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“I feel persuaded that false doctrine, inasmuch as it touches God’s sovereignty, is always an object of divine jealousy. Let me indicate especially the doctrines of free-will. I know there are some good men who hold and preach them, but I am persuaded that the Lord must be grieved with their doctrine though he forgives [...]
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As I have mentioned in other posts, I am re-reading the biography of William Tyndale by David Daniell. I am doing this because I believe God desires that I do so. I read it over a year ago, but this time I am picking up a great deal more about many different things than I did before. Through this I have seen that there are many parallels between our time and that of the Reformation. One of those parallels is how ungodly and cruel professing Christians can be. Another is how man-made religion has become accepted as Christianity while genuine Christians are few and far between. These genuine believers see the fallacies of the false, man-focused religion going on in their churches. Many have left. Others stay and fight it out.
(click here to read this post)
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Coming out on the heels of “Christian” singer Ray Boltz who made a rather shocking announcement in Washington Blade: Gay And Lesbian News, Entertainment, Politics And Opinion that he is unrepentant in his practice of the sin of homosexuality Apprising Ministries brings to your attention in this piece that American Idol favorite and professing Christian Clay Aiken speaks out about the rumor he is gay.
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Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
(1 Corinthians 6:9-10)
Unrepentant Homosexual Practice Is As Much A Sin As Adultery
Apparently so; over at Slaughter of the Sheep we read:
In People Magazine’s newest issue, Clay Aiken is on the cover with his infant son. The headline accompanying the cover says, “Yes, I’m gay.” Big shocker, right? That headline isn’t what drew my attention. People magazine refers to Aiken as a born-again Christian. (Online source)
This coming on the heels of “Christian” singer Ray Boltz who made a rather shocking announcement in Washington Blade: Gay And Lesbian News, Entertainment, Politics And Opinion that he is unrepentant in his practice of the sin of homosexuality:
He’d visited the mostly gay Jesus Metropolitan Community Church in Indianapolis and liked Rev. Jeff Miner, so he decided to give him a copy of his 1997 holiday recording, “A Christmas Album”… Boltz brought the Christmas CD with him to MCC-Indianapolis on that cold, sunny December 2007 day and slipped it to Miner on his way out with a note taped to it on which he’d jotted his e-mail address…
Ostensibly it was an innocuous thing to do, but for Boltz it was a big step. It eventually led to him opening up to Miner, one of the first times anybody outside Boltz’s circle of family and friends knew his long-kept secret: Ray Boltz is gay. “I didn’t make a big deal of it,” Boltz says during a 90-minute phone interview from his home in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. “But I was trembling. I’d kind of had two identities since I moved to Florida where I kind of had this other life and I’d never merged the two lives. This was the first time I was taking my old life as Ray Boltz, the gospel singer, and merging it with my new life. Emotionally it was kind of a big deal to think about that.” (Online source)
Which brings us back to Aiken. In the article “Clay Aiken Speaks Out About Rumors” we read:
Clay Aiken is no longer the charmingly awkward, self-confessed “dork” who came in second on 2003’s second season of American Idol. He has a new look, a new album – A Thousand Different Ways, which hit stores Tuesday – and some new, hard-won wisdom. “I learned this year that you can’t make people like you or care about you or love you,” the 27-year-old, Southern Baptist-bred singer, whose 2003 debut album Measure of a Man sold 2.6 million copies, tells PEOPLE in an exclusive interview. (Online source)
And one of these “rumors” which Aiken speaks out about is found in a piece called ”Clay Aiken: I’m a Gay Dad”. There we’re told:
Following the Aug. 8 birth of his son Parker, singer Clay Aiken is following through on a promise he made to himself as a new dad: to publicly acknowledge that he’s gay. “It was the first decision I made as a father,” Aiken, 29, tells the upcoming issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday. “I cannot raise a child to lie or to hide things. I wasn’t raised that way, and I’m not going to raise a child to do that.”
Aiken says he expects the news may overwhelm some of his fans. “Whether it be having a child out of wedlock, or whether it be simply being a homosexual, it’s going to be a lot,” said Aiken, who returned to Broadway last week as Sir Robin in Monty Python’s Spamalot. He adds that he hopes his fans “know that I’ve never intended to lie to anybody at all. … But if they leave, I don’t want them to leave hating me”…
The born-again Christian singer also reveals how he told his mother Faye he’s gay four years ago. After dropping off his younger brother Brett, who was being deployed to Iraq, at Camp Lejeune, “I started crying in the car,” Aiken remembers. “It was dark. I was sitting there, thinking to myself. I don’t know why I started thinking about it … I just started bawling. She made me pull over the car and it just came out.” (Online source)
Expel The Immoral From Among Other Christians
As a pastor my concern in bringing this out is not in any way meant to belittle Boltz or Aiken. Rather it is to show you another of the effects of the Emerging rebellion against Sola Scriptura. Here we have two men who claim to be Christians but still they remain content to be in open, unrepentant, and blatant defiance of God’s Word. And yet it appears rather obvious that we have not heard the last of these kinds of expressions of Christianity which contradict Bibilcal teaching.
