Commentary, analysis and opinion.

Ivanka Trump promotes gay and transgender rights

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Renew America has a piece by media critic Cliff Kincaid covering the expanding assault on traditional religious values. “The involvement of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner in the culture war – on the side of the liberal/left lobby – has been a shocking development,” says Kincaid.  Another shocking development was hearing the news that Vice President Mike Pense, a conservative evangelical Christian, joined President Trump in siding with the powerful sexual rights lobby regarding Trump’s decision to let stand President Obama’s executive order on LGBT rights. Kincaid also tackles the Boy Scouts of America’s recent decision to permit girls who identify as boys to become Boy Scouts. He writes:

She’s been labeled the “Daughter-in-Chief” by the tabloids and, in this case, it appears to be the truth. According to several news accounts that have not been denied or debunked, Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, persuaded President Donald Trump to retain an executive order from the Obama administration that prohibits companies from doing business with the federal government unless they hire and promote open homosexuals and transgendered people.

The so-called “transgendered” are people confused about their “gender identity” who may be in various phases of transition to the opposite sex, in some cases involving gender mutilation and surgery. In short, they are DNA deniers, a category of people considered to be engaged in immoral and perverted conduct by the standards of traditional morality and religion.

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Sleazy Movies, Sleazy Culture

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In this piece over at News With Views, Lee Duigon examines what happens to a culture when the family breaks down, nobody bothers to obey the law, and a political party boos God at its national election.  He writes:

No one spends $100 million to make a movie intending it to lose a heap of money. They expect to make money. They expect a lot of people will pay to see it.

Soon to be released, “Fifty Shades Darker” is the sequel to “Fifty Shades of Grey,” a movie celebrating and promoting the perversion of “bondage and domination”—in which one partner, usually the woman, gets her jollies by being tied up and smacked around by the other. In the “Fifty Shades” franchise, it’s always the woman. Somehow this is supposed to be liberating, and feminists are too busy protesting in favor of abortion to devote any time to protesting against this. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

According to a review by The Express, this sequel is “far kinkier than the original” and “almost pornographic at times.” Almost? What do they have to do to go beyond “almost”? Never mind, I don’t really want to know.

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How Does Satan Propagate False Doctrines? THIS Fast

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Elizabeth Prata of The End Time warns of “IF : Gathering.”  The title comes from the group’s motto, “If God is real, then what?” Prata reveals that, “The purpose statement on their IRS forms is to equip women by having them share their feelings about Bible passages posted online.”

Elizabeth recently penned “If : Gathering: more information, including video claiming direct revelation” where she said this:

The ‘gathering’ part is actually brilliant. They purport to disciple women in gatherings at homes and other locales, sometimes churches. They know where to gather through social media, which is employed in a major way. That’s why their embeddedness and vigorous activity is hidden from view and thus their danger is not readily seen. There aren’t posters, advertisements, billboards, pamphlets. etc. There’s texts, social media whispers, person-to-person promotion, all of it done in a way that is more subterranean than any other generation’s activity.

Satan’s fingerprints are all over this, brethren. So we urge you to bone up on the rapidly growing IF movement because it’s not going away any time soon.

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Dr. Oz, Priscilla Shirer, Carl Lentz partner for ‘Faithful Fridays’ show

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Berean Research has the story:

“How can faith transform your life, your career, your happiness? How can you live a life of blessings?”

That’s the intro to Dr. Mehmet Oz’s new Faithful Fridays show. The Muslim television TV celebrity doctor known for teaming up with Saddleback’s Rick Warren to launch the “Daniel Plan” diet, small group, and sermon series is now teaming up with The War Room’s Priscilla Shirer and Hillsong New York Pastor Carl Lentz, among others.

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Mindfulness is the New Transcendental Meditation

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Study – Grow – Know warns that the Buddhist – Hindu practice of TM has been changed to mindfulness but what hasn’t changed is that it is a meditative practice that clears the mind and takes the practitioner into an altered state of consciousness:

We’ve written before on the subject of mindfulness, here and here. However, since awareness and practice of it has been growing seemingly by leaps and bounds, another warning regarding that system is probably a good idea.

Time recently published a special edition that deals completely with the area of mindfulness. Though the cover price was $13.00, it was beneficial to understand the spin placed on this growing problem. First thing to notice is that right on the cover, Time calls mindfulness, “the new science of health and happiness.” Whenever something like mindfulness is referred to as “science,” red flags should go up.

