Never Loved, Regardless?

 Doug Robinson:

There is a notion that if one if bright enough, well read enough, wise enough, that one can earn the respect and affection of non-believers and bridge the gaps between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdoms of this world.  That one can reject and be unlike all those foolish Christians who put their feet in their mouths and embarrass the rest of us.  

Problem is the biblical narrative tells us otherwise....... There is the trap once again, thinking that wise thinking people can avoid the conflicts with the spirit of the age and win over our adversaries through thoughtful reasoning!  

......Jesus failed on many levels to do that.  St. Paul was no slouch in the field of apologetics and where did it get him?  The bible teaches the need not for mere reasoning in search of common ground, but that men and women are lost and blinded and need to be converted from the ways of death to the paths of life  Sometimes notions of apologetics avoid that hard truth..

Jesus said: "Do not be surprised when the world hates you. They hated me first." 

A Christianity that wants to be loved by all men is bereft of loyalty to King Jesus. The real Christian loves his enemies because he actually has enemies who do not love him because they hate God.

  —Doug Robinson, August, 2018

Teethy Gospel Sharing?

“Christianity is not a modern success story. It is to be preached with love and tears into the teeth of men, preached without compromise, without regard to the world’s concept of success. If there seem to be no results, remember that Jeremiah did not see the results in his day. They came later. If there seem to be no results, it does not change God’s imperative. It is simply up to you and to me to go on, go on, go on, whether we see the results or whether we don’t. Go on.”

― Francis A. Schaeffer, Death in the City

The No Religion, Religion

"What if our main battle as a church TODAY, Right Now... isn't battling a secular worldview..... we are actually battling another RELIGIOUS worldview....
It isn't SECULAR or atheist worldview AT ALL.
We are fighting false religions and false religions of many different kinds. They have exchanged true religion not for NO religion, but for idolatry. We are in a country full of idolaters. They are not "secular people", they are religuous idolaters."

- Ben Witherington lll - ( Loose Paraphrase)

Dog's Bark At The Church

"The moon walks in brightness, though the dogs bark at it."

Matthew Henry

Psalm 2

Speaking of Church and Kingdom

"Those that did evil raged at the light"

-------------------------------------------------------

"Why do men oppose religion but because they are impatient of its restraints and obligations?"

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Psalm 2 Matthew Henry! (Worth reading Psalm 2 first)

The Eight Million Way!

"The way of the most
is neither the best,
the wisest,
nor the safest way to follow:
better to follow the eight in the ark than the eight millions drowned by the flood and damned to hell."
- Matthew Henry -
Commentary on 1 Peter 3

Tremble At No Other Name

“I will tremble at no other name
My heart's surrendered to no other reign 
I will bow at no other throne
Rest my heart at no other home 
Let these hands lift no other crown 
Let these knees fall on no other ground
Draw these eyes from the gold that won't shine
You turn this life from water to wine,” 
I tremble. I tremble, Lord In your presence,
- Lauren Daigle

Gate Post Compromise?

"When you start pushing on the gate posts of the narrow gate, to try and make it wider, so you can get through. There is usually more at work in your life that needs addressing."

Paraphrase of a statement I heard on a podcast.

Don't Preach From The Word?

Preach the word!
Don't preach from the word!
Don't preach about the Word!
Preach the word!
- Dr. J.Vernon McGee

KNOW IT IS.....

I don't believe the Bible is the word of God.
I know it is the word of God."

Dr. J. VERNON MCGEE  

Let The Lion Out

"When you got a lion in the cage, you don't need to put a guard there to protect it from the pussycats in the neighborhood. The lion will take care of himself if you just open the cage. The word of God is like that today."
Dr. J. Vernon McGee
He was very old then with cancer.

What Ya Preachin?

“Fear God and you’ll preach to transform people; fear people and you’ll preach to transform God.”

Dr. Dustin Messer

Most Wanted List!

UNCOMFORTABLY SO! 😆

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"My main ambition in life is to be on the Devil's most wanted list."

Leonard Ravenhill

Not Knowing Jesus's Self Revelation?

"We have so many professing believers who have not read the whole Bible. They don't actually know Jesus as he revealed himself to us.

For people who bear the name of Christ, we're really ill-informed about who he is and what he offers us and how he teaches us."

Rachel Jankovic

Air-Brushed Faith?

"Some clergy have simply "airbrushed sin out of their language. Having substituted therapy for spiritual discernment.....
" Sociologist Robert Bellah makes the same point decrying the tendency in evangelical ranks to "thin the biblical language of sin and redemption to an idea of a Jesus as the friend who helps us find happiness and self-fulfillment."
.....responding to the market means more than 'airbrushing a word here or there; it changes the very character of the church."

The Body, Charles Colson.

Becoming A Usless Thing!

