I'm Praying for Kanye West

 Recently Kanye West was quoted as saying "Rap is the devils music" by his pastor in an interview with Apologia Studios. First of all, I tend to believe anything out of any group that uses the word Apologetics because of the ones I listen to/read, they tend to have a better grip on the word of God than a stadium full of Osteenites.

Secondly I would completely agree with Kanye on this depending on the mood you catch me in. If by chance you asked me "Doug, is rap the devil's music?" within a week of having to ride in  my millennial stepson's car the answer would be a loud and boisterous "YES!!!!" 

I'd probably be shouting to hear myself over the ringing in my ears.

However if you caught me on a more normal day the answer would be a more astute "any kind of music can be the devil's music" including classical music. Numerous pieces of classical music pay homage to Satan, pieces including Giuseppe Tartini's Devil's Trill Sonata, Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns Danse Macabre, and one known to any long time Disney watcher: Modést Petróvich Músorgskiy's Night at the Bare Mountain (Night on Bald Mountain). These are all inspired by Satan, and you can throw in anything with "Faust" in the title to expand your list of Satanic Classical.

One just needs to peruse Good Fight Ministries' music articles to see the horrors that Satan is inflicting on the world through popular music. Country music has so much gospel intertwined that you get a lot of the good, along with the bad. But as for Rap, I'll admit that I don't listen to much at all, but what I hear is horrible. However 30 years ago, MC Hammer begged his listeners to pray, which is more biblical truth than is contained in hours of Hillsong's noise.

I pray for Kanye, I really do. As breathlessly reported through thousands of outlets this summer, Kanye West has converted to Christianity, and I believe it's a true conversion. I was unconvinced until I read that he was feeling “the weight of sin” from “chasing all the things of this world" and converted to Christianity. To me that's a real conversion where one asks "I have sinned, please help me" and not "I'm OK, but what can JC do for me?"

Don't Wait

Eighteen years ago 2,977 people were lost to us and the death toll keeps rising. Dr. Michael Caine, medical director of the World Trade Center Health Program at Mount Sinai reported last year that close to 10,000 first responders and others who were at the World Trade Center, have been diagnosed with cancer due to inhalation of the toxic dust from the tower collapses, and more than 2,000 have so far died from 9/11 related illnesses.

These people went to work expecting to come home at the end of their shifts and airplane voyages, and in a blink of an eye it all changed.

Don't wait, give your self to Jesus, get into His word, prepare yourself for His mercy at the throne of judgement. Any moment can be our last, so wrap yourself in the word of God. And if the catastrophic does not occur, you'll find that with God's help the little daily catastrophes go easier too.

WWUTT Wretched Wednesday - Just The Basics

It's an evil world out there, and I truly believe that this hectic world is designed to insure one thing: that we forget the basics and wander off on a new path following Satan to your doom. Look at Tony Campollo, I've heard rumor that once upon a time he was a solid bible believing Christian, but Tony's son decided that sin is more fun that being a Christian. So Tony decided to listen to his own son rather than God's son and came to the conclusion that God Is Not In Control. 

There's no one verse in the bible that jumps out and says "God is in control" but there are 31,102 verses that show this to be the case. And if we are to pay attention to just the Red Letters as Tony Campollo insists, how did he miss Mark 10:6-8?

We have preachers that can't spread the Word of God from anything but the newest and best corporate jets, preachers that can slay you in the spirit and the wallet, preachers whose houses exceed $13 million dollars while preaching of the man who had no place to lay his head. Pile upon this snowflakes, teens on murderous rampages, and my favorite - a president who should be impeached because he talked about doing things that another president did with pride and was defended viciously by those who now snarl about impeachment. My head is swirling - I need to get back to the basics

Spurgeon Thursday - It Must Be Of Grace

WWUTT Wednesday - Eternal Security

I have probably heard this topic discussed more than any other in Christendom and sometimes quite hotly. I have read several documents on this subject which leads me to believe that if you lay every theologian end to end, they will all point in different directions. Eternal Security is a serious question, and one that should be approached prayerfully and calmly and rest assured, some day you WILL know the answer. 