After all, mindfulness is dealing with the area of philosophy, but is presented in a way that is intended to make people believe that it is based in hard, cold, scientific fact. It’s not. It used to be called Mindfulness of Purpose, but has been shortened to simply mindfulness. That is also a clue. Often, names and labels are changed completely or shortened to make them more scientific sounding, so that people will have a difficult time disagreeing with them.

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See Our Research Paper On Contemplative Prayer

 

Higher Education: ‘A Four-Year Attack on America and God’

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In a post over at LifeZette, Alex McFarland declares: Free speech, free thought, and a student’s true potential are all casualties of a PC culture.

McFarland makes the case that “Unless you send Junior to a solidly Christian and/or conservative college, there’s a very good chance you’ll be spending your hard-earned savings for an eight-semester politically correct indoctrination program.”

After interviewing hundreds of students, professors and administrators, McFarland is convinced that “College education is less about the pursuit of truth and more about imparting a carefully guarded, often forcefully imposed narrative of economic socialism, political globalism, moral relativism, militant secularism, and personal meaning through hedonism.”  Read it and weep:

“College costs four years and $100,000 to discover that you can’t know anything.”

Variations of that sentiment have been circulated by trend watchers, cultural commentators and worldview speakers like myself for years now. Over a decade ago, in his excellent and heavily footnoted work “Brainwashed,” author Ben Shapiro observed that a college “education” at many universities today amounts to “a four-year attack on America and God.”

Shapiro had been fired from the UCLA Daily Bruin for writing an op-ed piece around the radical idea that the nation of Israel should not be forced by the U.N. to give up land for peace. Though extortion-like “land-for-peace” agreements have never brought lasting peace to the Middle East, and though such arrangements have never served the best interests of the nation of Israel, approval of such has been the accepted party line for much of Western academia for years.

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Perry Noble’s Ended Preaching Career Revived at Elevation Church

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Jeff Maples of Pulpit & Pen shares what is going on in the life of disgraced pastor Perry Noble after a 30 days in alcohol rehab — he’s preaching again! Noble fans have his pal Steve Furtick to thank for returning him to the spotlight. Maples writes:

Notable former pastor and founder of Newspring church in Anderson, SC gave his tacit approval of alcohol consumption in 2013. Three years later, he was fired by his church for “falling into sin” with alcoholism. The elders of his church made the decision to terminate him from the pastorate. Less than two months later, after a 30-day alcohol rehab program, he claimed to be cured of his disease and vowed to return to ministry.

I spent 30 days in a treatment facility in Arizona from mid-July until mid-August. Being in that place allowed me to come face to face with issues from my past as well as my current struggle, and placed me in a place to successfully overcome my overmedication via alcohol.

Now, I’m not sure if what he said after that is a result of his years of intoxication, or if he’s simply playing some kind of mind game, but he went on to say,

I can honestly say I am excited about the future God has for me and my family. The one thing I keep hearing from Him over and over again is that He is not finished with me.

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False Teachers and Deadly Doctrines

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Blogger, author and book reviewer Tim Challies has a new series: Deadly Doctrines. In his first installment he defines what doctrine is and has a helpful table.  He reminds us that, “The Christian’s responsibility is clear: We are to learn God’s truth by searching God’s Word. We must carefully evaluate every teaching according to God’s unfailing standard. What passes the test is sound doctrine, and what fails the test is false doctrine.”

Challies lays out eight terrible consequences of false doctrine.  Discover what those consequences are. He writes:

The heaven tourism fad, there was the best-selling novel that reframed the doctrine of the Trinity. Meanwhile, the largest church in America is led by a man whose platitudes are indistinguishable from fortune cookies. But it’s not just authors and church leaders who are swerving away from the truth. Theologians and laypersons alike are abandoning traditional understandings of manhood and womanhood, of marriage and sexuality. Never has it been more important for Christians to commit themselves to rejecting false doctrine and pursuing sound doctrine, to ensure they are following teachers of truth, not peddlers of error.

In a new series of articles, we will consider false doctrine, sound doctrine, and how to train ourselves to distinguish between them. We will see how God calls us to respond to false and sound doctrine, as well as false and sound teachers. In this opening article, we will briefly define the term “doctrine,” examine the two different kinds of doctrine, and then suggest eight terrible consequences of false doctrine.

