Reformata

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Apprising Ministries has warned in posts e.g. Calvinist Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism? and Disciplines To Deception In Southern Baptist Convention that for years now Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM) as taught by Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster along with his spiritual twin and Southern Baptist minister Dallas Willard has been rapidly spreading throughout mainstream evangelicalism under the guise of spurious Spiritual Formation (SF).

I’m doing what I can as a former Roman Catholic, whom the Lord graciously delivered from its religious bondage into the glorious liberty of the sons of God, to expose the rise in popularity within Protestant evangelicalism of practicing the neo-pietistic “spiritual disciplines” i.e. asceticism-lite of CSM. As evidenced, e.g. by Tim Keller Also Promoting Mystic Guru Peter Scazzero, you need to know that we’re dealing with a rapidly spreading—and very dangerous—fad; and if left unchecked, it’s soon going to be the cause of much division within the church visible.

CSM flowered within the antibiblical monastic traditions of apostate Roman Catholicism (anyone remember the Reformation?) and this type of SF, now sweeping throughout evangelicalism, is rooted within the spurious spirituality of the Counter Reformation, such as that advanced by figures like Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the militantly pro-Roman Catholic Church spiritual Gestapo Unit known as the Jesuits. But it’s these kinds of very wrong approaches to proper Christian spirituality that would cause Jesus to raise up His Reformers in the first place.

If you don’t know, the primary vehicle of CSM is a type of meditation in an altered state of consciousness called Contemplative/Centering Prayer (CCP), the terms are interchangable; and it’s found its way into the heart of the visible church through its embrace of the Trojan Horse containing the sinfully ecumenical Emerging Church aka Emergent Church that morphed into Emergence Christianity (EC)—and which is now a cult of a postliberalism firmly within mainstream evangelicalism. And CSM was a core doctrine of this EC from its very inception in hell.

The following is taken with permission from the Critical Issues Commentary article The Discerning of Spirits: The Objective, Biblical Means to Discern Spirits by Bob DeWaay, pastor of Twin City Fellowship:

There is another possibility that we need to consider [re. the discerning of spirits]. A spirit might be “from God,” and yet it might be a bad thing. This is because of the judgment of reprobation. Consider the case of Ahab being deceived by 400 prophets. Only one prophet, Micaiah, had a different message. Here is what the Lord showed Micaiah:

And Micaiah said, “Therefore, hear the word of the Lord. I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by Him on His right and on His left. And the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab to go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one said this while another said that. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord and said, ‘I will entice him.’ And the Lord said to him, ‘How?’ And he said, ‘I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ Then He said, ‘You are to entice him and also prevail. Go and do so.’ Now therefore, behold, the Lord has put a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; and the Lord has proclaimed disaster against you.” (1 Kings 22:19-23)

Ahab did not want the truth. He wanted to have the prophets justify his own desires by making those desires a “word from God.” Because Ahab did not have a love for the truth, God sent a deceiving spirit to judge Ahab.

The New Testament warns us about the same thing:

[A]nd with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. And for this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness. (2Thessalonians 2:10-12)

This is in the context of antichrist’s false signs and wonders. Those who do not love the truth (as shown by the fact that they have the truth available but they do not listen to it) may find themselves in a situation where God allows evil spirits to deceive them. This is a very sobering possibility. It is essential that we care deeply about the spiritual source of whatever teachings we listen to.

It is also possible that a spirit may be saying something true and not be from God. Consider the slave girl with a “spirit of divination”:

And it happened that as we were going to the place of prayer, a certain slave-girl having a spirit of divination met us, who was bringing her masters much profit by fortunetelling. Following after Paul and us, she kept crying out, saying, “These men are bond-servants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation.” And she continued doing this for many days. But Paul was greatly annoyed, and turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her!” And it came out at that very moment. (Acts 16:16-18).

What she said was the truth. So how do we know the spirit within her was not from God? We know by the fact that she was using a forbidden technique – fortunetelling. Techniques are not neutral. (Online source)

So it is with CSM; its practice is not neutral, and it is in fact, a repudiation of the proper Christian spirituality of Sola Scriptura.

Calvin and His Lord

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“ ‘What if my master should come and find me idle?’ said Calvin to his friends, who demanded of him why he wasted his body in such constant labors. Few are like-minded so as to put this question to their souls, ‘Am I as I would wish to be should Christ come?’ “
This question may [...]

