Category: discernment

Posted in discernment, mike bickle, ronnie floyd, sbc, southern baptist convention, truth

Mr Floyd, why did you load a piano in the canoe? Thoughts on SBC, IHOPKC and discernment

Posted on by elizabethprata

Last night in Kansas City at the International House of Prayer, leader Mike Bickle appeared on stage at their One Thing conference. It is an annual conference, attended by thousands of college aged and youth seeking ‘a fresh word from the Spirit’ to put it in their carnal vernacular. That in itself is newsworthy, because IHOPKC as they are known, is a house of heretics damaging the church of Jesus Christ and polluting His doctrine. As Pastor Phil Johnson put it, Mr Bickle

admits with a grin that 80 percent of the phenomena in the thousands of charismatic meetings he has sponsored and participated in have been utterly false—phony, fraudulent, fleshly—totally and completely fake. Bickle insists that’s not a problem. He is willing to “allow the false for the sake of the real.”

To see so many gathered at IHOP KC One Thing hurts my heart and spirit just as much as when I see the UK newspapers publish photos of the solstice pagan ceremonies at Stonehenge. The two events are no different. Pagans worshiping made-up gods, wasted flesh, and blackened spirits wallowing in sin is a spectacle no Christian ever wants to see. But it is a spectacle every true Christian knows they will see, because that is the world, and satan is the god of it. (1 Corinthians 4:4, Ephesians 2:2).

Left, ancient pagan ceremony with obelisks,
right, modern pagan ceremony with obelisks

Top, pagan priestess leading worship at Stonehenge
bottom, pagan priestess leading worship at OneThing

many false prophets will arise, and will lead many astray. (Matthew 24:11)

But even more disheartening than to watch thousands of blind and misguided youths praising their blind leader guiding them to the pit (Matthew 15:14) is to see a yoking of darkness with light and a leader who was thought to be in the light suddenly developing a blind spot.

The Southern Baptist Convention has historically been the one denomination considered to be the most conservative and the most protective of the inerrant authority of the Word of God. It has historically been strong on doctrine and diligent in the practice of living a holy life, Occasionally that practice has worked itself out in publicly repudiating false teachers or dismissing wayward churches from their fellowship. Just last month a South Carolina church was booted from SBC membership over the doctrine of female pastorship. In another recent case, the SBC has removed from membership local churches for their unbiblical stance on homosexuality. When it comes to social issues like feminism or homosexuality, the SBC has historically and recently been strong.

What is lesser known is the SBC’s waffling stance on doctrine. Though the origins of the historical SBC began with a clear positive stance on Calvinism and has deep roots in the Convention, in these latter years, the doctrines of grace and those who hold to them have been repudiated in turmoil. Nevertheless, the SBC’s adherence to biblical authority and a clear proclamation of the Gospel, with firm walls to keep out the liberalism and falsity, has generally been the SBC’s hallmark.

Until now.

No, I’m not being overly dramatic.

John Park at Christian Research and Apologetics Ministry wrote a good paper on The Dangers of the International House of Prayer. Please read it to understand why partnering with IHOPKC is so dangerous and actually a blot on the name of Jesus Christ. For example, IHOP founder Mike Bickle said he had a vision where he was raised to the throne room of God and stood at the Lord’s left hand.Our God is gracious for not smiting Bickle on the spot as He did with Ananias and his lies to the Spirit. Bickle has uttered many “prophecies” some of which had a date to them which has passed with no fulfillment. Bickle has taught that he and his disciples are the true disciples and are anointed to usher in the second coming of Jesus Christ. In addition, multiple ministries have indexed IHOP as a cult. Sources are at the CARM article linked above.

Yet when invited the SBC president Ronnie Floyd accepted the invitation to partner with Bickle and speak at the One Thing conference.

Many were shocked that such a historically conservative denomination’s President would partner with such a grossly blasphemous cult, but held out hope that perhaps Floyd intended to employ the biblical mandate of leaders to rebuke the false and plead for repentance. (Titus 2:1, Titus 1:11). In discernment, one does not throw out years of solid labor when one potential misstep arises. One is patient, waits to see outcomes, prays, and hopes for the best though keeping their discernment radar tuned up. I was one of those hoping fervently that would be the case. Sadly, it wasn’t.

Floyd came out with guns blazing, firmly setting aside theological differences stating the obvious, that

“we do not agree on secondary matters of life, prayer or even the bible.” 

The Bible is a secondary issue? So with all those differences, many of them assuredly not secondary, why partner? Because, Floyd wants to pray. He wants a revival.

I’m not here tonight not to highlight our theological differences, but to bend my knee alongside you to pray…” R Floyd

One must ask the obvious, to whom does Mr Floyd expect an IHOP initiate to pray? What KIND of prayers are they praying? There is a right way to pray and a wrong way. Prayers can be wrong you know. The wrong people can pray them. And to which Jesus? A general call to the wicked to perform any kind of prayer does no good, because God will not hear any old prayers. (John 9:31, Proverbs 15:29). Praying to a made-up idol the false convert calls “Jesus” does no one any good and in fact does much harm.

And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men, (Isaiah 29:13)

But among the many words spoken by Mr Floyd at IHOP last night there is one thing I want to focus on. Mr Floyd’s pragmatic call. IHOPKC tweeted this:

“When it feels like the ship is sinking, everyone needs to grab a bucket..”—Ronnie Floyd, on unity in the Body of Christ #Onething2015

There was another one who thought the boat was sinking, but he was wrong.

And there arose a fierce gale of wind, and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up. 38Jesus Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” (Mark 4:37-38)

And what did Jesus say to them? HAVE YOU NO FAITH? (Mark 4:40). Mr Floyd, have you so little faith? The boat is not foundering.

Mr Floyd said that about the boat and the bucket at the beginning of his speech and it is a devastating indictment on everything a true Christian should stand for. We do not open the doors to one and all simply because ‘the times’ seems to call for drastic action. We do not display so little faith, as Jesus admonished. Here is why Mr Floyd’s appearance at One Thing, why his pragmatism is misguided, and why it is futile. Though of course we know the ship of state, the church of Jesus Christ is not sinking, do you know why it feels like it is?

Because of IHOP.
Because of false doctrine that Bickle promotes.
Because of the acceptance of an errant Bible and exalted personal revelations.

False doctrine always loads down the ship of state. Always. Our leaders are supposed to keep it out, guarding the deposit and teaching what accords with sound doctrine. They are not supposed to minimize, dismiss, and disregard theological differences.

IHOP is the reason the ship feels like it is sinking. (one of…)

When the ship of state feels like it is foundering that is because it is loaded down with sinners and their baggage of false doctrine. Mr Floyd, why did you load a piano in the canoe?

IHOPKC, welcome aboard, There’s plenty of room.

Mr Floyd’s pragmatic approach to prayer, revival, and doctrine is based on the reasoning that the times are so bad that we need all hands on deck to bail, even if those hands are unqualified, or even if there are stowaways whose passage has not been paid. (Romans 3:24)

The problem is, sinners’ buckets have holes in them. Sinners’ buckets won’t bail.

Captain Floyd:
Bail! Bail! The ship feels like it’s sinking!
O, why is it still sinking?

Our ship of state should be floating buoyantly, but to Floyd his ship is foundering. It’s an old problem. IHOPKC and the problem of partnering with them is not a new thing. Jeremiah spoke of leaky buckets in his day.

for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. (Jeremiah 2:13)

Mr Floyd has left the fresh fountain of living water and drunk from a poisoned well which is leaking and leaching into the Body directly from places like IHOP. The IHOP people are broken cisterns because the walls of their cisterns are made of man’s bricks, having no foundation in Christ. Matthew Henry says of the Jeremiah verse:

They took a great deal of pains to hew themselves out cisterns, to dig pits or pools in the earth or rock which they would carry water to, or which should receive the rain; but they proved broken cisterns, false at the bottom, so that they could hold no water. When they came to quench their thirst there they found nothing but mud and mire, and the filthy sediments of a standing lake.