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Research: Discernment

The battle lines are drawn in the White House between religious liberty and LGBT rights

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Denny Burk, Professor of Biblical Studies at Boyce College, has a warning for people of faith:

There is a controversy brewing in the White House that religious voters had better start paying attention to. As I wrote yesterday, there is one faction that wants to keep President Obama’s 2014 LGBT executive order in place, and there is another faction that wants to oppose it with an executive order protecting religious liberty. Politico reports today about who is leading the factions and where this conflict is going:

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump helped lead the charge to scuttle a draft executive order that would have overturned Obama-era enforcements of LGBT rights in the workplace, multiple sources with knowledge of the situation told POLITICO.

A draft executive order on LGBT rights — which outlines how to roll back former president Barack Obama’s protections and expand legal exemptions based on religious beliefs — has been circulating among journalists and worried progressive groups this week.

But two sources close to Kushner and Ivanka Trump, who have in the past been supporters of gay rights, said the young couple were both in favor of putting out a clear statement from the president, promising to uphold the 2014 Obama executive order and stopping the momentum for the turnaround in its tracks.

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The Hyper-Charismatic House of Cards: Let It Fall and Be Free

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From Berean Research:

Steven Kozar of Messed Up Church takes on the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). You will come away from reading his piece with no doubt in your mind as to why this is such a dangerous movement and why discernment bloggers continually warn of the pitfalls of the NAR. I for one have been warning my readers for over a decade. Thus, I can attest to the fact that NAR leaders are, as the late Ken Silva so aptly put it, wing-nuts.  And that’s not name calling.  That is a fact.  Take it from one who’s been researching/reporting on these people since they first managed to infiltrate the Christian Right.  Many of you will find this hard to believe, but the pro-family movement is literally teaming with wolves.

But what you’re about to read has nothing to do with the Christian Right and undiscerning pro-family leaders.  It’s about a growing movement that’s at the root of the collapse of evangelicalism.  In this must read piece, Steve Kozar brings to light the reasons this movement is considered dangerous; likewise, he shows the effects it’s unbiblical teaching has had on those who become a part of it — and it’s not pretty. Steve makes if very clear why professing Christians mustn’t involve themselves in any aspect of the bizarre, unholy, mystical movement that has hijacked evangelicalism.  It’s not Christian. It’s not of God. It’s a theological cult. And its leaders are wolves!  Run!!

If you’ve been a part of a church that adheres to some of the “New Apostolic Reformation/Signs and Wonders” , there’s a good chance that you have nagging doubts and concerns that keep popping up from somewhere in the back of your mind.

That’s actually good.

For example…

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NAR Prophets claim the three streams will be one

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Berean Research reports on what the NAR “apostles” and “prophets” are up to that includes some really bizarre “prophetic utterances.” Sadly, a growing number of undiscerning Christians are becoming followers of these wolves in sheep’s clothing. Video is provided for those who have a strong stomach:

What’s with the streams?

Several “thus saith the Lord” prophecies about three hyper-Charismatic, New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) empires merging is interesting, given it is coming from several different “prophets.”  The predictions alleged to come straight from God’s own mouth say that the three conglomerates, Bill Johnson’s Bethel Church in Redding, California, Mike Bickle’s International House of Prayer (IHOP) empire, and the Toronto church are three rivers that must flow into one.

The original oracle was spawned several years ago by Patricia Bootsma, lead pastorix at the Airport Campus church at Catch The Fire Toronto.

Here’s prophetess Carol Arnott recapping that “word,” stating that Bootsma told her: “Carol, the three rivers, Kansas City, Redding and Toronto, must come together. The three rivers must come together for what God wants to do in this next move,” Arnott remembered. source  (Careful; watching past the first 30 seconds will keep you up at night.)

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Tongues: The Final Word … Was Not Ecstatic Gibberish

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Bud Ahlheim of Pulpit & Pen tackles the speaking in tongues debate. Is the gift of tongues extant today? Are the tongues being manifested today the same as the tongues in the New Testament? Must the hearer understand the utterance?  Ahlheim answers these questions and many others.  He writes:

Right now, today, there are more than 670 million people on the planet who claim adherence to charismatic theology. They outnumber non-charismatic evangelicals almost two-to-one. While the theological perspective of the charismatic movement is an interpretation of Scripture which claims to validate the continuation of the apostolic “signs and wonders” gifts of the Holy Spirit, the overwhelming practical feature of charismatic churches is the modern exhibition of “tongues.”  As Morgan Freeman said, tongue-speaking practitioners believe they are speaking “the language of heaven.”

