primitive Christianity in the first century, and Papal Christianity in the seventh or eighth, is so amazing, that we are irresistibly led to the inquiry, can they be the same? If one is a faithful picture of Christianity, can it be possible that the other is worthy of the name?
- John Dowling (Source: Dowling, John (1845). The History of Romanism: from the Earliest Corruptions of Christianity to the Present Time)
I just completed a page-turner that I highly recommend to the readers of DefCon. David Kupelian’s provocative missive The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, And Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised As Freedom, takes you behind the scenes of how the media, entertainment, and politicians drive the culture and how they not only shape how the masses think, but also what to think.
If you ever wanted to know how sodomy went from a commonly shunned taboo (i.e. a sin) to now not only being accepted as normal, but those who dare to speak against it considered the new outcasts of society, you have to read this book.
If you ever wanted to know how our society can decry the atrocities of the Nazi Holocaust while simultaneously accepting and condoning the barbaric dismemberment of their own children under the guise of “freedom of choice,” you have to read this book.
Recommended to me by a friend, I found this book to be shocking, riveting, compelling, and impossible to put down.
Although I can’t recommend this book enough, I do caution some readers that the material dealt with can be disturbing at times and even profanity is present in the section dealing with the hip-hop culture’s grasp on our youth.
Well over 200 reader reviews have been done on this book on Amazon.com with an overall rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars. Click here to read the reviews on Amazon.
Conscience has often lent its sanction to the grossest errors, and prompted the greatest crimes. Did not Saul of Tarsus, for instance, drag men and women to prison; compel them to blaspheme; and stain his hands in saintly blood, while conscience approved the deed—he believed that he was doing God service. . . . Read the Book of Martyrs, read the sufferings of our own forefathers; and under the cowl of a shaven monk, or the trappings of a haughty churchman, you shall see conscience persecuting the saints of God, and dragging even tender women and children to the bloody scaffold or the burning stake. . . . So far as doctrines and duties are concerned, not conscience, but the revealed Word of God is our one only sure and safe directory.
I am currently reading a riveting book by WordNetDaily managing editor, David Kupelian, entitled The Marketing of Evil. I am reading the chapter on abortion in which many former abortion providers (who have turned from their barbaric torture and dismemberment of innocent children) have revealed what the abominable abortion movement actually does to our most innocent and defenseless class of citizens. Here are a few very disturbing quotes from the book:
“Saline abortions have to be done in the hospital because of complications that can arise,” says ob-gyn staffer Debra Henry. . . . “The saline, a salt solution, is injected into the woman’s sac and the baby swallows it. The baby starts dying a slow, violent death. The mother feels everything, and many times it is at this point when she realizes that she really has a live baby inside of her, because the baby starts fighting violently for his or her life. He’s just fighting inside because he’s burning.”
“One night a lady delivered, and I was called in to see her because she was uncontrollable,” said David Brewer, M.D., of Glen Ellyn, Illinois. . . . “I went into the room, and she was going to pieces; she was having a nervous breakdown, screaming and thrashing. . . . I walked in, and here was her little saline abortion baby kicking. It had been born alive, and was kicking and moving for a little while before it finally died of those terrible burns, because the salt solution gets into the lungs and burns the lungs too.”
“I’ll tell you one thing about D&E abortions,” lamented Anthony Levantino. “You never have to worry about a baby’s [sic] being born alive. I won’t describe D&E other than to say, as a doctor, you are sitting there tearing, and I mean tearing–you need a lot of strength to do it–arms and legs off babies and putting them in a stack on top of a table.”
“Psychologically,” noted [Carol] Everett, “the doctors always sized the baby at ‘twenty-four weeks.’ However, we did an abortion on one baby I feel was almost full-term. The baby’s muscle structure was so strong that it would not come apart. The baby died when the doctor pulled the head off the body.”
“There are no words to describe how bad it really is,” added Carol Everett. “I’ve seen sonograms of the baby pulling away from the instruments as they are introduced into the vagina.”
If you know anyone who’s considering an abortion, please, forward them the link to this post and/or buy them the book The Marketing of Evil and have them read chapter 9 on abortion. It very well may save the life of that child.
