I waited two years for this conference. That’s 730 days. It was over in a heartbeat, just 2 and a half days. That’s just 0.34% of the time of the last 2 years.
But it was everything! It was 100% edifying. 100% eternal. 100% joyous.
We started the day with an altered schedule. Last night just as the movie The Essential Church was to begin its showing, a bomb threat was called in. The building was evacuated. Many of the speakers were staying at the next door hotel, and as police pushed people further and further back, and when it became obvious they were not going to be able to return to the building, they gathered in that hotel lobby – and began singing praises to the Lord.
The morning’s first speaker by video would have been John MacArthur, but since the building had been closed all night, the GICC crew needed extra time to clean it, which hadn’t been possible the night before. The day would start an hour late. So the video sermon sent in by John MacArthur was canceled and the second slated speaker was now going to be first in order. It was Ken Ham and sermon titled God’s Sovereignty in Creation.
Ham spoke passionately about the attacks on God starting in Genesis 3. The man is 71, and I was thinking after, I pray the Lord gives me as much passion and articulation within my niche as He has given Ken Ham all these past 40 years of beating the drum for Genesis 1-11. Answers in Genesis, Ham’s organization, offers an INCREDIBLE mount of material for all ages on all types of platforms. Homeschool, Sunday school curricula, videos, books, kids’ books, you name it.
“God made the animals according to their kinds, but He made man in HIS image. Man is not an animal.” ~Ken Ham
After a short break we listened to Mike Riccardi speak on the Sovereignty of God in Particular Redemption, expositing the answer to the question “In whose place did Jesus stand in absorbing God’s wrath?” He is an articulate man whose theological precision is only equaled by his clarity. I’ll put a link to these men’s biographies and where you can listen to them in the future.
Steven Lawson was closing the conference but I couldn’t stay to listen- our hotel checkout time was noon.
Our checkout experience was smooth and soon we were on the road to home. After a group photo of course, of most of the ones from our church who came to hear these wondrous things.
Now all that is left is to pray that the Holy Spirit would apply these truths to me in His inimitable way.
These people are precious to me: some of the young people from our church who traveled to the conference. Is there anything sweeter than seeing young people dig into their Bible with all eager attention?
Points I’m pondering:
–I loved the seminary-level teaching at G3 from seasoned and credible men of the faith. –Many of the doctrines they taught that were related to Election were the SAME we have recently been taught in my own church. So: the blessing is there is seminary-level teaching at my home church as well! I love my pastors. –I loved seeing the excitement of the younger people we traveled with and the new friends I met there. God ALWAYS leaves a remnant and a next generation for His name. –I loved meeting my social media friends. It was a great reunion! –I’m getting old. Leaving home was a struggle. Absorbing all the firehose of teaching for 8-9 hours was also a struggle. I ain’t a spring chicken. Where does the time go??? — The best part was when the bomb threat occurred, the men lingering in the hotel lobby and deciding to praise the Lord in song. They do not just preach God’s sovereignty, when tested, they showed that they LIVE it.
If you ever have an opportunity to attend this conference, please deeply consider it. Conferences aren’t real life. But getting away once in a blue moon to refresh and reset by and with the word of God given by top theologians and singing with 8000 other people is a foretaste of heaven. It propels a person forward even as we step back into the mundane day by day tasks.
We slept well and had a hot breakfast offered by the SpringHill Suites at Marriott. The breakfast was free and it was unusually lavish. Usually “free breakfast means they throw a cellophane wrapped muffin at you and say see ya bye”. Not the SpringHill Suites. They had hot eggs, sausage, granola, cheerios, biscuits, muffins, bagels, iced water, juices, and more stuff I can’t even remember. It was nice to relax in the breakfast area over a hot meal and speak with the fellow conference-goers around me.
Our venue is across a small road with a path to it. The bookstore is almost straight ahead, so that’s where we headed.
That feeling when you’re almost the first people in the bookstore at opening and you have it all to yourself.
I bought God’s Battle Plan for the Mind: The Puritan Practice of Biblical Meditation by David Saxton and : Robert Murray m’Cheyne and the Pursuit of Holiness. Yay!
So I bought 2 more books. But that’s it. No more. Done. Fini. The end. Fade out. Really. I mean it.
Our first session on Day 2 was Canadian pastor James Coates. James was jailed in a maximum security prison in Edmonton during the covid era so called pandemic. He brought a message about the Sovereignty of God in Election from Romans 9. His message was clear, indicating he is clear thinker, and his demeanor was humble and reverent. I enjoyed his sermon.
