If you recall, Team Obama had a Christian slated to make the prayer for the inauguration last week but it was discovered that Louie Giglio had preached against homosexuality some 15 years ago. Team Obama couldn’t have that so they brought in Myrlie Evers-Williams instead. She is a laywoman and when she prayed, she conveniently prayed without mentioning God’s name. She prayed to us and about us instead. (See Al Mohler’s comments here about the Giglio incident). This should cause those of us in the true faith to be alarmed, but we’ve seen so much turning away from the true faith, that it’s a daily occurrence.
I really like Bart Gingerich take on the entire incident. He shows us that Evers-Williams prayer and the belief behind it is the end result of those who invent their own religion. I think he nails the problem of so much of what is wrong in America today. Even those who are inside the “church” want to be inside the church apart from the religion given to us by a Triune God, and just want to have religious experiences apart from true repentance and salvation.
I haven’t done a post on Joel Osteen in a while. I do this so that you will not be deceived by Mr. Osteen. He is a false teacher and there is no way around that. He does not preach the gospel, and openly admits as much. He doesn’t even preach from the Bible. As John MacArthur points out on the video that Osteen is preaching paganism. There is nothing in Osteen’s messages about humility, repentance, piety, holiness, sacrificial living. His sermons are all focused on the “here and the now.” As he said, and I’ve said as well, that if THIS is your best life now, then you are in serious trouble.
The other great quote is from Paul Washer, see my previous post, when he points out that men like Joel Osteen are actually God’s judgment upon the people who listen to him. In other words, they are not the ones who are innocent in these matters. They are the ones that look for such men to follow, since they do not seek to follow the living and true savior.
Here, watch the video. It’s only 15 minutes long, which is really long in the world of the internet, but well worth it.
One of the reasons we need to be so diligent in understanding our faith as Christians is because the cults love to make themselves look just like us. They will use the same language and imagery that we use, but what they mean by their words is not what Scripture says those words should mean.
It is truly sad when a man like Joel Osteen, who has such a prominent audience, cannot discern the least bit of truth from a falsehood. In the video below, he states that he believes that Mormons are Christians. This reveals how truly ignorant Osteen is when it comes to the Christian faith and the cults that claim allegiance with us.
This is why a man like Osteen is so dangerous to Christianity. He doesn’t realize that Mormons/Christian Scientist/Jehovah’s Witnesses etc. are dangerous because they say the things that make them seem orthodox, yet they are not. It is not until you understand what they believe about Jesus Christ that you begin to see that the Jesus Christ the cultus worship is not the Christ of the Bible.
For instance, the Mormons believe that Jesus is the brother of Satan. Satan went off and did evil things and Jesus went off and did his own thing, and became a god. If we are good then we too become little gods like he did and in the afterlife, we get our own worlds to rule, along with members of our family whom we get to tell what to do for all of eternity. This is not Christianity, but the religion of imagination.
What does the Scripture say about Christ? It shows Him to be the Creator of the Universe. Yes, the Father was involved in creation just as the Holy Spirit was. But listen to Paul’s words in Colossians: He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. 18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.
I know that Mormons take verse 15 and state the Christ was created. But that is not what the text shows. Firstborn over all creation means “the One to whom belongs the right and dignity of the Firstborn in relation to every creature.” All of creation belongs to Christ and the preeminent heir of all things. Paul is declaring to us that Jesus is the Son of God, in which all things belong to Him. In Paul’s day, the firstborn always had privileges that we do not see today. Jesus occupies the place of the firstborn in relationship to creation because the Father has given it to Him (Matthew 28:18ff).
He is not one that is created. Remember in John 8, when battling with the Pharisees, He declared that before Abraham was, “I am.” This was a self declaration of His right as the Second Person of the Trinity. As the Father is the “I Am” so too is the Son for they are one in essence. Jesus was declaring Himself to be equal to, and the same essence as the Father. There is no beginning nor end of Christ and He is the One that spoke all things into existence… including Satan. He is the Alpha and Omega. This means that He was there in the beginning just as the Father was. Not as One created to create, but existed before anything was created.
We see this truth with John 1:1, In the beginning was the Word. John is declaring to us, with the language of Genesis 1:1, that the Father and Son are the beginning and end of all things. Paul clarifies in Colossians 1.