Consider your Lord and Master, you that call yourselves [Christ’s] disciples. Many look upon you that will not look unto [His] Word, and will judge [Jesus] by your practices. Do not damage [Him], by misrepresenting [Him]; as if [He] allowed those evils which you allow yourselves. Why should [He] be “wounded in the house of My friends” (Zech. 13:6). Why should you crucify [Him] afresh, and put [Him] to an open shame?
John Lanagan, a dear brother in Christ, has spent much time researching and exposing the 12 step cult that enslaves many, even those who profess Christ. Here is a well researched article submitted by John at his blog, my word like fire….to God be the glory.
Seances, spirits, and 12 Steps
Do not seek out mediums and spiritists; do not seek out and be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 19:31)
Author Richard Burns, better known as Dick B., has been churning out books and articles on the alleged Christian origin of Alcoholics Anonymous for years. The prolific author has written ‘Anne Smith’s Journal,’ ‘Dr. Bob and His Library,’ and many, many others. Regrettably, in his nearly thirty books Dick B. has never acknowledged the influence of spiritualism upon the creation of the 12 Steps.
His books, however, have deeply influenced the Body of Christ. People frequently justify A.A. attendance with statements like, “Well, Alcoholics Anonymous was originally Christian.” Or, “The 12 Steps are based on the Bible.” A common misconception is that one or both Alcoholics Anonymous cofounders, Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith, were Christians.[1]
In A.A. circles the cofounders are affectionately known as Dr. Bob and Bill W. Promoting one of his more recent titles, ‘The Conversion of Bill W.,’ Dick B. writes, “It’s an account of the many ways the Creator seems to have touched the life of Bill W. and, through him, the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.”[2]
Galatians 1:6-9, “I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.”
It is a tragedy when those who claim the name of Christ are being duped by the myriads of false teachers who have no desire for truth. An even greater tragedy occurs when false professors and/or their false teachings begin to be endorsed by well-respected ministers of the gospel. However, the greatest tragedy is when well-respected ministers of the gospel not only endorse false teaching and heresy but then allow it to be preached as truth in the midst of those sheep whom they have been supposedly called upon to protect. The man in question is none other than John Piper, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minnesota.
Before we continue, I want to make it very clear that this is not a private issue, but one that is well out in the open. The false teaching and endorsing of such teachings and heresies is well-documented. This is an open matter and is being addressed accordingly based on the commands we find in Scripture.
I am under no delusions that this will NOT be a popular post with some. However, Defending Contending believes we can no longer be honoring to Christ and His Word if we merely overlook what is happening within the ranks of evangelicalism simply because of who the pastor might or might not be, or how popular he appears to be.
With that in mind, let’s continue by looking briefly at two heresies taking over at an alarming rate. Both of these doctrines are pushing the ranks of the uninformed back towards the open, welcoming arms of Rome again. Sadly, these doctrines are even being embraced or unknowingly being endorsed by even very conservative Baptist churches.
First – Federal Vision in a nutshell believes that when a person unites with the visible local church that the individual becomes one with Christ. Federalists also teach that when an unbeliever partakes of communion (the Lord’s Table) that they are actually feeding upon Christ. Further, they teach that being baptized is the means whereby a person becomes one with Christ. For further information, I would highly recommend this article at The Banner of Truth Trust. FV has been rejected outright by many mainline Reformed denominations. Second – The New Perspective on Paul (or NPP) believes that Judaism was actually a religion of grace. They teach that salvation is possible by the keeping of the law. They also teach that the righteousness of God is actually referring to His faithfulness and that it has nothing to do with the truth that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to the new believer. N.T. Wright is abundantly clear about what he means and what he stands for when he declares that justification is about the mark of what a person already is, and is not about the means whereby one is justified with God. A quote from N.T. Wright, “In theology, therefore, justification is not the means whereby it becomes possible to declare someone in the right. It is simply that declaration itself. It is not how someone becomes a Christian, but simply the declaration that someone is a Christian. It is not the exercise of mercy, but the just declaration concerning one who has already received mercy. This is a crucial distinction, without which it is impossible to understand the biblical material.” For further reading go to this article at Theopedia
Let’s makes this very clear! Federal Vision and the New Perspective on Paul are both heresies that lead back to Rome! Those who teach these are leading people deliberately astray and must be classified as heretics at worst and in need of repentance at best for their false teachings. Both of these teachings are nothing more than a rehash of Roman Catholic doctrine which has damned millions to hell.
