The Feminization of the Ministry -- A Milestone in Britain By Dr Al Mohler

The Church of England ordained more women than men in the past year, according to news reports across Great Britain. The church reported a total of 423 ordinations last year, 213 women and 210 men.

That statistical development might seem insignificant -- after all new women priests outnumbered new men by only three. But the really significant fact is that women outnumbered men as new priests for the first time. It will not be the last.

As a matter of fact, The Sunday Telegraph [London] reported months ago that the number of women priests would match that of men by 2025. That date may well creep nearer.
The Church of England allowed for the ordination of women priests fifteen years ago. Since then, the number of women preparing for the priesthood has steadily increased. At the same time, the number of men entering the ministry has steadily decreased. A recent report indicates that the number of men serving as priests may be cut in half by 2025.

These are not unrelated developments, of course. The feminization of liberal Christianity grows more and more complete with every passing year. In the United States, the number of women enrolled in Master of Divinity programs now represents almost a third of total enrollment. Among mainline Protestants, the situation is much like that of the Church of England -- only more so. In many liberal seminaries, women students now vastly outnumber men.

The decision to ordain women as priests rocked the Church of England back in 1992. As The Telegraph [London] reports:
Supporters of women priests predicted that the church would be transformed, and pews would overflow. But opponents were distraught. "Swamped by modernism, liberalism and feminism, the Church of England is now nothing more than a rotting carcass," lamented the Rev Francis Bown.

In the following weeks, more than 400 priests left the Church. Many took shelter in Roman Catholicism, where they were joined by high-profile parishioners such as the MPs Ann Widdecombe and John Gummer. Others made use of an opt-out clause which let them exclude the women from their parishes. In a move that is now being challenged, the legislation also barred women from becoming bishops. These are still open wounds.

Now, the decision to allow women to serve as bishops seems inevitable. Once women serve as priests, service as bishop certainly seems to follow. However, the decision to allow women bishops would put the Church of England on a collision course with the more conservative churches of the Anglical Communion.

As Ruth Gledhill of The Times [London] explains, "The Synod is now locked in contentious debate over whether women should be ordained bishop, an issue that insiders fear could be as divisive as that of homosexual ordination, even though some provinces such as the US and Canada already have women bishops."

The feminization of the ministry is one of the most significant trends of this generation. Acceptance of women in the pastoral role reverses centuries of Christian conviction and practice. It also leads to a redefinition of the church and its ministry. Once women begin to fill and represent roles of pastoral leadership men withdraw. This is true, not only in the pulpit, but in the pews. The evacuation of male worshippers from liberal churches is a noticeable phenomenon.

Furthermore, the issues of women's ordination and the normalization of homosexuality are closely linked. It is no accident that those churches that most eagerly embraced the ordination of women now either embrace the ordination of homosexuals or are seriously considering such a move.
The reason for this is quite simple. The interpretive games one must play in order to get around the Bible's proscription of women in congregational preaching and teaching roles are precisely the games one must play in order to get around the Bible's clear condemnation of homosexuality.

Put another way, once one is satisfied to relativize the biblical texts limiting the congregational teaching office to men, one can (and almost surely will) be satisfied to employ those same strategies on texts condemning homosexuality. In both cases, the texts are relativized by postmodern ideologies.

The future course of the Church of England seems rather clear. What about your church?
______________________
See also coverage in The Guardian [London]. Enrollment statistics for member seminaries of the Association of Theological Schools is available here [pdf file].
My article, "Biblical Pattern of Church Leadership Limits Pastorate to Men" is available here.
My article, "Women Preachers, Divorce, and a Gay Bishop -- What's the Link?," is available here.

John Hagee Responds to Controversy By Michael Corley

Pastor John Hagee has responded to my request for his reaction to the controversy involving his comments about Jesus as Messiah.
Again, I (Grace Media International and WQBC) have had a working relationship with John Hagee Ministries for the last four years. We contacted our representative with the ministry earlier this week and asked if Pastor Hagee would like to repsond to the issue. Yesterday, I received the following:
Many Christians have constructed a catch 22 concerning Jesus as Messiah. The catch 22 is this:
“Jesus came to be Messiah but because the Jews rejected Him as Messiah He had to go to the cross, hence the Jews are the Christ Killers.”
Fact: According to Webster’s Dictionary the word “Messiah” means “the expected king who delivers from oppressors.” A Messiah is one who rules and reigns over a given people.
Fact: The God of the Bible is absolutely sovereign! That means He is in control of everything in heaven and on earth all the time. If God is not sovereign; He can’t be God.
Question: What was God’s Sovereign will for Jesus Christ from the foundations of the earth?
Revelation 13:8 reads that Jesus Christ was the “Lamb of God slain from the foundations of the world.” This verse says it was God’s Sovereign plan for Jesus to die as Savior before the world was created in Genesis 1:1.
Most people confuse the role of “Messiah” and “Savior.” To be Messiah you must live. To rule and reign you must live. Jesus came to die and be the Savior of every person on earth.
THERE IS NO DUAL COVENANT! The Bible says, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
Jesus Himself stated in Mark 14:8, Luke 24:46 and Mark 10:33-34 that He had come to die for the sins of the world as Savior. Again, you must live to be Messiah. You cannot be both Messiah and Savior!
John the Baptist introduced Jesus as the “Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). The only thing a lamb can do is to be slaughtered as a sin offering.
Fact: Jesus claimed to be Savior several times in the Bible. He never claimed to be Messiah to the Jewish people. In John 4 Jesus told the woman at the well, a Gentile, who He was, knowing the Jews and Samaritans had nothing to do with each other. I go into this in great detail in my latest book, “In Defense of Israel.”
Fact: Jesus repeatedly in His ministry told His Disciples and followers to “tell no one” about His supernatural accomplishments. If Jesus wanted to be Messiah by popular demand, He would have wanted His supernatural exploits to be told by everyone to spread His popularity.
Sixty-four times in the four Gospels Jesus instructed those who were excited about His being the Messiah to “tell no one.” He refused the role. He never promised to be Messiah. The Jews did not reject Jesus as Messiah; it was Jesus who refused to be the reigning Messiah because it was God’s Sovereign will for Him to die on the cross.
Fact: Bible proof that Jesus did not come to be Messiah is found in Matthew 26:26-30 where Jesus, a Jewish Rabbi, was celebrating Passover with His 12 Disciples in what Christians call “The Lord’s Supper.”
In the Passover there are five cups of wine that Jesus and His Disciples would drink together. These five cups have been and still are celebrated by observant Jews who keep the Passover.
The fifth cup is the Messiah’s Cup. Luke 26:28, Jesus claims to be the Savior of the world by saying, “For this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sin.”
In the next verse, Luke 26:29, Jesus rejects the Messiah’s Cup saying, “But I say unto you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s Kingdom.”
Jesus rejected the Messiah’s Cup because He knew He was about to die. He promised His Disciples that He would drink the Messiah’s Cup when He returns to earth the second time as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Fact: If an Almighty and Sovereign God sent His Son into the world the first time to be Messiah…God failed! The truth is, God cannot fail…never.
Jesus was sent to the earth the first time to die as the Lamb of God.
I trust this simple explanation will clarify any concerns you might have concerning Jesus the Messiah and Jesus the Savior. Let us prepare for the soon coming of King Jesus, our Deliverer and Lord of Lords. It will be very soon!

Evan-jello-calism By Phil Johnson

This is a continuation of yesterday’s discussion on the Fad-Driven Church.

