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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 December 29, 2015May 9, 2016 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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Netanyahu appears to have won a victory in the Israel Election, Baptist college elects openly gay president, SBC-affiliated churches with women clergy

Posted on March 18, 2015May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Some news roundups:

A major election was held in Israel today. Unlike in the US where we vote for a person from a party, in Israel, they vote for a party and then select the front person of that party to be Prime Minister. In the election today, current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party stunningly pulled ahead and appears to have won a very close match against the Zionist Union Party. Interesting,y at the eve of the election, Netanyahu reversed his stand on whether he supports a Palestinian State alongside a Jewish State, and said he did not. The Zionist Union supports two states and wanted to work with the Palestinians.

The opposition and its front man, Isaac Herzog, have refused to concede, and indeed, the election is still very close. However it seems that at the last moment, Netanyahu and his party may have won. In any case, it seems, as the NY Times puts it, the closeness of the race “promising a protracted and messy process of forming the next governing coalition.”

Current PM Netanyahu giving election day victory speech to supporters

Meanwhile, a 6.6 quake has just occurred in Indonesia at the Molucca Sea. The blue dot is the quake. It had initially been rated as a 7.3, which is why the editor of Breaking News referred to it that way. Here is the Editor’s note:

Editor’s note: According to data we are monitoring from the USGS, Indonesia is still experiencing several aftershocks dozens of miles off the coast of Kota Ternate after a 7.3 quake earlier. None of these have reached an intensity to trigger a tsunami warning, but we will continue to watch data from the area. – Aaron

Apostasy is running apace, at a shocking level. In this example, once considered the most conservative denomination, the Baptists of the Southern Baptist Convention have recently been giving evidence of internal rot leading to collapse. The denomination’s acceptance of the different gospels of Rick Warren, Beth Moore, the non-remarking of President of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission Russell Moore’s visit to the Vatican in a partnership in an ecumenical pursuit of social justice (marriage issues), the Convention’s demonstrable divisiveness against its Reformed brothers, and more, it seems that the issues in the once-conservative Baptist denomination are percolating to the top.

What makes all this so interesting is that the Baptists, especially the Southern Baptists (16 million Americans enrolled) are thought to be the most conservative, sticking closest to living out the principles in the Word, which they state to be the unerring word of God. Richard Dudley wrote in Baptist Why and Why Not:

The fundamental principle of the Baptists is their belief in the supreme authority and absolute sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures; and their separate existence is the practical and logical result of their attempt to apply this principle in all matters of religion. (source)

Witness the recent news from the Baptist News of the Harrisonburg Baptist Church of VA, a Southern Baptist Convention affiliated church, in this article from several days ago discussing the acceptance of pregnant pastors in the pulpit.

Stacy Nowell

Baptist women say faith deepened as pregnant ministers

The first time around as a pregnant Baptist minister, Stacy Cochran Nowell harbored worries few other moms-to-be are likely to share. Chief among them was that older church members might object to the sight of an expectant mother in the pulpit. It never happened, said Nowell, the associate pastor at Harrisonburg Baptist Church in Virginia. “I just never received any negative feedback,” she said of the pregnancy that produced her now 3-year-old daughter. “I anticipated them, but they never materialized.”

Note that the opposition they expected was the fact that the female pastors were working while pregnant, NOT that the church had installed a woman minister. Yet the bible says,

But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet, 13 For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve.” (1 Tim. 2:12-13).

Pr. Nowell of Harrisonburg Baptist Church

Interestingly, the SBC states that it does not support female clergy. In 1998, Richard Melick wrote in the SBC Life, the Journal of the Southern Baptist Convention, “Summary: Should Women Be Pastors? We have seen that the explicit texts of Scripture forbid women to serve as pastors.” Their current FAQ still states the same.

Six months ago, the SBC cut ties with a SBC-affilated church that voted to retain a pastor who declared that same-sex unions can be blessed by God, and had performed a “marriage” of his own gay son in the church. To my knowledge, no disciplinary action has been lodged against Harrisonburg Baptist Church for its installation of female pastor, pregnant or not.

Here is news from a few days ago, from Baptist News again.

Historically Baptist college elects gay president

Though not Indiana’s first openly gay college president, Thomas Minar is the first for Franklin College, a small-town college 20 minutes from Indianapolis historically rooted in the American Baptist Churches USA. While one Baptist college in Tennessee defended inviting a lesbian to speak on campus, another in Indiana with little fanfare recently elected a president who is openly gay. Franklin College, a small liberal-arts college in “voluntary association” with the American Baptist Churches USA, announced Jan. 23 the selection of American University administrator Thomas Minar as the school’s 16th president effective July 1.

I am sure that the homosexual lobby will hail this as a “victory”, but we know what true victory is. It is as Paul stated in 1 Corinthians 15:57,

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; 57but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus gives us victory OVER sin, sins such as homosexuality, not victory in submitting TO sin.