A Puritan’s Prayer: A Minister’s Bible

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O God of Truth,
I thank thee for the holy Scriptures, their precepts, promises, directions, light. In them may I learn more of Christ, be enabled to retain his truth and have [...]

Two Partially Constructed Church Buildings Burned in Indonesia

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Outside agitators torch structures; Christians have waited years for building permits.

JAKARTA, Indonesia, January 29 (CDN) — Suspected Islamic extremists burned two church buildings under construction in a village in North Sumatra on Jan. 22.

The attackers came from outside the area to burn the partially constructed buildings of the Huria Kristen Batak Protestan Church (HKBP) and the Pentecostal Church (GPdI) in Sibuhuan village, Padang Lawas Residency, during daylight hours, said the Rev. S. Lubis of the HKBP church.

“It was a quiet day when suddenly hundreds of people arrived on motorcycles and burned the empty church,” he said. “After that, the mob moved 200 meters down the road and burned the empty Pentecostal church.”

No people were hurt in the fires. Lubis said that those who burned the church buildings were not from the area.

“We didn’t know any of the mob who burned the church,” he said. “When we asked our neighbors, they didn’t know them either, and they did not help burn the church.”

Lubis said that his church had been worshipping at the site since 1970, and that in 1981 they had erected a simple structure. In 2009 – after local officials had held up an application for a permit to erect a permanent building for five years – the church began construction. Area Muslims stopped the construction before it was finished.

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Thomas Shepard: The Sin Of Resting In Duties

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Puritan Thomas Shepard (1605-1649) shows us how it is quite possible for a professing Christian to be more of an ivy than a branch of the true Vine. Comparing ‘resting in duties’ with works-salvation, Shepard displays eleven ways professing Christians make the same mistakes taught in Roman Catholic doctrine. – JT [...]

SPENCER BURKE: INFORMATIVE AND ENTERTAINING INTERVIEW W/ BRIAN MCLAREN

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Spencer Burke of the iconic Emerging Church website The Ooze tweets today:

My lastest interview – Brian McLaren. We talk about his Latest book and old times, it’s informative and entertaining. http://ow.ly/119Dk (Online source)

Zeal

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Calvinistic Cartoons

Filed under: Humor Tagged: Calvin, doctrine, john, zeal

Is It A Sin To Dislike The Doctrine Of Election?

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MARTIN LUTHER: THERE CAN BE NO COMPROMISE

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The negotiation about doctrinal agreement displeases me altogether, for this is utterly impossible unless the pope has his papacy abolished. Therefore avoid and flee those who seek the middle of the road. Think of me after I am dead and such middle-of-the-road men arise, for nothing good will come of it. There can be no compromise. (What Luther Says, II: 1019)

Martin Luther

Christian Martyrs – Voice of the Martyrs

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What I Believe About Election

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I want to thank Derek from THEOparadox for pointing us to this article:

I was recently asked why I described myself as a moderate Calvinist. The “moderate” part reflects the fact that I understand the Scripture to teach that, in some sense, Christ died for everyone without exception. Christ provided the possibility of redemption for everyone, and an actual redemption is applied only to the elect — those who are given the gift of faith. The logic problems that my five-point Calvinist brethren immediately raise don’t sway me, since the only concern I choose to have is over what specific verses actually say in the original languages — not how many logic syllogisms my view might seem to contradict, or how one escapes “double jeopardy”, and so on. Those philosophical objections don’t matter to the question, “what does this verse mean?” because, in the end, they are philosophical objections, not exegetical questions. Only exegetical principles matter when one is asking the question, “What does this verse mean?” The question, “How can I reconcile this with these other ideas over here” is a secondary, or even a tertiary, concern. Not a primary concern. Limited atonement does not survive consistent, thorough-going exegetical analysis. It’s our job to iron out any wrinkles that the exegesis might create in the over-all fabric of our systematic theology.

But what about election to salvation?

It is impossible for God to elect anyone to salvation on the condition of foreseeing the sinner’s willingness, or exercise of faith. This is because sinners are not capable of being willing, or of exercising faith, apart from the grace of God causing them to become so. Sinners are dead, not wounded. They have zero godly virtue in their hearts. All their righteousness is like filthy rags in the eyes of God. Lost people, that is, people who are still in their natural, Adamic condition, cannot exercise faith in Christ. An unregenerate person is incapable of accepting, welcoming, embracing the truths of God’s Spirit (1 Cor. 2:12-14). It isn’t just that the sinner will not accept them. He cannot accept them.