The auditorium is huge. There are more than 8,200 attendees, and from front to back feels like a mile. But the acoustics are good and there are jumbo-trons stationed all over, so there is no really bad view.
“God cannot pursue less than His own glory.” ~James Coates
We went straight to the next session, James White of Alpha & Omega Ministries with a message I was really interested in: God’s Sovereignty over Time.” Dr. White focused on Isaian 41 and God (speaking through Isaiah) calling the idols to account in His legal courts. God’s sovereignty is then demonstrated by His precision in prophecy. I want to go back and re-listen to this one.
All the sessions and breakouts were livestreamed, captured on video. When they are finalized with editing I will happily re-watch. I know I will pick up more concepts the second time and the Spirit will further renew my mind and enlarge my heart for Jesus.
Dr. James White
“God desires to reveal Himself and be known by His people so they can know what He is doing and they can love Him properly.” ~James White
I attended a luncheon with some G3 people which was very ice to be away from the hubbub, and then meandered through the Exhibit Hall where all the vendors were. I LOVED meeting everyone! Martha Peace, Susan Heck, Doreen Virtue, Steadfast Women, Allen Nelson and his wife and daughter, ReggieP2 at GBTS booth, Phil Johnson, Justin Peters, Gigi’s Sewing Room…tweeps from Twitter and Facebook.
My friend and I also ran into our other friends from church who are separately attending. I love seeing the joy in their young faces as they breathlessly recount insights gained and how much they love Jesus as they come to know Him more. Really Spirit shining faces. It does an older woman like me so good when I see the Lord raises up the next generation for His name.
On to the session with Justin Peters. I love this man and I think highly of him. His talk was on “False Teachers and the Sovereignty of God.” He demonstrated how false teachers oppose God in a myriad of ways; by attacking His sovereignty in our sickness & suffering, solitariness, omniscience, in Creation, and in general.
He showed clips of the ways these false teachers oppose God and their comments were breathtakingly, jaw-droppingly blasphemous statements from their own mouths. Several of these false teachers were teaching that God needs us and needs our permission to do anything.
Justin Peters
“God does not have a man-shaped home in his heart.” ~Justin Peters
“False Teachers hate God. They only love the god they have created as an idol.” ~Justin Peters.
The final session we attended, though there were two more afterwards, was the highly popular Q&A with all speakers. Lined up on the stage, absent Paul Washer, were L-R, Scott Aniol (cut off), James White, Owen Strachan, Voddie Baucham, Josh Buice, James Coates, Mike Riccardi, Steve Lawson, Phil Johnson, and Moderator Virgil Walker.
A favorite question is always about what books they are reading or what books have impacted them. Virgil asked the men what book on the soveeignty of God has impacted them most. A frequent answer from all the men was Jonathan Edwards’ The End for Which God Created the World. Also popular was AW Pink’s book The Sovereignty of God.
Paul Washer came walking in at that point. Steve Lawson asked “Why are you late? Paul washer answered “There is one answer to that: I am a missionary”. When the audience finished clapping, Washer continued, I was sharing the Gospel with a beautiful young lady. There is nothing more important than that.”
Amen, Mr. Washer. Amen.
Though there were two more speakers to come, Washer and Voddie Baucham, my friend and I headed back to the hotel to decomopress and discuss our day.
The Movie The Essential Church was going to be shown at 7:30pm, but just as the moderator was about to come on stage, a bomb threat was called in. Thousands were evacuated from the Georgia International Conference Center, and rather than despair, many of them went next door to the nearby hotel lobby and they began singing the hymn Great is Thy Faithfulness.
My friend and I went early to the conference this morning. We are in a hotel across the street, it only takes 5 minutes to walk over there.
Once inside the cavernous building, it takes a minute to actually get to where we’re going. We passed the Answers in Genesis booth along the way.
The Answers in Genesis folks at #G32023 are having a wonderful time, their joy is evident! That ministry sure has been a blessing to me.
The bookstore was fairly empty as we arrived at about 8 am. The first speaker wasn’t scheduled until 9, so we felt in no hurry while browsing around. Books are 40% off!
Later in the day, the bookstore was quite crowded.
We are a religion full of readers. This is the checkout line at #G32023 bookstore. I promised myself I would not buy any books! I lasted 2 minutes. I bought 2 books! The guy said “You should have bought John Owen’s Temptation: Resisted and Repulsed first!” I fell over laughing!
Below, Virgil Walker, Executive Director of Operations for the G3 Conference, and one half of the duo of Just Thinking podcast, welcoming the 8200 attendees and opening the conference.