Now that the reader understands a little more of the heresies defined above, we move back to John Piper’s progressive downhill slide which looks like this –
1) Mixing oxymorons for many years such as “Christian hedonism”
2) Openly endorsing Mark Driscoll (the vulgar, sewer-mouthed talker) with no known retractions
3) Blasphemously claiming the Lord of Glory was damned upon the cross
4) Openly endorsing the Federal Vision heresy as proclaimed by men like Douglas Wilson, and clearly indicating that Douglas Wilson is NOT preaching another or false gospel
5) Openly endorsing the New Perspective on Paul heresy as proclaimed by men like N.T. Wright, and clearly stating that N.T. Wright is also NOT preaching another or false gospel, but that the NPP is merely a “confusing gospel!
** Edit Note ** Points 4 & 5 have numerous proofs, but here is a video clip from The Resurgence.
“No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds.” (2 Cor. 11:14-15)
John Piper is leading many astray by his open endorsements of these men as mentioned above. His own theology comes into question when he publishes questionable material on his site about the doctrine of justification which you can still find on his site at Desiring God – I am firmly convinced that John Piper has slid this view under the noses of evangelicals who have missed the error of a justification that is NOT by faith alone. For more information on this issue and the problems with a recent work entitled Future Grace, you can visit Trinity Foundation.
While we at DefCon have respected John Piper as a man of God in the past, we believe we can no longer endorse any teachings by Piper. Our prayer is that God will bring Piper to a point where he will see the error of his teaching before it is too late and repent. We pray that God will also open the eyes of all those who blindly follow a man who is openly endorsing heresies as being merely a “confusing” gospel. “Confusing” gospels are no true gospels of the Lord Jesus Christ. They damn the souls of men to a Christ-less eternity in hell forever.
The Scriptures exhort us to openly exhort and rebuke those who cause divisions within the faith once delivered to the saints. John Piper is and continues to do this by his strange brand of heterodoxy which has sucked in the unlearned and learned alike. May we ever be alert to the apostasy that the apostle Paul warned will appear in the latter days. It will come from within the midst of what seems to be truth, but it will be mixed with poison. Pastors and their people will swallow it, and before they realize it is too late will be overcome.
Thanks to Phil Johnson for the heads up on this video. I know and have seen the true need in Africa for the pure, unadulterated gospel of Jesus Christ to be preached to those who have never heard. So, I am disgusted when I see the likes of Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyers, Kenneth Hagin and all the other false professors of Christ exporting the heresy of prosperity gospel to Africa. The poor people in this video have still not heard the truth, but they are mixing their own animistic religions with a veneer of “Christianity” with the hopes of becoming much better off.
I have personally watched charlatans like these seen in this video asking their audience to “give $100 US dollars in order to receive $100 blessings, $50 US dollars to receive $50 blessings, etc.” Yes, in America we have been blessed with much in the way of material wealth, but if all we are exporting is a false gospel, a few Africans will wind up wealthy, but they and their followers will only find themselves in hell forever.
Your sermon of the week is another good one from Randall Easter entitled 
You know there are two great plagues that have distressed the church of Christ and it will never be quite free from them; a multitude of hypocrites on a fair day, and a multitude of apostates on a foul day.
The following Q & A with Voddie Baucham is from 
A Christian, if he has not a care, may be proud of his very humility. It is hard starving this sin, because it can live on almost nothing. . . . Be much in meditation on death and judgment. A serious and frequent meditation on death will be a means to kill pride. Ask yourself: “What is man, but a little living lump of clay? And what is his life, but “a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away?”
I believe one of the greatest crutches in the church is the nursery. Parents who have neglected to train their children have very little encouragement to do so when there is a place to hide them. The father who should be up in arms by the time he gets home from church because of the embarrassment to which his child subjected him ends up going home with a clear conscience while the nursery worker takes a handful of aspirin.
