The Gay Agenda's Intolerance Of Traditional Marriage

Even though I am outside the USA right now it the outbreak of a second Civil War in America seems to be global news. Chick Fil A President Dan Cathy decided to spew forth vicious hate speech against all homosexuals by stating his support for the biblical understanding of marriage! Don't you just feel the hate?

I make no secret of the fact that I love Chick Fil A and have always taken the principled stand to support them through regular visits to my local Santa Clarita store in southern California. Quite simply, it is a matter of mathematics:

Christian Values + Mouth Watering Spicy Chicken Deluxe Sandwich = A Principled Stand

But what exactly were the hate filled words of Dan Cathy? Here is the explosive portion of his interview with Baptist Press that unleashed the firestorm of outrage:

Some have opposed the company's support of the traditional family. "Well, guilty as charged," said Cathy when asked about the company's position.

"We are very much supportive of the family -- the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.

"We operate as a family business ... our restaurants are typically led by families; some are single. We want to do anything we possibly can to strengthen families. We are very much committed to that," Cathy emphasized.

"We intend to stay the course," he said. "We know that it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the Lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles."



The roar of protest was immediate. Picketers were deployed to stand outside their local franchise and "spread their message of tolerance". The mayor's of Chicago and Boston pledged their commitment to shut Chick Fil A out of their cities because of it's intolerance. Great way to display your commitment to tolerance guys! Roseanne Barr launched an expletive riddled diatribe against the company (she has a way with words that is never worth repeating) declaring that anyone who eats (Expletive) Fil A deserves to get cancer.



Even the Jim Henson company, who brought us Kermit the Frog and the Muppets, has severed all ties with Chick Fil A over their hate filled intolerance and will no longer be supplying toys for their "kids meals". To add insult to injury, the Swedish Chef has now removed chicken from his menu, Animal the drummer no longer does his "bite the head off a chicken routine", and Kermit is now on the lookout for a new diversionary food for all lovers of frog legs. Even Miss Piggy is encouraging food lovers to boycott Chick Fil A and eat bacon instead!

But there has also been a backlash to the backlash with hordes of chicken lovers descending on franchises all over the country to send a clear message of their support. Chick Fil A reported their biggest day of sales ever. Clearly, the chicken sandwich has found itself in the center of the culture war on Christian liberty. Al Mohler commented in his blog just two days ago that:

The threats made against Chick-fil-A betray the principle of religious liberty that is enshrined within the U.S. Constitution. Civic officials in some of the nation’s largest and most powerful cities have openly threatened to oppose Chick-fil-A for the singular reason that its president openly spoke of his Christian convictions concerning marriage.

When Quinn, one of the most powerful officials in New York, announces, “I do not want establishments in my city that hold such discriminatory views,” is she also threatening the Roman Catholic Church, Orthodox Jewish synagogues and Islamic mosques?

They, along with evangelical Christian denominations, openly oppose the legalization of same-sex marriage. Cathy’s statements are completely consistent with his own denomination’s statement of faith and official declarations. He was speaking as a Christian and as a Southern Baptist, and he was speaking as a man who does his best to live and speak as he believes.

When Emanuel and Moreno tell Chick-fil-A to stay out of Chicago, are they audacious enough to deliver that same message to the churches, mosques and synagogues of their city that also oppose same-sex marriage? What do they do with the fact that their own state does not allow same-sex marriages?

This country is deeply divided over the issue of same-sex marriage, and the controversy over Chick-fil-A is an ominous sign that many of the proponents of same-sex marriage are quite willing to violate religious liberty and to use any and all means to silence and punish any individual or organization that holds the contrary view – a view sustained by the voters in 29 states by constitutional amendments.

It warms my heart greatly to see so many people coming out in support of a Christian man who runs a good business on Christian principles. I am concerned however, that this could spill over into a fast food franchise at the epicenter of a moralistic us against them contest. It is a gross Christian error to go to war against our mission field. And I'll say more about that later . . .

Scandinavian Psychiatric Stupidity

The western world is reeling in horror once again as the reality of the recent Denver shooting sinks in. Lot's of questions are being asked and lots of outrage is being vented. As I am currently visiting the Scandinavian country of Denmark it has been intriguing to watch the angle taken on these events by the Danish media.

Comments of concern have been made regarding the way the American police and justice system have been treating the perpetrator of the crime. They seem to have great concern for the fact that his feet are shackled and the fashion persecution of wearing a prison jumpsuit in court. All his friends seemed to think he was a nice guy. Is he getting the right medication? Is he getting the best psychiatric treatment to ascertain his illness? This is the retarded psychobabble of a culture that thinks it is "advanced"!

I am reminded of this story recounted by the late Chuck Colson after a visit to the country of Norway:


I can’t help but think of a visit I made to a maximum-security prison outside of Oslo back in the 1980s. I tell this story in my book How Now Shall We Live? I was greeted by the warden, who was a psychiatrist. She gave me a tour of the place, which seemed more like a laboratory than a prison. We met so many other psychiatrists that I asked the warden how many of the inmates here were mental cases.


She replied, “All of them, of course.”


I was stunned. Really? “Well,” she said, “anyone who commits a violent crime is obviously mentally unbalanced.” 


This was the ultimate expression of the therapeutic model. People, the reasoning goes, are basically good, so anyone who could do something so terrible as this must be mentally ill. And the solution is therapy. It is a tragically flawed and inaccurate view of human nature. And, as I learned just a few days later, a very dangerous one.


During that visit I preached the Gospel to the prisoners. They were completely numb to the message. But as I was leaving, a young correctional officer, a Christian, came up to me. She said she had prayed for someone to confront the prisoners with the message of sin and salvation. She was frustrated by the corrections system in Norway, where there was no concept of personal responsibility, and therefore no reason for prisoners to seek personal transformation. 


Only days later, I learned the tragic news: The young officer I had met was assigned to escort an inmate out to see a movie as part of his therapy. On the way back to prison, he murdered her.


Theology matters in all spheres of life. None more so than in the Bible's assessment of the human condition. All men have taken on Adam's sinful nature and have a continual propensity to evil. It is more surprising how rare these mass murders are than how often they take place. The irony that atheists enjoy the relative comforts of ordered western civilization is not lost on me. They benefit from this all the while ignorantly unthankful for the fact that God has blessed this fallen world with civil government (fallible though it is)  For all the shortcomings of western governments, they still generally enforce some sort of law and order that we might live peaceable lives. We should also be thankful for God's restraining grace that often limits the extent of evil that we could otherwise do.