The disturbing lack of discernment in some of our high leaders of late is a sad testament to our witness. There’s John Piper, who seems to have forsaken any semblance of discernment at all. SBC’s Russell Moore visiting the Pope. Now the President of the SBC linking with outright heretics.

Is it too much to ask that our leaders adhere to biblical principles? That they lead in truth and courage? That they remain strong and not compromise? Apparently it is too much to ask. Apparently it is- for some. I still thank Mr Floyd for his years of service and continue to pray, this time altering my prayer to one that asks the Lord to move his feet away from the path of compromise and to give him a spirit of discernment. I praise God for the strong men of truth whose decades of witness does not have a false doctrine among them, men like MacArthur, Lawson, Begg, Ferguson, P Johnson, SL Johnson. Solid men like Lloyd-Jones, Barnhouse, Boice, Sproul.

Fifteen years ago John MacArthur preached:

They have entered upon what I suppose if we were living in Spurgeon’s time would be called a downgrade. Church is on a slippery slope, the evangelical church is progressing down away from the heights of truth and the honor of God. It is willingly abandoning its discernment, willingly abandoning bible exposition, and therefore a deep and accurate understanding of truth. In so doing it is moving away from what glorifies God, because what glorifies God is the exposition of scripture. 

At the heart of this is this tragic thing of embracing non-Christians as if they’re Christians; … Without a deep grasp of biblical truth there’s no discernment, and with no discernment then you just can’t tell who’s a Christian and who’s not, so Satan comes into the church, comes into the leadership, comes in to teach at colleges and teach at seminaries and write books and get on Christian TV, and on and on it goes. (source, bold mine)

The problem with what Mr Floyd did and said is not solely that he stood on that stage, partnering with Mr Bickle. That’s over and it’s done. The problem now is what is going to occur. He opened the floodgates. He affirmed non-Christians in their state of lostness, to their perhaps doom and to the faith’s detriment.

I am a Southern Baptist disappointed to the point of grief that our denomination’s president has done this. Yet this too shall pass (paraphrasing 2 Corinthians 4:17-18). Trumping my denominational affilition is the fact that I am a Christian in the Church that Christ is building. Men will fall, blind guides will guide, the pit will widen, false prophets will proclaim, and doctrine will be polluted. Yet Jesus is building a church that is sterling, beautiful, honed and ready. His church is TRUTH.

As a final thought, here is a 13-minute clip from S.Lewis Johnson expositing from Titus, and declares unequivocally how false teachers (like Bickle) should be treated. Please take a listen so as to refresh your mind and so in coming days you won’t get caught up in the blurred lines of compromise and believe that Mr Floyd’s parsed and careful words at IHOPKC One Thing Conference are really loving and truthful. They aren’t and they weren’t.

As for us who praise the Lord we still have discernment by His grace and by His grace have not wandered away from the narrow path of solid truth. He is the King, sovereignly holding His church in His hand.

 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18)

EPrata photo

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Further Reading

The End Time: Have ye so little faith? SBC President Ronnie Floyd at IHOP, a discernment lesson

SBC Prez at IHOP: First Impressions

What is the International House of Prayer?

The Broad Brush: A biblical review of Mike Bickle, by Phil Johnson

The Modern Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, a sermon that speaks directly to why the IHOP approach to Christianity is actually blasphemy.

Posted in discernment, social media, witness

The Pros and Cons of Social Media for the Christian

Posted on by elizabethprata

I’m a lay person, a Christian woman, who happens to write. I’ve made my living from writing in the past and I’m thrilled to be able to use the talent God gave me for His glory now writing in a Christian context.

I’m older, 55 years of age, and I distinctly remember life before internet. For a writer wanting to publish, bumping up against the monoliths of the Madison Avenue publishing companies, and the chokehold of the magazines and literary journals, (and the publishing rejection letters) having a free platform in which to share one’s thoughts and words with the world was a revelation. I took to it instantly and with glee, going online in 1996 and becoming an Amazon.com customer in 1997. Finally, an equalizing global conversation could be had.

I don’t think young people have a well-developed sense of just what a privilege it is to have global access to speaking one’s mind on any topic. I pointedly remember the frustration of rejection letter after rejection letter, of seeking the underground, mimeographed ‘zines as they were called then, of a regular person not having a voice. Or seeing the ones with voices squander them or limit them or censor them. Conglomerates purported to speak for the masses, and more often they didn’t, but their lobbyist money did speak to the corruption. Journalists were supposed to speak for the voiceless but more often they were kowtowing to Corporate. Benjamin Franklin felt the same frustration so he started his own papers and printed them on his own presses. The Second Amendment gave the promise of free speech, but never made any promises about how or where. No platforms were ever promised. That, one had to figure out for one’s self.

Of course all those words back then were important in the civic or personal/creative realms, but were wind and chaff to God because they were not for His glory.

I converted to Christianity late in life at around age 43-45 (who knows the exact moment the Holy Spirit gripped me, God knows). Until then I’d been occupied with writing for my weekly newspaper and curating its online version. When I sold the paper in 2006 and moved down south I needed to fill the void left by not writing intensively, so I started my personal blog The Quiet Life in August of that year. It’s hard to believe it’s coming up on nearly 10 years since I founded it. What a joy to play with the Layout format, press ‘publish’ and one’s thoughts and words could be seen by the world. Of course, back in 2004-2006 blogging exploded and there were a million blogs starting a day, it seemed. How to make one’s own blog rise to the top amid the sea of cacophonous voices also clamoring to be heard was something left to one’s creative problem solving. Now we had the platform, but how to make people listen…

Social media pinwheel. Source Wikipedia

As the Holy Spirit solidified my faith and grew me in sanctification, I founded this blog in January 2009, and once again it’s hard to believe it’s been nearly 7 years since then. Though I write intermittently on The Quiet Life I am committed to using the gift of writing and proclamation and exhortation for the Lord and I’ve been faithful to write daily on this blog since the beginning. Though I’ve been writing longer at The Quiet Life and there are 70 pages over there, there’s double the amount here, 140 pages, containing about 3,500 essays. And fortunately, I don’t have to stress over about whom to make listen. The Holy Spirit takes care of disseminating the message to whom He desires.

I joined Facebook in 2008, and joined Twitter then also. This year I added another Facebook page, The End Time. Online newspapers and journals enabled comment sections. People from the great to the small posted their email address, allowing direct conversation. Cell phones, Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, Flickr, Podcasts…Suddenly, there were platforms everywhere and it seemed like the cacophony grew but so did the possibilities for getting the Gospel out.

The question today is, just because social media exists, does that mean it is wise, profitable, or even safe to enter the fray?

All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. (1 Corinthians 6:12)

That is a question for each Christian to answer and there are different considerations if one is a parent, a missionary, or is living under a restrictive regime or just to personally consider in the face of doing our utmost for His highest (to paraphrase O. Chambers).

Here are some thoughts in my experience, in my opinion, and remember I’m just one lay-woman with a small sphere of influence. There have been pros and cons with being so present on social media. Just as with anything, there are considerations and there are joys.

