Commentary, analysis and opinion.

The Insanity of the Left’s Child Gender-Confusion Agenda

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“This is science with an agenda,” reminds Ben Shapiro in a piece over at CNSNews:

On Sunday, The New York Times ran a piece by Jack Turban, a research fellow at the Yale School of Medicine. Turban says that doctors should begin applying puberty blockers to children who identify as transgender as early as possible. That’s because, according to him, “it has become clear that if we support these children in their transgender identities instead of trying to change them, they thrive instead of struggling with anxiety and depression.”

Turban uses as his example one 14-year-old girl named Hannah who was born a boy named Jonah. Turban glows: “Hannah is using a puberty-blocking implant and getting ready to embark on the path of developing a female body by starting estrogen. Ten years ago most doctors would have called this malpractice. New data has now made it the protocol for thousands of American children.”

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The Daily Wonder of Easter

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Michelle Leslie reminds us that “As Christians, every day our sin sick souls need to bow at the cross and be washed afresh in the precious, atoning blood of Christ.”

“What should I preach about on Easter Sunday? Help me out, here.”

That’s the gist of a tweet I saw recently from a pastor. It caught me quite off guard, and it must have had the same effect on many others who punctuated their excellent advice –“preach the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ for our sins”- with lots of “duh’s” and other indications that this should be a no-brainer for a Christian pastor.

Traditionally, the prevailing line of thought about Easter (and Christmas) services has always been, “This is one of the two times a year that a lot of lost people go to church. It might be our only chance to reach some of them. Let’s make sure we give them the gospel.” Maybe after so many years of that, some pastors feel that their church members have heard it all before and they need to move on to something else in order to keep people’s attention. Sometimes, as a pastor, it’s tough to know just what to do to best reach people for Christ.

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Hank Hanegraaff, Greek Orthodoxy, and Patterns in the Cults

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Over at Pulpit & Pen, Seth Dunn examines the claim that the man who took over the leadership of the Christian Research Institute (CRI) following the death of its founder Dr. Walter Martin has left the biblical Christian faith to become Eastern Orthodox which, ironically, is considered a cult. Since CRI is a counter-cult ministry it should come as no surprise that this has become a huge story.  Dunn writes:

With the recent defection of Hank Hanegraaff, the Bible Answer Man, to the Greek Orthodox religion, an examination of the compatibility of this religion with Biblical Christianity is in order. Unfortunately, such an examination is a difficult task where the Orthodox religion is concerned. According to an article published by the Christian Research Institute (CRI), “Orthodoxy is not a monolithic bloc that shares a unified tradition and church life.” Despite this, a discerning examination of Greek Orthodoxy is not impossible. Using a variety of available sources, it can be concluded that Greek Orthodoxy falls outside the bounds of Biblical Christianity and exhibits patterns common to other sub-Christian cults. The Watchman Fellowship, an evangelical discernment ministry, has identified four patterns which are common to cults. Greek Orthodoxy exhibits three of them.

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CRN posted Hank Hanegraaff’s response

Did God Forbid us to Critique or Criticize Church Leaders?

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High profile Church leaders who teach doctrines of demons actually have the temerity to warn their critics to back off or face danger of divine judgment. Well, Cameron Buettel’s not backing off. In a blog post he wrote for Grace to You, Buettel names names and includes a video of one wolf in sheep’s clothing you won’t want to miss. The man’s heretical teaching is breathtaking!  Even so, he has a gazillion adoring fans who financially support his sham of a ministry and they’ve made him a wealthy man. Why would any serious Christian support mangy wolves? Because many believers simply are unable to discern a wolf from a terrier, the reason being that they don’t have a firm grasp of Church doctrine — what they believe and why they believe it.

Someone once said that the Church is a mile wide and an inch deep. In other words, when it comes to understanding the things of God, His people have very little understanding. As a result of their shallowness, spiritual discernment is pretty much non-existent in the visible Church.  And therein lies the problem.

