Openly Gay Bishop is called to repentance during service…

This is a clip of openly gay Bishop Gene Robinson being called to repentance during a service…

How many of us have the courage…how many of us have the love that it takes to stand up in church and tell this openly rebellious God-hater the one thing he most needs to know?

One man opens his mouth, 150 people sit idly by and do nothing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7504484.stm

1 Cor 6:9
Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! The sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, passive homosexual partners, practicing homosexuals, 6:10 thieves, the greedy, drunkards, the verbally abusive, and swindlers will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Notice what the next phrase is:

Some of you once lived this way. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Open rebellion towards God in the form of Homosexuality has nothing to do with Christianity.

Marjoe VS Todd: Faith healing comparison!

This is a video that I found comparing Marjoe Gortner and Todd Bentley. Marjoe was a child evangelist and continued into adulthood. At some point he exposed his fakery to the public.

Notice any similarities?

I like to ask Questions…this time: Foreseen Faith

I like to ask questions. I like to be questioned. I like to examine what I believe and correct it if it’s not correct. For me, it’s just helpful to be challenged so I examine my beliefs honestly, and see if they are biblical and consistent.

 

Today, I’d like to get you to do the same thing. Let’s examine the concept of foreseen faith.

 

This idea is pretty popular these days and since I’ve posted already about Jesus’ view of why one believes and another doesn’t, though they hear the same gospel message, I thought that this would dovetail nicely with that. Simply put, the concept of foreseen faith is this:

 

God looked down the corridors of time and saw what we would do with Him, accept or reject and then chose us based on that observation.

 

I don’t know why this concept is so popular, I think that it’s chiefly a way to get around those pesky election/predestination passages that are so hard to swallow it allows man to retain some of his autonomy. Sometimes it’s used to preserve God’s love; (i.e. a God who doesn’t give everyone the same chance at eternal life is an unloving and cruel God)…yet, does this idea hold up? Is biblical or logically consistent?

 

Let’s take a look:

 

We’ll use the example of Person #1 and Person #2.

If God can look into the future and see that a person #1 will come to Christ and that person #2 will not come to faith in Christ, then those facts are already fixed, they are already determined.

God’s foresight of believers’ faith and repentance implies the certainty, or “moral necessity” of these acts, just as much as a sovereign decree.

 

“For that which is certainly foreseen must be certain.”
(R.L.Dabney)

 

If we assume that God’s knowledge of the future is true (and I think everyone would agree), then it is absolutely certain that person #1 will believe and person #2 will not.

 

There is no way their lives could turn out differently than this.

 

Therefore it is more than fair to say that their destinies are still determined, for they could not be otherwise. The question is, by what are their destinies determined?

 

There are 3 choices:

 

• God Himself determines them.
  (If this is true, then we no longer have election based on foreseen faith, but rather on God’s sovereign will.)

 

• There is another being more powerful than God.
  (Of course no Christian would agree that this is true.)

 

• They are determined by some impersonal force, some kind of fate, operative in the universe, making things turn out as they do.
  (We have now traded election in love by a personal compassionate God, for an impersonal force and God no longer gets all of the credit.)

 

 

So you can see that only option #1 is a viable one for the Christian. Let’s go a little further:

 

If we both agree that God foreknows who will be saved and who will not; (putting the idea aside as to “why” for a moment) then it doesn’t make a lot of sense to say also that God is trying to save every man. If God knows who will be saved, then it would be absurd for Him to reason within Himself that more persons might be saved than the original persons He knew would choose Him. It would be inconsistent to assert that God is trying to do something which He already knew could never be accomplished. Likewise no one could consistently say that God foreknew who would be saved and then turn around and teach that the Holy Spirit does all He can do to save every man in the world. In this scheme, The Holy Spirit would be wasting time and effort to endeavor to convert a man who He knew from the beginning would not choose Him.

 

This unbiblical system collapses in on itself.

 

As we’ve been seeing from our short study of the book of John, here is the truth right out of scripture:

 

The Father gives those whom He purposed to save to the Son.

 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.
John 6:37

 

 

We see it in Acts:

 And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.
Acts 13:48

 

And is it based on some foreseen faith? No…God tells us why He chooses some:

 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.
Eph 1:11-12

 

 Please give this some thought, search yourself and see if this is what you’ve believed; either consciously or unconsciously, and if it is, then ask yourself if it lines up with the word…if it doesn’t, then discard it.