The sheer preponderance of the practice of tongues in the modern church, considered in light of the warning from Christ about the wide, easy gate that leads to destruction, (Matthew 7:13-14) demands that the practice must be given diligent, Berean-like examination against what Scripture actually teaches. We must know if what we see in the charismatic movement is an authentic feature of the narrow, hard way, or whether it is merely an emotionally appealing trait of the wide path deceptively introduced by an enemy who seeks to “steal, kill, and destroy.” (John 10:10)  The author of Hebrews provides the weighty admonition that we “must pay closer attention” to the revelation of divine truth given “by his Son.”

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Why We Should Not Fear Satan and Demons

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Crossway has a post by John MacArthur and Richard Mayhue that’s adapted from “Biblical Doctrine: A Systematic Summary of Bible Truth”:

Are Demons in the World Today?

Why do demons sometimes receive so much attention from the media? Are the reports biblically correct, or are they just the musings of uninformed people who see a demon behind every bush and under every rock? Has demon activity accelerated in the world? How can one know which concepts are biblically accurate and which are not?

This subject deserves a full-length book, but it will only be summarized here. Consider several preliminary, general observations:

  1. We affirm the historical reality of Satan and demons, both in the past and in the present, as verified by the Bible.
  2. We affirm that the Bible admonishes Christians to expect Satan and demons to operate now much as they did in both Old Testament and New Testament times (1 Pet. 5:6–11).
  3. We affirm that the Bible teaches that, in living out the Christian life, one will experience real spiritual battle with Satan and his army of demons.
  4. We affirm that Scripture alone, independent of personal experience or clinical data, will truthfully determine the reality of demonic experiences and provide an understanding of encounters with Satan and demons.
  5. We affirm that instructions in the New Testament Epistles on how to conduct spiritual warfare were not limited to the first century (Eph. 6:10–20).

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Scientists Have Unlocked the Code That Turns Genes On and Off

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Now that scientists have gene editing ability they’ll have the means to practice eugenics. To make this discovery easier for the public to swallow, researchers prefer telling us that they’ll be able to find ways to prevent diseases….if that’s truly their goal. Time will tell what our future holds. Futurism has the story:

A DNA sequence code critical to our understanding of how human genes are turned on and off has just been unlocked by a team of scientists. Molecular biologists refer to this code as the “human initiator.” Ever since it was first observed back in the 80s, the human initiator was believed to play a significant role in gene activation, given that it commonly occurs at the start sites of genes.

Since then, numerous attempts were made to sequence the elusive code—but none were able to do so successfully until today, when scientists from University of California – San Diego were able to confirm the code responsible for initiating transcription and regulation of more than half of human genes.

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Responses to the Most Frequently Raised Discernment Objections

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Bible study author, speaker and blogger Michelle Lesley responds to those who take her to task for “naming names.” Her answer to #6 “You’re being unkind, unloving, ungodly, divisive, hateful, self-righteous, mean, critical, etc. for calling out false teachers” is spot on.  You will find Michelle’s responses to the opposition a great help in contending with scoffers.  She writes:

Discernment- it’s a dirty job, but somebody’s gotta do it. While I’m a women’s discipleship blogger rather than a discernment blogger, discernment is part of discipleship. And it’s sorely lacking among Christian women today, which is why it’s regularly featured in my writing.

I’ve been very encouraged by the hundreds of e-mails, messages, and comments I’ve received from women who have turned away from false teachers or helped their loved ones and churches to forsake false doctrine because of something I have written. (I claim absolutely no credit for that. God and His word get all the glory. He is the one who changes hearts, not me.) It’s such a blessing to hear from so many women who are actively pursuing Christ and the truth of His word.

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Forty-Four Years and Sixty Million Dead Babies

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Conservative radio host and activist Chuck Baldwin penned a provocative blog post to bring attention to the 60 million womb babies who have lost their lives to abortionists since Roe v Wade became the law of the land.  Baldwin believes the slaughter of babies could have been stopped decades ago. In his piece he lays into the Republican Party and pro-life groups like Focus On The Family and National Right To Life Committee for their opposition to former Senator Ron Paul’s “Sanctity of Life” Act and state personhood bills. Their reasoning? “Since it was a Supreme Court ruling that instituted abortion-on-demand, we must wait for the U.S. Supreme Court to issue a ruling reversing the decision.”

Balderdash! says Baldwin. He writes:

Last Sunday, January 22, was the forty-fourth anniversary of the Roe v Wade and Doe v Bolton Supreme Court decisions legalizing abortion-on-demand. Since those dreadful decisions, nearly sixty million helpless, innocent unborn babies have been mercilessly slaughtered in the wombs of their mothers.

