1 But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. 2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self- control, brutal, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. 6 For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, 7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. (2 Timothy 3:1-7 NASB)
The “push” to replace Christianity or change it along the lines of emergent gurus Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, et cetera as well as those of the Seeker-sensitive paradigm such as Rick Warren and all of those who follow him seems to make giant strides each day. Those of us who do see very clearly the deception in what is going on can become quite discouraged even to the point of despair at times, as it appears the Church is circling the drain into the vortex of apostasy. However, we must not allow Giant Despair to drag us into the dungeon of Doubting Castle. View article →
A Madison man has taken issue with some of Morris County’s historic preservation grants going to the preservation of churches and other houses of worship — and is pursuing that issue in court.
The county is the subject of a lawsuit filed by David Steketee, of Ferndale Road, Madison, and the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation on Dec. 1 in state Superior Court in Morristown, asking the courts to bar Morris County from presenting historic preservation grants to churches and other houses of worship. The group’s stated purpose is to “promote the constitutional principle of separation of state and church.”
Iran has prepared almost 200,000 young men in countries across the Middle East to help with the arrival of the Mahdi, a Muslim leader who will usher in justice prior to the Day of Judgment, a Revolutionary Guard commander said earlier this week. Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari said recent violence across the region, including the rise of the Islamic State group, was a sign the arrival of the messianic Muslim leader was imminent, the Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah reported.
The blog post below addresses the astonishing lack of discernment among self-professed Christians when it comes to contemporary Christian music (CCM). The truth of the matter is that most CCM really isn’t Christian at all — not even close! How do I know that? By listening to the lyrics. More often than not CCM is unbiblical, even blasphemous! But many Christians don’t have the spiritual discernment to pick up on it. Sadly, some people who profess Christ really don’t care about the words that go from their lips to God’s ears. Why? Mainly because worship is all about me, not about God, so little or no attention is paid to the words we sing to Him.
But words matter, and what we say to God should matter a lot. Instead, Christians are focusing on themselves — their feelings and experiences….have I hit a nerve?
So now to Learning the Path’s post. Some of the videos are disturbing to watch. I urge you to watch them anyway.
Purity In Worship
Think of this scenario. A pastor is reading Alistair Begg’s book, “Preaching for God’s Glory”. He sees a point that he would really like to make the next Sunday. When he’s done reading, he picks up Brian Houston’s “You Need More Money” from the heresy shelf, in which the same point is made (This is a hypothetical). He gets up in the pulpit, and instead of using quotes from “Preaching for God’s Glory”, he uses the quotes from “You Need More Money”. What is wrong with this?
I can think of two major things:
1. This gives credence to Brian Houston. It will likely cause his undiscerning congregation to listen to Brian Houston, quote Brian Houston, read Brian Houston, and even recommend Brian Houston to others.
2. Brian Houston’s writings reflect his theology. What he said will be said leaning towards the point he wanted to make, using the same hermeneutic (Way of reading the Bible) he usually uses, and showing the same errors common in his theology.
Now, can we agree that a Church-goer’s theology is usually relatively similar to that of the pastor? So let’s look at the congregants at Hillsong Australia (Brian Houston) and Parkside Church of Cleveland (Alistair Begg). In this case, Hillsong Music and the Gettys (Who are former members of Parkside).
Let’s say someone is given an option of who to sing in Church. They can choose between Hillsong’s “Jesus, Lover of My Soul” and Keith and Krystin Getty’s “In Christ Alone”. What if that person were to go with the Hillsong song? Would it be just as wrong as quoting Brian Houston above Alistair Begg? I would say yes. The same two points still stand. Hillsong’s music still reflects their theology, and it is still endorsing a group that preaches the Word of Faith heresy and false Prosperity Gospel. It would be as if you had Brian Houston come in and write your worship music for you.
