Now, this is something I’d like to see on the cover of a Sunday Bulletin sometime…
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| EPrata photo |
Month: June 2014
The rapture!
This is one of the biblical passages that teach us the great doctrine of the rapture:
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).
Let’s encourage one another with these words! How do we do that? I’m sure you have your ideas, but one way is simply to speak of this beautiful doctrine frequently. We must not be uninformed.
S. Lewis Johnson, who taught a pretribulation rapture, said of the text,
“Then last time in our study we took a look at the calendar of future events. I hope we found it. I know it is exciting and thrilling, moving from the coming apostasy in the church — a measure that is already with us — through the advent of the Lord Jesus to the eternal state. We who are believers surely have a great hope – I’m not at all sure that we speak of it too much – in fact probably under the influence of criticism we do not speak of our heavenly hope enough.”
The rapture is getting such a terrible knock these days, and in some, it actually sparks anger! Johnson made that statement in 1976 that due to criticism sometimes we are too gun-shy to speak of it, and look at the growing apostasy now in 2014 and the anger and fervent hatred the doctrine brings up, even among “brethren”. An example of it happened to me just yesterday.
This man named Justin W. White, who in his bio says he “loves theology”, tweeted a response to my tweet regarding the Southern Baptist Convention’s resolution to affirm that God-ordained gender is God’s will and it’s sin to change it (RE: transgenderism). I’d not mentioned rapture AT ALL, but in his response, he brought it up and used profanity too.
- #SBC14 opposes “Heaven Is For Real” because it is non-scriptural, but they buy into a literal rapture? Yeah. about that.
- I replied, “Because heaven tourism isn’t biblical, but rapture is. (no the English word ‘rapture’ isn’t in the bible, but the concept is)“
- He answered: “the rapture is not a historical/orthodox doctrine of the church. It is modern bs made to scare people into moralism.”
I seriously wonder how someone could be a Christian and NOT be comforted by the promises that Jesus is coming soon to gather His church to Himself!
How beautiful are the doctrines of His second return. Though the rapture isn’t the Second Coming per se, it is a doctrine of last things which precedes His second and final return to earth to judge the living and the dead. He will call us up to Himself and we will always be with the Lord. How encouraging to look forward to!
John 14:1-3 says,
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; a believe also in me. 2In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?b 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”
Just reading those words are so very comforting. Knowing that the Lord is preparing a place for us, that He is returning for us, that He will resurrect our loved ones alive and dead, and bring up the ancient saints who died even during the apostolic age, that we will be given our glorified (sinless!!) bodies, that we will be with Him…there are so many encouraging things to look forward to!
S. Lewis Johnson, who taught a pretribulation rapture, said,
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| Lake Como: Garden, Villa Arconati, 1905 |
“The doctrine of the rapture of the church is an important doctrine for us. I say doctrine that suggests for us faithfulness in service. It should be a motive and incentive to give ourselves to devotion to the Lord Jesus. It should also have tremendous motivation in evangelistic activity. I refer to our own personal testimony. It also should be a comforting doctrine.”
There is an old story about a man who visited the Villa Ara Connate in Italy. He saw the gardener. The grounds were kept in beautiful shape, speaking to the gardener he said, “When does the owner of this villa come here?”
He said, “Well, I’ve been working here for 20 years, and he’s only been here four times.”
“When was the last time that he was here?”
“12 years ago.”
“Who takes charge? To whom do you report?”
He said, “I report to a steward in Milan.”
“Why, you keep these gardens as if you were expecting the owner tomorrow.”
And the gardener replied, “Today, sir. Today.”
“That really is the kind of attitude provoked by the doctrine of the rapture of the church as the next significant prophetic event. I think that on balance the Scriptures teach that the Lord Jesus to come again for the church imminently, and that we have reason from Scripture to look for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and savior Jesus Christ.”
So this great prophetic message has tremendous moral value. We should never think of the doctrines of the word of God with reference to the future as simply doctrines that tickle our curiosity. They are doctrines that are designed to affect our spiritual life. They are designed to make us more moral, more spiritual, more Christian in all of our activity. ~S. Lewis Johnson
“…to be with the Lord.” Now, THAT is heaven. Do not let satan steal your hope. Do not let criticism suppress your encouragement of the brethren. Do not let liberal seminaries forget to teach this important doctrine. Do not be shushed in church.
“knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.” (2 Peter 3:3)As one of the commenters said, “Their very scoffing shall confirm the truth of the prediction.”
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Further Reading:
J. Vernon McGee: The Rapture is Next
John MacArthur: The Rapture (14-min video explaining the rapture & why it is pre-trib)
Tender moments in the bible
There are so many powerful moments in the bible. Where does one begin? Genesis 1, God creates everything, are verses that are awesome to ponder. The resurrection, when Jesus emerged from the tomb alive. God is all-powerful.