So with all of this in mind, here’s Cameron Buettel’s excellent post:

False teaching thrives in environments where it is unlikely to be questioned. Charlatans and heretics prey on uncritical minds, and work tirelessly to protect and preserve that gullibility. Their success depends on dismantling every challenge to their authority and accuracy.

John MacArthur describes why that problem is rampant in the modern church:

In a time like this of tolerance, listen, false teaching will always cry intolerance; it will always say you’re being divisive, you’re being unloving, you’re being ungracious, because it can only survive when it doesn’t get scrutinized. And so it cries against any intolerance. It cries against any examination, any scrutiny.

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Why Should I Believe that Jesus Rose from the Dead?

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The following is adapted from Michael Horton, “Risen Indeed.”

In answering this question, it’s helpful for us to return to the “facts of the case.” Here, speculation is useless. It does not matter what we thought reality was like: whether we believed in thirty gods or none. It doesn’t matter what we find helpful, meaningful, or fulfilling. This is not about spirituality or moral uplift. Something has happened in history and we cannot wish it away. It either happened or it did not happen, but the claim itself is hardly meaningless or beyond investigation. Let’s look at the facts of the case.

The earliest Christians testified to the following elements of the resurrection claim, even to the point of martyrdom:

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Rick Warren: Thinking Like A Pagan And A Theology-dissing Jesus

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From Berean Research:

Before you get started on Bud Ahlheim’s blog post, head over to our White Paper on Rick Warren, quickly browse our list of concerns, then return to Bud’s piece because you’ll want to know what this man is currently up to.

Because Rick Warren has been dubbed “America’s Pastor” and is held in high esteem by the clueless media as well as pastors who have bought into the purpose-driven model of doing church, it’s important to follow his career path. Since Berean Research makes an effort to closely monitor his comings and goings, we can report without reservation that “America’s Pastor” is not only a wolf in sheep’s clothing; he’s a leader of the pack.  Too harsh, you say?  Again, take a glimpse at our research, and then come back to Bud Ahlheim’s must read report….

 

Remember how Jesus, when He came to earth as the Incarnate Son Of God, actually became a vile, depraved sinner so that He could adequately reach sinners in a relevant way with His Truth? Or that time the thrice-denying Peter answered Jesus’ thrice-offered query, “Do you love me?” in the negative, but only so he could do effective ministry among Jews who didn’t love Jesus either?  Or how about that story of the post-Damascus Road Paul who decided to forsake his apostolic calling and return to living as a self-righteous pagan so that he could reach pagans with the Gospel?

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GOP Calls on Trump to Honor Promise to Defend Religious Liberty

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In a piece over at Townhall, Todd Starnes says he has “exclusively obtained a letter signed by more than 52 House Republicans urging the president to sign an executive order on religious liberty.”

In February President Trump made a promise to people of faith across the fruited plain.

“My administration will do everything in its power to defend and protect religious liberty in our land,” the president said at the National Prayer Breakfast.

When he campaigned for the White House he stated that the “first priority of my administration will be to preserve and protect our religiously liberty.”

“The First Amendment guarantees our right to practice our faith as we see fit…all the time, always, wherever,” he went on to say.

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Ten thoughts about the ‘Billy Graham Rule’

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News recently broke that Vice President Mike Pence has a policy of never dining alone with a woman nor attending an event where alcohol is served unless his wife, Karen, is with him. (We reported the story here.)  Not surprisingly the liberal media ridiculed the VP for adopting the “Billy Graham Rule” to protect his marriage. So on the heels of this “scandal” Denny Burk, Professor of Biblical Studies at Boyce College, has come up with ten brief reflections on this particular discipline.  Here are Burk’s thoughts, which he says are “by no means everything that can or should be said about the so-called ‘Billy Graham Rule’:

1. We must take sexual holiness seriously because God takes sexual holiness seriously. To reject God’s purpose of holiness in our lives is to reject God altogether. For this reason, we must be blood-earnest about holiness.