  • I am a single woman so there are safety issues with being too open.
  • Yet I feel compelled to be truthful and transparent, openly proclaiming the message to as many as possible.
  • If The Lord allowed the internet to be invented then I resolve to use it to the best of my ability to honor Him and spread His message.
  • Yet there are also a great many temptations to sin with my mind and with my mouth (typing fingers) and present a poor witness.
  • I have stumbled before in being so present online.
  • Yet when I sadly do, it presents more opportunities to repent, grow, obey and rely on Him- and to be mindful next time.
  • Seeing before me in living color so vividly the woes and successes of fellow believers; and being accountable to an online community of believers widens my perspective and reminds me of how large His body really is.
  • It presents a tendency to want to focus on just the virtual believers to the exclusion of those in real life.
  • When someone is encouraged by something I’ve written, it offers a high uncomparable to any other.
  • When someone in the next pew is encouraged by something I’ve said, it offers a high uncomparable to any other.
  • People online can be mean, nasty, and hide behind cowardly anonymous comments. Combating their effects can steal your joy and re-direct your energy better used in other ways.
  • People in real life can be mean, nasty, and hide behind cowardly gossipy comments. Combating their effects can steal your joy and re-direct your energy better used in other ways.

So, you see, the pros and cons are similar to laboring in any other medium or any other sphere. No better, no worse, just different considerations to consider.

Unlike other people who have expressed distrust or disdain over social media use to share a holy Christian witness, I don’t believe social media is the devil. It is merely a vehicle into which we can pour our energy and message depending on what the Lord has called us to do. Some pour their message into children through motherhood. Others who are not called to motherhood became missionaries and brought the message to orphans overseas. Some who were writers without the advantage of social media got the message out anyway using the vehicles of their own day- hymns.

“The medium is the message” is a phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan, meaning that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived. …Extending the argument for understanding the medium as the message itself, he proposed that the “content of any medium is always another medium – thus, the content of writing is speech, print is that of writing and print itself is the content of the telegraph.

McLuhan understood “medium” in a broad sense. He identified the light bulb as a clear demonstration of the concept of “the medium is the message”. A light bulb does not have content in the way that a newspaper has articles or a television has programs, yet it is a medium that has a social effect; that is, a light bulb enables people to create spaces during nighttime that would otherwise be enveloped by darkness. He describes the light bulb as a medium without any content. McLuhan states that “a light bulb creates an environment by its mere presence.”(source)

So be mindful of the medium you choose to employ to spread God’s message, from your own tongue in real life to the cold virtual reality of a laptop keyboard, to… whatever else. As a matter of fact I’ve always held that the internet is one of the world’s great inventions. The Gospel message can be disseminated in podcast, tract, devotional, online bible, visually through art and animation, Youtube, the ancient writers’ work is spoken alive online to new generations or can be read anew for those who can’t afford the precious tomes but can afford the lower price of an online connection or even free at a library. Wow!

Through online blogs and sermons and devotionals I was strengthened by John MacArthur’s preaching and discovered the Puritans and Reformers. I connected with solid doctrine at The Master’s Seminary and learned of Paul Washer’s fire. I learned that I, too, had a platform that may strengthen even one woman seemed too good an opportunity to pass up- as long as I kept my priorities straight. But that’s like any ministry, it’s life, isn’t it? It is all a struggle and no matter the sphere or means the Lord provides, the devil will attempt to corrupt it.

So make your decisions about social media with your husband or pastor or family. Decide how “out there” you feel led to be, and which means to use. Elisabeth Eliot, Gladys Aylward, Eliza Spurgeon, Fanny Crosby, Katharina von Bora (Mrs Martin Luther) all used the means at their disposal and through obedience to the Lord to influence those in their spheres. How large or small or what that means the Lord will use through you within that sphere is a personal decision. But don’t let scary stories or condescension about social media taint your view of how useful it can be to getting the message out there. Just be safe, be wise, and the Lord will take care of the rest.

Posted in body of believers, church, discernment, encouragement

Don’t Be "The Isolator" Christian

Posted on by elizabethprata

Contrary to popular current sentiment, from those who condescend about “religion” and “the church” and its “hypocrites,” and claim to be able to “do God” on their own, Christianity is not a religion in which one can become isolated. We are part of a body. Christ is its Head. Apart from him we can do nothing.

HT Michelle Lesley

Even me who is Aspergers and believe that a small apartment, independent wealth, a cat, and the internet is all I need, must emerge into the world and be in the world- because God’s Word says so! To obey is for God’s glory and to proclaim His excellencies. It’s so they can be a witness of His Holy Spirit’s strength in reducing the sin in me and live a holy life before others. It’s so I can be accountable to the members of the Body.

If you think you’ve heard “a voice” or had “an inner prompting” urging you to forsake assembling, know that you have just been deceived.

Here are some essays to encourage you in the practice of being in the world but not of the world, (John 17:14-15) and not to forsake assembling with the saints. (Hebrews 10:25).

If you have slacked off attending, resolve this New Year to pray for the Spirit to renew your commitment to the Body.

How can believers be in the world, but not of the world?

What does it mean for Christians to be in the world but not of the world?

Warnings Against Unfaithfulness

Can you be a Christian and not go to church?

Why Should I Attend Church?

The Spiritually Lazy Saint

Posted in discernment, jesus, martyn lloyd-jones

Martyn Lloyd-Jones on preaching one’s experience as the Gospel

Posted on by elizabethprata

In his sermon on Acts 8:4-5 “Facing the Facts” Martyn Lloyd-Jones expounded on the fact of the Gospel and proclaiming it, refuting the tendency even in his day, the preaching of one’s “experience”. The Gospel is not “your experience” of it. The Gospel message is the Word, and a very particular word at that. It is a set of facts which, as ambassadors commanded to deliver the exact message we are given, is to be proclaimed. It is not how happy we’ve become through it. The message is not how our lives have changed from it. The message is not about how abundant our lives have been since hearing it. It is a message resting on particularly unique historical facts and heavenly bread, given us to speak. We do have experiences from God and through God. However the experiences we have are not the message. We should never preach ourselves, but Jesus only.

Here is Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones refuting experience AS the Gospel.

One’s experience is not a defense of the truth. That is what the cults say. It is what psychology says. Proclaiming the Gospel is answering the questions, Who is Jesus Christ? how have these things happened? What are the historical events? And what is their relationship to me? That is what these men spoke about. 

They certainly had an experience. It was such an experience that they were ready to suffer for it, and be persecuted for and to be driven out of their homes for it rather then deny it. But that wasn’t what they talked about. 

I don’t apologize for the intolerance of the New Testament. Let me put it like this to you, I would not be in this pulpit if I haven’t got an intolerant Gospel. If I were not certain that this and this alone is the word of God, I wouldn’t be in this pulpit. I’m not here to express my hopes, my fears, my anticipations, my thoughts, my desires..no! no! I’m here to proclaim to you, to tell you. It is because I am certain of it, sure of it, not because of my experience, but because of what it IS.

Posted in discernment, ronnie floyd, southern baptist convention, truth

SBC President Ronnie Floyd, Featured Speaker at New Apostolic Reformation’s IHOP

Posted on by elizabethprata
My friend Pastor James Bell posted this on Facebook this morning.

IHOP– not pancakes! BUT… IHOP: International House of Prayer! IHOP HAS BEEN INDEXED AS A CULT by Multiple and Diverse Ministries. THAT FACT makes the following troubling: I read that Southern Baptist Convention President Ronnie Floyd will be speaking at the IHOP’s (International House of Prayer’s) OneThing conference December 28-31.

IF FLOYD boldly exposes the serious false teaching of IHOP and of Romanism and calls them to repent– wonderful.

HOWEVER, he does not, Floyd will be teaming up with a group of charismatic mystics and Roman Catholic praise musician Matt Maher.