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(Updated) Isis captures oil field, aims for Jordan? Ebola out of control, SBC gay-affirming Pastor feted at White House, lauded for "progress"

Posted on July 3, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

(Update below)
I’m catching up on some news. I like to follow up with previously reported issues. Let’s start with Danny Cortez, Obama, and the SBC.

In February of this year when Pastor Danny Cortez of California’s New Hope Church (a Southern Baptist Convention affiliated church) told his congregation that his son had come out as gay and that he as pastor has been wrong to preach against homosexuality as a sin, his church split.

However, the bulk of the congregation voted to retain Pastor Cortez and go forward on a third way, in other words, not yes and not no but maybe (the lukewarm, middle of the road way?) in agreeing to disagree and focusing on other issues (besides sin?)

Albert Mohler, Jr., an American theologian and the ninth president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, published an essay declaring there is no third way.

This all came down just before the Southern Baptist Convention. The Bylaws of the SBC state that cooperating churches which dissent or vary from orthodox and agreed upon doctrines can be voted out of the denomination.” The SBC Constitution states: “Among churches not in friendly cooperation with the Convention are churches which act to affirm, approve, or endorse homosexual behavior.” This didn’t happen at the Convention.

The ~~excuse~~ reason was that it all happened too close to the convention’s opening and the leaders had not had time to review the situation formally nor properly. They did not want to make a hasty decision. OK, fine, but when no movement on the issue happened after the convention either, Al Mohler wrote another essay in effect saying, ‘OK, time to get moving on this issue now’. (I interpreted it that way).

As of today, still nothing from the SBC. It is reported that the SBC Executive Committeee may take it up in September. May take it up.

Meanwhile the Homosexual lobby is not waiting around to take an advantage. Pastor Danny Cortez was almost immediately invited to the White House for Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender (LGBT) celebration to cap off Gay Month, hosted by Obama. The Baptist Press reported (and picked up by the Biblical Recorder) that Cortez was delighted to attend.

Pro-gay [SBC] pastor attends White House event (I added the ‘SBC’ to the headline)

The Los Angeles-area Baptist pastor whose church split after he announced he no longer believes all homosexual acts are sinful was President Obama’s guest at the White House LGBT Pride Month reception June 30. Danny Cortez, pastor of New Heart Community Church in La Mirada, Calif., attended the reception with his son Drew, who Cortez said in a Feb. 9 sermon is gay. At the reception, Obama acknowledged open homosexuals serving in his administration and said 11 openly gay federal judges have been confirmed by the Senate, including 10 during his administration. Danny Cortez, pastor of New Heart Community Church in La Mirada, Calif., attended the reception with his son Drew, who Cortez said in a Feb. 9 sermon is gay. “This tremendous progress we’ve made as a society is thanks to those of you who fought the good fight,…”

Obama is exactly right, the “progress” the homosexual lobby has made in culture is due to either false Christians helpfully promoting satan’s agenda, or true Christians standing by and doing nothing.

On another topic, I stopped following the ISIS event in the Middle East when the news reports and even twitter accounts posted photos without warnings of graphic nature. The photos were terrible, terrible.

As of 6/28/2014, the dark red area indicates land now controlled
by ISIS, while the light red area is territory claimed by ISIS.
Source. Spesh531/Wikipedia

That does not mean the issue is no longer important though. It is. It may have fallen off this blog and it may have receded into the background of world news, but ISIS is still capturing, advancing, and murdering. See this photo-safe news report from Israel’s Arutz Sheva from today

ISIS Captures Largest Oil Field in Syria
Islamist group adds to its resources, seizing oil field and consolidating its hold in the Euphrates corridor from Iraq into Syria.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) continues to roll forward, adding to its collection of captured resources the Al-Omar Oil Field, the largest oil field in Syria located in the eastern Deir al-Zour province of the war-torn country, near the Iraqi border. The Islamist group has already amassed great assets during its blitz offensive in Iraq, seizing Iraq’s largest oil refinery, a chemical weapons facility, and becoming the “world’s richest terrorist organization” by looting 500 billion Iraqi dinars ($425 million) from banks in Mosul. Now, video footage uploaded to YouTube shows armed ISIS jihadists at the entrance to the field with their flag flying high, after having wrestled the field away from the Al-Nusra Front, a rival opposition force in Syria that is linked with Al-Qaeda, which ISIS broke off from. … ISIS’s lightning series of victories have given it control of a corridor on the Euphrates River ranging from the far-eastern Syrian town of Bukamal, located on the border with Iraq, on through the provincial capital of Deir al-Zour to the northwest from the border.

Additionally ISIS, which on Sunday declared itself an Islamic “caliphate” and proclaimed its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as “Caliph,” has succeeding in winning pledges of allegiance by numerous rebel factions in the area.