  • “Without holiness, no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14).
  • “For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality… Consequently, he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you” (1 Thess. 4:3).
  • “But do not let immorality or any impurity or greed even be named among you, as is proper among saints… For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God” (Eph. 5:3-5).

2. The Bible commands us not only to avoid sexual immorality but to avoid situations in which we know that we are vulnerable to temptation.

  • “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (Matthew 6:13)
  • “Flee youthful lusts” (2 Timothy 2:22).
  • “Make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts” (Romans 13:14).

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The Irrelevant Christine Caine … A Dingo Ate My Legacy?

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Ed Stetzer is a prominent evangelical with considerable credibility.  But when it comes to spiritual things Stetzer has shown time and time again that he lacks discernment.  If he had an ounce of spiritual discernment would he spend his valuable time interviewing Word of Faith pastrix Christine Caine regarding her new partnership with Wheaton College, a Christian institution?  Not surprisingly Ed Stetzer did just that.  In a piece over at Pulpit & Pen, Bud Ahlheim addresses the Stetzer-Caine interview and Caine’s baffling arrangement with Wheaton. He writes:

In Revelation 2:20, Christ chided the church of Thyatira in no uncertain terms.  “I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess.”  Today, though, it isn’t just a single church tolerating just a single “prophetess;” it’s a large swath of the evangelical church embracing a legion of false teaching sirens, none of whom are actually named Jezebel.

One, in particular, is Christine Caine.

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Turnstile Churchianity

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What is the evidence that God is blessing a church? Is it the size of the crowd, the total amount of people who have an emotional response to an emotional appeal and a large number of baptisms? In this piece over at Pulpit & Pen, Michael Hall addresses the downgrade caused by the Purpose Driven Church and Life agenda. He writes:

I can’t remember when I last went to a baseball game.  I love sports and always enjoyed a day at the ballpark, except for the overpriced concessions.  As you would walk up to the ticket taker at the turnstile there was usually someone there with one of those handheld clickers that they used to count how many people came through the gates.  I always thought it was redundant but maybe it was their backup system.  But their desire behind was to get as accurate a count as possible for their attendance records.  The numbers are what mattered.

The seeker-driven church is no different.

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Shocking News: Steven Furtick Goes Full-On Prosperity

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Jeff Maples of Pulpit & Pen shares what’s going on with prophet-pastor Steven Furtick:

If it isn’t enough that Steven Furtick, pastor of Elevation, the multi-campus megachurch in Charlotte, NC is a habitual twister of the Scriptures for the purpose of self-promotion and egotistical gain, it’s now abundantly clear that he’s gone full-on Prosperity Gospel.

The Prosperity Gospel is a false gospel that teaches that God promises to all believers who have “enough faith” a long life of good health and extraordinary wealth. Never mind that the proponents of this false gospel are regularly afflicted with various calamities, including death. Recently, Eddie Long, one of the most notorious proponents of the distorted gospel of health and wealth died after a long battle with cancer. Then you have others, like Jan Crouch, who died unexpectedly. Perhaps their faith failed them? Perhaps they did not ask therefore they did not receive?

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Three Reasons God is a Cessationist

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Jordan Standrich has some thoughts on cessationism vs. continuationism to help us think through this challenging topic. “An important part of cessationism,” says Standridge “is God Himself and what He has done in history.”

In this piece over at The Cripplegate, Standrich offers three reasons to bolster his argument that God is a cessationist and not a continuationist. He writes:

Lord I believe that Jordan will play in the NBA! No! I declare Jordan will play in the NBA!

That was a sentence that a guy prayed over me as we were leaving a basketball camp I attended in high school. He said that sentence as he alternated between speaking in tongues and speaking in English. I wanted to say, “have you not seen me play this whole week? I’ll be lucky to start on my high school team this year!” That was the first time I was exposed to the modern version of the gift tongues. Over the years I’ve had a chance to attend quite a few pentecostal churches and events but it wasn’t until I got to seminary that I really started gaining interest in Charismatic theology.

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Research: New Apostolic Reformation

 

You Might Be a Pharisee If . . .

