Entertainment Is For the Immature

The child likes entertainment.  This was true of all of us in childhood. The child tends to have a secret antagonism even to its own parents, if they are parents worthy of the name, because they exercise discipline. …

Unfortunately, this tends to be true of us as Christians.  I have sometimes thought that one of the first problems and trials a young pastor has to meet is due to this very thing, that he has to accommodate himself to the fact that so many Christian people display this characteristic of childhood.  They like a change; anything as long as it is different; change and novelty and newness, and especially the craving for the element of entertainment and excitement.  How much more enjoyable it is to be entertained than to go through the drudgery of a lesson!  If you keep you eye on the religious periodicals and their advertisements and apply this teaching of the Apostle you will understand what I mean.  The unusual, especially if it has the element of entertainment and excitement, is clearly that which is most popular.  That is a clear indication of the child outlook and mentality.  The Apostle is concerned to impress this on the minds of the Ephesians, because if they did not realize it and understand it, they would never grow out of it.

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “Christian Unity: An Exposition of Ephesians 4:1-16,” pg.229

Pornography Is Slander Against God’s Creation

Pornography is a slander against the goodness of God’s creation and a corruption of this good gift God has given His creatures out of His own self-giving love.  To abuse this gift is to weaken not only the institution of marriage but the fabric of civilization itself.  To choose lust over love is to debase humanity and to worship the false god Priapus in the most brazen form of modern idolatry.

The deliberate use of pornography is nothing less than the willful invitation of illicit lovers, objectified sex objects, and forbidden knowledge into a man’s heart, mind, and soul.  The damage to the man’s heart is beyond measure, and the cost in human misery will only be made clear on the Day of Judgment.  From the moment each boy reaches puberty until the day he is lowered into the ground, every man will struggle with lust.  Let us follow the biblical example and scriptural command that we make a covenant with our eyes lest we sin.  In this society, we are called to be nothing less than a corps of the mutually accountable amidst a world that lives as if it will never be called to account.

R. Albert Mohler, Jr., “Desire and Deceit: The Real Cost of Sexual Tolerance,” pg.41-42

True Joy vs Counterfeit Joy

The sort of Christian who looks back to his conversion constantly and who is always talking about that seems to me to be utterly unscriptural.  The Christian life is a life that grows and develops and becomes more wonderful as you go on.  People say, “Oh, that I might have again that first flush of joy.”  My dear friend, if your joy is not greater now than when you first believed there is something radically wrong with you.  We need to be taught that “tribulation works patience” and that patience works experience and that experience leads to hope.  “Hope maketh not ashamed”; of course not!  So the rejoicing that Christians know, the joy of men and women who are children of God, is a rejoicing that never fails them.  And that is how to differentiate between the true and the counterfeit.  There are people who have a manufactured joy that can be worked up.  Psychologists in public meetings often know how to do this, and they work people up with hymns and choruses and various other forms of manipulation, and people think they are filled with this joy.

But I can tell you how to discover the difference between the true and the false: false joy goes out the window the moment you are in trouble.  It is a fair-weather friend.  When the tribulations come, when the trials come, you are utterly cast down, your joy is gone, all your happiness has disappeared, and you are grumbling and complaining and wonder why God is dealing with you like this.  You have a false joy.  A true joy is the joy of the child of God who rejoices in tribulations, in the midst of them, in the depths or the height of them.  “Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice,” whatever the circumstances and the conditions.  This is a valuable test: knowing that when everything has gone against you, you still have a spirit of rejoicing within you.  This joy is in Christ, of course.  It is not vague and general.  The test of whether we are true Christians or not is this: we “worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh” (Phil.3:3).  The true Christian says, “In the cross of Christ I glory,” in the words of an old hymn. Paul says, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal.6:14).  So whatever your circumstances are, however great the tribulation, you go on rejoicing, because you are rejoicing in the Lord Jesus Christ, in his cross, in everything that appertains to him.  And that is a joy that is “unspeakable and full of glory.”  It is a joy, if I may borrow the words of Wordsworth and lift them up into infinity, that is “too deep for tears.”  That is the joy we are describing.  The joy of rejoicing.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “Experiencing the New Birth: Studies in John 3,” pg.207-208

Uphold the Foundations

If you destroy the foundations of anything, the structure will collapse.  If you want to destroy any building, you are guaranteed early success if you destroy the foundations.  Likewise, if one wants to destroy Christianity, then destroy the foundations established in the book of Genesis.  Is it any wonder that Satan is attacking Genesis more than any other book?