There are thunderous moments too. When Mt Sinai trembles, when God was in the earthquake, when He split the ground under Korah and closed it back up again. God is to be feared.
But there are tender moments too. The God of thunder and wrath and all-power is so tender!! I’m not one of these who believes the wrathful God is the Old Testament turned into the sensitive (“boyfriend”) Jesus of the New Testament. Read Revelation and you see it is the same God of wrath and anger against unrighteousness and sin. In the Old Testament (as well as the New), there are very tender moments which show us our Holy God is everything. He is simply everything good- including tenderness.
In Genesis 21:15-19, slave girl Hagar had been misused by Sarah (and Abraham). She and her son Ismael ran away to the wilderness, and there, thirsty, alone, and weak, they prepared to die.
When the water in the skin was gone, she put the child under one of the bushes. 16Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot, for she said, “Let me not look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Up! Lift up the boy, and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation.” Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.
“God heard“, “The Angel of God” [Jesus] called to her from heaven. He assured her. He made promises to her. He opened her eyes so she could drink. What direct, intimate ministration from Holy God in heaven!
In 1 Kings 19:4-8, we see tender ministrations again. Poor Elijah, downcast, alone, and fearing for his life. He, like Hagar, ran to the desert and wanted to die.
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| Elijah in the wilderness, by Washington Allston, 1817 |
But did God let Elijah stay that way? No
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| Ferdinandus Bol, 1660, Elijah Fed By An Angel |
But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” And he lay down and slept under a broom tree. And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, “Arise and eat.” And he looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. And he ate and drank and lay down again. And the angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, “Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.” And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.
The angel touched Elijah! He had prepared food for Elijah! He comforted Elijah, and gave him direction and hope. God is so good to us. He does that for us today.
In Matthew 4 we read that Jesus was in the desert 40 days and nights, alone, fasting, and tempted by satan. At the end of the trial, it says in Matthew 4:11,
“Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.”
One might say, ‘Well, of course God would send angels to minister to His Son!’ but perhaps the ministering angels who ministered to Jesus are also some of the same ones who minister to us? Just think on it! Overall, it is to His glory that he is so involved with His people, that ministration is a regular part of His interaction with us!
His ministration with sinful man began at the Garden after the Fall. He personally covered Adam and Eve
Genesis 3:21 says, “And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.”
The God who had just made the Universe, and upholds it by power of His will and His voice, personally made garments for his rebellious children, and wrapped them. I picture a child throwing a tantrum, and saying all sorts of things to his father, including, “No! I don’t wanna! I hate you!” But after the storm is over and the timeout is finished, the father gives the boy a bath, wipes his tear-stained face, and wraps him in a towel. He holds him close to herself, his sniffles diminishing as the very heartbeat of the one who created him him and feeds him and cares for him saturates the boy’s heart and mind, and eventually his brow unfurrows and his face becomes angelic, and he drifts off to sleep, still in his father’s arms.
That is our God. Holy and Fearful, but a caring Father, holding us in His arms until the storm passes by and our rebellion subsides. He is tender. One day, there will be no more tantrums, and no more rebellion. We will love our Father perfectly and completely, just as He loves us now. What a day that will be.
Southern Baptist Convention resolves that heaven tourism books & movies are antithetical to scripture
Today at the Southern Baptist Convention 2014, as Jason Smathers wrote in his report “The Bible is Sufficient to Know Heaven is Real“
“Southern Baptists declare afterlife books and movies to be “antithetical to Scripture.”
While choosing not to name any book or movie in particular, following the huge success of books and movies like Heaven is For Real, 90 Minutes in Heaven, and 23 Minutes in Hell, the messengers to the 2014 Southern Baptist Convention has addressed the issue through a resolution which states these accounts cannot be corroborated, are self contradictory and are antithetical to Scripture.
The resolution can be read below.”
Please read through the resolution, which I heartily applaud, and then read my questions at the bottom.
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RESOLUTION
ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF SCRIPTURE REGARDING THE AFTERLIFE
WHEREAS, There have been numerous books and movies purporting to explain or describe the afterlife experience; and
WHEREAS, These books and movies have had a considerable impact as seen in the best seller lists and high box office receipts; and
WHEREAS, Many of these books and movies have sought to describe heaven from a subjective, experiential source, mainly via personal testimonies that cannot be corroborated; and
WHEREAS, Many of these are not unified and contain details that are antithetical to Scripture; and
WHEREAS, Many devout and well-meaning people allow these to become their source and basis for an understanding of the afterlife rather than scriptural truth; and
WHEREAS, Though the Scriptures include explicit accounts of persons raised from the dead, such as Jairus’ daughter, the widow of Nain’s son, and Lazarus, in God’s perfect revelatory wisdom, He has not given us any report of their individual experience in the afterlife (Deuteronomy 29:29; Mark 5:21–43; Luke 7:11–17; John 11:35–44); and
WHEREAS, The Apostle Paul wrote about “a man in Christ” who was caught up “into the third heaven” who “heard inexpressible words” that “a man is not allowed to speak” (2 Corinthians 12:1–4); and
WHEREAS, The doctrines of the afterlife are critical to a full understanding of salvation and repentance (Luke 16:29–31; John 3:16–18); now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, June 10–11, 2014, reaffirm the sufficiency of biblical revelation over subjective experiential explanations to guide one’s understanding of the truth about heaven and hell.