Catholics are totally dependent upon priests for their salvation. It is the priest who is said to cause regeneration and justification in baptism (CCC 1992, 1213); absolve mortal sins in the confessional; dispense the body and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist; impart the Holy Spirit in the sacrament of Confirmation; and offer the sacrifice of the Mass for souls suffering in 
Richard Baxter said, “Don’t pretend to love your people if you favor their sins.” Any pastor who says, “We don’t deal with sin here” doesn’t love his people, and it’s questionable whether he loves his God. Anybody who loves God loves what God loves, and what God loves is holiness and God loves His people to be holy, and if you’re indifferent toward their sins, then you don’t love people. If you say . . . as you hear preachers say, “God loves you, God loves you, God loves you,” then you have to immediately say, “And if you don’t turn to receive His Son you’re going to Hell.” If you love God and you love people you say that. And if in the church you say, “God loves you, God loves you so much that He gave His Son,” you’re going to have to also say, “God loves you so much that He wants you to stop that sin, He wants you to abandon that sin or you’re going to be put out of His Church. He’s a man who expresses the true and the pure, not some mushy sentimentalism.
To imagine, therefore, so small a thing as a bee, a fly, a grain of corn, or an atom of dust, can be made out of nothing, would stupefy any creature who considered it. But how much more is it to behold the heavens, with all the troops of stars; the earth, with all its embroidery; and the sea with all her inhabitants of fish; and man, the noblest creature of all, and all to have risen out of the womb of mere emptiness.
Yet one more reason to support your local home school: a public school in North Carolina was actually selling grades. It reminds me of the Roman Catholic organization who sells indulgences; but I digress.
Roman Catholicism is the most evil perversion of Christianity Satan could devise. It is pagan, wicked, and deceptive. It is a works-oriented system that perverts the works of Christ in many blasphemous ways (the papacy being one) and was the reason the Protestant Reformation was necessary. How sad it is that many “evangelicals” today are trying to undo it.
Your sermon of the week is 
Methods and terminology used in evangelism all over the world have so distorted the Gospel that Christians need to be taught afresh the basic fundamentals of God’s saving work in Christ, so their presentation of the Gospel will be according to the Word of God. Even though many people have been saved under present evangelistic methods, many others have not clearly understood the Gospel. The message they heard so emphasized man’s part in conversion that God’s perfect finished work and complete provision for helpless sinners in Christ was not understood and believed. If people’s attention is directed inward to their own doing, even those who are truly saved will often lack assurance of salvation. The question will constantly arise within their hearts, “Was I sincere enough? Did I do it correctly? Did I truly receive Christ? Did I really give my heart to Jesus?”
By 
Somewhere along the way, Crumb decided to take on the Bible, starting with Genesis. That is no small ambition. But why?
This dreadful example of bigotry employed the pen of Voltaire in deprecation of the horrors of superstition; and though an infidel himself, his 
A while ago I wrote a post about an 
Tony Bartolucci, pastor/teacher of Clarkson Community Church in NY. These messages address in very detailed fashion Mr. Beckwith’s return to Rome, which he has documented in his book “Return to Rome – Confessions of an Evangelical Catholic.”
Not content with being restricted to spreading their damnable false gospel on earth, the Vatican is now looking to the sky.
Your sermon of the week is 
The single foundation of a sinner’s hope is the merits of Christ, His finished work of redemption. Those who would add to the same by any doings of their own are headed for eternal destruction. Therefore any who teach men to do so are cursed of God and should be abhorred by His people.
What you are about to read is disturbing and shocking, especially if you have children who attend a church youth group. Please be aware that what is detailed below is happening in many churches in America, and may be coming to yours very soon. Prepare to be outraged. 
The blessed founder of Christianity chose to make his advent among the lowly and the despised. This was agreeable to the spirit of that Holy Religion which he came to establish. There was a time when a multitude of his followers, astonished and convinced by the omnipotence displayed in his wondrous miracles, were disposed to” take him by force to make him a king,” but so far from encouraging their design, the inspired historian tells us” that he departed again, into a mountain himself alone.” (John vi., 15.) In reply to the inquiries of the Roman governor, he uttered those memorable words, “MY KINGDOM IS NOT OF THIS WORLD,” and his whole conduct from the manger to the cross, and from the cross to the mount of ascension, was in strict accordance with this characteristic maxim of genuine Christianity.
I just completed a page-turner that I highly recommend to the readers of DefCon. David Kupelian’s provocative missive The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, And Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised As Freedom, takes you behind the scenes of how the media, entertainment, and politicians drive the culture and how they not only shape how the masses think, but also what to think.
