Emergent Monday: Burn Down That Shack!!!

“Burning Down the Shack” exposes the greatest deception to blindside the church in the last 200 years!

By James B. De Young, ThD

My wife and I recently enjoyed an evening together in our home viewing “Anne of Green Gables,” produced on VHS in 1985. There is a scene in which Anne Shirley rehearses the Highway Man before a literary society. Anne’s dramatic presentation earns an encore. As this scene drew to a close I turned to my wife and said: “This is what people did before there was TV and the movies.”

We may smile at the simplicity of those days-around the turn of the 20st century.It seems that the older I get the more I am moved by a film like “Anne of Green Gables.”Why is this? I think that it is because our life experiences have identified with the values expressed in this film. Or, rather, this story has reinforced the values of mainstream Judeo-Christian America.

The issue I want to address is how the media influence our understanding of God and how this impacts ideology. In “Anne of Green Gables” there are at least a dozen references to God. The most powerful line is when Anne departs for college and Marilla and Matthew are left standing alone on the train platform after saying goodby, and Marilla says: “Providence knew we needed her.” She was referring to how their orphan girl had impacted their lives for good, for kindness, for love. Themes of judgment, accountability, confession of sin, forgiveness, and innocence prevail in the film. We understand that God holds us accountable for our sins; but we also experience the cleansing of conscience and guilt that confession brings. The name “Jesus” is even used with reverence.

So what media influenced the author of “Anne of Green Gables”? Certainly there were no radio, TV, films, CD’s, DVD’s, IPods, etc., etc. Certainly the number one source would be the Bible, since the concept of God in “Anne of Green Gables” parallels how God is presented in the Bible. All Christians would agree. 

Random Bits

"I walk through this sinful world as a 

pilgrim in a foreign country" - CH Spurgeon

While ISIS rapes, sells, tortures, and executes Christians, Obama chooses to do absolutely nothing

Yes, our border security is a joke, but Mr. Pope wants to be the punchline by entering the US through Mexico.

About that lying “prophet” that rebuked John MacArthur

Christians living in persecution can now print bibles in their own language and distribute them discretely thanks to Wycliffe

Deception in the Bookstores. A handy list of  unGodly writings to avoid if you find yourself perusing the local LifeWay store.

Hilton Hotels and Resorts will phase out on-demand pornography in all guest rooms by July of next year. Praise The Lord!

Religion of Peace Update #1- Pakistani Christian flood victims are forced to renounce Jesus Christ or become slaves to muslims in order to receive aid

Religion of Peace Update #2 - A Nigerian Pastor says that muslims have killed 70% of his church

Islands in Isaiah

During my vacation I took some summertime reading along with me, I chose Isaiah. Or maybe I should say Isaiah chose me. Every time I read Isaiah something new strikes me. This time it was the mention of islands, over and over. I didn't remember seeing a plethora of islands like that anywhere else in the bible. Isaiah is a veritable archipelago right there on the pages of the bible. 

I found this to be quite odd for a desert people to be writing about islands, so I filed that away for further inquiry. When I got a break I opened up my study bible and was surprised to find that almost all of the islands had disappeared. I was sure I saw them but now they're gone. That evening when I went out to read in the cool of the evening (yeah, like there's a cool anything in a Florida August) the islands were back.

The fact that islands are mentioned at all was a mystery to me - the ancient Jews were a desert people, they didn't like the ocean. To them sailing was something that happened to other people and and I'm sure after the exploits of Noah and Jonah the ancient Jews never considered a yacht club. In fact when they got to the Red Sea they ended up walking. Even though they lived just a few miles from the Mediterranean Sea the ancient Jews were landlocked.

C. H. Spurgeon on Prayer

Prayer and praise are the oars by which a man may row his boat into the deep waters of the knowledge of Christ.

(I am on vacation this week, filling in for me is Charles Haddon Spurgeon, and that is my favorite prayer spot - sunrise on the east coast of Florida)

C. H. Spurgeon on Serving

(I am on vacation this week, filling in for me is Charles Haddon Spurgeon)

C. H. Spurgeon on Theology

(I am on vacation this week, filling in for me is C. H. Spurgeon)

I'm still on vacation but I am delighted to see an old friend blogging his faith and making a good solid point and I hope he continues to write and illuminate God's word for us. Reblogged from Theology Mix

Your Futile Attempts At Prayer Availeth What?