Some of you are probably thinking: Shouldn’t we be enthusiastic about the way the ranks of those who label themselves “evangelical” have swollen over the past fifty years? Isn’t it a good thing evangelicals now have enough clout to help elect a president and be recognized by most of the secular media as a movement to be reckoned with?
Think about it: in the late 1970s, when Jimmy Carter became President and the secular media discovered the expression “born again,” the average person in mainstream American culture didn’t even know what an “evangelical” was. But evangelicalism has ballooned so much in size and visibility and political savvy that in February 2005, Time magazine did a feature photo-essay and cover article titled “The 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America.”
Here’s why I don’t think that’s a particularly encouraging development: I read the Time magazine list of 25 influential evangelicals. That article by itself would have been enough to convince me the evangelical movement is in serious trouble. The list included people like T. D. Jakes, who denies the Trinity; former Lutheran-turned-Catholic priest Richard John Neuhaus; Joyce Meyer, the jet-setting charismatic prosperity-gospel preacherette; and Brian McLaren, the postmodern pastor who denies the authority of Scripture and wants to see the church make a radical break with just about everything that’s rooted in historic Christianity.
Thirty years ago, not one of those people would have even been included in a list of “evangelicals.” They are not evangelicals in the historic sense of the word. What’s changed? It’s not that more people became evangelicals, but that the concept of evangelicalism has been expanded to become all-inclusive. The word evangelical has lost its historic meaning. These days it means everything—and it therefore means nothing.
It’s clear where Time magazine thinks evangelicalism’s clout is being felt the most. It’s not in spiritual matters, but in the realm of politics and culture. And you know what? They are right. The word evangelical used to describe a well-defined theological position. What made evangelicals distinct was their commitment to the authority of Scripture and the exclusivity of Christ. Now evangelicalism is a political movement, and its representatives hold a wide variety of theological beliefs—from Neuhaus’s Roman Catholicism to Jakes’s heretical Sabellianism, to Joyce Meyer’s radical charismaticism, to Brian McLaren’s anti-scriptural postmodernism. There’s only one person in the entire list who would remotely qualify as an evangelical theologian, and that’s J. I. Packer. But Packer himself has been on a quest for the past 20 years to make evangelicalism as broad as possible.
Frankly, none of these people I just named would even agree among themselves on any distinctive points of doctrine. They wouldn’t even agree on the essential points of the gospel message. The one thing they do agree on is that they’d like to see the evangelical movement become as broad and inclusive as possible. But that’s not really historical evangelicalism, is it? That kind of latitudinarianism has always belonged to Socinians and Deists and modernists and theological liberals. It’s antithetical to the historic principles of the evangelical movement.
But I’ll get off my subject if I’m not careful. There’s another common trait shared by many of the people on Time magazine’s list of 25. For the most part, these are the fad makers. These are the people who have designed the programs that are peddled by the out-of-control Christian publishing industry and purchased and implemented with little critical thought or concern by hundreds of thousands of people in the evangelical movement. Rick Warren, who heads the list, is the father of the hottest prefabricated program of the moment, “Forty Days of Purpose.” Tim Lahaye is co-author of the best-selling fad of all time—the “Left Behind” series. Packer and Neuhuas have been the prime movers in the ecumenical fad—probably the last bandwagon we would have expected evangelicals to jump aboard 20 years ago. Bill Hybels masterminded the “seeker-sensitive” fad. And McLaren took that to the next level with the “emergent church” fad. (Too bad for Bruce Wilkinson that Time magazine didn’t do this piece several years ago when the “Jabez” fad was still hot, or he would have almost certainly made the list.)
Now, I have labeled all these trends and programs as “fads,” because that is what they all are. They are popular for the moment, but they have nothing to do with historic evangelicalism or the biblical principles that made evangelicalism an important idea. Not one of these movements or programs even existed 35 years ago. Most of them would not have been dreamed of by evangelicals a generation ago. And, frankly, most of them will not last another generation. They will all eventually fade and die, just like the Jabez phenomenon. And some poor publisher or wholesale distributor will be left with warehouses full of Jabez junk, Weigh-Down Workshop paraphernalia, “What Would Jesus Do?” bracelets, and Purpose-Driven merchandise (complete with the authorized trademark symbol).
Why has the recent culture of American evangelicalism been so susceptible to fads? Why are evangelical churches so keen to jump on every bandwagon? Why do our people so eagerly rush to buy the latest book, CD, or cheap bit of knockoff merchandise concocted by the marketing geniuses who have taken over the Christian publishing industry?
By the way, my background is publishing, and I love the historic influence Christian literature has made on the church. But the Christian Publishing industry has changed dramatically in recent years as Christian publishing has become big business. Companies once run by godly Christians, such as Zondervan, have been bought out by men like Rupert Murdoch and made part of huge secular publishing empires. And it has changed the face of Christian publishing. To a large degree, it is the publishing industry that fuels this bizarre hunger for more and more fads and programs.
And I have sat in meetings with publishers who have tried to convince John MacArthur to tone down his message, soften his hard stance on controversial issues, ignore things that are unpopular, and tell more funny stories. Publisher after publisher has tried to tell him he could broaden his audience and sell more books if he would just broaden his message a little. One publisher looked at some of his material—it was the series on the twelve apostles—they looked at it and told him, “It’s just too biblical.” I kid you not. They said it sounded too much like Sunday School material; they wanted more contemporary stories and hip language, and less Bible. That book was published anyway, without dumbing it down or removing a single Scripture reference. It was titled Twelve Ordinary Men, and despite the experts predictions, it stayed on the bestseller list for more than two years.
But that’s how all these fads are crafted. They are deliberately dumbed down, made soft and generic and nonthreatening, so that they don’t rebuke anyone’s sin; they don’t endanger anyone’s shallowness; they don’t threaten anyone’s comfort zone; and they don’t challenge anyone’s worldliness. That’s the way both the publishers and the people want it.
That is the culture the evangelical movement deliberately created when it bought the notion that religion is something to be sold to consumers like a commodity. It created an environment where unspiritual and unscrupulous men could easily make merchandise of the gospel. It conditioned people to be like “children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting.” That’s Ephesians 4:14, and it is a perfect biblical description of the faddism that has overtaken the evangelical movement in recent years.
(To be continued next week)

Private Interpretation Not Blind Interpretation By RC Sproul

Quoting RC Sproul . . .
The right of private interpretation is a special privilege we have today that we may easily take for granted, forgetting that the privilege was won through the blood of our ancestors, many of whom paid for it through their lives, even as those who dared to translate the Bible into the common language of the people. And we ought to be encouraged by this privilege, to be diligent in our own personal study of Scripture. But although the interpretation of the Scriptures may be something you do independently, and do so in private, I hope you don't do it privately in the sense that you never bother to see how others who perhaps are more experienced and who are more learned in the things of God than you are, have dealt with the text.
That's why, for example, I am constantly reading the best teachers that God has given to the church to help me understand the Scriptures. Not because I believe those interpretors are infallible, but because I believe they can check my instincts where I may be inclined to distort the Bible.
So let us be careful in enjoying this privilege of private interpretation, but let us not be guilty of distortion.
From:
Private Interpretation (10/31/07 Ligonier Podcast)