16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.
Notice those words: For by Him all things were created… This is one of the times in which we can say “all things” is not merely a figure of speech representing a lot of something. But it means all things without exception. He existed before the foundations of the world and created all things. Christ even created Satan and the angels who eventually fell with Satan. This is what is meant by visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.
Mormons sees Jesus as a brother with Satan, yet the Scripture declares that Christ existed before Satan and was the creator of Satan. This shows us that the Mormons worship a different Christ all together. While they may give lip service to a Jesus that is similar to the Christ of Scripture, their Jesus is one of their own making and not the One who reveals Himself to us in Scripture. To believe in another Christ does not lead to salvation, for it is to preach an anti-Christ. We are to preach the true Christ of Scripture, not one of Joseph Smith’s making. In other words, Mormons preach an anti-Christ, a replacement Christ, one that offers no true salvation, one that is merely a creature like we are and one that only points to another righteousness.
The Christ of Scripture is vastly different, for He becomes the true believers righteousness. He redeems us from our sins, and makes us righteous in the sight of God. He atones for our sin because He satisfies the wrath of an infinite and eternal God. We owe an infinite and eternal debt to God because of our sin. It takes an infinite and eternal Savior to redeem us. While in His human nature, Christ is not infinite and eternal, He is in His Divine nature. By Divine, I do not mean special and good as in the sense of eating a brownie that is divine. What I mean is that He is God in the flesh (John 1:14), and this makes Him Divine.
I know Joel Osteen is trying to be nice. This is always the problems with false prophets. The Scripture describes them in such terms that we often believe the false prophet will have fangs dripping with blood and horns sticking out of their heads. But false prophets rarely look this way. They look just like sweet little Joel Osteen, being nice, with soothing words, never controversial and always given men what their itching ears want to hear.
This is deadly. Those who listen to Osteen every week never hear the true gospel and are on a road to hell. For all his sweetness today, they will spend eternity in agony. I know the topic of hell is unpopular to bring up today, but Christ did. He made it clear to us that there truly is a hell, for He is the One who created that hell (Matthew 25:41). He is also the One who warned about false prophets and wolves in sheep’s clothing (Matthew 7:15-23). The point is that these things are serious and this is why it is so important to point out the false teachers like Osteen and Joseph Smith. True men of God cannot remain silent. We are called to proclaim the truth, and in doing so, point out the errors and damning lies of sweet little men like Osteen. I know this will cause some to say I’m being disagreeable. But those who do would say the same about Christ and Paul and the rest of the Apostles who would not back down from Christ. No, I’m not placing myself on equal footing with Christ and the Apostles. Please do not think that. I only point this out because to sit and remain silent when such men of prominence make such claims, is to become guilty of omission.
Here is the video:
For another take on Mormonism, read Neil’s post here. You can also read my posts on the topic as well:
One final point concerning Mormons. The reason this topic is so front and center is because Mitt Romney is a Mormon. A lot of people are saying they will not vote for Romney because he is a Mormon. I won’t vote for him because he is a moderate. While I do believe that Romney’s Mormonism gives him a different view of Christ and the afterlife, I don’t believe it would inhibit him from being a good president. I just don’t think he is the best candidate because he IS a moderate. We need a conservative. One who happens to be a Christian would be a bonus, but it’s not essential.
Also, for those who say that it is against the Constitution to be opposed to, and not vote for, a candidate based on his religion, you are wrong. The Constitution bars Congress, etc., from looking at a candidate based on religion. However, as individuals we can oppose people all we want to based on their religion.
Again and again in recent weeks, the “no religious test” clause has been hauled out to silence those who oppose Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Jon Huntsman of Utah because of their affiliation with the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints—more popularly known as the Mormon Church. “It’s unconstitutional,” some have said boldly but clumsily, “to oppose someone in the American political system on the basis of that person’s religion.”
What’s slipped out of focus here is what entity is prohibited from having such a test. It’s Congress, or some official representative of government, that is absolutely barred from making any kind of religious test for office-holding.
Individuals, meanwhile, are free to establish such preferences, and to advocate them to others. Individuals can’t restrict the appointment of a particular governmental employee, but they have full liberty to claim they’ll never vote for a Hindu, or will vote only for a Unitarian.
