Category Archives: Al Mohler

The Actions of the PCUSA on Ordaining Homosexuals Should Not Surprise Us

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A friend wrote me on Facebook, wondering what was up with the Presbyterian Church (USA) coming to the decision to ordain homosexuals. I’m not sure, but I think he thought I was a part of this particular denomination. I am not. I’m a member of the Presbyterian Church in America. Yes, I know, they sound a like, but are vastly different in our beliefs, as you can see from the recent actions of the PCUSA.

The PCUSA decided that it was high time to start ordaining homosexuals. Given some of the statements made by those in on the decision, it really is no surprise. Just read what the church’s officials said concerning this decision in a report from Foxnews:

Top Presbyterian executives issued a statement to the church acknowledging that “some will rejoice while others will weep,” at the decision.

“However, as Presbyterians, we believe that the only way we will find God’s will for the church is by seeking it together — worshipping, praying, thinking and serving alongside one another,” the executives wrote. (Emphasis added).

Did you notice anything missing in that list? How about the Bible? Are they reading the Bible and seeing what God’s word has to say? Are they submitting to God’s word in this decision? Nope! Not at all. In fact, Al Mohler asks the question, “can they really submit to the Lordship of Christ without submitting to the Bible?“

Nope!

Here are Mohler’s observations:

While this action deals specifically with ordination standards, it is really about the larger issue of homosexuality. Most observers expect that the decision to allow same-sex marriages will follow closely.

But even beyond the specific issue of homosexuality, the church faced two of the most fundamental questions of Christian theology — the authority of the Bible and the Lordship of Christ. In making this change, the church clearly affirms that one may submit to the Lordship of Christ without submitting to the clear teachings of Scripture.

That is a fundamental error that leaves this denomination now in the implausible position of claiming to affirm the Lordship of Christ while subverting the authority of Scripture. The removal of the constitutional language about marriage and chastity, coupled with the removal of the language about repentance from what Scripture identifies as sin, effectively means that candidates and presbyteries may defy Scripture while claiming to follow Christ.

Clearly, this action could not have happened without this denomination having abandoned any required belief in the full authority, inspiration, and truthfulness of the Bible long ago. This most recent decision sets the stage for the total capitulation of this church to the normalization of homosexuality — an act of open defiance against the Scriptures.

You cannot be submissive to Jesus Christ, or His Lordship if you deny His word and ignore His word. As Neil has labored to point out about what the Bible says regarding homosexuality, there is nothing ever said or referred to about such in the Bible.

Here are Neil‘s statistics:

  • 100% of the verses addressing homosexual behavior denounce it as sin in the clearest and strongest possible terms.
  • 100% of the verses referring to God’s ideal for marriage involve one man and one woman.
  • 100% of the verses referencing parenting involve moms and dads with unique roles (or at least a set of male and female parents guiding the children).
  • 0% of 31,173 Bible verses refer to homosexual behavior in a positive or even benign way or even hint at the acceptability of homosexual unions.

Hard to argue with what Scripture says. However the people in the PCUSA are not arguing at all. They are simply ignoring the Bible all together. In doing so, they have created God in their own image, a god that is no longer holy. This god is more like the gods of old during Israel’s day that were constant temptations for the people of God. Gods like Molech or Baal. Gods that are fat, indulgent, fleshly gods that are all loving of all as long as you indulge in their particular sin.

When you think about, this really is what is taking place. I will not be surprised when we get to heaven and find out the truth behind the demons of Baal and Molech, only to find that they are the demons of liberal theology as well, because they both do the same thing. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians that those who were sacrificing to these gods, were actually sacrificing to demons: Rather, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons (1 Corinthians 10:20). Remember those that worshiped Baal were into unrestrained sex with the temple prostitutes, including homosexuality. Those who worshiped Molech, were into sacrificing their children in the fires of Molech.

Liberal theology tells us that unrestrained sex is OK, along with sacrificing our children through the means of abortion. We don’t have to make much of a leap to help us see that the demons behind Molech and Baal, are the same demons we see in the apostate church today, saying unrestrained sex is OK, as well as killing our children. This is the danger of departing from God’s words. The moment we say that it doesn’t mean what it says, or even it doesn’t apply to us today, is the moment we open ourselves up to being given over by the Triune God, to our fleshly lusts and perversions (Romans 1:18ff).