The Flaws of a Fad-Driven Church By Phil Johnson

Mainstream evangelicalism is in serious trouble.
Now, I know that makes me sound like a pessimist. I hate to sound like such a prophet of doom, and I assure you that I am not a pessimist. I’m a Calvinist, and Calvinists by definition cannot be pessimistic. Seriously. But because I’m going to sound somewhat gloomy, I want to assure you that I see the hand of divine Providence in the outworking of history, and I know God’s purposes are being fulfilled and will be fulfilled perfectly in the end. I’m not a pessimist, but that doesn’t keep me from making a realistic assessment of the distressing state of current affairs in the visible church.
The evangelical movement right now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, is in a spiritual condition not very much different from the medieval church just before the Protestant Reformation. Think about it. Luther had to deal with Tetzel, the charlatan fund-raiser who went through Europe promising people miracles in return for money so that the Pope could build St. Peter’s church in the Vatican. We’ve got at least a dozen Tetzels appearing daily on TBN, promising people miracles in exchange for money so that Jan Crouch can make the sets of their television studios gaudier than any room in the Vatican while she adds enough pink hair extensions to rival the Dome of St. Peter’s.
The medieval church was overrun with superstition and ignorance. We’ve got people reciting the prayer of Jabez every day who are convinced that it’s a magic formula that will bring them wealth and good luck.
The medieval church had Leo X and Machiavelli. We’ve got Bill Gothard and Gary Ezzo.
The medieval church saw a decline in doctrine and morality in the church and a corresponding increase in corruption, scandal, and man-centered worship. All of that is true today.
Worst of all, in the medieval era, the gospel was in eclipse and people were so woefully ignorant of biblical truth that men in Martin Luther’s time could complete seminary and enter ministry without ever having learned “the first principles of the oracles of God.” We’re well on the road to that same situation today. Many seminaries are deliberately eliminating biblical and theological courses and replacing them with courses in business and marketing. And Christian leaders who call themselves evangelical are actually encouraging these trends.
Listen, for example, to Tony Campolo, arguing that today’s evangelical seminary students need to be taught marketing savvy rather than theology and Scripture. This is from a book he co-authored with Brian McLaren, ironically titled Adventures in Missing the Point: How the Culture-Controlled Church Neutered the Gospel. Yet Campolo himself has missed the point. He is actually arguing that church leaders should follow the culture and study marketing techniques rather than theology. And he suggests this would be a good thing. He writes:
What if the credits eaten up by subjects seminarians seldom if ever use after graduation were instead devoted to more subjects they will actually need in churches—like business and marketing courses? It is not true that with a gifted preacher, a church will inevitably grow. Good sermons may get visitors to stay once they come, but getting folks to come in the first place [will] take some marketing expertise.
It was a marketing degree, not an M. Div., that Bill Hybels had when he launched the tiny fellowship that would one day be Willow Creek Community Church. It’s not that Hybels is a theological lightweight, [but he’s “brilliantly relevant”]—and the relevance comes not from giftedness or theological discernment, but from thoughtfully studying his congregation. As any good marketer would, Hybels deliberately surveys his people with questionnaires in order to determine what they worry about, what their needs are, what’s important to them. . . . Then he schedules what subjects he will preach on in the coming year, and circulates the schedule to those on his team responsible for music and drama in the services.
The result is preaching that is . . . acutely relevant. But the process isn’t something you’ll learn in most seminaries. Maybe it’s time that some business school courses find their way into seminary.
Now, I don’t know where Tony Campolo has been for the past twenty-five years or so, but if his advice sounds the least bit fresh or novel to you, you haven’t been doing much reading, and you haven’t been paying attention to the drift of the church growth movement over the past three decades. What Campolo is suggesting is precisely what many evangelical seminaries started doing some twenty years ago. Pastors these days are carefully indoctrinated with the notion that they must regard their people as consumers. Religion is carefully packaged to appeal to the consumers’ demands. There are marketing agencies that offer seminars for church leaders to teach them how to “brand” their churches to appeal to the most people. Most church leaders these days are therefore obsessed with opinion polls, public relations, salesmanship, merchandizing, and customer satisfaction. They have been taught and encouraged to think that way by virtually every popular program of the past two decades.
In 1988 (seventeen years ago now), George Barna wrote a book titled Marketing the Church. It was published by NavPress—at the time a major mainstream evangelical publisher (a lot less mainstream these days). In that book, George Barna wrote, “The audience, not the message, is sovereign.” That was the basic idea. And it’s a notion that thousands of pastors and church leaders have uncritically imbibed—and it has been parroted in virtually every major book on church leadership up through and including The Purpose-Driven Church. The audience is sovereign. Their “felt needs” should shape the preacher’s message. Opinion polls and listener response become barometers that tell the preacher what to preach. That’s what Barna was calling for back in 1988. He wrote,
If [we are] going to stop people in the midst of hectic schedules and cause them to think about what we’re saying, our message has to be adapted to the needs of the audience. When we produce advertising that is based on the take-it-or-leave-it proposition, rather than on a sensitivity and response to people’s needs, people will invariably reject our message.
Compare that with the words of the apostle Paul, who (in 2 Timothy 4:2-5) said, “The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.” What was Paul’s point? Do you think he would have agreed with Barna, who said we must adapt our message to the preferences of the audience, or risk having them reject the message?
No, Paul told Timothy: “But you . . . fulfill your ministry.” “Preach the word! . . . in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.”
That is what we are called to do as pastors—not follow the fads and fashions of our culture. Not even to follow the silly parade of evangelical fads that have assaulted the church in wave after wave for two decades running. The fads and the programs are killing the evangelical movement. And I’m convinced that those who do not get back to the business of preaching the Bible will soon see their churches die—because, after all, the Word of God is the only message that has the power to give spiritual life.
And, frankly, the death of the fad-driven churches will be a good thing in the long term. It’s something I hope I live long enough to see.
(To be continued tomorrow)

Puritan Quote of the Week From the Pastor's Desk

"The house built on the sand may oftentimes be built higher, have more fair parapets and battlements, windows and ornaments, than that which is built upon the rock; yet all gifts and privileges equal not one grace.."
JOHN OWEN

Common Parent Traps By Dr John MacArthur

If you’ve been a parent for any time at all, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that your child came into the world with an insatiable faculty for evil. Even before birth, your baby’s little heart was already programmed for sin and selfishness. The inclination toward depravity is such that, given free reign, every baby has the potential to become a monster.
Original sin is the biblical doctrine that explains your child’s sinful proclivity. It means children do not come into the world seeking God and righteousness. They do not even come into the world with a neutral innocence. They come into the world seeking the fulfillment of sinful and selfish desires. Scripture also teaches a doctrine called total depravity, referring to the extent of original sin. Although the outworking of the sin nature does not necessarily attain full expression in everyone’s behavior, it is nonetheless called total depravity because there is no aspect of the human personality, character, mind, emotions, or will that is free from the corruption of sin or immune to sin’s enticements.
Put bluntly, sin is not learned—it is an inbred disposition. Your kids got their sinful nature from you, you got it from your parents, your parents got it from their parents, and so on, all the way back to Adam. In other words, Adam’s fall tainted the entire human race with sin. Both the guilt and the corruption of sin are universal. The apostle Paul wrote, “Through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12, emphasis added). “Through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men” (v. 18), meaning we inherited the guilt of sin. And “through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners” (v. 19), meaning we inherited the corruption of sin. No one is exempt. No one is born truly innocent.
That means that left to themselves, your children will pursue a course of sin. And left entirely to themselves, there is no evil of which they are incapable. You may find that hard to swallow, especially when you see them as newborns. Infants seem to be the very epitome of chaste, precious, childlike innocence. But don’t let the cute cheeks, the playful coos, and the bright eyes fool you — those children are a miniature version of you! The depravity that lives in their hearts is just waiting for the opportunity to express itself.
So how should the doctrines of original sin and total depravity impact your parenting? Before I answer that, let me show you three parenting approaches that miss the mark.
Trap #1: Focusing on Behavior
Many parents go off track by focusing all their efforts on controlling their child’s behavior. Be careful. If you concentrate all your energies on correcting external behavior, or staving off misbehavior with threats of discipline, you may be doing little more than training a hypocrite.
I’ve seen that happen repeatedly. I know Christian parents who think their parenting is successful because they’ve taught their children to act politely on cue, to answer with “Yes, Sir” and “No, Ma’am,” and to speak to adults when spoken to. While that kind of behavior control may appear to work wonders for a time (especially when the parents are nearby), it does not address the root problem of depravity. Sinful behavior is a symptom of a sinful heart.
Trap #2: Focusing on Environment
Other parents try to control their child’s environment. They attempt to build a cocoon around their kids to isolate them from bad influences. They restrict their children’s exposure to television, ban popular music from the home, and sometimes forbid contact with children whose parents may not share their same parenting philosophy.
While I do think you should shield your kids from the experience of evil, you need to teach them to be wise and discerning when confronted with evil. They won’t learn those lessons if they are completely isolated. The isolationist approach merely produces naïve children who are gullible and vulnerable, defenseless in the world.
Try as you might, you won’t be able to isolate your children forever. When the day comes that they venture out into the world, they need to be prepared with discernment skills and wisdom to detect and resist the enticements of the devil and the world. If you choose to shield them from an evil environment, you are ignoring the enemy within them — a depraved heart. But if you win the heart, you win the child.
Trap #3: Focusing on Self-Esteem
A very prevalent approach today is to build a child’s self-esteem. That method assumes that if a child sees himself as good, noble, and wonderful, he’ll not only behave better, but he will also treat others better. This method turns self-love into a virtue.
The truth is that much of the modern effort to spark kids’ self-esteem is simply pouring gasoline on a runaway fire. It encourages already selfish kids to think they are justified in wanting their own way. It makes you as a parent think you have to defer to the child, no matter what, because the child has a right to express himself freely, so he feels good about himself. All of that only escalates out-of-control behavior and feeds the worst tendencies of human depravity. Want to ensure that your child will become a delinquent? Feed his self-esteem and then compound the problem by refusing to correct him when he is wrong.
Self-esteem is based on an unbiblical perspective that denies original sin and the doctrine of total depravity. The Bible has nothing positive to say about self-esteem, self-love, or any other variety of self-centeredness. It teaches your child to deny himself, not love himself (Luke 9:23).
The Right Approach: Focusing on the Heart
There’s only one remedy for your child’s inborn depravity: the new birth—regeneration. As Jesus said to Nicodemus, “That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit… [Therefore,] you must be born again” (John 3:6-7). “Born of the flesh” with a sinful bent, your children have no power to free themselves from sin’s bondage. They lack the Holy Spirit and thus have no capacity to please God or obey Him from the heart (cf. Rom. 8:7-8). Until your children are born again, they are dead in “trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1).
So your top priority as a parent is to be an evangelist in your home. You need to teach your children the law of God, show them their need for a Savior, and point them to Jesus Christ as the only One who can save them. If they grow up in your home without a keen awareness of their need for salvation, you have failed as a parent in your primary task as their spiritual leader. Teach them the gospel and ask God to perform His sovereign work of regeneration.
One word of caution about that — if you try to force, coerce, or manipulate your kids into a profession of faith, you may pressure them into making a false profession. The new birth is a work of the Holy Spirit, and your child’s salvation is a matter that must ultimately be settled between him and God.
Don’t approach parenting by focusing on the symptoms rather than the heart. If you attempt to modify your children’s behavior, isolate them, or bolster their self-esteem, you will not only exacerbate the problem, you will fail to reach to the heart of the matter. But if you teach them about their sin and need for the Savior, and if you live a life that models what you are teaching them to be, you can rest your hope in God’s grace for the salvation of your children.