For example, Matt leads the “Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament” at Catholic Churches, such as Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Tempe which is devoted to Mary, “the Mother of Life.” The “Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament” refers to the worship of the consecrated host of the mass. Because of the supposed power of the Catholic mass to transform bread into the very body and blood of Jesus, the host is “adored” as Christ Himself.

The following is quoted from ‘Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry:

There are certainly many different theological distinctives in the Christian church, and many of us do differ. However, we do not go so far as to label each other cults or heretics. On the other hand, IHOP has been labeled dangerous, cultic, false, and heretical by many ministries, former members, apologetic groups, and godly men. In fact, other charismatic Christians have stood up to oppose them as well. A small listing of these groups include:

The Apologetics Index
Apologetics Resource Center
Critical Issues Commentary
Pastor Ernie Gruen (a Charismatic preacher) who was written a manuscript entitled “Documentation of the Aberrant Practices and Teachings of Kansas City Fellowship (Grace Ministries).” Kansas City Fellowship (Grace Ministries) is Mike Bickles former ministry prior to founding IHOP.
Pastor Bill Randles (a Pentecostal preacher) has written a book titled, “Weighed and Found Wanting.”
The Gospel Masquerade is a website created by a former staff member of IHOP.

All these resources are available in the references section. I especially recommend The Gospel Masquerade website, Pastor Gruen’s manuscript, and Pastor Randles’ book.

Conclusion: Though it may seem like a place that is on fire and passionate for God, this is simply not the case. Many of the people that do go there are sincere Christians, but they have been overcome by the lies and experiences they have there. In short, the people I have communicated with ignore the things above and simply hold on to what they have experienced and point the finger at me saying, “You don’t know about us.” 

Unfortunately I do know, and I hope this article persuades or helps you convince someone else who is going down a destructive path. It breaks my heart to see so many young people fall victim to this place and all the people who waste their lives and God-given talents to expand IHOP’s kingdom and not God’s Kingdom.

References
[1] http://www.ihop.org/Group/Group.aspx?ID=1000036203
[2] Randle, Bill. “Weighed and Found Wanting: The Toronto Experience Examined in the Light of the Bible. Cambridge, UK. 1996. http://www.apologeticsindex.org/docs/WeighedAndFoundWanting.pdf
[3] Gruen, Ernie. Documentation of the Aberrant Practices and Teachings of Kansas City Fellowship (Grace Ministries). Shawnee, KS. No date. http://www.deceptionbytes.com/AberrentDoctrinesKCF
[4] http://www.apologeticsindex.org/b56.html
[5] http://www.biblebb.com/files/MAC/CHAOS1.HTM
[6] http://signofjonah.wordpress.com/2006/07/13/ihop-and-cultural-influences
[7] http://www.pfo.org/growingpains.htm
[8] http://thepredestinedblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/ihop-manifesto.html
[9] http://cicministry.org/commentary/issue107.htm
[10] http://carm.org/centering-prayer
[11] The Lockman Foundation. New American Standard Bible. La Habra, CA. 1995.
[12] MacArthur, John. The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Colossians and Philemon. Chicago, IL. 1992.
[13] http://gospelmasquerade.wordpress.com/2009/08/01/contemplative-prayer-continued/

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Other people/organizations concerned with President Floyd’s appearance at IHOP’s OneThing convention are:

Michelle Lesley: SBC President Ronnie Floyd, Featured Speaker at New Apostolic Reformation’s IHOP

Lighthouse Trails Letter to the Editor: SBC President Ronnie Floyd to Speak At IHOP “Onething”

Berean Research: Southern Baptist Convention president to speak at IHOP-KC’s “Onething” gathering?

I know many people, pastors even, who are more aligned with and loyal to a denominational affiliation than with Jesus. However as Michelle Lesley says, “As a lifelong Southern Baptist it grieves me to have to report this, but if you’re Southern Baptist, you deserve to know and need to know what the president of your denomination is doing.” Personally, I had been proud to belong to a church which affiliates with the SBC but in recent years I have become saddened by the liberal drift, their intolerance for the Doctrines of Grace worse, their disdain for the people who believe in them, and the blatant acceptance of false doctrines and the people who bring them. Now this. I hope and pray that the reason Mr Floyd accepted the invitation is to speak the truth in love to the IHOP participants. Wouldn’t that be wonderful!

However if Mr Floyd does not speak the Gospel to the IHOP participants at OneThing Convention, it will be terribly sad. It would mean that even the most conservative denominations err, as this incident shows us. Yet the encouraging thing is that we are SO GRACEFULLY BLESSED to have a Savior to whom we can look, and in whom there is no error, no lie, and no sin! We must keep looking to Jesus, even when favored teachers, pastors, or denominations fall. Jesus is the answer, He is the blessing that was given by God to the world, but the world received Him not. (John 1:10-11).

If you are saved today, saved from an eternity in hell separated from Jesus, then you have the truth and can continue looking to Him to remain solid in your doctrine. The lesson is, even men like Ronnie Floyd who has been a pastor for 38 years in a conservative denomination can drift away, so we must cling to the Rock. (And not make an idol of a denomination, as some have).

Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. (Hebrews 2:1)

EPrata photo

Posted in beth moore, billy graham, charles spurgeon, discernment, I am the door, martyn lloyd-jones, salvation

Jesus is the door: what do these famous testimonies reveal about their understanding of Christ?

Posted on by elizabethprata

I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. (John 10:9)

This is one of the famous I AM statements by Jesus. Here they all are.

1. And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst” (John 6:35).
2. Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life” (John 8:12).
3. “I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture” (John 10:9).
4. “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep” (John 10:11).
5. Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live” (John 11:25).
6. Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).
7. “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser” (John 15:1).

Any study on these statements would be rich and edifying. However let’s just look at the door. The door is narrow. There is only one door. It is an exclusive door. No other door will allow entry to heaven. If anyone tries to come another way, he is a thief and a robber. (John 10:1)

Jesus leads his Jews out of the fold into salvation. He has another fold (John 10:16) where He leads His Gentiles out into salvation and green pastures. No one can go to green pastures another way except through Jesus. His way is exclusive because He is the ONLY way. His way requires repentance, a realization of our utter inability to perform any act He would consider righteous and a realization of His total ability to crush us like a bug if He so desired- and that would be just. We understand His holiness but also His mercy in saving us. One would think that a conversion testimony would include acknowledgement of at least some of those positional truths.

Here are a few conversion testimonies I found online. Compare them. And in the back of your mind, keep thinking about the Door. At the bottom I’ll have the moral of the story.

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Conversion story #1

At the end of the sermon, the preacher had “Young man, look to Jesus Christ. Look! Look! Look! You have nothing to do but look and live!” I saw at once the way of salvation. I know not what else he said—I did not take much notice of it—I was so possessed with that one thought . . . . I had been waiting to do fifty things, but when I heard that word, “Look!” what a charming word it seemed to me. Oh! I looked until I could almost have looked my eyes away.

There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun; and I could have risen that instant, and sung with the most enthusiastic of them, of the precious blood of Christ, and the simple faith which looks alone to Him. Oh, that somebody had told me this before, “Trust Christ, and you shall be saved.” … I listened to the Word of God and that precious text led me to the cross of Christ. I can testify that the joy of that day was utterly indescribable. I thought I could have sprung from the seat in which I sat, and have called out with the wildest of those Methodist brethren . . . “I am forgiven! I am forgiven! A monument of grace! A sinner saved by blood!” My spirit saw its chains broken to pieces, I felt that I was an emancipated soul, an heir of heaven, a forgiven one, accepted in Jesus Christ, plucked out of the miry clay and out of the horrible pit, with my feet set upon a rock and my goings established … Simply by looking to Jesus I had been delivered from despair…

That young man certainly was aware of his position in Christ prior to salvation. He had been in despair, he heard the Gospel and he was saved by blood.The young man was Charles Spurgeon. His subsequent life certainly reflects the foundational understanding he had of the Gospel.