The song worship is glorious. The leader is Matt Sikes, who is Discipleship and Worship Pastor at Pray’s Mill Church. The songs selected are strong hymns and the musical accompaniment includes an orchestra composed of cello, or oboe, piano, and violin. It’s wonderful.
Immediately after the singing was Owen Strachan, preaching on The Sovereignty of God and Perseverance of the Saints. I really enjoyed this one.
Walking, walking, walking is the order of the day. Lots of it.
Time for lunch. Despite G3 having provided food trucks and food vendors, the lines were incredible. My friend and I anticipated this, and had brought our own food. We sat in the large hallway people-watching and munching on our snack-y lunch.
Next up in the demanding and packed schedule were breakout sessions. The rooms hosting the various sessions to choose from are small, and only accommodate about 200 people. I fervently wanted to attend Carl Hargrove’s talk on “How Does God Govern the World by His Providence?” So I got there early. Not early enough. Not only was every seat taken, people were sitting on the floor, standing in the doorways, and spilling into the hall. I stood hesitantly at the doorway desperately looking for a seat, but none were to be had. None, that is, until a kind younger gentleman offered his. I demurred at first, but he insisted, and he sat on the floor in front of his wife.
We went right into another breakout session. This one was highly anticipated, not just by me, but most of the conference, it seemed! It was Erin Coates’ “Godly Women remain Faithful in Suffering”. Every bit of floor space was taken by a sitting disciple, all seats taken, tons of people at the doors and in the hall trying to listen. And if they did hear, they received a blessing, because Erin’s talk was stupendous.
Once again, we swept into the hall when Erin concluded and set off at a fast pace to the main auditorium for Phil Johnson’s sermon, “Love that will not let me go.” I love Phil’s preaching. I really, really do. He is my favorite preacher, along with John MacArthur (who will be speaking Saturday morning by video). Phil spoke on 1 John 4:19; We love because He first loved us.
The Hall was filled. I had a very hard time finding 2 seats together. What a blessing to be among like-minded people who are all there to hear about the excellencies of God!
A small slice of the cavernous auditorium filled with worshipers there to hear Phil Johnson
Phil bringing the love at #G32023
By now it was a bit after 5:00 and we were tired and hungry, having missed breakfast. The free breakfast offered at the hotel was eaten by hungry Christians and was wiped out completely by the time we got there. The hotel later apologized and said they will be better prepared Friday morning. And our lunch was cheese stick, almonds, and carrots.
There was one more speaking session to be had, by Steve Lawson, and the premiere of the move Cessationist. I really wanted to see the movie. But we were both tired, hungry, and bleary from the day. I’d gotten up at 4:15 am, and she had gotten up at 5:00. Long day. We packed it in, headed for the hotel, ate our supper and decompressed.
My friend and I are at the G3 Conference in Atlanta today, tomorrow, and Saturday. This is a once-every-two-years conference put on by Josh Buice and Prays Mill Church outside of Atlanta. The conference features some of the world’s best expositors, preaching sermons in a set theme. The Theme this year is “The Sovereignty of God.”
I am especially looking forward to Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis speaking on “The Sovereignty of God Over Time”, Justin Peters’ talk on False Teachers and the Sovereignty of God, and a breakout session for the ladies with Erin Coates on “Godly Women Remain Faithful in Suffering.” I am also looking forward to meeting people IRL that I know from online, singing with 8000 other people, and taking some photos of the area! I’ll keep you posted as we go along, here, Instagram, on Twitter, and on The End Time Blog Facebook page.
This documentary packed a punch. And I’ve seen a lot of documentaries.
The film began with a recounting of a crucial moment in church history with the ever growing tension between King and Church. It was 1657 and Britain’s King Charles I had been encroaching on the sphere of the church with mandates of what to pray and from what book to pray. He had been insisting on using Episcopal rites and now, insistence on using the Book of Common Prayer added to the tension.
The final showdown occurred when the minister in St Giles’ Cathedral began reading from the Book of Common Prayer at a service in which Jenny Geddes was sitting. Outraged, Jenny, a lowly market women, threw her stool at the minister’s head, and is claimed to have yelled, “Devil cause you colic in your stomach, false thief: dare you say the Mass in my ear?”
A fracas ensued as others began picking up the beat.
Her act is reputed to have sparked the riot that led to the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, which included the English Civil War.
Many such moments have appeared in Church history, where the pushme-pullyou tension between government and church comes to a head. It doesn’t often begin with a splashy bigness. The Lord often uses the weak and insignificant as the spark. Individuals who retain a supernatural conviction in the midst of a storm, stalwart and unmoved by the pressure of the government coming against them.