I've found that there are three terms that get befuddled in this discussion; "Eternal Salvation", the "Perseverance of Saints", and Once Saved Always Saved. Eternal Salvation is the teaching that Salvation is dependent on Christ's faithfulness--not man's. Perseverance of the Saints means that God will cause the Christian to persevere to the end. Once Saved Always Saved is the position that no matter what a person does he will remain saved. None of these are a license to sin, furthermore, anyone who claims to be a Christian and purposely uses God's grace in order to sin is demonstrating that he is not regenerate because he is acting in a manner that contradicts regeneration (1 John 2:4)

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

Spurgeon Thursday - Why Sacraments Are As Filthy Rags

WWUTT Wednesday - Can a Catholic Be Saved?

Can a Roman Catholic be saved? Look at this crucifix carefully - This crucifix has a skull and crossbones on it, The skull and crossbones is said to represent the bones of Adam who was supposedly buried directly beneath the cross. It was told to me once that it symbolizes Jesus' victory of life over death (my response was "Wouldn't an empty tomb show that better?) Another explanation is that  Christ was crucified at Calvary. Calvary = Golgotha, and Galgotha = the place of the skull. 

According to ETWN the answer is the combination of all the above. Personally I believe the best answer is that there's no real answer. Symbology and iconoclasm is deeply rooted in the Catholic church, yet the meaning of these symbols changes over the centuries to reflect the popular viewpoint. The faith of their faithful is placed in gimgaws, trinkets, pomp, ceremonial babble, and gilt without end that the saving power of Jesus' sacrifice is ignored in favor of the man with a triple crown on his head who claims to represent a man who never had a place to lay his own head 

No Peace For The Wicked x 2

I was listening to a sermon by Dr. Tony Snow on my way in to work and he was discussing Jehovah Shalom, a title for God which only occurs once in the bible in Judges 6:24. (Actually it's not a title for God, it's the name of an alter that Gideon made to worship God) Jehovah Shalom means "God is Peace", an interesting name for an alter considering what was happening to Israel at the time. (Judges 6 is an incredible read, God, Jesus, Baal, and Ashrah are all in there)

During the sermon Dr. Tony mentioned "there is no peace for the wicked" in Isaiah, now I had always heard it "There is no rest for the wicket" but that was from my Mom who could mangle a metaphor like no ones business (she's the one who coined the phrase "If the truth hurts, wear it"). When I got to my computer I looked up "no peace for the wicked" and found that it is in Isaiah, twice.

There is no peace for the wicked," says the LORD. (Isaiah 48:22 and Isaiah 57:21)

When something is repeated in the bible, it is something that God wants you to understand. First I double checked to make sure that there was no fiddling around with the translation and found that both verses are exactly the same except for in Isaiah 48:22 God is called Yĕhovah ("the existing One") and in Isaiah 57:21 He is called 'elohiym (A plural word (gods) but used in a singular tense). This verse is repeated almost verbatim, so it's got to be important. 

He Is Risen

Did Jesus Go To Hell?

The Apostles creed

I believe in God, the Father almighty, 
creator of heaven and earth. 
I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, 
suffered under Pontius Pilate, 
was crucified, died, and was buried; 
he descended to the dead. 
On the third day he rose again; 
he ascended into heaven, 
he is seated at the right hand of the Father, 
and he will come again to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. AMEN.

Depending on which version your congregation says, Jesus may have descended to the dead, or he may have descended into hell. The latin version says "descendit ad inferna" which is hell. This makes it the most controversial statement in the Apostle's Creed. Some denominations consider it optional or refuse to include it at all. The Greek version has "he descended unto κατώτατα (the lower regions)" which is more palatable, but it still begs the question - between His death and resurrection where did Jesus go? 

For one thing, we know that he went to paradise and he took one criminal with him when He went to paradise

WWUTT Wednesday - You Must Be Baptized to Be Saved?

There's a fellow from the Church of God going door to door in our little town spreading the gospel (as they see the gospel) and drumming up membership. The United Church of God is a non-Christian cult that denies the Trinity, the true divinity of Christ, and requires both baptism and obedience to the commandments to be saved.

He's a nice enough guy and if he really feels a need to worship on Saturday, that's fine by me, and we have had a couple of interesting conversations, but his being a member of a works based anti-Trinitarian cult kind of saddens me. In our last conversation I tried not to look shocked when he said "There's some churches around here that call themselves protestant but they actually believe in [in a conspiratorial whisper] salvation by faith alone"

REALLY? How dare they!

I still chuckle that he said that to me. If it wasn't for sola fide we'd all still be depending on man made 'sacraments' for salvation. It's clear that his armstrongian cult is cherry picking the bible to back up their allegations, and any verse I had to refute his theory of sola opus was answered with "That's not what that means" then he'd dance off to another favored verse.

