Good, Bad and Ugly

Good Stuff

They Progressed From Us… Excellent commentary on today’s church.

Louis Pasteur: The Man Who Said, “Science Brings Men Closer to God”

Are There Modern Day Apostles? Paul Washer - Justin Peters -WWUTT

The Quandary of Seeming Biblical Contradictions.

Logic proves that the Biblical God exists

Does Leviticus Command the Death Penalty for Rape Victims? Rejoinder to Dan McClellan.

Why Is Roman Catholicism So Cultic?  Excellent examination.

Why The Bible Is Not Necessary In Roman Catholicism. Another excellent examination off the religion of Papism.

What is “Heresy”? Very good examination by Elizabeth Prata.

BAD STUFF

New series: House of David. May be even worse (if possible) than The Chosen. More about how unbiblical it is.

Are These Sean Feucht Stories True? At All?? This man is a con artist who suckers people into making him quite wealthy. He is a fraud whom no one should follow or listen to.  Oh, and he wants you to send him a lot of money because he needs $25,000 for speakers.

Kris Vallotton is a horrid teacher and if you don’t think so, take 26 minutes to see the type of garbage he teaches.

UGLY STUFF

Chip & Joanna Gaines: Controversy Over LGBTQ+ Family on Magnolia Network. Another examination is a 13-minute video.  And it gets worse.  When they get challenged they take Scripture out of context.  And one last one to round out the story!

Jesse Duplantis is a worst kind of heretic who leads his followers to hell. Take 18 minutes to see just how blasphemous he is.

Sunday Hymn

We had a choir this past Sunday, three days before Christmas, along with other musicians—including me (on the pipes) and my wife (with snare drum) beginning the service prelude with “The Little Drummer Boy.”  The rest of the prelude were tunes by several flautists and then a duet with a trombone and piano.  The other musicians also accompanied the congregation during Christmas hymns. The choir sang a song between the sermon and Communion, which I thought had some very good lyrics, and which I wanted to share here.

Prepare

From Bethlehem, the House of Bread,

 A Child will come to lead us

His bed a place where sheep are fed,

The spotless Lamb called Jesus.

He comes for those who go astray, 

To gather and to feed them.

Let ev’ry heart prepare the way

To welcome and receive Him.

Jerusalem, the House of Peace,

Rejected and despised Him.

He led her people through the streets

Before they crucified Him.

Upon the cross, He died that day;

Our sin by blood forgiven.

The Lamb of God prepared the way

That leads us into heaven.

Eat the bread,

Drink the cup, 

Share the love.

Prepare your hearts to welcome Him;

The little Child, the Great I AM!

Come to the table pure in heart, 

Prepare to dine together, 

For soon the Lord will gather us

To live with Him forever.

Prepare to share the wedding feast

Prepared for us by Jesus

In His bright home, the House of Light

Where Christ the Lamb, the great I AM, 

The little Child will lead us; 

The Lamb of God will lead us.

Are You and Your Church Leadership Speaking Out?

In his compelling book, A Letter to the American Church, Eric Metaxas notes the frightening similarities between the contemporary American Church and the German Church of the 1930s.  

Of course, the German Church could not have imagined what was coming in the years ahead.  Who would have imagined the Holocaust could have happened in an enlightened and advanced Western nation like theirs?  Yet we in America today know what transpired and have no excuse if we fail to see the parallel warnings delivered by Dietrich Bonhoeffer to his fellow citizens. 

As hard as it may be, all of us who claim the name of Christ need to speak courageously against the evils afflicting our culture, something most pastors of Nazi Germany failed to do.  Metaxas encourages American Christians to speak out before it is too late and echoes Dietrich Bonhoeffer's prophetic call, "Silence in the face of evil is itself evil.  Not to speak is to speak, and not to act is to act.  God will not hold us guiltless.”

Jeff Lukens, The Church Must Speak Out

The Church In Trouble

The following is excerpted from a January 28th article by Melissa Mackenzie, an author with and publisher of The American Spectator, which was titled “The Church.”  Since the article came by email there was no link to an article, so I decided to post these excerpts.

If you believe in God and believe the Bible is God's written word, you know that God created man and woman. You believe that each person, as the Psalmist says, is fearfully and wonderfully made. Each person has intrinsic value. Each person IS a person. And if you are male or female, you were meant to be what you are. … Even if you're more masculine or feminine, you know your gender, you know your gender's biological abilities. You know that humans have worth. You know that babies are people.

This informs your cultural views. These beliefs form a foundation and structure for your ideas on marriage, family, children, euthanasia, gender and a myriad of other ideas. These beliefs are just in one specific realm. Ideas about justice and mercy and economics and using gifts, etc. flow out of Judeo-Christian philosophy, too.

But what happens when the church gets corrupted? What happens when church leadership conforms itself to the post-modern notions rather than the other way around?

…We have huge American corporations and the people who work there who are indifferent to slavery in China. We callously kill millions of unborn babies. The culture corrupts and in turn, politics becomes a confused mess. Bad policy based on false assumptions result. … All sorts of social ills like divorce and fatherlessness and crime and teen pregnancy and suicide and drug abuse stem from a de-emphasis on moral truth. The church led the way with their sin within that delegitimized their moral leadership. … 

Humans worship something. And if they do not defer to God's deity, they default to their own knowledge of good and evil. And here we are. America is a toxic brew of amazing innovation and horrific degradation. We have technology that has far outstripped our morality or ethics to deal with it. … Conversations on ethics have stopped happening; it's as if the secular world is barreling toward a future blind and dumb.

