August 30, 2008
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Men, my brothers, it is indeed my prayer that some of you will hear these words anew, that they might be fresh like that first crisp taste of fall after a long, dry summer. For others, it is also my prayer that these words would be safely familiar—like the sight of smoke from the home place chimney after a long journey away from home—it may be well known, but never before appreciated so greatly. For the rest, these words might sting and make you uncomfortable. In that case, comfortable is the last thing I would want you to be. I pray that you all will be enabled to grasp the severity of the words at hand, and that by them you will not be cowed, but rather convinced. As you read this, as soon as your mind starts to think to itself, “ah! That sure describes those people…” Stop. I am not writing to get “amens”. I am not writing to make a sensation. I am writing to bring about conviction. I might be writing about you, whoever, and wherever you may be. So keep that at the back of your mind as you read on. As soon as you think I have described the “others”, I have already described you.
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August 30, 2008
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A classic verse of Scripture concerning the nature of the Messiah (Hebrew – Mashiyach), or the Christ (Greek – Christos), is Isaiah 9:6 – For to us a child is born, to us a son s given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. And it is also a passage of Holy Scripture that is vehemently attacked by the Watchtower Bible And Tract Society (WBS), also known as the Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW), in an attempt to obscure and ultimately deny the Deity of our Lord, Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
However, as we read this verse it immediately becomes evident that we are not dealing with a mere human being here. Clearly this child will be much more than that as He is called Mighty God and Everlasting Father. It should be noted that Everlasting Father could be better translated “The Eternal Father,” as it is in Tanakh-The Holy Scriptures, which is published by the Jewish Publication Society, and “represents the collaboration of academic scholars with rabbis from the three largest branches of organized Jewish religious life in America” (Preface, xv).
In their classic work Jamieson, Fausset and Brown comment on the title Everlasting Father: “This marks [the Messiah]…lit. [as] ‘The Father of eternity’…” (Vol. 2, p. 594). Everlasting Father will also remind the serious Bible student of Psalm 90:2 –Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. When this verse is cross-referenced with John 1:3 and Colossians 1:16, we will see that we are indeed talking about the Deity of Jesus Christ.
Dr. John Martin of Dallas Theological Seminary further points out:
[The Messiah] is also the Mighty God (cf. 10:21). Some have suggested that this simply means “a god-like person” or hero. But in context it becomes clear Isaiah meant much more than that, for he had already spoken of the Messiah do-ing what no other person had been able to do (e.g., 9:2-5). Isaiah understood that the Messiah was to be God in some sense of the term” (The Bible Knowledge Commentary, OT, p.1053).
This is confirmed by what Isaiah had previously written in Is. 7:14 – Therefore the Lord (adonai in the Hebrew) himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel (NIV). When this verse is cross-checked with Matthew 1:22-23 we find the name Immanuel means “God with us,” and that this passage of Holy Scripture is speaking of Jesus of Nazareth.
The WBS does concede here that Isaiah 9:6 is fulfilled in the man Jesus of Nazareth, and that He is the Messiah. However, they then argue that Christ Jesus is Mighty God, but that He is not Jehovah–the Almighty God–because the text of Isaiah doesn’t have “the” in it. The truth remains though, that the Bible itself knows nothing of an Almighty God, and a lesser “Mighty” God.
In fact, the distinguishing religious characteristic of the nation of Israel in Old Testament (OT) times was their monotheism (belief in one God). In stark contrast to all other cultures around them at the time who were polytheistic (belief in many gods), the Jews worshipped the one true LORD God Almighty of the Bible.
The absolute truth remains that no amount of fanciful eisegesis can ever get around the incontrovertible fact that the OT teaches monotheism. Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one (Deuteronomy 6:4, literal Hebrew). And even the New World Translation (NWT), published by the WBS agrees – Listen, O Israel: Jehovah our God is one Jehovah.
Norman Geisler and Ron Rhodes point out the WBS error when they say:
The folly of the Watchtower position is at once evident in the fact that Jehovah himself is called a “Mighty God” in the very next chapter of Isaiah (10:21). That both Jehovah and Jesus are called “Mighty God” in the same book within the same section demonstrates their equality.
A good cross-reference is Isaiah 40:3, where Jesus is prophetically called both “Mighty God” (Elohim) and Jehovah (Yahweh): “A voice is calling, ‘Clear the way for the LORD [Yahweh] in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God [Elohim]’” (NASB; cf. John 1:23). Clearly Jesus is not a lesser God than the Father (When Cultists Ask, pp. 78, 79).
As far as “the” not being in the text of Is. 9:6, “Mighty God” translates the Hebrew El Gibbor. Literally this means “God of Might.” This term is applied to Jehovah in Isaiah 10:21, also without “the” in the original text – A remnant will return, a remnant of Jacob will return to [the] Mighty God. The NWT reads – A mere remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the Mighty God. In both of these verses Isaiah 9:6 and 10:21 the construction of the Hebrew is exactly the same, El Gibbor, “God of Might.”
We know from Holy Scripture that “the LORD” – Jehovah – is the God of Jacob. And he [Jehovah] went on to say: “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob – Exodus 3:6 (NWT). And then, in Isaiah 45:21-22 the LORD is clear and emphatic that there is only one God period, and that He is the only Savior. Is it not I, Jehovah, besides whom there is no other God; a righteous God and a Savior, there being none excepting me? Turn to me and be saved, all YOU [at the] ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no one else (NWT).
One of the most important rules when we attempt to interpret the Bible is to let the text speak in its plainest sense. In other words, as we read Is. 45:21-22, what is Isaiah attempting to explain to us? When he writes that besides Jehovah there is no other God, it becomes plain that he means to tell us that there is only one God by nature. Jehovah Himself reiterates this in verse 22 when He announces I am God, and there is no one else. Apart from further indoctrination, no one would ever come to the conclusion that there is more than one God from reading Is. 9:6, 10:21 and/or 45:21-22.
Dr. Walter Martin, author of The Kingdom of the Cults is quite correct when he writes:
Isaiah 9:6 in the Hebrew Bible is one of the most powerful verses in the Old Testament in proving the deity of Christ, for it incontestably declares that Jehovah himself planned to appear in human form. The verse clearly states that all government will rest upon the “child born” and the “son given,” whose identity is revealed in the very terms used to describe his attributes. Isaiah, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, describes Christ as “Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” – all attributes of God alone. The term “Mighty God” is itself indicative of Jehovah, since not only is He the only God (Isaiah 43:10-11), but the term mighty is applied to Him alone
in relation to His deity (pp. 107, 108).
In conclusion–the Christian always need be mindful that the JW is also a person for whom Christ died. And it will be helpful to remember that the characteristics of all non-Christian cults include a denial of the full Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and some type of a teaching system to indoctrinate followers into their peculiar beliefs.
The most important issue is this: The JW has been deceived by the WBS (see 2 Corinthians 11:13-15) into believing in a different Jesus (see 2 Corinthians 11:4) and in a different gospel (see Galatians 1:6-9). And as such, they are in need of a saving relationship with the true Jesus of the historic revelation found in the Bible.