RICH VANKOUGHNETT

on August 17, 2015 at 9:00 am

I heard an interesting sermon on prayer the other day. It didn’t go full-blown name it and claim it, but it did miss a very important facet of prayer that I think is doing harm to the body of Christ.

In today’s self-help saturated church, people are led to think that if they have enough faith, sow a seed of expectation, and speak things into existence, their prayers will be answered by an all-loving “God” who can’t make a move until they activate their faith. Most sermons I hear on prayer will take Old Testament Law and promises made to the nation of Israel, and lock those into surefire promises for every one of us today.

The standard “7 Keys to a Better ________ (fill in the blank)” has become a formula in the modern evangelical church. No, this pastor didn’t go there at all. He preached out of James 5:16-18. When he got to the part about the prayer of a righteous man, he correctly explained that it is Christ that is righteous alone. And for those who are in Christ, we stand righteous before God based on the work of Christ on the Cross and not our own works and so we qualify for our prayers to be heard and to be effective. There wasn’t any allegorizing of the story of Elijah in verse 17. He didn’t narcissistically eisegete himself into the story at all.

So why did the sermon fall so flat for my wife and me? 

C. H. Spurgeon's Message to Joel Osteen

It's been noticed that Joel Osteen has problems with preaching Christ.

(I am on vacation this week, filling in for me is Charles Haddon Spurgeon)

Emergent Monday - C.H. Spurgeon's Message to Gretta Vosper and the United Church of Canada

(Gretta Vosper is an atheist posing as a minister of West Hill United Church, a Scarborough congregation. Gretta has taken God and the Bible away from the flock whom she was supposed to minister.)

The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. And this he does because he is a fool. Being a fool he speaks according to his nature; being a great fool he meddles with a great subject, and comes to a wild conclusion. The atheist is, morally as well as mentally, a fool, a fool in the heart as well as in the head; a fool in morals as well as in philosophy. With the denial of God as a starting point, we may well conclude that the fool's progress is a rapid, riotous, raving, ruinous one. He who begins at impiety is ready for anything.

No God, being interpreted, means no law, no order, no restraint to lust, no limit to passion. Who but a fool would be of this mind? What a Bedlam, or rather what an Aceldama, would the world become if such lawless principles came to be universal! He who heartily entertains an irreligious spirit, and follows it out to its legitimate issues is a son of Belial, dangerous to the commonwealth, irrational, and despicable. Every natural man is, more or less a denier of God. Practical atheism is the religion of the race.

Corrupt are they. They are rotten. It is idle to compliment them as sincere doubters, and amiable thinkers -- they are putrid. There is too much dainty dealing nowadays with atheism; it is not a harmless error, it is an offensive, putrid sin, and righteous men should look upon it in that light. All men being more or less atheistic in spirit, are also in that degree corrupt; their heart is foul, their moral nature is decayed.

And have done abominable iniquity. Bad principles soon lead to bad lives. One does not find virtue promoted by the example of your Voltaires and Tom Paines. Those who talk so abominably as to deny their Maker will act abominably when it serves their turn. It is the abounding denial and forgetfulness of God among men which is the source of the unrighteousness and crime which we see around us. If all men are not outwardly vicious it is to be accounted for by the power of other and better principles, but left to itself the "No God" spirit so universal in mankind would produce nothing but the most loathsome actions.

- C.H. Spurgeon's Treasury of David, in his exposition of Psalm 53:1

(I am on vacation this week, filling in for me is Charles Haddon Spurgeon)

Random Bits

"I walk through this sinful world as a 

pilgrim in a foreign country" - CH Spurgeon

Is the pope Catholic? The Times of London isn't quite sure.

The full size replica ark being built in Williamstown KY will be finished next year.

Religion of Peace Update #1 - Christians have now become a nothing more than currency to ISIS. They're kidnapped and held for ransom, and the ransom money is used to finance ISIS' war against everything. One priest was kidnapped and held for two months, ISIS demanded a ransom of $120,000 for his release. The family managed to raise and deliver the money but hours later, the priest was killed and his body cut up, with pieces of him sent in a box to the family.

Religion of Peace Update #2 - It is official, Islam has announced that they are targeting Christians to be slaughtered.

Religion of Peace Update #3 - ISIS has found a new way to execute their prisoners, they make them kneel on a buried bomb then set it off. These prisoners are apostates according to ISIS, and to ISIS an apostate is pretty much anyone they want to kill.

