1. God does everything that He does for His own glory. And in the Bible there is much support for this statement but for now just think it over. God is constantly in the business of displaying and magnifying Himself.
2. Since God does it this way, He in fact preserves for mankind the best thing that we could ever have or want which is Himself. Because God is the one thing and the only thing in the universe that can genuinely scratch the itch in the soul of man.
3. God does not just offer but rather demands that we rejoice, delight and be satisfied in Him!
The overarching strategy in life is to have a clear understanding of God's "why" or His purpose as we come to the Bible. It only make sense that we should align ourselves and our lives under the plumb line of His purpose. Therefore our objective is live daily, in such a way, that when people in our sphere of influence here us speak and watch us act, they see a demonstration of the greatness of the Lord Jesus Christ!
Pastor B. - "The Glory of God"
Friday, August 15, 2008
Thursday, August 14, 2008
A gold medal appetite
Phelps lends a new spin to the phrase "Breakfast of Champions" by starting off his day by eating three fried-egg sandwiches loaded with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise.He follows that up with two cups of coffee, a five-egg omelet, a bowl of grits, three slices of French toast topped with powdered sugar and three chocolate-chip pancakes.
At lunch, Phelps gobbles up a pound of enriched pasta and two large ham and cheese sandwiches slathered with mayo on white bread - capping off the meal by chugging about 1,000 calories worth of energy drinks.
For dinner, Phelps really loads up on the carbs - what he needs to give him plenty of energy for his five-hours-a-day, six-days-a-week regimen - with a pound of pasta and an entire pizza.
He washes all that down with another 1,000 calories worth of energy drinks.
That's 12,000 calories a day--six times what the average man should have.
Problems with the Seeker-Friendly model
This is an excellent article from the Covenant Theology blog site.
Though it may be tough for some to read, it is spot on as to its evaluation of the seeker friendly movement. As some icing on the cake to verify this article refer to my blog article on Bill Hybels whose church, Willow Creek has been a leader in the seeker-friendly initiative. In a blog article I posted sometime ago, Bill Hybels says this model in essence has not worked and it was the biggest wake up call of his adult life.
1.) It assumes that unsaved people are a good judge of their own Spiritual needs. We have twice examined the marketing questionnaires used by church growth pundits, and they are clearly a promise to give the "unchurched customer" what he wants. The result is that the world begins to influence (and even dictate) to the church how to operate in regards to worship, preaching, and evangelism. What the "unchurched" person needs is not a church that makes him feel comfortable, convenient, or fulfilled. What he needs is to be born again, and that information cannot be obtained by marketing research.
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9)
2.) It assumes that the unsaved are seeking God. It overinflates human nature and treats the unchurched like “customers” as opposed to Satan’s slaves. Therefore, if we just use the right method, or appeal to the sinner in just the right fashion, we can get them to our church. We even promise them "a better life" or some sort of temporal fulfillment in order to get them to come. What is the problem?
"And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil." (John 3:19)
"The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one." (Psalms 14:2-3)
"as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God." (Romans 3:10-11)
Depite protests to the contrary, these scriptures are very clear. No one seeks God. The unbeliever may be seeking a god. He may be seeking some cosmic force or spiritual guide to help him through the difficulties of life, but he does not desire the true God, because his deeds are evil.
This flies right in the face of the popular teaching of our day, which suggests that each person has a "God shaped void" in their souls, and that the reason they sin is because they are trying to fill this void with the wrong things, like drugs and sex. I recently had a Christian lady, speaking of a lost person bound in iniquity, suggest that "this person is crying for help but doesn't know it". With all due respect, this is pure psychobabble. It doesn't even make any sense. What the sinner needs isn't "help" to fill some mystical "God shaped void", but rather new life. Only God can give this, and he has ordained the foolishness of preaching to bring this about.
"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John 3:3)
3.) It mistakes "decisions for Christ" for true conversion and "church involvement" with discipleship. Simply making a superficial "decision for Christ" does nothing of eternal value. Christ will never taste sweet to an unbeliever until he has been exposed to the bitterness of his sin and the terror of God's wrath. While the raisings of hands and the racings to altars may spark jubilance among the church growth crowd, Charles Spurgeon's message regarding such is right on the money.