The John Hagee Controversy By Michael Corley

have received numerous emails over the last week or so regarding a controversy ongoing concerning John Hagee. The San Antonio, Texas based pastor and founder of a large television and radio ministry has been cited recently as making claims in his current book In Defense of Israel that Jesus did not claim to be God’s Messiah for the Jewish people. It has long been said by some that Hagee also promotes “duel covenant theology”, a belief which teaches that Jews can go to heaven simply by keeping the Law of Moses and that conversion to Christianity is not necessary. Hagee however has denied belief in dual-covenant theology, stating so in an official statement to the Jerusalem Post on March 1, 2006.
Another concern of many is the association Hagee has with promoters of the Word of Faith movement. Hagee has had relationships with such notables as Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, Jesse Duplantis and others, even allowing them in the pulpit at Cornerstone Church in San Antonio where Hagee is pastor, and appearing on numerous television broadcasts as well.
For the sake of full disclosure, I want it to be known that I have had a working relationship with John Hagee Ministries since 2004, as Hagee’s daily radio program airs on our station WQBC AM.
Needless to say, I am greatly upset by statements attributed to Rev. Hagee, and I have contacted John Hagee Ministries for a response, and I have invited Hagee to come on our daily radio program to discuss the issue. A representative with the ministry said that Pastor Hagee was not immediately available, but they would relay my requests on to him, including my request for an interview.
While I will wait to get a direct response from John Hagee before I elaborate on these issues, I will go on the record as stating that the comments attributed to Hagee disturb me greatly and are very serious. I want to know more.
I will post details here as they become available. Below is a commercial promoting the book and specifically the statement by Hagee mentioned above.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0K1GEs2gAI&eurl=http://theexpositor.wordpress.com/

Articles on Altar Calls/The Invitation System

A few bloggers at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary have recently began examining Altar Calls/the Invitation System:
Corey Reynolds is questioning the invitation system.
Geoff Baggett has started a series entitled “Altar Call Confusion.”
Part I
Part II
Timmy Brister has two related posts on the topic:
He identified the modern equivalents of Finney’s “New Measures”.
Then he argued how the invitation system undermines evangelism.
[HT:: Said at Southern Seminary]

Why Elder Rule? (Part 2)

The Qualifications of Elders
The character and effectiveness of any church is directly related to the quality of its leadership. That’s why Scripture stresses the importance of qualified church leadership and delineates specific standards for evaluating those who would serve in that sacred position.
The qualifications for elders are found in 1 Timothy 3:2-7 and Titus 1:6-8. According to these passages, an elder must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not addicted to wine, not pugnacious, gentle, uncontentious, free from the love of money, not fond of sordid gain, a good manager of his household, one who has his children under control with dignity, not a new convert, one who has a good reputation outside the church, self-controlled, sensible, able to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict, above reproach as God’s steward, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, loving what is good, just, and devout.
The single, overarching qualification of which the rest are supportive is that he is to be “above reproach.” That is, he must be a leader who cannot be accused of anything sinful because he has a sustained reputation for blamelessness. An elder is to be above reproach in his marital life, his social life, his business life, and his spiritual life. In this way, he is to be a model of godliness so he can legitimately call the congregation to follow his example (Phil. 3:17). All the other qualifications, except perhaps teaching and management skills, only amplify that idea.
In addition, the office of elder is limited to men. First Timothy 2:11-12 says, “Let a woman quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.” In the church, women are to be under the authority of the elders, excluded from teaching men or holding positions of authority over them.
The Functions of Elders
As the apostolic era came to a close, the office of elder emerged as the highest level of local church leadership. Thus, it carried a great amount of responsibility. There was no higher court of appeal and no greater resource to understand the mind and heart of God (as revealed in the Scriptures) with regard to issues in the church.
The primary responsibility of an elder is to serve as a manager and caretaker of the church (1 Tim. 3:5). That involves a number of specific duties. As spiritual overseers of the flock, elders are to determine church policy (Acts 15:22); oversee the church (Acts 20:28); ordain others (1 Tim. 4:4); rule, teach, and preach (1 Tim. 5:17; cf. 1 Thess. 5:12; 1 Tim. 3:2); exhort and refute (Titus 1:9); and act as shepherds, setting an example for all (1 Pet. 5:1-3). Those responsibilities put elders at the core of the New Testament church’s work.
Because of its heritage of democratic values and its long history of congregational church government, modern American evangelicalism often views the concept of elder rule with suspicion. The clear teaching of Scripture, however, demonstrates that the biblical norm for church leadership is a plurality of God-ordained elders, and only by following this biblical pattern will the church maximize its fruitfulness to the glory of God.

'Self-Deceit' Sermons & Heart vs Head Knowledge By Dr. Joel Beeke

Self-esteem messages that do not center upon a triune God would have been viewed by the Puritans as "self-deceit" messages. We have nothing to esteem in ourselves apart from God, the Puritans said. Apart from His grace, we are fallen, wretched, unworthy, and hell-bound. The Puritans were very aware of the deceitfulness of the human heart. Consequently, Puritan evangelists took great pains to identify the marks of grace that distinguish the church from the world, true believers from imposters and merely professing believers, and saving faith from temporary faith. This kind of discriminatory preaching is extremely rare today.
Even in conservative evangelical churches, head knowledge of scriptural truth is often a substitute for heart experience; or, what is equally unscriptural, heart experience is substituted for head knowledge. [Right] preaching calls for both head knowledge and heart experience; its goal, according to John Murray, is "intelligent piety."
From:
Puritan Reformed Spirituality

Why Elder Rule? (Part 1)

Biblically, the focal point of all church leadership is the elder. An elder is one of a plurality of biblically qualified men who jointly shepherd and oversee a local body of believers. The word translated “elder” is used nearly twenty times in Acts and the epistles in reference to this unique group of leaders who have responsibility for overseeing the people of God.
The Office of Elder
As numerous passages in the New Testament indicate, the words “elder” (presbuteros), “overseer” (episkopos), and “pastor” (poimen) all refer to the same office. In other words, overseers and pastors are not distinct from elders; the terms are simply different ways of identifying the same people. The qualifications for an overseer (episkopos) in 1 Timothy 3:1-7, and those for an elder (presbuteros) in Titus 1:6-9 are unmistakably parallel. In fact, in Titus 1, Paul uses both terms to refer to the same man (presbuteros in v. 5 and episkopos in v. 7).
All three terms are used interchangeably in Acts 20. In verse 17, Paul assembles all the elders (presbuteros) of the church of Ephesus to give them his farewell message. In verse 28 he says, “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers [episkopos], to shepherd [poimaino] the church of God.” First Peter 5:1-2 brings all three terms together as well. Peter writes, “Therefore, I exhort the elders [presbuteros] among you, as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed, shepherd [poimaino] the flock of God among you, exercising oversight [episkopeo] not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God.” The different terms, then, indicate various features of ministry, not varying levels of authority or separate offices, as some churches espouse.
A Plurality of Elders
The consistent pattern throughout the New Testament is that each local body of believers is shepherded by a plurality of God-ordained elders. Simply stated, this is the only pattern for church leadership given in the New Testament. Nowhere in Scripture does one find a local assembly ruled by majority opinion or by a single pastor.
The Apostle Paul left Titus in Crete and instructed him to “appoint elders in every city” (Titus 1:5). James instructed his readers to “call for the elders of the church” to pray for those who are sick (James 5:14). When Paul and Barnabas were in Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, they “appointed elders for them in every church” (Acts 14:23). In Paul’s first epistle to Timothy, the apostle referred to “the elders who rule well” at the church at Ephesus (1 Tim. 5:17; see also Acts 20:17, where Paul addresses “the elders of the church” at Ephesus). The book of Acts indicates that there were “elders” at the church in Jerusalem (Acts 11:30; 15:2, 4; 21:18).
Again and again, reference is made to a plurality of elders in each of the various churches. In fact, every place in the New Testament where the term presbuteros (“elder”) is used it is plural, except where the apostle John uses it of himself in 2 and 3 John and where Peter uses it of himself in 1 Peter 5:1. Nowhere in the New Testament is there a reference to a one-pastor congregation. It may be that each elder in the city had an individual group in which he had specific oversight. But the church was seen as one church, and decisions were made by a collective process and in reference to the whole, not the individual parts.
In other passages, reference is made to a plurality of elders even though the word presbuteros itself is not used. In the opening greeting of his epistle to the Philippians, Paul refers to the “overseers [plural of episkopos] and deacons” at the church of Philippi (Phil. 1:2). In Acts 20:28, Paul warned the elders of the church of Ephesus, “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which God has made you overseers [plural of episkopos]” (Acts 20:28). The writer of Hebrews called his readers to obey and submit to the “leaders” who kept watch over their souls (Heb. 13:17). Paul exhorted his Thessalonian readers to “appreciate those who diligently labor among you, and have charge over you in the Lord and give you instruction” (1 Thess. 5:12)—a clear reference to the overseers in the Thessalonian assembly.
Much can be said for the benefits of leadership made up of a plurality of godly men. Their combined counsel and wisdom helps assure that decisions are not self-willed or self-serving to a single individual (cf. Prov. 11:14). If there is division among the elders in making decisions, all the elders should study, pray, and seek the will of God together until consensus is achieved. In this way, the unity and harmony that the Lord desires for the church will begin with those individuals he has appointed to shepherd His flock.
(To Be Completed Tomorrow)