Think about it: an American fifty years of age or younger has no conscious recollection of a country where abortion-on-demand was NOT legal. And the truth is, both major parties and the vast majority of America’s pastors and churches are equally culpable for this slaughter of innocents.

The Republican Party touts itself as being “pro-life.” The claim is so much hot air. The GOP controlled the entire federal government for six of G.W. Bush’s eight years in office. They did nothing about Roe. This in spite of the fact that every year Congressman Ron Paul would introduce the “Sanctity of Life” Act; and every year the GOP leadership in Congress let the bill collect dust in the document room and die. And President Bush never once voiced his support for the bill. NOT ONCE. The bill was never voted on by a congressional committee, much less by the Congress as a whole.

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Top Divinity Schools: Use Gender-Neutral Language to Refer to God

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Um, in John 1:18 the Lord Jesus refers to God as Father not mother. And His prayers began with Father not mother.  More importantly, it was God who chose to reveal Himself as male as we find only masculine pronouns in Scripture.  But in spite of all this, some divinity schools have made the decision to avoid gender specific pronouns when discussing God and suggest using the term God and Godself instead of God with himself. Katherine Timpf takes issue with America’s obsession over political correctness in a piece she penned for National Review. She writes:

The divinity schools at Duke and Vanderbilt Universities have instructed their professors to start using more “inclusive” language when referring to God because the masculine pronouns “have served as a cornerstone of the patriarchy.” For example: This year’s divinity course catalogue at Vanderbilt tells professors to give “consistent attention to the use of inclusive language, especially in relation to the Divine,” because the school “commits continuously and explicitly to include gender as an analyzed category and to mitigate sexism.”

“It is up to the individual professor’s interpretation for their classes and is suggestive rather than mandatory,” the associate dean for academic affairs at Vanderbilt’s divinity school, Melissa Snarr, said in an e-mail to Heat Street. Now, that may sound fair, but in many cases, it’s really not up to the professor. For example, if we are talking about the Christian God, every single reference to Him in the Bible uses a masculine pronoun . . . which kind of gives you the vibe that Christians have decided that their god is a dude. The fact is, teaching anything else would be giving inaccurate information — which is what makes Duke’s particular guidelines even more absurd.

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Abortion Science: Heartbeats Are Imaginary, Unborn Babies Aren’t Alive, And Ultrasounds Are Just Tools Of The Patriarchy

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Sean Davis of The Federalist goes after the writer of a featured piece in The Atlantic who makes the ludicrous claim that a baby growing in its mother’s womb is not actually a baby and that the baby isn’t really alive. Davis writes:

Forget the war on babies. The abortion industry has a new enemy: ultrasounds. In a bizarre and rambling 2,600-word feature piece published on Tuesday, The Atlantic writer Moira Weigel took a sledgehammer to basic science and then did her best to vacuum its brains out before anyone could figure out what just happened.

The article’s headline is bad enough—”How the Ultrasound Pushed the Idea That a Fetus Is a Person”—but its subhed is the real work of art: “The technology has been used to create an ‘imaginary’ heartbeat and sped-up videos that falsely depict a response to stimulus.”

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God Hates Deceit

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According to blogger and author Tim Challies, “God reserves words like ‘hate,’ ‘abomination,’ and ‘despise’ to describe the sins for which he has the greatest revulsion. In his series on the things God hates, Challies delves into God’s hatred for deceit. Deceit, he says, “is the natural condition of those whose hearts are in rebellion against God.” Moreover, “deceit is a sure sign of our depravity.” In this installment, Tim Challies walks us through what it looks like when a person is in rebellion against God. He writes:

The Bible leaves no doubt that God hates deceit. Three times in the book of Proverbs he states it bluntly. In Proverbs 6 we read a list of “six things that the LORD hates, seven that are an abomination to him,” and two of them relate to deceit: “a lying tongue” and “a false witness who breathes out lies” (17, 19). Proverbs 12:22 echoes the theme: “Lying lips are an abomination to the LORD, but those who act faithfully are his delight” (Proverbs 12:22).

Zechariah adds that God hates the kind of deceit that takes shape in false oaths, saying, “do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath, for all these things I hate, declares the LORD” (Zechariah 8:17). As we assemble the evidence, it becomes clear: God hates any concealment of the truth, any denial of the truth, or any misrepresentation of the truth.