The main point that Mr. C.O.G. hammers on is water baptism. To me it sounded like the most important thing in his spiritual life is being a "full dunker". To be honest his insistence on Water Baptism Ueber Alles is starting to creep me out, primarily because he draws a blank when you mention Spiritual Baptism.

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void (1 Corinthians 1:17)

Spurgeon Thursday: What we can Learn from Palm Sunday

Excerpt from a sermon delivered on Sunday Morning, August the 18th, 1861 by the
Rev. C. H. Spurgeon At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington:

The Saviour, in his triumphal entrance into the capital of his fathers, declared to us very plainly the practical effects of his kingdom. Now what are these? One of the first effects was that the whole city was moved. What does that mean? It means that everybody had something to say about it, and that everybody felt something because Christ rode through the street. 

There were some who leaned from the tops of their houses, and looked down the street and said to one another - "Aha! Did ever you see such fool's play as this? Humph! Here is Jesus of Nazareth down here riding on an ass! Surely if he meant to be king he might have chosen a horse. Look at him! They call that pomp! There is some old fisherman has just thrown down his bad-smelling garment; I dare say it had fish in it an hour or two ago? "Look," says one, "see that old beggar throwing his cap into the air for joy!" "Aha!" say they, "was there ever such a ridiculous thing as that?" 

I cannot put it in such terms as they would describe it; if I could, I think I would. I should like to make you see how ridiculous this must have seemed to the people. Why, if Pilate himself had heard about it he would have said - "Ah! there is nothing much to fear from that. There is no fear that that man will ever upset Caesar; there is no fear that he will ever overturn an army. Where are their swords? There is not a sword among them! They have no cries that sound like rebellion; their songs are only some religious verses taken out of the Psalms." "Oh!" says he, "the whole thing is contemptible and ridiculous." 

What I Want to Tell Them

I never fully appreciated the true meaning of the parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard, but God, in His infinite wisdom, displayed to me the meaning as only He can. This beautiful parable is especially meaningful to me right now, as I will relate.

1 For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2 When he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the market place; 4 and to those he said, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.’ And so they went. 5 Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did the same thing. 6 And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here idle all day long?’ 7 They said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’

8 When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last group to the first.’ 9 When those hired about the eleventh hour came, each one received a denarius. 10 When those hired first came, they thought that they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they grumbled at the landowner, 12 saying, ‘These last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day.’ 13 But he answered and said to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14 Take what is yours and go, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. 15 Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?’ 16 So the last shall be first, and the first last.” (Matthew 20:1-16)

What Is Salvation?

Salvation is not getting people inside of a church building, convincing them to say the “sinner’s prayer,” or any of the modern methods for getting someone onto the attendance rolls. Salvation is the result of being convicted by the Holy Spirit after hearing the Gospel. One must come to the realization that he or she is a sinner, else why would he or she need the Savior. If they do not recognize the need for the Savior, they do not see the need to be saved. - C. H. Fisher

Charles H. Spurgeon on How To Battle Sorcery

As usual during October I tend to think of the battle between light and dark, of Satan's plots to lure us away from our savior Jesus Christ in his vain attempt to avoid the pit of fire. We are all combatants in this struggle (Ephesians 6:12) I'm sure most of my readers are actually involved in this battle on a personal level. 

I have two close relatives who firmly believe that salvation is found in the Roman Catholic Church only, everything else is evil. I have another close relative who has been so spiritually abused by the lies and heresy of the Jehovah's Witnesses that she's a confused and muddled mass of contradictions until she now finds her theology in scriptural masterpieces such as "All Dogs Go To Heaven" and it's non-animated equivalent; Joel Osteen. And I have one more close relative that's fallen into Wicca and as a result now worships gravel, the power of women, some unnamed goddess, and Satan (but she's completely ignorant of that fact)

Of the five of us I'm the one considered the heretic because I've actually read the bible. Numerous times. And quote it. And preach it. So, yeah, as we approach Halloween, the day that the whole world celebrates the fall of Satan and his putrid works on this world, I get a bit edgy. How do we fight this? 

Cling To The Father And His Holy Name

One of my favorite gospel songs is "Long Black Train" by Josh Turner, in it he says "Cling to the Father and his Holy Name." and for a long time I paused to wonder "why His name?" Shakespeare once famously asked "What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." So what if Jesus was named Bruce? Wouldn't He still be the same savior we have trusted our souls too? 