Non-governmental organizations may also do so. Theoretically, your regional chamber of commerce, your local newspaper, or the area’s electricians union could take a stand against Presbyterians or in favor of Baptists—and still be within the words and the intent of the Constitution.
Even political parties and political action groups are not constitutionally barred from establishing and enforcing their own “religious tests.” They would do so, of course, very much at their own risk, and especially so in today’s pluralistic society. For the Republican Party, for example, to suggest that a candidate had to profess evangelical Christianity to be ideologically acceptable might be technically constitutional, but almost certainly politically silly.
I haven’t written any new blogs lately, as some may have noticed, because I was out of town preaching in Texas at a friend’s church plant outside of Dallas. We are hoping I receive a call from this church very soon, and moving to Texas in the near future. If you are so inclined, please lift us up in prayer before the Father, that His will be done. It will be truly a delight working with Elliott and the members of the congregation. It is obvious to us that the Holy Spirit is really moving in this new congregation and they are seeking the Lord’s will for the church. It was a delight to be able to preach for them this past Sunday.
It was also a joy hearing more of Elliott’s philosophy of the church. He truly does get it right when it comes to the nature of the body of Christ. As he pointed out to me, so many get it wrong when it comes to worship. We tend to worship, hoping that through worship, we will be united into fellowship. This is backwards. We must first be united by Christ as a family through His redeeming blood. Then we worship. Worship comes out of who we are, and is not something to be used to make us into who we want to be. Redemption comes first, then worship. (I’m probably not giving this justice, but you get the idea).
In view of that, there are a few things I want you to take note of since I have not had time to write lately. Here is my round up to remedy the matter.
Neil has an excellent post on the problem of having multiple sexual partners and the problems that it brings to marriage. So many have been conditioned into thinking that many sexual partners has no long lasting effect in our lives. This could not be further from the truth. Sin always has an effect in our lives, even though we may be forgiven by the Father for that sin. The consequences of that sin last until we are called home to glory, especially sexual sins. God designed sex to be between a man and woman for life. When we have sex with someone, we are not just uniting with them physically, but spiritually as well (1 Corinthians 6:12-20). Therefore the more we have sex with different people, the more it affects our spiritual lives and our ability to be bound to our spouse.
We should teach our children that sex is God’s gift to married couples. Sowing our wild oats, as Neil points out, is not some harmless act of youth, but something that will bear long-lasting consequences in our lives. While the world chases after the lust of the flesh, we need to strive to keep our minds and bodies pure and holy unto the Lord.
Brannon Howse has a good presentation on Dominion Theology. This is the concept that when Adam and Eve were given dominion over the earth, they were done so with the idea that the earth was transferred to them legally. Therefore all things belong to the church. This is not true. The earth belongs to the Lord and we are mere stewards of it. The other aspect of this theology that is dangerous is that many involved in it are trying to unite with other religions for the betterment of society. Richard Land, who is part of the Southern Baptist Church, Rick Warren and the emergent types are all involved in this movement at the expense of the gospel. In other words, let us set aside the gospel, so we can unite with Islam for the betterment of society.
Do you see a problem with this? What do light and darkness have to do with one another? We are not to unite ourselves with the world, nor or we do ignore the gospel for the betterment of the world. This premise that these people are putting forward is absolute absurdity. You cannot improve the conditions of men without the gospel. To leave the gospel out of any improvement program is nothing more than a band aid on a corpse bound for hell. It may make you feel good for the time being, but in the long run, nothing of the eternal nature has been change. We must reject Dominion Theology as heresy and all those who teach it as heretics. They may have the dressings of the church, but they lack the power of the gospel. Watch the video at Brannon’s web page. Link above.
Don Green, with The Grace Life Pulpit, gives an excellent sermon on the things to look for in finding a pastor. This one is dear to my heart since I want to be a pastor true to my calling, and I’m praying for the pastor that Grace Presbyterian here in Jackson, TN eventually calls. Anyone who is looking for a good church or involved with a search committee should listen to Green’s sermon. After searching for a call for so many years, I do get the impression that what many are looking for in a pastor is just not biblical at all. Green gives the following requirements, along with those that are already listed for elders:
Does the pastor truly love Christ? You would think that this would be obvious, but it is not. He says do not ask the man, but listen to his sermons over the course of many months. If the man truly loves Christ, then that love will come through in His preaching. It will be obvious over time.