Sadly, the growing acceptance of the Emerging Church within evangelicalism has much to do with this wrong kind of tolerance for the sin of homosexuality within the Christian Church. Once “churches” like Metropolitan Community Church were rightly largely outside even the mainline denominations. But as the Cult of Liberal Theology killed more and more of these groups we have come to see an acceptance of unrepentant sinners grow to the point where the Episcopal Church even put them in charge of other churches as evidenced by Practicing Homosexual Bishop Gene Robinson: “This Is Where God Is Leading The Whole Church”.
What blasphemy it is to say that God is leading His Church to embrace what He has clearly called sinful behavior. And it gets worse than Robinson’s mere speculation; O yeah, we even have the “gay-affirming” Emerging Church “pastor” Jay Bakker who shares his direct revelation from the Lord on the subject as Bakker’s “god” told him personally that the practice of homosexuality is no longer sin:
“The more I follow grace, the more I’m drawn to him [God], the more I’m willing to stand up for people being persecuted,” says Jay today. “This sounds so churchy, but I felt like God spoke to my heart and said ‘[homosexuality] is not a sin.’ ” (Online source)
But such is the sad state of affairs in the Emergent Church and postevangelicalism. As a matter of fact, in a phone conversation Tony Jones personally confirmed to me he stands by the following quote I use in Tony Jones And The Emergent Church: “Christian” Gay Is A-Ok:
We have everything you could imagine. We have Texas Baptists who don’t let women preach, and we have lesbian mainline pastors in New England… We haven’t yet found that there’s anything that justifies us breaking fellowship with somebody else who loves and is trying to follow Jesus.
Kind of sounds like ever pragmatic Rick Warren doesn’t it. AM has shown Warren accepts apostate Roman Catholicism as a legitimate expression of the historic orthodox Christian faith in “Bible Scholar” Rick Warren Reversing The Reformation and he’s also on record emphatically declaring: “I see absolutely zero reason in separating my fellowship from anybody” (Online source). These people-pleasers sound good but the Lord has already told us there’s also a good reason why; they are speaking from the flesh — from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them (1 John 4:5).
Men and women, most certainly we need to be praying that God would grant these Ray Boltz and Clay Aiken repentance. Also their rebellious actions indicate they likely may not be regenerated so may the Lord have mercy upon them and save them. However, until such time as they confess and renounce their sin the proper Biblical admonition is the same for these two men as it was for the fornicator in Corinth; they should not be allowed any fellowship within the Christian community until they have repented of their willful sin:
It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that does not occur even among pagans: A man has his father’s wife. And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have been filled with grief and have put out of your fellowship the man who did this? Even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. And I have already passed judgment on the one who did this, just as if I were present. When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.
Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.
I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked man from among you.”
(1 Corinthians 5:1-13)
Or maybe Rick Warren, Tony Jones, and the postliberal Emerging Church of postevangelicalism really are all smarter than the Apostle Paul, huh. By the way; whatever happened to the man above who was expelled from fellowship with other Christians? It might be worth your time to look it up and see what happens when the Church actually does things God’s way.
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Brannon Howse just sent me this clip regarding the battle over God in the public square.
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Another depressing statistic about sex selection abortions in the United States just hit the email inbox. I’m not even going to link to it except to say that the Christian ethic of life that once permeated our culture where abortion was considered shameful and a criminal act is so far gone. We are officially polytheistic now and the pagan nations have brought their pagan ways to America. In Asian communities in America, it is reported that there is a growing gender imbalance among babies as female children are being aborted in favor of males. This isn’t in India or China, it’s America.
Instead I would like to mention a story that shows what the love of Christ can do in the life of a small child. Meet Tamara Kay. Premature and missing one of her lower legs, this baby was abandoned in the Russian forest to die, but her cries were heard by two women picking mushrooms and she was rescued. The Horton family heard a waiting child feature and adopted this precious girl several years ago. Tamara is now a young lady who is being raised to love the Lord who saved her both then and for eternity. You can read more about her and what she is involved in here at her family’s website. This is what love can do in a life. Satan loves death, but where the Lord is there is life and hope.