But when the default shifts from all men being evil (biblical truth) to the unrealized goodness of all men through therapy (secular lie) this is what you get:





I will close with Al Mohler's insightful words on "Denver's Dark Night". It is a lengthy quote but it is too good to cut any shorter:

The same vexing but inescapable question comes every time a Columbine happens or an Anders Behring Breivik attempts to justify his mass homicide. How could such a thing happen? How could a human being do such a thing?


There is no easy answer to this question. The easy answers are never satisfying, and they are often based in the confused moral calculus of popular culture. We assume there must have been a political motivation, a psychiatric disturbance, a sociological pressure . . . anything that will offer a satisfying explanation that will assure us. Wave after wave of analysis is offered, and sometimes some horrifying clues emerge. But the moral madness of mass homicide can never be truly explained. Christians are driven by instinct to think in biblical and theological terms. But, how should that instinct be guided?


The Reality of Human Evil


First, Christians know that the human heart is capable of great evil. Human history includes a catalog of human horrors. The twentieth century, described by historian Eric Hobsbawm as the century of “megadeath,” included a list of names such as Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Pol Pot, and Charles Manson. But those murderers did their killing from a distance, at least usually. Those who carry out the murders themselves are even more haunting to us. The young man arrested in this case, 24-year-old James Holmes, looks disarmingly normal.


The Fall released human moral evil into the cosmos, and every single human being is a sinner, tempted by a full range of sinfulness. When someone does something as seemingly unthinkable as this, we often question how anyone could do such a thing. The prophet Jeremiah spoke to this when he lamented, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick, who can understand it?” [Jeremiah 17:9]


Human beings are capable of unspeakable moral evil. We are shocked by such atrocities, but only because we have some distance from the last one. We cannot afford to be shocked when humans commit grotesque moral evil. It tells us the truth about unbridled human sin.


The Grace of Moral Restraint


Second, we must be thankful for restraints on moral evil. Christians must not underestimate the potential of any human being — ourselves included — to commit moral horror. We know ourselves to be sinners, and we know ourselves to be capable of sins we do not actually commit. Why do we not commit them?


God restrains human sinfulness. If the fullness of human sin was set loose, humanity would destroy itself. God restrains human evil by several means. First, he has created us in his image, and at least part of this image is what we call conscience. The moral conscience is a powerful restraint on human evil, and for this we must be exceedingly thankful. At the same time, the human conscience is also warped by the Fall and no longer fully trustworthy. We have developed the capacity to ignore the conscience, torture the conscience, and even misdirect the conscience by moral rationalization. Nevertheless, the restraint of the conscience is fundamental, and for that we must be very thankful.


God has also established institutions and orders that restrain human evil. As the Apostle Paul reminds us in Romans 13, God gave us the institution of government in order to restrain evil and to punish the evildoer. He has also given us the institution of marriage and the family and the larger order of society in order to restrain evil. We are surrounded by a complex of laws and statutes and social expectations and civic associations. All these function to restrain evil. At the foundation of these restraints is the fear of God, which, even in an increasingly secular society, still retains a more powerful force than is often acknowledged.


Evil Answered at the Cross


Third, we must admit that there will be no fully satisfying answer to these questions in this life. Christians know that God is sovereign, and that nothing is outside of his control. We also know that he allows evil to exist, and human beings to commit moral atrocities. We cannot allow the sovereignty of God to be denied and evil allowed its independent existence. Nor can we deny the reality of evil and the horror of its threat to be lessened. We are reminded that evil can be answered only by a cross.


Theologian Henri Blocher explains this truth vividly in these words:


“Evil is conquered as evil because God turns it back upon itself. He makes the supreme crime, the murder of the only righteous person, the very operation that abolishes sin. The maneuver is utterly unprecedented. No more complete victory could be imagined. God responds in the indirect way that is perfectly suited to the ambiguity of evil. He entraps the deceiver in his own wiles. Evil, like a judoist, takes advantage of the power of good, which it perverts; the Lord, like a supreme champion, replies by using the very grip of the opponent.”


We must grieve with those who grieve. We must pray for Gospel churches in the Denver area who will be called upon for urgent ministry. We must pray for our nation and communities. And we must pray that God will guard ourselves from evil — especially our own evil. And we must point to the cross. What other answer can we give?

Southern Baptists And Pelagians Together

A key question as to how we understand the Gospel concerns our doctrine of man. Are we sinners because we sin or do we sin because we are sinners. Think carefully about this. Is it our sinful actions that make us a sinner or is it our sinful nature that causes us to sin. The former requires a gospel that persuades bad men to change their behavior. The latter requires a gospel that is about resurrecting men who are dead in sin. The former sounds very much like Charles Finney's heretical view of humanity:

Moral depravity cannot consist in any attribute of nature or constitution, nor in any lapsed or fallen state of nature. . . . Moral depravity, as I use the term, does not consist in, nor imply a sinful nature, in the sense that the human soul is sinful in itself. It is not a constitutional sinfulness [Finney's Systematic Theology, 245].

Finney's view echoes that put forward by Pelagius in the fourth century AD:

Pelagius was a monk from Britain, whose reputation and theology came into prominence after he went to Rome sometime in the 380's A.D. The historic Pelagian theological controversy involved the nature of man and the doctrine of original sin.

Pelagius believed that the consequences of Adam and Eve’s sin (the Fall) were restricted to themselves only; and thereby denied the belief that original sin was passed on (or transferred) to the children of Adam and thus to the human race. Adam's sin merely "set a bad example" for his progeny and Jesus "set a good example" for mankind (thus counteracting Adam's bad example). Pelagianism teaches that human beings are born in a state of innocence with a nature that is as pure as that which Adam was given at his creation.

As a result of his basic assumption, Pelagius taught that man has an unimpaired moral ability to choose that which is spiritually good and possesses the free will, ability, and capacity to do that which is spiritually good. This resulted in a gospel of salvation based on human works. Man could choose to follow the precepts of God and then follow those precepts because he had the power within himself to do so.