He needs to be a man of the canon. In other words, he needs to be the man of the Bible. Many stand in pulpits today that hold the Bible in their hands and use it to catapult themselves off into their favorite topics, such as social justice, etc., but they never preach and teach the Bible. The Bible must be at the center of this man’s preaching. Otherwise, he needs to be removed from the pulpit. There are six ways to tell if the pastor is a man of the canon:
When does the man in the pulpit teach you about the holiness and wrath of God? If not, then he is not a man of the word. This is why I have such a problem with Joel Osteen and men like him. He says he is a man of the word, but just teaches some hazy concept of God’s love for us. If we do not understand God’s holiness and wrath, we will never understand God’s love for us.
When does he teach about eternal judgment and hell? Again, if these concepts are ignore, is the man in the pulpit being faithful to his calling?
When does he teach and preach about sin and repentance?
When does he teach and preach about justification by faith alone?
When does he teach and preach about the substitutionary atonement of Christ?
When does he teach and preach about our responsibility to follow Christ?
He needs to be a man of the church. The pastor’s primary responsibility is to feed and minister to the flock of Christ. It is NOT to reach the lost, but minister to those who have been and are redeemed by Christ. It is the responsibility of the church to reach the lost (Ephesians 4:7ff).
He needs to be a man of character. 1 Timothy 3:5 asks the question that if a man cannot take care of his own household, then how is it that he can take care of the household of God. This is why elders need to be true family men. Their characters truly come out in their children and families. Otherwise, if they are not good stewards of what is given to them up close, how can they truly be good stewards of the people of God?
Go listen to Green’s sermon here. It’s worth the effort.
Bob Hayton has an excellent piece about the world not ending as Harold Camping predicted. Here is a small slice of what he wrote.
My heart was affected deeply when I read this account of Robert Fitzpatrick, a New Yorker who spent over $100,000 to warn the world about May 21,2011. 6pm, the time the global earthquake marking the start of Judgement Day (and the rapture of the elect) should have reached New York City, came and went, and Fitzpatrick was left surprised.
The New York Daily News was with him in Times Square soon after 6pm.
He said: “I don’t know what happened. I don’t understand.”
The 60-year-old said he had no regrets. “I did what I had to do,” he said.
“I’m just surprised – I don’t understand it. It’s locked in for 2011.”
“I obviously haven’t understood it properly because we’re still here,” he said.
“Let’s just say I’m surprised that nothing has happened – everything in the bible indicated it.” [source, also see this report]
I’m saddened because Fitzpatrick, and countless thousands of others, have been misled by an apparently well-intentioned, radio teacher, Harold Camping (of Family Radio).
What’s worse, is that the world has front-page headlines about how the rapture didn’t happen, and how “Bible-believing Christians” are just a bunch of end-times-frenzied cooks.
Please hear me now. This does not represent historical, orthodox Christianity. The Christianity which can trace its general teaching from now back to Jesus himself, has not embraced this nonsense. And if you are reading this and you are also one who was surprised, or disappointed, that May 21 didn’t turn out to be “the day”, please keep reading.
The rapture hour has come and gone and we are all still here. We knew this would be the case since Harold Camping has done this before… and that pesky truth in the Bible about no one knowing the hour or day of Christ’s return. But it’s time to step up the pressure on Camping. I know that he will come out and say something along the lines of this being a spiritual rapture, or it’s not a true rapture per se, but one that means there will be no more new Christians. He’ll have an excuse ready to go.
I do like what Southern Baptist Ed Stetzer is calling for: repentance.
The California radio broadcaster’s wrong prediction about the rapture and the end of the world reflected poorly on Christians, said Ed Stetzer, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s LifeWay Research and LifeWay’s missiologist in residence.
Stetzer issued a series of tweets about Camping’s eschatological prediction on Saturday, among which one noted that there was no earthquake in New Zealand after 6 p.m.
“Harold Camping, pls update http://www.family.radio.com w/your repentance statement & instructions to your now-broke followers,” Stetzer tweeted.