The solution is a moral foundation, something fixed and permanent, and true. The challenge, though, is that this place of truth stands in opposition to nearly everything in the wider culture and in politics. And people are afraid to stand up and state their beliefs for fear of being cancelled or worse (if you're in Finland or Canada, you may be sitting in jail.)

I don't believe the culture is as far gone as radical lefties would make it seem since they control the media and nearly every institution. But these same people have tyrannized students and citizens into silence, save a few brave souls.

And here, too, the church or synagogue fortify the people. A pastor, priest or rabbi standing for truth, showing courage, encourages (imparts courage) into those who hear him. We need more of that.

Politics is indeed downstream from culture, and the culture is downstream from belief. The only question: What beliefs drive the culture?

Is God On America’s Side?

The following is from Erwin W. Lutzer’s book, Is God On America’s Side?, pg.29-30:

Yes, America is a great and wonderful country with a benevolent people, but the question is this: May God use a very wicked country to judge us? The answer is yes. After all, we are among the leaders of the world in the production of pornography, abortion, and the acceptance of same-sex marriages. We have been proud of our wealth and power and have acted as if we have ourselves to thank for our many blessings. Our congress now enacts legislation that isolates God from people’s daily lives. The judicial system, especially the Supreme Court, renders judgments that, in effect, banish God everywhere from the public school to the public marketplace. Local school boards have insisted that atheistic evolution be taught rather that affirming belief in God the Creator. If Jesus is still spoke of with respect, it is only because He has been redefined to fit the pluralistic spirit of the times.

The sins of the world are found in our churches along with the sin of racism and the benign neglect of the poor. As God’s people, we Christians have been preoccupied with our own peace and affluence and cared little about whether our neighbor knows the warmth of our heavenly Father’s heart. We have turned our back on full-orbed biblical teaching in favor of positive suggestions on how our life can be better if we just included God. In many matters of life we have substituted the wisdom of man for the wisdom of God.

God may indeed judge us using another nation with different and oppressive policies.

In Lutzer’s book he gives us seven principles about God as seen in Scripture and the above citation is part of the explanation for the third principle:

1) God can both bless and curse a nation.

2) God judges nations based on the amount of light and opportunity they are given.

3) God sometimes uses exceedingly evil nations to judge those that are less evil. 

4) When God judges a nation, the righteous suffer with the wicked. 

5) God’s judgment takes various forms.

6) In judgement, God’s target is often His people, not just the pagans among them. 

7) God sometimes reverses intended judgements.

It's a thought-provoking book!

Church Leadership

There are more instructions given in the New Testament regarding elders than on other important church subjects such as baptism, the Lord’s supper, or the Lord’s day. In the history of the church this instruction concerning church organization has often been ignored and the secular models of monarchy (episcopal), oligarchy (Presbyterian), and democracy (congregational) have been followed. The greatest danger followed when a single elder began to preside and ultimately became the chief authority. One person became the bishop of the church. With the threats to the church it was more efficient for one individual to make decisions, guard the doctrine of the church, and exercise discipline over false teachers or believers causing disturbances. When this kind of authority was combined with an autocratic spirit, it became a great detriment to the church. But the practice of the church in later centuries is not our authority for the practice of church today. When the New Testament gives us a consistent pattern and couples that with specific instructions concerning the qualifications and practices of elders, why should this area of Scripture be less authoritative for us than others?

John H. Fish III, “The Life of the Local Church: The Structure, Ministry, and Functions of the Church,” The Emmaus Journal, Vol.6/No.1,  pg. 12 

Random Aberrations, Apostasies, and Heresies

I was going to wait until tomorrow for this post, but I’m going to be so busy with a funeral tomorrow that I don’t think I’ll have time for this, so here you go for today!

The Roman Catholics really have as many problems with their followers as any other denomination, even though they claim to have the direct line to God with their Pope.  A Catholic School in New Jersey suspended a long-time teacher because she defended real marriage on her Facebook.  And the local bishop supported the school!!! How dare a Catholic teacher mention that same-sex fake marriage is wrong while she’s employed at a Catholic school!  Will the Roman hierarchy excommunicate the bishop?  Will they excommunicate the school authorities and reinstate the teacher?  I won't hold my breath.

Lighthouse Trails Research Project has another on-line (and hardcopy for purchase) booklet-tract.  This one is part two of “Oprah Winfrey’s New Age ‘Christianity’”  It exposes Neale Donald Walsch also.

From Elizabeth Prata, “Marks of False Teachers, a discernment lesson.”

Going along with that one is this article about tips for bringing false doctrine in your life.

Also from Elizabeth is an article debunking the whole “blood moon” nonsense going around the Internet.

Talk about debunking, this nonsense from Charisma should be easy to debunk; it is a false movement.  What does the Bible give as requirements/qualifications for being an Apostle?  1) Has seen the resurrected Christ, 2) Was personally taught by Christ, 3) Was divinely inspired  4)  Had signs authenticating and confirming him, and 5) were the foundation of the church.  No one who claims apostleship today meets any of these qualifications.

False teacher Anna Diehl is a blogger for Christian Post.  Rob Bowman exposes her teachings, questioning CP for giving her a platform.

Coincidental with my article about choruses, I came across this article on a Lutheran (LCMS type) site..

I’ll end with this bit of humor:  Benny Hinn’s antics set to the music of the Benny Hill show.  Looks like the demons are being loosed!