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Those of us who are involved in online discernment ministries (ODM) regularly take on Scripture twisters and outright heretics.  Professing Christians who’ve fallen into false teaching come back at us with “take the log out of your own eye,” as if bringing truth to light means we’re judging. ODM’s have been labeled “Heresy Hunter,” “Legalist,” “Pharisee” and we’re charged with “quenching the Holy Spirit” for doing what we’re commanded to do: “test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. (1 John 4:1) False prophets hate being tested.  So their response is to turn the tables and make ODM’s out to be the villain. I mean, how dare commoners judge Christians who’ve reached rock star status, right?

Over at Grace to You, Cameron Buettel tackles this very subject.  He lays out three biblical earmarks of a Pharisee, beginning with the person who supplements Scripture with all sorts of man-made rules.  He writes:

The odds are good that someone, somewhere, at some point has called you a Pharisee. The odds are even better that you’ve slapped that label on someone else.

It’s no surprise that the name “Pharisee” carries a leprous stigma. They’re the villains virtually every time they appear in the pages of Scripture. Jesus never had anything good to say about them. And their heavy-handed, legalistic authority made them a scourge to all of Israel—even other pious Jews.

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The aim of AIM and the World Race

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Berean Research reports:

Some red flags to warn you about regarding a popular missions trip for youth called AIM- Adventures in Missions, and an event called the World Race,  in which students travel to 11 countries in 11 months.

Young people have been exposed to the New Apostolic Reformation, along with contemplative spirituality and New Age mysticism.

One of my readers contributed her testimony to my series, Leaving the NAR Church, in which she writes:

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Why calling Rick Warren a ‘General’ is significant

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Berean Research responds to the question many in the Christian community are asking: How do I know if my church is part of the New Apostolic Reformation?  Here’s their says:

What’s in a name? When the name and title of “General” is used in a church leadership context, it’s a rank that ought to be a red flag for you.  After reading this article, I hope it will be in the future.

First, the photo. Hillsong’s Brian Houston posted this on his Facebook profile:

The rank title in this case may be easily dismissed as nothing more than just a friendly term of endearment. But did you know that “General” is code word for Apostle within the New Apostolic Reformation movement?

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Visible Church In An Accelerating Apostasy

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Apprising Ministries has an excerpt of a lecture Dr. Walter Martin did in the 1980’s entitled The Cult of Liberal Theology, which is just as true today:

Let me tell you something that I have learned; I know the liberals. I know them well; I was one of them. And they are the most dangerous, insidious, and all-pervading cult that’s loose in the United States right at this moment.

They make the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the Mormons, and all of the Mind Sciences, and the Occult, look like Sunday School teachers. Do you know why? Because these other people are outside the Church; and these devils are in it! And they’re doing it in Jesus’ Name.

They do not believe the Trinity; they do not believe the Deity of Christ; they do not believe the Virgin Birth; they do not believe the vicarious atonement; they do not believe the Bodily resurrection, and they have grave doubts about whether Jesus will ever come back again, and that the Bible is itself the Word of God. Yet I could give you a list of them that infest—and that’s the proper word—infest our theological seminaries; and our church related schools, and our denominations.

And this theological flea infestation is ruining the lifeblood of the Church, which is evangelism. And, you think these are very strong statements; I intend to back them up in—if necessary—excruciating details. For any person who does not know that today in the United States,  and in denominational structures world-around, we are in an accelerating apostasy does not know—I repeat—does not know what’s going on…

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Where Do We Go When We Die?

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In this piece over at The Watchman’s Bagpipes, Glenn Chatfield examines what the scriptures teach about the soul after death.  He writes:

Many teachings about where we go when dead can be totally unbiblical, including the ideas of “soul sleep” and annihilation, as promoted by cults such as the Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses, as well as by many individual false teachers.  Along with these teachings is usually the claim that there is no hell (as the place of eternal torment and separation from God).
If the scripture tells us the abode of the soul after death, that it is still conscious and aware, then the idea of the soul sleeping until resurrection is proven wrong, as is the idea that the souls of unbelievers are annihilated.  One could actually write a whole book on the topic in order to cover what the Bible says about the grave, the afterlife before and after Christ, etc, but here I can only highlight the most important and concise arguments against the “anti-Hell”, “soul sleep” and “annihilation” teachings.