COMPROMISE IS COSTLY

A. W. Tozer

Christianity today is so entangled with this present world that millions never guess how radically they have missed the New Testament pattern. Compromise is everywhere-but actually no real union between the world and the Church is possible. When the Church joins up with the world it is the true Church no longer but only a pitiful hybrid thing, an object of smiling contempt to the world, and an abomination to the Lord! Nothing could be clearer than the pronouncements of the Scriptures on the Christian's relation to the world. The confusion which gathers around this matter results from the unwillingness of professing Christians to take the Word of the Lord seriously. This whole thing is spiritual in its essence. A Christian is what he is not by ecclesiastical manipulation but by the new birth. He is a Christian because of a Spirit which dwells in him. Only that which is born by the Spirit is spirit, no matter how many church dignitaries work on it!

Come Out Of Our Christian Caves

I hope to help strengthen the Church to stay strong in a collapsing culture,” he proclaimed. “We will not be silenced because we have to speak. We have to be prepared to take the consequences."

Lutzer said it is "not necessary to have freedom of religion in order to be faithful," adding: “Just ask the martyrs. They were faithful without freedom of religion."

"I pray churches would be strengthened to say, ‘We're not going to submit just because we're under pressure,'" he concluded. "Jesus predicted that these days would come. And therefore, we are going to stand and take the consequences rather than retreat into our caves and say, ‘We cannot speak because of all the cultural pressures.'"

- Erwin Lutzer

Racism IS First And Foremost A Sin Problem

It is first and foremost a sin problem.

Nailed it!

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“What people must understand is that we're living at a time when the conflict and the racial accusations that are being made are intentional, with no hope or desire of any reconciliation or mutual understanding,” he said. “Jesus offers solutions. Christianity says we really don't have a skin problem; we have a sin problem. Churches need to lead the way in this.”

- Erwin Lutzer

They Will Take Their Children To Church

“For Karl Marx, oppression was the key to history. He wanted to see the nuclear family destroyed because, he said, men will oppress their wives, parents will oppress their children and take them to church. God is the ultimate oppressor, and thus, we have to deal with this oppression.”

- Erwin Lutzer

The Word Stands Alone And Above Us

Instead of allowing Scripture to stand alone, we interpret it in a way that is consistent with the culture. I want to challenge Christians: Will we interpret the culture through the lens of Scripture? Or will we interpret the Scripture through the lens of culture?

........The Church is being shamed into silence because we don't know what to say," he said. "We fear that we will be misunderstood and vilified."

- Erin Lutzer - 

Moody Chicago church

Winsome TRUTH - Not Merely Winsome

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(Presbyterian Church Of America)

"So what’s the PCA’s big issue: Maintaining biblical fidelity, confessional integrity, and mission priority in an increasingly post-Christian culture.......The impulse to be outward-facing and welcoming to our fallen and broken world is a good one, a biblical one. But we must never accommodate error in our attempt to be winsome. This wasn’t the modus operandi of Jesus, the prophets, or the apostles. It mustn’t be ours either. It can never be repeated enough: We are called to speak the truth, with clarity and love. And if ever there was a time for the church to speak with clarity about sexual ethics, biblical justice, and qualifications for ordination, it is now. The future health and mission of the PCA depend on it."

Jon D. Payne | Friday, July 9, 2021

Virtual Churches Place

"Virtual church is better than nothing, but that's

the only thing

it's better than."

- Bill Hickox -

#church #faith #christian #christianity

Ancient Unholiness

"..... feast day of St. Peter Damian, whose famous work, the Book of Gomorrah, warns against a plague of homosexuality and sex abuse in the priesthood.

Damian’s Book of Gomorrah decries the widespread sexual misbehavior, particularly homosexual sodomy, raging through the ranks of priests and monks in the 11th century Church, and asks Pope St. Leo IX to take decisive action to stop it, warning of catastrophic results should he fail to do so.

Damian noted that priests were having sexual relations with their “spiritual children,” those to whom they had given sacramental grace. He approvingly invoked a medieval ecclesiastical law requiring priests who sexually abuse minors to be publicly humiliated, imprisoned, and kept under guard in perpetuity to prevent a repetition of the crime."

Happy When?

"You cain't wait until life isn't hard anymore
before you decide to be happy."

- NightBirde -

Singer

Elbow Problems!

We throw away so may things
that are at our elbow,
and we search in vain
for things
twenty miles away.


- Rex Murphy -

My Troublemakers

"The biggest troublemaker you’ll probably ever have to deal with, watches you from the mirror every mornin’."

- Insight From An Old Farmer -

Non-negotiable

"The Bible is a Book
Filled With
Non-negotiable Realities"

- Canadian Minister

Fighty Leadership!

"Shepherds fighting wolves, are Shepherds loving sheep"

- Joel Webbon

Come Get Your Idol Here

"We cannot hope to walk up their mountain and come down with stone tablets containing a law inscribed by the Spirit of God.