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Here are my hypothetical WHEREAS’ questions: Will the following happen now that the largest Protestant denomination in the US has made a public declaration and resolution regarding the unscriptural nature of heaven tourism and its cunning destabilization of the doctrine of the sufficiency of scripture?
WHEREAS, will SBC churches finally stop inviting Don Piper, author of 90 Minutes in Heaven, to preach at their churches with his ‘experiential witness’ at the center of his sermons?
WHEREAS, Jim Hammond, former youth minister at First Baptist Church in Fort Stockton, Texas was fired last week because he stood up for biblical truth and had concerns about Piper preaching at his church,
WHEREAS, Pastor Hammond, according to Pastor Justin Peters, “his wife, and two young children will now have to vacate the church parsonage which had been there home and look for a new residence. Why was he fired? FBC Fort Stockton has Don Piper scheduled to come and preach in October. Jim knew that Piper’s account of going to Heaven (aside from Piper’s self contradictory statements of the matter) does not square with Scripture. He did his research and talked with the pastor about his concerns. The deacons were notified, a meeting was called, and Jim was fired,”
WHEREAS, will Pastor Hammond now be reinstated, with back pay and apologetic repentance from pastor and deacons?
WHEREAS, because it has been resolved by the SBC that heaven tourism books and movies sway people from an understanding of scripture, and according to SBC resolve have “allowed these to become their source and basis for an understanding of the afterlife rather than scriptural truth“, will LifeWay Christian Resources no longer sell, offer, or promote heaven tourism books? Will LifeWay understand that continuing to sell these books which have details in them “antithetical to scripture” would be UNaffirming to SBC’s declaration that the “biblical revelation of the afterlife is sufficient, over subjective experiential explanations, to guide one’s understanding of the truth about heaven and hell.“
I hope and pray that each of my hypothetical WHEREAS’s come true. I’m looking at YOU, LifeWay.
Political Memoir Title Generator
I was reading some articles about the Hillary Clinton memoir. Though it’s a brand new book its cover price has been slashed, and this is highly unusual, so of course it’s of great comfort to me. Then the article had a link to a “Time’s political memoir title generator“. It scans the internet for things attached to your name and then comes up with an automatic title. Here’s mine.
Rahab’s scarlet thread
“Behold, when we come into the land, thou shalt bind this line of scarlet thread in the window which thou didst let us down by: and thou shalt gather unto thee into the house thy father, and thy mother, and thy brethren, and all thy father’s household. Then if anyone goes out of the doors of your house into the street, his blood shall be on his own head, and we shall be guiltless. But if a hand is laid on anyone who is with you in the house, his blood shall be on our head.” (Joshua 2:18-19)
Gill’s Exposition explains the scarlet thread: “so the scarlet thread was an emblem of the blood of Christ, by which salvation is; redemption and all the blessings of grace are through it; justification, remission of sin, reconciliation, and atonement, and safety, and protection from avenging justice, and wrath to come, are only by it“… more at end
You may hear Christians speak of the “Scarlet Thread.” This is a shorthand reference not only to the literal verse literally reporting on Rahab’s scarlet thread, but to the fact that the blood of Jesus and His plan for Redemption runs through all the bible from Genesis to Revelation. The bible is about the atonement from beginning to end, and it’s about the One who accomplished that atonement, Jesus. There is no “Old Testament God of Wrath” and a “New Testament God of Love.” There is no God vs. Jesus. There are no two halves, one fulfilled and one marginalized. The scarlet thread runs through the entire bible.
Here is an example from the bible about the scarlet thread. God told Hosea His prophet to tell the Israelites this pronouncement of judgment,
The high places of Aven, the sin of Israel,
shall be destroyed.
Thorn and thistle shall grow up
on their altars,
and they shall say to the mountains, “Cover us,”
and to the hills, “Fall on us.”
~Hosea 10:8
For those who believe that God is outdated and so is the Old Testament, or for those who believe it’s not necessary or study the Old Testament, or for those who believe that the OT has no bearing on our lives today in this modern world, here is Jesus on His way to Calvary referring back to that exact Hosea prophecy and also prophecies in Hosea 9:11, 14, (Give them, O LORD— what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. … Ephraim’s glory will fly away like a bird– no birth, no pregnancy, no conception.”)
