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Beware of the Emerging Church

2012-02-07T07:00:00.000-05:00

“The Emergent Church Comes out of the Closet”

by Lighthouse Trails,

January 13th, 2009

Emergent Manifesto of Hope is the new release from Emersion, a publishing partnership between Baker Books and Emergent Village. The book, edited and compiled by emergent leaders Tony Jones and Doug Pagitt, is a collection of essays by various emerging church leaders.... The back cover of Emergent Manifesto describes it as a "front-row" look at this "influential international movement" and promises readers that they will come away with "a deeper understanding of the hopeful imagination that drives the emerging church."...

A more accurate title for this book would be Emergent Manifesto of False Hope, and a subtitle (albeit a lengthy one) that would describe it perfectly would go something like this:

"The Kingdom of God is already here on earth, includes all people, all faiths, and in fact is in all people and all of creation and can be felt or realized through mysticism which connects everything together as ONE."

This new collective spirituality leads people into a socialistic community where rituals, practices, and social justice become a means of salvation, but not the salvation you think of in a personal sense of being born-again through Jesus Christ. This is a collective salvation [1] that includes whole cultures and communities who follow the way of someone referred to as Jesus.

Tony Jones lays the ground work for the book by referring to the "highest good" (for humanity) and explains that when Emergent began (in 1998) the group was "engaging in some sort of 'socially established cooperative human activity." (p. 14) "Cooperative" is a theme that runs through the book. Doug Pagitt says Emergent is a "call to friendship... with the world" and this "friendship" is a "dangerous leap" in which many ways have been created to connect. (p. 19) ... While often called other terms in the book, the concepts behind them are interspirituality (all religions coming together), panentheism (God is all creation), universalism (all are saved), and mysticism (the means by which this connecting takes place).

In this "sense of interconnection," the book states:
"[R]enewed popularity of the 'kingdom' language is related to the emerging global narrative of the deep ecology movement - a consciousness and awareness that everything matters and is somehow interdependent." (p. 27)

New Age sympathizer, Leonard Sweet (in his book Quantum Spirituality) calls this the Theory of Everything. This theory not only says that all creation is connected but that it is all inhabited with Divinity (God).

The Manifesto describes "themes" of "integrative theology" as: Interest in monastic practices, contemplative and bodily spiritual formation disciplines, celebrating earth, humanity, cultures, and the sensuous (p. 28). In a chapter titled "Meeting Jesus at Bars" the Manifesto favorably includes visiting monasteries, practicing yoga... One writer in the book has this to say:

"I am a Christian today because of a Hindu meditation master.... I believe that all people are children of God." (p.45)...

The Emergent Manifesto belittles personal, one on one relationship with the Lord and insists that it is a collective salvation that really matters. The goal of this cooperative movement is to participate in "the healing of our world" and to "collaborate with our Maker in the fulfillment of God's reign on Earth." (p. 30)

The Manifesto makes clear that followers of this new, collective religion should not be concerned about saving "people from the jaws of hell," but should rather be "motivated ... to be in relationship with people who in many ways are different" (p. 35). The focus should not be on conversion as much as "cultivation of relationships."...

Pagitt states:

"I don't think it is possible to tell the story of faith from the posture of sameness and stability .... Ours is a story of the expanding life of God generating new creation ... of collective faith." (pp. 75-76)

When Pagitt speaks of "expanding life of God" and "new creation," he means that we cannot contain truth or reality within the confines of the written Word of God but that truth is always changing and being created.

Universalism is a pronounced theme in the book as well. Manifesto calls salvation "a collective experience."

A Manifesto poem illustrates this:

"Not only soul, whole body!
Not only whole body, all of the faithful community!
Not only all of the faithful community, all of humanity!

Not only all of humanity, all of God's creation!" (pp. 82-83)

And panentheism (God is in all) is exhibited through statements like the following, which talks about the "holiness of humanity":

"[W]e are agents for change in the world (salvation, redemption, and reconciliation ... it is a celebration of the holiness of humanity in which the fullness of God was pleased to dwell ... it is our holy fleshiness." (p. 88)

....There is a continual hammering away and chiseling down of the image of Christians (the kind who take the Bible literally and stand by its authority). This effort to villainize Christians is reminiscent of Germany in the 30s when artists would draw distorted pictures of Jews with certain facial features making them look weird, and when rumors and stories would run amuck even suggesting that Jews would rape your daughters, so don't trust them.... It was a campaign, not based on fact, but based on a demonic kingdom that hates anything that has to do with Jesus Christ.

