May 11, 2009
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“True Christianity! Let us mind that word true. There is a vast quantity of religion current in the world which is not true, genuine Christianity. It passes muster, it satisfies sleepy consciences; but it is not good money. It is not the authentic reality that called itself Christianity in the beginning.
There are thousands of men and women who go to churches and chapels every Sunday and call themselves Christians. They make a profession of faith in Christ. Their names are in the baptismal register. They are reckoned Christians while they live. They are married with a Christian marriage service. They mean to be buried as Christians when they die. But you never see any fight about their religion! Of spiritual strife and exertion and conflict and self–denial and watching and warring they know literally nothing at all.
Such Christianity may satisfy man, and those who say anything against it may be thought very hard and uncharitable; but it certainly is not the Christianity of the Bible. It is not the religion which the Lord Jesus founded and His apostles preached. It is not the religion which produces real holiness. True Christianity is a fight.”
-J.C. Ryle, from the book Holiness
HT: Reformed Voices
May 11, 2009
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“True Christianity! Let us mind that word true. There is a vast quantity of religion current in the world which is not true, genuine Christianity. It passes muster, it satisfies sleepy consciences; but it is not good money. It is not the authentic reality that called itself Christianity in the beginning.
There are thousands of men and women who go to churches and chapels every Sunday and call themselves Christians. They make a profession of faith in Christ. Their names are in the baptismal register. They are reckoned Christians while they live. They are married with a Christian marriage service. They mean to be buried as Christians when they die. But you never see any fight about their religion! Of spiritual strife and exertion and conflict and self–denial and watching and warring they know literally nothing at all.
Such Christianity may satisfy man, and those who say anything against it may be thought very hard and uncharitable; but it certainly is not the Christianity of the Bible. It is not the religion which the Lord Jesus founded and His apostles preached. It is not the religion which produces real holiness. True Christianity is a fight.”
-J.C. Ryle, from the book Holiness
HT: Reformed Voices
May 11, 2009
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“True Christianity! Let us mind that word true. There is a vast quantity of religion current in the world which is not true, genuine Christianity. It passes muster, it satisfies sleepy consciences; but it is not good money. It is not the authentic reality that called itself Christianity in the beginning.
There are thousands of men and women who go to churches and chapels every Sunday and call themselves Christians. They make a profession of faith in Christ. Their names are in the baptismal register. They are reckoned Christians while they live. They are married with a Christian marriage service. They mean to be buried as Christians when they die. But you never see any fight about their religion! Of spiritual strife and exertion and conflict and self–denial and watching and warring they know literally nothing at all.
Such Christianity may satisfy man, and those who say anything against it may be thought very hard and uncharitable; but it certainly is not the Christianity of the Bible. It is not the religion which the Lord Jesus founded and His apostles preached. It is not the religion which produces real holiness. True Christianity is a fight.”
May 11, 2009
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Today it’s not uncommon to hear evangelicals crying “homophobia” when, based upon its clear condemnation in the Bible, someone speaks out in love concerning the sin of practicing homosexuality, which is sexual immorality with someone of the same sex.
The Bible teaches us that Jesus came to set the captives free from their sin. This post asks why is there no evangelical outrage when people Rob Bell remain silent while others in the Emerging Church are practicing such homopression of the precious gay, lesbian, bisexual, transexual, queer (GLBTQ) people for whom Jesus also died?
Why don’t they love the GLBTQ people enough to tell them the truth about their sexual sin?