The controversy came to a head when Pelagian teaching came into contact with Augustine. Augustine did not deny that man had a will and that he could make choices. But, Augustine recognized that man did not have a free will in moral issues related to God, asserting that the effects original sin were passed to the children of Adam and Eve and that mankind’s nature was thereby corrupted. Man could choose what he desired, but those desires were influenced by his sinful nature and he was unable to refrain from sinning. (courtesy of Theopedia)

The strongest repudiation of Pelagian theology is reserved for the clear teaching of Scripture itself:

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. (Romans 5:18-19)

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. (Psalm 51:5)

With this Pelagian view of man considered it is interesting to see that this heresy, defeated by Augustine many centuries ago, still lives on in a variety of forms. I have been reluctant to bring to light the surprising emergence of this doctrine from an unexpected place. I was hopeful it would be internally resolved by the many capable theologians in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). However, it has now been broadcast far and wide so I wanted to take this opportunity to weigh in and comment on a recent document called A Statement of the Traditional Southern Baptist Understanding of God’s Plan of Salvation which had high profile signatories including Paige Patterson (President of Southwestern Seminary and a key figure in driving liberalism out of the SBC) and Jerry Vines (former SBC President and fellow hero of the "conservative resurgence"). Their aim, as staunch Arminians, in this document was to make a critical response to the rise of Calvinism within the SBC. Unfortunately, in their efforts to distance themselves from Calvinism they veered in to the land of Pelagianism. Though I am a Calvinist and disagree with much of what is on this document, I can respectfully disagree and understand why they arrive at some of the conclusions they do. But one conclusion in particular has caused the ire of many, myself included. That there are Calvinists and Arminians alike who are making the same objection to this document, should be cause enough for performing major surgery on such a significant statement. This key contention with the SBC statement on salvation is with article two. Article two, in its entirety, reads:

We affirm that, because of the fall of Adam, every person inherits a nature and environment inclined toward sin and that every person who is capable of moral action will sin. Each person’s sin alone brings the wrath of a holy God, broken fellowship with Him, ever-worsening selfishness and destructiveness, death, and condemnation to an eternity in hell.

We deny that Adam’s sin resulted in the incapacitation of any person’s free will or rendered any person guilty before he has personally sinned. While no sinner is remotely capable of achieving salvation through his own effort, we deny that any sinner is saved apart from a free response to the Holy Spirit’s drawing through the Gospel.

Even Roger Olsen, who is an unabashed high profile Arminian apologist has said:

Leaving the statement as it stands, without a clear affirmation of the bondage of the will to sin apart from supernatural grace, inevitably hands the Calvinists ammunition to use against non-Calvinist Baptists. It doesn’t matter what “most Baptists” believe or what is the “traditional Southern Baptist understanding.” For a long time I’ve been stating that most American Christians, including most Baptists, are semi-Pelagian, not Arminian and not merely non-Calvinist. Calvinists and Arminians stand together, with Scripture, against semi-Pelagianism. (Romans 3:11 and 1 Corinthians 4:7 to name just two passages.) (online source)

Both Vines and Patterson have a legacy of destroying liberalism within the SBC for which I owe a deep level of gratitude. Calvinists like Al Mohler would not have taken the Presidency at their flagship seminary (Southern baptist Theological Seminary) without their years of dedication to the cause of conservative biblical Christianity. This makes their latest labor all the more surprising because those who signed this document are either Pelagian (or some might say semi-Pelagian) or ignorant of what they signed. Both possibilities are disturbing and I sincerely hope that such a large and significant Christian movement will move rapidly to rectify errors of this caliber.

Anders Breivik Understands Justice Better Than Scandinavian Law

This article by Al Mohler about the "Norwegian justice" system was just too good to pass up. Please read on:


The trial of Anders Behring Breivik represents one of the greatest tests of human justice in decades. Breivik stood in an Oslo courtroom this week and declared: “I admit to the actions, but not to the guilt.” The “actions,” of course, were the killing of 77 people on July 22, 2011. Eight were killed in a car bomb in Oslo. Breivik then shot 69 people to death on Utoya Island — most of them teenagers and young people involved in a summer camp sponsored by one of Norway’s major political parties.

Breivik has celebrated his murderous actions in court, calling his massacre the most “spectacular” event in recent European history. Having admitted to the killings, Breivik told the court, “I would do it again.”

He may have an opportunity to do so. Norwegian law allows Breivik to be imprisoned for only 21 years, even if found guilty of all 77 killings. Officials in Norway have attempted to assure their fellow citizens that Breivik is unlikely to be released, but the law allows criminals to be held in captivity after their sentence only on psychological grounds that represent a threat, and Breivik has been found sufficiently sane to stand trial.

How can this be? What sane nation would allow for a maximum sentence of 21 years in prison for premeditated murder — much less the calculated killing of 77 people?

Breivik is yet another example of a criminal type that is, by now, all too familiar to us. He is driven by an unfathomable hatred, largely directed at Muslims and those he claims are allowing Muslims to infiltrate Norway and subvert its national identity. He dares to pose as a “Christian warrior” even as he repudiates the essence of Christianity by his terrorism. He will be allowed to make a full defense in court, spewing his hatreds.

Meanwhile, the world stands in wonder at the fact that a guilty verdict on all counts can produce only a sentence of 21 years in prison — and Norway’s prisons are infamously plush. What is going on here?

The horrifying case of Anders Behring Breivik has opened a window into the reality of Scandinavian justice — and that window also reveals the shape of justice in a post-Christian world.

The Scandinavian nations are, according to many sociologists, the most radically secularized nations on earth. A study undertaken by sociologist Peter Berger years ago rated Sweden as the world’s most secular nation, with neighboring Norway close behind. But the Scandinavian nations are not merely secular; they are specifically post-Christian. The specific religious worldview they have lost or rejected is that of Christianity — the faith that shaped the culture of these nations for many centuries.

Christianity produces a system of laws and justice that puts a high premium on both personal moral responsibility and the sanctity of human life. For this reason, the punishment of murderers has been taken with great seriousness. Those who take a human life with premeditation were understood to forfeit their own.

The rejection of the Christian worldview and the loss of biblical moral instincts produces a very different system of justice. Norway abolished the death penalty in 1902. Later, the nation abolished the sentence of life in prison, claiming that it was too extreme. As Newsweek’s Stefan Theil has reported, “Normally, even murderers are fully eligible for parole after just a few years in prison.”

As for the “prisons” themselves, Theil explains:

Take Halden Prison, a maximum-security facility for murderers and rapists a few miles from the Swedish border. Completed last year for $280 million to house 250 inmates, its living quarters are bright and airy, with mint-green walls and IKEA-style furniture in varnished natural wood. Looking more like a college dorm than a maximum-security jail, each cell comes with a flat-screen TV, a private bath, and a large unbarred window. Inmates take cooking classes and work out with personal trainers; there’s a deluxe gym with a rock-climbing wall as well as a professional music studio for prisoners’ bands. Half the guards are women, which prison governor Are Hoidal says creates a less aggressive atmosphere. For the same reason, the guards don’t carry weapons and freely mingle with the inmates. Prisoners even fill out questionnaires to rate the level of service.