It is our job as ambassadors of Christ to faithfully proclaim to all men everywhere that Jehovah God has said – Furthermore, there is no salvation in anyone else, for there is not another name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must get saved – Acts 4:12 (NWT). The wise man is going to ask – “What is that name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must get saved?”
And the all-important answer is found just two verses before in verse 10 – it is by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazareth.
August 30, 2008
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The God of Abraham praise, who reigns enthroned above;
Ancient of everlasting days, and God of Love;
Jehovah, great I AM! by earth and Heav’n confessed;
I bow and bless the sacred Name forever blessed.
The God of Abraham praise, at Whose supreme command
From earth I rise—and seek the joys at His right hand;
I all on earth forsake, its wisdom, fame, and power;
And Him my only Portion make, my Shield and Tower.
The God of Abraham praise, whose all sufficient grace
Shall guide me all my happy days, in all my ways.
He calls a worm His friend, He calls Himself my God!
And He shall save me to the end, thro’ Jesus’ blood.
He by Himself has sworn; I on His oath depend,
I shall, on eagle wings upborne, to Heav’n ascend.
I shall behold His face; I shall His power adore,
And sing the wonders of His grace forevermore.
Tho’ nature’s strength decay, and earth and hell withstand,
To Canaan’s bounds I urge my way, at His command.
The wat’ry deep I pass, with Jesus in my view;
And thro’ the howling wilderness my way pursue.
The goodly land I see, with peace and plenty bless’d;
A land of sacred liberty, and endless rest.
There milk and honey flow, and oil and wine abound,
And trees of life forever grow with mercy crowned.
There dwells the Lord our King, the Lord our righteousness,
Triumphant o’er the world and sin, the Prince of peace;
On Sion’s sacred height His kingdom still maintains,
And glorious with His saints in light forever reigns.
He keeps His own secure, He guards them by His side,
Arrays in garments, white and pure, His spotless bride:
With streams of sacred bliss, with groves of living joys—
With all the fruits of Paradise, He still supplies.
Before the great Three-One they all exulting stand;
And tell the wonders He hath done, through all their land:
The list’ning spheres attend, and swell the growing fame;
And sing, in songs which never end, the wondrous Name.
The God Who reigns on high the great archangels sing,
And “Holy, holy, holy!” cry, “Almighty King!
Who was, and is, the same, and evermore shall be:
Jehovah—Father—great I AM, we worship Thee!”
Before the Savior’s face the ransomed nations bow;
O’erwhelmed at His almighty grace, forever new:
He shows His prints of love—they kindle to a flame!
And sound thro’ all the worlds above the slaughtered Lamb.
The whole triumphant host give thanks to God on high;
“Hail, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,” they ever cry.
Hail, Abraham’s God, and mine! (I join the heav’nly lays,)
All might and majesty are Thine, and endless praise.
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August 30, 2008
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Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. (1 John 4:1-3)
Clearly Hemphill Does Deny The Deity Of Christ
It’s really a sad state of affairs in the Body of Christ that Satan has been able to sow so much confusion today the average professing Christian doesn’t seem to know what to believe anymore. And a good case in point would be a story which was brought to my attention through a letter I received from an Apprising Ministries reader the other day. In it I was given some documentation showing that Southern Gospel Hall of Fame “Christian” singer Joel Hemphill does not believe that Christ Jesus of Nazareth was the LORD God Almighty in human flesh.
In “Christian” Gospel Artist Joel Hemphill: “Jesus Is Not God” I then shared the results of my investigation. This sad truth reveals that in his 2007 book To God Be The Glory: Exalting the Bible View of God (TGB) Hemphill clearly denies the Deity of Christ, a cardinal doctrine of the historic orthodox Christian faith. There’s also a link to a short post that had been done a few days earlier by Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. And even still there are those who wonder how can this be; and is this actually true?
The truth is that things like this happen because people do not test the spirits due to their wrong understanding of Christian love; and yes, this denial of Christ’s divine nature is absolutely true. Joel Hemphill himself even tells us he has always denied the doctrine of the Holy Trinity as a modalist for he is a former Oneness Pentecostal, “My belief was called ‘Oneness’ or ‘Jesus Only’” (Online source). It now appears that Hemphill is with another anti-trinitarian denomination called Church of God General Conference in Morrow, GA. As of this writing the second item on the front page of their website under “News” is the addition of Joel Hemphill’s book TGB (Online source).
Over at Hemphill’s website he tells us this book is really based on an actual conversation he allegedly had with God Himself:
In the spring of 1986 I had an awesome encounter with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Along with many other things that He told me, He said for me to study the Scripture, as He was going to reveal Himself to me in His word…
(Online source, emphasis mine)
Now what’s important to keep in mind here in making a right judgment (see—John 7:24) is that Hemphill is telling us this information, later written down in TGB, was literally revealed to him by God. It’s beyond the shadow of a doubt that Hemphill is saying Jesus Christ is not God and using arguments which those of us who deal in non-Christian cults often hear from Jehovah’s Witnesses and Oneness Pentecostals. For example:
Jesus is not a human incarnation of Almighty God as the Oneness teach, nor an incarnation of God the Son, second person of a triune God, a pre-existent being, as millions of Trinitarians believe…
Friend, if Jesus, Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Peter knew nothing of a pre-existence and incarnation, it did not happen !
(Online source, emphasis his)
The focus of my book isn’t what Jesus is not, but rather who God the Father is. God is immortal – Jesus was not… Hebrews teaches, and I believe that Jesus did not come in the God family (there is only one God), or the angel family, but in the human family (Heb. 2:7, 9). He is perfect, sinless man, but man nevertheless!…
A God-man could not redeem us. It took a sinless man, the Lamb of God, with righteous blood untainted by the sin of Adam, to redeem mankind. He is the second Adam, not the first God-man… If the disciples who had just seen Jesus ascend to heaven in Acts chapter one, did not pray to him in Acts chapter four, then he is not God!… The incarnation as taught by modern Christianity is a fable.
(Online source, emphasis his)
2. Jesus never one time said that he is “God.” He said many times, “I am the Son of God” and he is, but “Son of God” and “God” are not interchangeable terms.
(Online source, emphasis his)
Jesus Christ Claims To Be God, The I Am In Human Flesh
So as you can clearly see from Hemphill’s own testimony he was once part of Oneness Pentecostalism and he is in fact still denying the nature of the God of the Bible. For more on the doctrine of the Truine nature of God I refer you to Keeping You Apprised of: the Holy Trinity. Furthermore the “god” Hemphill has been chatting with, and who supposedly revealed himself to him, has taught him to openly deny the Deity of Christ. So if we can show from the Bible that Christ Jesus of Nazareth does claim to be God then we will have shown Hemphill to be a false prophet who should not be allowed any forum inside Christian churches.