May 11, 2009
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May 11, 2009
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Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. (Romans 1:22-27, ESV)
Those Who Claim To Be So Tolerant Are Really The Most Cold-Hearted Of All
Today it’s not uncommon to hear evangelicals crying “homophobia” when, based upon its clear condemnation in the Bible, someone like myself speaks out concerning the sin of practicing homosexuality. But I wonder: Where is the outrage against someone like Tony Jones of Emergence Christianity? You see Jones, who’s “theologian in residence” at Solomon’s Porch of Doug Pagitt,” is lying to people concerning homosexuality e.g. practicing lesbian, co-leader of Richmond Emergent Cohort, and GLBTQ advocate Adele Sakler when he says:
I now believe that GLBTQ can live lives in accord with biblical Christianity (at least as much as any of us can!) and that their monogamy can and should be sanctioned and blessed by church and state. (Online source, bold his)
So why aren’t people, who say they love Jesus, angry about Jones’ homopression of GLBTQ people by withholding God’s Gospel from them, and instead, oppressing them by leaving GLBTQ people in their sin? If someone loves truly loves someone else they will tell them the truth; and Jesus said to God the Father — “Thy Word is truth” (John 17:17, KJV). Yet how sad that Sakler tells the world that Emerging Church philosopher/theologian Peter Rollins, a friend of Emergent Church icon Rob Bell, was:
a HUGE part of my coming to terms with my sexuality and reconciling it with G-D. i am forever indebted to you, my dear friend. THANK YOU!
Adele (Online source)
And where is Bell’s most influential voice while the awful injustice of this homopression of GLBTQ people is being perpetrated? As you can see in the Apprising Ministries piece Where Does Rob Bell Stand Regarding The Practice Of Homosexuality? when an AM correspondent wrote his Mars Hill Bible Church all we received was a form letter which says nothing at all concerning this important Christian issue. Hmm, and here we thought Rob is supposed to be the champion for Jesus against social ills; then why the timid silence?
You may also recall that in Rob Bell hits Lexington and a Packed-Out House Christian scholar Ben Witherington, who’s definitely not one of thoseof questionable Christianity in the “cult” of so-called ODMs dreamed up by Rick Warren apologist Richard Abanes, told us about a li’l problem of:
ethics, which became very apparent tonight when Rob Bell was asked about homosexuality. His answers was evasive in part, and disturbing in other parts, and clearly unBiblical in other parts and in this he sounds like some other leaders in the Emergent Church movement. Some specifics should be mentioned.
First of all, Rob made the blanket statement that you have no moral authority to speak on this issue unless you have gay friends and understand their struggle. While I am all for having pastoral empathy with people and their struggles, on that showing, Paul should never have spoken on this issue at all. This comment by Rob is simply an unhelpful way of silencing important voices in a divisive conversation, and its not helpful. Indeed it goes against the whole M.O. of Rob himself, which is to honor other people’s views and beliefs and questions.
Secondly, Rob then makes an argument from silence which is in fact misleading. The argument is this— “Jesus never said anything about homosexuality”. This is not quite true. Jesus took all sorts of sexual sin very seriously, even adultery of the heart, as Rob admits, and so it is no surprise then that we find Jesus telling his disciples in Mt. 19 that they have only two legitimate options: 1) marital fidelity (with marriage being defined as a relationship between one man and one woman joined together by God which leads to a one flesh union), or 2) being a eunuch for the sake of the Kingdom. (Online source)
But apparently we’re just supposed to give Rob Bell a pass here. Why? Well, because he’s Rob; he’s so Biblical, and he’s cool and so loving, right. Wrong. Even the notorious heretical “Bishop” John Shelby Spong, a scholar slithering along the liberal lines of Living Spiritual Teacher and “Progessive Christian” scholar Marcus Borg, admits the Bible—God’s Word (and Jesus is God)—condemns the practice of homosexuality. Consider the following from a November 1989 edition of The John Ankerberg Show.
Spong says to Ankerberg:
Spong: But let me say that I do not disagree that homosexuality is condemned in Scripture. I do not agree with that.
Ankerberg: Yes, you’ve said that before.
Spong: I think that is obvious. It’s in Leviticus; it’s in the Sodom and Gomorrah story; it’s in the Pauline corpus at least, and probably some other places…
Ankerberg: All right, we’re…
Spong: The issue in my mind is not that. The issue is whether or not the people who lived at the time of the Bible and who wrote about homosexuality understood the scientific meaning of homosexuality. (Spong/Martin Debate on Sexual Ethics, transcript 9, 10, emphasis mine)
Lord willing, should He sustain me we’ll unpack that further another time. For now I will simply point out that the only way around what the Bible quite literally says about the practice of homosexuality, which is sexual immorality with someone of the same sex, is to dispute the doctrine of verbal, plenary inspiration of these writings. And to do so you must then deny 2 Timothy 3:16 — All [not just some] Scripture is God-breathed [Greek: Theopneustos] i.e. breathed by God through His human authors as a creative act.