This photo was taken shortly after I got to meet little Tamara for the first time. I love to tell this story often because it is such a picture of our own helpless state and what God did for us. We were helpless in sin, just as helpless as this baby girl buried under leaves–a tiny scrap of humanity with nobody to hear her cries. But God. Just as God reached down and intervened to save this life, he reached down and saved us. Christ comes to each of us in our helplessness and sin. His atoning blood washed away our sin and made a way for us to be restored to a right relationship with our Creator. It’s a miracle, friends, and that is the old, old story we should never tire of telling.
From the door of an orphanage to the house of the King
No longer an outcast, a new song I can sing
From rags to riches, from the weak to the strong
I’m not worthy to be here but thank God I belong
I’m so glad I’m a part of the family of God
I’ve been washed in the fountain
And cleansed by His blood
Joint heirs with Jesus as we travel this sod
For I’m a part of the family
The family of God
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SHANDONG, China, Sept. 24 /Christian Newswire/ — A closed-door trial will be held for Pastor Zhang Zhongxin at 9 a.m. on September 26 at the labor camp in Shandong province where he is serving a two-year sentence of reeducation-through- labor. The ruling will determine whether this sentence, imposed upon Zhang on July 6 of this year, was an appropriate punishment. Pastor Zhang’s attorneys and relatives have been banned from meeting with him or reviewing his files, because authorities claim Pastor Zhang is suspected of endangering state security. If the court finds Zhang innocent of the crimes against him, the reeducation sentence will be repealed. However, if the court rules in favor of the sentencing, Zhang will remain in labor camp until 2010.
Christian defense attorneys Li Fangping and Zhang Jianfeng continue to try to meet with Pastor Zhang. ChinaAid will continue to monitor the trial.
Issued by China Aid, September 24, 2008
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The doctrine of election is regularly a cause for controversy within Christian circles. Particulars of this doctrine cause debate even within groups that hold to the same general school of thought. An example of this can be seen in the debate earlier this week between Calvinists concerning the relationship of God’s love to His electing purpose, found on the Pyromaniacs blog. Christians, of course, seek to avoid an unhealthy interest in controversies (1 Tim 6:4) and to avoid foolish controversies (Tit 3:9); therefore, many evangelicals have concluded that it is better to avoid this controversial doctrine. [This is a misapplication, I would argue, of the verses just mentioned.] Those avoiding this doctrine imagine that they are dispensing with a point of theology that is merely cerebral- something that may be interesting to scholars, but that does not effect a Christian’s daily life. What is often overlooked is the inherent usefulness of this doctrine evidenced by the way it is presented in Scripture. At the end of Romans 8, for example, the doctrine of election is presented as the basis for a believer’s assurance of salvation- that, despite the turmoil of day-by-day experience, the one who has faith in Jesus can live with confidence that he or she will be preserved by God eternally.
Churches in the Southern Baptist denomination have, as a whole, tended to de-emphasize the doctrine of election, and yet remain committed to the doctrine of eternal security (the teaching that the one who is truly born again, as evidenced by sincere faith, need never fear God’s ultimate rejection). Without the foundational doctrine of election, Southern Baptist churches have had to rest the full weight of eternal security on the personal experience of faith.
Contiguous with the developments outlined above, Southern Baptists (and other evangelical denominations) have begun to regularly utilize the Sinner’s Prayer in evangelism. When presenting the gospel, the example of the New Testament is that we should urge listeners to repent of their sins and to trust in Christ. For those who have not been raised in sound churches, these are alien concepts, and so it seems beneficial to present a model on how to call on the name of the Lord in repentance and faith. From this impulse, the Sinner’s Prayer was born. After the gospel has been faithfully presented [and I would argue that the gospel presentations I was taught in Southern Baptist churches were indeed faithful to Scripture- substantially the same as what Mark Dever presents HERE, though even more detailed], then the listener is asked if he or she desires to repent of sin and trust in Jesus; if he or she says ‘yes,’ then the listener is led to repeat a prayer that summarizes the main points of the gospel presentation, applying the gospel to the individual [i.e., instead of saying, "The Bible says that all have sinned," the listener is led to pray, "I confess that I am a sinner," etc].