The following two verses are taken from the Gospel of John. This is the eyewitness deposition of the Apostle John who personally heard Christ Jesus—God the Son—say these words and then later under the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit also wrote them down. They are sufficient to show that the Master did indeed claim He was the Creator God. Jesus said, “I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I Am, you will indeed die in your sins” (John 8:24. literal Greek). Note e.g. that the King James Version adds the word “he” in italics, the New American Standard simply inserts the word “He” into the text, and the New International Version has “the one I claim to be” in brackets.
However, what Jesus was really saying to these men to whom He was speaking is, “If you do not believe that I AM the LORD God Who spoke to Moses from the burning bush then you will die in your sins.” And this is confirmed just a little later in the same chapter of John’s Gospel where the Master went on to say, “Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham came into being, I Am” (v.58). Notice in the very next verse that when Jesus states this to these men they immediately pick up rocks to stone Him. They knew He had just taken the Name of God and applied it to Himself. This would be blasphemy; unless, it is true. And it is; because the LORD had already told us long ago that He would be the Savior — “ there is no God apart from Me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none but Me” (Isaiah 45:21).
In the end men and women, the sad truth is that Hemphill absolutely is denying the very Savior he would say he believes in. What is more he has been doing this all along during his career as a “Christian Gospel” singer. May God in His mercy grant Hemphill repentance so that he might really come to know Who Jesus Christ of Nazareth truly is. And may it be that Joel Hemphill will one day be found among those of whom God, the only Savior there is, says of His redeemed children — “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of My hands; your walls are ever before Me” (Isaiah 49:15-16).
August 30, 2008
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In the same line of thinkin that spawned Michael Moore’s incredible ignorance, comes this gem featuring some of the democratic party leadership.
True believers, from the party that advocates the wholesale slaughter of the yet to be born.
Psalm 2:
4He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision.
5Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
and terrify them in his fury, saying,
6″As for me, I have set my King
on Zion, my holy hill.”
August 30, 2008
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Do not quench the Spirit; do not despise prophetic utterances. But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good. (1 Thessalonians 5:21, NASB)
Can You Hear The Voice of The Spirit?
Apprising Ministries is pleased to bring you the following godly and prophetic insight from James Montgomery Boice and Philip Graham Ryken. Herein we see the full on embrace by evangelicalism of the rotten root of the new reformation of man-centered (semi-pelagian) theology once prophesied by Robert Schuller.
You need to understand that this emerging rebellion against the Word of God is really not far from apostate Roman Catholicism. And so this reversal of the Reformation has now flowered as typified in the new postevangelical religion of Rick Warren and blossomed for the postmodern set in the warped and toxic teachings of Rob Bell, a leading spokesman for the cult of the new (post) liberal theology the Emergent Church.
All of which makes these words from Boice and Ryken so dead on target for the time of growing spiritual blindness we live in right now:
Sadly, this is not the church’s finest hour. We live in an age of weak theology and casual Christian conduct. Our knowledge is insufficient, our worship is irreverent, and our lives are immoral. Even the evangelical church has succumbed to the spirit of this age…
Perhaps the simplest way to say this is that evangelicalism has become worldly. This can be demonstrated by comparing it with yesterday’s liberalism. What was once said of liberal churches must now be said of evangelical churches: they seek the world’s wisdom, believe the world’s theology; follow the world’s agenda, and adopt the world’s methods. According to the standard’s of worldly wisdom, the Bible is unable to meet the demands of life in these postmodern times.
By itself, God’s Word is insufficient to win people to Christ, promote spiritual growth, provide practical guidance, or transform society. So churches supplement the plain teaching of Scripture with entertainment with entertainment, group therapy, political activism, signs and wonders—anything that promises to appeal to religious consumers. According to the theology, sin is merely a dysfunction and salvation means having better self-esteem. When this theology comes to church, it replaces difficult but essential doctrines like the propitiation of God’s wrath with practical techniques for self-improvement.
The world’s agenda is personal happiness, so the gospel is presented as a plan for individual fulfillment rather than a pathway of costly discipleship. The world’s methods for accomplishing this self-centered agenda are necessarily pragmatic, so evangelical leaders are willing to try whatever seems like it might work. This worldliness has produced the “new pragmatism” of evangelicalism.
(The Doctrines of Grace: Rediscovering The Evangelical Gospel, 20,21)
See also:
ROBERT SCHULLER: FATHER OF THE NEW REFORMATION
RICK WARREN: THE NEW CHARLES FINNEY
ROB BELL SAYS “ALL-EE IN FREE…ALMOST”
August 30, 2008
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What is lost in the confusion being sown in the evangelical camp by the Emerging Church is that this movement clearly had a beginning. The discernment work Herescope is exactly right when they tell us:
Do not be deceived. The “emerging church” movement did not spontaneously erupt. It was a well-funded and well-organized movement from its very inception. It appears to have been fashioned by a handful of corporate business leaders who wished to create a counter-cultural evangelical movement. The intended purpose appears to have been identifying and recruiting potential young leaders for comprehensive indoctrination. One of the chief outcomes has been the further degradation and deconstruction of traditional Christianity. (Online source)
Emergent Guru Brian McLaren himself writes:
Emergent grew out of the Young Leader Networks, which was launched in the mid-90’s by Leadership Network, a Dallas-based foundation. Doug Pagitt, Chris Seay, Andrew Jones, Brad Smith, and others were involved before I was, and they did a great job of setting a tone and direction for the emergent conversation. (Online source)
And Andrew Jones aka “Tall Skinny Kiwi” tells us more about Doug Pagitt, the man Leadership Network chose to assemble the Terranova Project, which would eventually morphe into the emerging church and Emergent Village:
Doug is probably my best friend,… Doug was the youth guy at Leith Andersons church for 10 years. I met him when he worked for Leadership Network and spent his time flying around the country, complaining about hotels and seeing what God was up to among the next generation. That led to a group of guys called the Young Leaders, among whom I am proud to have been associated – like being a Muskateer except there were 10 of us…
Doug threw conferences around the country that changed the conversation away from ministries that were hopelessly modern and disjointed, towards the fact that we are ministering in an era of a radically different worldview – that of postmodernity. (Online source)
The fact is that the majority of the “10” in this Terra Nova Project, which is the root of this “well-funded and well-organized movement” that set the “tone and direction for the emergent conversation”, were/are largely neoorthodox in their approach to the Bible. I refer you to Rob Bell and Karl Barth, where I cover some of this in regard to Emerging Church icon Rob Bell.
And there’s a good lay level overview of neo-orthodoxy in Neo-Orthodoxy: An Emergent Overview. But here is where we have uncovered the crucial flaw that leads to the corrupt theology and the confusion of the Emergent Church, a cult of a postliberal theology.
Now in chapter 3 of Why We’re Not Emergent Kevin DeYoung correctly points out concerning the most noted neo-orthodox theologian:
Seventy years ago Karl Barth argued, “The Bible is God’s Word to the extent that He speaks through it.” At the time, Barth was calling liberalism back to the Word, which was a good thing, but he pioneered a new approach in establishing biblical authority, which was not as good.
The Bible, according to Barth, was not itself the Word of God, but as God spoke in and through the Bible, it became for us the Word of God. The Bible is only “derivatively and indirectly” God’s Word, he wrote. The authority of the Word, therefore, resides not in the Scriptures that contain the very words of God, but in Him who speaks through the words of the text (78, 79).