The film continues with the struggle of the Scottish Covenanters movement that formed after Jenny threw her stool, to John Bunyan, the Great Ejection, and the Puritans from past history. Weaving into these pivotal moments in church history the film recounts a similar recent battle between the Canadian government and pastors James Coates & Tim Stephens, and John MacArthur and California’s intrusion into worship.
The Covid-19 so-called “pandemic” era struggle of three churches is highlighted as part of this long history of opposing the government when it dares to enter into church matters: California’s Grace Community Church led by Pastor John MacArthur and its elders, James Coates of GraceLife Church of Edmonton Canada, and Tim Stephens of Fairview Baptist Church of Calgary Canada.
Tim Stephens of Calgary Canada
The documentary interviews elders and the pastors concerned with the line between obeying government as the Bible says we must do, and defying government when it intrudes on matters only Jesus administers, also as the Bible says we must do. The thought process and final decision processes were described by all of the church players in this drama. [The government players refused to be interviewed].
The Canadian pastors were actually jailed in maximum security prison for continuing to hold in-person services during the time when government said no such gatherings were allowed. Pastor-teacher John MacArthur was threatened with jail.
James Coates of Edmonton Canada
The film then recounts the legal battle of Grace Community Church, the arrest and imprisonment of Coates and Stephens, and the effect on their families. The film did well illustrating the conviction of courageously certain believers of the past, unmoved and refusing to sign/agree/kowtow to governmental authorities who would press them to violate their conscience- even to the point of threatened death and martyrdom for some.
It sensitively portrayed the spiritual heartache of the currently embattles pastors who looked out upon empty pews, aching to deliver the precious word to their sheep. Their angst was palpable, their anguish real. So was the heartache of elders prevented from visiting their shut-ins and their hospitalized congregants. Men who labor for Jesus and His truth are knit to Him strongly and feel the weight of their calling to bring truth, song, fellowship and succor to their people. The empty pews, the scattered sheep, were a grief to them and makes the point how church is essential.
MacArthur preaching to empty pews and a camera lens
Rev. Ian Hamilton serves as minister of Cambridge Presbyterian Church and was interviewed several times. Hamilton asked what I believe was the crucial question of the movie. The film wasn’t about expose covid lies, although those were exposed. It wasn’t solely about a recounting of church history, though it was recounted. Nor was it to highlight the courage of Christian convictions in the face of terrible pressure and even death, though certainly that was present in the film. No. It was this:
“Who has the right to govern my conscience?”
The Essential Church is extremely well done, extremely. It ends with a warning and a hope. One of the final statements was by Phil Johnson of Grace Community Church. Even though the church was successful in court, the battle is not over. And then John MacArthur gave the Gospel.
MY REACTION
My opinion is that it is a pivotal film and one that everyone who believes in Jesus should see. We increasingly in these days are viewing a Romans 1 judgment tightening the noose around the false church and revealing the true. At some point, soon perhaps, each and every one of us will have to sift through the Bible’s precepts, apply them to our individual consciences, and make a stand.
Margaret Wilson, Scottish Martyr, killed at age 18. By John Everett Millais – DMVI, Public Domain
It was noted strongly in the film that government is not neutral. Yes, it was established by God to restrain sin, and to a large extent it does that, but it is also corrupt and hates both of the other spheres God has established- Family and Church. Church history shows that given even half an inch, government will tyrannically try to overpower both to become the dominant force in every human’s life.
In the end of the end, government will succeed (for a time).
I was glad I watched at home. I cried and cried and cried. I first cried in joy at the Lord’s provision of strong pastors. He raises up good men in each era to lead by conviction with a true heart for the people and His word. The Lord is good to keep our church leaders strong. I was glad to learn about Coates and Stephens. The Lord has many others all over the world at this moment who are unknown to us but laboring with lion-heart convictions. This is a blessing and an encouragement.
Then I cried in frustration and rage at recalling what the evil the government did to us during 2020-2022 – the frail and old dying alone in nursing homes, fomenting false fear based on lying science, BLM/rise of Marxism, and worst of all, Tim Stephens’ little boy sobbing as they arrested Tim, saying “bye daddy!” and his little hand reaching for dad as the police drove Tim away. Then cried at the end when JMac gave the Gospel, in crushing humility that the All Powerful One who saves, and saved me.
I started an occasional series covering little known Bible characters. These are men or women who are named in the Bible, but we do not know much about apart from their names. Though, the Word of God is always worth plumbing its depths, and we can elicit from the text more than we think.