———————————

Conversion story #2

“I didn’t have a fireworks moment for my salvation, I had a falling in love with Jesus in Sunday school when I was a very young child.” But she did have an altar call moment. In high school, she had planned to become a lawyer, but one summer while leading a group of sixth-grade girls at camp, she received what she considers a call from God. “I had no words, nothing but a sense,” she says. “God took a very troubled young woman and made sure that she understood.” She walked down the aisle of her church, committing herself to ministry.”

So she had a mystical sense to walk down an aisle and commit to the idol of ministry. Not the standard Gospel call of realizing our depravity in brokenness and turning to a resurrected, blood shedding Jesus as the exclusive hope for reconciliation with God… The woman is Beth Moore. Her subsequent life certainly reflects the lack of understanding she should have had of her position in Christ both before and after salvation.

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Conversion story #3

in 1914 at the encouragement of their minister the young man was now beginning to take a hard look at the reality of his spiritual condition. “For many years I thought I was a Christian when in fact I was not. It was only later that I came to see that I had never been a Christian and became one.” As he struggled with his salvation a grace truth came into focus. He said he had not really heard sound preaching of the gospel in his early life. “What I needed was preaching that would convict me of sin and … bring me to repentance and tell me something about regeneration. But I never heard that. The preaching we had was always based on the assumption that we were all Christians …” As the young man read for himself he slowly but surely saw the logic and the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Like the waves of the incoming tide, the reality of God’s grace swept over his heart until trusting Christ was all he could do. As surely as that reality overwhelmed him personally it overwhelmed him professionally.

The young man was Martyn Lloyd Jones, (source) a preacher called “logic on fire” and certainly his long and fruitful life subsequent to his conversion testifies to the grace of Christ in bringing him to regeneration from brokenness in sin.

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Conversion story #4

A certain young man began attending a tent revival.

“And then it happened, sometime around my sixteenth birthday. On that night, [the preacher] finished preaching and gave the Invitation to accept Christ… On the last verse of that second song, I responded. I walked down to the platform, feeling as if I had lead weights attached to my feet, and stood in the space before the platform… My heart sank when I looked over at the lady standing next to me with tears running down her cheeks. I was not crying. I did not feel any special emotion of any kind just then. Maybe, I thought, I was not supposed to be there. Maybe my good intentions to be a real Christian wouldn’t last. Wondering if I was just making a fool of myself, I almost turned around and went back to my seat…” As [the young man] stood at the platform, a friend of the family’s, testified to the young man and guided him to pray.

“He prayed for me and guided me to pray. I had heard the message, and I had felt the inner compulsion to go forward. Now came the moment to commit myself to Christ… I checked ‘Recommitment’ on the card I filled out. No bells went off inside me. No signs flashed across the tabernacle ceiling. No physical palpitations made me tremble. I wondered again if I was a hypocrite, not to be weeping or something. I simply felt at peace.”

The young man was Billy Graham, attending Mordecai Ham’s tent revival. The subsequent life of Graham testifies to his lack of a foundational understanding. Especially when in his mature decades, Graham said things like a person could go to heaven without ever hearing the gospel, knowing Jesus Christ, or having lived a sincere life just knowing he needed something. “They’re going to come another way” Graham said. No. They’re not.

———————–

You see the weakness of Moore’s and Graham’s theology in describing their conversion. Their descriptions posted were not immediately after conversion, either, they were statements made decades later when one presumes some sanctified maturity has set in.

You see the strength of Spurgeon’s and Jones’ conversion stories. They talk of sin, grace, redemption, resurrection, regeneration.

Jesus is the Door. It is a narrow door. It is the only door. It isn’t easy to become a Christian. It involves a deep, soulful agony. Here’s Don Green on how to recognize true repentance,

Look at verse 4, where Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.” This word for mourning describes deep, inner agony…agony. Jesus is describing a spiritual mourning here, not an earthly mourning. It’s easy enough to see that. There are a lot of people that suffer earthly loss and mourn that, that don’t receive comfort from Christ. Unbelievers who are mourning their losses don’t receive comfort from Christ. What Jesus is talking about here is spiritual mourning over sin. He had just talked about poverty of spirit. It’s in the context of repentance.

…the tax collector in Luke 18, verse 13…Luke 18, verse 13, you don’t need to turn there. The tax collector standing some distance away was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven but was beating his breasts saying, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner.” He was beating his breast, his agony, his mourning over sin was so great that he had to release it physically. This was no superficial response. This was no quick nod of the head to the question, “Do you think you’re a sinner?” And then move on to whatever the next topic of discussion was. No, the kind of mourning, the kind of sorrow that repentance expresses is a sorrow that stops you in your tracks, a sorrow that you can’t get over.

Salvation is no easy-breezy nod to the Holy I AM whilst wiping one’s feet on the doormat saying, “Gee, thanks for the ministry.” It isn’t ambling down an aisle, and checking off a ‘recommitment’  box after a quick prayer. Salvation is agony and going through the door means you leave all else behind, enter alone, and worship. Jesus isn’t relieved you have recommitted. He isn’t wringing His hands in hopes that you will fall in love with Him. He doesn’t have an ‘easy button’ you push. He has a narrow way of entry with strict requirements. Jesus is THE DOOR. He is not a doorMAT.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Further Reading

How easy is salvation?

Posted in beth moore, discernment, false teacher, proper speech, wisdom

Beth Moore’s strangely disappearing tweet: a discernment lesson

Posted on by elizabethprata

In interesting little incident happened on Beth Moore’s twitter stream yesterday. Mrs Moore wrote:

Even some of her followers were puzzled by Moore’s inadvertent unbiblical admission.

I tweeted the following:

A few other people made mention of Moore’ puzzling admission too. And then the usual happened. Usual for these apostate days:

Beth Moore’s tweet went POOF.

There are a few discernment things to understand here. First, on the literal side of things, Beth Moore’s tweet demonstrates two simple biblical failures. Of course Keith Moore is not “inclined” to study scripture. None of us are. Our flesh always battles Godly disciplines. However the point of the Christian life is that we deny those fleshly indulgences by picking up our cross (Mt 16:24), and we rely on the Holy Spirit to help us overcome the flesh (our ‘inclinations’) to pursue holiness. All of 2 Peter exhorts for growth in godliness and pursuing the holiness our Lord deserves. That Mr Moore gives in to the flesh so as to avoid pursuing holiness is not sanctification.

Secondly it fails the husbandly aspects of a Godly marriage. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has a guide for husbands regarding this aspect of marriage. I quote it because the Moores have stated many times they are Southern Baptist, belong to a Southern Baptist church and are proudly Southern Baptist. “Lead Your Wife Spiritually: A Guide for Husbands”

it’s especially true of husbands who bear the responsibility to lead in a marriage. Your marriage should be a significant source of your wife’s sanctification. Consider Paul’s words to the Ephesians again:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. (Ephesians 5:25-28) 

Clearly, you’re not Christ. There is a sanctifying work that only Jesus can do, but as you model your love on the sanctifying relationship of Christ in the church, you do have a role in your wife’s sanctification. Even if your wife is more spiritually engaged and mature than you are, you still have a responsibility to lead.

Next, moving away from the literal aspects to the conceptual aspects of Moore’s tweet, teachers of God’s word, as Beth Moore claims to be, should be mature, wise, careful, and self-controlled.

Paul advised young Timothy to “set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.”

Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us. (Titus 2:7-8).