At one point, Theil declares the obvious: Norway “considers the idea of punishment barbaric.”

The loss of the Christian worldview often comes with a diminishment of both personal responsibility and the sense of punitive justice. Add to this the redefinition of human life and its value. The result is a nation that takes pride in a notoriously lax system of criminal justice — a nation that considers punishment itself to be barbaric.

Standing in that Oslo courtroom, Anders Breivik stated that he would prefer the death penalty to a “pathetic” sentence of 21 years. He, at least, seems to understand the scale of his crimes. “There are only two just and fair outcomes in this case,” he insisted in court, “Acquittal or capital punishment.”

The biblical roots of the death penalty for murder are found in texts like Genesis 9:5-6. Rooted in God’s covenant with Noah, the text reads: “And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. ‘Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.’”

As Claus Westermann, one of the most famous Old Testament scholars of the twentieth century explained, this text indicates that God expects murderers to be punished with death. “The execution of the death penalty by humans is the carrying out of the command of God.”

Every human life is sacred precisely because every single human being is made in God’s image. Murder is, Westermann explained, “a direct attack on God’s right of dominion.”

He commented further: “Here in Genesis 9 murder is something utterly on its own; nothing can be compared with it. Throughout the whole sweep of human history, the murderer by his action despoils God.”

And yet, in another statement from his commentary on this text, Westermann points straight to the reason that a post-Christian culture loses its moral confidence in the punishment of murderers. He states: “A community is only justified in executing the death penalty insofar as it respects the unique right of God over life and death and insofar as it respects the inviolability of human life that follows therefrom.”

Once those convictions and moral intuitions are lost, the death penalty no longer makes sense. Eventually, even the idea of punishment itself loses all cultural credibility.

The world is watching closely as the trial of Anders Behring Breivik takes place in Oslo. The trial is now an international spectacle. But, much more than Norway’s justice system is on display. That Oslo courtroom is also revealing what remains of an understanding of criminal justice and criminal responsibility when the Christian worldview fades away. The post-Christian condition is fully on display in that courtroom. The man who committed the worst single-handed mass murder in Europe since World War II is on trial — and the maximum term to which he can be sentenced amounts to less than 3.3 months for each of the 77 people he murdered.

Article courtesy of Albert Mohler.

Exposing And Expelling Heretics (Part 5)

Today we pick up from where we left off on our expository journey through the Epistle of Jude. Jude represents the first expository assignment I have been tasked with in our church plant in Denmark - Kristuskirken. Though short in length, Jude is a letter jam packed with information on why we should hunt down false teachers that conceal themselves in the church, how we should identify them, and that we as Christians should go to war against them secure in the knowledge of being kept in the safety of God's preserving grace. Much of the credit for this series must go to John MacArthur whose teaching on this Epistle has been my major source.

1 Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ: 2 May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. 3 Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. 4 For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. (Jude 1-4)

Zeroing in on verse four of Jude's Epistle we see that these apostates, or false teachers sneak in under the radar and they are anonymous. If you look at church history you will see that liberals and apostates never build churches or Bible colleges. They always take them over. Look at Yale, Princeton, and Oxford, and even Spurgeon’s Bible College. Look at the Methodists and the Lutherans and the Anglicans. Christian movements corrupted by apostates. And I have some brothers who are on the inside of apostacized churches and schools. I love them, but they are foolishly trying to use the same strategy as the apostates. They are sneaking around trying to be reformers without anyone noticing. Al Mohler who, by God’s grace, reformed Southern Baptist Seminary gave this advice – apostacy and compromise happen little by little day after day until the truth is completely lost. Reform always requires a 180% call to repentance because you cannot biblically persuade apostates – they are not Christians. It is really a thrilling ride to hear Dr Mohler’s story on reforming the largest Baptist seminary in the world. In 1993 it was a liberal toilet bowl of perversion. Today it is regarded by many as the finest Bible college anywhere in the world. Al Mohler was hired by conservative Baptist leaders (who took over the movement in America) to go into Southern Seminary and reform it. On his first day he addressed the seminary at their meeting hall. As he came up to speak he looked out the window and saw a picture hanging by a rope from a tree and burning. As he looked closer he saw that it was a picture of himself. As he spoke, hundreds of professors and thousands of students stood up and turned their backs to him. Mohler only had a short message to all the teachers that morning. “At Southern Seminary we have a doctrine statement. Every teacher has to sign it and teach it or you will be fired. I’ll be waiting for you in my office.

Brothers and sisters, we don’t need to sneak around and be polite to false teachers. We can shout out loud in the light of day secure in the calling, love, and safekeeping of God. Contend for the Once for All Delivered Faith.

As we look through the rest of Jude verse 4 we see the frightening words concerning the apostates - "who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ". In these words we see election again – this time to damnation. We also see that Jude focuses more on the character of these false teachers than their doctrine. Why is that? And what does he mean by denial of Jesus Christ? I’ll talk about that, and more, in the upcoming posts. It should be an interesting ride!

To be continued next Friday . . .

Go On To Part 6
Go Back To Part 4
Go Back To Part 1

Rob Bell's Love Wins - What They Are Saying

Rob Bell's brazenly heretical book "Love Wins" has caused a firestorm of controversy which started with his promotional video. Though the controversy is, by my estimation, five years late (go here and scroll down for earlier articles on Bell), there are some positives to "emerge" from all of this. One of the positive aspects to this saga is that when people become more overt in their apostasy/heresy, they make it far easier for undiscerning church goers to decide when to run full speed out the door. Another interesting illumination is found in the number of high profile people who have responded and taken a side. Thank you, thank you, thank you for removing that boggy middle ground and finally drawing up some battle lines!!! The following list of "for" and "against" may prove most helpful to you the reader in being selective about which wells we drink from . . .

FOR

It isn’t easy to develop a biblical imagination that takes in the comprehensive and eternal work of Christ…Rob Bell goes a long way in helping us acquire just such an imagination — without a trace of the soft sentimentality and without compromising an inch of evangelical conviction - Eugene Peterson (back cover endorsement)

Wow! Let's just hope that the spaceship returns soon to take Eugene home. If you were ever deluded enough to believe that "The Message" is a legitimate Bible translation, this latest comment from Peterson should seal the deal. "Without compromising an inch of evangelical conviction" - yeah right!!!