4.) It holds that sabbath Worship is for the purpose of reaching the lost, as opposed to worshipping God. As I stated in the title of the post that sparked this discussion, Worship is for Christians Only. Worship in and of itself is not an evangelism tool that should be reshaped and catered to the desires of the unchurched. Worship is an act of God's people giving thanks and glory to Him alone. God may indeed use Biblical worship to convert the lost, but that is not it's primary purpose. Furthermore, repentance and confession of sin are preconditions to worship, and should always be included in the worship service.
"Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations-- I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly." (Isaiah 1:13)
5.) It confuses "contextualizing" the gospel with changing it, the former being an attempt to make it understandable in a given culture, and the latter being an attempt to satisfy itching ears. The real problem isn't the fact that Christians are engaging non-Christians or having dialogue with them. It is what is being discussed that is the problem. Marketing can only work if the seller has a product that the comsumer wants. Therefore, the truth of the gospel (which is an offense) must be altered. This is particularly true of our self-absorbed, postmodern culture. The majority of church ads today focus on the fact that the messages are "positive and uplifting". Thus the difficult parts of Christianity are either sugar-coated (ie. Hell means you won't be with God), or totally ignored. The words "Sin", "Hell" and "Repent" are slowly being removed from the church lexicon and are being replaced by phrases such as "sinful habits", "felt needs", and "purpose". Thus Jesus Christ is rarely presented as a Savior who can redeem from sins and God's wrath, but rather as a therapist who can meet your "felt needs" and help you fulfill your purpose. Despite objections to the contrary, the message has clearly changed.
6.) It equates numeric growth with church health and vitality. (In fact, more often then not, the reverse is true.) I was castigated in a recent post by suggesting that the masses being reached by the church growth movement are the results of superficial evangelism, while very little true conversion is taking place. In contrast, the church marketing proponents are pushing the fact that these crowds are evidence of "bearing fruit", but are they really? (We've already seen evidence to the contrary above.)
The hands-down champion of this methodology is Bill Bright. CBN.com reports that "...139 million people around the globe know Jesus Christ as their Savior because of his ministry, Campus Crusade for Christ International". Still, he has much work to do, as he has set his goal at 1 Billion. (With just 6 Bill Bright's we can finish up the Great Commission in a very short time.) A distant second is the singer Carman, who has "seen well over one million concert salvations". Similar reports are coming in from all over, but with much more modest numbers. "LivePrayer.com ... finished up its 64th month online at the end of 2004 with 100,000 reported decisions for Christ." The military is also being turned upside down as "Chaplains affiliated with the Assemblies of God led a record number of people to salvation in Jesus Christ last year: 38,992. The total significantly exceeds the 27,498 salvations of 2003." In another event, "More Than 59,000 Make Decisions For Christ During Louisiana Campaign".
Does anyone really believe these incredible numbers? If only a small portion of these were true converts, the culture would look much different than it does.
7.) It focuses almost entirely on evangelism, while ignoring the more important duties of the church such as worshipping God, feeding the sheep, holding fast to sound doctrine, and church discipline.
This is my own example from Pilgrim in a Foreign Land that will support this point.
These, particularly the last one, are almost totally ignored. Instead, we feed goat food to goats in the hope that they will magically become sheep. Meanwhile the sheep are starving. Bible illiteracy is at an all time high, and as we can see by the Barna Research above, many of our "Born Again Christians" don't know enough about what they believe to be Christians. Those who reject the Doctrine of Hell, for example, have no business being named among the redeemed. This is due to the fact that just about everything in the "church growth" church is focused on the "unchurched", with one goal, to make sure that more people attend next week's service than last week's.