Unbelievers are spiritually blinded by Satan (2 Cor. 4:4). They do not want to find God (Romans 3:11). They commit sins, not because of bad up-bringing, but because their hearts are hardened by sin (Ephesians 4:17-18). Their thoughts and actions are controlled by sinful lust, lusts of both body and mind, which are inflamed by the prince of the power of the air, Satan (Ephesians 2:3). Non-Christians have no ability to put faith in Christ (John 6:44, 65).

To affirm free will, as “free will” is commonly understood, is the same thing as denying the Bible’s teachings about sin, and its effects on the human race.

God chose us to be saved (2 Thessalonians 2:13). He didn’t choose for us to just have an opportunity to be saved, but to actually be saved. According to this text, the two-sided method God used was the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit (exerted on our hearts prior to faith) and our faith in the Gospel. God chose to do this for us prior to the creation of the universe. He could not foresee our faith, because we had no faith for Him to foresee, nor did we have any ability to have faith for Him to foresee. Any faith God might foresee was foreseen because He put it in our hearts. The ultimate goal of our salvation is to enable us to attain Christ’s resurrection glory.

Read Jesus’ words in John 6 carefully. Jesus was the most “Calvinistic” preacher around. Jesus said that sinners come to Him because the heavenly Father first gave them to Christ (John 6:37). It is impossible for anyone given to Christ by God not to come (John 6:37). The converting work of the Spirit cannot be successfully resisted. It is impossible for anyone who comes to Christ to fall away and be lost (John 6:39-40). God irresistibly draws the sinner to Christ by spiritually teaching him or her the truth of the Gospel (John 6:45).

God desires many things that never happen. God did not desire Joseph’s brothers to sin against Joseph, because God hates sin, but He ordained that they should go ahead and sin against Joseph, for a higher purpose of His own intent (Genesis 50:20). God predetermined that Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Romans, and the people of Israel should reject Jesus, and crucify Him (Acts 4:27). He found displeasure in their sin, but preordained that they should act as they did, fully in obedience to their own wicked souls. God calls all men everywhere to repent, while at the same time knowing that all men everywhere will not repent. Even Arminians teach this, and don’t charge God with insincerity. So we cannot charge God with insincerity in regards to election, either.

The affirmation of free will reflects a humanistic, anti-Biblical view of the spiritual condition of lost mankind. The Bible clearly teaches that everyone’s heart is in bondage to Satan. You can baptize them until they drown, it won’t save them. You can fill them with consecrated bread and wine until they can eat and drink no more, and it won’t save them. You can strive to live a faithful Christian life until the day you die, and it doesn’t save you. God, by Himself alone, saves you, from beginning to end.

John MacArthur On Bad Hermeneutics

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Filed under: Videos Tagged: bad, Bible, coherency, consistency, doctrinal, evangelicals, hermeneutics, john, macarthur, Study, teaching, theological, Truth

Bad Hermeneutics

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Bad Hermeneutics – John MacArthur

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Bad Hermeneutics (John MacArthur)

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Athanasius contra mortem

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Death has become like a tyrant who has been completely conquered by the legitimate monarch; bound hand and foot as he now is, the passers-by jeer at him, hitting him and abusing him, no longer afraid of his cruelty and rage, because of the king who has conquered him.
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Week 3: Video Update from Matt Chandler

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Week 3: Video Update from Matt Chandler.
Filed under: Videos

ANDREW MARIN METHODOLOGY

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Apprising Ministries has talked a little about Andrew Marin e.g. in Andrew Marin And Tony Jones, which gives you a peek at the current drift left by Marin, further indicated by his blogroll where we see both Emerging Church guru Brian McLaren and his good friend Tony Jones.

If you don’t know, Marin is “the President and Founder of The Marin Foundation” and author of the book Love Is An Orientation; in fact, McLaren does the foreword to Marin’s book. And despite these mixed signals, to my knowledge Marin does not claim to be aligned with the sinfully ecumenical Emergent Church, which morphed into Emergence Christianity (EC).