I have not watched the video which accompanies the article. You’re on your own with that one. Here is another news piece discussing how much territory ISIS has now

Sunni fighters of the Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) Thursday gained control over the eastern Syrian province of Deir Ez-zor and now occupy an area five times the size of Lebanon in Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. (source)

Where will ISIS go next? The Wall Street Daily reports,

You see, some early reports suggest Baghdadi may have a new target: the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which is ruled from nearby Amman. Jordan is considered a constitutional monarchy, but King Abdullah II has the power to appoint 75 members of the Parliament directly. He also has the power to pass laws himself, and he is the head of both the state and the military. But while Abdullah II has all of the power, he doesn’t have strong support amongst the people. You see, Jordan has been the recipient of many refugees in recent decades, and the country is now brimming with Arabs from both Palestine and Syria. These people feel oppressed by the small, but controlling, Hashemite tribe… and that could spell trouble. Abdullah would be supported by his military and the United States, but not his Sunni Muslim population, which would likely be sympathetic to ISIS. On top of that, if ISIS controlled Jordan, it could surround Damascus, which is just 100 short miles north of Amman. In that regard, Jordan could be the key to winning in Syria.

I posted a couple of news reports about Jordan two weeks ago. (here, and here) I feel the ISIS group will go to Jordan for exactly the above described reason, and also Saudi Arabia. Jordan is prominent in prophecy for one simple reason is that the antichrist will conquer the world but God will not allow him to take Jordan. However, Jordan will not escape unharmed.

UPDATE: Daily Mail is reporting the following about Saudi Arabia:

Saudi Arabia has placed 30,000 soldiers on its northern border after 2,500 Iraqi soldiers reportedly quit their posts, leaving the country open to the threat of a lightning advance by ISIS militants.

As a matter of fact, Jordan is prophesied to be devastated (except for Petra). From Jordan it is but a small matter to conquer Lebanon (a proxy of Syria anyway) and then attack Israel, which would pretty much be the Psalm 83 battle.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar believes ISIS (ISIL) will go to Jordan next also. Dr Kedar is a senior lecturer in the Department of Arabic at Bar-Ilan University. He served in IDF Military Intelligence for 25 years, specializing in Arab political discourse, Arab mass media, Islamic groups and the Syrian domestic arena. He definitely has the intellectual chops and professional credibility to make such a call. He said,

ISIL has never concealed its intentions regarding Jordan, created, as were Iraq and Syria, by European colonialism, and therefore deserving to be eliminated. The name of the organization expresses is goals, because “al-Sham” is the Levant, and that area includes Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel. In order to make its plans for Jordan obvious, the organization expanded its control in Iraq westward, up to the border between Iraq and Jordan, also conquering the border town of Turayvil. Its successes in Iraq and Syria awaken the “Jihadist adrenaline” in the marginal populations of Jordan and the demonstration in Ma’an expresses what is well-known: ISIS success draws the masses, especially those on the fringes of society, those who want to belong to something successful at last. And if this successful thing brings an end to a suppressive regime, it is an even more worthy group to join.

Of course it could all collapse tomorrow. Only God knows.

Drought: “Arizona’s largest city has gone four months without any measurable rain, and neighboring New Mexico is in the midst of four years of severe drought.”

Earthquakes: Quakes are still pounding Oklahoma.

USGS, Quakes this week, 2.5+

Big earthquakes double in 2014, but scientists say they’re not linked. (Sure….sure.) There is a a 65 percent increase compared to the rate of large quakes since 1979. (larger than magnitude 7).

We have recently experienced a period that has had one of the highest rates of great earthquakes ever recorded,” said lead study author Tom Parsons, a research geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Menlo Park, California. But even though the global earthquake rate is on the rise, the number of quakes can still be explained by random chance, said Parsons and co-author Eric Geist, also a USGS researcher.

The disease Ebola is “out of control” in parts of West Africa. Remember, Ebola is the disease with an extremely high mortality rate that melts your insides. Mortality of those who contract the disease range from 34% to 70%. Compared to the previous influenza epidemics, which were less than 0.1%, the 1918 Spanish Influenza epidemic had a mortality rate of 2.5%. Now perhaps, with that comparison in mind, it is easier to envision this verse’s fulfillment:

“And its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth.” (Revelation 8b)

Keep praying, keep loving each other, and keep looking up. Have a safe and Hurricane Arthur-free Fourth of July Holiday!

Danny Cortez, don't ask don't tell, homosexual, romans 1, sbc

Don’t ask don’t tell…if you’re a Christian

Posted on July 1, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

I know we all may be finding the homosexual intrusion into American & world culture tiresome. And the discussions about it are even more so. Worst of all, we are not of this world and the homosexual lobby is winning. Will win eventually.

Nonetheless, we always continue to proclaim God’s glories and urge one and all of the pagans to repent, and then we exhort for for one and all of the brethren to adhere to His standards. He is God, holy and high, and He knows best. It is as simple as that.

Romans 1:18-32 shows us the process of a downward progression of a culture when the majority of its populace refuses to repent. Please bear with me as I post the entire passage.