However, the problem with this view is that what God is saying in Bible would now depend upon what the reader feels the Lord may, or may not be saying. In other words, Barth is saying that the Words of Scripture contain messages from God, whereas the proper view of Holy Scripture is that the Bible itself is the message.
And this is a huge difference because Barth’s wrong view ends up in a very highly subjective and existential understanding of Holy Scripture, which does not take into account the corrupted reasoning of human beings resulting from the Fall. So what you end up with is the same kind of relativism you would see on the panel of a talk show.
Round and round we go with no objective way to say definitively which view on a given subject is correct. DeYoung then goes on:
This neoorthodox view of Scripture is, wittingly or unwittingly, the view of many in the emerging church. [Dave] Tomlinson explicitly relies on Barth, noting appreciatively that “Barth spoke of the Bible becoming, rather than being, the Word of God.” The late Stan Grenz, one of the most influential theologians in the emerging church movement, wrote, with John Franke, something similar: “As we noted earlier, it is not the Bible as a book that is authoritative, but the Bible as the instrumentality of the Spirit; the biblical message spoken by the Spirit through the text is theology’s norming norm.”
According to Grenz and Franke, the text has its own intention, which begins in the author’s intended meaning but is not exhausted by it. We must start with the original meaning of the text, but we are not bound by it. For God has spoken, but He still speaks. The words of Scripture, therefore, are not the norming norm but the Spirit speaking through the Scripture becoming the Word of God. (79)
But the critical question which needs to be considered with this subjective approach to the Bible by the Emergent Church would be: How does one know when/if a particular text has now “become” the Word of God? Answer: The reader will then decide if it does. When we factor the corrupt human nature into the equation we now have a recipe for picking and choosing the parts of the text we like while simply disregarding those we don’t.
And you better believe that the Christian had best start with “the author’s intended meaning” because 2 Timothy 3:16 instructs us that God Himself is the Author of Scripture. But as I previously pointed out in the aforementioned piece on Rob Bell and Karl Barth, what Satan is actually doing through these deceivers in the Emerging Church is confusing the issues surrounding sola Scriptura and the doctrines of verbal inspiration and plenary inspiration of the Bible.
Finally, in what follows from DeYoung you should be able to see how this faulty view of Scripture in the Emerging Church flatly contradicts the Reformation doctrine of sola Scriptura. In Emergent theology the text of the Bible is no longer the authority for the Church as the Reformers taught, instead—just as with apostate Roman Catholicism—what becomes authoritative is actually what the Church aka “community” decides is the Word of God:
As a result, theology, for many in the emerging church, becomes something different from speaking the truth about God as revealed in Scripture. The task of theology, in the emergent model, is to express communal beliefs and values, to set forth that community’s particular “web of significance” and “matrix of meaning.” Christian theology, therefore, is the task of speaking about the God known in the Christian community. The church is really the new foundation.
Christian theology is done by and for the Christian community as an ongoing conversation among those who have been encountered by God in Christ and are attempting to clarify a mosaic of beliefs that comprise the interpretive framework of the community that the aforementioned encounter called forth. Confusing, isn’t it? That’s actually one of the flaws of the neoorthodox/emerging view of Scripture. (ibid)
And Apprising Ministries reminds you that the Lord has already told us something with crystalline clarity about the matrix of mystification — for God is not a God of confusion but of peace (1 Corinthians 14:33, NASB).
August 30, 2008
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God awoke this believer from a spiritual stupor in 2004. From my rebirth in January 1986 through the end of 2003 I rode a roller coaster of faithfulness and backsliding to the point that I despaired of ever being able to be consistent in my walk. What always amazed me during that period is how God still used the spiritual gifts He had given me despite my own sorry spiritual state. It did not help that I was also suffering from depression after the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing in 1995. I confess that from April 19, 1995 through 2003 I was a very angry, resentful person. Then God drew me to Himself in January 2004 in such a way that ‘reversed it all and changed it all.’ It took 8 months of drawing closer and closer to Him, but He did a wonderful work in this heart.
(click here to read this post)
August 30, 2008
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The September 2006 issue of Christianity Today tells us ordained Southern Baptist minister Dallas Willard “is on a quiet quest to subvert nominal Christianity.” But with the kind of Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM)—often called Spiritual Formation—espoused by Willard along with his co-conspirator Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster, which always eventually leads its practioners to a denial of the Reformation and the acceptance of the apostate Roman Catholicism as a viable form of Christianity, the truth is that Willard and Foster have in actuality ended up on a quest to subvert true historic orthodox Christianity.
In fact, as you’ll see, this CT article does give us some very key information concerning Willard’s own humanistic approach to the Christian faith and why he is promoting The Cult of Guru Richard Foster. For example, “[Willard] teeters on the edge of openness theology,…but he doesn’t go as far as many openness adherents,…” We’re also told that Willard “didn’t think it made sense that you ‘got saved’ and were ‘stuck with it.’ ” By this Willard means there must be more than just waiting for Heaven, but even so, this is not exactly the most gracious thing one could say to his Creator for a gift none of us could ever deserve.
They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the Law or to the Words that the LORD Almighty had sent by His Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the LORD Almighty was very angry. (Zechariah 7:11)
Opposing Ideas Of What Is Falsely Called Knowledge
The fact is Biblical Christianity has never taught that personal salvation is all that matters, but with Willard’s statement above we glimpse the beginning of the usual misrepresentation of the Reformed Christian faith by those involved in this Emerging Church rebellion against the Bible. We have never said, “once saved; now you can just do whatever you want to.” However, these are the kinds of excuses deceivers like Willard will use when they reject Bible-based Christianity in order to create the supposed “need” for the core doctrine of so-called “Christian” mysticism within the postliberal cult of the Emergent Church.
The CT article A Divine Conspirator by Christine Scheller points out that Willard is known to many Christians from his book “The Divine Conspiracy (CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S Book of the Year in 1998).” But we also find out that God Himself personally announced to Willard:
“If you stay in the churches, the university will be closed to you; but if you stay in the university, the churches will be open to you.” He had no idea what this meant, because, at the time, the church was still the primary cultural authority.
However, as a young Baptist assistant pastor, he had become convinced he was “abysmally ignorant” of God and the soul. He decided to study philosophy, because he believed that “Jesus and his teachings and the philosophers and their teachings were addressing the same questions.”
And interestingly enough this working through the universities does lend itself quite well to the reeducation process that the original Cult of Liberal Theology—which eventually spawned the Emerging Church—itself employed. In his work The Cult of Liberalism Dr. Walter Martin explains:
And finally they had emptied the Gospel of all its content; they were simply using the outward shell so that they go on collecting money from the people and the churches; because they knew that if the people in the pew knew that they were apostate, they’d throw them out. So the strategy was hang on to the trust funds; hang on to the money we’ve got; hang on the properties we control, and we will gradually educate the laymen into this new approach to theology.