Though using many of the EC buzzwords Marin, at this time anyway, still has the reputation of taking a conservative evangelical view concerning the deviant and sinful lifestyle of having sexual relations with another of the same sex i.e homosexuality. Today he tweets:

British Anglican haters had a conference “exposing” my life & theology. Here’s the video http://bit.ly/cHDiBJ (Online source)

“Haters”; rather strong language concerning those in the video we find as we follow that above link to Marin’s blog Love is an Orientation and the post A Whole General Session Devoted to “Exposing” Me. Concerning the video (seen below) Marin tells us it’s:

from a recent United Kingdom Anglican Conference that occurred last week. One of their main stage sessions was titled:

Evaluating the “Love is all you need” approach of Andrew Marin

Yep, that’s right … they had a whole General Session on me, how I live my life, my book, and my theological and social understanding of culture, the Church and the gay community.

This conference was put on by Anglican Mainstream, who, needless to say, in the last few months have literally called me some pretty nasty names in print. In fact, in the last article they wrote about me, they said that I “was more dangerous to Christianity than Gene Robinson (the first ever appointed bishop who is gay).” (Online source, emphasis his)

Apparently Marin, who’s a teacher in the public arena published by InterVarsity Press, is upset that the “Anglican Mainstream not once, not twice, but three times turned down my offer to dialogue with them in person, private or in public”. But then again Michelle Strombeck of Moody Broadcasting Network says, “Marin speaks with a loving, clear voice about” homosexuality.

Seems to me Marin’s already on record as to what he believes and teaches as his IVP bio informs us:

The Marin Foundation is quickly becoming a leading national organization in the Christian and mainstream cultures regarding religion and homosexuality. Specific to gays and lesbians, The Marin Foundation is focused on training and teaching churches around the country how to systemically build bridges with their local gay and lesbian community in order to make a significant impact for the kingdom. (Online source)

Frankly, though I’m certainly no fan of the apostatizing Anglican Church, I did find myself generally in agreement with what I heard from Dr. Vinay Samuel below. However, if Marin’s so seemingly upset about being misrepresented then he could specifically state in his blog post what he actually believes the Bible teaches about the issue of same-sex sexual relations.

Now I don’t for a second question Andrew Marin’s sincerity; however when I consider his EC connections, and then I read things like the following, I become rather suspicious whether he personally holds the proper Biblical view that homosexual relations will always be outside of the marriage covenant of a man and a woman; and as such, will always be the sin of sexual immorality:

Andrew Marin is the President and Founder of The Marin Foundation (http://www.loveisanorientation.com/about-2/www.themarinfoundation.org), a non-profit organization that seeks to build bridges between the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender (GLBT) and religious communities through scientific research and biblical and social education. Their unique approach strategically partners with both religious and GLBT organizations striving to make a sustainable, structural difference for the Kingdom in today’s socially driven secular and religious cultures.

The Marin Foundation is also conducting the largest national scientific research study ever done in the GLBT community regarding spirituality and religion. Andrew has appeared on various national radio and TV programs, and his sermon Homophobia and Bridging from within the Evangelical Church—given on Capitol Hill the night before the Inauguration of President Barack Obama in January 2009—is being archived in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC. (Online source, bold his)

SAMIR SELMANOVIC AND BEING UNABLE TO FOLLOW JESUS WITHOUT ISLAM

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Apprising Ministries has introduced you e.g. in Christian Agnostic Adele Sakler And Samir Selmanovic Discuss Christian Atheism to Samir Selamnovic, one of the up-and-coming ear-ticklers of the sinfully ecumenical Emerging Church aka Emergent Church—which morphed into Emergence Christianity (EC).

Last night Emerging Church And TransFORM’s Steve Knight Re-tweeted the following, which he wanted to make sure we’d know:

RT @natewig @SamirSelmanovic on Finding God Outside our Faith Traditions http://bit.ly/ciA8uZ (Online source)

That link takes us to Q&A: Finding God outside our faith tradition, which is an interview with Selmanovic posted at something called The United Methodist Portal. There Robin Russell informs us:

Samir Selmanovic, whose efforts have been praised by key voices in the emerging church movement, is passionate about his Christian faith but believes that Christians must learn to respect other religions and even find God outside their own religion’s boundaries. (Online source)

In Emerging/ent/ence Christianity-speak you’ll often hear this referred to as “finding God in the Other.” Russell asks Selmanovic why do ”you call yourself a ‘Muslim Atheist Jewish Christian’”? And Selmanovic explains:

I use those words as adjectives simply to say that without Islam, Judaism and Christianity, I don’t know if I would still be a Christian. (Online source)

Reading his work I wonder if he is a Christian. That aside, as you’ll see in Tony Jones, The Emerging Church And Progressive Christianity, many in the EC are moving toward what they call “progressive theology,” which is becoming a reimagined form of Progressive Christianity. It’s especially appealing to those who want a form of godliness without its power—the genuine Gospel of Jesus Christ.

