Commentary, analysis and opinion.

You might be apostate if…

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Bible study author, speaker and blogger Michelle Lesley identifies Christendom’s most nefarious false teachers — and she proves it by using their own words and actions against them. Now find out who Michelle thinks are some of the worst of the worst apostates…

Comedian Jeff Foxworthy hit the big time several years ago with his “You Might Be a Redneck” one-liners. He frequently introduced the bit by saying, “I’ve found that there are rednecks all over, but sometimes people don’t know they’re rednecks. So, I came up with this little test…” and continued with such gems as:

“If you’ve ever had to carry a bucket of paint to the top of a water tower to defend your sister’s honor, you might be a redneck.”

“If your wife has ever said, ‘Honey, come get this transmission out of the tub so I can take a bath!’ you might be a redneck.”

“If you’ve ever been accused of lying through your tooth, you might be a redneck.”

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Remembering Those Who Never Came Home

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Memorial DayThe Daily Signal has a piece by Peter Brookes commemorating our brave men and women who serve in the armed forces.  He reminds us that,

Whether you’re spiritual or not, it’s right for this country to take this day to remember those who have fallen, those who have returned, those who are hurting and suffering wounds both visible and invisible, and those who are serving today.

Amen.

Brookes begins his piece:

During the mid-2000s, I attended my son’s graduation from the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia, in a ceremony where the commencement address was given by then-Secretary of Defense Bob Gates.

Like many who attend graduations, I have no recall of what Gates said to the collective students, faculty, and families that day. I do recall that it came at a very difficult time overseas for U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The other thing I remember: More than 50 percent of that Virginia Military Institute class stood up to be commissioned into the armed forces of the United States.

As they stood, I could feel myself start to well up. I turned away from my wife so she wouldn’t see, but she knew—and felt the same surge of patriotism I did.

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Are we supposed to pray for the wolves?

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In answer to this question, some Christians say yes while others say no and they’ll offer all sorts of reasons for the view they hold.  So, what does the Bible teach?   According to Pilgrim over at Defending. Contending,” I found nowhere in Scripture that we are directly or expressly commanded to pray for those who seek to shipwreck our faith and damn our souls to Hell for eternity. The argument in favor of praying for the wolves is commonly couched in our command to love and pray for our enemies, but are false teachers what Jesus was referring to when He said this? Do they fit in the context of His use of the word “enemies” in that text?”

Pilgrim answers these question in the blog post:

Wolf - Little Red Riding HoodImagine if you will, the following scenario:

A shepherd guarding his sheep observes a wolf among the flock cloaked in sheepskin. He stands up and yells “Wolf! Wolf! Run! Run!” And immediately the sheep begin to scatter, but not all. A small group turn to the sheep dog and, with an arrogant smirk plastered across their faces, respond, “But did you pray for the wolf?”

Bewildered as to why these sheep were ignoring his warning, the shepherd reiterates the danger of the wolf’s presence with an even more impassioned plea for the sheep to escape the impending doom that’s about to befall them. However, they stand firm and go back to their grazing on the plush green grass beneath their feet.

Mumblings of,”Who is he to judge?” and, “As for me I’ll be praying for the wolf” can be heard among them as they reassure themselves of their peace and safety while the wolf takes them out one by one until there are none left.

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Hillsong’s Dance With the World

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Berean Research wrote a follow-up to a piece over at Churchwatch Central entitled Family Friendly Hillsong Includes the Dancing Naked Cowboy? If you missed it, Hillsong Church has gone off the rails, as you will see in this blog post which includes a video of Hillsong’s partially clad youth pastor, a.k.a the “naked cowboy,” parading around on stage singing Frank Sinatra’s hit song New York, New York…..while throwing kisses to the audience.  This is not satire, brethren. Here’s the story:

I usually don’t expect to see a near-naked cowboy gyrating from the stage of a Christian women’s conference. Nor would I see and hear thousands of Christian females applauding and squealing in delight, and spurring on the performance.  Indeed if I were of the world, I’d expect these sights and sounds to come from a giant bachelorette party at a strip club.

I am not of the world. I like my women’s conferences to be edifying to me and glorifying to God. What I’m about to share from Hillsong New York’s women’s conference is neither of those things:

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Worshipping Religious Liberty: SBC Joins Mosque Building Effort

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Should Christians stand and fight for religious liberty?  Bud Ahlheim of Pulpit & Pen says yes, but “We should be cautious about how we align with this god of religious liberty because it is nothing less than the current ‘spirit of the world,’ the one beckoning for tolerance and co-existence.”  He writes:

Southern Baptists, through their Ethics And Religious Liberty Commission and their International Mission Board, have joined hands with Muslims and others to help build a mosque.