What’s sad is that some of the most popular music groups out there have some of the most terrible theologies. Hillsong promotes Word of Faith heresy. Jesus Culture happens to be under Bill Johnson, a Hyper-Charismatic who denies Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone) and stated that Jesus ceased to be God on the cross. This comes out not only in their music, but at their concerts (I will discuss this further later on). Jars of Clay’s singer and songwriter, Dan Haseltine, said, “I just don’t see a negative effect to allowing gay marriage. No societal breakdown, no war on traditional marriage. ?? Anyone?”. Amy Grant isn’t much better, as she has knowingly preformed alongside Lesbians and has known about her Gay Fanbase since she was 18 without calling any of them to repentance. Matt Maher is a devout Roman Catholic who has preformed for Pope Francis. Do we really trust these people to write our worship music? To write the songs we sing when worshiping a Holy God? These people wrote these songs to idols, so why would we repeat them?
Furthermore, the music has taken a grip on people my age. Most of the teenagers who claim to be Christian would prefer to sing a Hillsong song over hearing a theologically solid sermon. It has went from a Local Church to a full denomination with 15 churches just in the city of Sydney alone. The denomination has 100,000 weekly attenders. Many celebrities are a part of this denomination. It can almost exclusively be attributed to their music program. Bethel Church in Redding, CA is another megachurch that has benefited from this. It is the Home Church of the band Jesus Culture, and the spearhead of what is called the New Apostolic Reformation, which is a cultic movement. They have promoted Benny Hinn, Todd Bentley, Kris Vallotton, and T.D. Jakes. If you don’t understand the corruption of the Music Industry here, watch this:
15 See therefore how carefully you walk not as unwise but as wise, 16 redeeming the time, because the days are evil. (Ephesians 5:15-16 translated from the NA28 Greek text)
There is a great deal going on in the visible church, much of it having little to do with genuine Christianity, that most of us can do little about. Yes, we can pray, which is very powerful. We can also obey God and expose the evil to other believers. However, the older I get in the faith the outrage over much of what false teachers like Rob Bell or Rick Warren say or write I no longer allow to consume me. I know what my role is in the Truth War. Do you know what yours is? For most of us it is to obey what the Apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesian church in Ephesians 5:1-21. View article →
Despite a ban on federal funding for “Chimera” research – or the mixing of human genes with those of other members of the animal kingdom – several research centers and universities in the U.S. are moving forward with the process, MIT Technology Review has reported.
Scientists involved in the research claim they are looking for ways to create and harvest human organs from other animals, such as sheep and goats, by inserting human DNA (“pluripotent cells”) in animal embryos. Critics see the potential for disaster – the creation of a beast like the mythical Chimera, made up of a lion, a goat and a serpent (or dragon).
Dr. Brown is one of the most respected members of the Christian Charismatic world; he’s a brilliant debater, an actual Biblical scholar and someone who has been warning (to some extent) about false teachers in the Church. In this article he says that he, too, was appalled by the worldly and obnoxious Silent Night video that has gotten so much attention, but he refrained from making a judgment about it until he could get more information. But after he saw a Twitter comment from a pastor at Hillsong he could understand why they did the song the way they did.
There are a couple of really interesting things to note from this article: First of all, Brown makes a pretty amazing statement about how he couldn’t talk to anyone from Hillsong, because he didn’t have an “open door to interact directly with Hillsongs leaders (despite my attempts to do so in the past).” Please take note, everyone who says something like this: “You shouldn’t say anything bad about paster so and so until you talk to him face to face! Have you met with him and heard his side of the story?? Well then stop judging him!!”
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. (Ephesians 2:8-10 NASB)
As many of you know, I grew up as a Southern Baptist. After God saved me in 1986 I was a Southern Baptist until 2006 when our former church was overtaken by the Purpose Driven paradigm. I was bitter about that for a while. I and many of you found common ground having had our churches ripped away from us and in many cases finding it nearly impossible to find a good Biblical local church remaining in our area after the Seeker-Sensitive tsunamis had moved through devastating what were once good churches, leaving behind man-centered, store fronts for Rick Warren’s brand of man-focused religiosity. However, God is good and through this devastation and some personal fiery trials, which actually began in 2004, He has worked in me to grow me into a more mature Christian, stronger in the Word of God than ever, more knowledgeable in Biblical Greek, and deeper in the more cerebral areas of our faith that are sorely needed in our day such as presuppositional apologetics. When I was a Deacon teaching Sunday school at our local SBC church, I was extremely mediocre in most of that and hardly knowledgeable at all in the area of apologetics. Why? I was serving and operating from within a mindset that was extremely spiritually immature compared to today. My understanding of the Gospel and theology was probably deeper than most of my peers at that time, but compared to now, it was probably surface level at best. View article →
Joel James of The Expositors Blog lays out the unintended consequences of adopting worldliness as an evangelistic technique.