And then finally we will take control of everything. The gradual process of feeding you theological poison until you become immunized enough so that you don’t know what’s happening to you. And when you wake up to what’s happening to you, it’s too late they’ve got everything. (available through Walter Martin Religious InfoNet)
Rejecting The Penal Substitutionary Atonement
In her CT article Scheller also gives us further insight into Willard’s contention that ordinary people i.e. unregenerate mankind can become “disciples of Jesus.” We’re told:
[Willard’s] Arminian bent can be traced to the influence of his Methodist grandmother, but also to his failings as a young pastor. That’s when he began reading John Wesley and Charles Finney and aspiring to emulate them.
“Generally, what I find is that the ordinary people who come to church are basically running their lives on their own, utilizing ‘the arm of the flesh’—their natural abilities—to negotiate their own way,” he says, “They believe there is a God and they need to check in with him. But they don’t have any sense that he is an active agent in their lives. As a result, they don’t become disciples of Jesus.”
“They consume his merits and the services of the church….Discipleship is no essential part of Christianity today.” He says these problems are theologically grounded: “We don’t preach life in the kingdom of God through faith in Jesus as an existential reality that leads to discipleship and then character transformation.”
But what is missing here in this Charles Finney pelagian model for human failure is that the Person of God the Holy Spirit must first regenerate a genuine child of God, and it is the Lord Himself Who then transforms the born again Christian. Unfortunately all Willard is describing is the pitiful state of an evangelicalism that never renounced its humanism in the first place and which has been filling churches with more and more unregenerate people who think they are saved. You may also recall another “Christianity Astray” article The Emergent Mystique where Emergent Guru and Spiritual Director Brian McLaren brings out the growing influence of both Willard and Foster when he cites them as “key mentors in the Emergent Church.”
I covered this before in Brian McLaren and Vampire Christians, but what follows will give you a bit of perspective from his friend McLaren about how to perceive Dallas Willard’s concept of what he calls “Vampire Christians.” The version of the atonement we are talking about here is likely some kind of a hybrid between the moral influence and mystical atonement theories. It appears they combine this with a twist of Eastern Orthodox theosis to essentially say that the willingness of Jesus to be obedient to the Father and die on the Cross supposedly shows God’s great love for humanity.
Further Willard, Foster and McLaren seem to go on and say that Christ as God is now in union with all of mankind, and ala Emergent Church icon Rob Bell even with the cosmos itself, therefore this union with the Lord mystically elevates man’s soul even to the point of deifying it. You should also know that through their spurious CSM men like Willard and Foster and McLaren are likely believers in the supposed “divine spark” within mankind, which is a classic teaching of Gnosticism as well as of its ugly stepchild so-called “Christian” mysticism. For the interested reader I show you from the Bible why this is false in UnderstandingThe New Spirituality: God Indwells Mankind.
For now though on the webite of Emergent Guru Brian McLaren we read:
Theory of Atonement
Could you elaborate on your personal theory of atonement? If God wanted to forgive us, why didn’t he just forgive us? Why did torturing Jesus make things better?
This is such an important and difficult question. I’d recommend, for starters, you read “Recovering the Scandal of the Cross” (by Baker and Green). There will be a sequel to this book in the next year or so, and I’ve contributed a chapter to it.
Short answer: I think the gospel is a many faceted diamond, and atonement is only one facet, and legal models of atonement (which predominate in western Christianity) are only one small portion of that one facet.
Dallas Willard also addresses this issue in “The Divine Conspiracy.” Atonement-centered understandings of the gospel, he says, create vampire Christians who want Jesus for his blood and little else. He calls us to move beyond a “gospel of sin management” – to the gospel of the kingdom of God. So, rather than focusing on an alternative theory of atonement, I’d suggest we ponder the meaning and mission of the kingdom of God. (Online source)
Tangible Deceptions Lead To Delusions Of Disciplines
Finally at the very end of this current CT article I have been discussing here we are further enlightened by some very telling information when we are told Willard had another direct interaction with God in an “early experience that set him on his life course.” It seems that while being prayed for:
Willard lost consciousness, later describing the experience as being enveloped in a cloud. A spiritual reality became tangible for Willard in that moment. (Online source)
Men and women, the result of this spiritual deception which “enveloped” Willard is now becoming even more “tangible” through the alleged “spiritual disciplines” he teaches with Quaker co-conspiratormystic Richard Foster. In the end, these mythical disciplines that Willard and Foster are pushing really consitute a new form of pietism. As such this spurious SF is actually working against the genuine Gospel of Jesus Christ. What is more, along with Finney before them, Willard and Foster’s elevated view of mankind, as well as Willard’s open disdain for what he refers to as those “vampire Christians,” is now hindering the advance of the only Gospel that can save sinners.
And through the New Spirituality of a exceptionally misguided mysticism taught by men like Richard Foster and Dallas Willard—along with their friend Brian McLaren—what has now come emerging is indeed a new kind of “Christian” all together. One that had best be surgically removed from the Body of Christ before this spiritual cancer can spread any further.
See also:
DELUSIONS OF DALLAS WILLARD
DALLAS WILLARD ENCOURAGES CONTEMPLATIVE/CENTERING PRAYER
SPIRITUAL FORMATION: JUST SAY NO
THE SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES OF DALLAS WILLARD DESTROYED
August 30, 2008
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“For anyone of the house of Israel or of the immigrants who stay in Israel who separates himself from Me, sets up his idols in his heart, puts right before his face the stumbling block of his iniquity, and then comes to the prophet to inquire of Me for himself, I the LORD will be brought to answer him in My own person.”
“I will set My face against that man and make him a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from among My people. So you will know that I am the LORD.” (Ezekiel 14:7-8, NASB)
Slipping In The Youth Door
I have been studying the theology and teachings Rob Bell, author of Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith (VE), for quite some time now. Unless you have been on another planet you’ve most likely heard of this fast rising cultural icon and leader within the Emergent Church who is even gaining ground within mainstream evangelicalism. In fact, Bell is virtually becoming the Elvis of Emergent.
I have literally spent months and monthsw of studying much of his work in VE as well as investigating other sources, listening to Bell’s sermons and watching his Nooma videos. So I can tell you that Phil Johnson of Pyromaniacs was quite correct when he said a while back that “Bell’s message is completely and radically different from anything you would hear in a seeker-sensitive context.”
However, there is a very real and present danger that Rob Bell is posing right now to the Body of Christ. And that is aberrant and sometimes heretical teachings from Emerging Church teachers are coming into mainstream evangelical denominations largely through youth ministers. They oftentimes don’t know, although many do, the actual meaning of the “lingo” Emergents are using when they talk about the Christian faith. In Emergentese we might say along with their so-called “paradigm shift” has come a very real terminology shift.
It’s also very important that you understand Rob Bell is not really perceived as an Emergent by many evangelicals and his Nooma videos are even used e.g. in conjunction with Promise Keepers. In fact Ingrid Schlueter pointed this out on Slice of Laodicea in her article “Rob Bell and Promise Keepers”, which unfortunately is no longer available. In it she shared the letter she’d received from a Slice reader who was in attendance at a PK convention and which demonstrated “the pervasiveness of the emergent influence and the content of the Promise Keepers latest men’s gatherings.”