God’s Wrath on Unrighteousness

18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world,g in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

24Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

26For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

28And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

The NASB says of the last verse that they give “hearty approval” to them that practice those things.

Hearty approval.

This aspect of the hearty approval statement indicates not just individual sin, and not just collective sin, but also enticement into sin. In addition, giving hearty approval to sin involves a tipping point. This involves peer pressure and groupthink. When a group practicing the sin increases in numbers, at a certain point, there is more pressure to perform the sin than there was to hide the sin or not engage in it at all. The original people or group doing the sin paid the shame price in the culture for having been found out, but after a while the shame wore off and more and more people fornicated, were adulterers, homosexuals, lesbians, bigamists, ~~prostitutes~~ sex workers (see? we don’t even call them prostitutes any more let alone whores).

Remember back in the day when premarital sex was talked about in hushed whispers? When a mother bearing an illegitimate child was hustled off to another location because she (and the father) had brought shame onto the family? When homosexuality was a considered a perversion and never discussed, let alone approved of? Now there are television shows which feature gays in ‘marriages’ as normal, men in marriages to multiple wives, lesbians casually kissing on television. The hearty approval is that the ratings of these television shows and movies get higher ratings with this kind of content in it.

We’ve seen this since the 1950s with premarital sex. We’ve seen this since the late 1960s with fornicating outside of marriage and with adultery. No-fault divorce is one of the major causes of the former. We’ve seen this with homosexuality since the 1970s. In the 1980s with the advent of cable television and a wider latitude for exposing the audience to worse language, bloodier violence, and more sex. By the 1990s the tidal wave of sin in the world being reflected on tv and other media, and then reflected back to approving audiences was firmly entrenched. 1993’s movie with Tom Hanks (Philadelphia) about an HIV-positive homosexual man was Hollywood’s first mainstream movie with a gay as the main character as sympathetic. Cut to 20 years beyond that date and we are awash with an upside down world where sin is heartily approved of and those not wishing to participate in sin are the odd ones out.

Now we have a pastor of a conservative Southern Baptist church changing his mind on the issue of homosexuality being sinful (he says it isn’t) and is accepting of his gay son’s lifestyle. He calls himself a “gay-affirming pastor” but it is just being sin-affirming. And a sin-affirming pastor is an oxymoron.

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! (Isaiah 5:20)

In just 20 years, half a generation, we’ve gone from President Clinton’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” being about homosexuals in military service to don’t ask don’t tell about Christians in military service.

Wretched Radio brings us this photo of a greeting card section of Walgreen’s

And this one really hurts.

Sir Elton John says Jesus would support gay marriage: ‘He was all about love’

Sir Elton John has said he believes that Jesus would be a supporter of gay marriage. The “Daniel” singer, who hopes to marry filmmaker David Furnish next year, said he thinks that the Christian figure would have supported the union of gay members of the clergy. Speaking to Sky News on the same weekend as the London Pride parade, Sir Elton said: “If Jesus Christ was alive today, I cannot see him, as the Christian person that he was and the great person that he was, saying this could not happen. “He was all about love and compassion and forgiveness and trying to bring people together. “And that is what the Church should be about.”

Nope I was wrong. This next part of the above article hurts worse.

But the chart-topping artist said that the Church deserved credit for the progress that has been made in recent years. He heaped particular praise onto the Archbishop of Canterbury and Pope Francis, whom he described as a “wonderful” man who had stripped back church teaching to reveal its fundamental message of love.

Yes. They heartily approve.

gender surgery, homosexuality, paul mchugh, perversity, sbc, transgender

The Incorrect Assumption of Transgenderism is that…

Posted on June 21, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

“…what is in the mind cannot be questioned.”

The above statement was from Dr. Paul McHugh, former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and the author of “Try to Remember: Psychiatry’s Clash Over Meaning, Memory, and Mind”.

It is from an excerpt from an Opinion-Editorial article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal last week by Dr. Paul McHugh, formerly head psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins University. [HT Stand to Reason Blog] from which the above was taken. Their title was “Why the First Hospital to Do Sex-Reassignment Surgeries No Longer Does Them”

I thought Dr. McHugh’s point about anorexia and bulimia was especially poignant. The comment about the 20-fold higher suicide rate of surgically transgendered patients in latter years having ‘no explanation’ was also poignant.

Christians have the explanation. The explanation is, the trans-gender seeker person is vigorously rebelling against God and denying His sovereignty over creation, including their own creation as a man or a woman. Rebellion against God and denying Him always leads to despair- because rebels have no hope.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Halifax, Canada: “The familiar stick figures remain, so as not to confuse anyone used to looking for them to point the way to a washroom. But now Capital Health has added a third figure to the signs on some of its single-stall bathrooms in Halifax to represent transgender people, in a move designed to signal a welcoming environment to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individual.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Satan actively seeks moral decline. He seeks it in the individual and he seeks it in society. In attacking the family satan has had success in bringing about an acceptance of divorce, and an acceptance of homosexuality- at least as it’s presented in the news and the media. The next frontier for acceptance of perversity is transgenderism, and polyamory (Multiple wives, or multiple partners under one roof.) If satan can corrupt the marriage institution and pervert the nuclear family, thus normalizing terrible sin, he will have accomplished his goal, which is to rebel against God’s holy standards. Getting an entire society to rebel is icing on the cake. (Romans 1:32).