This is why we must press on with what God’s word declares and not water it down. Homosexuality is an abomination and those who participate in it have no hope of eternity with Christ (1 Corinthians 6:9). They certainly don’t have any hope if we give up on the word of God as well. Who is left in the PCUSA to tell the homosexual or lesbian that they are out of God’s declare will? They think they are being loving by affirming this sin, but they are truly being hateful. Why? They are leading these people to eternal destruction. If they are truly loving towards the gay man or woman, they would tell them the need for repentance. This is not feeling sorry for your sin, but turning away from that sin and towards Christ. After all, He did not die on the cross in order to leave us in our sin. He died to rescue us from the punishment of that sin and to deliver us from it on this side of glory as well.

Those men and women in the PCUSA will never hear this message as long as they remain in that denomination because they have turned away from the true hope of the gospel. As my friend wrote me, “sad.”

Quick Round Up

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Since Neil has been so busy, here is a quick round up!

Drudge Reports: Blow to O, Mo says No!

In other words, Missouri has told BHO “No!” when it comes to Obamacare. this is really good news. They had a popular vote on this issue and 70 percent of the people said “no.” This really is in his face.

“The citizens of the Show-Me State don’t want Washington involved in their health care decisions,” said Sen. Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, one of the sponsors of the legislation that put Proposition C on the August ballot. She credited a grass-roots campaign involving Tea Party and patriot groups with building support for the anti-Washington proposition.

Walter Williams weighs in on racial profiling.

Is an individual’s race or sex useful for guessing about other unseen characteristics? Suppose gambling becomes legal for an Olympic event such as the 100-meter sprint. I wouldn’t place a bet on an Asian or white runner. Why? Blacks who trace their ancestry to West Africa, including black Americans, hold more than 95 percent of the top times in sprinting. That’s not to say an Asian or white can never win but I know the correlations and I’m playing the odds. If women were permitted to be in the sprint event with men, I’d still put my money on a black male. Does that make me a sexist as well as a racist?

What about when a black hails a taxicab and the driver passes him up and picks up a white passenger down the street? Is that racism? Many people assume that it is but it might not be any different from a physician using race and sex as an estimator for some other characteristic. Ten years ago, a black D.C. commissioner warned cabbies, most of whom are black, against picking up dangerous-looking passengers. She described dangerous-looking as a “young black guy … with shirttail hanging down longer than his coat, baggy pants, unlaced tennis shoes.” She also warned cabbies to stay away from low-income black neighborhoods. Cabbies themselves have developed other profiling criteria.

There is no sense of justice or decency that a law-abiding black person should suffer the indignity being passed up. At the same time, a taxicab driver has a right to earn a living without being robbed, assaulted and possibly murdered. One of the methods to avoid victimization is to refuse to pick up certain passengers in certain neighborhoods or passengers thought to be destined for certain neighborhoods. Again, a black person is justifiably angered when refused service but that anger should be directed toward the criminals who prey on cabbies.

Not every choice based on race represents racism and if you think so, you risk misidentifying and confusing human behavior. The Rev. Jesse Jackson once said, “There is nothing more painful for me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery — then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”

Texas A&M May Still Go to the SEC in 2013

I found this over at the 12th Man website. Here’s hoping.

I just received an e-mail from a very trusted source who told me that A&M will be joining the SEC in 2013. This would be tremendous news if true. A progressive move like this from the administration would really shock me. The move to the SEC would change the recruiting dynamic in the state. It would allow A&M to offer Texans an in-state option to compete in the best conference in the country. If texas does not follow (which I do not expect them to do), then it would also separate the two schools in different conferences for the first time in their histories. I hope this information proves to be correct, because road trips to Baton Rouge, Gainesville, Starkville, and Tuscaloosa beat the hell out of Lubbock and Stillwater.

Best Pelosi Rendition

I had to throw some humor in there.