Titus 2:3 also advises elder women on behavior and comportment in Christian life. As does 1 Timothy 3:11-

In the same way, the women are to be worthy of respect, not malicious talkers but temperate and trustworthy in everything.

I would further state that advice for elder women goes in spades for when they are speaking publicly about their husbands.

On the discernment side, if you’re having red flags about a certain teacher or preacher, one thing to look for is if he or she makes hasty statements. Do they have to retract things often? Do they have to go back the next week and fix a wrong thing they said? I’m not saying teachers don’t ever make a mistake, but if the teacher or preacher you like or follow has a habit of always having to re-explain, correct, or retract, it’s an issue. Real teachers consider their words carefully and speak wisely to minimize such problems, as the 1 Tim 3:11 and Titus 2:7-8 verses says they should do.

I’ve said before that Beth Moore is not qualified to teach partly because of her undignified delivery. She speaks casually, quickly (both in tempo and in heart-haste). Her haste, multitudes of words, and thoughtlessness in her teaching was replicated in posting that tweet for the world to see. It was careless, as evidenced by her almost immediate deletion of it. The Bible says of a person who is hasty in words,

Do you see a man who is hasty in his words? There is more hope for a fool than for him. (Proverbs 29:20)

Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few. (Ecclesiastes 5:12)

Now someone could say, “Gee, that was one tweet, maybe Beth Moore meant Keith wasn’t inclined to study scriptures with her right then.” That could well be what she meant. So in discernment, we don’t jump to conclusions but we watch fruit grow. LOL, it takes a long time to watch fruit grow. It’s like watching paint dry. It takes time and patience. So, in Keith’s case, is there any? What is the overall, long-term pattern and is there any evidence to support that this is a consistent husbandly failure on his part?

Yes, and yes. The Moores have had a long, public spiritual life. There is much evidence to support that Keith Moore has consistently failed his wife by abandoning the husbandly role, and in so doing, rebelled against his God and allowed a Jezebel-type to be born.

Beth Moore chose to be President of her multi-million dollar corporation, Living Proof Ministries. Her husband chose to be Vice President. In one video interview I watched of Beth, she said her husband Keith has no part in the company (ministry). She was saying that as if it was a good thing, but it is really a bad thing. In looking at Living Proof Ministries’ tax returns, Moore’s reported hours working at the ministry were 50 hours per week and Keith’s were 8 hours per week. She was President and he was Vice-president. He took no compensation. So what she said was true.

However, in ministry, the wife is supposed to be led by the husband. He is supposed to oversee her. If her non-profit was a ministry as she claimed on her IRS forms, the man needed biblically to be very involved so he could rightly make decisions and lead his wife. If it isn’t a ministry but is a corporation, then why was she taking the lead role, in that case she would be be leading a feminist lifestyle? Either way, it was a #fail.

In an interview in Charisma Magazine some years ago, Moore explained how she and her husband worked out their roles as Living Proof Ministries grew and placed increasing demands on Moore.

The only time Keith ever voiced any objection, both women say, was in the early days of the ministry when Beth, at God’s prompting, quit teaching aerobics classes and began to write Bible studies. The aerobics classes had brought in at least “a little part-time money,” Beth says. But at that time, the Bible studies were not for-pay publications; they were simply a tool she prepared gratis for the women who were attending her Thursday morning Bible class at Metropolitan Baptist Church in Houston. Keith didn’t understand Beth’s willingness to invest so much time in a project she wasn’t being paid for.

So her husband objected to Beth STOPPING her work outside the home and OBJECTED to her being at home more. In fact, biblically, it should be the opposite.

When Moore’s children were small the growing ministry required her to travel away from home. This was not a problem for Mr Moore. In the interview, Beth said that he simply stepped in to the wifely role as the wife stepped into the husband’s. From the same article linked above, it is reported in the interview and using their own words, that the children endured long and/or frequent absences of their mother away from home, that they strove to maintain normalcy when Beth was gone, that they lost family privacy, that the family endured trials because of Beth’s choice to work outside the home, that they all had to sacrifice for the sake of Beth’s ministry, that each time Beth left home the children saw their father (unbiblically) performing in the wife’s role, and that Keith totally supported Beth’s choices all the while. Moore says of her absences from home as a mother, her children

“invested in the kingdom every time they kissed their mother goodbye.”

This is what happens when the husband follows his fleshly “inclinations”, and fails to rightly lead. It is not surprising then, we end up with a false teacher like Beth Moore who does not know how to handle scripture. In the end, the answer is yes, there is along-term pattern of unfruitfulness so as to be able to credibly say enough evidence exists to support that this is a consistent husbandly failure on his part? We can answer the question Pastor Mike Abendroth asked, Where is Beth Moore’s Husband?

So the take-away discernment lessons here are:

1. Use social media wisely. It’s embarrassing for someone to speak impiously and worse to see the twitter stream littered with “unavailable tweets.” Proverbs 12:4 here, An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who brings shame is like rottenness in his bones. Sin and error never lead to courage. They usually lead to hiding the sin and deleting the tweet. When you tweet, post, blog, vlog, or otherwise, do you stand behind what you’ve said? Even under fire, does what you’ve said, stand on solid ground?

2. Do not be hasty when speaking, especially publicly. If you are a teacher, be even slower with your words. Proverbs 12:18 says, There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.

3. Women, help your men do their duty of protecting and overseeing you. First, because it is a biblical command, and second, because the false teachers are just waiting to “creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions,” (Ephesians 5:22-24, 2 Timothy 3:6).

4. Women, you know that we have a tendency to be led astray and usurp the husband (Genesis 3:16). Stay submitted.

5. Sin always finds you out. (Numbers 32:23). Where a false teacher is concerned, both their doctrine and their lives (behavior) will be suspect. Yes, even Billy Graham’s. We detect the false doctrine earlier and more easily because false teachers can’t hide their teaching, that is their moneymaking, stock-in-trade. They can and do hide the sin in their lives more easily, but as the verse says, it will find you out. The natural man can’t keep a lid on his sinful behavior forever. It WILL come out.

In Beth Moore’s case she tries very hard to hide her private life. The Charisma interview I linked to is 13 years old. Not many interviews occurred after that. Or if they did, Moore insists on prepared questions ahead of time, denies tours of her office, and refuses to speak of certain periods or issues in her life (untransparent to the extreme). There are always some glimpses and gleanings of the all-important moral side emerging, though. She can’t keep a lid on all of it.

Usually at some point a critical mass is reached, the cracks in the dam can’t be plugged and the whole thing comes down.  Every false teacher always has some moral issue that emerges. We saw this with Mark Driscoll. Tullian Tchividjian. Creflo Dollar. Jimmy Swaggart. Joyce Meyer. Jack Schaap. The list is seemingly endless. That’s because a false teacher or false pastor has no hope of restraining the sin in him, and even a secret sin always finds its way out.

6. Honor your husband. It is a great example to set for the younger women. A solid, biblical marriage is wondrous to behold and that is because marriage is a picture of Jesus and His Bride.

Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty thunder peals, crying, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure”– for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are true words of God.” (Revelation 19:6-9)

Posted in bible, bible art journaling, discernment, God, jesus

Bible Art Journaling: No, No, No

Posted on by elizabethprata

The Second Commandment says that any graven images of the Holy God are forbidden.

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” (Exodus 20:4)

The next sentence says nor shall you bow down to them, so this commandment is talking about worshiping idols. Matthew Henry Commentary explains,

It is forbidden to make any image or picture of the Deity, in any form, or for any purpose; or to worship any creature, image, or picture.

And then Henry goes on to explain the deeper meanings of the command..