As presented above, the idea of the Sinner’s Prayer does not necessarily sound like a bad thing; I believe that the practice of the Sinner’s Prayer arose out of genuine concern for sinners and for the fact that there is an objective truth to the gospel. But, as I reflected on this over a number of years, something about the entire gospel presentation leading up to the moment of guiding someone in the Sinner’s Prayer seemed strange to me. For it became apparent that the activity of leading someone in this prayer was considered the most important part of evangelism. “If the Sinner’s Prayer is so important,” I reasoned, “then why do we not find this in the Bible? Why, when we see the apostles presenting the gospel in Acts, for instance, do we not read that they led their hearers in something like the Sinner’s Prayer? Why is there no text in the New Testament that tells us the exact words that should be prayed in the Sinner’s Prayer, so that we can be sure we are doing it right?” These questions were what started me on a journey of theological reflection that has resulted in my becoming more Reformed in my beliefs concerning salvation.
The problems with the Sinner’s Prayer are compounded when joined to the concept that our eternal security is finally based on the personal experience of faith. For, in the Southern Baptist circles in which I was raised, the sincere praying of the Sinner’s Prayer was closely identified with the personal experience of faith. So that when someone considered whether he or she was truly, eternally saved from God’s wrath, he or she was reminded of whether the Sinner’s Prayer had been prayed with sincerity. This situation leads to at least two discernible, negative results. First, I have spoken with many people who are leading lives entirely contrary to God’s Word, yet they are sure that they are saved from God’s Wrath because they have sincerely prayed the Sinner’s Prayer at some point in the past; in other words, they have a false assurance of salvation. Second, those who are more spiritually sensitive and realize something of the deceitfulness of their own hearts live in constant doubt of their salvation, considering the fact that they might be wrong about their own sincerity when saying the Prayer, or that the Prayer may have been worded incorrectly and thus be doctrinally unacceptable to God. In his sermon on election that I linked in a previous post, Dr. Russell Moore gives a great, personal illustration of this second negative result:
I remember growing up in a congregation in which every single time that a visiting revival preacher would come by and talk about praying the Sinner’s Prayer with sincerity in your heart, I would go back home and wonder, “Did I have enough sincerity in my heart the time I prayed it the first time?” and I’d pray it again. And every time that I would hear the Sinner’s Prayer worded a different way, I would re-word it that way, “Lord, I know that I’m a sinner, and my sin separates me from You…” and I would word it exactly the way that evangelist had worded it, and I would try to scrunch up all the sincerity I could possibly have, and I would end it, not just with one, “In Jesus’ name,” but with several: “in Jesus’ name, in Jesus’ name, in Jesus’ name…” and somehow that sincerity is just going to hit in there and God was going to recognize it.
Dr. Moore also presented how the doctrine of election is the solution for the turmoil mentioned above:
My problem [in the moment I was fearfully praying the Sinner's Prayer for the umpteenth time] is, that I’m not recognizing and seeing what God is saying here [in Romans 8:26-9:6a]. He is saying that God wants you here [at this point of crying out to Him for salvation]. God is bringing you here. You are not here by accident. You are here because God has a purpose and God has a plan, and God is going to continue that plan to the end.
The one who is concerned over his or her eternal destiny should not look to his or her own sincerity, nor to the form of a scripted prayer not found in the Bible. The one who is aware of his or her sins and seeks freedom from these sins, and pardon from God’s Wrath, must look to God, who delights in justifying the ungodly. The sinner who, like the prodigal son, comes to himself, realizing his sins and desiring to serve God rather than sin, can expect to find God running to him as a loving father, rejoicing to embrace His lost child. The sinner coming to Christ in faith does not need to fear God’s rejection, because Jesus said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him” (John 6:44 ESV). This truth is foundational to the doctrine of election, a doctrine which gives us great hope- a hope based in what God has done, is doing, and will do for His elect- so that we are moved to worship him more deeply.
-Andrew Lindsey
End of post.
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Apprising Ministries brings you the prophetic words of Dr. Walter Martin (1928-1989), founder of the Christian Research Institute and the original “Bible Answer Man.” Here from his lecture on The Cult of Liberal Theology circa 1987. This important message is available at Walter Martin Religious InfoNet and thoroughly exposes the theologically rotten roots that are even now slithering into mainstream evangelicalism underneath the postliberal Emerging Church of postevangelicalism.
Following are the major theologians of what was also known as modern theology and who infected the professors who would in turn infect leaders today within the Emergent Church, which is itself a cult of a new postmodern i.e. post-liberal theology.
So if you really want to know the Truth about the theological poison, which is right now seeping into the veins of the mainstream evangelical camp—largely through this Emerging Church—then listen to Dr. Martin. If not; well then, go ahead and be of good cheer because you just might actually have qualified yourself to become a leader within apostatizing evangelicalism.