Agnostics Take On Atheists

Finally, there is commentary over at the Aquila Report by Al Mohler on the New Agnostics, who are as fervent about “non knowing” as the new atheists are about “knowing for certain there isn’t” a God. It is almost humorous to see the agnostics distancing themselves from the New Atheists. Mohler writes:

Huxley defined agnosticism in terms of his principle that no one should claim objective knowledge “unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty.” In Huxley’s view, this principle of thought rules out any form of theism. At the same time, it supposedly renders atheism unnecessary. In the view of Huxley, atheism actually conceded too much to theism, for it seemed to allow that some adequate evidence for or against the existence of God might be brought forward.
Rosenbaum takes this argument a step forward. Atheists, he insists, actually “display a credulous and childlike faith, [and] worship a certainty as yet unsupported by evidence — the certainty that they can or will be able to explain how and why the universe came into existence.”
Thus, Rosenbaum wants “a distinct identity for agnosticism, to hold it apart from the certitudes of both theism and atheism.” This is not a small project.
“Let’s get one thing straight,” he insists: “Agnosticism is not some kind of weak-tea atheism. Agnosticism is not atheism or theism. It is radical skepticism, doubt in the possibility of certainty, opposition to the unwarranted certainties that atheism and theism offer.”
At this point Rosenbaum’s argument gets really interesting. He accuses the New Atheists of intolerance and their own form of heresy-hunting, and ridicules them for their untenable faith that all the big questions can be answered with satisfaction by science. The New Atheists, he laments, “seemed to have stopped thinking since their early grade-school science fair triumphs.”

But don’t get too excited. The New Agnostics don’t like Theists either.

The Year of Our Lord at Trinity University — UPDATE

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SEE UPDATE BELOW

Al Mohler does an excellent job of pointing out the absurdity of students who are graduating from Trinity University. These student, who are Muslim, want the term “year of our Lord,” removed from their diplomas. They see the term as offensive because it is a reference to Jesus Christ, in whom they do not believe. But the odd thing is, why don’t they remove the name “Trinity” from their diplomas as well since it also refers to Jesus Christ?

The controversy at Trinity University tells us so much about the loss of Christian conviction in colleges and universities, the insanity of secular revisionism, and the contradictions of Muslim students who are offended by the words “the year of our Lord,” but seem perfectly happy to have the name “Trinity University” printed in bold on their diplomas.

One thing is clear — the university will have to decide quickly what to do in this situation, and they will make their decision in — you guessed it — the year of our Lord, the two thousand and tenth.

My question is: what happens if there are students who desire to have “the year of Our Lord” on their diplomas because they are Christians and find it offensive to remove it? Is Trinity U. going to accommodate those students as well, or just a few outspoken Muslims? Also, as Mohler points out, what about the actual date itself? Even if they remove the term “year of Our Lord,” the date itself still points back to something. What is it that it points back to? Christ’s birth!

And what would the removal of the words “the year of our Lord” accomplish? That system of calendar dating can be traced back to Dionysius Exiguus, an abbot who in the year 525 constructed a new chart of Easter tables, changing the numbering of the years from the year one starting in 284, the year that Emperor Diocletian ascended to the throne, to what Dionysius calculated to be the year of Christ’s birth. Dionysius referred to the years after the birth of Christ as anni Domini nostri Jesu Christi (the years of our Lord Jesus Christ).

Thus, even when modern secularists try to change the language and dating customs from “A.D.” to “C.E.,” for “common era,” the date itself remains fixed with reference to the birth of Jesus Christ. Instead of “B.C.” for “before Christ,” these new agents of “tolerance” prefer “B.C.E.,” for “before common era.” But, once again, this does nothing to remove the fact that the number of the year points directly to the assumed date of the birth of Christ.

In other words, the only way to fully secularize the dating system is to renumber all the years with some other point of historical reference. Perhaps they would prefer we start with the year of Charles Darwin’s birth, then renumber the years as “B.C,” for “before Charles,” and “A.D.,” for “after Darwin.”

We are seeing all this true silliness because the leaders of Trinity have no real moral bearing or grounding in history. As Mohler points out, they are embarrassed by Christianity even though their school was started by Christians. This embarrassment is born out of the belief that we have, once again, advanced pass the need for Christianity. We no longer need saving because sin is really just a made up term to scare people and control people with religion. At least, this is what they believe.

Yet, sin still reigns in our culture and in our lives, all the denying of this truth will do nothing to eliminate it. In fact, all the education, science, technology and preaching from the Left will do nothing to alleviate our sinful nature and that nature will continue to become more and more emboldened. This leads to a more debauched culture and one that is less free in the end.

The board of Trinity U. would do well to actually go back and look at their roots. Even though they were started by a bunch of preachers out of the Cumberland Presbyterian denomination, they would be far better off than they are now. Other wise, they will continue to behave like utter fools, and remove terms like “the year of Our Lord,” leaving the date the same and the name of their school the same. Both still point a Christ and are subtle reminders that even when we ignore the facts, we still need Him today as much as ever.