Dr McHugh’s information is of interest because transgenderism is the next frontier of satan’s active battlefield. The cherry on top of the icing on the cake is that after getting individuals to fall, and after getting a culture to fall, is to get these perverted notions accepted by the church. It has been an onslaught lately.

Several weeks ago, a church identifying as Southern Baptist repudiated the biblical standard for sexuality and voted to keep a pastor who’d reversed his position on homosexuality as a sin. The reason for the pastor’s change of heart? His son came out as gay, and rather than repudiate the sin in his son and go through the Matthew 18 process, the pastor chose to repudiate Jesus instead. His church voted to keep the gay-affiring pastor, thus the congregation repudiated Jesus also. In these cases I am reminded of Revelation 3:20. Jesus is outside the door of the church, knocking to come in.

The Presbyterian Church USA voted this week to change their constitution declaring marriage as a union between two people, rather than specifically between a man and a woman.

In the face of the swelling tide of gender role and sexual reversals, last week the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution stating in part, “The separation of one’s gender identity from the physical reality of biological birth sex poses the harmful effect of engendering an understanding of sexuality and personhood that is fluid.“

And this piece by Dr McHugh agrees, medically, biologically, and psychologically. Transgenderism is in the mind, it is a desire, an appetite. It is a disorder, not a biological reality.

Acknowledging transgenderism as a sin and not a disorder does not diminish the pain and anguish the gender confused individual possesses. However the glory of the Gospel is that Jesus died to pay for all sins, and to bring peace between Himself and sinners. Any and all sin, confusion, and anguish can be covered and helped by repentance and submission to the Great and Holy Comforter. He is a man of Sorrows Himself, understanding our pains and woes. He will help. Repentance, means a true rejection of one’s sin, and in this case pleas to Jesus will be heard. It doesn’t mean that one’s anguish over sin will be immediately dissolved, but He sends a Helper in the Holy Spirit to aid us in resisting temptation. More than that He gives us HOPE, and changes our focus from self to Him, that is always the greatest and most magnanimous place to start the path to true peace.

Here is Dr. McHugh

[P]olicy makers and the media are doing no favors either to the public or the transgendered by treating their confusions as a right in need of defending rather than as a mental disorder that deserves understanding, treatment and prevention. This intensely felt sense of being transgendered constitutes a mental disorder in two respects. The first is that the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken—it does not correspond with physical reality. The second is that it can lead to grim psychological outcomes.

The transgendered suffer a disorder of “assumption” like those in other disorders familiar to psychiatrists. With the transgendered, the disordered assumption is that the individual differs from what seems given in nature—namely one’s maleness or femaleness. Other kinds of disordered assumptions are held by those who suffer from anorexia and bulimia nervosa, where the assumption that departs from physical reality is the belief by the dangerously thin that they are overweight….

Psychiatrists obviously must challenge the solipsistic concept that what is in the mind cannot be questioned. Disorders of consciousness, after all, represent psychiatry’s domain; declaring them off-limits would eliminate the field….

We at Johns Hopkins University—which in the 1960s was the first American medical center to venture into “sex-reassignment surgery”—launched a study in the 1970s comparing the outcomes of transgendered people who had the surgery with the outcomes of those who did not. Most of the surgically treated patients described themselves as “satisfied” by the results, but their subsequent psycho-social adjustments were no better than those who didn’t have the surgery. And so at Hopkins we stopped doing sex-reassignment surgery, since producing a “satisfied” but still troubled patient seemed an inadequate reason for surgically amputating normal organs.

It now appears that our long-ago decision was a wise one. A 2011 study at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden produced the most illuminating results yet regarding the transgendered, evidence that should give advocates pause. The long-term study—up to 30 years—followed 324 people who had sex-reassignment surgery. The study revealed that beginning about 10 years after having the surgery, the transgendered began to experience increasing mental difficulties. Most shockingly, their suicide mortality rose almost 20-fold above the comparable nontransgender population. This disturbing result has as yet no explanation but probably reflects the growing sense of isolation reported by the aging transgendered after surgery. The high suicide rate certainly challenges the surgery prescription….

At the heart of the problem is confusion over the nature of the transgendered. “Sex change” is biologically impossible. People who undergo sex-reassignment surgery do not change from men to women or vice versa. Rather, they become feminized men or masculinized women. Claiming that this is civil-rights matter and encouraging surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and promote a mental disorder.

For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. (Jude 1:4)

And yet, our gentle Lord encourages us with this verse,

But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. (Jude 1:20-21)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Further reading:

Transgendered Chastity Bono and “Dancing with the Stars”

What does the Bible say about transsexualism / transgenderism? Is gender identity disorder / gender dysphoria the result of sin?”