Heaven, Hillsong, and Heresy

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Costi Hinn has a warning for parents: Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be…..targets.  Targets? Yes.  Young people are being targeted by “Christian” bands like Hillsong and Jesus Culture.  Jesus Culture is known for their “prophetic worship.” Their aim is to “ignite revival in the nations of the earth” through global events. But how will this come about when their message obscures the true Gospel of Jesus Christ?

What are groups like Hillsong and Jesus Culture actually accomplishing through their music?  Multitudes are being drawn into counterfeit Christianity!

As the nephew of Word of Faith televangelist Benny Hinn, Costi knows first hand what it is like to be lured into a heretical movement at an early age. But the Lord in His mercy delivered Costi Hinn out of Satan’s clutches and now Costi’s on a mission to prevent others from being manipulated the way he was.  “Christians who are clueless to enemy strategies are sitting ducks,” he warns, “and churches who can’t confidently explain to their young people why they must avoid these types of conferences are unable to effectively keep watch over the souls of their sheep (Hebrews 13:17).”

In his piece over at Pulpit & Pen, Costi Hinn lists five ways pastors and parents can protect young people, and the rest of the church, from being enticed by the enemy of God.

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Related: Jesus Culture’s Kim Walker Smith’s Alleged Encounter With Jesus Christ And God the Father by Ken Silva

Marriage Doctrine Alone Disqualifies Pro-Gay Theology

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Alan Shlemon of Stand to Reason reminds us that, “There have been different understandings of the Lord’s supper, baptism, eschatology, etc. When it comes to marriage, however, there is universal agreement on its definition as a heterosexual union. That’s amazing and significant.” He writes:

I really appreciate a point that Preston Sprinkle made when I interviewed him on the Stand to Reason broadcast recently. Even if you set aside the (at least) five biblical texts that prohibit same-sex relations, you can still make a solid case against pro-gay theology by simply looking at Scripture’s teaching on marriage.

It turns out that 3,500 years of Judaic teaching and nearly 2,000 years of Christian teaching have unequivocally upheld that marriage is only between a man and a woman. The Genesis account of creation, where God establishes marriage as a heterosexual union (Gen. 1:27–28, 2:22–24), alone rules out the possibility of man-man or woman-woman marriage. Jesus even cited the Genesis definition and upheld this view during the New Testament era (Matt. 19:4–6). Since the closing of the canon, the Church uniformly taught that marriage was between a man and a woman.

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‘Sanctuary’ mayors have American blood on their hands

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Those are strong words.  Todd Starnes, host of Fox News and Commentary, feels justified in saying them.  Here’s why:

In 2015 Kate Steinle was gunned down by an illegal alien in San Francisco – a sanctuary city. The man charged with her murder was a seven-time felon who had been deported five times.

Five times.

There was an immigration hold on the suspect, meaning the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement wanted to come get him and ship him out of the country. But San Francisco authorities set the man free. Just a few months later, Steinle was dead.

Steinle’s blood is not only on the hands of her killer, it’s also on the hands of San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee.

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Hillsong’s Brian Houston faces sex abuse cover-up inquiry

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Berean Research has the latest on the sex abuse cover-up inquiry involving Hillsong Church’s celebrity pastor Brian Houston.  According to BR, Houston once blamed a victim of Frank Houston’s sexual assault saying, “It’s your fault this happened, you tempted my father.”  Here’s the story:

Brian Houston’s hearings before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse are underway, as Houston faces questions about the safety of his Hillsong empire after the original charge: that Houston failed to tell police his father was a child sex abuser.