Senior pastors of local churches usually don’t know much more than Bell is some younger guy who “can reach the kids.” No doubt he is reaching kids, but the grave concern here is the skewed social gospel reimagined by the postliberal cult of the Emergent Church which Bell is feeding these kids. However, when the youth minister introduces Rob Bell’s warped and toxic teachings his language is also interpreted as orthodox because Bell is using the same words we would use.
Yoga Masters And The Repainted “Christian” Faith
But you need to know that the meanings have been…well, “repainted.” And what is going to end up happening is that your youth will be taught things like the following, which I transcribed from an MP3 recording of a sermon by Bell on breathing. Within it our Emergent Church leader Rob Bell informs us:
[In Yoga] it’s not how flexible you are, it’s not whether you can do the poses, it’s not how much you can bend yourself, it’s can you keep your breath [breathes in and out] consistent [breathes out] through whatever you are doing.
And the Yoga Masters say this is how it is when you follow Jesus and surrender to God. Is it’s your breath being consistent. It’s your connection with God regardless of the pose you find yourself in. That’s integrating the divine into the daily.
That’s right; you have just read the words of a supposed Christian pastor who has told you the way Hindu pantheists teach one how to follow the “Yoga Master” named Jesus. And then he tells us that our breath is our “connection to God,” which would actually make all of mankind divine. This becomes evident when Bell says our breathing is “integrating” — joining together — “the divine into the daily.” Well you see, all religions have to have a place for our Lord somewhere and those who follow “Yoga Masters” will end up believing that Jesus of Nazareth was some kind of ultimate Yoga Master.
However, in Hinduism we are not “surrendering” to and “connecting” with the one true and living God of the Bible. Rather the Hindu religion teaches pantheism, pan — all, and theism — god. Essentially you can say that as individual drops of water make up an ocean so each of one of us make up god. In other words, we’re all a part of the impersonal force that is called “god.” Now followers of Bell will immediately say, “O, c’mon Rob is talking about Yoga Masters who are Christians.” Let’s leave aside here that in the real world there is no such thing as “Christian” yoga, but Bell does not make any differentiation here. He simply says “Yoga Masters.”
In any event let me point out that Dr. Walter Martin (1928-1989), the man whom I claim as one teacher who had a profound impact on me—a mentor if you will—would often refer to what he so often called ”the historic orthodox Christian faith.” And if he were here with us today I know that he would say, “There’s no certainly no place in the historic orthodox Christian faith for Yoga.” Men and women, this is the kind of thing that happens when men like Rob Bell of the Emerging Church throw out—sola Scriptura—the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible and instead replace it with the highly subjective and existential (i.e. feelings-oriented) neo-orthodox view of Holy Scripture.
See also:
ROB BELL RESOURCES FROM APPRISING MINISTRIES
ROB BELL IN A NUTSHELL: THE BIBLE
ROB BELL IN A NUTSHELL: CONTEMPLATIVE SPIRITUALITY/MYSTICISM
ROB BELL SAYS “ALL-EE IN FREE…ALMOST”
ROB BELL: “TRAMPOLINIANITY” AND THE VIRGIN BIRTH
ROB BELL AND KARL BARTH
August 30, 2008
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Micheal Horton summarizes what’s basically wrong with the “Purpose Driven Life” and “Your Best Life Now” in about five minutes.
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August 30, 2008
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I’ve been meaning to talk about this for some time now, but it seems good in the Lord to mention it here in this piece at Apprising Ministries to encourage your study of the Bible. For those who are being observant God will often do something that will only be noticed by a certain individual.
By this I mean that, as your Father and Creator, He knows what desires He has placed within your heart; the secret things that are just between you and your Lord. As you go through your day God occasionally shows you things or leads you to places that He knows will bring you joy and happiness. One of the women at my church refers to them as “little pearls” from the Lord.
And not only does God do this in the natural world as you go through your day, the Spirit will also do this as you read the Scriptures He inspired. You will probably have heard people refer to the Bible as His-story, because Holy Scripture was given to us as a testimony that our great God and Savior—Christ Jesus of Nazareth—would be coming into our world.
As such, for example, as you read the Old Testament you will often find some of these “little pearls” where the Spirit will suddenly show you things Jesus would later do and teach as a testimony to God’s mercy and greatness.
Here’s one instance. We begin in the New Testament with Peter’s account of our Lord calming a storm one day. Mark recalls Peter telling him about how the Master’s disciples decided to get away to the other side of the Lake of Galilee so as they left:
the crowd behind, they took Him along, just as He was, in the boat. There were also other boats with Him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, don’t You care if we drown?” (Mark 4:36-41)
He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to His disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey Him!”
May You Open Our Eyes Lord
Now let’s suppose that these disciples, who would have read Psalm 107 many times in their lives, had recalled this “little pearl” from verses 26-29:
in their peril their courage melted away. They reeled and staggered like drunken men; they were at their wits’ end. Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble, and He brought them out of their distress. He stilled the storm to a whisper; the waves of the sea were hushed.
You see there; they actually had nothing to worry about because God had already told them ahead of time that their Lord would take care of them. Although they appear to have forgotten it, in truth they were in the Father’s hands all the time. And this is but one example of the many little pearls which you will discover when you carefully meditate—in the proper sense of that term—on the Scriptures as you read the Old Testament.
If you ask the Spirit to open your eyes, time after time, you will begin to notice things in His Scriptures about Christ Jesus that have simply been there all the time. And the Master does tell us — “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give to you who are in the Kingdom.”
Now here’s a little something else for you to meditate on. Just stop and think about what “little pearls” are in the New Testament right now that we aren’t seeing. Our unwillingness to completely surrender to the indwelling Holy Spirit is the main reason why God isn’t able to do more for the Church of Jesus Christ in this generation.
But O might we today begin to follow our Lord’s advice in Ephesians 6:18 to — pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. This admonition is then repeated in Jude — But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit (v.20).
The above pray in the Holy Spirit means for those of us who are slaves to Christ to be praying in line with God’s will. And as we begin to do so we wonder; what kind of harvest for the Father will our Lord Jesus have by the Spirit if we as the beloved children of God pray like the psalmist: “Lord, please open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in Your Scripture.”
August 30, 2008
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The following comes from Contemporary Theology…“an overview of theology over the last 50 years. It deals mainly with pinpointing certain theological trends and the most influential and well known movements of the day” by Dr. C. Matthew McMahon. This is offered as a bit of a follow up concerning what I talk about in the Apprising Ministries article Rob Bell And Karl Barth.
As you read through this overview you should be able to see where the postevangelicalismhas been heading. The views of neo-orthodoxy are quite obvious within the three major pillars of the Ecumenical Church of Deceit — the Purpose Driven Church, the Word Faith Church and most particularly the postliberal cult of the Emergent Church.