No, if we go up their mountain what will happen is that we will come back down with an idol; one that looks like a carved and grimacing monkey."

- Doug Wilson

Self Fulfillment Church

"What many are looking for is a spiritual social club, an institution that offers convivial relationships but certainly does not influence how people live or what they believe. Whenever the church does assert a historically orthodox position, one that might in some way restrict an individual's doing Whatever he or she chooses, the church is accused of being "out of touch"- as if it's beliefs are to be determined by majority vote or market surveys.

Spiritual consumers are interested not in what the church stands for but in the fulfilment it can deliver."

- Charles Colson. The Body

Up And Down With God?

"When you are DOWN to nothing, God is UP to something!

Don't Cooperate With Clowns!

"The only way out is through a flat refusal to cooperate. If the managerial elites running this clown show have a worldview that allows them to do whatever they can get away with, the first order of business is to refuse to allow them to get away with any of their enormities."

- Douglas Wilson

Jesus Past The Gate

"In truth, Jesus died and was laid away in a tomb. The contradiction of his claim to be Son of God was total. He enters into the full reality of death, not merely walking with us right up to the door only to pull back at the final second, leaving us to walk the dark valley on our own. He comes all the way with us right into the grey, after-death world of funeral parlours and the making of arrangements for the disposing of the body, the world of strained faces, hushed voices and tear-stained eyes. He takes his place within the world of the receding past where death’s destructive power is so real and irreversible; dead … buried … gone."

Bruce Milne, The Message of John: Here Is Your King!: With Study Guide, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 286.

Where is the Higher Voice?

“Many millennials who have turned their backs on religious tradition because it isn’t sufficiently diverse or inclusive have found alternative scripture online. Our new belief system is a blend of left- wing political orthodoxy, intersectional feminism, self- optimization (many even among the churched are guilty), therapy, wellness, astrology and Dolly Parton. Left-wing secular millennials may follow politics devoutly. But the women we’ve chosen as our moral leaders aren’t challenging us to ask the fundamental questions that leaders of faith have been wrestling with thousands of years: Why are we here? Why do we suffer? What should we believe in beyond the limits of our puny selfhood? The whole economy of Instagram is based on our thinking about ourselves, working in ourselves. I have hardly prayed to God since I was a teenager, but the pandemic has cracked open inside me a profound yearning for reverence, humility and awe. I have an overdraft on my outrage account. I want moral authority from someone who isn’t shilling a memoir or calling out her enemies on social media for a clout.”

- Leigh Stein

Not Enough Bruises!

"One of the biggest problems with modern Christianity - Too many self proclaimed, self published “theologians” and not enough calloused handed, bruised footed, sore backed followers of Jesus."

- Todd Hooper

What Love Enemies Means.

Speaking about Jesus' command to love our enemies...

"This is the supreme command in the medium of prayer: we go to our persecutors, stand by their side and plead to God for them."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Got A Better Story?

"When I tried to unpack the first sentence of Genesis, in the context of the broader biblical narrative, what appears to be happening is that there is a proposition that God is guided by love and uses truth to create. It's something like that. And maybe "love" is something like the wish that all being would flourish.

There isn't a better story than that."

- Jordan Peterson

That Bible Book That Isn't A Novel

We read 25 other books a year.

But think it great that we undertake to read the NT, in its entirety once.

Or like most not read it the Old and New Testament even once in a whole lifetime.

"Here, then, is the real problem of our negligence. We fail in our duty to study God's Word not so much because it is difficult to understand, not so much because it is dull and boring, but because it is work. Our problem is not a lack of intelligence or a lack of passion. Our problem is that we are lazy.”

- R.C. Sproul

Half Repentance! Our Favorite Kind.

"It is one thing to plead with God to forgive. 

It is another thing to plead for God to transform.

We must do both in repentance.....

David did not only ask for God to clean his record. He also asked God to clean his heart."

- Joel (some reformed guy I heard and I ain't digging for his last name)

Relishing In An Enemy

"I think a huge part of this is the desire to have an enemy....

It's and easy route to self-righteousness; to have an enemy.....

It's and easy place to put all evil."

- Jordan Peterson -

Education Isn't Neutral

"There is no such thing as a neutral education, because there are no neutral facts.
This is why education is a subset of discipleship."

- Brian Saivé -

New Church Sometimes Required

But I have to say, a bit sadly, that members who cannot thrive as Bible believers in one church, even if it is the church they have always attended, must consider finding a more biblical one. If they cannot find any true concern and room for growth in the Bible where they are, a change must come. If you are a member of a horse-riding club, but the leader never takes the horses out of the stable for you to ride, you have to find another association that accomplishes that purpose. There is no possible logic for you to remain in a church that has abandoned the Bible for its own perceptions if truth. "

Jeff Elliff

Pretend We Like The Bible

"But leaders are not the only ones who can make a difference. Any member with an intense interest in the Bible can speak out about that desire, can meet with others who are interested for Bible study, and can become an instrument for change. It is hard to speak against such actions in any professing church since we all know that a church is at least supposed to be interested in God’s word."