O, and as far as Rob Bell’s comment that “Jesus never said anything about homosexuality,” he’s probably just having some provocative postmodern phun at our expense. You see, Bell is reputed to be very Jesus-centered in his own ministry, and as you can read in Most Mainline Protestants Say Society Should Accept Homosexuality, when he planted MHBC Rob tells us he even:
preached through Leviticus—verse by verse… We ventured into its lair and let it devour us, trusting that God would deliver us with a truer picture of his Son… Leviticus—is alive… many people don’t see the connection between the Moses part and the Jesus part. But Moses’ Leviticus is all about Jesus. (Online source, emphasis mine)
Rob Bell is right; “Leviticus is all about Jesus,” and therefore he should know very well that, as the Creator God (see—John 1:1-4), it was Jesus Who said — “You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination” (Leviticus 18:22, NASB). And so, I will it yet ask again: Why is there no evangelical outrage over this despicible Emerging Church homopression of the precious GLBTQ people for whom Jesus also died?
May 11, 2009
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May 11, 2009
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Posted in Videos Tagged: Christianity, creation, eternity, God, inheritance, Jesus Christ, Paul Washer 
May 11, 2009
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The candidate for Christian ministry who does not believe that the Bible is God’s inspired Word should not enter the ministry. He does not belong there. If he is already in the ministry he should either quit because he should never have entered it or at the very least he should tell his congregation that he does not believe the Bible is God’s inspired Word so that those who have the sense not to submit to his authority, stripped bare as it is of the authority of God’s Word, can leave and listen to a pastor who does believe it, because all the other doctrines of the true Faith are derived from the divinely inspired Bible and rest upon it for their authority. The doctrine of inspiration is the bedrock — the mother and guardian — of all the other doctrines of Scripture! It is that important! (Faith’s Reasons for Believing, 111)
Dr. Robert Reymond
HT: Daniel Chew
May 11, 2009
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From Christian Research Net:
As you can see in the CRN post Richard Abanes on Phil Johnson’s “Deep-seated Pathology” Revealed In His Recent “Sexist Hit Piece” Richard Abanes, a long-time member of the Saddleback Church of Rick Warren, has some quite uncomplimentary things to say about Phil Johnson, who is known to many in the blogosphere through Pyromaniacs.
Today Abanes has continued his attack upon Johnson:
RA: Please read my newest response – Homophobics, “Real Men,” and Effeminate Evangelicals?” — to Johnson’s sexist, narrow-minded, and unbiblical article (also available at Heresy-Hunters).
Unfortunately in that post Abanes is promoting above he is guilty of the very things he is criticizing while Abanes makes an attempt to lump Johnson into his so-called “cult” of so-called ODMs:
Rather than simply stating their disagreements/criticisms, and then backing them with biblical passages (used in context), these watch-bloggers have resorted to using homophobic, anti-gay lingo that castigates their targets as “Effeminate Evangelicals”—i.e., not masculine men of God, but “sissified” (actual quote) compromisers of God’s Word whose manner of preaching/teaching is more akin to weak women.
It is difficult to know where/how to even begin responding to such a backward and destructive mindset. But it might be helpful to point to one of the worst examples available on the Internet—i.e., “Some More Thoughts on Effeminate Evangelicalism” by 56-year-old Phil Johnson, “executive Director of Grace to You, a Christian tape and radio ministry featuring the preaching ministry of John MacArthur.”
The first thing one notices upon reading Johnson’s diatribe against what he calls “Effeminate Evangelicalism” is the disturbingly sexist & near-homophobic language he uses as a means of mocking, degrading, and vilifying fellow men of God with whom he disagrees (i.e., in the area of preaching style, teaching content, and methods of presenting the Gospel)…
May 11, 2009
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[Within the past few years, I have been developing an eye problem, that according to several doctors, cannot be corrected. It is at times like these, that my belief in the absolute sovereignty of God over all things (including our suffering), becomes a comforting and healing balm to relieve my anxieties and fears. That's not to say that I don't have my "bad days", but by God's grace, those bad days are used to draw me nearer to Him. Alistair Begg's article below provides wise council.]