“Frank Houston had abused up to nine boys in Australia and New Zealand, and in its final report on the case released on Monday, the commission found multiple failings within the church executive – at the time led by Frank Houston’s son Brian – in responding.   Source

Many of you remember this from 2014:

“After the allegations became public within the church during 1999, Frank Houston met his victim offering him $10,000 and saying: “I want your forgiveness for this. I don’t want to die and have to face God with this on my head,” the commission heard.

Months later, when the money had not arrived, his victim called Frank Houston’s son Brian, who was then the national president of the Assemblies of God in Australia Pentecostal movement.

The victim said Brian told him: “You know, it’s your fault all this happened. You tempted my father”.

“Brian got very angry after that. He slammed the phone down after saying words to the effect of ‘You’ll be getting your money’,” the victim told the commission. He received a cheque for $10,000 about two weeks later. 

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7 False Teachers in the Church Today

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“Satan’s greatest ambassadors are not pimps, politicians, or power-brokers, but pastors,” warns Tim Challies. “His priests do not peddle a different religion, but a deadly perversion of the true one. His troops do not make a full-out frontal assault, but work as agents, sneaking into the opposing army. Satan’s tactics are studied, clever, predictable, effective.”

Who are the heretics, charlatans, abusers, etc.? Hint: Popes, Pentecostals, prominent scholars and prophets who prophesy falsely.

The following is from Tim Challies’ Deadly Doctrines series:

The history of Christ’s church is inseparable from the history of Satan’s attempts to destroy her. While difficult challenges have arisen from outside the church, the most dangerous have always been from within. For from within arise the false teachers, the peddlers of error who masquerade as teachers of truth. False teachers take on many forms, custom-crafted to times, cultures, and contexts. Here are seven of them you will find carrying out their deceptive, destructive work in the church today. Please note that while I have followed the biblical texts in describing them in masculine terms, each of these false teachers can as easily be female.

The Heretic

The Heretic is the most prominent and perhaps the most dangerous of the false teachers. Peter warned against him in his second letter. “But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction” (2 Peter 2:1). The Heretic is the person who teaches what blatantly contradicts an essential teaching of the Christian faith. He is a gregarious figure, a natural leader teaching just enough truth to mask his deadly error. Yet in denying the faith and celebrating what is false, he leads his followers from the safety of orthodoxy to the peril of heresy.

From the church’s earliest days, she has been afflicted by the Heretic in his various forms. He continues his evil work today, sometimes by contradicting the truth and sometimes by adding to it. He may reframe the doctrine of the Trinity, as Arius did in the third century and as Oneness Pentecostals do today. He may, like Marcus Borg and other prominent scholars, deny the virgin birth or the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Like Jehovah’s Witnesses, he may alter God’s finished word, or like Mormons, he may add to it. Always, he boldly tampers with “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3).

The Charlatan

The Charlatan is only interested in the Christian faith to the extent that it can fill his wallet.

The Charlatan is the person who uses Christianity as a means of personal enrichment. Paul charged Timothy to be on guard against him. “If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain” (1 Timothy 6:3-5). The Charlatan is only interested in the Christian faith to the extent that it can fill his wallet. He uses his leadership position to benefit from others’ wealth.

Simon Magus was motivated by the love of money when he tried to purchase the power of the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:9-24). Since him, the Charlatan has appeared in many forms, always seeking prominence in the church so that he can live in extravagance. When Pope Leo X famously commissioned Tetzel to sell indulgences, the profits not only funded the reconstruction of St. Peter’s Basilica, but also his luxurious lifestyle. In the 1990s, televangelist Robert Tilton brought in tens of millions of dollars each year by exploiting the vulnerable and gullible. Today Benny Hinn, Creflo Dollar, and a host of others peddle the prosperity gospel to enrich themselves from their followers’ gifts.

The Prophet

The Prophet claims to be gifted by God to speak fresh revelation outside of Scripture—new, authoritative words of prediction, teaching, rebuke, or encouragement. In reality, though, he is commissioned and empowered by Satan for the purpose of misleading and disrupting Christ’s church. John offered an urgent warning about him. “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1). Christians must “test the spirits” to determine if they originate with the Holy Spirit or with a demonic spirit. Later, John declared that God has spoken fully and finally in Scripture and offered the most solemn warning against anyone who claims to bring revelation equal or contrary to Scripture. “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book” (Revelation 22:18-19).