Jeff Elliff

Embarrassed

"But leaders must get over their embarrassment concerning the Bible."

- Jim Elliff

Incorrigibly Religious For Wrong

"Spirituality is dangerous without the use of the God’s word. Man is incorrigibly religious. All kinds of spirituality emerge from man, most of which are condemned by God. How spiritual were the worshippers of false gods in the Bible and how dangerous was the heart-felt worship of Gnostics who emerged in the early church? Worship that is offered to God must be true, fully informed by His word. Using the word to guide worship and life in the church is the way we assure ourselves that our spirituality is accepted by Him."

Jim Elliff

A Good Theologian Should Be A Good Person

Theology is not just simply head knowledge. Theology is a knowledge that actually informs both our hearts and our lives. And so, if someone has knowledge, if they have biblical or theological knowledge, and yet it’s not impacting their life — that is, the way they treat people; that is, the way that they live; that is, the way that they serve God in their life — then they don’t have good theology. I would actually argue that is not theology, because the goal of theology is to apply Scriptures into our life. And so, I would say, in the end, that someone whom we might regard as a good theologian but rather not a good person is not in the end a good theologian.

— Rev. Hutch Garmany

Lost In Church

Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you — unless, of course, you fail the test? (2 Corinthians 13:5)

"Paul wanted everyone to recognize that things like church membership, and baptism, and a credible profession of faith are not sure signs of saving faith in Jesus Christ. People who have never truly come to Christ in faith also do these things. So, Paul encouraged people in the church to examine themselves, to make sure that they were truly trusting in Christ for salvation. 

Of course, as human beings we can’t know the condition of another person’s heart. We can only see their actions and hear their words. So, it’s often impossible for us to tell who the true believers are. But the knowledge that there may be unbelievers in our congregations should still affect the way we view ourselves and others in the church. We should remember to keep teaching and preaching the gospel to the whole church in order to save those who have not yet come to faith — even though we might not know who they are. We should be receptive to those in the church that are seeking God, not discouraging them from coming to church even though they may not yet have trusted in Christ yet. And we should be inclined to be patient with others, knowing that there is a wide diversity in faith and maturity, even among people who have been in the church for a long time."

- Third Millennium Seminary Course. The Apostles Creed. Lesson 4, The Church.

Can't Escape God

"He’s the God of transcendence; that is, he’s above space and time and history. Yet he is the immanent God; that is, he is so much with us that we cannot possibly escape from him."

D. A. Carson

A Church With A Divine Jesus? Yes, Many!

"In the early church, the confession that Jesus Christ was fully divine was a critical aspect of the Christian faith. Those who confessed the Apostles’ Creed at their baptisms were not required to affirm all the finer points of theology with regard to the inner workings of the Trinity. But they were expected to proclaim the deity of Christ without hesitation. Even today, affirming that Jesus is truly and fully God is a hallmark of biblical

Christianity."

- Third Millennium - Course on Apostles Creed, Lesson 3, Jesus Christ

World Is Not Out Of God's Control Ever

God’s omnipotence is a good reminder to us as believers that when the

world seems like it’s spinning out of control, feels like it’s descending

into chaos, it’s not. God cannot be bound by another source or power

superior to his. The world, whatever else it may seem like, the world is

not spinning out of control, God is sovereign, we may have confidence

that he has not been overpowered, and it gives us strength to walk

with faith in those times that appear mysterious to our limited

perspective. When we don’t see all that God sees, it is good to know

that God has not had his control or his power wrested from him

against his will. Whatever is coming to me, whatever is taking place in

my life, is taking place under the authority of God’s loving hand. And

I can take confidence, even when I can’t explain my circumstances

that I know the God who sustains me and walks through this with me.

— Dr. Robert G. Lister

Less Control?

"Modern people insist on talking about Birth Control when they mean less birth and no control."

G. K. Chesterton

Cross or Not

"Are you glorying in the cross, my friend? It is either everything or else it is nothing."
- Martyn Lloyd Jones

I Reject......

"A Christian is known not only by what he believes or affirms, but also by what he rejects and denies."

- R.C. Sproul

Jesus Loves Me For Seniors

A church in Atlanta was honoring one of its seniorpastors who had been retired many years. He was 92at that time and I wondered why the church evenbothered to ask the old gentleman to preach at that age.

After a warm welcome, introduction of this speaker,and as the applause quieted down, he rose from hishigh back chair and walked slowly, with great effort

and a sliding gait to the podium.

Without a note or written paper of any kind he placedboth hands on the pulpit to steady himself and thenquietly and slowly he began to speak....