“And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him. But turning to them Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ 30Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ “
(Luke 23:27-30)
And once again the scarlet thread progresses in its weaving truth to men as we reach Revelation, where once again the Hosea prophecy of the past, the Jesus mention at the midpoint, and the reference is made again, this time to the future:
“Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains.
They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!”
(Revelation 6:15-16)
Back to Gill’s again on Rahab’s Scarlet thread as metaphor in Joshua 2:
and thou shall bring thy father, and thy mother, and thy brethren, and all thy father’s household home unto thee; into her house, where the scarlet thread was bound, and where only they would be safe, as the Israelites were in the houses where the blood of the paschal lamb was sprinkled, Exodus 12:23; and so they are safe, and they only, who are under the blood of sprinkling, and partake of the virtue of it.
Praise the Lord for the fact the scarlet thread exists! With it we are covered, safe, and dwelling in the House…’where ONLY they would be safe’! The beauty, wonder, mystery, and truth of God’s word is always inspiring and convicting. Jesus’ blood runs throughout the entire word, for He IS the Word.
A note to my readers and commenters
Dear Readers,
A few of you have mentioned that there exists an issue of one kind or another regarding the comment form. Some of you have reported struggles with commenting- that the form in different ways inhibits comments, or destroys them, or blocks them, other things that are equally frustrating
I am trying a few different things which will hopefully remove the problems some of you are
experiencing with the comment form. Please bear with me as I try this and that. In the end, if comment issues still exist I will change the template, necessitating a redesign. I mention that because a redesign is shocking and upsetting to some. I’m just letting you know ahead of time as I experiment with the forms and template and widgets. It’s important to me that commenting be as easy as possible. This blog is for encouragement and edification and instruction, and my interaction with brethren and your interaction with me is a very important part of building each other up.
On another note, I am working on a blog entry that will be a repository for all the Beth Moore blog essays I’ve written. They will be all in one place. It will also include links to others’ essays such as Tim Challies and Mike Abendroth and Matt Slick who have concerns with her teaching. Once it’s done I am going to put a link to the essay containing all BM essays on the right menu and take down all the others. This will free some space on the side menu. If there are links or things you’d like to see on the side menu please let me know.
The changes I’ve made today on the comment template are: removing the comment verification step, and changing the form from being on the same page as the essay to a pop-up in a separate window. I’m trying the easier and simpler things first. Thanks very much for your patience. If you’d like to correspond, my email is way down on the right menu bar. Thanks again.
Was Joel Osteen really charging $850 per ticket to attend "America’s Night of Hope"?
The answer to the above question is no…and yes.
At the following website it is being reported that at a recent Joel Osteen venue, (Yankee Stadium, June 7) scalpers were charging $850 per ticket to hear the (false) preacher speak-
According to Essence Music Festival – a 3 day pass to see Prince, Lionel Richie, Mary J Blige, Erykah Badu and more on (July 4-6, 2014) in New Orleans is only $249, with 111 tickets remaining. Considering that lineup of Superstar Talent, how much would you pay to hear “Christian Superstar” Joel Osteen preach the Gospel of Jesus? According to StubHub.com, ticket scalpers are selling tickets for The Joel Osteen Tour for as much as $850. SEE COST PER SEAT!
On the StubHub.com site, tickets for this event are being resold by Ticket Scalpers therefore the price is currently ranging from $18 in the Nose Bleed Seats, all the way up to $850 if you desire to look directly up Joel Osteen’s Nose.
Stubhub.com is also reporting that the normal cost of tickets in Delta Suit B without the Scalper mark up is $592.
Since when did scalpers start scalping church tickets you ask? Since 2005, when Joel Osteen proved he could sellout a stadium. Traditionally ticket scalpers are only interested in sold out events. Apparently the scalpers feel this event will sell out, and fans of Joel Osteen are willing to pay their asking premium. Regardless of the Performer on the stage – even if that performer just so happens to be a Preacher, the scalpers somehow seem to know how to make a profit, and they’re planning to profit as Joel profits.
Mammon, n.: The god of the world’s leading religion. ~Ambrose Bierce
For some crazy reason Christians are willing to pay the high cost of these tickets just to get a front row view of Joel Osteen, prices that even tower above “A List” performers like Beyoncé.
As reported here, Osteen feels that preaching the whole counsel of God is not his niche. Osteen believes that to preach sin or wrath or judgment is not “his calling”. Instead, he preaches feel-good messages, because everybody’s on a journey.
HuffPost Live’s Marc Lamont Hill asked whether gay marriage is against the fundamental “rules” of Christianity. “It would be, but I don’t really focus on a lot of those things,” Osteen said. “I try to stay in my lane of what I feel called to do. [Gay marriage] does come up in interviews and things, but that’s not my core message.” What his message does include, Osteen said, is advising his congregation on how to let go of the past, raise good children and achieve their dreams.