THE SUPREME CLIMB By Oswald Chambers

"Take now thy son ." Genesis 22:2

God's command is - Take now, not presently. It is extraordinary how we debate! We know a thing is right, but we try to find excuses for not doing it at once. To climb to the height God shows can never be done presently, it must be done now. The sacrifice is gone through in will before it is performed actually.
"And Abraham rose up early in the morning and went unto the place of which God had told him" (v. 3). The wonderful simplicity of Abraham! When God spoke, he did not confer with flesh and blood. Beware when you want to confer with flesh and blood, i.e., your own sympathies, your own insight, anything that is not based on your personal relationship to God. These are the things that compete with and hinder obedience to God.
Abraham did not choose the sacrifice. Always guard against self-chosen service for God; self-sacrifice may be a disease. If God has made your cup sweet, drink it with grace; if He has made it bitter, drink it in communion with Him. If the providential order of God for you is a hard time of difficulty, go through with it, but never choose the scene of your martyrdom. God chose the crucible for Abraham, and Abraham made no demur; he went steadily through. If you are not living in touch with Him, it is easy to pass a crude verdict on God. You must go through the crucible before you have any right to pronounce a verdict, because in the crucible you learn to know God better. God is working for His highest ends until His purpose and man's purpose become one.

Questions 7-8 from the Westminster Shorter Catechism. For your Family Devotion today.

Q7: What are the decrees of God?

A7: The decrees of God are, his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his will, whereby, for his own glory, he hath fore-ordained whatsoever comes to pass.[1]
1. Eph. 1:11-12

Q8: How doth God execute his decrees?

A8: God executeth his decrees in the works of creation [1] and providence.[2]
1. Rev. 4:112. Dan. 4:35

Dr. MacArthur on Billy Graham

http://www.youtube.com/swf/l.swf?video_id=mC2WPR7q4pU&eurl=&iurl=http%3A//img.youtube.com/vi/mC2WPR7q4pU/default.jpg&t=OEgsToPDskJkmeq8Q4lxJPIohxETTtco&&rel=1&border=0

R.C. Sproul - The Seeker-Sensitive Movement

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2zvqQ1w-Os&eurl=http://bloodtippedears.blogspot.com/

Reflections on Joel Osteen's Latest Book

Dr. Michael Horton of the White Horse Inn has just published a scholarly treatment of Osteen's new book "Become a Better You". Horton's article documents Osteen's fortune cookie approach to the Holy Scriptures and offers us this assesment of Osteen's religion:
"Make no mistake about it, behind all of the smiles, there is a thorough-going religion of works-righteousness: "God's plan for each of our lives is that we continually rise to new levels. But how high we go in life, and how much of God's favor and blessings we experience, will be directly related to how well we follow His directions." God "is waiting for your obedience so He can release more of His favor and blessings in your life...My question to you is: How high do you want to rise? Do you want to continue to increase? Do you want to see more of God's blessings and favor? If so, the higher we go, the more disciplined we must be; the quicker we must obey." "You don't get the grace unless you step out. You have to make the first move. God will see that step of faith and He'll give you supernatural strength to help you overcome any obstacles standing in the way of doing the right thing...Remember: How high you go in life will be directly related to how obedient your are."
Click Here to Read Horton's Article

Schuller On Sin and Justification

If you want to truly understand the Seeker-Sensitive movement you cannot just look at men like Rick Warren and Bill Hybels. You have to push farther back and look at the man that inspired them to take the church in the direction that they did. That man is Robert Schuller and his ideas still hold sway over far too many of today's "Christian" leaders. These ideas are not about differences in style. They are truly about differences in doctrine and theology.
15 Years ago this month, Robert Schuller appeared on the White Horse Inn radio program and debated Dr. Michael Horton on the topics of sin and justification. During the debate Schuller became so flustered and angry that he stormed out of the studio in a huff. If you've never heard the content of that debate or seen transcripts of it, then you would be wise to take the time to do so because it will help you see the bigger doctrinal and theological differences that are at the heart of the Seeker-Sensitive movement (Both Hybels and Warren are graduates of Schuller's Church Growth Institute) Here is just one of the eye-opening exchanges between Horton and Schuller.
SCHULLER: We are not justified by faith. HORTON: No, it is by grace through faith. SCHULLER: By grace through faith, that's right. HORTON: But what I'm asking is this. Justified from what? The wrath of God? SCHULLER: Oh! I'll never use that language. HORTON: But the Bible does. SCHULLER: Yes, the Bible does, but the Bible is God's book to believers primarily. Listen, and then call me a heretic if you want to, but I'm interested in attracting people, and not driving them farther away. There is language I can and will use and there are times, if we are wise, there is language we will not use....If God is a God of love, how do we handle this concept of wrath? At the outset, on the surface, it appears to be a contradiction; maybe it is. I tell you this, I have come to the conclusion that I haven't stepped into the center of truth until I've dared to step into contradiction. The Bible is a contradiction: Old Testament--Law, New Testament--Grace. Jesus is a contradiction; totally human and totally God. HORTON: Of course we would say that that the dual nature of Christ is a mystery but not a contradiction. SCHULLER: It is a contradiction, but you know what? Contradictions are ultimate points of creativity...
Schuller says that he'll never use the language of justification from the wrath of God. He also completely redefines sin in a way that allows him to 'keep it positive'. Compare what Schuller is saying to the points I made about Biblically necessary components of a true conversion in this article and this article. Based upon Shuller's defiant refusal to discuss sin and its consequences as it pertains to God's wrath and judgement, it is completely appropriate to ask whether or not this approach, regardless of who is employing it is producing true converts to Christianity. We already know that it isn't making disciples.
To read more of the transcript from Shuller's debate with Dr. Michael Horton click here

Schuller Attacking Expository Bible Teaching

Here is a fine videohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE2WMLK_q6M&eurl=http://www.extremetheology.com/2007/11/schuller-attack.html that gives us a taste of the man-centered message of the Grandfather of the Seeker-Sensitive Movement. Note Schuller's attack on Expository Bible Teaching. Schuller's belief that Expository Bible Teaching is a hinderance to evangelism and must be removed from the church is echoed in the teachings of Rick Warren and Bill Hybels. Both men are disciples of Robert Schuller and his ministry is very happy to be able to share that fact with the world. See this article, this article and this article .

Prophecy Not Intended To Be a Crystal Ball By Chad V.