"When I was asked to come here today and talk to you, your pastor asked me to tell you what was the greatest lesson ever learned in my 50-odd years of preaching. I thought about it for a few days and boiled it down to just one thing that made the most difference in my life

and sustained me through all my trials. The one thing that I could always rely on when tears and heartbreak and pain and fear and sorrow paralyzed me...

The only thing that would comfort was this verse....

"Jesus loves me this I know.

For the Bible tells me so.

Little ones to Him belong,

We are weak but He is strong.....

Yes, Jesus loves

The Bible tells me so."

The old pastor stated, "I always noticed that it was the adults who chose the children's hymn 'Jesus Loves Me '

(for the children of course) during a hymn sing, and it was the adults who sang the loudest because I could

see they knew it the best."

"Here for you now is a Senior version of Jesus Loves 

Me": 

JESUS LOVES ME 

Jesus loves me, this I know, 

Though my hair is white as snow 

Though my sight is growing dim, 

Still He bids me trust in Him. 

(CHORUS) 

YES, JESUS LOVES ME.. YES, JESUS LOVES ME.. 

YES, JESUS LOVES ME, FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO. 

Though my steps are oh, so slow, 

With my hand in His I'll go 

On through life, let come what may, 

He'll be there to lead the way. 

(verse 2) 

When the nights are dark and long, 

In my heart He puts a song 

Telling me in words so clear, 

"Have no fear, for I am near." 

(Verse 3) 

When my work on earth is done, 

And life's victories have been won. 

He will take me home above, 

Then I'll understand His love. 

(CHORUS) 

I love Jesus, does He know? 

Have I ever told Him so? 

Jesus loves to hear me say, 

That I love Him every day. 

Difference Between False Teachers And Mistaken Christians

"Protecting the sheep involves sling shots at wolves. We call that apologetics."  Third hand Paraphrase of John MacArthur

We've forgotten that biblically, false teachers are not merely wrong on theology, a thought in their head. 

They are also wrong on life also.

Go look at what Jesus and the epistles say about false teachers. The NT teaches false teachers have false humanistic teachings, gnostic ideas, that take peoples gaze away from Christ, and redirect it to something else. Then, AT THE SAME TIME, ALSO, characterized as also being people given over to fleshly passions and appetites, often sexually immoral, power seeking, love destruction and strife, want to win followings (not save people), and love money and recognition.

Notice their lies, depraved conduct...

​ But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping." 2 Peter 2:1-3

This is always what was meant by "False Teacher".

It was never just her/his false doctrine, the false thoughts in his head, it was what comes out of their mouth and it included their evil, immoral, divisive, selfish, and unholy life that false teaching "always" resulted in, and which they wanted their "christians" to feel the freedom to indulge in this sensual "freedom" also. 

They have a profound despising for Christ as traditionally understood, for his church, and for you into the word ones, if you don't entertain them. Try to correct them with the word, and watch the teeth come out. You will find out. They are ready for a fight, a dirty one too. They are not playing by holinesses rules. You'll see. 

This is why we do not host false teachers in our home, as 2 John said,  they will try to lead people in your community, your own children, your husband or wife, your church,.or a section of it into not just a false teaching, but unholiness, unholy practices. John made it clear, we don't want to be helping these perverse ones along.

Anyone who does not remain in Christ’s teaching but goes beyond it does not have God. The one who remains in that teaching, this one has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your home, and do not greet him; for the one who greets him shares in his evil works." 2 John 1:9-11

False teachers, are not a silly little disagreement, so shake hands, laugh it off, and go have coffee.

They ruin people's ability to see and know Christ, they destroy churches, and they are immoral, giggling in delight to influence you into the same weakend position.

A christian person can have a wrong belief.... she/he is mistaken, or deceived, or simply has never been taught, so they are unaware (though every belief will affect our behavior). They are not false teachers. They may be young, or simply still immature Christ followers, new converts who have not had many years reading or studying the word of God with good teachers. hey are still learners and listening.  

However, the False Christian teachers are not listening and learning, they are speaking it out loud with her/his voice, in the hopes of converting others away from Christ or his Gospel, to a pervision, or distortion of it. This has intent to convert away, and to something else.

Encouraging people to consider anything else other than Christ and his revealed word, and to live a much different life than Christ exemplified. There is a desire to speak, lead, speak, and speak, and speak, win you over, and away from something, to another idea, an unholy evil way of living that follows the selfish human passions of the mind and flesh, human perversions. They applauded perversions,  That is a False Teacher.  

They "approve"  or "applaud" perversion, Romans 1:32 (Greek word used below is applauded, approve, celebrate, enter in with, affirm, take up cause with) perversion. This passage is not specifically about false teachers  but describing  what living following our passions, not Christ, looks like. 