Of course it seems good to the people attending to hear such smooth speech as that. Smooth as butter.
“His speech was smooth as butter,
yet war was in his heart;
his words were softer than oil,
yet they were drawn swords.”
~Psalm 55:21
S. Lewis Johnson preached on Hosea 10 in 1984. Though he was not speaking of Osteen in particular, in the quote below he was speaking of all who have a divided heart, a theme recurring in both Hosea 10:2 and the Psalm 55 verse.
“You ever met any individuals like that? They have a wonderful way of speaking smoothly, and if you’re not on your guard, you’ll be taken in by their deceptiveness, their falsity, their trickiness. And so what he is saying is, their heart is smooth, their heart is false, their heart is tricky; it is divided. In other words, outwardly they are followers of Yahweh, the true God, but really they’re followers of Baal and of their own selves.”
Gill’s Exposition explains the Psalm 55 verse, the heart is divided, and one only outwardly follows God, like Judas: “such the words of Judas, when he said to Christ, “hail, master”, and kissed him, Matthew 26:49; … but war was in his heart; even a civil war, rebellion against his prince;”
Make no mistake. Joel Osteen is at war with Christ. ‘His calling’ is to lead many sons into rebellion with him. Beware this false wolf.
In fairness, though, I can’t blame Osteen personally for the ticket prices. In order to minimize scalping, the Joel Osteen Organization does not sell tickets in large blocks. However, what does an $850 ticket say about us as people? As the article above stated, “For some crazy reason Christians are willing to pay…” Scalpers can only command the price if people are willing to pay it.
I think of Charles Spurgeon, dubbed “The Prince of Preachers” in the 1800s. He preached widely and constantly in the UK and in Europe. In 1876 however, he hadn’t had time to preach in America, despite the Redpath Lyceum Bureau having invited Spurgeon many times. When the Bureau noticed an advertisement in another newspaper trumpeting Spurgeon’s imminent arrival in the US, the Bureau write to Spurgeon asking Spurgeon to engage with them instead. The Bureau offered “one thousand dollars in gold for every lecture you deliver in America, and pay all your expenses to and from your home, and put you in the most popular auspices in the country.”
Spurgeon replied that the competing article was a “deliberate invention from a hard-up editor”, for he had no plans whatsoever to arrive in the US for a tour. He clarified that he was not a lecturer, and most importantly, “nor would I receive money for preaching.”
Joel Osteen meets with Pope, praises Pope’s ecumenism & inclusiveness "to take everyone in"
Christian News Network reports,
Megachurch speaker and author Joel Osteen was among a group of political and religious leaders who met with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Thursday. According to reports, Osteen was part of a delegation organized by the International Foundation in an effort to encourage interfaith relations and ecumenicism. Utah Senator Mike Lee (R), a Mormon, Gayle Beebe, the president of the interdenominational Westmont College in California, and Pastor Tim Timmons, founder of South Coast Community Church also in California, were among those who who greeted the pope, along with Osteen.
“I just felt very honored and very humbled,” Osteen told local television station Click 2 Houston. “It was amazing. And even to go back into that part of the Vatican—there’s so much history there, the place that they took us through. You feel that deep respect and reverence for God.”
“I love the fact that’s he’s made the Church more inclusive,” he said. “Not trying to make it smaller, but to try to make it larger—to take everybody in. So, that just resonates with me.”
I bet it does. Please be warned that in no uncertain terms Joel Osteen is a false teacher, and so is the Pope. Gladly, not everyone has drunk the Kool-Aid, as this pastor bluntly demonstrates from the same article.
“Joel Osteen has joined the rank of all other popular ministries in bowing his knee to the anti-Christ system, and those that blindly follow his leadership will be the first ones in line with their hand out to be marked by the beast,” Pastor Mark Herridge Sr. of Lighthouse Baptist Church in Livingston, Texas told Christian News Network.
“Any Protestant ministry that links up with the pope and Catholicism is betraying the sacrifice of millions of faithful Christians that have died at the hands of this brutal, dictatorial and oppressive religion that has never represented the Church of the Living God as outlined in New Testament teaching,” he said”
GotQuestions discusses ecumenism, the notion that the church can be all-inclusive and partner with false religions in a spirit of tolerance and unity, and still be the church of Jesus Christ.
Walter A. Elwell, in The Concise Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, defines ecumenism as “The organized attempt to bring about the cooperation and unity among Christians.”