The Faith of our Candidates

When Barack Hussein Obama was elected there was a great dispute over what his religion is. He was born of a Muslim man so by Muslim law he's a Muslim. He claimed to be a Christian but sat in an anti-American church that denies God the Father, and by his own words and actions he's proven to be a Narcissist Atheist.

For me a candidate's faith is a very important part of my decision to vote for him or her. While my primary concern is candidate's position on the issues, his or her faith or lack of faith goes to the candidate's psyche. A Narcissist Atheist for example has no concept of being answerable to a higher power because in their mind they are the higher power. This is incredibly important because as president of the United States the most powerful man in the world has a political higher power to show allegiance to: the Constitution of the United States. 

3 If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, 4 he is conceited and understands nothing; but he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, 5 and constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. (1 Timothy 6:3-5)

Let's look at the field of candidates, first the Republicans:

Another Historical Fail of Biblical Proportions for the History Channel.

The guy with the hair to the left is Giorgio A. Tsoukalos, Tsoukalos is a 1998 graduate of Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York (which is part of the Burned Over District - go figure) and is one of the "experts" on the History Channel and H2's show Ancient Aliens. When the guy with the hair comes on TV the UFO fans go crazy. The biblically and historically challenged members of society abandon rational thought and move one step further away from God.

As a bible believing, bible studying Christian and avowed history nut I find this show abominable. As I've said before, the little green men that so many see are not from space, they're from Satan.

Ancient Aliens and Giorgio's hair has been invading American homes since 2009 and the premise of the show is simple - aliens have been visiting the earth for thousands of years making interesting things and leaving without any scientific evidence to back up the theories expounded on the show. Ancient Aliens is based on the pseudoscientific writings of Eric von Daniken and in the long run it is more pseudo than scientific. The most amazing thing by far with this show is the amount of stuff they get wrong. Mindbendingly, gutwrenchingly wrong. As Brian Switek, science writer for the Smithsonian Institution, says:

Emergent Monday: What Harmony Has Christ With Belial?

Would you hire an illiterate to tutor your children in literature? Would you trust a blind man to pilot an airliner? Would you let a child molester teach kindergarten? 

So why on earth would you trust an atheist with your salvation?

The United Church of Canada did just that. They knowingly subjected their congregants to the whims and vagaries of an atheist they allowed in the pulpit. Gretta Vosper was ordained as a UCC minister in 1993 and in 1997 she became the minister of West Hill United Church in Toronto, in 2001 she "came out of the closet" and announced she was an atheist all along. in 2004 she formed the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity. Under her leadership the West Hill United Church as sank from a Christian congregation to a faithless goatpen, their statement of faith turned into meaningless political drivel called "Visionworks", their love for God and their faith in Jesus replaced with worshiping the earth, how you live is more important than God Himself. By their actions they show they are worshiping the god of this world. And it gets worse.

This dear friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, is the emergent church in all it's glory - regressive progressivism driving a wedge between Jesus and his Bride, led by a selfish woman, worshiping the creation rather than the creator. Yes, I know 1 Corinthians 5:12 tells us that we're not to judge unbelievers, and I'm not. I'm simply reporting on this fool, but the same verse requires us to judge the United Church of Canada and the elders of the West Hill Church, if I do judge anyone it would be them

Random Bits

"I walk through this sinful world as a 

pilgrim in a foreign country" - CH Spurgeon

Religion of Peace Update #1 - Boko Haram militants slit the throats of sixteen Christian fishermen on the shores of Lake Chad in the Nigerian state of Borno

Religion of Peace Update #2 - Islamist “justice” is a  slow painful death for Christian mother in Pakistan who is in a Pakistani prison because she was wrongly accused of slandering Muhammed

Religion of Peace Update #3 - ISIS followers of Muhammed executed 19 women for refusing to join the "sexual jihad". The utter satanic basis of Islam becomes more apparent when you realize that there is such a thing as a sexual jihad.

Religion of Peace Update #4 - Christian Persecution in the Middle East goes far beyond ISIS. Christianity will soon disappear from the birthplace of Christianity thanks to the Religion of Peace

Religion of Peace Update #5 - ISIS militants have abducted dozens of Christian families after seizing a strategically located town in the central Syrian province of Homs,

A Jewish peer who fled occupied Austria as a child is funding the rescue of up to 2,000 Christians from Syria and Iraq as a way of showing his gratitude to the religion whose members saved him from the Nazis.