So I started the Berean Thing and began digging into names and names of names and I've found that the answer to Shakespeare is a qualified "No, sorry Bill." A name in today's world is just a word, which explains why silly girls and boys give their children names that "Sound cool" rather than a name with meaning or dignity. These days a name is merely a word or combination of words by which a person, place, or thing is known or designated, it's what makes a noun proper. In biblical times a name is much more than a string of syllables that are used to identify grandpa. This redefinition of the concept of the word 'name' causes confusion for those that do not do the Berean Thing and members of the theology of evangelical atheism. 

Dangerous Teachings - Part 2

²⁷ My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; ²⁸ and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. ²⁹ My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. ³⁰ I and the Father are one.” (John 10:27-30)

Both Pastor Brimstone and Pastor Lovejoy have used this verse to express the doctrine of Eternal Security, AKA Once Saved Always Saved. I've never had a problem with this verse because for one thing Jesus said it, but I've always felt uncomfortable around the Once Saved Always Saved doctrine. For another thing I read John 10:27-29 like this - in chronological steps:

1. Jesus' sheep hears His voice
2. He knows (acknowledges) them
3. They follow Him
4. He gives eternal life to them 
5. They never perish
6. No one will (or can) snatch them from His hand

Now I know I'm missing a whole lot of steps in there, and please feel free to correct me, and maybe it's my technician/engineering/wrench dragging mind at work here but it looks to me that Eternal Security is the final step of a process rather than step 4 where  much preaching I've heard puts it. Maybe I'm wrong, but if I am, why are there so many passages in the bible demonstrating that salvation is conditional upon continued faith? Hang with me and let's look at this...

Were Verses Used Out of Context?

I've posted before that it's a bad idea to use a single bible verse, always look for the content first before you use a verse. I'm beginning to see where some modern doctrines come from using bible verses out of context to support a potentially unbiblical doctrine.

While cruising YouTube looking for funny cat videos (well, if I told the truth and said I was looking for steam locomotive videos from the 1940's you'd think I was a nerd) when I stumbled across a video by Monica Dennington about pre-trib vs. post trib beliefs. She starts with the following verse:

I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. (John 14:18)

This is a nice verse, but Jesus is speaking of his resurrection and sending the Holy Spirit to his disciples, there's nothing in the context of that verse that has anything to do with His second coming or the tribulation, or the timing of the rapture. And luckily Monica doesn't use it for backing up either doctrine, she just lets it hang there and continues on to speak about the fact that we don't know when Jesus is coming back, even Jesus doesn't know, and He spoke at length in Matthew 24 about His return. So if Jesus doesn't know when He will return, an event which is in the bible, how could we possibly know anything about a pre-tribulation rapture which is not in the bible? Were Bible verses used out of context when formulation the pre-tribulational doctrine? Was the Bible used at all?

Buying Your Way Into Heaven One Burger At A Time

For those of you meat lovers that have never had a bison burger I strongly suggest that you do. Bison has less fat, fewer calories, and lower cholesterol than beef while remaining quite flavorful, a delicious richer sweeter flavor than beef. An adequate description of a bison burger was penned years ago  by drug saturated songster Jimmy Buffett: "Heaven on earth with an onion slice." So what does an exquisitely crafted burger have to do with eternal salvation? Nothing, not a thing... unless you're Jane Fonda and Ted Turner.

When Ted was 24 his father killed himself leaving Ted to run Turner's billboard company, which Ted did and parlayed it into his multi billion dollar empire. His former wife Jane Fonda says that's it's a miracle that he turned out the way he did:

“"Given his childhood, he should've become a dictator... He should've become a not nice person. The miracle is that he became what he is. A man who will go to heaven, and there’ll be a lot of animals up there welcoming him, animals that have been brought back from the edge of extinction because of Ted... And he says he's not religious. But he, the whole time I was with him, every speech -- and he likes to give speeches -- he always ends his speech with 'God bless'... He’s turned out to be a good guy.”

Ok, let's face it, when you think "biblical scholar" the name Jane Fonda is not in your top 10, and probably not in your top 10,000 either. A miracle that Ted overcame his background and became successful? How about the Robertsons who overcame their background, addictions and sinful natures and became successful Godly men? Has Ted accepted Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and the Light? Does Ted realize that no one comes to the Father except through him? Ted Turner summed up his views on Christianity in one sentence:

"Christianity is a religion for losers."