In the Manifesto, Brian McLaren boils down the world's evils to the fault of Western Christians and suggests that these resisting Christians might even become militant against people one day.... McLaren states:

What are we in the so-called emerging churches seeking to emerge from? I asked myself. We are seeking to emerge from modern Western Christianity, from colonial Christianity, from Christianity as a "white man's religion ... into a faith of collaborative mission. ...this kind of emergence must lead to a convergence... a convergence of postconservatives and postliberals into what Hans Frei and Stanley Grenz termed a new "generous orthodoxy." (p. 150)

In Ray Yungen's upcoming book, For Many Shall Come in My Name, he discusses this very thing and shows how New Age leaders have been framing a social mindset that will eventually become hostile to Bible believing Christians. Yungen explains how it will all be justified as doing humanity a favor by getting rid of them, and when he quotes the words of New Ager Neale Donald Walsch as saying that God believes Hitler did the Jews a favor by killing them, it sends chills up the spine. And whether they realize what they are doing or not, Dan Kimball, Brian McLaren and other emergent leaders are framing a similar mindset....

For those who are still skeptical about the Emergent Manifesto's message, pick up a copy sometime of Alice Bailey's The Externalization of the Hierarchy, or Al Gore's Earth in the Balance. And when you read those words by those "change agents" see if you notice that the message is the same, just dressed in a different outfit called Emergent.

MercyMe

2012-01-22T15:00:00.000-05:00

The following is an excerpt from the DIRECTORYOF CONTEMPORARY WORSHIP MUSICIANS by David Cloud. You can download the free ebook from the following link: http://www.wayoflife.org/freeebooks/

This is a must read for all those who love the truth and seek to stem the tide of apostasy creeping in to Bible believing Independent Baptist Churches... Enjoy...

MercyMeis a rocking contemporary band that is ecumenical and charismatic. The band wasformed in 1994 and “gained mainstream recognition with the crossover single, ‘ICan Only Imagine.’” In 2009, Billboard magazine named the band the Christiansongs artist of the 2000s and the song “Word of God Speak” was named Christiansong of the decade.

Theband’s music has gotten progressively harder. The album This Life isdescribed as “dance floor ready ... a breezy style that’s part Beatles, partElectric Light Orchestra ... slamming pop ... a unique El Paso vibe with a longand winding guitar part and standout bass.” The album All That Is Within Me isdescribed as “an exuberant, defiant, stand-up-and-shake-your-fist-at-the devil rock& roll worship album ... a thundering, classic rock backdrop.” Indescribing the album Coming Up to Breathe, thefish.com says, “MercyMewill rock you ... they have gotten more upbeat and aggressive.” The song “OneTrick Pony” is described a “this bluesy-country rock swampy thing ... a dirtysound compared to all of our clean pop stuff that we’ve done in the past” (www.thefish.com/musiclivepage.apple.com/interviews).

Theywant to share their faith “without being forceful or pushy.”

Theboisterous rock & roll context of their “worship services” has caused eventheir own lead singer and song writer Bart Millard to question whether the“worship” at their concerts is really directed to the Lord.

“Whenyou’re on stage and the crowd starts going

crazy,it’s almost a little frightening. It’s scary just from

thesense that we’ve worked up to the point that we’ve

doneeverything we could to call upon the name of the

Lord-- to have His presence there and literally to be on

holyground, in the midst of a Living God. When all of

thepraise starts going all over the place, you get really

nervousabout it being in the right direction. Aftera

whileyou start to wonder: Are they worshiping the Father?

Whatexactly is going on?” (www.ccmmagazine.com/news/stories/11535185/

mercyme).

MercyMeis in the business of breaking down the walls of separation from the world,even performing Beatles songs. In the video for the 2011 Rock & Worship RoadshowTour they cover “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.”

MercyMe’spopular “Word of God Speak” worship song is pure charismatic mysticism.Consider the lyrics:

“Word of God speak,would you pour down like rain,

washingmy eyes to see our majesty. To be still and

know that you’re inthis place, please let me stay

andrest in your holiness. ... Finding myself in the

midstof you, beyond the music, beyond the noise.

Allthat I need is to be with you and in the quiet I

hearyour voice.”

The“Word of God” here is not the Bible; it is a mystical feeling, a directrevelation. It is found in the “quiet,” “beyond the noise.” It is an experience of the “presence” of God.It is the same thing that is taught by the Contemplative Prayer movement thatwas borrowed from Rome’s dark monastic past and that is currently sweeping throughevangelicalism.