The church growth movement defends it's marketing methodology because it seems to be "bearing fruit", but is it really doing so? Are we really bringing people into the kingdom with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, or are we merely bringing them into the church pew with entertainment and therapy? That is a question that must be asked, though it is sure to invoke the ire of those in the church marketing crowd. Maybe they know they won't like the answer.
Though it may be tough for some to read, it is spot on as to its evaluation of the seeker friendly movement. As some icing on the cake to verify this article refer to my blog article on Bill Hybels whose church, Willow Creek has been a leader in the seeker-friendly initiative. In a blog article I posted sometime ago, Bill Hybels says this model in essence has not worked and it was the biggest wake up call of his adult life.
1.) It assumes that unsaved people are a good judge of their own Spiritual needs. We have twice examined the marketing questionnaires used by church growth pundits, and they are clearly a promise to give the "unchurched customer" what he wants. The result is that the world begins to influence (and even dictate) to the church how to operate in regards to worship, preaching, and evangelism. What the "unchurched" person needs is not a church that makes him feel comfortable, convenient, or fulfilled. What he needs is to be born again, and that information cannot be obtained by marketing research.
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9)
2.) It assumes that the unsaved are seeking God. It overinflates human nature and treats the unchurched like “customers” as opposed to Satan’s slaves. Therefore, if we just use the right method, or appeal to the sinner in just the right fashion, we can get them to our church. We even promise them "a better life" or some sort of temporal fulfillment in order to get them to come. What is the problem?
"And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil." (John 3:19)
"The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one." (Psalms 14:2-3)
"as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God." (Romans 3:10-11)
Depite protests to the contrary, these scriptures are very clear. No one seeks God. The unbeliever may be seeking a god. He may be seeking some cosmic force or spiritual guide to help him through the difficulties of life, but he does not desire the true God, because his deeds are evil.
This flies right in the face of the popular teaching of our day, which suggests that each person has a "God shaped void" in their souls, and that the reason they sin is because they are trying to fill this void with the wrong things, like drugs and sex. I recently had a Christian lady, speaking of a lost person bound in iniquity, suggest that "this person is crying for help but doesn't know it". With all due respect, this is pure psychobabble. It doesn't even make any sense. What the sinner needs isn't "help" to fill some mystical "God shaped void", but rather new life. Only God can give this, and he has ordained the foolishness of preaching to bring this about.
"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John 3:3)
3.) It mistakes "decisions for Christ" for true conversion and "church involvement" with discipleship. Simply making a superficial "decision for Christ" does nothing of eternal value. Christ will never taste sweet to an unbeliever until he has been exposed to the bitterness of his sin and the terror of God's wrath. While the raisings of hands and the racings to altars may spark jubilance among the church growth crowd, Charles Spurgeon's message regarding such is right on the money.
"If the professed convert distinctly and deliberately declares that he knows the Lord's will but does not mean to attend to it, you are not to pamper his presumption, but it is your duty to assure him that he is not saved. Do you imagine that the Gospel is magnified or God glorified by going to the worldlings and telling them that they may be saved at this moment by simply accepting Christ as their Saviour, while they are wedded to their idols and their hearts are still in love with sin? If I do so, I tell them a lie, pervert the Gospel, insult Christ, and turn the grace of God into lasciviousness."
4.) It holds that sabbath Worship is for the purpose of reaching the lost, as opposed to worshipping God. As I stated in the title of the post that sparked this discussion, Worship is for Christians Only. Worship in and of itself is not an evangelism tool that should be reshaped and catered to the desires of the unchurched. Worship is an act of God's people giving thanks and glory to Him alone. God may indeed use Biblical worship to convert the lost, but that is not it's primary purpose. Furthermore, repentance and confession of sin are preconditions to worship, and should always be included in the worship service.
"Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations-- I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly." (Isaiah 1:13)
5.) It confuses "contextualizing" the gospel with changing it, the former being an attempt to make it understandable in a given culture, and the latter being an attempt to satisfy itching ears. The real problem isn't the fact that Christians are engaging non-Christians or having dialogue with them. It is what is being discussed that is the problem. Marketing can only work if the seller has a product that the comsumer wants. Therefore, the truth of the gospel (which is an offense) must be altered. This is particularly true of our self-absorbed, postmodern culture. The majority of church ads today focus on the fact that the messages are "positive and uplifting". Thus the difficult parts of Christianity are either sugar-coated (ie. Hell means you won't be with God), or totally ignored. The words "Sin", "Hell" and "Repent" are slowly being removed from the church lexicon and are being replaced by phrases such as "sinful habits", "felt needs", and "purpose". Thus Jesus Christ is rarely presented as a Savior who can redeem from sins and God's wrath, but rather as a therapist who can meet your "felt needs" and help you fulfill your purpose. Despite objections to the contrary, the message has clearly changed.
6.) It equates numeric growth with church health and vitality. (In fact, more often then not, the reverse is true.) I was castigated in a recent post by suggesting that the masses being reached by the church growth movement are the results of superficial evangelism, while very little true conversion is taking place. In contrast, the church marketing proponents are pushing the fact that these crowds are evidence of "bearing fruit", but are they really? (We've already seen evidence to the contrary above.)
The hands-down champion of this methodology is Bill Bright. CBN.com reports that "...139 million people around the globe know Jesus Christ as their Savior because of his ministry, Campus Crusade for Christ International". Still, he has much work to do, as he has set his goal at 1 Billion. (With just 6 Bill Bright's we can finish up the Great Commission in a very short time.) A distant second is the singer Carman, who has "seen well over one million concert salvations". Similar reports are coming in from all over, but with much more modest numbers. "LivePrayer.com ... finished up its 64th month online at the end of 2004 with 100,000 reported decisions for Christ." The military is also being turned upside down as "Chaplains affiliated with the Assemblies of God led a record number of people to salvation in Jesus Christ last year: 38,992. The total significantly exceeds the 27,498 salvations of 2003." In another event, "More Than 59,000 Make Decisions For Christ During Louisiana Campaign".
Does anyone really believe these incredible numbers? If only a small portion of these were true converts, the culture would look much different than it does.
7.) It focuses almost entirely on evangelism, while ignoring the more important duties of the church such as worshipping God, feeding the sheep, holding fast to sound doctrine, and church discipline.
This is my own example from Pilgrim in a Foreign Land that will support this point.
These, particularly the last one, are almost totally ignored. Instead, we feed goat food to goats in the hope that they will magically become sheep. Meanwhile the sheep are starving. Bible illiteracy is at an all time high, and as we can see by the Barna Research above, many of our "Born Again Christians" don't know enough about what they believe to be Christians. Those who reject the Doctrine of Hell, for example, have no business being named among the redeemed. This is due to the fact that just about everything in the "church growth" church is focused on the "unchurched", with one goal, to make sure that more people attend next week's service than last week's.
The church growth movement defends it's marketing methodology because it seems to be "bearing fruit", but is it really doing so? Are we really bringing people into the kingdom with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, or are we merely bringing them into the church pew with entertainment and therapy? That is a question that must be asked, though it is sure to invoke the ire of those in the church marketing crowd. Maybe they know they won't like the answer.
Revival at Lakeland?
Todd Bentley is an evangelist who has been leading what some have labeled as a revival in Lakeland, Florida. It seems this past week that Bentley told his staff that his marriage is ending. Here is an excellent article by J. Lee Grady called "Life after Lakeland: sorting out the confusion."
It shows how desperate we are today in the church for consistent and solid teaching of Bible doctrine in order that people don't fall into error!
It shows how desperate we are today in the church for consistent and solid teaching of Bible doctrine in order that people don't fall into error!