So, I’ve been thinking about pictures lately, spiritual pictures. I became aware last week of Presidential candidate Dr Ben Carson’s portrait with Jesus. Carson claims to be a believer, but as a Seventh Day Adventist there are too many aberrant beliefs within that cult in order for me to take his claim at face value. (FMI on Seventh Day Adventism, please go here,  here  or here)

Yes Dr Carson’s portrait is real.

Carson has said it is representative of his faith and displays his gratitude that Jesus gave him ‘gifted hands’ as a surgeon. I personally believe the portrait is blasphemy. The Second Commandment said not to portray in pictures any image of the Deity, and yet there is a big old picture of the Second Person of the Deity. Worse, Carson is seated while Jesus is standing. At the least one would think Carson would be bowing.

I like this picture of the Robe of Righteousness by Lars Justinen. In Justinen’s painting, Jesus’ face is not shown. The focus is on His act of clothing us with His righteousness and the reaction of the sinner. I’m still not sure if the Justinen painting breaks the Second Commandment if Jesus’ face and His body is not shown. But it might.

A friend made a comment on Twitter last night. She posted a photo of a Bible that had been altered by the owner having added paintings all around the edges of the margins. Apparently it’s called Bible Art Journaling. Apparently Bible Art Journaling is a “movement”.

Many visually oriented folks know that prayer journals and art journals are a great way to record thoughts and reactions to scripture. I mentioned in last night’s essay that I made art journals and individual little books during my process of coming to salvation and just afterwards. As a new babe in Christ I had difficulty grappling with new doctrines and I’d often try to visualize them since words failed me. I also used my art journal to make collages in praise to the Lord. I was so excited! The depth of my gratitude overflowed and words failed me then, too, so I’d use pictures to express what I felt. I did them in my blank sketchbook, though, NOT in my Bible.

I have had a lifelong aversion to writing, drawing, or even underlining any book whatsoever. Not novels, not textbooks, nothing. I never even wrote my name in one. I don’t write in my bible nor do I underline anything in it. Since that book is God’s Holy Word I feel even more strongly that a Bible should be handled with gravitas and respect. I’ve never underlined or written anything in any of my Bibles. “Prettying up” a Bible with my own art is not necessary and mixes my paltry words and pictures with God’s. Besides, the Bible isn’t an art project! We don’t need tutorials explaining why gesso is not a good idea to use on the thin pages of God’s word, but stencils are!

Google Image search results page for search term “Bible art journaling”

Now, if the Bibles being decorated don’t violate the Second Commandment by depicting an image from heaven nor does the owner bow down to it, then why am I writing about it? Where is the concern? Isn’t it just a matter of preference?

I have three answers for that.

1. Yes, it is a matter of preference. There is no commandment that a Christian can’t find solace in creative work on the pages of one’s Bible. But not everything allowed is profitable. (1 Corinthians 10:23). See #2.

2. I don’t want to disrespect this young woman, but I do have concerns with this approach to “encountering Jesus.” This page is a tutorial page on how to “journal your Bible.” It’s called Bible Art Journaling Challenge, and the woman promises to “Help you encounter Jesus through creativity” through “52 weeks of life-changing creative fun!” She’s not the only one. Bible Art Journaling is being promoted this way in many places.

Now here’s the issue. There is nothing wrong with art. There is nothing wrong with creativity. There is nothing wrong with collages, illustrating a prayer, painting a verse. Visuals combined with words often helps us meditate on the Word. Here is a collage I did when I was a babe, regarding 2 Corinthians 4:4 and satan’s blinding of men to the truth. All the while people play games with their life, never heeding the seriousness of it and the squandered worship they could be performing.

Here is another one I did as a babe in Christ, musing on Philippians 4:7 and the peace that passes all understanding. No matter if there is violence, war, explosions, the gal sipping tea is peaceful and unperturbed because she has Christ.

Another creative outlet I employ is spending a lot of time matching a verse with one of my photographs, all the while thinking of what the verse means. I shared these with you to show I’m not a wordsmith purist nor an old fuddy-duddy, lol. Creativity is good. Visuals are good. It’s just not a substitute for engaging your mind totally on the unadulterated word of God. Reading God’s Word is the encounter with God. Painting swirls on a Bible page is not an encounter with God.

The difference is, God’s word should stand alone and not become an “fun activity.”

We read that satan is the most subtle creature in the Garden. (Genesis 3:1.) If he can do anything to divert a Christian’s attention from the pure, unadulterated word of God, he will do it. This Bible art journaling is just such an activity. The Bible is not an art project. Coloring on its pages does not bring you closer to Jesus. Painting on its pages does not spark an encounter with Him. Reading His word, meditating on it, and obeying it is what illuminates the mind of God to us. Satan is an incremental foe. I have no idea abut the theology of this blogger but this one paragraph struck me as the best description of satan’s ploy in incrementally changing our stance on doctrine.

Incrementalism is the single best arrow in Satan’s quiver…It is a subtle approach to change masked as genuinely positive, and since it always comes in slow, bite size chunks over time, you do not even feel that you have been deceived until too late.

See what this blogger said about her jump into the journaling Bible movement. Again, I don’t disrespect her, but her opening statement seems to perfectly capture the incremental nature of satan’s ploy as explained above,

Truth be told, I had resisted this whole “art journaling in your Bible” movement at first since I already do a lot of Bible studying and I didn’t want to take time away from that in order to “play”. BUT, the seed was planted. Just about every time I cracked open my Bible I could see how I could incorporate this into my life by keeping it simple and recording what I was already learning. (source)

So once the seed was planted when she opened her bible she didn’t see Jesus anymore but all she saw was how to use the space for her art. See? It’s a problem. We have blank sketch books for art. We have altered book tutorials. Not Bible art. As a matter of fact, bible art journaling IS a form of altered book art.

Altered books: An altered book is a form of mixed media artwork that changes a book from its original form into a different form, altering its appearance and/or meaning. An altered book artist takes a book (old, new, recycled or multiple) and cuts, tears, glues, burns, folds, paints, adds to, collages, rebinds, gold-leafs, creates pop-ups, rubber-stamps, drills, bolts, and/or be-ribbons it. The artist may add pockets and niches to hold tags, rocks, ephemera, or other three-dimensional objects.

Here is an example of altered book art:

Source

Here is an example of MY altered book art:

EPrata art

Here is an example of altered Bible art:

Source

Bible art journaling obscures God’s word. It competes with it. To be fair, the Bible art journaling blogger does not advocate abandoning devotional time nor substituting creative time for actual bible study. But that is the subtle genius of satan. He is an incremental foe. A sly insertion of an activity with the Bible instead of reading the Bible itself is the goal. A familiar proverb or saying goes,

“If the camel once gets his nose in the tent, his body will soon follow.”

#3. I’d said that satan is subtle. Usually there is not anything particularly wrong with an activity or practice. You can’t point a finger and show the smoking gun. However the incremental nature of satan, taking an inch here, a half an inch there, over time chisels away at the foundation and all of a sudden you look around and wonder, “how did I get here?”

Just as Catholic labyrinths were re-branded as Protestant prayer walking, just as occult channeling was re-branded as “hearing from God”, just as mystical “contemplative prayer” was re-branded as “Protestant contemplative prayer”, just as Hindu Yoga was re-branded as ‘Christian Yoga’, just as Wiccan pentagrams were re-branded as “circle making”…”. Remember enneagrams? Those have Sufi roots. Bible art journaling is already melding with Hindu Mandala coloring. “Color your way closer to God?” No, no, no.

This Mandala Coloring Book For Grown Ups Is The Creative’s Way To Mindful Relaxation

For the unfamiliar, a mandala is a sacred symbol in Hinduism and Buddhism, made from a nest of squares and circles, that represents the cosmos. As the Asian Art Museum put it: “mandalas are not just images to view, but worlds to enter — after recreating the image in their mind’s eye, meditators imaginatively enter its realm.”