…As seen with the publication of Evangelicals and Catholics Together, there is a major emphasis in our day on ecumenical unity among Evangelicals and Roman Catholics. Those who promote such unity state that both are Christian and both are viable, God-honoring systems of faith. But clearly the substantial differences between the two groups render ECT a ridiculous document. Biblical Christianity and Roman Catholicism are two different religions that practice and believe different things about how one is saved, the authority of the Bible, the priesthood of believers, the nature of man, the work of Christ on the cross, etc. The list of irreconcilable differences between what the Bible says and what the Roman Catholic Church says makes any joint mission between the two absolutely impossible. Those who deny this are not being true to what they say they believe, no matter which side they are on. Any Catholic who is serious about his faith will deny what a serious evangelical Christian believes and vice-versa.
Osteen was only comfortable in the first place inside the Vatican with the Pope because he is false. And yes, the “he” refers to both men.
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Further Reading
Bill Muehlengerg examines Osteen’s teaching compared to scripture
One note of correction, in the above article, Muehlenberg says “Osteen is charging $850” to attend his stadium events. That’s not quite the case. The figure of $850 is true, but it’s scalpers who are charging those fees.
Movie and TV show reviews: Enlisted, Walking Across Egypt, re-discovering The Brady Bunch
It’s summer and time for a more relaxing entertainment regime. Many of us have vacations, or slower schedules at work with flex time. Movies, tv, and books can be enjoyed more than they can during a busier time of year. I’m still reading the biography of Charles Spurgeon I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. I also enjoy the summer season of television programs.
I look forward to Masterchef, a reality cooking show that is nicer with less profanity than Hell’s Kitchen, a similar show hosted by the same chef, Gordon Ramsay. I also watch Food Network Star, though I quit watching mid-season last year when the candidate chefs were just terrible on camera and worse cooks. But here I am back again. Maybe this crop can bake a decent souffle. In both Masterchef and FNS they try to keep it family entertainment and there are just a few swears sprinkled here and there, and very few double entendres. Though I noticed last year Masterchef film editors emphasized scheming and conflict between chefs more than they have in the previous 3 seasons. Masterchef Junior, though, was a rare treat and truly inspirational! I can’t wait until it’s back later this summer.
I also enjoy Longmire, a modern cowboy detective series set in Wyoming. With a small change of
clothes and horses instead of trucks, these sheriffs could be from the 1800s. There’s no swearing and only a little blood by cop show standards, but the main objection I have is the heavy emphasis in some episodes to Native American spirituality and its ritual practices, shamanism, and animal totems.
I also enjoy Motive, a Canadian detective show that is structured like Columbo. The audience knows right away who will be killed and who did it. It’s fun to watch the detectives’ thinking process as they gather clues and narrow in on the correct suspect. I like it because they always catch the bad guy. They also show a range of motives for murder, which to me, are true to life in showing how sinful humans are.
I haven’t watched Duck Dynasty for a season or so, it seemed to me to be getting kind of contrived. But I see from the promotional ads that Gov. Jindal is going to make an appearance on the show this summer. And truth be told, I kind of miss Uncle Si. Maybe I’ll tune in again.
That’s pretty much it for me with broadcast tv. I have been getting back into The Brady Bunch. LOL. I know, I know. I watched it when I was a kid, mocked it when I was a younger adult, and now I’ve renewed my interest since the woman who placed the character of Alice, Ann B. Davis, died last week. She was a born again Christian, you know. One thing that Hulu and Netflix and Youtube has brought us is the ability to see the pilot episodes. I love that. Usually when a new show comes on I don’t notice. Then by the time I do notice, because it is getting good reviews, or it seems that it has developed a pattern of good entertainment with no profanity or sexual innuendos (harder to find these days) several years have gone by and I never see the “beginning” or the pilot episode.
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| Bradys in 1969, season 1 |
The other day I watched the first episode of The Brady Bunch, aired in 1969. The episode features the marriage of Carol to Mike Brady. It’s really cute. As a bonus, I enjoy seeing the styles of clothes and home decorations as well. I used to hate the furniture on the show but now I’m loving seeing the chairs, couches, etc. Maybe not so much the paneling in the den or the orange countertop in the kitchen, though, lol.
As a person who lived through the time period in which the show first aired, it’s like a homecoming for me, yet also from this adult perspective, I enjoy seeing a culture that is long gone. What culture? A stable, loving family with a working dad and a stay-at-home mom, kids who like each other, and no swearing or sexual innuendo. It’s a perfectly safe show. So far. Unless Carol dabbles with feminism later, we’ll see.
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| Bradys in season 5, 1974 |
For example, the third episode was about the smallest girl, Cindy. She was thrilled she had won the lead in the school play. Her entire family was happy for her. The mom and dad encouraged her, and the siblings were excited to attend and applaud her on. However a set of circumstances arose where the venue was going to be too small to allow all the children’s entire families to attend, and each play participant had to choose one.