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Jerry Falwell Jr Embraces Prosperity Impastor, Paula White, calls Discerning Christians ‘Pharisaical’ and ‘Self-Righteous’

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According to the Polemics Report:

Jerry Falwell Junior ascended to the stage while a chant originating on the Jerry Springer show of “Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!” came from the crowd. He would then introduce the Word-of-Faith impastor, prosperity gospel teacher, and former mistress of Benny Hinn, and do so as though she were a sister in Christ.

Falwell would then go on to interview White’s third husband, who is a musician for the rock band, Journey, and who replaced her second husband – pastor Randy White – just a few years ago. White’s rockstar husband, Jonathan Cain, spoke of God’s anointing on his music career, and credited Jesus with his success. Cain’s musical career, with which he credits God, includes songs with lyrics like…

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Have Christians lost the art of biblical discernment?

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By Marsha West

What exactly is discernment? It means “to distinguish, to separate out by diligent search, to examine.”

Search…examine… “Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.” (Acts 17:11, emphasis added) The Berean Christians didn’t take Paul’s word for anything. They listened to his teaching and then they went to the scriptures to see if what he taught was true.  Because the Bereans checked Paul’s teaching against Scripture, he commended them saying that they were “more noble than those in Thessalonica.”

Christians who are spiritually discerning are able to properly distinguish between true and false teaching. Those with discernment have wisdom. Moreover, in the Bible we’re told that a true believer possesses the mind of Christ. “The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. ‘For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 2:15-16)

According to Bible expositor Matthew Henry:

The apostles were not guided by worldly principles. They had the revelation of these things from the Spirit of God, and the saving impression of them from the same Spirit. These things they declared in plain, simple language, taught by the Holy Spirit, totally different from the affected oratory or enticing words of man’s wisdom. The natural man, the wise man of the world, receives not the things of the Spirit of God. The pride of carnal reasoning is really as much opposed to spirituality, as the basest sensuality. The sanctified mind discerns the real beauties of holiness, but the power of discerning and judging about common and natural things is not lost. But the carnal man is a stranger to the principles, and pleasures, and actings of the Divine life. The spiritual man only, is the person to whom God gives the knowledge of his will. … And the apostles were enabled by his Spirit to make known his mind. In the Holy Scriptures, the mind of Christ, and the mind of God in Christ, are fully made known to us. It is the great privilege of Christians, that they have the mind of Christ revealed to them by his Spirit. They experience his sanctifying power in their hearts, and bring forth good fruits in their lives. (Source – bold added)

Only the spiritual man (regenerate) possesses the knowledge of God’s will….because he has the mind of Christ.  Henry calls to our attention that it is through reading the scriptures that the spiritual man receives the knowledge of His will.

Before we move on, we must add a word of caution from blogger and author Tim Challies.  Speaking on discernment in “How can I increase my spiritual discernment?” he wrote:

Some have mistakenly defined spiritual discernment as a God-given awareness of evil or good spiritual presences—the ability to tell if a demon is in the room. While some people may possess this capability, it is not the biblical meaning of discernment. Spiritual discernment ultimately has to do with wisdom and the ability to distinguish truth from error.

So – how do Christians grow in spiritual discernment?  Two ways.  By allowing the Holy Spirit to be their guiding light; likewise, thorough carefully studying the Bible.

What should we do to determine if a person’s teaching is unbiblical? We are commanded to test what’s being taught. In fact, Paul urges believers to “test everything; hold fast what is good.” (1 Thessalonians 5:21) Likewise, John encourages us to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God.” How does one test a spirit?  By reading the scriptures, in context, for that’s where Truth is found. Why is “testing” so important? “For many false prophets have gone out into the world.” (1 John 4:1) False prophets/teachers distort the truth….which is why the Bible refers to them as false teachers and wolves in sheep’s clothing.  It’s no exaggeration to say that a large number of charlatans knowingly—and without a smidgeon of guilt–lie through their teeth. Admittedly, examining someone’s teaching is no easy task.  But nowhere in Scripture are we told that it should be left to “professionals”; it is clearly our responsibility.

We mustn’t ignore the fact that any teaching that fails to line up with what the scriptures say is not from God! And if the Bible’s not the source of his/her teaching, most likely its source is the “spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places.”  Satan’s not called the father of lies because he’s a truth teller!

Far too many Christians rely on the discernment of other believers, like those of us involved in online discernment ministries. It’s okay to learn from each other (iron sharpens iron) but, again, we must do as the Bereans did – test!  Regrettably, when it comes to testing for errors, a growing number of professing Christians deserve a failing grade.