Read these words and loudly weep because Martin’s warning would go unheeded:
There’s no such thing as a little bit pregnant. Got the message? No such thing as a little bit pregnant—you are, or you’re not. Well, there’s no such thing as a mild form of cancer; it’s cancer. You don’t get rid of it, you don’t deal with it, it gets you. And we have to deal with these things today; if we don’t, they’ll end up getting what’s left of the Church…
The form of godliness, but without the power; without the sound doctrine of Scripture. And what do we have today as the reigning school of [biblical] interpretation in Protestantism in our theological seminaries world-wide? I’ll tell you what it is: Bultmannian exegesis; named after Rudolph Bultmann, “the demythologizing of the Bible.”
And what did Dr. Bultmann teach, for forty-some years? He taught that you couldn’t rely upon any single thing—virtually—in the entire New Testament record; about Jesus Christ. It all had to be “demythologized,” and then the pieces put back together again. What does Paul say; “they will gather to themselves teachers who will tickle their ears, and the Truth of God will be turned into mythology.”
It’s here. The reigning school of American theologians has progressed from bad to worse. We only have to deal with Harry Emerson Fosdick in the 1920s; but then, it accelerated to Edwin Lewis, Nels F.S. Ferre, Reinhold Niebuhr, and on from Niebuhr to Paul Tillich, and crowned in Rudolph Bultmann. Not one single one of those men believed the historic doctrines of the Christian faith; but they were all the leading theologians of America.
[Episcopal] Bishop [John] A.T. Robinson cannot be unfrocked by the Anglican Church despite the fact that he is a living devil when it comes to Christian theology—denying everything and turning the faith of people into darkness. Do you know why they can’t unfrock A.T. Robertson; because [Episcopal leadership] is heretical as he is. Therefore they can’t touch him…
British theology was corrupted by German theology; by Friedrich Schleiermacher, Albrecht Ritschl, David Strauss. Finally [it moved] to the United States in Walter Rauschenbusch; and from there to Harry Emerson Fosdick, Nels Ferre, Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, Rudolph Bultmann—and the school that’s emerging from them today. Where do you think we got the “God is dead theology” from? From historic Christianity; from Christian seminaries?
You did not. You got it from a good, solid Baptist theological seminary known as Colgate-Rochester in New York, which was absolutely orthodox and which sold out to liberalism. And when it did, they embraced the theology of Paul Tillich and ended up with—God is dead. It was called at the time, “the gospel of Christian atheism.” Did you ever heard such linguistic nonsense in your life? The gospel of Christian atheism, T.J. Altizer, Emory University.
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The original Cult of Liberal Theology, centered on the self (mankind) as it is, it’s still around in the form of “Progressive Christians” such as Marcus Borg, would often point to the Sermon on the Mount while it very skillfully played the heartstrings of humans.
In this post built around a devotional from Oswald Chambers over at Apprising Ministries we look at the sad fact that today’s man-centered postevangelicalism with its Emerging rebellion against Sola Scriptura has now begun a deadly dance of deception with a neo-pietism fueled by the spurious Spiritual Formation of Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster and his spiritual twin ordained Southern Baptist minister Dallas Willard. A false spirituality which is itself rooted in the asceticism of apostate Roman Catholicism.
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I knew that headline would get your attention. Anyone planning to hit the Grand Avenue restaurants downtown in Milwaukee today at noon may want to make alternate lunch plans. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is planning a “human corpse” BBQ to make a point in defense of cows.
Milwaukee, Wis. — To protest the World Beef Expo taking place in West Allis this weekend, a PETA member wearing nothing but red and black body paint will lie on a “barbecue” with a “Meat Is Murder” banner hanging from it. PETA’s point? That all animals are made of flesh, bone, and blood, just as humans are, and that eating meat entails eating the corpse of an animal who was an individual with feelings, a family, and a distinct personality.
Awwww. Think of all those cow families missing a member tonight because you went to Arby’s. The pathos of the empty barn stall. I am going to have to go get a hanky, hold on…
How’s this for a quote from the brilliant minds at PETA.
“Flesh is flesh, and animals feel pain and suffer just as humans do,” says PETA spokesperson Ashley Byrne. “What revolts people about the idea of eating other humans should also apply to the idea of eating other animals.”