This genuinely crushed Cindy, who became sick over having to choose. Overwrought with the weight of having to choose one parent over another, she dropped out of the play. I thought about today’s sitcoms, where if the same thing happened, the child would be pitting mom against dad in order to grab every privilege and toy they could wring out of the situation. Rather than love being warm and genuine, today’s show would present a greedy, manipulative child- and the show would be applauding their cunning. At the very least, it would not be presented as such a weighty matter but simply a personal dilemma to solve to the child’s best advantage.
I finished watching the 2006 show “Ugly Betty“. I’d heard it was a sweet, sensitive story of a plain looking girl trying to make it in the fashion magazine editing business. I watched the first 8 or 10 shows of the first season. Then I quit. The first three episodes were good, as advertised. A loving and supportive family of a Latina gal gets a job in Manhattan in an unusual way. Her sweet spirit and integrity were the hallmarks of the episodes.
But then the show revealed a number of dark storylines. And by episode 10 I was overcome with darkness. Sure the sets were bright with pops of color and the wardrobes were brightly colored, but the show was dark, dark. Manipulation, scheming, homosexuality, lies, sadism, transgender, serial bed-hopping…Oy get me out of here. Sigh.
One television show I watched on Hulu was excellent. It’s called Enlisted. Wikipedia’s synopsis reports,
“Three very different brothers, each soldiers in the U.S. Army, find themselves all assigned to the same unit: the fictional A Company, 2nd Battalion, 618th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 18th Infantry Division (Mechanized), at the fictional Fort McGee, located in Florida. While the majority of the base is deployed overseas, the two younger brothers (Derrick and Randy) are assigned to rear detachment – the soldiers left behind to take care of the base. The oldest brother, Staff Sergeant Pete Hill, returns stateside from Afghanistan after punching a superior officer. He is assigned to supervise a platoon of misfits that includes his brothers. While working together, the brothers are able to renew and strengthen their childhood bonds.”
The show has a small but hardy band of supporters, needed because the show was canceled. Boo. A show like Ugly Betty goes on for years but a show honoring enlisted soldiers is canceled right away. If you watch the only ten episodes that exist, you’re watching the beginning and the end of the show. The vocal group of the show’s supporters was not enough to revive it, and it seems that the show will remain canceled for good.
I enjoyed the program because though some of it is silly, it never slides into mocking or hilarity at the expense of the soldiers. Overall the one thing that seems universally praised is that at root, the writers never make fun of soldiers, in fact, they portray serving our country as an honorable profession. The episodes I thought were the most affecting were 7 & 8, “Parade Duty” and “Vets”. As far as culturally, some episodes show some cleavage, soldiers off duty drinking, and a few mild swears. Overall the bulk of the show is fairly clean, I thought.
A very bright spot was a movie that had been recommended to me called “Walking Across Egypt.” It is a Christian movie involving a juvenile delinquent and a lonely older woman. The ever solid Ellen Burstyn is the woman who eventually takes in the troubled teen. Also starring is Judge Reinhold, Pat Corley as Sheriff Tillman Edward Hermann and Mark Hamill. The conclusion to the Wikipedia synopsis states, “Wesley (Jonathan Taylor Thomas), currently serving time in juvenile detention for a recent car theft. Mattie finds that this young man is just missing direction and believes that with a little insight on Christianity he can straighten up and fly right.“
Themes are also Christian love, applying the bible to life, and hypocrisy. There are a few mild swears, included to show that the boy is a delinquent, lol. But that’s it, nothing else objectionable. Watch, it’s a sweet movie. It gives me hope that there still exist good movies to unearth and be nicely surprised by.
Here is a review of a current movie, Maleficent, from Good Fight Ministries. Your mind may at first balk at the lead sentence, but if you think it through you will see it is correct. Our pastor mentioned this last week. The themes in the Lion King for example, are anti-Christianity. Consider this overview of Disney movies in general before reading below specifically about Maleficent. It’s from Berit Kjos in an article titled “The Spirit Behind the Lion King:“
“Betrayed, rejected, running from responsibility, growing strong through adversity… Disney’s latest box-office hit, The Lion King, is full of Biblical parallels, colorful characters and personal struggles that help us identify with a lovable lion made in the image of man. But watch out! Behind the spectacular scenery and noble sentiments hides the timeless earth-centered view of reality that has always lured God’s people from truth to myths. In other words, The Lion King – like Aladdin – demonstrates an alarming shift in values. While the old fairy-tale cartoons like Snow White linked sorcery to the evil characters, The Lion King uses tribal magic for “good.”
Here are the first sentences of the Maleficent review. They echo the same sentiment, evil is now good. Though the words may seem jarring, they are correct. The drift from Disney’s early days as reported in the above review of Lion King and reference to Aladdin is now ever darker as seen in Maleficent, as sin is wont to be.