Never in its history has the evangelical church been more intentional and more systematic in its efforts to imitate the world than in our day. In fact, worldliness, which used to be a sin-to-be-avoided, has not only become an obsession for the church, today it has become the evangelistic technique of choice.
In the Old Testament, God told Israel, “You shall not do what is done in the land of Egypt where you lived, nor are you to do what is done in the land of Canaan where I am bringing you” (Lev 18:3). In the New Testament, the apostle Paul told the church, “Do not be conformed to this world” (Rom 12:2). Nonetheless, today’s self-appointed evangelical relevance experts tell us that the only way to reach the world is to be like the world: we must talk like them, dress like them, be entertained like them, sport tattoos like them, address human sexuality like them, and so on.
Jesus said, “If you were of the world, the world would love its own” (John 15:18). Clearly Jesus expected His followers not to be mirrors of the world. However, today in a bizarre inversion of Jesus’ intention, the goal of many evangelicals is to be as much like the world as possible in order to be loved by the world, purportedly as a precursor to evangelism.
In the words of John MacArthur, we are being told that, “If we can convince them that our message poses no threat to their way of life and that they have nothing to fear from Christ, perhaps we can then…reach them…. [We must persuade] them that church is fun, Christians are just like everyone else, and they have nothing whatsoever to fear from God” (Ashamed of the Gospel, 3rd ed., 214). of adopting worldliness as an evangelistic technique.
Pastrix Christine Caine from heretical Hillsong Church Australia is a teacher that the serious Christian should steer clear of. In spite of the fact that Caine teaches ubiblical word-faith/prosperity theology and engages in New Age practices, she has been a featured speaker for Louis Giglio’s Passion conferences and has preached with prominent Reformed pastor John Piper. (Here and Here) Piper, who holds to a complementarian view, has received a lot of heat for sharing teaching duties with a woman who claims false teacher Joyce Meyer as her mentor. Elizabeth Prata of The End Times lays out six reasons why Caine must be avoided like the plague.
8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. 9 For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, 10 and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority; 11 and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; 12 having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. 13 When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, 14 having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 15 When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him. (Colossians 2:8-15 NASB)
The more I deal with professing Christians, no matter how conservative they may be, it can be somewhat trying at times to encounter the growing nature of Christ in some of them. There are some who are so ruled by their flesh that the only fruit that I ever witness in them is of this world, full of bitterness, anger, resentment, and a complete disregard for the commands from their own Savior to forgive, turn the other cheek, et cetera. I know that in my own case that my flesh must be continually kept reigned in and controlled or it will cause me to slide right back into those habitual sins it loves so much. However, the mark of one who has been truly made alive together with Christ is not sinless perfection, but rather one who is actually fighting this fight. That being said, let’s look at two passages in which is found the only New Testament occurrences of the Greek Word συζωοποιέω or suzōopoieō, “to make alive together with another; to make a sharer of the quickening of another.” View article →
An American pastor who has been imprisoned in Iran for over three years as part of an eight-year prison sentence has been set free in a prisoner swap between the U.S. and Iran.
“It is confirmed: Saeed is released!” Saeed Abedini’s wife Naghmeh posted on social media this morning.