But they have to.  It’s inevitable when you hold closely to the tenets of American Christianity.

The SBC’s ERLC and IMB have joined in with the likes of the Center for Islam and Religious Freedom, the Interfaith Coalition on Mosques, the International Society of Krishna Consciousness, the Sikh Coalition, and other unlikely allies to support building a mosque.  According to The Becket Fund For Religious Liberty (An organization in which Russell Moore is on the Board of Directors) over 20 “interfaith” groups have united to push forward the agenda of the god of religious liberty in support of the mosque.

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Tim Keller’s Redeemer Presbyterian Ministry Director Regular Donor to Bernie Sanders Campaign

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Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, a Democrat, supports same-sex “marriage,” says he believes that abortion should be legal until birth, and self-identifies as a socialist. So it is disappointing to learn that RPC’s ministry director at the West Side campus donated a total of $666 to this man’s campaign.  Heather Clark of Christian News Network has the story:

In the midst of a famine in the visible American church for biblical instruction on selecting leaders in civil government, public records show that a ministry leader at Redeemer Presbyterian Church, led by popular megachurch pastor and author Tim Keller, has been a consistent donor to the Bernie Sanders campaign.

The Federal Elections Commission website, which records the political donations of Americans under the names of their employers, shows that Tiffany Koch, the ministry director at the West Side campus of Redeemer Presbyterian Church made 76 donations to Sanders since October.

 

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Professor Says “Madness” Of Fighting Global Warming Will Impoverish Everyone

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The professor wrote in a press statement, “Humanity is owed a serious investigation of how we have gone so far with the decarbonization project without a serious challenge in terms of engineering reality.”  Andrew Follett of Daily Caller has the story:

Cambridge University electrical engineering professor Dr. M.J. Kelly concluded in a peer-reviewed journal article that attempts to fight global warming with green energy will impoverish the world.

The Monday article found reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions enough to actually slow global warming in a measurable way simply isn’t possible without significantly reducing standards of living by plunging most of the world into poverty, destitution and starvation.

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Learning Meekness

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After many days had gone by, there was a conspiracy among the Jews to kill him, but Saul learned of their plan. Day and night they kept close watch on the city gates in order to kill him. But his followers took him by night and lowered him in a basket through an opening in the wall. Acts 9:23-25

What humiliation! Here Paul was, equipped to win the day for Jesus Christ. He was going to show the world how much he could do for this new Master that he had found. But instead he finds himself humiliated, cast off, rejected, repudiated. His own friends finally have to take him at night and let him down over a wall. He walks away into the darkness in utter, abject failure and defeat.

The amazing thing is that many years later, as he is writing to the Corinthians and looking back over his life, he recounts this episode. He says, You ask me to boast about the most important event in my life? The greatest event in my life was when they took me at night and let me down over the wall of Damascus in a basket. That was the most meaningful experience I have ever had since that day when I met Christ… (2 Corinthians 11:32-33).

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Hillsong Promoting Sex Pervert at Women’s Conference

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Jeff Maples of Pulpit & Pen has the story:

Hillsong, the worldwide leader in Jesus-themed music, has recently taken their approach to human sexuality to a new level. Adding to their general theme of godlessness in entertainment, including a recent risque Christmas performance that called into question their respect for women, and human beings in general, now they’re promoting the well-known sex pervert, Austin Powers, at–get this–a women’s conference.

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The NAR – You Will Know Them By Their Nuts

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From Berean Research:

Church Watch Central has an exposé on Jesus Camp.  In it, CWC demonstrates the unconscionable way children are indoctrinated into the New Apostolic Reformation cult by leaders such as “Apostle” Becky Fischer.  CWC posted a video showing children being brainwashed by this woman that has been blocked.  So Berean Research replaced it with two short Youtube videos that demonstrate the excesses.

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SBC’s Floyd: Doctrine of Unity Demands Decree Against Dissenters

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According to Bud Ahlheim of Pulpit & Pen, SBC president Ronnie Floyd has declared a new doctrine — the doctrine of denominational unity.  However, Alheim shows in his blog post that Mr. Floyd is actually a divider not a uniter. He contends that under Floyd’s leadership the SBC has lost its way.  So he calls for the SBC to repent, believe, and obey the Bible.