I had thought of several people named in the New Testament to focus on, but as our teaching elder concluded his series on Ezra, the last chapter listed by name, many offenders. That is what the section of text is called in my NASB Bible, “The List of Offenders”.
And among the sons of the priests there were found that had taken strange wives: namely,… (Ezra 1018a).
GIll’s Exposition:
And among the sons of the priests there were found that had taken strange wives,…. So that it need not be wondered at that this evil should spread among the people, when those who understood the law, and should have instructed the people in it, set such an example: namely: of the sons of Jeshua the son of Jozadak; who was the high priest; and perhaps for this fault of his, in not restraining his sons from such unlawful marriages, is he represented in filthy garments, Zechariah 3:3, and his brethren, Maaseiah, and Eliezer, and Jarib, and Gedaliah; these were the brethren of Jeshua.
The Holy Spirit chose to name the men who had grievously sinned by marrying foreign women who brought foreign idols into the sheepfold. The offense was not marrying women of different race or ethnicity, but that they worshiped other gods.
We saw the problem when Solomon married foreign wives who worshiped other gods.
Again, it wasn’t their ethnicity. Canaanite Rahab converted and married Joshua, Moses married Zipporah a Cushite, Ruth was a Moabite.
Do not be mismatched with unbelievers; for what do righteousness and lawlessness share together, or what does light have in common with darkness? (2 Corinthians 6:14).
and you might take some of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters might prostitute themselves with their gods and cause your sons also to prostitute themselves with their gods. (Exodus 34:16)
There were only about 100 or so who intermarried, among tens of thousands of returnees from Babylon, but remember a little leaven… spreads like gangrene. Ezra was so appalled he tore his clothes, his hair, and his beard, and sat in a puddle of prayers appealing to God for mercy.
Every man who had married an unbeliever and thus brought idolatry into Israel was named. This is the “List of Offenders” at the end of Ezra 10.
Imagine…being named in the Bible. So many people were named as a congratulations for their faith. There’s Hebrews Hall of Faith in chapter 11, where men and women are expressly named and commended.
The positively named in Hebrews are, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Moses’ parents, Moses, Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets.
Others from the New Testament were named for their faith and/or service also: Anna, Mary, Dorcas, Lydia, Tychicus, and many others of course. We can be sure when they arrived in God’s holy abode in heaven, Jesus was pleased to say to them, “His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter the joy of your master.'” (Matthew 25:21)
But to be named in the Bible because of your sin, enscripturated forever as an example of disobedience, what a woe and embarrassment to them! And what a warning to us.
–Sin is a corrupting influence –Leaders should be an example to the positive, not the negative –Sin hurts the reputation of the church and brings reproach to the name of Jesus.
Sin must be dealt with. If we don’t address it with genuine repentance, God will.
In this New Testament era, our names are written in heaven in the Book of Life. What a grace, mercy, and gift! Let us be thankful and do our best to follow the Lord’s statues in obedience as a thank you in return.
Instruct me, O Yahweh, in the way of Your statutes, That I may observe it to the end. (Psalm 119:33).
For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; (2 Corinthians 5:14).
Powerful. Have you ever thought about that before? That the love of God controls us? Or as KJV says, constraineth us? The word here whether it’s control, constrain, or compel, means in the Greek,
I press together, close, (b) I press on every side, confine, (d) I urge, impel,
Picture our ever growing sanctification as entering the wide end of a funnel, and slowly being drawn down the narrow end, the sides all around being Christ’s love to us which we ever grow in reflecting back.
Or, picture the scene where Balaam’s donkey was on a path so narrow the hedges pressed him in on all sides and the animal could not even turn around.
Some commenters on the subject-
with irresistible power limits us to the one great object to the exclusion of other considerations. The Greek implies to compress forcibly the energies into one channel. Love is jealous of any rival object engrossing the soul. Jamieson, Fausset, & Brown
Love has a constraining virtue to excite ministers and private Christians in their duty. Our love to Christ will have this virtue; and Christ’s love to us, which was manifested in this great instance of his dying for us, will have this effect upon us, if it be duly considered and rightly judged of. Source- Matthew Henry’s commentary on the whole Bible.
The phrase “the love of Christ” means His love for us as seen in His sacrificial death. “We love Him, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). He loved us when we were unlovely; in fact, He loved us when we were ungodly, sinners, and enemies (see Rom. 5:6–10). When He died on the cross, Christ proved His love for the world (John 3:16), the church (Eph. 5:25), and individual sinners (Gal. 2:20). When you consider the reasons why Christ died, you cannot help but love Him. Source, Warren Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). “Be Series.” The Bible exposition commentary.