An hour later he tweeted again, “6pm here in Turkey. I’m standing at the Temple of Athena waiting for the Rapture. Nothing happened. ”
Of course, Camping won’t do a thing like repent. False teachers never do. They just keep on spewing forth their heresy. I have stopped by the Family Radio page, or tried to, but I can never get it to load. Camping must be busy writing that apology.
We are quickly approaching Harold Camping’s doom date, which is tomorrow. This is really sad because Camping is scaring millions of people with his fallacious prediction that the end of the world will come at 6 p.m. EST May 21. Yet, Camping isn’t willing to put his money where his mouth is. WorldNetDaily is reporting that Sol David Cuddeback of Eugene, OR offered to take possession of all Campings worldly goods for $1 on May 22 since Camping won’t be needing it any longer. Camping has yet to reply.
Let me reassure you, Camping is a nut case. He goes so far to say that we must believe in his prediction of the rapture in order to be saved. No where in the Bible does it say “believe in the rapture as interpreted by Harold Camping to be saved.” What it says is that we are to believe and trust in Jesus Christ for salvation, not a prediction by Harold Camping. This makes Harold Camping officially a heretic. He is teaching another gospel all together. All you have to do is alter the gospel just a bit, and you join hands with him. The gospel is that Jesus Christ saves us from sin and death, through HIS atoning work on the cross. We are to believe in His Second Coming, but there is nothing about believing in a particular date of His Second Coming. Jesus even tells us that we cannot know the day or the hour of that coming. So Camping is at odds with Christ’s words.
Here is a bit of the WND report:
Harold Camping, 89, of Oakland, Calif.-based Family Radio is standing firm in his claim that mankind has run out of time and the Creator of the universe is arriving this Saturday, with earthquakes around the globe heralding the event.
In fact, when asked how he was feeling in this so-called final week, Camping admitted he’s already got a case of the shakes.
“I am trembling. I have never been at this place before,” Camping told CNN. “When we are only a few days away from the last thing that has to happen – the whole world destroyed by God – I have never been here before. Where can you get direction so you know how to feel?”
I hope he trembles on Sunday morning, when he realizes how he is duped so many people. The problem is, he will resort to his old tactics of spiritualizing what was to take place on Saturday. Once again, many will be duped.
Now, some might say: “But Timothy, look at all those who are coming to faith because of this prediction. Shouldn’t we rejoice?” (I know, straw man… but there are those who would naively say this very thing.) Not at all because they are coming to faith in a lie, not in the person and work of Jesus Christ. What happens to all those who believe in Camping’s message, and then it doesn’t happen? They are worse off than if they hadn’t believe at all because now they return to unbelief with a vengeance. This entire news event should sadden us because it is the result of a madman, not the truth of the gospel.
The truth of the matter is that we need to ignore Camping and his ilk. Let the Scripture dictate to us what we believe about the second coming.
Here is Hank Hanegraaff’s refutation of Camping.
I don’t believe in the rapture as Hanegraaff does. But you see that I’m not the only one refuting this heretic.
Realize that the idea of the rapture comes from the Plymouth Brethren about 150 years ago. Before that day, the church never heard of the rapture. What the Plymouth Brethren then did, was read their prophecy back into Scripture. This is a big problem. We are never to read our prophecies or views of the world back into Scripture. Scripture is to dictate what we are to believe and our view of the world. The Plymouth Brethren were doing the same thing that liberals are doing, reading their worldview into Scripture. This leads to heresy every time.
Greg Koukl at Stand to Reason, gives a good biblical account of the rapture, or Second Coming as I would call it, here. (Hattip: Neil.)
Also, there are some good links and an Mp3 download on the topic at Reformation 21, here.