Focus on the Family position on Transgenderism

beth moore, commissioning, Francis Chan, john piper, sbc, Women of Faith

Beth Moore led a "commissioning" for 11,000 women (and men) at Unwrap the Bible conference

Posted on June 17, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

“The Commissioning.”

It happened at the Women of Faith “Unwrap the Bible” Conference.

But first, some background.

This past February, just weeks ago, Beth Moore and four other women concluded the Unwrap The Bible event in Houston, and closed it with what the sponsor of the event, Women of Faith, called “A Commissioning”. (??)

“Unwrap the Bible” was touted as America’s largest bible conference, sponsored by “Women of Faith.” (WOF) It was held for two days at Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church. In addition to five women who were to teach and preach their way through the weekend, WOF used clips from Catholic Mystic Roma Downey’s “The Bible” series to punctuate the biblical “truths” the lineup of teachers was to teach. Downey also promoted the conference prior to its inception. Christine Caine, Beth Moore, Priscilla Shirer, Lisa Harper, and Sheila Walsh were the 5 scheduled bible teachers. Joel Osteen’s wife Victoria opened the conference with a prayer. Lisa Bevere was on hand too. Eleven-thousand women attended. Here is a photo of Lakewood Church with Beth on the jumbotron-

Screen shot from WOF video

At the very end of the conference, Beth Moore did not offer a benediction for the women, she did not sing a song for them, she did something peculiar. Very peculiar. She held a “commissioning”. At Moore’s insistence, telling women to grab the person next to them, and repeat after her, Moore led the 11,000 women in a ceremony whose likeness I can’t find anywhere in the bible.

At Moore’s command, the 11,000 women dutifully paired up, hugged up, listened and then spoke in unison in call-and-response style with Moore leading them in this “commissioning.” If you’ve never heard of a “commissioning” like this, I haven’t either, because it doesn’t exist. Moore has ripped the normal word from any biblical context and any known ceremony and has redefined it into something a seeker sensitive, New Age, pop psychology, comfy feminist would love. And love it they did.

Screen shot from WOF video

I am not making this up- the Women of Faith intended for the last segment of the conference to be called a “commissioning.” Here is the WOF title card for the video segment:

Here is the Women of Faith web page explanation about it.

“Women of Faith Commissioning“
Monday, March 17, 2014 By Beth Moore

At last month’s Unwrap the Bible event in Houston, Beth Moore wrapped up the weekend with a “commissioning.” She gathered major points from all the speakers’ messages and had the women in the audience speak them over each other. We loved it and thought you would, too.

I’m sorry, but I don’t love it. Not one word “spoken over the women” at the end of WOF Unwrap the Bible conference that Moore was “commissioning” was scripture. Not one. Many of the concepts in the ceremony were unbiblical, to boot.

How Moore introduced “the commissioning” to the women was:

“This is our way of sending you out with this truth embedded in the marrow of your bones.”

Sounds painful.

It was then that Moore told the women to grab a women next to them and repeat what Moore said to the women they’d grabbed. She would say a line, the 11,000 women would repeat it to the partner they’d grabbed, whether they knew the woman or not, not knowing whether the woman was even saved or not. That’s why there is a space for pauses after each phrase. Here is the transcript.

My dear Sister Be confident this great day That your God has chosen you He can make a miracle Out of your big mess He can stand you up straight And set your feet upon a rock No matter where you’ve been Or what you’ve done You are not dirty The power of the cross Has made you clean When you run out of what it takes Girlfriend, run to Jesus Let Jesus turn water into wine Never forget You have an enemy Hell-bent on destroying you But you have a Savior Who became earthbound to deliver you There is restoration and divine destiny for you Throw your arms wide open and receive in Jesus’ Name Rip off those expiration dates God’s promise to you will be fulfilled Quit just eavesdropping on God Start leaning in and believing what He says Impossible is where God starts! Your God is faithful He will do it Do NOT retreat in fear Now, girlfriend – get out there in that lost world And show them what a woman looks like When she unwraps her Bible

And thus, these women have now been “commissioned.” Did you notice the focus of the commissioning was on the women, and not the Lord? I did. In the bible, men are commissioned to go to the lost world and show Jesus to it by preaching His word. Beth Moore told 11,000 women to go to the lost world and show themselves to it.

But what exactly had happened at this commissioning? Was “the commissioning” at Unwrap the Bible an authoritative sacramental ceremony like baptism? Were they sacred vows like marriage? Was it an ordination ceremony? Unknown.

Was there a responsibility the women must now adopt because they’d uttered a creed and been “commissioned” by someone they consider a leader (and by some random women next to them)? It seemed so, because Moore said that she was “sending them out.” Therefore was it a Missionary Commissioning ceremony, akin to when Timothy had been laid hands on and sent out? (1 Timothy 4:14). Unknown.