Oh! You mean, an encounter with the divine through creativity! Like this Christian description!

Bible art journaling is part of the growing, Illustrated Faith and Bible doodling movement where many are creating on the pages of their Bible. The idea is to engage more freely with the Word of God in new ways and to record personally inspiring scriptures in creative and artistic ways, which serve to remind us of moments in our personal journey with God. (source)

Or like this book available at Amazon, coloring Hindu mandalas to match Christian hymns.

Abide: An Adult Coloring Book Featuring 30 Great Hymns of the Faith: Where Art-Therapy and Soul-Therapy Meet

With original mandala artwork and hymn excerpts to color, Abide is certain to stimulate spirit and heart. Turn on some background music to play along as you color. Each coloring sheet is one-sided, with hymn texts printed on the back of each design.
Carefully selected hymns to appeal to young and old. Original mandala artwork. Artistic script designs. Simple, but beautiful mandala designs.

Source

People, Mandalas are HINDU. They are not, nor will they ever be CHRISTIAN. They represent something sacred to the unsaved. Something sacred to the unsaved is an IDOL. We are back to the Second Commandment I opened this essay with. Don’t believe me? See mandalas defined-

Definition of mandala:Mandala (Sanskrit Maṇḍala, ‘circle’) is a spiritual and ritual symbol in Indian religions, representing the universe. The basic form of most mandalas is a square with four gates containing a circle with a center point. In Hinduism, a mandala (yantra) is a two- or three-dimensional geometric composition used in sadhanas, puja or meditative rituals. It is considered to represent the abode of the deity. Each yantra is unique and calls the deity into the presence of the practitioner through the elaborate symbolic geometric designs. According to one scholar, “Yantras function as revelatory symbols of cosmic truths and as instructional charts of the spiritual aspect of human experience”. (source)

Do you really think it’s innocent to color a mandala just because some money-grubbing, undiscerning author re-packaged a pagan activity by pasting a line from a beloved hymn over the top of it and adding “Christian” to the title?

That is where Bible art journaling leads. It’s a diversion.

The Puritans had a high view of the Bible. Puritan Richard Baxter wrote in the mid 1600s,

The reading of the word of God, and the explication and application of it in good books, is a means to possess the mind with sound, orderly, and working apprehensions of God, and of his holy truths: so that in such reading our understandings are oft illuminated with a heavenly light, and our hearts are touched with a special delightful relish of that truth; and they are secretly attracted and engaged unto God and all the powers of our souls are excited and animated to a holy obedient life.

Therefore I do not believe that painting butterflies on my Bible’s pages is an encounter with Jesus. Doing so incrementally adulterates it, alters it, and then slowly degrades the high view we should have of it. The Bible is not an art project.

See? I like butterflies. Really.

Posted in discernment, false teachers, God in a box

"God can use it…"

Posted on by elizabethprata
“I don’t agree with everything [insert false teacher’s name here] but there are some good things he/she says.” In rebutting this notion, author Michelle Lesley phrased it best. She said in her essay titled,

Mayoral Candidate Opal Covey Rebukes Fred and Speaks in Tongues–

Ladies, you want to know why I warn against false teachers? This is why. You start out with “gateway drugs” like Beth Moore and Priscilla Shirer, thinking, “It’s OK. It’s only a little unbiblical teaching. I can stop any time I want,” and pretty soon you end up like this lady, strung out and face down in the gutter of blasphemy and false doctrine. This is an embarrassment to the church, an awful witness to the lost, and a black eye for Jesus. Just say no to false teaching.

There is the story of the demon-possessed slave girl in Acts which relates here.

As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune-telling. 17She followed Paul and us, crying out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” 18And this she kept doing for many days. Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour. (Acts 16:16-18)

Why didn’t Paul say, as so many pastors and teachers and women say today, “She is speaking truth. I don’t agree with everything she says, but God can certainly use her. I’ll let her speak for me”?

Because it isn’t about the words such a person says, it’s the source. Paul taught,

Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? (2 Corinthians 6:14-15).

He made four explicit points:

Righteousness v. lawlessness
Light v. darkness
Christ v. Belial (satan)
Believer v. unbeliever

He made four implicit points. The goal among believers is to be in:
partnership
fellowship
harmony
in common

Whatever flavor your favored partly or all-false teacher demonstrates from the second column, God will not use it. The dividing line is clear. Have nothing to do with those who are lawless, or dark, or of satan, or are an unbeliever.

EPrata photo, not EPrata

For people who say, well, ‘Don’t put God in a box, He can use anything’, you’re right, God can use anything. He can turn me into a giraffe. But will He? No, He created animals after their own kind. Just because God CAN turn me into a giraffe doesn’t mean He will.

He can do anything, even use a demon-possessed girl speaking truth – but He won’t. He didn’t. The Holy Spirit inside Paul was tormented hearing the slave girl speak heavenly glories from a satan-polluted mouth! (Acts 16:18). Any false teacher is demon influenced. In Galatians 1 Paul was astonished they were deserting the Gospel so quickly. In 2 Corinthians 11 he chastised them who put up with a different Gospel so easily. In Revelation 2, Jesus threatened the Thyatirans for tolerating a false prophetess. No, God won’t use falsity. His Son is too beautiful to Him and His Gospel is too pure. Why should he?

God chose to speak thru His Son (Hebrews 1:1-2), not through satan. So why would you limit God and put Him in a box by saying He can’t follow through on what He said He will do? Trust Him. If He said He will work through the Gospel given rightly, He will.

And what if…”God can use” a false teacher’s words not to draw women to Christ but to harden them in their sin? Be careful what you say “God can use.” God DOES use sinners, wolves, and false doctrine, but not in the way most people think. God CAN use Beth Moore to harden women in their self-esteem, legalistic, selfish ways.

I’ll end with another best quote from a sister in Christ. When the TV series “The Bible” was released by Roma Downey, Sunny Shell reviewed it. She put in a Q & A to her review. She hypothetically asked,

Q. “Even though there’s a lot of error in this movie, still, don’t you think it’s a great way to show people who God really is, I mean, can’t God use anything to save someone?

A. No, I don’t think this movie is a great way to reveal the truth about God since it’s filled with lies about God. And yes, I realize God can use anything to save someone, but He only chose to use the message of the true Gospel to save all men (John 14:6, Acts 4:12). Nowhere in Scripture does God command or allow His children to use the work of Satan to proclaim His truth. And God is clear, anyone who denies Him and defiles His holy character or word, works for the devil, not for God. 

Since the beginning of time, the devil has attempted to minimize and blaspheme God’s holy character by lulling us to disregard His holiness, justice and righteousness. God has never called His children of light to partner with the works of darkness (2 Cor 6:15-16). As God’s children, we are commanded to pursue holiness, rather than try to find a way to compromise the glory of Christ in order to “reach more people”.

Well said, Mrs Shell. As for false teachers, just a little bit of poison kills. We know that satan speaks through these teachers, and satan only speaks lies. He will meld a few lies in with the truth so that the two are nearly indistinguishable, and therefore appear harmless. His lies involve the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, and the lust of the flesh.

If I hear a woman saying “I know [such and such false teacher] doesn’t teach everything according to the bible, but I like some things she teaches” then I know one thing for sure. Something in that false teacher’s doctrine appeals to her flesh and she is unwilling to give that up.

Yet we are called to slay the old man in us. Romans 8:13 says,

For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Mortify the flesh, and kill off that part of you that wants to cling to a teacher others have said or shown you with the Word are not giving an authentic Gospel.

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5)