This“open yourself to the flow of the Spirit” has led to all sorts of unscripturaldoctrines and practices. It is this type of mysticism that led CCM song writerJack Hayford, author of “Majesty,” to say that while he was driving past aCatholic church God told him not to criticize it and he has heeded that“voice.” It is the same mysticism that convinces charismatics that they are communingwith God through “tongues” even though it is nothing but ecstatic gibberish. Itis the same blind mysticism that makes an individual think he is “basking inthe Spirit of God” when he falls to the floor.

How to Kill a Church

2012-01-12T07:00:00.000-05:00

Thefollowing is by Davis Huckabee:

New Testament churches do not naturally die; they are so constituted that theycannot die a natural death. They may, however, be killed, but even in this,they can hardly be killed by outsiders except by the annihilation of the entiremembership. Churches are most often killed from the inside; their own memberskill them. A church is not just an organization; it is also an organism -- aliving thing, and as such, it has the potential of either growing and thriving,or of languishing and dying. The Lord promised that His church, considered asan institution, would not die, (Matthew 16:18), but this only means that therewill be a continuity of churches like the Jerusalem church until His return; itdoes not guarantee the continued existence of any individual church.

How then may a church be killed?

I. BY STAYING AWAY FROM IT

The Scriptures liken church members to the members of a physical body, (ICor.12:12ff), and just as certain organs of the human body cannot be removedwithout death coming to the body, so it is with the church, the body of Christ.When the members of the church start staying away from it, this soon leads toits death.

This is generally a gradual thing, starting first with the neglect of the businessmeetings because "it doesn't matter whether I am there or not. The othersare going to run things to please themselves."

The night services are really the acid test of a church member's love for theLord, for many people come to church for the morning services simply becausethere is nothing else to do except stay home. Of course, many professedChristians who will even forsake the House of God Sunday morning in order tosleep in; these are the very most unfaithful kind. But of those who attend theSunday morning services regularly, many could not be gotten out for eveningservices for anything. But the same excuses that are thought valid for stayingaway from church services, will not do when one is invited to a party, or whenmoney is to be made by being in a certain place, etc. But the Lord will one daysettle up the accounts. "All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes;but the Lord weigheth the spirits" Prov. 16:2.

Some church members permanently forsake the church, never more to return; butif we consider the connections between the two verses in Heb. 10:25-26, we findthat this is an indication that the individual was only a false Christian. Thesame is true in I John 2:19: "They went out from us, but they were not ofus; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: butthey went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all ofus."

2. BY STARVING IT

Starving the Church throughLack of Converts

A church lives and grows only by conversions and the additions of thoseconverts to its number, and therefore if it is not nourished by conversions asa result of preaching and praying, it will soon die off from lack of additions.Souls being saved are a blood transfusion to any church. "And the Lordadded to the church daily such as should be saved" Acts 2:47. God does theadding to the church, yet He does it through the prayers and the preaching andthe witnessing of His people.

Starving the Church through Lack ofSpirituality

A church may be killed by starving it of spirituality; we must remember thatthe degenerate Church of Rome was once a New Testament church until it lost itsspirituality. Heresy in doctrine is first preceded by heresy in practice; i.e.,by a carnal life. How may this be prevented? By its members living a sanctified(dedicated) life from day to day (not week by week, nor month by month). Butdedication requires self-denial, and all too many professed Christians areunwilling to do this.

Starving the Church through Lack ofPrayers and Finances

Then it is possible to starve a church to death by not supporting it with one'sprayers and finances. A church is a business -- the grandest, most worthwhilebusiness in the world, and therefore it must have money to operate. Because itis a heavenly business, it needs, in addition to money, the prayers of theLord's people. Some professed believers are much more diligent in running downthe church, the pastor, and those who are faithfully working in the church,than they are in praying for these and helping them. The same thing is true ofChristians as it is of mules: THEY CAN'T PULL WHILE THEY ARE KICKING, AND THEYCAN'T KICK WHILE THEY ARE PULLING.

As to the failure of God's people to support the church financially, Malachi3:8-10 is still in the Bible, and it calls the withholder of the tithes andofferings just what he is -- a thief. Nor will it do to say "But that isin the Old Testament." The division of the Bible into the Old and the NewTestament is strictly a man-made division; the Scriptures themselves knownothing of this. But in any case, I Cor. 9:1-14 obligates believers to supportthe church in precisely the same way that the Tabernacle was supported -- bytithes and offerings. See especially I Corinthians 9:14.

3. BY STRIFE IN IT

Strife has probably killed almost as many churches as any other one thing. Whentwo people are in disagreement, and both are utterly selfish, it will cause astrife which will grow until it consumes the whole church, unless the churchtakes steps to end the strife. Strife is a mark of spiritual immaturity andcarnality: "And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual,but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ ... For ye are yet carnal: forwhereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye notcarnal, and walk as men?" I Cor. 3:1,3.