I know, I seem to be beating the Rob Bell bell quite a bit lately. But there is just so much noise that needs to be made about this guy so that the faithful understand his error. The latest is that he has been named to Time Magazine’s Top 100 Most Influential people of the year. I don’t wish to say much more about him, other than to quote Frank Turk over at Pyromaniacs.com who is also answering the question of the reality of hell in an open letter to Jon Meacham of Time Magazine who wrote the piece about Bell. Frank writes:
How would we know the answer to that question? Is there a way to know whether or not the Christian faith (and specifically, the Christian church) has made any decisions about the doctrine of hell? If there’s not, I think Rob Bell is actually a kind of snake-oil salesman — because let’s face it: he’s portraying a doctrine of hell which he thinks other people ought to adopt. He’s a partisan guy — and we can see that in almost every interview he’s done for his book so far. That is: he wants us to know that for certain the Greek word “Aeon” doesn’t mean “forever and ever” (at least, not in reference to hell — in reference to heaven he’s convinced that the good stuff doesn’t ever stop). He thinks that we do God a disservice by saying hell is punishment that lasts longer than the crime(s). He wants people to get a firm grip on the doctrine of hell — and not fear it. We should embrace it as a commentary on what we do to ourselves.
What he doesn’t want for them is a doctrine in which hell is an unquenchable verdict.
That’s strange, isn’t it — if the story of salvation in the biblical discussion is, as you put it, contradictory, perhaps the problem is that Rob has put too fine a point on it. And if that’s the case, I wonder why his influence is seen as so useful by yourself and by TIME.
Turk knows that Meacham will not answer, nor will Bell. But Turk also knows we need to ask the questions for those who seem to be asking relevant questions of our day. If we are going to ask the question “Is hell dead?” we must be willing to answer the question according to the only source we have on the subject, namely the Holy Bible. Otherwise, we make ourselves to be fools like Bell and Meacham, who think themselves wise according to the world. Here is my earlier piece on the topic in which I show that even J.C. Ryle can correct Bell from the grave.
BTW, I looked at the full list, well, part of the full list of influential people for 2011, and I find that I know very few of them. That is actually good in my book. The object in life is to know Christ and be known by Him, not to know the temporary and passing movers and shakers of our society. After all, the most influential person of all time is… Jesus Christ. Only He can change the heart of a man like Rob Bell or Jon Meacham, or even Timothy J. Hammons (as He has already done). That is quite influential.
Poor Rob Bell. He must think he has arrived now that he made the cover of Time Magazine.
In their latest cover story, Time Magazine has an article about Rob Bell and his views on hell. They seemed to be impressed with Bell for asking the “tough” questions. Their big question: “Is Hell Dead?” I guess that is thought provoking and such. It’s sort of like Nietzsche saying “God is dead.” Trendy and all. But hardly true.
For those of you who are behind the eight ball on the controversy, Bell has written a book entitled Love Wins in which he makes the case that in the end, love wins and everyone gets into heaven… even guys like Joseph Stalin, or Mahatma Gandhi, even though they rejected Christ in this life. This is just another evangelical pastor falling for the lie of Universalism, for it means, ultimately that Jesus really didn’t have to die on the cross.
In Time’s piece, they are asking “Is hell dead?” Since I’ve already discussed Bell in two other posts, here and here, let me answer the question: “no!”
Hell is not something that can die because hell is something that God created for Satan and his angels (Matthew 25:41). He is using the place to deal with the wicked and the condemned for rejecting Him and for their sin. Shortly after the most famous verse in the Bible, is the statement that those who do not believe in Christ are condemned already (John 3:18). This means that eternal punishment rests upon them. Back in the Matthew 25 passage, we get a picture of judgment day from Christ. Those who were His are given eternal life, those who were not, are cast into the “everlasting fire.” Those are Christ’s words, not mine. He is saying that hell is a place of everlasting fire, not just temporary fire, or some such nonsense like that, but eternal.
In Mark 9:43ff, Jesus warns us not to sin, to the point that it would be better to cut off our hand or pluck out an eye, than it would be sin because sin leads to hell, and hell is a place where the worm does not die, nor is the fire ever quenched. In other words, it is an eternal place made for those who do not have the righteousness of Christ. The point is that when hell is given a time reference, it is always eternal in nature. It’s not something that passes away after a time.
Why? It is eternal in nature because God is eternal in nature. He is dealing with sinners in a just fashion, or in a way that fits the crime. When we sin against an eternal being, then the punishment is eternal. Let me explain it this way. If I hit my neighbor in the jaw out of anger, I have sinned against my neighbor. It is wrong to hit. Besides the thrashing I would receive from my neighbor, who is a cop, I would probably have to spend a few days in jail and do community service. But if I hit President Obama in the jaw, suddenly the intensity of the crime has increase manifold. Not that Obama is more important in his person than my neighbor, but because of the authority he has as president of the United States. I have not just hit the man, but hit the one who represents the office. The punishment is far more severe even though it was the same crime.