Pain: God’s Megaphone
by Alistair Begg
For sixty years, successive generations have been helped by what C.S. Lewis wrote on the subject of pain and suffering. The sustained benefit is due in large measure to the fact that he brought to the “problem” a solid dose of Christian realism. This medicine may be more important now than ever. It is not uncommon to watch as television preachers inform their audiences that God “does not want you to be sick.” It is hard to imagine such an assertion proving to be an encouragement to the wheel-chair bound, long-term sufferer of multiple sclerosis. At best, such preachers are confused. The Bible makes a clear distinction between the now of our earthly pilgrimage and the then of our heavenly home. A day is coming when there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. But as any honest observer of the human condition will admit, that day has not arrived. While most of us are probably not facing “the heartbreaking routine of monotonous misery,” as Lewis puts it, few of us are untouched by trials of various kinds.
Although the trial may appear in the disguise of an enemy, in reality it may prove to be a friend. The biblical writer James encourages his readers when faced with trials to welcome them as friends rather than resenting them as intruders. Instead of running and hiding we are to face them in the awareness that they come to prove us and to improve us. Lewis does not argue that suffering is good in itself. Instead, he points to the redemptive, sanctifying effects of suffering.
Thirty-two years of pastoral ministry have brought me into direct contact with those whose experiences of pain and suffering have proved to be a severe mercy. I think of a nuclear physicist in our church in Scotland who attended out of deference to his wife and three young daughters. He listened to the sermons with an air of polite indifference; he accepted a copy of John Stott’s Basic Christianity but remained secure in his scientific shell. It was only when his fourth child, a son, died at eleven months that the megaphone sounded. Recognizing that his worldview was inadequate to deal with tragedy and loss, he found himself reaching beyond his shadow land to find himself caught up in the embrace of the God who is there. By this terrible necessity of tribulation God conquered his rebel will and brought him to the place of peace.
It is also true that God uses suffering to wean His children away from the plausible sources of false happiness. The Christian may grow drowsy in the sun but will not fall asleep in the fire or the flood. Each of us must recognize how easy it is to think little of God when all is well on the outside. But what a change occurs when, for example, the biopsy comes back positive. A sharp blast of anxiety comes to shatter any illusions of self-sufficiency. How kind of God to rouse us and to bring us to the place of dependence.
Our experience of pain, if sanctified, will create an awareness of the trials that others face and a tenderness in our dealings. When our pains and disappointments become the occasion for the softening of our hearts, we can anticipate the privilege of bearing with the infirmities of others. Jesus, the Chief Shepherd, our great High Priest, is “touched with the feelings of our infirmities,” and He has left us an example that we should follow. It ought to concern us greatly when those of us who have been called to teach and to lead fail to display gentleness and compassion for the faint and the trembling. Although I have only dipped a toe in the sea of suffering, it is immediately apparent that God uses the lonely hours in the middle of the night to teach us lessons that we never learned in our bright and healthy hours. We rise to affirm Wiliam Cowper’s observation that “behind a frowning providence, God hides a smiling face.”
I only begin to scratch the surface of this topic. I must leave the reader to ponder two things. First, consider how suffering and pain often prove to be God’s means of discipline and how in this discipline we find an evidence and seal of our adoption (see Heb. 12:5). Secondly, consider the corrective element in affliction as referenced by the psalmist (Ps. 119:67, 71).
Lewis helps us to realize that when the megaphone of pain sounds in our lives and in the lives of our unbelieving friends and neighbors we dare not respond with some form of superficial triumphalism or descend the abyss of pessimism. If those whose lives are marked by quiet desperation, who are painfully aware of their trials and sufferings are going to seek out the Christian for help, it will not be because we appear to live lives that are free from trials but because we are honest about our own sufferings and difficulties. We will not attempt an answer for every question since we know that God has His secrets (Deut. 29:29). We will affirm that even in the mystery of His purposes we know the security of His love, and we will seek to introduce others to our God who entered into our sorrows and our sufferings.