The Prophet appears throughout the history of the church. As early as the second century, Montanus and his disciples claimed to speak on behalf of the Holy Spirit. In the nineteenth century, Joseph Smith claimed to receive The Book of Mormon from the angel Moroni. Today the airwaves are chock-full of people claiming to speak in the name of God through the power of the Spirit. Personal prophecies are just a phone call away. Sarah Young, author of the top Christian bestseller of the decade, boldly claims that her book contains the very words of Jesus. The Prophet continues to speak, to lead astray.  Continue reading

 

 

Preemptive Discernment Alert! New Heretic-Authored Book Forthcoming

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In a piece over at Pulpit & Pen, Bud Ahlheim gives us a glimpse of “rock star icon of the Emerging Church” Rob Bell’s latest attempt to rewrite the Bible. In his new book, the former pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, MI looks at the Bible in a “fresh, new way.”

One of Rob Bell’s annoying traits is to ask questions in order to “drive his hearer to a pre-determined position,” says Ahlheim. “And, most often with Bell, that position has been known in the annals of orthodox Christian history as HERESY.”  So with this in mind, would it surprise you to learn that in 2011 Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church used Bell’s heretical teaching?

But this is not about Rick Warren corrupting the minds of his congregants; it’s about what Bud Alheim refers to as “Bell-eneutics.” He writes:

Check the batteries in your heresy detectors!

Sound the Berean warning bells!

Let the discernment warning tocsins be sounded!

Signal all to take Caution! Caution! Caution!

There’s a new Rob Bell book soon to be released.

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Learn more about Rob Bell over at Apprising Ministries

Health-Care Reform Won’t Fix What Really Hurts American Health

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According to David French of National Review “deaths of despair” are “surging” in the United States among middle-aged white non-hispanics.  French includes some stunning statistics:

In 2016, two truths were revealed at once. First, the percentage of uninsured Americans hit a record low — a mere 8.6 percent. In 2010, almost 50 million Americans lacked health insurance. By the beginning of 2016 that number had plunged to 27.3 million. This is, truth be told, the fruit of Obamacare and indeed is the very reason why the GOP is having so much difficulty in its struggle to repeal and replace it. People like having health insurance, and health insurance makes us healthier, right?

But that brings us to the second truth that was revealed in 2016. Even though Americans allegedly enjoyed unprecedented access to insured health care, the nation’s death rate in 2015 actually increased. More Americans were insured, but more Americans died. Why?

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How Does the Holy Spirit Lead Us?

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It is not uncommon to hear Christians say that they’re hearing from God via whispers…leadings…prompts…impressions…or even angels. What we need to understand is that when people claim “God told me very clearly that…” they’re claiming prophet status “which elevates the person to a position they do not have,” reminds Elizabeth Prata. “Moreover,” says Prata, “it discourages other[s] who have not had the privilege of ‘hearing directly from God’. They begin to doubt their situations when they aren’t given such personal, clear commands.”

In this piece over at The End Time, Elizabeth Prata addresses a disturbing tweet sent from Beth Moore to her adoring fans. She writes:

On Facebook last night I’d posted a mini-discernment lesson regarding a tweet Beth Moore had written advocating a process for distilling whether a prompt from the Holy Spirit is legitimate or if it’s your own imagination. I wrote the following in response to her tweet:

Beth Moore is an alleged ‘Bible teacher’. She has 753,000 followers on Twitter alone. The following comment is something she taught a few hours ago on Twitter. Nothing in the Bible says what she taught and teaches. What solid and credible Bible teachers do is teach their pupils to go externally and seek the source of all truth, the Word of God. Moore teachers women to go internally and rely on mystical warnings, feelings, and prompts. What Moore is actually teaching is the insufficiency of scripture and the sufficiency of ourselves in obeying personal feelings.

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