The Biblical doctrine of origins, as contained in the book of Genesis, is foundational to all other doctrines of Scripture.  Refute or undermine in any way the Biblical doctrine of origins, and the rest of the Bible is compromised.  Every single Biblical doctrine of theology, directly or indirectly, ultimately has its basis in the book of Genesis.

Ken Ham, “The Lie,” pg. 43-44

Random Aberrations, Apostasies, and Heresies

I wasn’t a bit surprised to learn that Rome was considering “sainthood” for “Mother Teresa,” even thought it is really doubtful she was a true Christian.  Over the years I have read much of the universalism she taught, and wondered why she was never condemned for it by Rome.  Ah, but doncha know her good works saved her?

This review of “War Room” is easier on the movie than others I posted, but he does demonstrate real concern for the spiritual warfare taught.

IHOP had their annual circus this past weekend.  How very sad that these young people think they have to go to IHOP to “encounter” God and get their “spiritual highs” among the “worshiptainment” they will find there.  HT to Erin.

InterVarsity has decided to join the LEFTISTS with supporting the racist, socialist “gospel” of the Black Lives Matter.  God sees all lives mattering, but not BLM — they denounce you for saying “all lives matter.”  The racists have been demonstrated to be on the side of the blacks overall, much more so than with those with lighter skins; BLM is NOT the route to “racial reconciliation.”

The slippery slope of liberal Christianity.

Six reasons not to follow Christine Caine.  You only need one— she’s a heretic.

Tell the person next to you, “F-You!”?!?!  I have to agree with the Museum of Idolatry’s commentary.

No matter what they say, there is no such thing as “Holy Yoga.”  Yoga is a Hindu religious practice, totally incompatible with Christianity. 

Lots of false prophets with lots of false prophecies for 2016.

Mary Dalke has an outstanding, well researched post about the descent of Moody Radio into all things New Age.  Sad to hear this, since for the 17 years we lived in the Chicago area we found Moody Radio to be a great source of good teaching.

Final Chapter about Bill Gothard’s ATI.

What’s wrong with The Passion Translation?  LOTS!!!

Larycia Hawkins can’t understand why Wheaton college would fire her just for saying Muslims and Christians worship the same God?!?   She said “Wheaton College cannot scare me into walking away from the truth (that) all humans — Muslims, the vulnerable, the oppressed of any ilk ­– are all my sisters and brothers, and I am called by Jesus to walk with them.”  Um, NO!  They are not all brothers and sisters if they are unbelievers (John 8:41-47).  Hawkins teaches that the unholy god of Islam is the same as the Holy God of Christianity — this cannot be allowed to take place in a Christian college.

“Several religious leaders, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Ahmed Rehab of CAIR Chicago, the local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, expressed their support for Hawkins.”  Religious leaders they may be, but neither one is a Christian, so their opposition to Wheaton’s actions has no value.

Finally, it’s really saddening when you can’t trust Ravi Zacharias to be discerning. If he isn’t able to personally discern where he is erring in supporting false teaching, how can we trust him in general?

No Assurance In Catholicism

Catholicism does not believe in assurance.  You can never be sure.  That is why people have to pray for you even when you are dead, to pay money for indulgences, and to light candles.  Catholicism and all forms of Catholicism are opposed to the teaching of assurance.  The whole system of the priesthood depends upon the absence of assurance: you need them in life, you need them in death, you need them in purgatory.  You can never be sure of your salvation.  But that is the antithesis of the New Testament teaching.  We are meant to have assurance and knowledge and certainty while still in this world.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “Experiencing the New Birth: Studies in John 3,” pg.200