The point is that when we sin against God, we sin against the most holy, most righteous, everlasting God. The offense is far worse than we can imagine because He is far more holy that we can know. Out of His holiness, justice must come about.
The Good News!!!
Since it is Resurrection Week, I will point out the good news in this. Jesus came to take care of the wrath of God for us by dying on the cross on our behalf. The eternal Son of God comes and deals with our sin against the Eternal God. Therefore, the debt is paid in full when we trust in Him for salvation. However, those who do not trust in Jesus Christ have no hope, for there is no one to deal with that eternal debt of sin they owe to God. So He takes out His wrath on them for all of eternity.
AS for the Time Magazine article, I would discuss more of it, but it’s not worth it. Just read this one paragraph and you get the idea:
Things many Christian believers take for granted are more complicated than they seem. It was only when Jesus failed to return soon after the Passion and Resurrection appearances that the early church was compelled to make sense of its recollections of his teachings. Like the Bible — a document that often contradicts itself and from which one can construct sharply different arguments — theology is the product of human hands and hearts. What many believers in the 21st century accept as immutable doctrine was first formulated in the fog and confusion of the 1st century, a time when the followers of Jesus were baffled and overwhelmed by their experience of losing their Lord; many had expected their Messiah to be a Davidic military leader, not an atoning human sacrifice.
This comes from the school of “it’s just too difficult for us to know in today’s modern world.” Meaning, “you Christians shouldn’t be so sure about what you believe because it may lead to something we don’t like.” I always love it when unbelievers tell us that our faith if just too complicated for us to be so dogmatic. I like to remind people of this verse found in 2 Corinthians 4:3-6:
But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. 5 For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
At least let that be our reminder. Unbelievers don’t get it because they have not been given eyes of understanding being enlightened by God Himself (Ephesians 1:18). They truly are ignorant of spiritual truth because they are dead spiritually speaking. The true spiritual things are of no interest to them.
Here is one paragraph I will discuss. The Time Mag piece writes:
Particularly galling to conservative Christian critics is that Love Winsis not an attack from outside the walls of the Evangelical city but a mutiny from within — a rebellion led by a charismatic, popular and savvy pastor with a following. Is Bell’s Christianity — less judgmental, more fluid, open to questioning the most ancient of assumptions — on an inexorable rise? “I have long wondered if there is a massive shift coming in what it means to be a Christian,” Bell says. “Something new is in the air.”
Always, and I mean always doubt the word “new” when it comes to Christian/Biblical theology. As William Hendriksen so wonderfully proclaimed about new things in Christian theology, that those thing presented as new are nothing more than than an old heresy with a new dress and new make up. In other words, the same old whore known as heresy. She is not worth dating, flirting with or courting. But here we have Rob Bell doing just that. Trying to get us to court the same old whore in an attempt to reach more people for Christ.
It’s far better to just stick with the truth of Scripture instead of courting the likes of Time Magazine.
The Apostle Paul warned the Ephesian elders that to take heed for yourselves and the flock given to them, for which the Holy Spirit made them overseers, and that Christ purchased with His blood. He continued: “For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves” (Acts 20:29-30).
I spoke about this in my sermon on Sunday. The problem is that when Paul describes these savage wolves, we imagine men who have a fiendish look about them, with blood dripping from their teeth and dead sheep all around them. The harsh reality is that these savage wolves always seem like very nice guys. They look and sound like guys that would be a joy to hang out with. What makes them so savagely is the fact that the message they teach and preach leads people to eternal damnation. It does not matter how nice a person is, if they preach a false gospel, they are the most wicked of men because the end result is that those who follow them, are damned eternally.
Case in point: Rob Bell, pastor, teacher, all around swell guy… but in reality a false teacher. He appeared on MSNBC recently with his book Love Wins, in which the premise is that eventually, all people go to heaven because… love wins. Watch the following video in which you will see MSNBC host Martin Basher pointing out that Rob Bell is twisting the gospel to make it palatable for the current culture.