Neo-orthodoxy
Neo-orthodoxy, as it was known in North America, was also known as “crisis” or “dialectical” theology in Europe. Most church historians see the founding father of neo-orthodoxy as Karl Barth. Barth was a prolific writer who’s magnum opus is known as Church Dogmatics (which was over 8,000 pages long). He has received mixed reviews among theologians, but among conservative orthodoxy his neo-orthodoxy is quite heretical.
Barth attempted to set the Gospel in a new language which could be understood by contemporary society because the old transmission of the Gospel was inadequate. Barth taught universal election, and that the Word of God only becomes the Word of God through the work of the Holy Spirit to each individual in a subjective way.
Emil Brunner may also be seen as a co-founder of neo-orthodox theology. He is known for his “crisis theology” which taught that a turning point in history occurs when God in Christ confronts humanity. A person then became aware that there are two roads to take, one toward God and life and the other away from God and toward death. Brunner, like Barth, rejected both liberalism and transitional orthodoxy.
Brunner’s work, called Dogmatics, was compiled before his death in 1966. As with Barth, Brunner believed God did not reveal Himself through Scripture, but through experience with Scripture. The ultimate revelation of God is found in the person of Jesus Christ and the Bible is where Christ meets the reader. The Bible, then is not the infallible or inerrant word of God, but an “opportunity” to meet the reader as he reads.
Other important neo-orthodox figures include Reinhold Niebuhr and Dietrich Bonhoffer. Niebuhr may be regarded as the first American neo-orthodox pioneer. His theology is expressed in his two volume work The Nature and Destiny of man. Bonhoeffer was arrested by the German Nazi’s and sent to the Tegel Military Prison outside Berlin. It was during this period that he wrote what later became Letters and Papers from Prison.
He emphasized “religionless Christianity”. He was executed just before the camp was liberated, but had a great impact on Europeans and American theology through his written works, such as the Cost of Discipleship which antithesized cheap grace from real grace.
Neo-orthodox theology teaches that the Bible is not the Word of God in that it is a series of true verbal propositions to be believed. Rather, it is an existential encounter with Jesus. There is no standard of truth and no absolutes. Jesus is God and Jesus is not God are equally true.
God is represented as wholly other. He is completely transcendent and unknowable. Neo-orthodoxy teaches universalism, and sees Jesus as God’s divine messenger of love to the masses. Neo-orthodoxy also rejects the Fall (following Pelagius) demonstrating that people are not sinners when they are born. Rather, they become sinful when they sin.
…republished with permission from An Overview of Contemporary theology by:
Rev. C. Matthew McMahon, Ph.D.
Pastor of Christ Covenant Reformed Presbyterian Church,
www.christcovenantrpc.org
See also:
THE EMERGING CHURCH SOWING ITS NEO-ORTHODOX CONFUSION ON SCRIPTURE
August 30, 2008
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“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.”
“A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.” (Matthew 7:15-20, ESV)
Once Upon A Time There Was No Emerging Church
Looking at the red sky this morning here’s is a short article that gets at the fetid root of this issue of the Emergent Church aka Emerging Church, which is a cult of repainted liberal theology i.e. a postliberalism. Anyone even remotely following Apprising Ministries and my on-going analysis of this Emergent attack on sola Scriptura will be aware of the grave spiritual danger—toward which it is undoubtedly taking everyone who will follow it.
As a matter of fact I continue to be in direct dialogue when possible with well known sources within the Emergent Church in order to better understand it. And yes, we are well aware that—as maybe I am, maybe I’m not—EC pastor Mark Driscoll puts it, “the more liberal-minded Emergent team, does not speak for every church in the ‘conversation.’ ” Well, just the same however, in his book A Generous Orthodoxy Emergent Guru Brian McLaren explains:
“In the late 1990’s, I was invited to become part of Leadership Network’s Young Leader Networks (YLN), also briefly known as the TerraNova Project. I was grandfathered in as the network’s ‘old guy,’…I met with Doug Pagitt to discuss our future plans.”
Please know that the discernment ministry Herescope has some excellent articles that uncover the real truth about the actual beginnings of the Emerging Church through Leadership Network, which is our main concern here. Note also the involvement, from the very beginning, of Doug Pagitt—who just happens to be pastor of Solomon’s Porch, which is also the home church for another Emergent Church leader Tony Jones. Dr. John MacArthur has rightly pointed out Pagitt’s own universalism here. And below is a video showing you what Pagitt’s particular Emerging Church is like.
Despite the fact that so many, many of the leaders and people in this movement have such a low view of Scripture—neo-orthodox at best—I will still show you from the Bible what the heart of the matter is. The involvement of men like Brian McLaren and Doug Pagitt, who in my opinion have long ago left the faith—if they were ever even in it—is the rotten and poisonous root from which this emerging insurgence against Biblical authority under discussion originally sprang. And thus it would put this Emerging Church movement into the category of “a diseased tree.”
I’m also sure there are many sincere Christians who have become involved in the Emergent/Emerging Church who do wish to make church relevant to this definitely pagan and allegedly “postmodern” nation. However, the truth is that if you are Emergent/Emerging then you would have already fallen for its two main lies. The first is that those of us who preach the Bible don’t attempt at all to make the Gospel somewhat relative to our culture. And the second is buying the idea of postmodernism itself; because you need to understand that it’s simply an artificial category of philosophy today, which one then chooses to believe in. In truth it’s really a reimagined relativism.
But regardless, the historic witness from the Bible itself tells us in our opening text that Christ Jesus of Nazareth unambiguously told us —“A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.” Today I strongly urge those of you who are among the above sincere Christians following Emergent Hollow Men e.g. Rob Bell to humbly ask the Jesus, which you say you follow, what the Lord means by the statement I just quoted from Him above. And then let Christ Jesus lead you away from this seditious Emergent rebellion against the Word of the one true and living God.
See also:
THE EMERGING CHURCH SOWING ITS NEO-ORTHODOX CONFUSION ON SCRIPTURE
DOUG PAGITT SAYS JOHN MACARTHUR PREACHES A PERVERTED GOSPEL
DOUG PAGITT OF THE EMERGENT CHURCH TALKS ABOUT THE “DISTURBED” PARENTING OF JOHN PIPER AND HOW PIPER IS IN THE DARK AGES
TONY JONES: “JOHN MACARTHUR IS A SOFT GNOSTIC”
IS TONY JONES A CHRISTIAN?
August 30, 2008
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August 30, 2008
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HT: Symphony of Scripture
August 30, 2008
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What did Jesus accomplish on the Cross? Some say He came to make it possible to be saved. Others say that He came to save every single person who ever lived from Hell. What does the Bible say, though? What was Jesus’s mission as told by the Bible? Listen to Jim McClarty explain from the Scriptures what Jesus accomplished.
http://www.salvationbygrace.org/
Author: LaneCh
Keywords: jesus cross atonement jim mcclarty
Added: August 30, 2008
August 30, 2008
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This link is further proof of the Satanic blasphemy of the “ministry” of John Crowder.
ShareThis
August 30, 2008
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11 Minute mark –
HERE.