This is a great post from Chad V. On Eschatology. I agree with Chad that the Bible is very clear on the fact that the church will persever through the tribulation. Rev. C.J. Paul

Some of the readers on Old Truth had asked me some time ago to write a post on eschatology and I've thought quite a bit about the best way to approach such a subject. Eschatology can be a difficult and complicated topic and to hope to cover it thoroughly in a blog post is totally unrealistic. This will not be an exhaustive dissertation on the subject but a very brief overview. I hold to my view rather strongly and though many Christians disagree about these things there is no reason why disagreement on such a matter should be a reason for lack of fellowship and charity towards one another. The scripture dogmatically teaches the visible and glorious return of the Lord Jesus Christ. It teaches that to those outside of Christ his coming will be as a thief in the night, they will be terrified. To those in Christ his coming will be as in the day time, we will be ready for him. We will be comforted by seeing our Savior and shall glorify him.
In my time in a Dispensational church, Pre-Tribulational Premillenialism was considered the only orthodox view of the last things and to disagree with such a view was tantamount with having a very defective theology. Indeed to entertain any other eschatology was considered extremely dangerous. It was thought that those who forsook the rapture of the church before the tribulation forsook a great comfort for their hope. Indeed the rapture of the Church before the tribulation was repeatedly preached as our great and blessed hope. I have to admit that I find such a thought strange, as I read the bible I see the church persevering through the tribulation.
What follows is a very brief explanation as to why I am an Amillenialist. In this format I couldn't possibly cover everything that lead me to this view but I will try to hit the highlights. Note also that I do not say that you must agree to my view of eschatology to be a mature and faithful Christian, but I would urge you, if your hope is in the rapture it may be misplaced. I have met people who would say that if it weren't for the pretribulational rapture of the church then we would have no hope. Your hope should be in Christ who will sustain you and keep you by his grace even through the worst of trials, sufferings and tribulation. Some one said that if we have a right understanding of Israel then we will have a right understanding of eschatology, and I am inclined to agree. Our understanding of the relationship between Israel and the Church will be greatly clarified if we understand verses like Gal 3:29; And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise. If we are Abraham's offspring then all of the promises made to Israel are ours as well. Since we know that those who are truly Israel are those born of Isaac, those born of the promise (Rom 9:6-9) then this rigid dichotomy that Dispensationalism has placed between the Church and Israel must be false. The bible says quite plainly, in Rom 9:6-7 For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring. So you see, it's not being Jewish nationally that make you an Israelite, but being born of the Spirit of God that makes you a true Israelite. This is not to say that God is finished with the Jews, he most certainly is not and Romans 11 makes that perfectly clear and it should be the desire of all Christians to see Jews converted to Christ. However, I must reject the notion of a renewal of an earthly Jewish theocracy, that is the Old Covenant which is done away with and cannot be brought back. The New Covenant, which is better, is now in place (Heb 8), and in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek (Gal 3:29).We know that there are all of these prophecies in the Old Testament that have yet to be fulfilled and the common cry is that since we are to interpret the bible literally then these prophecies must be fulfilled literally as written. I have to say that such a view is overly simplistic and seems to reveal a certain amount of ignorance as to the way prophecies are often fulfilled. Prophecy is often fulfilled in a way which is not readily apparent given the way it is written.So, let me give you an example of a prophecy that was fulfilled in way you would not quite expect. Malachi 4:5-6 "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction." It sure sounds like Elijah must literally return. The fulfillment if this prophecy is not what you might expect from reading the text on it's own. Notice in Luke 1:16-17 Gabriel the angel quotes this very passage to Zechariah in reference to John the Baptist. "And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared." And in Matthew 17 Christ himself tells us that John the Baptist fulfills this prophecy. "And the disciples asked him, "Then why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come?" He answered, "Elijah does come, and he will restore all things. But I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they pleased. So also the Son of Man will certainly suffer at their hands." Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist."So for those who claim that since a prophecy written in Ezekiel or Daniel must have a literal fulfillment would do well to consider the example above. Those prophecies will be fulfilled, but I think not as you would expect. Now then, let me give you some reasons as to why I am Amillenial. When I go to the doctrinal passages, the didactic passages of the New Testament I cannot find any mention of a millennial reign of Christ over a Jewish state on the earth before the final judgment. It's never mentioned, not once, not even in the Olivet Discourse. Christ speaks of tribulation such as the world has never seen, he speaks of final judgment, but of an earthly millennial reign over a Jewish Theocracy, he doesn't say a word. In fact, Christ's words on his kingdom in other parts of the Gospels are in direct opposition to a 1,000 year earthly reign. In John 18:36 he says; "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world." It's also worth noting that none of the epistles ever mention a millennial reign of Christ either. Both Paul and Peter who both deal with the coming of Christ and the end of the world rather extensively never mention an earthly reign over a Jewish state. I know what you're saying right about now, "What about Revelation 20?" Well, I'm getting to that, but I think it's important to first say a few things about the book of Revelation in general.Now, we all know that we must interpret the bible literally, but there is a common misconception of what the word "literal" means. The Reformed doctrine is sensus literalis. It does not mean that we seek to render each word with its most literal meaning. It means simply this; we must interpret the bible according to each part of the bible's own literary style or genre. We do not interpret didactic portions of Romans the same way we interpret the book of Proverbs, or poetic passages in Isaiah. To read the Revelation literally the same way you read a history book on World War II literally would be silly. With this in mind let's look very briefly at the book of Revelation. The book of Revelation is written in a literary style known as apocalyptic literature. Apocalyptic means in the Greek "to uncover or reveal". It was a very common and widely popular literary style between the years 200 B.C. and 150 A.D. and was still in common use as late as 350 A.D. and the readers of the Revelation in John's day would have well understood this literary style. Apocalyptic literature is highly symbolic. We have a woman riding a beast, a dragon that rises out of the ocean and so on. As with all apocalyptic literature numbers are not typically interpreted according to their mathematical sums. They will typically represent something more significant. For example, the twenty four elders in Revelation 4:4 are not 24 people, they are representative of the entirety of the redeemed people of God from both the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 apostles, i.e. Old and New Testament believers. In chapter 4 verse 5 we see seven spirits of God but this does not destroy our doctrine of the Trinity. So with this in mind there is no reason to think that in Revelation 20 the thousand years is an actual one thousand years. To think it was would be highly inconsistent. It is also important to notice that it is addressed to the seven churches in Asia (1:4). That means that what is written there was intended for them as well as for us. It is the only book of the bible that begins and ends with a blessing to those who read it and keep it's words (1:3 and 22:7). That meant that the people in those seven churches were to understand and keep all that this book said to them. It was to be of immediate relevance to John's contemporaries. We see this in the very first verse; "The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants." Unlike the book of Daniel which ends with a sealing up of the prophecies contained in it the Revelation is opened to all those who read it. Therefore, any interpretation that lies beyond the original reader's frame of reference is highly suspect. The Revelation is steeped in Old Testament symbolism and understanding that symbolism is the key to understanding the Revelation. In other words, we let the bible interpret the bible, not current events. Of the 404 verses in Revelation, 278 of them contain references to the Old Testament scriptures. If you want to know what the mark on the forehead in chapter 13 verse 16 is then compare it to Deuteronomy 6:8. The mark of the beast is not a tattoo or a micro chip in one's forehead, it represents total submission to the antichrist and submission to the world's system. In other words, if you are a person who rejects Christ, this represents you right now. Another key thing to note concerning the Revelation is that it repeats the events revealed in it cyclically and viewed from different perspectives. For example, we see final judgment described in chapters 6, 7, 9, 11, 14, and 19. We see the persecution of the people of God described throughout most of the middle chapters. We see the eternal state and the new heavens and the new earth in chapter 5:10 and in chapters 21 and 22. We do not see described even once in the entire book what the millennial kingdom is supposed to look like. The events described in Revelation 20 verses 1-6 are simply yet another view of the events described in Rev 12:7-11. In other words, the thousand years describes Christ's present rule from Heaven and his casting down and binding of Satan. Satan is indeed bound even now for Christ has disarmed all principalities and powers having put them to open shame by triumphing over them (Col 2:15). Remember, whole point of Peter's sermon in Acts 2 was that Jesus is the Christ and rules his kingdom right now from his throne. If you're studying the Revelation with an eye towards predicting the future then you are missing its point entirely. Revelation is Christ's revelation of himself. The book contains all of the key doctrines of the Gospel including the deity and son ship of Christ, the three persons of the Godhead, Christ's offices, the fallen state of man, justification and reconciliation by the blood of Christ, the rise and fall of Antichrist and the condition of Christ's church in the world until the end of time, and depictions of the eternal state. In reading the Revelation you should be persuaded that faithfulness to the gospel is of the utmost importance. We see that there is no room for those who compromise the gospel. There are over comers (Rev. 12:11), the true followers of Jesus Christ who are faithful to the gospel even to their death. There are also the earth dwellers (Rev 17), those who are bound to this world's system and philosophy, those who belong to the Dragon. Upon reading this book you will find out which side you belong to. You will be assured that Christ is coming back to execute judgment on those who oppose him and to gather those that are his to himself. The Revelation should encourage you that although you may suffer for Christ's name you do not suffer in vain. Christ will reward those who are faithful to the end. You are to be encouraged, you are to be motivated to further holiness looking for that appearing of our Savior, not because you are afraid of being caught unprepared because he might appear any minute, that is a sort of servile fear that even the unbelieving have. Our motivation to holiness is to come from the fact that nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Prophecy in scripture is never intended to give us a sort of crystal ball in order to predict the details of specific events in the future. A lot of ink has been spilled in trying to predict the details of the events surrounding the rapture of the church and the return of Christ. A brief survey of the last 150 years will expose numerous attempts at this that have without exception met with failure. Prophecy is redemptive revelation. Its purpose is to point men to Christ and to comfort those who are washed in the blood of the Lamb. No matter what our view of the millennium is, we do well to keep this in mind.