This is what happens when people smoke certain little brown cigarettes for too long. Listen, I love animals and am such a defender of abused animals that I once risked getting shot by Mexican thugs when I climbed a wire fence to get food and water to a starving dog pinned outside a warehouse down the street from where I lived. The poor thing was emaciated. I got the humane society to take the dog into the shelter. But to place animals at the level of human beings and to compare cow flesh to that of human beings is sick and more fruit of the collective insanity of those who reject that humans are made in the image of God.
Date: Friday, September 25
Time: 12 noon
Place: Grand Avenue Mall at the intersection of Third Street and Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee
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But if I say, “I will not remember Him, Or speak anymore in His name,” Then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire, Shut up in my bones; And I am weary of holding it in, And I cannot endure it.
(Jeremiah 20:9)
Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism Leads To Reimagined Neo-Gnostic Asceticism
The original Cult of Liberal Theology, centered on the self (mankind) as it is, it’s still around in the form of “Progressive Christians” such as Marcus Borg, would often point to the Sermon on the Mount while it very skillfully played the heartstrings concerning what someone like Emergent Church Guru Brian McLaren refers to as “global problems.” Apprising Ministries has no quibble with that term because they are legitimate problems and they are global. Our difference is in our approach to soteriology and how to deal with said global problems.
What I draw your attention to here is the grave danger that your youth are in spiritually as they are thrown to Emerging Church icons and dreamers e.g. like Rob Bell and his friend Emerging Church Pastor Doug Pagitt who downplay and even obscure the genuine Gospel with its regeneration of the Holy Spirit. Today I do warn you in the Spirit that you had best soon come to recognize this time in which you are now living or you too will be swept away in these rapidly accelerating deceptions.
The sad fact is that today’s man-centered postevangelicalism with its Emerging rebellion against Sola Scriptura has now begun a deadly dance of deception with a neo-pietism fueled by the spurious Spiritual Formation of Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster and his spiritual twin ordained Southern Baptist minister Dallas Willard. A false spirituality which is itself rooted in the asceticism of apostate Roman Catholicism.
Simply, asceticism refers to exercizes and practices which a religious person puts themselves through that are thought to bring the body under subjection in a pursuit of more supposed spiritual purity. The following from Introduction to the New Testament by D.A. Carson and Douglas Moo shows you that the Apostle Paul was even dealing with this kind of wrong teaching in the Book of Colossians:
The false teachers interposed a barrier between God and God’s people. They thought of elemental spirits that stood in the way and permitted access to God only by the path of asceticism. In the face of all such claims, Paul stresses the supremacy of Christ, who is “the image of the invisible God,” the one who brought creation about and holds it together, supreme over creation, preeminent in everything. And together with all this, he is “the head of the body, the church,” the one who made peace by the blood he shed on the cross (1:15-20). This combination of the greatness of Christ and of his saving work for believing runs through the epistle. It makes nonsense of any claim that other powers are involved in bringing people to God or that meritorious practices like asceticism pave the way.
(Online source)
But the huge problem with this reimagined neo-gnostic Contemplative/Spirituality/Mysticism repainted as it is from heretical Roman Catholic monks and nuns is that those who practice this very wrong approach to Christian spirituality ultimately receive a deception that these so-called spiritual disciplines will make one more pleasing and/or closer to God. Often these fools will refer to it as a “mystical union with God.” The feeling of euphoria which comes with their unbiblcal Contemplative/Centering Prayer (CCP) convinces them that they are “bathed in God’s love” and “one” with Him and for many even with the creation itself.
Study the musings of these messed-up mystics as I have and you’ll also often see them refer to the Sermon of the Mount as the ideal mankind is to live by—the really deceived like the aformentioned Borg will see Buddha as teaching the same ideals as Christ. Borg even goes so far as to reimagine [read: redefine] what being “born again” means so he can include his idol the unregenerate pagan Buddha as you’ll see in Marcus Borg: Buddha Was Born Again. Long story short these mystics believe that their CCP i.e. transcendental meditation-lite for Christians brings an “enlightenment” allowing them to follow the ideals Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount.
The Life Of The Genuine Christian Is Impossible In The Flesh
This is why, for example, so many of these “Christian” mystic meditators today revere the Dali Lama, a seducing spirit currently one mere heartbeat from Hell. However, in the devotion below from Oswald Chambers he is dead on target when he echoes the teachings of his Master Christ Jesus — “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again” (John 3:3). Not an ideal at all; what our Creator has just told us is that unless one is regenerated i.e. a new creation he has zero chance of ever living up to the perfection of our holy God as outlined in the Sermon on the Mount:
“And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.”