Strife generally has its roots in pride, for where there is strife, bothparties proudly assume that they are right, and will not admit even thepossibility of being wrong. At the same time, neither will try to see theother's point of view, nor will either admit that the other could be right inthe least degree. It is a fortunate church which does not have such anundercurrent of strife.

Strife is also promoted by self-righteousness in that one looks down uponothers, while exalting self in his own mind. He takes the attitude of thePharisee in Luke 18:9. Pride stands in the way of humility, which is always thefirst step toward repentance.

One of the most tragic forms of church strife is when a member, or group ofmembers, get their feelings hurt by the preaching (which is very common whenthe preacher is faithful to preach against sin, and to declare the members'duties). Often the dissident members will mount a campaign to run the preacher off,and the most common excuse used is that he is a "dictator." Now wehave no sympathy with a genuine dictator in the pulpit, but ere a man of God isstigmatized as a dictator, men had best consider what the preacher iscommissioned and commanded to do: he is to "Preach the word; be instant inseason, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering anddoctrine" II Timothy 4:2. "Them that sin rebuke before all, thatothers also may fear" I Timothy 5:20. "These things speak, andexhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee" Titus2:15. "This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they maybe sound in the faith" Titus 1:13.

On the basis of these, and the many other similar texts, the preacher has aduty not only to declare the truth, but also to rebuke those members who areliving wayward lives, and no one has a right to call him a dictator for onlydoing his duty. This is not to say that he may use the pulpit to chide membersfor personal differences of opinion, nor that he should jump upon and spurevery one for every little misstep. The wise pastor will quickly learn to useChristian psychology even in the most serious breaches of Christian ethics, andthat "A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir upanger," Proverbs 15:1. A belligerent or overbearing preacher will produceonly heartache for himself and discouragement for the church.

Strife between the members of a church and the pastor often destroys a churchfor the simple reason that by rebellion against the pastor, the members arerebelling against the Lord, for though the church may vote to call a man aspastor, yet if they are led of the Lord in doing so, the pastor is made thesuperintendent or overseer (Greek "bishop") over the flock, Acts20:28. Not only so, but the preacher, when he stands to declare the gospel, isan ambassador for Christ, beseeching men in the stead of Christ to bereconciled to God, II Corinthians 5:18-20. And yet more so, when he preachesChristian responsibility to believers, they are obligated to obey and submitthemselves, for the pastor is accountable to God for them, and thus it is asolemn thing to disobey when the pastor is only endeavoring to lead one on toserve the Lord better and more faithfully. "Obey them that have the ruleover you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they thatmust give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for thatis unprofitable for you," Hebrews 13:17.

Some churches degrade the pastoral office to that of a mere figurehead, andtreat the pastor with less respect than any layman in the church; sometimesthey let their independency and autonomy go to their heads, and they think theycan run the preacher off any time they don't like what he says. But it isnoteworthy that the Scriptures give not a single example of the dismissal of apastor from a church, nor of a church even challenging the authority of thepastoral office.

It is to be granted that the church has authority over its members, includingthe pastor, but it is also true that the pastor is a man specially called ofGod to his office, and he stands in a special relationship to God, and while onrare occasions it may be necessary to dismiss and exclude a preacher because ofimmorality or heresy, yet a church should be very slow to take any actionagainst one of the Lord's prophets without good reason. "Against an elderreceive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses" I Timothy5:19. "Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm" Psalms105:15.

4. BY STUBBORNNESS

In the Scriptures, stubbornness is a sin that is compared to witchcraft andidolatry, I Samuel 15:22, and yet some people seem to delight in stubbornlyresisting all spiritual progress and activity in the church. It is no virtue tobe so set in one's ways that one hinders a church from changing for the better.No church was ever so perfect when it started but that it has room to changefor the better. Indeed, sanctification is itself a progressive changing for thebetter of individuals, and if the members daily change for the better, soshould the church. The sin of the Sardis Church was that it stubbornly refusedto repent of sin, Revelation 3:3, and consequently it slowly died on the vine,all the while refusing to admit its cold and indifferent state. There is such athing as dead orthodoxy -- a doctrinal soundness which is devoid of any reallove to Christ.

Some say, "Well, it is my life, and it is my business whether I repent ornot," but this is not true, for every person is an example to someoneelse, and his bad example will lead others astray, perhaps concerning somethingmuch worse. Besides, the corruption of a church member is a corruption of thatmuch of the church, and "A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump" ICorinthians 5:6. No one can afford to indulge any sin, because sin in churchmembers is what kills churches.