Disney’s Maleficent Makes Satan the Savior
It is hard to overestimate Disney’s role in the moral decline of America, with its constant glorification of occult themes and its endless parade of train wrecks of child role models for millions of children (e.g., Lindsey Lohan, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, etc).
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The movie Maleficent is yet another example of how Disney influences millions of adults and children with darkness, by taking evil characters and making them into heroes and heroines. In Maleficent, Disney takes a notoriously wicked witch and turns her into a beloved character and even into the savior of the world. Maleficent is a movie that unfolds as though Lucifer were trying to tell his side of the story.
I don’t watch much TV at all during the school year. The ads bother me, and there isn’t much on that I like. Even PBS and The History Channel have a liberal agenda that ruins even the most vaunted of documentaries. By the time I get home from school in the afternoon, do my bible study, prayers, cook and eat dinner, and write a blog, it’s time for bed. My remote control broke a few months ago and I haven’t replaced it. There’s no point.
I say this not to tout myself, but to set up the next comment. During the summer, especially the first week of summer vacation from school, I have a tendency to make up for it. I binge watch on my laptop. Because of the release from any schedule at all, it is actually easier to let bible study slide, and to tune in and mindlessly watch a show that I can view for its entire run. That’s what happened with Ugly Betty. I watched a bunch of the episodes in a row.
In 1977 Jerry Mander, an advertising executive in San Francisco, published his book, “Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television.” Before we had the internet, men like Jerry Mander were the internet. They presented material that bucked the status quo and the only places you could find such material were dark and dusty book shops with towering aisles of precariously placed books. I loved it. These books and magazines in obscure independent bookstores provided to the marketplace of ideas concepts that were untouched from the pollution of societal norms. In 1977 the idea of eliminating television was intriguing to me. I read his book.
The argument I often gravitate to, though it is no less incriminating that the other three arguments, is the biological argument.
The biological argument against television is summed up here:
Argument 3 – TV physically conditions us for authoritative rule Here are some phrases commonly used to describe watching TV. It ’s a hypnotizing, energy- sucking, brain-washing, vegetative, concentration-killing, addictive, zombie-like, mind- destroying, mind-numbing dream-state that is a stupefying, cognition-killing, mesmerizing, colonizing, isolating, meditative, and yet somehow relaxing activity. And so we like it. NIH did a 3-year $5 million study on the effects of TV. TV was found addictive and hypnotic. It stops thought similar to brain-washing; the study also noted other physical effects. The President suppressed the study and commissioned another group to re-do it. In 1977, Marie Winn wrote a book with anecdotal evidence of TV’s effects call ed “The Plug-In Drug.” It asserted that TV viewing by children was addictive, turning them into passive, incommunicative “zombies” who couldn’t play, couldn’t create, and couldn’t think clearly; they couldn’t solve problems and couldn’t fill their free time. It broke down family communication, and filtered even direct affection through the TV, to everyone’s harm. It is an instrument of “fixation technology,” and it aids in implanting imagery in the viewer.
After so many episodes of Ugly Betty I felt terrible. It was like when you diet and don’t eat sugar or fat for a long time, and then you do, your body rebels in the instant overload. Absorbing so much sinfulness at once, albeit unwittingly, I ended up jumpy, nervous, at sixes and sevens, couldn’t concentrate, and was very unhappy. Add to the likelihood that any television show will contain at least some elements of sin, and the spiritual layer of jumpiness and unhappiness increases exponentially.
None of this is news to any Christian. I did decide to quit watching the Betty show and to quit binge watching and to structure my day more formally so that I could accomplish good things for the kingdom and not devolve into a mind-numbed, unproductive puddle by the time school rolls around again.
Of course, the irony is in relating all this, it’s still a blog post about movies and TV. Movies and TV are here to stay. Back in 1977 when Mander made his arguments, cable TV hadn’t become the monolith it is now. Unlike the old days when all one had to do is unplug the TV and throw it onto the sidewalk and that was that, we now not only have television but laptops, iphones, and google glass. I know I’m going to watch something this week. It’s the same for most people. After the yard work is done, and the kids are put to bed, and the bills are made out and the phone calls are finished, my eyes are tired and reading isn’t an option all the time. It’s easy to click on the remote and settle back into watching the tube. So if I’m going to watch something, I can decide to limit the amount of time I do, carefully decide what I watch, and scrupulously review beforehand what I choose to put in front of my eyes. My mistake with Betty was that I didn’t do that. And I paid the price.
I hope my review of these few shows, Enlisted, Walking Across Egypt, Brady Bunch etc would spark your interest and perhaps you might find them suitable for your own entertainment fare. My goal of course is to reduce my TV watching to zero. By the grace of the Holy Spirit these days I am listening to more sermons and good music than I am watching TV or movies, a dramatic shift from even three years ago. Sanctification in progress, an eternity to get it right.
the-end-time.org 