Rob Bell is NOT a Universalist (and I actually read “Love Wins”) . . . I know many readers will want my opinion on whether or not Rob is in fact a Universalist . . . I’m not sure; read the book for yourself and figure it out . . . I strongly doubt Rob would describe himself as a “Universalist.” But even if he did, I would recommend Love Wins just as enthusiastically as I already have - Greg Boyd

The gaps in Greg Boyd's self refuting statements are getting shorter all the time. It seems that Greg Boyd is open to a lot of things and not just theism!

A great book, well within the bounds of orthodox Christianity and passionate about Jesus. The real hellacious fight is between generous orthodoxy and stingy orthodoxy. There are stingy people who just want to consign many others to hell and only a few to heaven and take delight in the idea. But Rob Bell allows for a lot of mystery in how Jesus reaches people - Richard Mouw

Richard Mouw is the president of the very large and influential Fuller Theological Seminary. I have been asked before for an opinion on Fuller Seminary and I'll give it right now - don't go there, don't send your kids there, don't send them any money, and the leader of the Seminary has no clue what the "bounds of orthodox Christianity" are.

Rob has come to see that the biblical story is bigger and better than a narrative about how souls get sorted out into two bins at the end of time . . . A courageous minority will become more courageous because of Rob's courage in this book . . . to seize this opportunity, displaying the courage to differ graciously . . . and speak up for Rob whenever the opportunity presents itself - Brian McLaren

AGAINST

It is unspeakably sad when those called to be ministers of the Word distort the gospel and deceive the people of God with false doctrine - Justin Taylor

Farewell Rob Bell - John Piper

The Emerging Church movement is known for its slick and sophisticated presentation. It wears irony and condescension as normal attire. Regardless of how Rob Bell’s book turns out, its promotion is the sad equivalent of a theological striptease. The Gospel is too precious and important to be commodified in this manner. The questions he asks are too important to leave so tantalizingly unanswered. Universalism is a heresy, not a lure to use in order to sell books. This much we know, almost a month before the book is to be released - Al Mohler

...there are dozens of problems with Love Wins. The theology is heterodox. The history is inaccurate. The impact on souls is devastating. And the use of Scripture is indefensible. Worst of all, Love Wins demeans the cross and misrepresents God’s character - Kevin DeYoung

Repent of it, Rob: repent because there’s no shame in turning away from even decades of wrong teaching to turning over a new leaf and teaching that Jesus saves sinner from their own sins and from God’s displeasure if they repent and believe. That is actually the message of the NT, and it ought to be your message if you’re really concerned with the real people you meet every day - Frank Turk

Bell's latest heresy neither surprises nor interests me. What does intrigue me is the tragic drift of popular, mainstream evangelicalism. Here we see clearly why the evangelical movement is in grave trouble: The passions of today's self-styled evangelicals are easily aroused in defense of someone who makes a career dabbling around the edges of truth. Rob Bell likes to play with damnable heresies as if they were Lego bricks, and yet anyone who points out the glaring errors in Bell's teaching will be met with a wall of angry resistance from young, self-styled Christians who grew up in the evangelical mainstream. Where is that much passion ever employed these days in defense of the truth? - Phil Johnson

Bell is an inveterate syncretist who loves to blend “progressive” and politically correct dogmas with eastern mysticism, humanistic jargon, and Christian terminology. His teaching is full of barren ideas borrowed directly from old liberalism, sometimes rephrased in postmodern jargon but still reeking of stale Socinianism. What Bell is peddling is nothing like New Testament Christianity. It is a man-centered religion totally devoid of both clarity and biblical authority. - John Macarthur

One critique of your book says this, there are dozens of problems with love wins. the history is inaccurate, the use of scripture indefensible. that’s true, isn’t it . . . you’ve indicated one of the problems with the book, you’re creating a Christian message that’s warm, kind, and popular, for contemporary culture but it’s, frankly, according to this critic, un-biblical and historically unreliable. that’s true, isn’t it . . . you’re amending the gospel so that it’s palatable to contemporary people who find, for example the idea of hell and heaven very difficult to stomach. so here comes Rob Bell, he’s made a Christian gospel for you and it’s perfectly palatable, it’s easy to swallow - Martin Bashir (interviewing Rob Bell)

If that doesn't clear it up then this video will (here is the video it is a response to) . . .

Robbed Hell - C.A.S.T. Pearls Presents from Canon Wired on Vimeo.

Rob Bell - Al Mohler's Verdict

Rob Bell's new book "Love Wins" is a case of a book that you can judge by its cover. Bell certainly removes his sheepsuit for the promotional video. But I thought I might step aside today and let someone way smarter and more articulate than myself comment on this current controversy swirling around Rob Bell's newest book/assault on biblical Christianity. When it comes to theological heavyweights they don't come much bigger than Al Mohler who is the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. With Mohler you get careful, well thought out critique, through a sharp biblical lens. Mohler undertook the aggravating task of reading "Love Wins" and here is what he found . . .

This brings us to the controversy over Rob Bell’s new book, Love Wins. As its cover announces, the book is “about heaven, hell, and the fate of every person who ever lived.” Reading the book is a heart-breaking experience. We have read this book before. Not the exact words, and never so artfully presented, but the same book, the same argument, the same attempt to rescue Christianity from the Bible.

As a communicator, Rob Bell is a genius. He is the master of the pungent question, the turn-the-picture-upside-down story, and the personal anecdote. Like Harry Emerson Fosdick, the paladin of pulpit liberalism, Rob Bell is a master communicator. Had he set out to defend the biblical doctrine of hell, he could have done so marvelously. He would have done the church a great service. But that is not what he set out to do.

Like Fosdick, Rob Bell cares deeply for people. It comes through in his writings. There is no reason to doubt that Bell wrote this book out of his own personal concern for people who are put off by the doctrine of hell. Had that concern been turned toward a presentation of how the biblical doctrine of hell fits within the larger context of God’s love and justice and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that would have been a help to untold thousands of Christians and others seeking to understand the Christian faith. But that is not what Bell does in this new book.

Instead, Rob Bell uses his incredible power of literary skill and communication to unravel the Bible’s message and to cast doubt on its teachings.

He states his concern clearly: A staggering number of people have been taught that a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better. It’s been clearly communicated to many that this belief is a central truth of the Christian faith and to reject it is, in essence, to reject Jesus. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus’ message of love, peace, forgiveness, and joy that our world desperately needs to hear.