Unsocial Media

Social Media (which includes this blog) can be anything but social, cyber bullying abounds and being a method of communication Satan has sank his foul claws claws into it perverting it into a festival of hate, manifesting in accusations, groundless gutless bravado, and cowardly imputation. 

Social media reflects the inner-connected society at a whole and follows the internet into the depths of depravity. While the percentage of pornography isn't as high as claimed by many of us Christians, but it's still there. I've heard some Christians claim that a full 50% of the internet is pornography yet Forbes magazine puts it closer to 4% (why do we Christians fall for these outrageous claims? WE are supposed to be the discerning ones). 

To be honest, there are some gems out there on social media, there are many good Christian facebook sites to be seen, some of my favorites are Good Fight Ministries,  Eternity Matters and Stop Playing Church. Sadly the Sola Sisters stopped updating their site.

Coming in behind the cyber bullying and the pornography one of the biggest abuses of social media I see is outright fraudulent information being passed as fact. It appears that one of the best ways to to be believed is to attribute anything that pops into your head to George Carlin (who never, ever said this) or Ben Franklin (who never said this, but he did say this)  However social media saves some of it's worst lies and misquotes for the realm of theology. The ones I see the most are from the prosperity pimps who post pictures of cash with the comment "Money will locate you this month. If you believe type Amen and Share" one of the worst charlitains to pollute the web with this heresy is Pastor E A Adeboye of the Redeemed Christian Church of God who appears to worship money as his god. I say all that so I can point out this:

"Bible Believing" Christian? by Steven Kozar

"Bible Believing" Christian? by Steven Kozar

 If you believe it’s important to follow the Bible, wouldn’t you want to “test all things” by God’s Word? Shouldn't you be like the Bereans in Acts 17:11 who kept "examining the scriptures daily to see if these things are so?" Shouldn’t you at least see which ideas have more scriptural support than others? In light of that important idea, below are some questions for you:

    

In the Bible, which are there more of?

...Bible verses about feeling God's presence (so you can know He's real), or Bible verses about knowing, teaching and following correct doctrine? (This is a trick question; there are no verses about feeling, experiencing or “being intoxicated” by God’s presence. Also, capitalizing the letter “p” in presence comes from the New Age movement.)

...Bible verses that tell us to have a "personal, intimate and emotional encounter with God," or Bible verses that tell us we can know God through His Word and Sacraments? (This is a trick question-there are no verses telling us that we’re supposed to have a personal, intimate and emotional encounter with God.)

...Bible verses about how you need to follow along with the vision of your pastor, or Bible verses about the pastor being a servant and shepherd? (This is a trick question; there are no verses telling you to “follow the vision” of your “vision-casting pastor;” that idea comes from the business world.)

...Bible verses telling the church to conform to the pagan culture (in order to "win over" that culture), or Bible verses describing the church as separate and distinct from culture? (This is a trick question; there are no verses telling the church to conform to the pagan culture. The word “church” comes from the word “ekklesia” which means “gathering” or “called out ones.”)

Church

Emergent Monday: The Christian Left is Worshiping Moloch

You shall not give any of your offspring to offer them to Molech, nor shall you profane the name of your God; I am the Lord. (Leviticus 18:21)

37 They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons, 38 And shed innocent blood, The blood of their sons and their daughters, Whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan; And the land was polluted with the blood. (Psalm 106:37-38)

"My religion is a holy ritual of child sacrifice." - Patricia Baird-Windle, founder and executive director of Aware Woman Center for Choice and Wiccan witch

God does not like child sacrifice, not one bit, so it shouldn't be any surprise to us that the followers of Satan, those that are cognizant of the fact and those that aren't aware that their master is the god of this world are all for child sacrifice. 

During its periods of apostasy Israel would worship false gods, one of which being Moloch. Even Solomon, who built the great Temple for the Lord, also built places of sacrifice for false gods including Moloch, ignoring God's direct command to renounce false idols and to not sacrifice children. However sacrificing children was what worshiping Moloch was all about. In ancient times children were slaughtered at the alter of Moloch (and several other false gods) solely for financial gain:

It is believed that idols of Moloch were giant metal statues of a man with a bull’s head. Each image had a hole in the abdomen and possibly outstretched forearms that made a kind of ramp to the hole. A fire was lit in or around the statue. Babies were placed in the statue’s arms or in the hole. When a couple sacrificed their firstborn, they believed that Moloch would ensure financial prosperity for the family and future children. (Source)