(Matthew 5:41)The summing up of Our Lord’s teaching is that the relationship which He demands is an impossible one unless He has done a supernatural work in us. Jesus Christ demands that there be not the slightest trace of resentment even suppressed in the heart of a disciple when he meets with tyranny and injustice. No enthusiasm will ever stand the strain that Jesus Christ will put upon His worker, only one thing will, and that is a personal relationship to Himself which has gone through the mill of His spring-cleaning until there is only one purpose left – I am here for God to send me where He will. Every other thing may get fogged, but this relationship to Jesus Christ must never be.
The Sermon on the Mount is not an ideal, it is a statement of what will happen in me when Jesus Christ has altered my disposition and put in a disposition like His own. Jesus Christ is the only One Who can fulfil the Sermon on the Mount.
If we are to be disciples of Jesus, we must be made disciples supernaturally; as long as we have the dead set purpose of being disciples we may be sure we are not. “I have chosen you.” That is the way the grace of God begins. It is a constraint we cannot get away from; we can disobey it, but we cannot generate it. The drawing is done by the supernatural grace of God, and we never can trace where His work begins. Our Lord’s making of a disciple is supernatural. He does not build on any natural capacity at all. God does not ask us to do the things that are easy to us naturally; He only asks us to do the things we are perfectly fitted to do by His grace, and the cross will come along that line always. (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, 198, 199)
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But if I say, “I will not remember Him, Or speak anymore in His name,” Then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire, Shut up in my bones; And I am weary of holding it in, And I cannot endure it. (Jeremiah 20:9)
The Life Of The Genuine Christian Is Impossible In The Flesh
The original Cult of Liberal Theology, centered on the self (mankind) as it is, it’s still around in the form of “Progressive Christians” such as Marcus Borg, would often point to the Sermon on the Mount while it very skillfully played the heartstrings concerning what someone like Emergent Church Guru Brian McLaren refers to as “global problems.” Apprising Ministries has no quibble with that term because they are legitimate problems and they are global. Our difference is in our approach to soteriology and how to deal with said global problems.
What I draw your attention to here is the grave danger that your youth are in spiritually as they are thrown to Emerging Church icons and dreamers e.g. like Rob Bell and his friend Emerging Church Pastor Doug Pagitt who downplay and even obscure the genuine Gospel with its regeneration of the Holy Spirit. Today I do warn you in the Spirit that you had best soon come to recognize this time in which you are now living or you too will be swept away in these rapidly accelerating deceptions.
The sad fact is that today’s man-centered postevangelicalism with its Emerging rebellion against Sola Scriptura has now begun a deadly dance of deception with a neo-pietism fueled by the spurious Spiritual Formation of Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster and his spiritual twin ordained Southern Baptist minister Dallas Willard. A false spirituality which is itself rooted in the asceticism of apostate Roman Catholicism.
Simply, asceticism refers to exercizes and practices which a religious person puts themselves through that are thought to bring the body under subjection in a pursuit of more supposed spiritual purity. The following from Introduction to the New Testament by D.A. Carson and Douglas Moo shows you that the Apostle Paul was even dealing with this kind of wrong teaching in the Book of Colossians:
The false teachers interposed a barrier between God and God’s people. They thought of elemental spirits that stood in the way and permitted access to God only by the path of asceticism. In the face of all such claims, Paul stresses the supremacy of Christ, who is “the image of the invisible God,” the one who brought creation about and holds it together, supreme over creation, preeminent in everything. And together with all this, he is “the head of the body, the church,” the one who made peace by the blood he shed on the cross (1:15-20). This combination of the greatness of Christ and of his saving work for believing runs through the epistle. It makes nonsense of any claim that other powers are involved in bringing people to God or that meritorious practices like asceticism pave the way. (Online source)
But the huge problem with this reimagined neo-gnostic Contemplative/Spirituality/Mysticism repainted as it is from heretical Roman Catholic monks and nuns is that those who practice this very wrong approach to Christian spirituality ultimately receive a deception that these so-called spiritual disciplines will make one closeer to God. Often these fools will refer to it as a “mystical union with God.” The feeling of euphoria which comes with their unbiblcal Contemplative/Centering Prayer (CCP) convinces them that they are “bathed in God’s love” and “one” with Him and for many even with the creation itself.
Study the musings of these messed-up mystics as I have and you’ll also often see them refer to the Sermon of the Mount as the ideal mankind is to live by—the really deceived like the formentioned Borg will see Buddha as teaching the same ideals as Christ. Borg even goes so far as to reimagine [read: redefine] what being “born again” means so he can include his idol the unregenerate pagan Buddha as you’ll see in Marcus Borg: Buddha Was Born Again. Long story short these mystics believe that their CCP i.e. transcendental meditation-lite for Christians brings an “enlightenment” allowing them to follow the ideals Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount.