 

Solo Deo Gloria

PS: most of this material taken from an article at www.Monergism.com by John Hendryx

Do we take the bible “literally?”

Should we take the bible literally?

That would seem like an easy question to answer, but wait. Stop and think about what’s being asked…

When someone asks you this question, frequently what they are really saying is that they don’t believe that the miracles and events spoken of in the bible actually happened…they want to know if you’re gullible enough to believe them.

But sometimes they are really asking if you take every word recorded in scripture, and take every word literally…this happened to me today.

I was sitting with a brother in Christ and I got into a discussion about healings, Todd Bentley and other faith healers…and because I was questioning their abilities and motives….I was asked THE QUESTION…

“The bible says that we’ll be able to do these things…You DO read the bible literally right?”

And so we got into a discussion about how to actually READ the bible. I said that we read it “plainly” and that we take each book according to it’s literary type; poetry, historical narrative, prophesy, etc. We take into account the context…the historical background surrounding the book that is being read itself…we try and find out what the passage meant to it’s ORIGINAL AUDIENCE as a path to find out what it means to us…if anything.

That was rejected out of hand…this person actually meant what he asked…did I take each word literally…you know…when the bible says God has hands, face, wings…this is EXACTLY WHAT IT MEANS God has wings like a bird, with feathers, and everything!

So I got my laptop out and poked around a bit…what kind of errors could be generated if we just took the words “literally” without reading them as we would the sports page; you know, when we read a title like: “Braves massacre Reds”…do we really think that American Indians actually killed a group of Russians? No, of course not, we understand that words have a sematic range according to how they are being used, what the idioms of the day are, slang terms, similes, metaphors, hyperbole, and other literary devices.

Here is what I came up with:

Heaven has to be opened by a set of keys on a ring.
Matthew 16:19
I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you release on earth will have been released in heaven.”
To bind: to tie up?
Matthew 16:19
I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in
heaven, and whatever you release on earth will have been released in heaven.”
God has a face
Matthew 18:10
“See that you do not disdain one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.
Anybody who has a lot of money won’t be in heaven
Matthew 19:24
Again I say, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter into the kingdom of God.”
We are not supposed to call anyone Father
Matthew 23:9
And call no one your ‘father’ on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.
Did they bring to Jesus everyone living in the world at that time who was demon possessed?
Mark 1:32
When it was evening, after sunset, they brought to him all who were sick and demon-possessed.
Who is Jesus addressing; Peter or Satan?
Mark 8:33
But after turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan. You are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but on man’s.”
Should we gouge out our eyes and cut off our feet if they cause us to sin?
Mark 9:47
If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out! It is better to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell,
Only children will go to Heaven
Mark 10:15
I tell you the truth, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.”

You can see how this is going…not good. In fact, some errors of the LDS pursuasion have been generated this way… by not recognizing metaphorical language when it occurs in scripture.

We all come to the word with errors in our thinking…some more serious than others; let’s do our best to recognize them and not let them cloud our understanding of God’s revelation to us.

Does God choose us based on our “foreseen faith”?

This is a common idea among all those not professing the doctrines of grace…but is it logical and consistent?

John Hendryx over at Monergism has written and ariticle examining this question and he puts forth the three possible circumstances of this position:

If God can look into the future and see that a person #1 will come to Christ and that person #2 will not come to faith in Christ, then those facts are already fixed, they are already determined. God’s foresight of believers’ faith and repentance implies the certainty, or “moral necessity ” of these acts, just as much as a sovereign decree. “For that which is certainly foreseen must be certain.” (R.L.Dabney)

If we assume that God’s knowledge of the future is true (which evangelicals all agree upon), then it is absolutely certain that person #1 will believe and person #2 will not.  There is no way their lives could turn out differently than this.

Therefore it is more than fair to say that their destinies are still determined, for they could not be otherwise.  The question is, by what are their destinies determined?

1.) God Himself determines them. If this is true then we no longer have election based on foreseen faith, but rather on God’s sovereign will. 

 
2.) There is some powerful being other than God controlling people’s destinies.  Of course no Christian would ever agree with this.

3.) They are determined by some impersonal force, some kind of fate, operative in the universe, making things turn out as they do.  If this is true then we have then sacrificed election in love by a personal and compassionate God for a kind of determinism by an impersonal force and God is no longer to be given the ultimate credit for our salvation. (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology)

It’s good stuff, you can read the whole article HERE