Random Bits

"I walk through this sinful world as a 

pilgrim in a foreign country" - CH Spurgeon

Being a history nut I know the need to understand what happened before you, I mean after all, how can you tell what direction you're going if you don't know where you've been? I remember my first real brush with history - standing in the Porta Nigra, the ancient Roman city gate in Trier Germany, later that year I was standing in Rome itself. What a blast in the past! It breaks my heart to see society as a whole not only ignoring history but destroying it in acts of selfish ignorance. Christians are not immune to this which is odd since our faith comes from documents written thousands of years ago. this is the scandal of Evangelical Alzheimers 

Children at a Christian preschool in Sweden are no longer allowed to say grace at mealtimes, “Amen”, or talk about the Bible

No one is gay

Bethel Church is now teaching that their members are Gods

Idolatry, Demons, and Ecumenism

Isn't it interesting to note that when the church changes to please the world, it becomes abandoned.

Prosperity gospel charlatan, Todd Coontz, indicted for fraud

Can a Christian be demon posessed?

WWUTT Wednesday - OGCJM

The phrase "Only God can judge me" has become a fad inspiring t-shirt and tattoo artists to cash in on the craze. This craze was started by a "song" of the same title performed by Tupak Shakur, the same Tupak Shakur who was involved in multiple shootings including two that were directed at him, assault,  sexual assault, has had nine bullets plucked out of his body from multiple murder attempts, and has served prison time for first degree sexual abuse, bail violation, and three counts of molestation. 

It would be nice to say that Shakur found Jesus in prison and dedicated his life to Christ, and returned to his roots to help those in need in his old neighborhood, but his story doesn't end that way. In September 1996 Tupac Shakur was shot outside of a Las Vegas casino, his last words are unprintable. His "song" Only God Can Judge Me appeared on the last album he released in his life time. He probably knows a lot about judging now

The Modern Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit

The Modern Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit

A Sermon by John MacArthur

Oct 23, 2011

Well, now that I don’t have to preach on anything but what I want to preach on, since I finished the New Testament, I find myself all over the place, trying to decide what to preach on in sequence.  It’s a new kind of experience for me and I’m working on some kind of sequence that makes sense over the future.  But I am sort of at the liberty point of my life where whatever is on my heart is where I can go, and this is a wonderful opportunity for me.  And there is a subject that has concerned me for a long time, and I have wanted to address this subject, but it hasn’t been a part of the preaching through the gospels in the way that it can be now and that is the subject of the Holy Spirit – the Holy Spirit. 

After all the emphasis of so many years, 25 years of preaching through the four gospels, and much emphasis, of course, on the person of Christ, as it should be, much emphasis on the character of God and the nature of God as manifest in Christ and is seen elsewhere in Scripture, it is time now to give honor to the third member of the Trinity; namely, the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is the most forgotten, the most misrepresented, the most dishonored, the most grieved, the most abused, and I might even say the most blasphemed of the members of the Trinity.  That’s a sad thing. 

When our Lord cleansed the temple in John 2, He said that He was, in a sense, fulfilling the attitude of David from Psalm 69:  “Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up, the reproaches that fall on you are fallen on Me.”  And what our Lord was saying was, “When God is dishonored, I feel the pain.”  “You have taken My Father’s house, which is to be a house of prayer, and turned it into a den of robbers.  You’ve corrupted My Father’s house.  You’ve blasphemed My Father’s name.  You’ve dishonored My Father.”  And I can say that I have long felt that same thing with regard to the Holy Spirit.  Yes, I grieve when God is dishonored.  It is a constant grief to me.  I grieve when Christ is dishonored. 

But in this contemporary sort of Christian evangelical church world, people are a little less reluctant to bring dishonor on the name of God and the name of Christ, but they think they have a free run at dishonoring and abusing the Holy Spirit, apparently, because so much of that goes on.  I’m not here to defend the Holy Spirit; He can defend Himself.  But I am here to say that reproaches that are falling on His holy name are falling on me as well, and mostly this comes in the professing church from Pentecostals and Charismatics who feel they have free license to abuse the Holy Spirit and even blaspheme His holy name – and they do it constantly. 