Because so many people spend a huge amount of time on one form of technology or another, it’s easy to see why the views so many evangelicals hold is derived from TV preachers, radio/podcast personalities, best-selling books, popular bloggers and even social media. Many individuals who claim to be evangelicals search religious TV networks such as TBN, Daystar and God TV looking for a spiritual fix.  Unbeknownst to them, they’re exposed to rank heresy taught by Word of Faith (WoF) teachers like Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Paula White, Joyce Meyer, Fred Price, Creflo Dollar as well as “life coach” Joel Osteen.

If Christians would take the time to test those mentioned above, they’d discover that their teaching is decidedly unbiblical. The fact of the matter is that WoF is a theological cult. What often happens when this fact is pointed out to those who have bought into the teaching of these wolves is that they become defensive, even enraged, take aim and “shoot the messenger.”  Sadly, many professing Christians prefer to hold onto their conspiracy theories, unbiblical philosophies and their distorted view of Scripture than spend time studying the Bible, in context.  As the saying goes: Context, context, context!  Why?  For the reason that taking a verse out of its proper context leads to error. According to 2 Timothy 3:16, all Scripture is “God-breathed” which means that the words on the page are inspired by or come directly from God, not from the writers.  We’re commanded to read, study, and understand God’s Word.  But first we must pray and ask the Holy Spirit for guidance so that we are able to discern the things of God. (1 Corinthians 2:14) In John 16:13 we learn that the Spirit of truth guides us into all truth.

What about believers who claim that they hear directly from God, those who say “God spoke to me”…“God told me” to do …”I felt led to”…I sensed that God wanted me to___”  You fill in the blank.  “There is no divining of the will of God through feelings or extra-biblical visions or pictures that appear in our minds or voices we hear,” says Mike Ratliff. “God will never violate the truths He has given to us in His Word.”

Televangelists, who pretend to have a direct pipeline to God, prance around in front of the TV camera, claiming to hear a “word from the Lord.” At the risk of sounding divisive, most televangelists teach outright heresy (I can prove it), so why would God speak to them at all? Frauds should not expect to hear from God; they should expect to be rebuked by God.

What are we to do about false teachers?  We are to “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. (Ephesians 5:11) To expose means “to reprove with conviction upon the offender,” says Ratliff.  So we must point out to the offender their error.  And if they do not listen and repent? Then we “prove to the Body of Christ that this is so using the Word of God to show how they are not being obedient to God.” (Source)

The goal for every Christian is to eliminate aberrant and heretical teaching and all that this includes from Christ’s church. The only way for this to happen is for each of us to become a Berean.  So with this I mind, those who love the Lord Jesus must “contend [fight in its defense] for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.” (Jude 1:3)

I’ll close with a quote from Dr. Albert Mohler:

The tragedy that evangelicals have lost the art of biblical discernment must be traced to a disastrous loss of biblical knowledge. Discernment cannot survive without doctrine.

Research

Discernment

CRN has compiled a list of false teachers and several other professing Christians we’ve warned you about over the years. The list also contains those we must keep an eye on plus movements, organizations and “frauds, phonies and money-grubbing religious quacks” to mark and avoid as per Romans 16:17-18

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Pure Flix an arm of dominionist International Coalition of Apostolic Leaders

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Berean Research has the story on Pure Flix Entertainment, a Christian film and television studio that “produces, distributes, acquires and markets Christian and family-friendly films”:

Is Christian-themed movie subscription site PureFlix a strategic tool of the New Apostolic Reformation, or does this movie company simply focus on delivering films with a pro-Christian message? I’m about to make a case for the former.

We know that one of the hallmarks of the NAR (New Apostolic Reformation) movement is taking dominion over seven spheres of life on Earth, in order to activate the reign of Jesus’ Kingdom. It’s called the “7 Mountain Mandate,” in which Christians are to dominate and fix business, government, media, education, the family, religion, and arts and entertainment.

NAR leaders are very methodical about these takeovers, as you can read about in the extra links below. But what fascinates me is the arts and entertainment sphere. In doing research I stumbled across, quite by accident, a sub ministry of a highly influential group called the International Coalition of Apostolic Leaders, or ICAL for short.