That is a huge statement, and it is clear enough. Rob Bell believes that the doctrine of the eternal punishment of unrepentant sinners in hell is keeping people from coming to Jesus. That is an unsettling thought, but on closer look, it falls in upon itself. In the first place, Jesus spoke very clearly about hell, using language that can only be described as explicit. He warned of “him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” [Matthew 10:28]

In Love Wins, Bell does his best to argue that the church has allowed the story of Jesus’ love to be perverted by other stories. The story of an eternal hell is not, he believes, a good story. He suggests that a better story would involve the possibility of a sinner coming to faith in Christ after death, or hell being a cessation of being, or hell being eventually emptied of all its inhabitants. The problem, of course, is that the Bible provides no hint whatsoever of any possibility of a sinner’s salvation after death. Instead, “it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.” [Hebrews 9:27]

He also argues for a form of universal salvation. Once again, his statements are more suggestive than declarative, but he clearly intends his reader to be persuaded that it is possible — even probable — that those who resist, reject, or never hear of Christ may be saved through Christ nonetheless. That means no conscious faith in Christ is necessary for salvation. He knows that he must deal with a text like Romans 10 in making this argument, “How are they to hear without someone preaching?” [Romans 10:14] Bell says that he wholeheartedly agrees with that argument from the Apostle Paul, but then he dumps the entire argument overboard and suggests that this cannot be God’s plan. He completely avoids Paul’s conclusion that “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” [Romans 10:17] He rejects the idea that a person must come to a personal knowledge of Christ in this life in order to be saved. “What if the missionary gets a flat tire?” he asks.

But this is how Rob Bell deals with the Bible. He argues that the gates that never shut in the New Jerusalem [Revelation 21:25] mean that the opportunity for salvation is never closed, but he just avoids dealing with the preceding chapter, which includes this clear statement of God’s justice: “And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” [Revelation 20:15] The eternally open gates of the New Jerusalem come only after that judgment.

Like so many others, Bell wants to separate the message of Jesus from other voices even in the New Testament, particularly the voice of the Apostle Paul. Here we face the inescapable question of biblical authority. We will either affirm that every word of the Bible is true, trustworthy, and authoritative, or we will create our own Bible according to our own preferences. Put bluntly, if Jesus and Paul are not telling the same story, we have no idea what the true story is.

Bell clearly prefers inclusivism, the belief that Christ is saving humanity through means other than the Gospel, including other religions. But he mixes up his story along the way, appearing to argue for outright universalism on some pages, but backing off of a full affirmation. He rejects the belief that conscious faith in Christ is necessary for salvation, but he never clearly lands on a specific account of what he does believe.

Tellingly, Bell attempts to reduce all of the Bible and the entirety of the Gospel to story, and he believes it is his right and duty to determine which story is better than another — which version of Christianity is going to be compelling and attractive to unbelievers. He has, after all, set that as his aim — to replace the received story with something he sees as better.

The first problem with this is obvious. We have no right to determine which “story” of the Gospel we prefer or think is most compelling. We must deal with the Gospel that we received from Christ and the Apostles, the faith once for all delivered to the church. Suggesting that some other story is better or more attractive than that story is an audacity of breathtaking proportions. The church is bound to the story revealed in the Bible — and in all of the Bible … every word of it.

But there is a second problem, and it is one we might think would have been learned by now. Liberalism just does not work. Bell wants to argue that the love of God is so powerful that “God gets what God wants.” So, God desires the salvation of all, he argues, so all will eventually be saved — some even after death, even long after death. But he cannot maintain that account for long because of his absolute affirmation of human autonomy. Even God cannot or will not prevent someone from going to hell who is determined to go there. So, if Bell is taken on his own terms, even he does not believe that “God gets what God wants.”

Similarly, Bell’s argument is centered in his affirmation of God’s loving character, but he alienates love from justice and holiness. This is the traditional liberal line. Love is divorced from holiness and becomes mere sentimentality. Bell wants to rescue God from any teaching that his wrath is poured out upon sin and sinners, certainly in any eternally conscious sense. But Bell also wants God to vindicate the victims of murder, rape, child abuse, and similar evil. He seems not to recognize that he has undercut his own story, leaving God unable or unwilling to bring true justice.

In truth, any human effort to offer the world a story superior to the comprehensive story of the Bible fails on all fronts. It is an abdication of biblical authority, a denial of biblical truth, and a false Gospel. It misleads sinners and fails to save. It also fails in its central aim — to convince sinners to think better of God. The real Gospel is the Gospel that saves — the Gospel that must be heard and believed if sinners are to be saved.

But this is where Rob Bell’s book goes most off-course. He describes the Gospel in these words:

It begins in the sure and certain truth that we are loved. That in spite of whatever has gone horribly wrong deep in our hearts and has spread to every corner of the world, in spite of our sins, failures, rebellion, and hard hearts, in spite of what has been done to us or what we’ve done, God has made peace with us.

Missing from his Gospel is any clear reference to Christ, any adequate understanding of our sin, any affirmation of the holiness of God and his pledge to punish sin, any reference to the shed blood of Christ, his death on the cross, his substitutionary atonement, and his resurrection, and, so tellingly, any reference to faith as the sinners response to the Good News of the Gospel. There is no genuine Gospel here. This is just a reissue of the powerless message of theological liberalism.

H. Richard Niebuhr famously once distilled liberal theology into this sentence: “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.”

Yes, we have read this book before. With Love Wins, Rob Bell moves solidly within the world of Protestant Liberalism. His message is a liberalism arriving late on the scene. Tragically, his message will confuse many believers as well as countless unbelievers.

We dare not retreat from all that the Bible says about hell. We must never confuse the Gospel, nor offer suggestions that there may be any way of salvation outside of conscious faith in Jesus Christ. We must never believe that we can do a public relations job on the Gospel or on the character of God. We must never be unclear and subversively suggestive about what the Bible teaches.

In the opening pages of Love Wins, Rob Bell assures his readers that “nothing in this book hasn’t been taught, suggested, or celebrated by many before me.” That is true enough. But the tragedy is that those who did teach, suggest, or celebrate such things were those with whom no friend of the Gospel should want company. In this new book, Rob Bell takes his stand with those who have tried to rescue Christianity from itself. This is a massive tragedy by any measure.

The problem begins even with the book’s title. The message of the Gospel is not merely that love wins — it is that Jesus saves.

James White Gives Rick Warren A Much Needed Thrashing

No, I have not forgotten to discuss Rick Warren's sermon at this years Desiring God conference. I have two or three more posts to finish discussing the Danish journey my family has been on that culminated in us planting a church - Kristuskirken. Blogger stats actually revealed a good number of Danish readers much to my surprise. Considering the rumors and innuendo that swirl around my name I thought it time to recount most of the saga thus far. Not primarily to defend myself, but to lay out the truth on everything - some of which I have been keeping private. So my life in Denmark series should wrap up next week.