This is why, for example, so many of these “Christian” mystic meditators today revere the Dali Lama, a seducing spirit currently one mere heartbeat from Hell. However, in the devotion below from Oswald Chambers he is dead on target when he echoes the teachings of his Master Christ Jesus — “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again” (John 3:3). Not an ideal at all; what our Creator has just told us is that unless one is regenerated i.e. a new creation he has zero chance of ever living up to the perfection of our holy God as outlined in the Sermon on the Mount:
“And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.” (Matthew 5:41)
The summing up of Our Lord’s teaching is that the relationship which He demands is an impossible one unless He has done a supernatural work in us. Jesus Christ demands that there be not the slightest trace of resentment even suppressed in the heart of a disciple when he meets with tyranny and injustice. No enthusiasm will ever stand the strain that Jesus Christ will put upon His worker, only one thing will, and that is a personal relationship to Himself which has gone through the mill of His spring-cleaning until there is only one purpose left – I am here for God to send me where He will. Every other thing may get fogged, but this relationship to Jesus Christ must never be.
The Sermon on the Mount is not an ideal, it is a statement of what will happen in me when Jesus Christ has altered my disposition and put in a disposition like His own. Jesus Christ is the only One Who can fulfil the Sermon on the Mount.
If we are to be disciples of Jesus, we must be made disciples supernaturally; as long as we have the dead set purpose of being disciples we may be sure we are not. “I have chosen you.” That is the way the grace of God begins. It is a constraint we cannot get away from; we can disobey it, but we cannot generate it. The drawing is done by the supernatural grace of God, and we never can trace where His work begins. Our Lord’s making of a disciple is supernatural. He does not build on any natural capacity at all. God does not ask us to do the things that are easy to us naturally; He only asks us to do the things we are perfectly fitted to do by His grace, and the cross will come along that line always. (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, 198, 199)
Click the post title to be taken to the source.
In this edition of the Fighting for the Faith radio program Chris Rosebrough exposes and Biblically critiques Rick Warren’s Roman Catholic version of the gospel which is no gospel at all! Listen carefully because Rick Warren makes Jesus’ forgiveness dependent upon you ‘Loving God With Your Whole Heart’. Rosebrough begins his Warren analysis at the 22:22 mark in the program but the entire program is well worth listening to.
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Stories like this have a surreal quality to them. It is incredible that these men have lost their jobs for daring to pray according to their consciences. Instead of praying in the name of their Savior, these ministers were supposed to pray generic, non-sectarian prayers.
“Oh, great generic, non-sectarian god who has no name, we don’t know who you are or anything, but we want you to bless this mess. We’re Americans, so we can’t give you a name cuz that would offend somebody. So that’s it for now. Amen.”
Hard to believe this is the same country to which a little band of Pilgrim’s came in their Mayflower so they could worship afreely according to their consciences.
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“Christine Narloch’s article Contemplative Prayer: Seducing Spirits and a Doctrine of Devils is brilliant, condensed, current, and connects all of the dots for doubters as to the truth behind contemplative prayer, its roots, false teachers promoting it such as Rick Warren and Richard Foster, Larry Crabb, Henry Blackaby, Bill Hybels, and Chuck Swindoll, Brennan Manning, and Ken Blanchard, and the unholy alliances connected with it. I have been meaning to commend and recommend Christine’s research and labor in our Lord for years, but could wait no longer because this subject is so urgent to address.” -James Sundquist, Director, Rock Salt Publishing
See CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER:SEDUCING SPIRITS AND A DOCTRINE OF DEVILS at Bible Study Notes
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Rowan Williams becomes first ever Anglican leader to accept visions of Virgin Mary as fact By Simon Caldwell Last updated at 9:01 PM on 24th September 2008
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, was today branded a ‘papal puppet’ after he became the first leader of the Church of England to accept visions of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes as historical fact.
He asserted that 18 visions of Our Lady allegedly experienced by Bernadette Soubirous in 1858 were true.
His words shocked millions of Protestants worldwide because they not only signified a break with Protestant teaching on the Virgin Mary but also Dr Williams’s personal acceptance of the Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which is explicitly linked to the apparitions.
Editor’s note: These apparitions are, no doubt, real…and they are, no doubt, demonic.
HT: Watcher’s Lamp