And because they did not think it worthwhile to acknowledge God, God delivered them over to a corrupt mind so that they do what is not right. They are filled with all unrighteousness, evil, greed, and wickedness. They are full of envy, murder, quarrels, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, arrogant, proud, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, senseless, untrustworthy, unloving, and unmerciful. Although they know God’s just sentence—that those who practice such things deserve to die —they not only do them, but even APPLAUD (other translations have approve)  others who practice them. Romans 1:28-32

Progressive false teachers are applauding a lot these days, even Romans 1:21-27 sins, go read them, and many are joining in with them.  "It's wonderful, this stuff, we celebrate and pride in it."

Jesus said, "by their fruit you shall know them."

“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? - Jesus - Matthew 7:15-16

False Teacher are quasi "christians" and they are among the sheep. They usually rise up from within a congregation as someone thinks they got "enlightened with some new mystical insight, and needs to help the rest of us "see" or they come into congregations from elsewhere, and they want to be heard, they demand to speak.  They don't just sit silent, they speak a lot, want to lead others. 

If one church doesn't, listen they move to another, and another until they do gain a hearing.... then they corrupt that whole congregation. Or it divides as they resist one another. No, not all church splits are over trivial matters, though most are over personalities, but I know many that have suffered from a false teacher who wants a fight to keep power, to keep their influence. They are willing to destroy a church to keep it, or to try an gain it. And they were as immoral in their personal lives (though many in the congregation didn't or don't know that) as they were in their false teaching. I'll spare you the real stories. 

They are also spoken of as "unconverted", as never knowing or confessing their sin, and need for Christ's atonement. They seem to feel they have liberated themselves, and can lead others to donso for themselves also.

The message of Christ becomes secondary.  

False teachers are an in family problem, people in the Church, hovering around churches, looking for  opportunities to be heard, influence, take over, or gain a faction in a church.

"These are the things you are to teach and insist on. If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, they are conceited and understand nothing. They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between people of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain." 1 Tim 6:2-5

Let me add one final thing. 

There are false teachers today. Always was, always will be.

But there is such a long history of shallow level of teaching today (few read any amounts of scripture. Few preachers exeget the text, and more alarming don't even know how) that most people wouldn't know a false teacher or false teaching when they hear it. So they assume anyone who challenges a new modern idea, or something said at church, is just being a Pharisee, or overly opinionated....

While the liberal Sadducee who questions cardinal teachings  of scripture like the Sadducees did, are ruling the church of today. 

We've gone from one evil to another.

It is so good that we have steered away from manmade rules and human invented traditions, to teach the word of God only as binding, not our cultural baggage.  

But, it is not any better that we now deny revelation of scriptures, life after death,  angels and real spiritual relms and evil powers and principalities, physical bodily resurrection, etc, as Sadducees did. Sadducees own many congregations. 

Both are false teachers. 

The cure?  Read God's Word, a lot. 

You will begin to see who's contradicting what. The Holy Spirit revealed the word, he works on the word to illuminate its truth to us, and he convicts of its truth, then he empowers us to follow it. 

The Bible is not ink and paper, it's  the Holy Spirits work of God. He is active and alive in the whole process of the word. That is why its different than reading other books that are just ink and paper.

There's never been a biblically illiterate Christian able to spot a false teacher. But more, they caint grasp the gravity of the situation caused in our community or church if she/he continues to speak it. 

People are just kind, or not. Kind today means never contradicting, even with the word, even if it contradicts Christ.

Because decades.of compromise and not knowing the word, has lead us to think it just doesnt matter that much. 

It's not about truth, is it?

I heard a false teacher in our churches once. He was a part-time minister. He spoke at a men's retreat and I knew where he got the teaching from. He was parroting it from a celebrity leader he though all us hick maritimer wouldn't know anything about, Rob Bell, an he was he was passing his sermon off as his own sermon.and study, without any acknowledging its real source. Ethically. not right. You ways  acknowledge  when you draw heavily off anothers material.  

 A bible college professor was there to hear it, and I was as horrified as I was. 

 I asked the professor what he thought and was discusted 

I was later asked to speak at a Bible College chapel, and I used the teaching that preacher man gave as an illustration.  Not by name, I addressed the idea, not the person. Though anyone to the former event would know. 

It was the only time I confronted  the teaching of another minister in My life. He was wrong, very wrong.  

And a lot of the men heard my sermon, and my illustration, and were there to hear the preachet (didn't hear it actually) and said, "I didn't see it!", as if I was too critical. Many of those men asked the Bible professors to weigh in and they affirmed that that is exactly what was taught, and it was wrong.  But they missed it, went right over their head. 

Both that preacher, and Rob Bell are universalists today almost fifteen years later. 

It surprise many church leaders, but no me, or the college professors. 

It was the logical outcome. 

A False Gospel, leads to a failed Christian faith. 

Eulogies With A Twist

"You can Eulogies
anyone (positively).
Even the Devil was Consistent."

- DR. Steven Lawson

Few Good Men Left

"It is not that we don’t have enough scoundrels to curse; it is that we don’t have enough good men to curse them."