8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. (Colossians 2:8 NASB)
When we do word studies in the Greek New Testament it is vital that we pay very close attention the verb tenses. From these we learn that some statements are commands (imperatives) while others, which some Bible translations render as if they are commands, are actually statements of fact (indicatives or aorists). Confusing these has caused a very large amount of confusion and bad doctrine to pollute the church. For instance, when Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:3, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God,” the verb structure here is not imperative (a command to be born again), but aorist tense, subjunctive mood, passive voice. In other words, this is action that is most definitely not a command by our Lord to Nicodemus to be born again, but a statement of fact that if a person is to see the kingdom of God he or she must be born again. The action is passive so it is the result of some other action. So what? Carefully read the passage I placed at the top of this post. This is an example of an imperative. Let us put it into context. View article →
The influential Cardinal Oscar Maradiaga has acknowledged the presence of a “gay lobby” in the Vatican. In a new interview, he says that Pope Francis has adopted a gradual approach to address it – and that Catholic teaching won’t change.
The Honduran newspaper El Heraldo asked the cardinal whether there actually was an attempted or successful “infiltration of the gay community in the Vatican.”
According to Church Times conservative Primates, or heads of churches, unexpectedly won in their push to censure the US Church because of its violation of Scripture’s teaching on marriage by allowing same-sex couples to marry:
The Episcopal Church in the United States is to spend three years out in the cold because of its support for same-sex marriage, the Primates have decided at their gathering in Canterbury.
In a surprise move, a statement was posted on the Primates’ website at 5.30 p.m. on Thursday, a day before the planned press conference, in order to counter speculation that had begun to circulate during the afternoon.
A New York appeals court has unanimously upheld a $13,000 fine against a couple who declined to host a same-sex “wedding” at their farm because of their religious convictions not to facilitate the sins of others.
8 For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:8 NASB)
The Doctrine of Imputation is a wonderful blessing for the Christian. Christ’s Righteousness and perfect obedience to the Law were both imputed to the account of every believer at their justification. That means, in God’s sight, each and every one of us in Christ are as blameless in his eyes as Christ himself. I was asked this last Thanksgiving Day before our meal to “briefly” state that for which I was most thankful. How can I separate the atonement and all the eternal blessings that await all of us in Christ and just single out one thing? I knew that it would be very confusing for some of those in attendance to talk about the doctrine of imputation so I simply said I was most thankful for God’s Grace. View article →
National Review columnist David French says that the secular Left is taking direct aim at Christian academic freedom and institutional liberty. Since the Left sees no value in Christian educational institutions they’ve become targets in the culture wars. The Left’s motto is: Reform of die. French writes:
One of the nation’s premier evangelical educational institutions — Wheaton College — is under intense fire for its decision to begin termination proceedings against Larycia Hawkins after she publicly declared her belief that Christians and Muslims “worship the same God.” (I wrote about the controversy on the home page last year and outlined the traditional Protestant argument that Muslims do not, in fact, worship the God of the Bible.) Terminating a Christian professor — or any other employee of a Christian institution — for expressing beliefs out of line with the organization’s statement of faith is common and should be uncontroversial. Christian organizations have the same right to define their mission and message as any other expressive organization. Does anyone think it’s unjust that the Sierra Club won’t hire fracking advocates or that LGBT activist organizations aren’t open to Christian conservatives?
According to The Daily Signal, Health and Human Services has a “Gender Identity Mandate” in the works that will be paid for by our hard earned tax dollars:
You’ve heard about the Obamacare Individual Mandate. That’s the one that requires every person in America to get government-approved health insurance or face significant IRS penalties.
You’ve heard about the Health and Human Services (HHS) contraception mandate. That’s the one that requires private employers, including religious institutions like the Little Sisters of the Poor, to help provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs or face millions in IRS fines.
Christian Examiner reviews a new documentary, “3801 Lancaster: American Tragedy,” that examines how abortion doctor Herman Gosnell was able to get away with murder for many years:
When a Philadelphia abortion doctor in 2010 was caught delivering live, viable late-term babies and “snipping” their necks to kill them, many pro-lifers thought it would be a turning point in the abortion discussion.
Many were certain it was a time when Americans would collectively examine the issue and realize there really isn’t any moral difference in ending the life of an eight-month-old baby inches out of the birth canal or inches inside the birth canal, even though the former is illegal and the latter is not.