It really sickens me when I see men who have such a large audience, putting forth such a dangerous gospel. Basher really did an excellent job showing Bell’s inconsistencies. O, the gospel is important now? But love wins, so what does it matter? Bell was being trapped and was too much of a touchy-feely guy to see it.
The problem with people like Bell, who focus solely on one attribute of God, that attribute being God’s love, is that he ignores the rest of God’s attributes as well. Specifically, Bell ignores God’s holiness which is spoken of far more in the Bible than God’s love. It is out of His holiness that God brings about His wrath and His judgment. (I feel like I’m repeating myself here… why, o why, do people listen to guys like Bell). That judgment for believes is dealt with on the cross. For those who reject Christ, there is no hope. We know this because of the countless times that Jesus tells us about hell. What Rob Bell wants to candy coat, Jesus spoke of more than anyone else in the Bible. He is the One that tells us there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. He is the One that tells us that there is a great gulf fixed between heaven and hell that cannot be crossed (Luke 16:19-31). He is the One that tells us that the worm never dies and it is better to maim yourself than to sin and be thrown into hell (Mark 9), showing us that going there has eternal consequences. Jesus is also the One that tells us there will be many who do things in the name of Christ, but will depart from Him, because He never knew them (Matthew 7:21ff). So in Bell’s view of the gospel, Jesus tells them to depart from Him on judgment day (the say with the goats in Matthew 25), but then says, “OK, come on back. I was only kidding!”
The reason that people do not change their minds once they get to hell is because they continue to hate God, and there is no longer an atonement for their sin. Jesus would have to die all over again for that to happen (Hebrews 6:4-6). The reason hell is eternal is because the sin they committed was against an eternal being. It takes the death of One who is eternal to satisfy God’s wrath. Jesus was that One and the One by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12). He cannot die again, so it is vital to accept Him on this side of death. To reject Jesus is to reject the only means of salvation and once we die it is too late for that. Hebrews 9:27 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment. There is no hope at that point. Remember the great gulf that is fixed between heaven and hell that Jesus told us about? Once one is found lacking, he is cast into that hell and there is no getting across that gulf. It is permanent.
But Mr. Bell would have us believe that eventually God’s love will win out and all those people in hell will be freed and invited into heaven. This ignores God’s eternal decrees of election (Ephesians 1:3-14). It makes God out to be me nothing more that a cosmic hand wringer who is hopeless with the lives of men on this side of glory. It also makes God out to be a liar for He would be contradicting His own word, which He cannot do. Poor Mr. Bell. He is trying so hard to be liked and make God likeable, that He makes God out to be a liar in the process. To make God out to be a liar is to show that the truth is not in us (1 John 1:10). Since this is true, the truth is not in Bell. He needs to repent.
I think that what Mr. Bell also needs to do is go into sales, selling used cars and quit trying to pass himself off as a pastor who cares. He does not care. He is very hateful towards those whom he pastors. He needs to be rebuked in the harshest terms, because he is leading his flock into everlasting punishment. I know, he is such a nice guy. And Satan presented himself as an angel of light too. Real pastors and those who love our Savior, get angry at guys like Bell. He truly is a savage wolf. What Bell does is wicked beyond hope. May God silence him soon.
Here is more of his teaching.
Sounds good, but in reality he is dead wrong. Those outside of Christ are not spiritual because they are spiritually dead. Ephesians 2:1ff show that the non-believer is not spiritual at all. He is dead spiritually. This is why there is a need for new birth (John 3). Rob… read the Bible! This shows Bell to be more into New Age than true, biblical Chrisianity.
Here is another pastor, Cameron Buettel, discussing Rob Bell and his humanism disguised as the gospel.
Here is Buettel’s blog. I like what Buettel says close to the end of the clip. It is important that we point out false teachers and expose them for who they are. What a lot of people try to do is silence all criticism in the body of Christ. What this effectively does is keep men like Bell from coming under the Scrutiny of the authority of God’s word. Even the Apostle Paul was under this scrutiny. He commended the Bereans for checking out what he said (Acts 17:10-15). We should as well. That is how we know when men like Bell come along, the gospel they are presenting is no gospel at all.
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