Yes, we cannot help but love Him! Jesus is the most lovely, wondrous, majestic person in the entire universe! He created all things and upholds all things, yet condescended to incarnate into human flesh, and live among sin, sinners, and this sinful world! He died on the cross shedding His blood for us.
Let the love of Christ control you today. Let the love of Christ constrain you today. Let the love of Christ compel you today.
We are so used to certain phrases in the Bible that we may have lost the original sense of the meaning. For example:
The fly in the ointment is from Ecclesiastes 10:1, and a drop in the bucket is from Isaiah 40:15.
You’ve heard of “cast the first stone” right? Well, in Deuteronomy 17:7 we learn what it means. In a capital case, upon the finding of a perpetrator guilty, the witness must cast the first stone and thus begin the execution.
This is sobering. It ensures that the witness was sure about what he saw or said, else his conscience would be heavy. Also, the LORD would judge that witness guilty on judgment day.
John 8:7 a similar situation existed where Jesus said to the false witnesses of the woman caught in adultery, “When they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”
No one on earth is without sin, so Jesus did not mean anyone who is sinless may cast the stone. No, as Geneva Study Bible explains, the comment was meant-
Against hypocrites who are very severe judges against other men, and flatter themselves while they are sinning.
Barnes’ Notes on the Bible says of the John 8 verse,
This was in order that the witness might feel his responsibility in giving evidence, as he was also to be the executioner. Jesus therefore put them to the test. Without pronouncing on her case, he directed them, if any of them were innocent, to perform the office of executioner. This was said, evidently, well knowing their guilt, and well knowing that no one would dare to do it.
We should have soft consciences, pricked at wrongdoing. I see so much false witnessing, people flinging accusations and bearing false witness that seems not to affect their conscience at all.
In Romans 2:14-15, the word used for conscience is Suneidesis. It is used 32 times in the New Testament. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia defines it as, “An inner witness that testifies on the rightness or wrongness of one’s actions or motives and, on the basis of them, pronounces judgment concerning the worth of the person.”
What is conscience? “The conscience is generally seen by the modern world as a defect that robs people of their self-esteem. Far from being a defect or a disorder, however, your ability to sense your own guilt is a tremendous gift from God. He designed the conscience into the very framework of the human soul. It is the automatic warning system” ~John MacArthur
It is a heavy, heavy thing to make an accusation and then have enough of a clean conscience to start the execution – the killing – of a human being. Be careful not to harden your conscience. Bearing false witness, especially on social media, seems like an easy thing for people to do. And the more they do it the easier it gets to press enter.
I recently read a book called Taming the Fingers: Heavenly Wisdom for Social Media by Jeff Johnson. It is very short, 88 pages. But it has scripture laden advice for monitoring one’s self on social media.
With wisdom from the Proverbs, Pastor Jeff Johnson offers five practical questions that can help us cultivate heavenly wisdom in our use of social media:
Am I controlled?
Am I calm?
Am I careful?
Am I compassionate?
Am I conscientious?
I have found that asking myself these questions has helped slow me down to make sure I am not impugning anyone’s reputation by insinuating wrong things or worse, making a false accusation.
Let none of us be hypocrites by casting the first stone.
I published this in 2018 and I updated and added to it today because of a confirmation of a tweet I saw Sharon Hodde Miller express on Twitter recently. Moore took hold of the goat and brought it into into church where it lurked in corners and tried to be inconspicuous. Now these women settle the goat onto a pew and treat the goat as a sheep. Jesus said in Revelation 2:20-23 that he is against false female preachers/teachers/prophets, especially ones who preach falsely!
But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray so that they commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. 21I gave her time to repent, and she does not want to repent of her sexual immorality. 22Behold, I will throw her on a bed of sickness, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her deeds. 23And I will kill her children with plague, and all the churches will know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts; and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds.
This passage SHOULD strike deadly fear into these women who boast of their sin.
It was a given that for more than 2000 years women are not to be teachers or preachers of men. We women can and do teach, we minister, and we evangelize. We discuss, we help, we clarify in a private setting, but we are not to have biblical authority over men in church expository situations.
“I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.” (1 Timothy 2:12)
How is a women preaching to men a sinister situation? It’s sin. As RC Sproul said, sin is cosmic treason!
Ask the metaphorical Jezebel of Revelation 2:20 who was teaching things God did not say. Jesus promised to kill her and her followers. Inserting words into God’s mouth is sin.
What God says to do or not do matters. We don’t need 50,000 verses. One is enough. Women are not allowed to teach the Bible to men.