As an appetizer for the upcoming Rick Warren discussion I want to draw your attention to an interview James White did recently where he gave his critique of Warren's sermon. The interview was conducted my Pastor Mike Abendroth on his excellent new program No Compromise Radio. Good Christian media can be hard to come by when the discerning ear ventures away from the sermon archives of good ministry websites. Wretched Radio and White Horse Inn are two shining lights at the forefront of good theology, good discernment, and good satire. You can now add No Compromise Radio to that list for a program that is both provocative an theologically sound, and has great guests like Al Mohler, Michael Horton, Rick Holland, Joel Beeke, and James White.

James White had this to say regarding the interview:

I was forced at gunpoint to join Mike Abendroth (one of the nefarious and widely feared Abendroth Brothers Gang) on his No Compromise Radio Program today. What was worse, he forced me to listen to Rick Warren's presentation at the DG Conference. Very painful. 350 pithy platitudes strung together on citations of the Message and the Living Bible interspersed with psychology and repeated references to how uber cool Saddleback is. But, I listened, because I was forced to! And then Mike made me go on the air and give a report! It was a traumatic experience, but I got through it. Someday I will return the favor and force Mike to race me up South Mountain.

It is about time that some prominent Christian voices took Rick Warren to task and I'm relieved that James White stood up and spoke with honesty and clarity about the lame moralism that America's pastor continually dishes out from the pulpit and the public square! I was not able to embed this audio on my blog but you can listen to it here. Hang in there until the second half of the interview where Warren's sermon gets discussed.

Preaching Myths In Modern Pulpits (Part 2)

Myth 2. Doctrines only became true after they were written in creeds.

Let me explain by quoting popular emergent church leader Rob Bell from his best selling book Velvet Elvis:

“This is part of the problem with continually insisting that one of the absolutes of the Christian faith must be a belief that ‘Scripture alone’ is our guide. It sounds nice, but it is not true. In reaction to abuses by the church, a group of believers during a time called the Reformation claimed that we only need the authority of the Bible. But the problem is that we got the Bible from the church voting on what the Bible even is . . . (Bell then goes on to say) When people say that all we need is the Bible, it is simply not true” (p. 67-68).

So Bell thinks that the Bible didn’t exist before the church voted on it. Is this true? John Macarthur had this to say:

When various councils met in church history to decide on the canon (and canon means books that are inspired by the Holy Spirit) they did not vote for the canonicity of the book but rather recognized, after the fact, what God had already written. The councils were formed to formalize what they already knew. They were also necessary because of all the fakes that were getting around at the time (taken from The Macarthur Study Bible).

Another great example of this is the first two articles of the Together For The Gospel (T4G) statement of Affirmations and Denials (what you get when Thabiti Anyabwile, Mark Dever, Ligon Duncan, John Macarthur, CJ Mahaney, Al Mohler, John Piper, and RC Sproul bang their heads together):

Article I: We affirm that the sole authority for the Church is the Bible, verbally inspired, inerrant, infallible, and totally sufficient and trustworthy. We deny that the Bible is a mere witness to the divine revelation, or that any portion of Scripture is marked by error or the effects of human sinfulness.
Article II: We affirm that the authority and sufficiency of Scripture extends to the entire Bible, and therefore that the Bible is our final authority for all doctrine and practice. We deny that any portion of the Bible is to be used in an effort to deny the truthfulness or trustworthiness of any other portion. We further deny any effort to identify a canon within the canon or, for example, to set the words of Jesus against the writings of Paul.

The last part of that statement would not have been written 10 years ago. But with new false teaching that appears through history, we are forced to respond to it. Using Jesus' words against Paul doesn’t suddenly become wrong because we added it to our doctrine statement.

Here’s another quote from Rob Bell’s book Velvet Elvis where he says that the doctrine of the Trinity:

“emerged in the several hundred years after Jesus’ resurrection” (p. 22).

Rob Bell is talking about the Athanasian Creed which was written in the fourth century AD. What Rob Bell is saying would be like me saying that nobody thought terrorism was wrong until September 11 2001 because that is when we first see all these new anti-terrorism laws appearing. But we know that flying a plane into a building was always wrong. We just never needed to write it down until it actually happened. So too with the Trinity. It is what Scripture always clearly taught and was always understood – they didn’t need a creed until a lot of the heresies about the Trinity started being taught. So just like anti terrorism laws were written in response to 9/11 so the Athanasian creed was written in response to false teaching that was happening concerning the Trinity.

Truth 2. The Christian creeds never invented anything new – they are a wonderful gift to us confirming what true Christians have always believed during church history.

The subject of the Trinity leads me to my third myth which I will discuss on Friday: Myth 3 - The Trinity can be illustrated by water, ice, and steam.

Go On To Part 3
Go Back To Part 1

Can Anything Good Come Out Of Australia?

Many of you are aware of my recent series on the Hillsong church/enterprise and how their consumeristic gospel of self-esteem, success, and sensuality, is becoming an ever-increasing blight on the Australian landscape. It is both lamentable, and typical, that God honoring churches with Scripture honoring pastors are becoming down under dinaosaurs. With that in mind, it was to my immense delight that i discovered the recently published The Trellis And The Vine.

Those who know me know that I am a huge fan of Mark Dever's work "Nine marks Of A Healthy Church" and how it is a refreshingly biblical substitute for the plethora of "Purpose Driven" propoganda. I consider Dever's book to be the benchmark as a framework for biblical churches. So when Dever described "The Trellis And The Vine" as "the best book I've read on church ministry" and staff at "Grace Community Church" (where John Macarthur pastors) described it as a must read, I went down to their book shop and bought it straight off the shelf.

The "Trellis And The Vine" is authored by the Australian pair of Colin Marshall, and Tony Payne and is a wonderful biblical framework for churches to evaluate and ammend (perhaps I should say radically overhaul) the way they function and operate. I hope and pray that this book gains traction down under where there is desperate need for Gospel driven churches.