ICAL was brought to America in 2000 by “Apostle” John P. Kelly, who set up shop in Fort Worth, Texas. Kelly was “directed by the Lord” to ask C. Peter Wagner to accept the position of Presiding Apostle over the network of apostles. New Apostolic Reformation is the term Wagner gave to this movement that encompasses hundreds of similar apostolic networks around the world, but not everyone uses Wagner’s exact terminology.  Another common term for the movement is “apostolic and prophetic.” The late Wagner turned the keys back over to Kelly, whose ICAL mission statement reads:

“ICAL is designed to connect apostles’ wisdom and resources in order that each member can function more strategically, combine their efforts globally, and effectively accelerate the advancement of the Kingdom of God into every sphere of society.” (Mission statement)

On its website, you can find out which leaders have been appointed as modern-day “Apostles,” who are to rule over all Christians and bring forth utterances of actual fresh words – oracles if you will – of God Almighty Himself.    View article →

Research:

New Apostolic Reformation (NAR)

Why Christians Submit to the Government

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Over at the Grace to You blog, Cameron Buettel shares his view that Christians “are never called to go to war with our mission field.”  He believes that “our interactions with civic leaders and rulers should be fueled by our desire to further the gospel.”  In Romans 13:1 Paul makes it clear that we must submit to the authorities in power. So, “what should that subjection look like for a Christian living in a dark and fallen world?” queries Buettel. Moreover, “Is there a threshold of evil where Paul’s command no longer applies?”

Cameron Buettel not only communicates his own view on this controversial subject.  He also quotes Pastor John MacArthur and includes a sermon he gave on Romans 13:2-5 you’ll want to listen to.

Today a new American president will be sworn into office. Maybe you like him. Maybe you don’t. Whatever the case, your view of the president should not determine how you relate and respond to the government as a Christian. Romans 13:1 provides the standard: “Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities.”

But submission never comes naturally to our seemingly autonomous existence. It’s even harder when we have to bow in subjection to wicked rulers with evil policies. That’s the bitter pill Christians have had to swallow in recent decades, as we’ve wrestled with our consciences over increasingly evil political agendas.

For many of us, our moral outrage is soothed with thoughts of sanctified rebellion. The thought of sticking it to the man and being spiritual about it appeals to our righteous indignation. We know we’re supposed to obey the law, but doesn’t God make exceptions for bad laws?

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‘Ecumenism For Trump’ Trumps Scriptural Commands For Key Evangelical Leaders

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Bud Ahlheim off Pulpit & Pen reminds us that God commands His people not to engage in a spiritual enterprise with non-believers.  And yet some high profile evangelical leaders ignored the Lord’s command and participated in an interfaith prayer service at the National Cathedral. Ahlheim reveals who these men are:

There’s a supplicant from the Navaho Nation. A few from the now-defunct faith of Judaism. There are Roman Catholics. There’s at least one Hindu. Mormons are represented, as are Baha’is of the United States. Islam and Sikh’s will be there. Episcopalians, Greek Orthodox, Presbyterians, independent charismatics, and Buddhism have a place in the line-up too. And, because no event of ecumenism could possibly be complete without them, so too will Southern Baptists be involved.

The Washington National Cathedral is the site for the “interfaith” prayer service that is to be held the day after the inauguration. Many high profile evangelicals have been involved in the event during recent history. In 1985, Billy Graham preached a sermon at Reagan’s inaugural service.   Since then, the likes of Foursquare’s Jack Hayford, Soujourners’ Jim Wallis, and North Point’s Andy Stanley have all stood on the dais.

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Obama Shows His True Colors as He Leaves Office

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“With no reason to suppress his more radical instincts any longer, the president embraced them on his way out the door,” wrote syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer in a piece published over at National Review.  What did the former president do on his way out that was so radical?  Krauthammer reveals the details:

Barack Obama did not go out quietly. His unquiet final acts were overshadowed, in part by a successor who refused to come in quietly, and in part by Obama’s own endless, sentimental farewell tour. But there was nothing nostalgic or sentimental about Obama’s last acts. Two of them were simply shocking. Perhaps we should have known. At the 2015 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, he joked about whether he had a bucket list: “Well, I have something that rhymes with bucket list.”

Turns out, he wasn’t kidding. Commuting the sentence of Chelsea Manning, one of the great traitors of our time, is finger-in-the-eye willfulness. Obama took 28 years off the sentence of a soldier who stole and then released through WikiLeaks almost half a million military reports plus another quarter-million State Department documents.

The cables were embarrassing; the military secrets were almost certainly deadly. They jeopardized the lives not just of American soldiers on two active fronts — Iraq and Afghanistan — but of locals who were, at great peril, secretly aiding and abetting us. After Manning’s documents release, the Taliban “went on a killing spree” (according to intelligence sources quoted by Fox News) of those who fit the description of individuals working with the United States.

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