Sadly, though, the case of the abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell didn’t receive the wall-to-wall mainstream media coverage it deserved — not in 2010 when he was caught, or in 2011 when he was charged, or in 2013 when he was sent to prison. His case wasn’t on the front page and didn’t even make any of those Top 10 stories-of-the-year lists.
4 Do not answer a fool according to his folly,Or you will also be like him.5 Answer a fool as his folly deserves,That he not be wise in his own eyes. (Proverbs 26:4-5 NASB)
Evangelism that is biblical is not numbers or results based as if it is a process we can control through methodology. The seeker-sensitive form of evangelism, on the other hand, is totally numbers or results based, and, therefore, uses methodologies to boost perceived effectiveness by increased numbers of “decisions for Christ.” The seeker-sensitive form of evangelism assumes that God is helpless to save anyone outside of their efforts. It ignores passages such as John 3:5-8 and Ephesians 2:1-10. View article →
We are posting the letter in the hope that Anne Graham Lotz will re-consider promoting a “new way of praying” she came across in The Circle Maker. What she’s passing off as prayer is decidedly unbiblical. Promoting an cccult book indicates an absence of spiritual discernment.
Recently Anne posted this on her blog:
As I look ahead into 2016, I feel compelled to draw a circle around this city, this state, this nation” and pray! Until God answers. Do the same. Please. On this first day of the New Year, draw your own circle. Then pray for everything that’s inside of it. (Source)
What follows is a prayer she wrote that she encourages people to pray. The prayer is disappointing, as it is more like a political statement than a prayer. Many Christians would have trouble parroting that prayer.
But the prayer she wrote is not the point. The point is that Anne Graham Lotz has failed to test the spirits. And as result she is dabbling in the world of the occult. Worse, she invites other Christians to join her! Which brings me to the letter…
Breitbart columnist Thomas D. Williams reports on a statement made by Christian basher Richard Dawkins in 2010 that has “taken on a second life, being sent to and fro on Facebook and Twitter and providing fodder for discussions, even among atheists, of the benefits of Christianity for modern society.”
In a text that is coursing about on social media, professional God-slayer Richard Dawkins begrudgingly admitted that Christianity may actually be our best defense against aberrant forms of religion that threaten the world.
“There are no Christians, as far as I know, blowing up buildings,” Dawkins said. “I am not aware of any Christian suicide bombers. I am not aware of any major Christian denomination that believes the penalty for apostasy is death.”
In a rare moment of candor, Dawkins reluctantly accepted that the teachings of Jesus Christ do not lead to a world of terror, whereas followers of radical Islam perpetrate the very atrocities that he laments.
During his last State of the Union address of his presidency, Barack Obama again condemned what he called the “lie” that the barbaric terror group ISIS is representative of the Islamic religion.
While speaking on a variety of issues during his Tuesday night speech before members of Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court, representatives of the U.S. Department of Defense and other members of his cabinet, Obama addressed what he called a “dangerous time” in American history.
“Priority number one is protecting the American people and going after terrorist networks,” he said. “Both al Qaeda and now ISIL pose a direct threat to our people, because in today’s world, even a handful of terrorists who place no value on human life, including their own, can do a lot of damage.”
Jesus *said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” (John 14:6 NASB)
God’s ways are not man’s ways. What seems right to man is not necessarily right according to God, who is always right. For instance, God’s Word clearly teaches the exclusiveness of Jesus as the only way to approach the Father. There is only one way, not many ways, which lead to God. That way is Jesus Christ alone. We must be aware that our culture has become contaminated by religious relativism. This relativism’s chief virtue is “acceptance” of others as coequal in our faith no matter what their religion is. This “acceptance” holds as its primary goal “diversity” with its public philosophy being pluralism. Those professing Christians who hold to this “philosophy” have compromised the truth plainly taught in God’s Word. Also, those who have not made this compromise and refuse to water-down the Gospel are seen as misfits and bigots. View article →
Pastrix Christine Caine from heretical 
We are posting the letter in the hope that Anne Graham Lotz will re-consider promoting a “new way of praying” she came across in The Circle Maker. What she’s passing off as prayer is decidedly unbiblical. Promoting an cccult book indicates an absence of spiritual discernment.