Random Bits

"I walk through this sinful world as a 

pilgrim in a foreign country" - CH Spurgeon

Bernie Sanders is running a one slacker war against Christianity

Catholics reach out to Satan to have Pope Francis removed... There's so much I could do with this in the way of snarky comments but I'm not going to go there. However you can if you want, please feel free to leave comments (maybe I should run a contest)

Swedish Prime Minister compares gay marriage to abortion and forces all priests in the Swedish church to perform them (the gay marriages, not the abortions)

Leftists have named groups like the Family Research Council, the American Family Association, Liberty Counsel, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, the American College of Pediatricians and over 40 more as Hate Groups

Does the LGBTQRSXYZ community really want to put the idea out there that they’re fine with tolerating and accepting all things unless Christianity is involved? 

WWUTT Wednesday - Who Condemns People To Hell?

I hear a lot of people claim that "God is Love so there's no way He will condemn me to hell." To me it appears that this sort of feeling seems to be found quite often in the emergent churches. To many it appears to make sense that if God is Love then He scoop me out of the fires of hell. Of course a thinking like that ignores OUR part in this whole Heaven/Hell dichotomy and ignores the huge array of God's other attributes, not the least of which is being JUST. 

Martin Bashir once asked Rob Bell "Is it irrelevant about how one responds to Christ in this life in terms of determining one's eternal destiny?" Bell responded "It is terribly relevant and terribly important. Now, how exactly that works out and how exactly that works in the future, we are now firmly in the realm of speculation," What kind of speculation is Mr. Bell talking about? God made it abundantly clear what to expect from a faithless life

Surprise Quote From Atheist Richard Dawkins

Random Bits

"I walk through this sinful world as a 

pilgrim in a foreign country" - CH Spurgeon

No, I have not been on vacation, I've been diligently assisting a surgeon with his country club dues (or maybe yacht payments - who knows?). Contrary to what my political detractors shout, I have no problem with this, I've always footed my bill for healthcare so if my pain goes away, my surgeon has earned that teak helipad for his version of the SS Minnow. I'm dealing with Scoliosis of the lumbar spine, degenerative disc disease, bilateral sciatica, Radiculopathy of lumbar region, and idiopathic kyphoscoliosis. In other words, my back hurts a lot. I'm not going to say that I didn't earn it, in fact I worked very hard for it and my doctor is going t have to work very hard to get rid of it.

The pain makes it pretty hard to concentrate at times, and I've found that it helps if I have fewer things on which to concentrate, which sometimes puts this blog on the back burner. I don't know how real heroes like Neil can put up with their constant pain, as for me, I whine a lot. But I also pray a lot. I'm not ignoring my promise to myself and my savior to chart my walk with Him on this blog, however it takes time to recover from mowing the lawn and taking the garbage out.

I love much of Greg Laurie's teaching, but his score keeping and dependency on numbers smacks to me of Greg jumping up and down with a bull horn screaming "Hey look at me being humble!"

I loved the TV show Psych because the star Dule Hill, a Christian, talks about the 'bad guy' in the episode would quite often say the line "He needs some Jesus in his life" We need to realize how true that is

There are no words. Let's just say that if this is anything more than a stunt, the Reformation is dead on it's 500th anniversary

On the eve of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, Mark Driscoll is trying to undo what freed us from the bonds of slavery to a false gospel

WWUTT Wednesday - Introduction To Mormonism

Members of the Latter Day Saints really really love genealogy, in fact it's tied very tightly to one of their practices

3 As I urged you upon my departure for Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus so that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines, 4 nor to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies, which give rise to mere speculation rather than furthering the administration of God which is by faith. (1 Timothy 1:3-4)

This love of genealogy is tied to their practice of "Baptism of the Dead" where they baptize a living person and that baptism gets transferred to a dead person and voilà! that dead person is saved.

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment (Hebrews 9:27)

The doctrine of baptism for the dead was first given to the Mormon church by Joseph Smith in 1836 and is found in his Doctrine and Covenants but not in the Book of Mormon., and I'm not sure if it's covered in The Pearl of Great Price

5 Every word of God is tested; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. 6  Do not add to His words Or He will reprove you, and you will be proved a liar. (Proverbs 30:5-6)