But Beth Moore does.
She has been doing it for 35 years.
Woe to Beth Moore.
A generation is about 25 years. Therefore, it’s woe to the generation of women coming up in Christian circles who have for the entire time been seeing Moore’s preaching to men as normal, even with her former pastor’s overt blessing, or the tacit blessing of her former denomination the Southern Baptist Convention and its arm, Lifeway.
For years Moore taught Bible to a co-ed Sunday School class of 600-700 people as you read in that link above and later up to 900 people as stated in this link from her own former SBC church:
At that time, God began to do a new thing, stirring the heart of Beth to move to a new meeting place, meeting time, change the name of the class, and allow men to attend.
Is it God ‘stirring the heart’ of a woman to disobey scripture and to teach men? I think not. In Revelation 2:23 it’s noted that Jesus will strike Jezebel’s children dead. These are not Jezebel’s biological children, but the spiritual daughters she is raising up in her polluted, sinful likeness who preach and prophesy.
Being a woman called to leadership within and simultaneously beyond those walls [of an SBC church] was complicated to say the least but I worked within the system. After all, I had no personal aspirations to preach nor was it my aim to teach men. If men showed up in my class, I did not throw them out. I taught. ~Beth Moore
Abuse of the word “called” here is especially egregious, because it intimates that God assigned her to preach, which is in effect, co-opting God into her own sin, and using Him as the excuse. God will address this abuse on the Day.
Secondly, it does not matter if you “had personal aspirations to preach” to men or not. Your opinion does not matter, only the Bible’s statutes. If you do preach, you’re sinning. If you fail to stop it, you’re sinning.
Other women elsewhere began copying Moore’s excuses and language. “I’m called to do this”. “I have no desire to preach but it happened anyway”, “I want to step into the gifts God has given me to teach [men]” and the like.
Moore eventually founded Living Proof Ministry in 1994. By 2003 her Living Proof Live conferences had gone beyond the confines of her church and beyond the Texas border. A national magazine took notice. Their opening sentence called her a minister.
“Once a victim of abuse, Beth Moore is one of America’s most popular ministers today.”
The article went on to note that men attended her Sunday School class. It was popular, so crowded with both sexes that attendees were asked to car pool because the parking lot was so jammed.
An obedient teacher says “My love is for Christ and His word, and I asked the pastor to restrict the class to women only.” But as Beth Moore said above, “I didn’t throw them out. I taught.” She purposely sought bigger rooms to accommodate them all.
The leaders of her church allowed it, encouraged it. About this time, her pastor also asked Beth to preach the Sunday Night service, too. Woe!
She has been a usurper from the beginning. And she keeps on teaching. And the women were watching. Like hawks.
In 2010 when her fame was rising, Christianity Today did a 6-page cover story on her. The article cites the following:
Before she begins, she addresses the few men in the crowd. A Southern Baptist, Moore emphasizes that her ministry is intended for women. “The gentlemen who had such courage to come into this place tonight, into this estrogen fest if you will ever find one in your entire life: we are so blessed to have you,” Moore says. “I do not desire to have any kind of authority over you.”
It’s laughable to pronounce a blessing on the men in attendance, welcome them, preach the Bible to them, and then meekly deny any authority over them. Is her teaching from the Word authoritative over the women but not the men sitting next to them? Or do the women reject her authority to teach and they’re just coming, say, for the music? You see the illogic. If she teaches the Bible, she is teaching authoritatively, and it’s authoritative to all in the hearing of it.
As far as Moore’s coyness that she does not desire to be authoritative over them, this is false. Genesis 3:16 tells us it is IN us to want to usurp male authority. It doesn’t matter if you desire to break God’s command or not, if you DO, you’re sinning. Try telling the traffic policeman that “I did not desire to speed on the highway” and see if he lets you go.
The Christianity Today story is behind a paywall now. However, the link is here if you want to see the source.
Moore’s occasional weak protest, that men attend her classes and conferences on their own volition so it isn’t really her fault, doesn’t hold water. She taught men in her SS class for 20 years. By 2012, she was personally asked to substitute for pastor Louie Giglio preaching the Sunday Service at Louie Giglio’s Passion City Church, and she accepted. It was Holy Week, and she preached John 19 to a very, VERY large crowd of congregants. Now the “secret” was out and widely public. ‘Women, even SBC women, can preach! No one will stop us!’