Here are some high profile endorsements:

What Col and Tony have described here is exactly what I've been trying to do in my own life and in our congregation for years. According to this book, Christians are to be disciple-making disciples and pastors are to be trainers. Superb! This book sets out a crucial shift that is needed in the mindset of many pastors. The authors have carefully listened to the Bible. And they've worked on this book. The result is a book that is well-written and well- illustrated, but even more, a book that is full of biblical wisdom and practical advice. This is the best book I've read on the nature of church ministry.
Mark Dever, Senior Pastor, Capitol Hill Baptist Church, Washington DC, USA

This is a simple, beautiful book that I plan to have every pastor and elder at The Village Church read. It quietly and calmly beckons us back to biblical, hands-on shepherding and is a book desperately needed among large churches in the West.
Matt Chandler, Lead Pastor, The Village Church, Dallas, Texas, USA

God makes ministers in the midst of his church. It is in the context of the faithful local church that ministers are best taught, shaped and equipped. The Trellis and the Vine is a superb guide to preparing pastors and ministers for Christ's church. It comes from a ministry so deeply committed to the recovery of biblical truth and the cause of the gospel. The wisdom in this little book is invaluable. My advice: Keep a good stack on hand at all times, and put this book to good use.
R. Albert Mohler, Jr., President, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, USA

Yes!! Something good can come out of Australia! Fair Dinkum.

Miss California Aftermath (Part 1)

In an earlier post I used the current Miss California, Carrie Prejean, as an illustration of someone with more courage than Rick Warren to voice their convictions about the definition of marriage. This was not meant to be a ringing endorsement of Miss California nor beauty pageants. It merely served to highlight the tragic state of affairs in modern evangelicalism when "America's Pastor" is too much of a sissy to man up and unapologetically declare his biblical convictions. Reverend Al Mohler rightly pointed out that:

every evangelical Christian should watch this carefully, for the controversy over Rick Warren will not stop with the pastor from Saddleback. This whirlwind is coming for you and for your church. At some point, the cost of being "cool" will be the abandonment of biblical Christianity. We had better decide well in advance that this is a cost far too high to pay. (Online Source)

To try and be everybody's friend is to start the drawn out process of painting yourself into a corner where worldviews collide. This is the corner Rick Warren now finds himself in. He would do well to heed the advice of the Bible - you know, that old book!

You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God (James 4:4).

If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you (words of Jesus, John 15:18-19).

"America's Pastor" needs to realize that he can't have it both ways. It is inevitable that honoring God will involve alienation from the world. The fact that Miss California has become an evangelical hero just because she stated the obvious and biblical in public is a sad indictment on the modern wimpiness found in many pulpits.

I am largely ignorant of beauty pageants and what they entail. I did, however, take an educated guess that it would involve outfits that reveal more than they hide. Several people have written and pointed out to me the "issues" they have with beauty pageants, namely the lust factor caused by the swimsuit part of the competition. I wholeheartedly agree with them and do not see a beauty pageant as a God honoring pursuit for a Christian woman. I am in no position to comment on Carrie Prejean's Christianity and am more than happy to applaud the stand she took against that angry gay blogger. But were I to meet her I would plead with her to make Proverbs 31 her first pageant for Solomon rightly said that "Like a gold ring in a pig's snout is a beautiful woman without discretion."

Go On To Part 2

Great Christian Thinkers Tackling Big Issues

This was just two good to pass up. At the Ligonier's Conference last year Ravi Zacharias, Al Mohler, and RC Sproul came together discussing some hot button issues facing the Christian worldview. Listen up as they give their theological observations on evolution's compatibility with the Bible, God and evil, and the Emergent church. It's a great ride.



Favorite quote: "Evolution isn't even compatible with science" - RC Sproul

The Year of Living Dangerously - Al Mohler Sermon Jam

This is a powerful sermon jam that is an excerpt from Al Mohler's Southern Baptist Seminary Convocation Message "The Year of Living Dangerously" you can find the full length message here.

Listen and ponder where our treasure is and what really matters this side of eternity . . .

RECOMMENDED BOOKS - AL MOHLER

Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., serves as president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary-the flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention and one of the largest seminaries in the world. He was the catalyst in reforming the seminary from a cesspool of liberalism to a beacon for the Gospel - hence the expression for reform "did a Mohler". Dr. Mohler has been recognized by such influential publications as Time and Christianity Today as a leader among American evangelicals. In fact, Time.com called him the “reigning intellectual of the evangelical movement in the U.S”. In addition to his presidential duties, Dr. Mohler hosts The Albert Mohler Program, a daily live nationwide radio program on the Salem Radio Network. He also writes a popular blog and a regular commentary on moral, cultural and theological issues.


CULTURE SHIFT
Al Mohler
Category: Apologetics
Click Here To Order
The world in which you live is in the midst of a major cultural transformation–one leading to a widespread lack of faith, an increase in moral relativism, and a rejection of absolute truth. How are we to remain faithful followers of Christ as we live in this ever-shifting culture? How should we think about–and respond to–the crucial moral questions of our day? How can we stand up for the truth? In Culture Shift, Dr. R. Albert Mohler – one of today’s leading Christian thinkers and spokesmen – addresses these tough topics clearly, biblically and passionately: Christian faith and politics, the Supreme Court and religion, the truth about terrorism, Christian parents and public schools, the abortion debate, Christian response to global tragedies, and many more. Here is trustworthy help for developing a comprehensive Christian worldview. It’s timely information powerfully connected to timeless truth that will equip you to stand strong and speak out.


HE IS NOT SILENT
Al Mohler
Category: Church
Click Here To Order
Is contemporary preaching suffering from an infatuation with technology, a focus on felt needs, an absence of the gospel? Mohler thinks preaching has fallen on hard times! Join him as he examines the public exposition of the Bible and explains why the church can't survive without it. A commanding exhortation and an encouragement to pulpit ministers. In the words of Tim Challies, “Mohler calls for the "re-centering" of an element of worship that has been pushed to the periphery. He does so with confidence based on Scripture and in a way that can appeal to any reader. Buy it, read it, and while you are at it, buy a copy for your pastor.”


PREACHING THE CROSS
Mark Dever, Ligon Duncan, John Macarthur, C J Mahaney, Al Mohler, John Piper, R C Sproul
Category: Church
Click Here To Order
Proclaiming the gospel is without a doubt the most important task of pastoral ministry, yet often other, seemingly more urgent activities obscure it. From time to time all pastors and preachers need to be reminded of the primacy of the gospel. Preaching the Cross does just this. It is a call to expository, gospel-centered preaching as the center of pastoral ministry. This volume showcases an unprecedented combination of pastors representing a variety of evangelical traditions. Though they differ on some secondary points of church practice, they all enthusiastically celebrate the centrality of the cross of Christ — keeping the main thing the main thing. That message every reader can take away from this book and adopt in his pastoral ministry.