Joel Osteen's Board Game

If you haven't seen Joel Osteen's Game, then please take some time to familiarize yourself with it. To get the full effect, we strongly recommend that you take the time to read the games instructions. (Yes these are the real instructions. This is not satire)
The principles taught in this game as well as Osteen's books are all obsessed with self and success. These ideas will send many people to hell BUT the good news is that they'll feel better about themselves for whatever little time they have left before they die.

The Gospel and Personal Evangelism Review by Jesse Johnson

The Gospel and Personal Evangelism (by Mark Dever, Crossway 2007)


Mark Dever says that he does not have the gift of evangelism, and that he often misses opportunities to evangelize. In fact, he even fears that if evangelism was graded, he might get an “F.”
This makes him a strange candidate to write a book on evangelism. However, The Gospel and Personal Evangelism is one of the more helpful and encouraging books on the subject. It goes significantly beyond his material on evangelism in his other books, and I am thankful for his labor here.
To be a good book on evangelism the essential elements of motives, message, and method all must be addressed. Dever covers these in a way that is encouraging and not condemning. It is more difficult to be long and convoluted than concise and clear. While it is easy to be comprehensive, it is often more difficult to be direct. This book is just over 100 pages, and yet it is not lacking. It is clear and compelling.
Dever explains what the Gospel is, who should evangelize, why they should, and why they don’t. He uses appropriate Scripture and yet does not get bogged down in tangential doctrine. His points are illustrated with experiences from his own life, used as examples of both success and failure.
Dever paints a view of evangelism that is Biblical. He sees evangelism as something you live—that is backed by your lifestyle—as well as something that is spoken. He stresses the importance of clearly proclaiming the essentials of the Gospel, and he also stresses the importance of doing this in a conversation. “Don’t tell people something; talk with them. Have a conversation.”
One of the most helpful sections is where Dever discusses the contextualization of the Gospel. This is a word that has been recently hijacked by the emergent church movement, but Dever rescues it. He defines “contextualization” as explaining the Gospel “in such a way as to be understood.” He adds that rightly understood, contextualization should “give the Gospel more bite, not less.”
There is an appendix in the book, a few pages long, that deals with pastors and the particular opportunities and hindrances to evangelism that are unique to their occupation.
All Christians are called to evangelize, even if they are not particularly gifted. Many, if not most, Christians do poorly at this task. This book is an excellent tool to help Christians who recognize their insufficiency to be faithful in our task.
“The call to evangelism is a call to turn our lives outward from focusing on ourselves and our needs to focusing on God and on others made in his image who are still at enmity with him, alienated from him, and in need of salvation from sin and guilt.” This book helps us with our calling.

Watch this Very Carefully..........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axxlXy6bLH0&eurl=http://theexpositor.wordpress.com/

When a person is drawn unto the Son by the Father for Salvation yes they by all means know and act it.

Our Lord Himself said My Sheep KNOW MY VOICE.........

Here at truth matters we are asking for clarification from the Billy Graham ministry on his comments made with Robert shuller. If none are received then we will take him at this statement. That is in itself very clear.

Jesus Wants You To Learn "How to Be Rich and Have Everything You Ever Wanted"

This videohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTYIv8Y-uCA&eurl=http://www.alittleleaven.com/2007/11/index.html is a commercial for the "Reverend" Robert Tilton's book entitled "How to Be Rich and Have Everything You Ever Wanted". This book promises to teach the "secret" to attaining riches.
Luckily for you, we here at a the Museum of Idolatry have seen this book and know the "secret" that Tilton's book teaches. In an act of pure selflessness we are going to share the "secret" with you and we won't charge you for this important information. Are you ready? Here is the secret:
You can be rich and have everything you ever wanted, by simply sending Robert Tilton some money — $100 is the lowest suggested "Prove-God offering".
Isn't that easy?
Don't you love it when people turn the gospel of Jesus Christ into a get rich quick scheme?