- Chesterton 

Strong Men

"If you have strong men who will stand with you, you can withstand a lot!"
- Dr. Steven Lawson -

What To Preach To A Dead Church

Student Question.

"What passages of scripture would you preach to a dead church, and what passages would you not preach to a dead church?"

Dr Steven Lawson Reply.

"I think you can preach anything to a dead church. All scripture is inspired by God and profitable.

I've preached to a dead church. You know, I came to realize a few years ago, not my present church, I was Pastoring an unconverted church. That is literally what a dead church is, an unconverted church. They didn't need John 3: 16. They had had that every Sunday. I preached first John and the necessary marks of the new birth, the distinguishing marks of one who is born by God, and a dead church has got to come alive in Christ to begin with. I saw over a hundred adult conversions in one year just among church members coming to faith in Christ. So preaching First John had power. It works in the South, you know, where everyone thinks they are saved; that there are necessary evidences of the new birth, and without these evidences you can be assured you are not saved.

If the church was just languishing, I don't know, I might go to the seven letters to seven churches. And Revelation two and three. There are some some kick in those verses and those letters; from "I have this against you, you left your first love", to, "but I spew you out of my mouth." I mean, that is just kind of a wake-up call right there. And then everything in between, "I have this against you, you tolerate the woman Jezebel", "you have a name, but you are dead" to the church at Sardis. So those Immediately come to mind.

Plus the demands of discipleship from Christ, "Except a man hate his own father and mother, brother, and sister, and yes, even his own life."

I would want to jolt them a bit, off the fence, help them see their lost condition, or just their languishing or backsliding.

A right diagnosis is half the cure.

Help them see where they are."

- Dr. Steven Lawson

Great Preachers Are Disciplined

Great Preachers Are Disciplined
I think the key is discipline. You've got to be disciplined, and that's one thing I think I learned from Athletics and sports that you just have to be disciplined.

• Great preachers are disciplined.
• Great students of scripture, great theologians are disciplined.
• Great theologians are disciplined.
• Great commentary writers are disciplined.

An athlete tells his body what to do. You don't allow your appetites or your tiredness or whatever to dictate to you, you dictate to your body. You push yourself.

And I realised that we run by grace, and not just self-will, but I think that 1 Timothy 4:7 & 8, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. That is a key factor."

- Dr. Steven Lawson 

Ministry advice

I give my mornings to God,

My afternoons to men,

My evenings to my family.

Dr. Steven Lawson.

What is our Problem?

"What is your problem?

What does the Bible say?

Why are we still Talking?

- Albert Mohler 

Staying Preaching

"What would be topical but not a expository sermon? It would be to preach the culture, to preach politics, to preach a book review, to preach morality.  

To preach anything that does not originate out of the word of God, 

does not stay with the word of God, 

and does not end up in the word of God."

DR. Steven Lawson

Preaching Anemia

There is such anemic
so called preaching.....
There is a vacuum.
I think we would do better, at times, with no preaching
than with the the blight
of what we have and
what we suffer through."

- Dr. Steven Lawson.

A Time Of Ruin

"Arrogance and scorn have now become strong; it is a time of ruin and furious anger."

Mattathias, 1 Maccabees 2: 49

No Preaching Is Better Than Bad Preacning?

There is such anemic so called preaching..... There is a vacuum. I think we would do better at times with no preaching than with the the blight of what we have and what we suffer through."

- Dr. Steven Lawson.

Liberal Christians Are Our Sadducees

Living In The Therefores Of Scripture

WHEN SADDUCEE CHRISTIANS POINT AT "PHARISEE" CHRISTIANS 

----------------------------------------------------------------

Liberal and progressive Christians rather freely like to accuse scripture minded Christians as being Pharisees.

Their own position is often that of the Sadducees! Sadducees poked fun at the Pharisees all day long with stories and questions like this, and about things they themselves don't even believe in. Like here in Mark 12:18-27 

Yes, we have modern day Sadducees within the Christian community. There are  Sadducee congregations, with similar doctrines. 

Jesus said they are in "Error:" (Greek word Used is πλανάω planaō, v. to be deceived, deluded, going astray, in error, wandered off, lead astray, misled,  mistaken) for two reasons.

1. Don't know the scriptures - even the five books of Moses, the only books they say they accept.

2. Don't know the power of God. 

God doesn't do much of anything according to a Sadducee. They are for being good, strict in their levitical observance, but accept very little as reliable revelation from God, and doubted most everything that is within, or about, the Power of God. [Resurrection from the dead back to life, and into a real living afterlife]

They easily accommodated with Rome for power and influence because they hold little as "Truth" worth believing, think most scripture of the OT shouldn't be read as authoritative. They loved using scripture against scripture, to try and discredit, show possible contradictions. That is the way progressives are, its not always a huge contrary truth they present, (well not always anyway) they set up straw man arguments just like we see in this text. They loved to see them selves as witty, by. Like the Sadducees, they often have influence in running the physical temple and its affairs, logistics.... but they had no heart to serve the people. They were too smart, rich, elite, to be pastoring the normal follower of Yahweh 

If there is a revelation from God , inspired, unfolded, and revealed by the Holy Spirit, every word of it is important.