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73 House Republicans Sign Letter Demanding Answers on Obama’s Bathroom Directive

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The Daily Signal reports:

The largest conservative congressional caucus is calling into question the legality of President Barack Obama’s transgender bathroom directive for schools.

Chairman Bill Flores, R-Texas, is encouraging Republican Study Committee members to sign on to a letter, pushing the Departments of Education and Justice to detail how, and on what authority, they plan to enforce the new guidelines.

“Americans are incensed by President Obama’s blatant executive overreach,” Flores said, citing the IRS controversy, Obamacare, and the Iranian nuclear agreement. “Now they are threatening school funding over an issue that should rightfully be left to the states. Their actions are politically motivated and Congress has every responsibility to challenge them.”

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Why Don’t Republicans Name the Enemy?

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From Berean Research:

Silenced For those of us in a discernment ministry, a better question to ask is: Why don’t Christian leaders name the enemy?

But this is not about cowardly Christian luminaries who are averse to naming names because they fear man far more than they fear God; it’s about the Grand Old Party, the party of conservative Americans. (GOP intelligentsia who hold court over the “party of ideas” has finally gotten the message that there’s a wide divide between them and your run-of-the-mill conservative who have come up with their own ideas about what’s best for this country.  But I digress.)

So – who is this enemy Republican leadership will not name?  The Left, declares columnist, author and radio talk-show host Dennis Prager.

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Bathrooms are just the beginning: a scary look into the trans movement’s end goals

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From Berean Research:

The radical LGBTQ–Q is for questioning–has a plan to totally destroy the concepts of male and female. In other words, they want to “burn the binary.” Claire Chretien of LifeSite News reveals that this goal is nothing new. Chretien quotes transsexual activist Riki Wilchins as saying:

Queer activists have been talking about [this] at least since the 1970s of Gay Liberation, even as the movement it spawned has continued to nudge it aside.

Moreover,

As the LGBT movement focused on redefining marriage and enshrining in law same-sex couples’ “right” to children, it also quietly introduced lawsuits advocating for the law to recognize one’s self-perception instead of biological reality as truth.  Once the Supreme Court redefined marriage, the media focus on the LGBT movement slowly began to shift to battles over gender and transgenderism.

So we’ve noticed. Pay attention, brethren.  This isn’t going away.

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Evangelical Christians condemn introduction of Zen Buddhism to York Minster

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According to Ruth Gledhill of Christian Today, York Minister in the north of England has quietly introduced Zen Buddhist meditation.  Blending various religious beliefs is syncretism which is dangerous as it results in a fundamental change of beliefs.  Gledhill writes:

Buddhism and ChristianityA leading adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury has warned that Buddhist meditation introduced by a key cathedral in the north of England breaches the bounds of Christian orthodoxy.

Dr Ian Paul, a highly-regarded conservative evangelical member of the Archbishops’ Council, and also a regular commentator for Christian Today, writes on his Psephizo blog, says the setting up of a “sangha” or community for Buddhist meditation at York Minster illustrates the “nonsense” of the so-called “broad church”.

The revelation of Buddhism being practised at York Minister was doubly embarrassing because it came on Pentecost, which this year was chosen by the Church of England as the culmination of a week of prayer for the evangelisation of the nation.

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The Moral Revolutionaries Present Their Demands: Unconditional Surrender

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Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, makes no bones about the fact that conservatives have lost the culture wars.  And of course the Left is gloating over our loss.  So, not surprisingly, they’re saying to the losing side, which includes conservative evangelicals, “You lost, deal with it.”  And we did lose, big time.  Now liberals are preparing to rub our noses in the battle field mud.

How should Bible believers deal with this startling defeat?  According to Eph 6:10, followers of Jesus Christ must “Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.” (See what that looks like here.)

Armor-up, brethren, because the winner’s are going to take a hard line: “No accommodation whatsoever,” urged one Harvard Law School professor. “Don’t even try to be nice to moral enemies…since their arguments have no normative authority of any kind.”

Liberals have no intention of showing any sort of kindness toward conservatives — and Bible believers are the Left’s real “moral enemies.”  As Dr. Mohler points out in his piece, these people will go all out to squash religious freedom.

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An Economist Explains Why America Is Moving Toward Totalitarianism

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Bob Bluey of The Daily Signal interviews economist Walter Williams who makes the case that America is heading toward totalitarianism.

The famed George Mason University professor says the government is gradually gaining more control over the lives of the American people. What can be done about it? Williams explains why it’s hard to change course, especially in regard to young people who embrace socialist ideas.