UPDATE

KUDOS to the Board of Trinity University which voted to uphold the use of the term “In the year of Our Lord” on diplomas. Here is what they wrote:

“The Board’s decision reflects its desire to continue a Trinity tradition, and the words ‘in the year of our Lord’ are appropriate for the diploma given Trinity’s history and heritage,” said Walter R. Huntley ’71, ’73, vice chairman of the Trinity Board of Trustees and an Atlanta businessman.  The Board also affirmed the University’s mission as a liberal arts and sciences institution, where future leaders are prepared for life in a global society and are informed and fortified by diversity.

Seeker Sensitive

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You know I’m not a fan of trends or movements within the body of Christ at all. One such movement is that of the Seeker Sensitive Church. This movement tries to water down the gospel in order to make it more acceptable to the masses, or to those who are just “seeking” God. Never mind that the Bible says that no one searches after a God. God is the one that searches of us. He seeks us. He pursues us, changes our hearts, converts us and causes us to become born again. So the premise of the Seeker Sensitive Church is all wrong. The worship service should not be dumbed-down for the non believer, but should be geared towards God by true believers. Believe it or not, God can actually work through that to bring the most spiritually ignorant to Himself. It’s amazing what that Holy Spirit can do. Our goals as believers is to be faithful in our worship of Him. His Spirit can actually do what He said He could do.

In view of that, I had to share the following two videos. The first is a parody of the Budweiser Commercials where they are celebrating different mundane professions in society. Only this time, the focus is on the Seeker Sensitive Pastor. It’s sadly humorous. The following video is actually serious. It is R.C. Sproul and Al Mohler discussing the flaws of the seeker sensitive movement and other new movements that have come about. Please watch at least the Sproul video… It’s well worth the time.

I really do believe that the best mode possible for winning the lost, encouraging and building up the saved is to preach God’s word faithfully. It’s sad that so many in our day and age fail to actually trust in the sufficiency of God’s word.

BTW, Hat tip: Heath for the first video. Also he has a good post on more abuses in the church, including clown communion and Barney benedictions. My level of tolerance went through the roof on that one.

The New Atheism and the Future of Christianity

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Here is the fourth in the series by Al Mohler and Dallas Theological Seminary. This has truly been an excellent lecture series and I feel that I will have to listen to these several times over the coming months. Not so that I can battle the atheist, but that I can encourage the fellowship of believers in the reality that the gates of hell, nor Sam Harris, will prevail against Christ’s church.

Please take the time to watch these.
Video One: Click here.
Video Two: Click here.
Video Three: Click here.
Video Four, see below.

BTW, I was really pleased when I realized that much of the information I was hearing could be used in my Sunday evening sermon. I love how God’s sovereign hand works out in my sermon prep.

The New Atheism and the Defense of Theism

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It’s time to once again listen to Al Mohler as he looks at the problem of the New Atheist that face Christianity today. If you watched the first video below, you know that he pointed out that years ago, it was impossible to be an atheist (at least among cultural elites). Then, over time with the Enlightenment, it became probable to be an atheist. In other words, atheists were tolerated. The tide continued to turn and it became possible to remain a Christian. Now among the cultural elites, it is impossible to be a Christian at all. The New Atheism doesn’t just seek to exist as a belief system, but seeks to remove Christianity all together. They have proposed even removing children from the homes of Christians, so that they can indoctrinate their beliefs into the child. They see teaching a child to be a Christian as a crime. All that to say, we are up against it.

Fortunately, God is bigger than the New Atheist of our culture. Watch the video.

The New Atheism and the End Game of Secularism

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I found this via Gunny’s site, watched it and was truly given a lesson about the current atheistic movement in America today. The speaker is Albert Mohler, the current president of Southern Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY. He does a great job of showing how atheism started only a few hundred years ago (use of the term several hundred years ago. It has always been with us, but there wasn’t a term for it), how it was first scorned, then accepted, and now seeks to scorn anyone who holds to faith at all. The goal of many atheists is to drive Christianity off the map, and one of their solutions is to present the idea that Christians raising their children in a Christian home is paramount to child abuse. This is the first of four lectures. I plan on posting the rest here throughout the week.

While it is 41 minutes long, it is well worth watching. Sit back, and learn what the atheists are up to. in doing so, remember, that HE will never leave us nor forsake us, and the gates of hell will not prevail against the church, even in this new form of attack on the church.