What the World and Liberal Christians Have Done With the Truth

Unless I am utterly mistaken, there is nothing so old as the truth; and the already proved antiquity of the divine writings is so far of use to me, that it leads men more easily to take it in that they are the treasure-source whence all later wisdom has been taken. … What poet or sophist has not drunk at the fountain of the prophets? Thence, accordingly, the philosophers watered their arid minds, so that it is the things they have from us which bring us into comparison with them. For this reason, I imagine, philosophy was banished by certain states … its disciples sought to imitate our doctrines; and ambitious, as I have said, of glory and eloquence alone, if they fell upon anything in the collection of sacred Scriptures which displeased them, in their own peculiar style of research, they perverted it to serve their purpose: for they had no adequate faith in their divinity to keep them from changing them, nor had they any sufficient understanding of them, either, as being still at the time under veil—even obscure to the Jews themselves, whose peculiar possession they seemed to be. For so, too, if the truth was distinguished by its simplicity, the more on that account the fastidiousness of man, too proud to believe, set to altering it; so that even what they found certain they made uncertain by their admixtures. Finding a simple revelation of God, they proceeded to dispute about Him, not as He had revealed to them, but turned aside to debate about His properties, His nature, His abode. … According to each one’s fancy, He has introduced either something new, or refashioned the old. Nor need we wonder if the speculations of philosophers have perverted the older Scriptures. Some of their brood, with their opinions, have even adulterated our new-given Christian revelation, and corrupted it into a system of philosophic doctrines, and from the one path have struck off many and inexplicable by-roads.

Tertullian (ca. 150-220 A.D.), Apology, Chapter XLVII

Across the Lands

Yesterday in church we sang a song I’ve never previously heard, and it is a good one; from the team of Keith Getty and Stuart Townend — a team that understands what hymns are supposed to be about.

Here are the lyrics for “Across the Lands.”  I trust you will find them to be as worshipful as did I.

You’re the Word of God the Father,

From before the world began;

Every star and every planet

Has been fashioned by Your hand.

All creation holds together

By the power of Your voice:

Let the skies declare Your glory,

Let the land and seas rejoice!

Chorus

You're the Author of creation,

You're the Lord of every man;

And Your cry of love rings out

Across the lands.

Yet You left the gaze of angels,

Came to seek and save the lost,

And exchanged the joy of heaven

For the anguish of a cross.

With a prayer You fed the hungry,

With a word You stilled the sea.

Yet how silently You suffered

That the guilty may go free.

With a shout You rose victorious,

Wresting victory from the grave,

And ascended into heaven

Leading captives in Your wake.

Now You stand before the Father

Interceding for Your own.

From each tribe and tongue and nation

You are leading sinners home.

Stuart Townend & Keith Getty copyright fields display it Copyright © 2002 Thankyou Music (Adm. by CapitolCMGPublishing.com excl. UK & Europe, adm. by Integrity Music, part of the David C Cook family, songs@integritymusic.com) m)

Unbelievers Do Not Understand Christians

“He that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.”  That means that when people are born again and become Christians, they have the Spirit in them; they have an understanding, but other people cannot understand them.

The true Christian is a problem to everybody who is not a Christian, and this again, of course, is one of the best tests we can ever apply to ourselves.  If people can understand you in total, you are not a Christian.  The Christian is a mystery.  The Christian is an enigma.  He must be.  You cannot have the life of God put into you and remain as you were.  You become strange.  There is a difference; something has happened. “How can these things be?” they say.  They do not understand you.  They see what has happened to you.  They see what you are, but they do not understand.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “Experiencing the New Birth: Studies in John 3,” pg.189-190

Awareness of the Other

The one who is born again, the spiritual person, is aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit.  Religious people are not aware of any presence; they just have a system, and they live within that and try to fulfill it and to carry it out.  But the essence of true faith is an awareness of the presence.  Or let me put it still more generally:  it is the awareness of Another.  You cannot get rid of this mystical element in the Christian faith.  This is not mysticism alone, which is philosophical, but a mystical element.  In other words this is experiential, this is personal.  And if it is not personal, it is not true.

Not only do you see this personal element in the Scriptures, you find it also in the great hymns.  The greatest hymns always have it.  Look at them and always notice the dates.  You will find that the hymns that are composed in periods of revival and awakening and reformation always have this personal experimental element very prominently.  You can almost tell by the hymn when it was composed.  If you read the hymns in the Victorian era when they did not know much about revival, you lose this, and they sentimentalize about their now inward moods and feelings—morbid, introspective sentimentality.  The really great hymns always have this objectivity, this awareness of the Other.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “Experiencing the New Birth: Studies in John 3,” pg.170