As the Post-it Note Theology  says, they were the ultimate compromisers.

They were graceless also. In practice, the Law of Moses is not always very clear and the Sadducees had interpretative traditions of their own, which were written down in a book of jurisprudence known as the Book of Decrees. The existence of this penal code is known from a rabbinical source, the Megilla Ta'anit, a calendar like text that states that the Book of Decrees was revoked on the fourth of Tammuz (no year is given). The code is described as very harsh: the author of the Megilla Ta'anit states that the Sadducees had taken the famous line Exodus 21.24, 'an eye for an eye', literally. The Pharisees allowed the person who had blinded another, to pay damages.

They have been described as hedonistic and as having a "contempt for sholarship." And Josephus said they were boorish, and rude. A new hedonism almost always goes hand in hand with a deep deconstruction of faith. 

History

The origin of the Sadducees remains a mystery. An important and controversial clue is the etymology of the name 'Sadducees' (sedûqîm). This word may be derived from the word Tsaddîq ('righteous') or the name Zadok, who was either high priest in the age of king Solomon or the name of the founder of the sect (see above). It is not possible to choose between the alternatives: the name 'righteous ones' may have been adopted as a retort to the Hasidim - probably the early Pharisees), who claimed that they were the only pious ones; the name 'sons of Zadok', on the other hand, may refer to the fact that only the descendants of Zadok were -according to an ancient tradition- entitled to perform the priestly service in the Temple.

God Doesn't Emotionally Snap! The Impassibility ofmGod

God Doesn't Emotionally Snap! The Impassibility ofmGod

The idea that God just "snaps", gets pushed, enflamed or directed by human emotions, was very much the view of Greeks and Romans about their pagan pantheon of gods. But the new "Open Theists" think God doesn't know what he will do, it is unfolding as he responds  to the condition of the world and each person in the moment. 

But as suggested below, no theologian was saying God has lack of feelings or emotions. But emotions do not determine the reality of what must be done to love, and to save. 

"Impassibility" is related to the teaching of the "Immutability of God"  (unchanging).

God is sure, and secure, but enjoys his relationship with his creation. He does what he needs to do to save it. 

I link another article in comments (The Impassible God Who Cried)

Change All The Ordinances

Forget the Word.

Change ALL the Ordinances (for new ones).

From a few extra-Biblical historical sources.

#PostItNoteTheology

I see Everything By Christ.

"I believe in Christianity as I beleive that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, because by it i see everything else."

Memorial inscription in Westminster Abby for C.S.Lewis.

Spiritual Formation Every Day From Our Culture

"Spiritual formation is happening all the time (from our culture). Just not always in the Church."

So we might get involved in the process.

Your Hardship Has Come!

For all of the important differences between Luther and Leo X, Calvin and Trent, Catholics and Protestants shared a common assumption that some form of Christianity would provide the dominant culture.

But that is not our world today. In modern society, few have time for Christianity of any flavor. The basic Christian context of our Reformation forefathers is long gone and, if not completely forgotten, utterly despised. We must look to an earlier time for help: Specifically, to the second and third centuries.

As in the second century, Christianity is now regarded not simply as absurd, but also as immoral. We may not be accused of cannibalism and incest, but our sexual ethic and understanding of selfhood are seen as hateful and ignorant. And perhaps for the first time since the third- and fourth-century persecutions of Decius, Valerian, and Diocletian, the terms of civic loyalty and of faithful church membership are becoming mutually exclusive.

As ancient Roman Christians had to sacrifice to the emperor or risk being punished as subversive of civil society, so modern Western Christians are beginning to face that choice. Affirm gay marriage or have your business boycotted. Let your children choose their own gender or have them taken away from you. Maybe we are not quite there yet, but we are too close for comfort and complacency. "

- Carl Trueman

The Word Made Church

"Called into being by the Word, the church proclaims that Word and reflects God’s character to the world through humble acts of hospitality, friendship, and kindness. And courage, too—courage that is not demonstrated by signing some online petition about homosexuality or pontificating in an online echo-chamber but by faithful witness to the truth in a hostile workplace. That is where Protestant Christianity is often at its finest."

- Carl Trueman

Eyeball and Read-End church

"Preachers have a difficult job. We are hired completely for one thing then measured by a completely different metric. We are hired to make disciples but measured by how many eyeballs and rear-endes are there. So basically they are hired to do theologically rich discipleship but measured on marketing."
Break point podcast. Will evangelicals return to church.