Screen grabs from videos like this in 2012 harm women when they see a female on stage preaching from the Bible shoulder to shoulder with men. It’s visual egalitarianism. Photos like this are damaging. L-R, Lecrae, Moore, Chan, Giglio, Piper preaching at Passion Conference in 2012:
Now the POINT: (I know, I know, this blog is like a pastor giving a 30-minute sermon intro in a 40-minute sermon session,)
Moore is personally the transition linchpin for this new future of women preachers:
Moore is one of the evangelical leaders today who represent the future of the global church, in which people outside Europe and the United States will be dominant. … Moore represents this transition, which is shaping even the most conservative corners of evangelicalism.
There is the danger. After so many decades of preaching and teaching, with little to no pushback from her leadership in the denomination, Moore has mirrored the metaphorical Jezebel Jesus threatened death with in Revelation 2:20-23. He threatened death to her and also the women the Jezebel had raised up by her sinful example.
Imagine, within one generation a woman whose former claim to fame was the latest aerobics moves climbed steadily up to being seriously considered for president of the world’s largest denomination, a conservative one, at that. One generation, after 2000 years of holding fast to scripture on this issue. Sin is amazing in its power.
Yet the LORD our God is still on His throne and He still maintains a hard line on the roles women and men are to operate within in His church. That is a given.
For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. (1Corinthians 14: 33-35).
Music can lift the spirits, draw up emotion, or bring you down. It’s a solace after a breakup, or a lift me up during exercise. Music is great and it’s powerful on the emotions.
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It is also powerful on the brain too. It can quietly instill good doctrine in us, affirm truths, or slyly draw us away with bad doctrine. Music matters.
There is a whole book of the Bible that is music: the Psalms. It’s great to sing the Psalms because they are 100% true and God-breathed. But there are many man-made songs that are also spiritual or reference doctrines from the Bible that are good to sing, as well.
speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; (Ephesians 5:19)
I enjoy singing hymns, praise songs, and spiritual songs because I like the pictures they put into my head. I like pondering the words and reviewing the metal pictures that arise. Whose heart doesn’t lift when we get to the verse in Amazing Grace,
“When we’ve been there 10,000 years…”
Just thinking about being with Jesus and singing in heaven is a mood-booster.
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Eschatology is the study of Last Things. The Time of the End. The Last Days. Sadly, in these present days there is much conflict around differing interpretations of the sequence of Last Things, and often these discussions online or in real life devolve quickly into arguments.
As a result of not wanting to get into arguments, or perhaps not to be tempted to besmirch one’s witness, many people choose not to discuss it at all (or worse, not to study it). But with a wholesale eschewing of discussing the subject also comes a wholesale aversion to singing about it too.
Last things provide an assurance to the believer that this home is temporary, its woes will pass, the future with our Lord is coming, and soon. It does all that for our heart, and more.
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Yet Paul expressly explained about the end time and the dead in Christ’s rising and ended with “therefore comfort one another with these words.”
The end time doctrines are supposed to comfort us. In earlier days when the subject wasn’t so contentious, many people wrote songs about the coming end.
Let’s go back to 1964 with this hit. “Sorry, I never Knew You” by Naomi Sego and the Sego Brothers was the first million-selling gospel single. Can you believe that it is based on Matthew 7:21-22, when Jesus says to the false converts and fake professors, “Depart from me you evildoer, I never knew you!”
Amazing.
Today we get happy clappy songs with endless refrains about Jesus embracing us like a boyfriend, but a song to sing the important verse about the reality of false conversion is startling. But it exists and was a hit no less. In 1964, The Sego Brothers were the first Southern Gospel Group to sell over a million records, and it was “Sorry” that vaulted them up the charts.
In this next one, Charles Johnson & The Revivers sing “I’ve Been Sealed” and the first stanza looks forward to the day Jesus raises us to be with Him.
Paul Williams and the Victory Trio sing “I’ve never been this homesick before” and really, as each day passes, I get more and more homesick for the Lord!
Alan Jackson sings “I’ll Fly Away” and truly, some glad morning I will fly upward, raised from this ole body to a glorified one to be with my Lord forever!
Someday Jesus will shout for us to rise, and here we have John Jones “At the Midnight Cry“
Are you in the faith? Many of these songs urge the listener to be sure. They are sobering things to think of. No matter your eschatological stance, ultimately the most important thing is to be sure you are cleansed by the blood of Christ, repented of sin, and in the faith. Life on earth will end one day. Standing on the edge of eternity, which direction will you go- up or down?
In collaboration with Mark Rice and Phil Webb, Hymns of Grace and Generations of Grace present hymns featuring a brief introduction on their backgrounds and full performances. The series is called Hymnology. Here is the link to Season 1. There are 3 seasons so far.