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
The ESV Study Bible
Here is another sample of the new ESV Study Bible that is scheduled to be released this fall. In the attachment below you will find the book of Jonah. I have heard personally from one theologian that says this will be the finest study Bible published to date. Check it out and if you have not pre-ordered then do so today. If you want more information click on this LINK.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
False teaching alert
Why do so many evangelicals act as if false teachers in the church could never be a serious problem in this generation? Vast numbers seem convinced that they are “rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing—and do not know that [they] are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked” (Revelation 3:17).In reality, the church today is quite possibly more susceptible to false teachers, doctrinal saboteurs, and spiritual terrorism than any other generation in church history. Biblical ignorance within the church may well be deeper and more widespread than at any other time since the Protestant Reformation. If you doubt that, compare the typical sermon of today with a randomly chosen published sermon from any leading evangelical preacher prior to 1850. Also compare today’s Christian literature with almost anything published by evangelical publishing houses a hundred years or more ago.
Bible teaching, even in the best of venues today, has been deliberately dumbed-down, made as broad and as shallow as possible, oversimplified, adapted to the lowest common denominator— and then tailored to appeal to people with short attention spans.
This article is from Dr. John MacArthur's blog called Pulpit Magazine.
In order to read the whole article click on this LINK.
Death by Love
Mark Driscoll the senior pastor at Mars Hill in Seattle has a new soon to be released book called "Death by Love."
The video below deals with a number of different life situations that each of us in some way, shape and form can relate. As you might have concluded the answer to each of these hard life scenarios is the Lord Jesus Christ.
This book is available to be pre-ordered at this LINK.
The video below deals with a number of different life situations that each of us in some way, shape and form can relate. As you might have concluded the answer to each of these hard life scenarios is the Lord Jesus Christ.
This book is available to be pre-ordered at this LINK.
Justification and Sanctification
Here is a quick review on the differences between justification and sanctification:
Justification refers to my status;
Sanctification to my state.
Justification is about God's attitude toward me changing;
Sanctification is about God changing me.
Justification is about how God looks on me;
Sanctification is about what he does in me.
Justification is about Christ dying for my sins on the cross;
Sanctification is about Christ at work in me by the Holy Spirit changing my life.
Justification - Sanctification
Justification refers to my status;
Sanctification to my state.
Justification is about God's attitude toward me changing;
Sanctification is about God changing me.
Justification is about how God looks on me;
Sanctification is about what he does in me.
Justification is about Christ dying for my sins on the cross;
Sanctification is about Christ at work in me by the Holy Spirit changing my life.
Justification - Sanctification
- Legal Standing - Internal condition
- Once for all time - Continuous throughout life
- Entirely God's work - We cooperate
- Perfect in this life - Not perfect in this life
- Same in all Christians - Greater in some than in others
Monday, August 11, 2008
What does the author mean?
I am fascinated with Romans 1:16 in which the apostle Paul writes "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek." If one looks closely at the context it is apparent that Paul is writing this to Christians. For example look in Romans 1:6-7 we see the words the called of Jesus Christ; to all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints.
Now that we have the context which is to Christians let us examine the verb believe. In this sentence the verb is in the present tense which means constant, habitual and on going. Therefore we see that the gospel is the power of God for Christians who continue to believe on a daily basis. Whoa! Just think about that sentence, what the verb means and what Paul is really saying. There are so many today that describe their Christian experience in terms of a past tense event. When you talk to many people in the church they say things like when I got saved. But it is less frequent to hear Christians talk about being saved daily. Salvation as the apostle Paul uses the word in Romans is a past, present and future tense word. My point in this brief blog article is that we need to preach the gospel to ourselves on a daily basis! This is the very power of God in our lives. Keep reading, studying, thinking and then applying the word of God.
Now that we have the context which is to Christians let us examine the verb believe. In this sentence the verb is in the present tense which means constant, habitual and on going. Therefore we see that the gospel is the power of God for Christians who continue to believe on a daily basis. Whoa! Just think about that sentence, what the verb means and what Paul is really saying. There are so many today that describe their Christian experience in terms of a past tense event. When you talk to many people in the church they say things like when I got saved. But it is less frequent to hear Christians talk about being saved daily. Salvation as the apostle Paul uses the word in Romans is a past, present and future tense word. My point in this brief blog article is that we need to preach the gospel to ourselves on a daily basis! This is the very power of God in our lives. Keep reading, studying, thinking and then applying the word of God.
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