1. In I Cor.1:2-5, Paul addressed his audience as “sanctified in Christ”. So are they sanctified or carnal? In I Cor.2, Paul divides men into “natural” and “spiritual,” i.e. un saved and saved. By labeling some Christians as “carnal,” Paul would be introducing a third classification of humans. Furthermore, this would violate every other presentation in Scripture that there are only two classes of people: children of God or children of wrath.
2. The new covenant of salvation includes two inseparable blessings at salvation: justification and sanctification. Carnal Christianity teaches you will be justified upon conversion, but sanctification is optional.
3. The Bible presents two types of faith: saving faith and spurious (false) faith (Lk. 8:13). Carnal Christianity does not recognize spurious faith. What a false assurance we allow the unregenerate to possess if we allow them to think their faith is valid when the Bible teaches it might be a false conversion.
4. Carnal Christianity excludes a necessary component of salvation: repentance. The unconverted sinner can just “ask Jesus into his heart” with no requirement to forsake sin.
5. How does a person know he is saved? Fruit in keeping with repentance. We are told to examine ourselves to see if we are in the truth. What a beautiful gift to the believer. If we can be carnal, how can we know we are saved? Carnal Christianity robs us of assurance.
6. Carnal Christianity may be a relatively new name, but it is merely a new moniker for an old false teaching: anti-nomianism. “Should we go on sinning that grace might more abound?” Carnal Christianity says, “Sure.”
7. “Carnal Christian teaching is the mother of many second work-of-grace errors in that it depreciates the Biblical conversion experience by implying that the change in the converted sinner may amount to little or nothing.” Dr. Reisinger goes on to point out that a second step is required to make a man a “spiritual Christian.”
8. Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior, right? (Lk.2:11) Carnal Christianity divides Jesus and allows Him to be Savior but not Lord.
End of post.
August 30, 2008
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In the following linked audio presentation, Ingrid Schlueter and I took some time to discuss the importance of avoiding the scorner while we expose his scorn. See here for the Slicecast link. What follows is an article that I wrote in the past that I used during the program to keep my thoughts focused. Enjoy!
Introduction: I am an incurable God lover and a bi-vocational pastor. This means that unlike many pastors, I get to daily rub shoulders with unbelievers in my secular employment. I am happily married to the most beautiful woman that God ever created, and I am the father of two of the most precious children that God ever knit in a woman’s womb.
With that being said, I am very familiar with the distractions the enemy can send towards believers who are on the front lines of contending for the faith (Jude 3). Whether you are working in a church or are ministering to people some other way, you will inevitably face nasty and wicked opposition. It is at that point that you must know how to respond in order to avoid reflecting the very behaviors that the opposers are dishing out at you. In other words, you must keep your eyes fixed upon Jesus, His gospel, and remind yourself what your biblical ministry focus is, no matter what kind of work you are doing for the Lord. You will have many distracters. Satan is happy to send a hundred fools your way to keep you busy and distracted instead of getting being busy doing the work of the Kingdom by teaching and edifying those who will listen. You have to let the Sanballat and Tobias’ of the world do their thing while you continue to do the Great Commission and edify the body of Christ. Just like Nehemiah said in response to Sanballat and Geshem’s message in chapter 6:3, “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?”
You have to realize that because your own personal time and energy is limited, you must seek to serve the Lord efficiently – i.e., “making the most of your time, because the days are evil” (Eph. 5:16). I do this in some of the following ways:
- Spend plenty of time in prayer. Schedule times away from the busyness of the world to get out in God’s creation and decompress a little bit (i.e., a family farm, a park, the mountains, etc.). This gives you time to reflect upon the goodness and grace of the Almighty and also teaches you how to think deeply upon the things of the Lord and allows you to petition Him without undue distractions such as e-mails from atheists and heretics. Ninety-nine percent of the time you spend responding to a heretic should really be spent in prayer and meditation upon the attributes of God as revealed in His written word.
- Read the experimental works of the Puritans. In other words, read the people who drank deeply from the well of God’s truth and learned how to apply that truth to their daily lives. Many people wonder how the Puritans produced such a huge volume of literature without computers in such a short period of time. The answer is because they weren’t distracted by the misinformation superhighway, blog wars, Jesus junk, ESPN, and other vain idols. They also knew what their biblical responsibilities were both in the community and in the family because they were usually sitting under solid Biblical teaching.
- Aggressively limit your internet time. This includes answering and sending e-mails and writing blog articles. Learn how to write in such a way that you say the same thing by using fewer words. Obviously, there are times when you need to be more detailed. Different people have different time constraints and different ministry venues that warrant more detailed word. Nevertheless, if you’re spending more time messing around with your computer than you are with your family, you will eventually put yourself in a situation where you will be sinning against God and your family because you are neglecting to develop the normal and necessary social interaction with them and most importantly, you are not using that interaction time as a means to teach them about the things of God in accordance with Ephesians 6:4 and Deuteronomy 6:7!
- Make sure you are attending a church that is feeding you the word. We should not be getting our primary spiritual feeding from radio preachers and bible teachers. That is not the God-ordained method of building up the Body of Christ. I can’t mutually minister to the staff of Grace to You (as great as that ministry is). My advice is that if you can’t find a doctrinally healthy and well-balanced church then you should seek to plant a church or move where one is located. It’s better to be equipped and serve Jesus the rest of your days than starve and become frustrated and discouraged in your walk with Christ because you lack the necessary body life (cf. Eph. 4:11-15).
Let me give you an idea of how I sinned against my family fighting heretics and the precious repentance that God granted me in that process:
2001 – 1st miscarriage the week of 9-11 (9-16-01) – I essentially neglected my wife with the excuse that I wanted to do apologetics and evangelism by wrangling with atheists, cultists, and other heretics.
2002 – 2nd miscarriage (9-13-02) – I was pursuing my first pastorate at this point and it was a tough spiritual battle due to the unregenerate in the church kicking against the truth and I was so busy fighting them that I didn’t minister to my wife appropriately.
2004 – 1st child born in February
I learned my lesson in January 2006 after having a public debate with an atheist in late 2005 and realizing that since 2001, I had essentially forsaken my family and used the gospel as an excuse to do it. I knew that God would never ask me to break one command to keep another and so I immediately repented of my sins.
2007 – Jan (1 miscarriage), July (twins miscarried).
2008 – 2nd child born July 1st!
There is no question that it is absolutely necessary to expose false teaching in order to protect the body of Christ (Jude 3; Titus 1:9). Sometimes we grow weary in well doing; especially when it seems like we’re the only ones who are warning people against false teaching while the evangelical ship is sinking into apostasy like it’s on a greased pole. But, we must stay encouraged knowing that there are seven-thousand who have not yet bowed the knee to Ba’al and we must remember that we are not the only ones who see the lies, the deception, and the “strong delusion” that God has sent to many people (2 Thess. 2:11). Keeping away from the many hindrances and distractions that come our way will go a long way towards helping us spend the much needed time encouraging other brothers and sisters who need a well of water in a dry and weary land that has a famine of the word of God.
Galatians 6:9 Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.
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