May 11, 2009
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“There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Romans 3:18).
Circa 600 B.C. Indicting the people of his day, Jeremiah described that they, “swear falsely,” “refused to take correction,” “refused to repent,” “do not know the way of the Lord or the ordinance of their God,” “were well-fed lusty horses, each one neighing after his neighbor’s wife,” “bend their tongue like their bow,” that “lies and not truth prevail in the land,” that their “sons have forsaken Me and sworn by those who are not gods” and that “every brother deals craftily and every neighbor goes about as a slanderer” (See Jeremiah 5:1-9, 26-28; 9:3-6). Déjà vu! Any reader of Jeremiah and the other prophets cannot help but notice the uncanny resemblance between the society of Judah then and the evangelical sub-culture now. Fast forward to . . .
2009 A.D. In their book UnChristian, two authors from the Barna Research Group describe behaviors evident among today’s pan-evangelical culture. They write:
In virtually every study we conduct, representing thousands of interviews every year, born-again Christians fail to display much attitudinal or behavioral evidence of transformed lives. . . . the lifestyle activities of born-again Christians were statistically equivalent to those of non-born-agains. . . . born again believers were just as likely to bet or gamble, to visit a pornographic website, to take something that did not belong to them, to consult a medium or a psychic, to physically fight or abuse someone, to have consumed enough alcohol to be considered legally drunk, to have used an illegal, nonprescription drug, to have said something to someone that was not true, to have gotten back at someone for something he or she did, and to have said mean things behind another person’s back.
No difference.
The two researchers then go on to illustrate:
In statistical and practical terms, this means the two groups [i.e., those claiming to be born again as opposed to those making no such claim] are essentially no different from each other. If these groups of people were in two separate rooms, and you were asked to determine, based on their lifestyles alone, which room contained the Christians, you would be hard-pressed to find much difference.[1]
After more than three decades of “user-friendly” Christianity that has been peddled by schmoozing preachers, their publishers, and publicists to the grand evangelical sub-culture, should we be surprised at what the research reveals? The chickens have come home to roost. But what might be the cause of “no difference”?
The cause is that evangelical sub-culture apparently no longer stands in awe of God. As Jeremiah spoke: “‘Hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes, but see not; who have ears, but hear not. Do you not fear Me?’ declares the Lord. ‘Do you not tremble in My presence?’” (Jeremiah 5:21-22).
The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, and Christ who is the Wisdom of God, and the Spirit of wisdom will enable us to walk in obedience to the Lord’s commandments (See Colossians 2:2-3, 6; Isaiah 11:2; Ezekiel 36:26-27). The fear of the Lord will be exhibited by the believer “who walks in His ways” and “who greatly delights in His commandments” (Psalms 128:1; 112:1).
A few years ago I heard of a respected news commentator who stated, “I don’t believe in God, but I fear Him.” The double entendre was tragically humorous. Yet in looking at the current moral state of the pan-evangelical movement, I am forced to ask, who is better off—the atheist who doesn’t believe in God, but fears Him, or the mass of evangelicals who after a generation of listening to “user-friendly” religion, believe in God, but apparently don’t fear Him?
[1]David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, UnChristian, What a New Generation Thinks About Christianity . . . and Why It Matters (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2007) 47.
May 11, 2009
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Christian Research Net draws together some important links concerning the controversial ministry of Mark Driscoll.
May 11, 2009
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Mosaic Dancers – EPIC from j tru on Vimeo.
May 11, 2009
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Dr. Alan Cairns explains the greatest need of the church today and always. (4 mins.)
May 11, 2009
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“Questions, that are merely curious and not practical in religion, are unworthy of study and consideration. Yet it may be proper to say that anything to us is infinite, the dimensions of which we cannot gauge, the greatness of which we cannot understand.
In this sense sin is an infinite evil. We cannot set bounds [...]
May 11, 2009
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Matthew 10:34-39 Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn ” ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her motherinlaw— a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Matthew 16:24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
HT: A Voice Crying Out
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