Picture Moses standing before 11,000 Israelite women, raising his staff, and telling them, “Start leaning in and believing what He says. Now, girlfriend – get out there in that lost world”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I submit to you that there are two problems with this WOF Commissioning event, and both represent an incremental slide down on the slippery slope of apostasy.

Discerners and watchmen are attuned to the incremental steps away from foundational truth. Most Christians with other gifts are busy employing their other gifts, and don’t notice the slide until a great number of leaps have lurched us downward. But we notice each inch. This is one. So we warn.

The first issue is that while the SBC has been looking north, east, and south to protect doctrine against the inflow of homosexuality, transgenderism, and Calvinists, to the west, the feminists have crept in. I’ve mentioned before that Beth Moore is a neo-feminist. She has usurped the authority of her husband and her home and the church. She teaches and preaches in authority along with men. She is the President of a multi-million dollar corporation, while her husband is the Vice-President. She brought home the bacon while her kids were little, and her husband took care of them while she was frequently away. She says she was a stay-at-home mom, but she lived like a feminist.

Christine Caine is more forward. She plainly states that she believes women should have leadership roles. Caine and Moore, along with many others, are good examples of the curse of Genesis 3: her desire is for her husband and he shall rule over her. (Genesis 3:16) The struggle for women is to submit to Jesus in their God-given roles in life and most importantly, in the church. It has been an age-old struggle, and it has become a pitched battle in many false churches and also some Protestant denominations. These days, most have lost that battle and women have been ordained to serve in leadership roles formerly biblically reserved for men.

Well, the second problem that ties back into the first (ecclesiastical feminism) is that words mean things. They mean things. Any liberal in any realm in the battle for hearts and minds will first seek to change meanings of commonly understood words in order to co-opt the meaning and then to redefine them to their advantage. Example: sodomite—->homosexual—->gay. In the church world, we no longer sin. We make mistakes. We’re no longer Christian. We’re Christ followers.

As the writers said in an essay titled “Redefining Terms” said,

In the political world, terminology is no less important than in the world of the programmer. However, there has been a systematic effort to obfuscate and confuse terminology in order to usurp hitherto positive meanings and put them in the service of ideals which, in many cases, are opposite to the word’s original meaning.

Let’s contrast Moore’s commissioning above to a biblical one. Here is a commissioning service from the bible:

“So the LORD said to Moses, “Take Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him; and have him stand before Eleazar the priest and before all the congregation, and commission him in their sight. “You shall put some of your authority on him, in order that all the congregation of the sons of Israel may obey him.” (Numbers 27:19-20)

Here is another reference to a commission, Paul reminding Timothy of his commissioning ceremony:

Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. (1 Timothy 1:14)

Or this, when the church chose their first deacons:

And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch. These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them. (Acts 6:5-6)

Commissioning means something. It’s serious. Someone in authority gives authority to the ones who have been selected for a particular service, their qualification is affirmed by the whole church, and they are ordained in the work through a ceremony. Ordination means something too. GotQuestions explains a commissioning, this recognition of a man set apart for pastoral ministry, deacon service, or missionary work,

When God calls and qualifies a man for the ministry, it will be apparent both to that man and to the rest of the church. The would-be minister will meet the qualifications set forth in 1 Timothy 3:1-16 and Titus 1:5-9, and he will possess a consuming desire to preach (1 Corinthians 9:16). It is the duty of the church elders, together with the congregation, to recognize and accept the calling. After that, a formal commissioning ceremony—an ordination service—is appropriate, though by no means mandatory. The ordination ceremony itself does not confer any special power; it simply gives public recognition to God’s choice of leadership.

Christian feminists have seen that to redefine ordination into a commissioning is one way to get women into leadership. Moore publicly recognized all those women in a commissioning in a worship service and accompanied the recognition by a spoken creed.

Many denominations have been muddying the two words, most notably when Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York ~~commissioned~~ ordained a female deacon in his church service in 2009. This sparked a heated discussion of commissioning vs. ordination. Here are but two examples-

Tim Keller: The Case for Commissioning (Not Ordaining) Deaconesses
Tim Keller and Confusion Over “Commissioning” (Not Ordaining) Deaconesses

Ordain or commission, either way it is a method for women to adopt leadership roles they were not given by God. But redefining the term away from ordain into commission helps soften the blow.

Here’s where the two issues, redefining terms and Christian feminism intersect with Beth Moore and the conference commissioning.

A scan on Wikipedia of the list of women ordained in this century, shows The Lutheran Protestant Church started to ordain women as priests in 1947. In 1972 America’s first female rabbi was ordained by a rabbinical seminary. The next year, a Mennonite church in Illinois followed, ordaining a female pastor. A branch-off of the Latter Day Saints ordained a women in the late 1990s. Methodists ordain women. Seventh Day Adventists, Episcopalians, and Congregationalists have all been accepting of women in leadership roles. The Association of Catholic Priests in Ireland stated this year that the Catholic church must ordain women and allow priests to marry in order to survive. Whether false churches or true denominations, every flavor of the spectrum have fallen to the notion that women can and should be ordained to serve in leadership roles in the church. Except the Southern Baptist Convention.