An inevitable result of prolonged practice of the Contemplative/Centering Prayer of this Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM) as advanced by Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster, along with his spiritual twin Dallas Willard, is interfaith/interspiritual “dialogue.” One need only look at the nearly dead mainline denominations to see this progression, and its rotten fruit.

So last night Selmanovic tweeted:

“I believe Islam is a dangerous religion.” 21% Protestant pastors agree, 45% strongly agree (LifeWay, RNS). Oh, Jesus! (Online source)

No, Jesus has absolutely nothing to do with the false religion of Islam. And we agree: Rapid fundamentalists of any religion are dangerous; however in actuality, Christianity is more a relationship with the one true and living God by His grace alone, through faith alone, in the finished work on the Cross by Jesus Christ alone, than it is a religion per se.

But compromisers seeking the world’s friendship like Samir Selmanovic have their interspiritual ax to grind, and know this, they are every bit as fundamental with that belief re. God being found in other religions as a Fred Phelps-type is that God hates [insert hot button topic here]. I can tell you from studying such as these, the truth is, they are only tolerant of those who agree with them.

But here’s what should be of growing concern to the more mainstream of evangelicalism as this CSM continues spreading its leaven even into the Reformed camp; see Tim Keller Also Promoting Mystic Guru Peter Scazzero? Yesterday AM’s sister outreach Christian Research Network ran a short piece called Bob Roberts, Jr: Christian, Jew and Muslim “Trialogue”.

There we’re told that “Missiologist” and President of the SBC’s Lifeway Research Ed Stetzer, who also works closely with Reformed Emerging Church pastor Mark Driscoll, wrote a post about his “friend” Bob Roberts, Jr who “worked with local Jewish and Muslim leadership to pull off a three day ‘trialogue’.” Stetzer talks via email with Roberts in his post Christian, Jew and Muslim “Trialogue”.

And of course this caught the attention of Selmanovic as today he tweets:

Evangelical pastor @bobrobertsjr gets authentic and constructive with his Muslim and Jewish neighbors http://is.gd/7iCHB (Online source)

Selmanovic shows the lines are blurring even more within the church visible as he comments over at Stetzer’s blog post:

Admittedly, I am more evangelicalish than evangelical, and have been writing about these dynamics in my book “It’s Really All About God: Reflections of a Muslim Atheist Jewish Christian.” These are adjectives to word Christian. Without Islam, Atheism, and Judaism, I would not survive or thrive as a follower of Jesus Christ. The other is there to bless me, and not only to be blessed by what I have to offer.

I very much appreciate and have learned from your perspective and actions. What you is very authentic, Christ-honoring and fun!

Thank you, thank you, thank you,

Samir Selmanovic (Online source, emphasis mine)

No, false religion is not there to bless us; it is there to lead people away from saving faith in Jesus Christ (e.g. see—2 Corinthians 11:14-15 ). However, this does not give us excuse to mistreat others, etc., which is the straw man erected by those who are lovers of self (2 Timothy 3:2) i.e. in love with mankind and who are actually seeking approval from other men.

But this is the grave danger in listening to fools like Samir Selmanovic who muse the following kind of myth gleaned from their neo-Gnostic mysticism:

Meister Eckhart said that our religions are like houses. Each house has a trap door somewhere down in the basement, and if we go deep enough, we will fall through the trap door into a river that flows beneath all of us. Beautiful, I thought. (It’s Really All About God, 262)

Translation: Eckhart is talking about what’s commonly called “a spark of the divine” that is supposedly within all of mankind, and the “river” is God. Mystics teach that through the spiritual discipline of Contemplative/Centering Prayer, which is really a form of meditation in an altered state of consciousness, we go down inside ourselves to our “authentic” or “true self.”

And therein lies the answer to what Selmanovic asks re. this alleged river of God within us all: “Why is this truth of mutual belonging accessible to those who hang out in the basement? Why do we need to be tricked into finding it?” There is no “mutual belonging” (see—Romans 8:5-14) and this demonic deception is eventually received in the “transformation” of prolonged practice of CSM/CCP.

New “Forgotten” Sermons From Spurgeon