The Role of the Pastor

There is a beautiful flowing of submission and authority within the Godhead. The Holy Spirit is in submission to the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is in submission to God the Father, and yet they are all in submission to each other and flow in unity. You see, there can be submission and unity at the same time. Submission only works among equals.
In the home it is the same way. The father is the head of the home. If the children don't agree with him, they still submit to his authority. If he exercises that authority in line with God's Word, then he will be operating in godly wisdom and will deserve the respect of his children and wife. But if he is a tyrant, he will be able to command only obedience.
Obedience without submission is slavery. In the end, he will defeat and destroy his own position. If the husband is making every effort to fulfill his role as head of the home, the wife needs to let him make his mistakes when he gets bullheaded. Do not try to usurp his authority. Counsel and love him, but let him learn the hard way a time or two. He'll come to value your wisdom and sensitivity.
Let's look at the human body in this light too. If a hand didn't respond to the orders of the head, it would soon become apparent that the hand was sick or in trouble. The body would do everything it could to find out how to locate the problem and solve it. Things just wouldn't be right in the body without that hand. Isn't it interesting that in the human body there is never rebellion against the head? There may be sickness in the body, but there is never rebellion.
In the principle of authority and submission, authority works only when someone submits. Authority does not even exist when there is no one to receive it. That is why when there is rebellion where authority has been established, frustration and anxiety result.
What happens in rebellion? Why is God so opposed to rebellion? It is satan's sin. It is as the sin of witchcraft. Rebellion causes one of two things to happen. The person in the position of authority either loses his authority, or he tries to exert his authority with force. When the latter happens the person in submission either will crack and come under authority against his will, or will rebel even more.
Do you see that rebellion at the bottom causes more pressure from the top? It becomes a vicious circle until something gives. Anarchy results. That's why God's system of authority is never based on force but on love and submission - all members being in submission to each other, no one acting except out of love or regard for another member.
Christ LOVES the church and GAVE HIS LIFE FOR IT. Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church and as they love their own bodies. Have you ever seen a man cutting up his body for pleasure? Not if he's sane. Have you ever seen a man disregard the least little scratch in his body? And the head exercises the same concern for each member of the body.
In these analogies we find the principle that makes God's authority work in the local church. The pastor exercises his authority in the love of God. He cares for the people. There is the same flowing of authority and submission in the local body of Christ as there is in the human body, in a marriage, and in the universal church.
God tells us in I Corinthians 12:21 that Christ, the head of the body, needs every part of His body. So husbands, never think you don't need your wife or her counsel. God gave her to you to make you complete. Pastors, never take the attitude that you don't need every member of your congregation. Sheep, never think you don't need the shepherd or pastor God has set in the church for you. He's there to help you in the things of God.
We have already seen that the office of the pastor is chosen by God. God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ choose men as pastors (I Cor. 12:28, Eph. 4:8, 11). Now let's see what pastors do, and what each of the offices under the pastor does. Let us first look at the Greek words for each of the offices we are going to study and see what they mean.
The word for pastor is poimen and it means a shepherd. The pastor is the one who appoints elders, and the word for elder is presbuteros, meaning someone who is mature. The office of an elder requires more than just being mature in the Word. We'll discuss his qualifications later.
The word for bishop is episkopos, which is a compound word in the Greek. It comes from epi- meaning over, and skopos meaning to view or to see. It is self-explanatory, meaning an overseer. The last office in the local church is that of the deacon, which comes from the word diakonos, meaning to minister.
The Pastor
God didn't use the title pastor or shepherd without purpose. The first quality about a pastor is that he is the leader. He heads his flock and makes decisions concerning them. His main function is to find pasture for them. He teaches them the Word of God. He may not be smart in every area of church operations, but he is gifted with a teaching ability. He needs to spend much time in the Word and prayer to Feed his gift and mature in his office.
Every pastor should be aware that many in his congregation are more intelligent in some areas than he is. Many of them have great expertise in natural fields and can benefit him through counsel. He must remain teachable. Some of them may even be more mature in the Word than he is. But if he leans on the anointing that accompanies his office, he can always successfully fill his place as pastor and leader of the flock. The abilities of the Holy Spirit accompany every ministry gift. (Rom. 11:29)
Now let's look at some scriptures that deal with the office of the pastor. Let's begin with I Peter 5:1-4:
The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed: Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.
Did you notice that the word pastor isn't mentioned here? So you may ask, how do we know we're discussing a pastor? By context. Peter begins by exhorting the elders. Notice, that it's plural. Peter also points out that he is an elder presbuteros. In verse two, however, he says feed the flock of God. Immediately we know he's talking about pastors, because the Greek word here for feed is poimen (pastor or shepherd). So verse two should read, "Shepherd the flock of God which is among you."
Who is the shepherd? The pastor. In this passage then, we have Peter calling the pastor an elder. That makes sense. The pastor should be mature in the Word of God, in spiritual matters. You wouldn't want someone without maturity in the pastorate of your church.
What you have to understand in the Word of God is that the term elder is quite freely used for the office of pastor. The context indicates that. When the pastor is called an elder, he is clearly different from the other elders. He stands as the chief elder.
The next indication that Peter is addressing pastors is found in the phrase, "taking the oversight." The word oversight is episkopos: bishopric. There is only one person who can take the oversight of God's flock. He is the pastor, the one chosen by God.
The significant thing about Peter's instruction, however, is that he's telling the pastor that he has to take the initiative. We should see that God is putting the responsibility for leadership on the pastor's shoulders. The pastor doesn't say, "Lord, let the congregation know this or that." God speaks to the pastor and tells him what the congregation should hear. But notice that the instruction is a command. Take the oversight. He's telling the pastor to have some gumption, to take the leadership of the church.
But there are some qualifications given to this charge. First, the pastor is to take the office willingly rather than by constraint. Constraint here means of necessity. A pastor should never take his position because he feels he has to. When God calls a pastor, he gives him a pastor's heart, the desire to help people spiritually.
So the next qualification has to do with the man's motives. He's not to take the pastor's office for filthy lucre. This means money isn't to be his reason for accepting the job. Some people might think a pastor shouldn't make much money. I'll show you from the Word of God that he ought to be paid well for dedicating himself to his calling.
The next instruction is very important. The pastor isn't to be a dictator: ". . . neither as being lords over God's heritage." Look at that carefully. Whose heritage? God's. How is one to be over the flock? As an example. That's what ensamples means. A pastor leads, and he doesn't tell his congregation to do anything he wouldn't do himself, both by word and deed.
One of the beautiful things this passage in I Peter 5 shows is the chain of command in the local church. Notice that verse four says that when the chief shepherd, who is Jesus, appears He will reward the pastor. The word for shepherd is poimen. So Jesus identifies himself with the pastor. But in the same way, notice that the pastor is called an elder and, by implication in verse two, a bishop also. If Jesus is called the chief shepherd, then the pastor ought to be called the chief elder and the chief bishop in the local church. Jesus is a pastor, but not all pastors are Jesus. The pastor is an elder, but not all elders (or bishops) are the pastor. A pastor must maintain the qualities of those below him.
Let's look at the pastor's heart again. "Neither as being lords over God's heritage." Whose heritage? God's. Go back to verse two:"…feed the flock of God ..." It should be clear that the pastor doesn't own the flock in any sense; he merely has responsibility over it. Moses watched Jethro's sheep. He was the shepherd, but the sheep belonged to Jethro. For the pastor who understands that, it's a great freedom. The sheep belong to God. The pastor always has recourse to the owner. He can always talk to the owner about the sheep and their problems. The owner will take care of the things the shepherd can't handle.
In the local congregation it also is clear that the people do not ultimately answer to the pastor; they answer to God. He owns the sheep. The pastor's responsibility is to admonish and to feed from the Word of God. Once the people walk out the door, whether or not they live the Word is their responsibility. That doesn't mean the pastor has no concern for them, he simply can't dictate to them. He can encourage and exhort them, but he can't watch over their lives. Have you ever seen people suddenly stop talking when a pastor walks into the room? If you talk about things you wouldn't want the pastor to hear, then you ought to remember that the "chief pastor," the Lord Jesus Christ hears every word you say. He never leaves you nor forsakes you.
To further validate what we saw in I Peter, let's look to Paul for another scripture where the pastor is called an elder. In Acts 20:17-28, Paul meets with the elders of Ephesus. In verse 17 we read this:
And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the church.
The reason that elders is plural and Ephesus is singular is that there weremany churches in Ephesus. The churches are not like they are today. They were not large congregations. Most of them met in homes. We know these elders are pastors from what Paul says to them in verse 28:
Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.
Now several things ought to be leaping out at you for their similarity to what Peter said. First, who made these elders to be overseers? The Holy Spirit did. Therefore, Paul has to be addressing pastors, because the mere office of a bishop is something a man aspires to (I Tim. 3:1 ). It isn't a ministry gift given by the Lord Jesus Christ (Eph. 4:11).

We see here that the pastor is called the overseer in his congregation. Accordingly, he has authority over all the elders and bishops under him and is the one who chooses them.

The final evidence in this verse is that Paul said to feed the flock of God. The word feed is the word poimen - to pastor. Again, the flock belongs to God. The purchase price is the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whoever purchases, owns.

Born Dead By Steven Newell

When you were born, what was your spiritual condition towards God:
Neutral
Alive
Dead

The only biblical answer is 3: Dead!
Born Dead to God

Paul clearly stated that we were all spiritually dead in our sin in Ephesians 2:1-3
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.
We are in this state because we are born sinners due to Adam’s sin (Romans 5:12) and we cannot change this condition. This is our spiritual DNA.
Even David understood this (Psalms 51:5)
“Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”
As a dead corpse cannot make themselves physically alive, we cannot make ourselves spiritually alive. No matter how good we try to act, whatever we try to do to please God, we cannot affect our condition.
God Makes Us Alive
Since we cannot change our spiritual condition, then God is the only one who can change us.
Paul continues in Ephesians 2:4-5
But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
Nowhere is our decision part of making us alive.
In John’s Gospel, John writes this in the first chapter
Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.
Born Again
One of the great “evangelical” questions is “Are you born again?” The problem with this question is that it can place the focus on the individual and not on God. Many people will answer this question by saying “I accepted Christ on . . .” The problem with this type of answer is that no one chose to be born again just as no one chose to be born physically. If you are a Christian, you are born again since all Christians are born again.
In Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus states (John 3:1-8)
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, "Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him."
In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."
"How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!"
Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."
We see that Jesus states that it is the Spirit that gives birth to our spirit. Nowhere is our decision part of this birthing process. Why is that? We are not spiritual alive but dead. This is no difference from our physical birth since no one can claim that it was their decision that led to their birth. Nicodemus did not understand what Jesus was telling him. Nicodemus was reviewing salvation as something he must do while Jesus was telling him that there was nothing he could do to be saved, it was 100% God's doing.
God’s Word Gives Life
So if we cannot make a decision, then why do we see people “making a decision” for Christ in the Bible? What gives life in God’s word? In Romans 10:14-15, Paul writes that it is the hearing of Gospel that gives one the ability to call on the name of the Lord. Through the book of Acts, people’s ability to respond to the Gospel is always preceded by the proclamation of the Gospel. What they take for "making decision" is actually their responding to what God has already done.
In Peter's proclamation of the Gospel to Cornelius' household, the Holy Spirit came down on those who heard the message (Acts 10:44). Later, the Apostles stated that it was God who gave the Gentiles that ability to repent (Acts 11:18). Our ability to repent is a gift of God.
The Role of “Free Will”
Many Christians state that we have the ability to “ask Jesus into our hearts”. As we have seen, scripture describes our condition as being dead to God. At best, we can state that our nature will reject God’s grace since we are all enemies of God. Our reconciliation with God occurred on the cross when we were still enemies to God. We contribute nothing to our salvation, including the ability to accept what God has done for us. God must give us the ability to believe. Even our faith is a gift of God (Ephesians 2:8-9).
The most common verse many quote is Revelation 3:20: “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” This is a misapplication of this verse. If you look carefully at the context of this passage you will find that Christ is talking to believers, not to non-believers.
In the end, we must accept the fact that we are dead in our natural condition. It is the act of God that even gives us the ability to believe. It is the proclamation of the Gospel that gives life. That's how God works.