In 2000 The Baptist Faith and Message was amended to state, “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”

So far the SBC has been practically the only denomination of any kind, in any true religion or false, to withstand the onslaught of feminism that hearkens back to Genesis 3 and do not ordain women as pastors or deacons and rarely commission a woman alone for missionary work. Or have they? Does what they say match up with what they do? No.

Beth more preaches in pulpits substituting for men or alongside men, in authority during worship services. Here is Beth Moore with three ordained pastors, leading worship, her bible in hand.

Moore leading worship at the pulpit during Passion Conference 2012.
Screen shot Youtube. L-R, Moore, & actual ordained pastors, Chan, Giglio, Piper

Chan is a graduate of John MacArthur’s Master’s Seminary, a biblically solid seminary. Giglio is a graduate of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and spoke at the Southern Baptist Convention’s 2011 Pastors Conference. Piper is a Reformed Baptist. All of them have been through training and serve in conservative churches and should know unequivocally that a woman cannot be a pastor, nor serve as a deacon, nor teach in authority over men during worship service. Yet there they are.

The SBC has not rebuked Moore for usurping authority in violation of the bible and their own declared creed. People, it’s always important to see if what they say and what they do match up.

The authors of the Redefining Terms essay said of changing word definitions in the political world,

This is not an academic exercise in semantics. This is about truth, and about a threat as real as any terrorist attack and more immediate because it is covert.

It is exactly the same in the church world. Beth Moore’s ‘Commissioning’ at the end of Unwrap the Bible was not a small thing. She endowed women with a commission, and sent them out. The very act of leading a commissioning ceremony imbues Moore with a tacit authority to do such a thing in the first place. But from where does she receive her authority to commission men and women in the first place? (and yes, there were men in the audience). There was not a pastor with her on the stage. Just Moore, giving a responsibility to 11,000 women, co-opting a term that the rest of the church has understood for millennia, and trivializing it. Trivialize how, you ask?

First, because all commissioning ceremonies in the bible and in solidly doctrinal churches in the centuries since, depend on the Holy Spirit’s selection of individuals for the particular kind of service to Jesus (pastoral, deacon, or missionary). That’s what commissioning services are, a public recognition. The entire congregation recognizes it, and participates in prayer and/or laying on of hands. The men selected for whatever service they are commissioned for (pastor, deacon, missionary), are uniformly recognized as saved, Holy Spirit-selected, and qualified.

Yet Moore told 11,000 women and men to willy-nilly speak words to the person next to them that they might not even know, such as this- “Be confident this great day That your God has chosen you”. How utterly foolish to say to an unknown, random person that they can be sure God has chosen them! Moore urged women to say “Throw your arms wide open and receive in Jesus’ Name”. Jesus is not a genie and His name is not magic! And receive what, exactly? If they are saved they have already received, if they are not saved, they need to repent first!

And what if I don’t throw my arms open, will I still “receive”? What if the lady next to me I’m parroting this to is not saved? Will she “receive”? And how completely meaningless to say “Rip off those expiration dates Quit just eavesdropping on God”

From the majesty of the commissioning of Numbers 27, to the beauty and authority of this commissioning from Moses to Joshua,

“Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the presence of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you must go with this people into the land that the LORD swore to their ancestors to give them, and you must divide it among them as their inheritance.” (Deuteronomy 31:7)

We have Moore who has NO authority telling a bunch of women that they’re chosen by God to quit eavesdropping and not be dirty and to then she sent them out and…what. To do what? The commissioning was absent any notion of service. But it was filled with self-esteem. So these women left the conference feeling like they’ve been given some authority to do something. They’ve been sent- to show themselves.

It’s just trivial and sinful and ugly. The entire Commissioning was a terrible display of what happens when a woman like Moore who has thoroughly usurped authority at home and has been allowed by her denomination to usurp church authority for 20 years. This commissioning fad will infiltrate the SBC and before you know it undiscerning local Baptist churches will be “commissioning” women into leadership roles. Soon after that, they’ll be ordaining them. You’ll see.

May the Lord return before too many more undiscerning women fall into Moore’s snare, and before too many good churches slide one more incremental step away from healthy doctrine into the pit of feminism. The Baptist churches have been so busy holding back the tide of homosexuality they forgot to look out for their wives, and sure enough, their desire is for their husbands and the struggle for power has at long last come to the last bastion of conservative church polity.

It’s my job to tell you, and now I have.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For Further Reading:

Christian feminists like Beth Moore are redefining biblical womanhood

heaven tourism, jim hammond, sbc, southern baptist convention, sufficiency

Southern Baptist Convention resolves that heaven tourism books & movies are antithetical to scripture

Posted on June 10, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

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.

___________________________

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.
_____________________________

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.