 

(Source)

Brain Stopper No. 5: Bill Johnson’s Book Ban

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In her 5th installment of “Brain stoppers,” Holly Pivec of Spirit of Error addresses Arch Heretic Bill Johnson’s endeavor to stop critical thinking.  Pivec writes:

“Brain stoppers” is a term I came up with to refer to a variety of tactics used by leaders in the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) to discourage their followers from thinking critically about NAR teachings. I’ve written a series of posts about different brain stoppers, starting with “Brain Stopper No. 1: Name Calling.”

Another brain stopper, I call the “Book Ban,” is employed by Bill Johnson–senior pastor and NAR apostle over Bethel Church in Redding, California. Johnson tells his readers not to read books that are critical of teachings he promotes. He does this in his popular book When Heaven Invades Earth: A Practical Guide to a Life of Miracles. Here are his words.

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Secularists Spread Misinformation About the Ark Encounter to stop people from going

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In a piece over at Answers in Genesis entitled “Secularists Want to Hurt Kentucky,” Ken Ham addresses irrational secularist’s all-out effort to prevent folks from enjoying the Ark Encounter, completely ignoring AIG’s First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion.  Ham points out that secularists “simply don’t want Christians to have the full freedom to present their beliefs in the culture.  He writes:

Noah's ArkSecularists in our area called Tri-State Freethinkers (whose president, Jim Helton, is an avowed atheist and serves as regional director of the American Atheists) are bemoaning their failing billboard campaign to oppose the Ark Encounter.

After the proposed billboard campaign hit the press, the company that the secularists were going to use for the billboards apparently backed out. They then decided to use a mobile billboard company, which has also backed out. This is what this secularist group claims in its press release:

After initially agreeing to drive the billboard around the park on multiple weekends during the summer, he [the driver] recently backed out due to fear of his own personal safety.

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Calvary Chapel Golden Springs Invites A Wolf to Feed the Sheep

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Over at the Last Hiker we learn of the latest Calvary Chapel controversy.  Guitarist of Korn, Brian “Head” Welch, will be a guest speaker at SHINE Diamond Bar May 22 to promote his new book, “With My Eyes Wide Open.”  According to Last Hiker, Welch has extreme charismatic beliefs which will be included in his book.  What are some of his mystical beliefs?:

Brian Head WelchHe believes Jesus drops black angelic feathers on him while he worships, and puts gemstones in his hands at church. He believes that Jesus Himself, has walked into his house (video on his Facebook). He believes that it is better to roll around on the floor and be drunk in the spirit than actually sit and listen to a sermon. He has said that God loves us the way a man loves his wife’s naked body. He has a sensual, mystical, extreme charistmatic, drunk in the spirit type of spirituality. And he is being invited to a Calvary Chapel to sell his book??? Calvary distribution wouldn’t even sell the books that are written by the people that share his point of view–because it is UNBIBLICAL!!!! …

Evidence is provided to prove these claims.

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H/T John Lanagan

 

 

Shirley Dobson Passes Prayer Mantle to Anne Graham Lotz?

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Seems “mantles” are all the rage these days.  Recently Mormon Glenn Beck was presented “a new mantle for the future” from NAR lying “prophet” Chuck Pierce.  A few days ago Anne Graham Lotz, daughter of evangelist Billy Graham, received her own mantle. Berean Research tells us what the mantle thing is all about:

Anne Graham Lotz, Shirley Dobson

Anne Graham Lotz is now the next Chairman of the National Day Of Prayer, having received a ” Prayer Mantle of Leadership” from her predecessor, Shirley Dobson. An interesting choice of words, “Prayer Mantle.”  We Christians tend to use a lot of words that can leave those who don’t share our faith scratching their heads. But “mantle” is one of those words that tend to be used by a subset of Christians, and that word can and should cause more than a head scratch.

Are there biblical mantles?

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Popular Charismatic Worship Artist, Kari Jobe, Teaching Dangerous Theology

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After reading Jeff Maples’ blogpost over at Pulpit & Pen you will wonder why Kari Jobe was invited to lead worship for Women of Faith, an event that draws thousands of women. When you read the lyrics to some of Jobe’s songs, you’ll realize that the words are blasphemous….and you’ll want to repent if you ever uttered those words  Three of Kari Jobe’s songs are featured on the hit CD, Women of Faith Presents Gateway Worship a Collection. So if you own the CD, consider tossing it in the trash.

But this is not about Women of Faith; it’s about contemporary “Christian” music and professing Christians who write and perform it, some of whom are at best biblically illiterate and at worst wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Read it and weep.

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