There are many ways to kill a church, but the important thing to notice is thesolemn consequences of tearing down a church of the Living God. "If anyman defile (the Greek word is the same as that translated "destroy")the temple of God (a church, as the preceding verse shows), him shall Goddestroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple are ye" I Corinthians3:17. It matters not what excuses may be given, if an individual or group ofindividuals so conduct themselves as to cause the death of a church, they hadbetter prepare to shortly face the judgment of God in the loss of theirphysical lives.

A church is of more importance than the collective rights of all the members,for a church exists, not just for its own present members, but is a witness tomany who may never join it, but who may be led to the Lord through itsministry. Not only so, but the rights of future members must also be consideredwhen taking any action that might be detrimental to the church. Many carnalchurch members, in their zeal to get their own way, justify their own sins,sooth their own pride and hurt feelings, do not care that they may quench theonly faithful lighthouse of the truth in their community. They care not thatfuture generations may not have opportunity to hear the gospel and to be savedbecause a church was destroyed by the carnality of its members.

The attitude of some is "I'm saved, so let the rest of the world go tohell for all I care." Such an attitude hardly evidences genuine salvation.If it be true that "Whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brotherhave need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth thelove of God in him?" I John 3:17, how much more so is this true of thosewho have no concern for the welfare of the souls of others? God pity the manwho destroys a church: if he is saved at all, he puts himself under thejudgment of physical death for putting his own selfish wants and will above thewelfare of a church of the living God.

5. BY SELFISHNESS

Allof the foregoing points may be summed up in this one, but we venture to make afew more comments which fall specifically under this heading. We live in themost affluent age that this world has ever known. Add to this the fact thatthis generation has greater means to get the gospel to every race, nation andtribe of people than any previous generation. Radio, TV and the press makeevangelism possible as never before. But what happens? Instead of using thesemeans for the glory of God, men become so selfishly involved in them that allof these become definite detriments to the truth.

It has been found that people [in some countries] spend hundreds of times moreon pets than on all religious enterprises combined, and Newscaster Paul Harveyreports that for every dollar that is spent on churches, $12,000 is spent oncrime. It should be obvious from this that we are working at the wrong end ofthe problem.

Giving to missions is the thermometer which shows the spiritual atmosphere of achurch. It is generally the gauge of godliness in the church. Call it homemissions or whatever one pleases, but the selfish use of the Lord's money forthe gratification of the members of a church will kill that church as quicklyas almost any one thing. May God give us more sound and serviceable churches bystirring up church members to be more dedicated and obedient.

Are you killing your church by your sinfulness by your selfishness, by yourneglect? Then repent before both the church and yourself are destroyed.

[Distributedby Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-maillisting for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believingChristians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOTDEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTIONOF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those whopersonally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribedunintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The FundamentalBaptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE, go tohttp://www.wayoflife.org/wayoflife/subscribe.html . TO UNSUBSCRIBE OR CHANGEADDRESSES, go to the very bottom of any email received from us and click"Manage My Subscription." If you have any trouble with this, pleaselet us know. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and thosewho use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can.Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 26th year ofpublication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is locatedat the web site: http://www.wayoflife.org/publications/index.html.Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143,fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree withour preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but only from thosewho are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/wayoflife/makeanoffering.html.PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org]

Discouragement and Timing

2011-12-06T22:59:00.001-05:00

Discouragement often hits when you are physically and emotionally exhausted. Elijah went through this experience, you'll recall (1 Kings 18-19). He even prayed that he might die! God's answer was to rest him, feed him, and reveal Himself in the "still small voice" that gave renewed courage and vision. Rest, nourishment, and a new meeting with God will take care of 90 percent of all your discouragements!

Postponed answers to prayer are also hard to take. The implied criticism in Martha's greeting to Jesus, as recorded in John 11, was "Lord, You didn't answer soon enough. You didn't get here in time to keep Lazarus from dying!" But in the case of Lazarus, our Lord wasn't thinking of healing. He had something far greater in mind: presiding at a resurrection! God's delays are always the precursors of greater things! Once you've learned this lesson, the discouragement of delay will have been mastered forever.

The psalmist had to learn the difference between "they" and "Thou." When attention is focused on what others are doing, it is possible to become quite discouraged, even bitter. But when attention is centered on God, His Word, and His will, discouragement flees and faith begins to soar.

--Dr. Robert A. Cook (June 7, 1912 - March 11, 1991. Baptist pastor, writer, broadcaster, and president of King's College)

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Discouragement-and-Timing.html?soid=1101870705073&aid=L4Q2Wwp2TCE

Problem? What Problem?!?!

2011-11-26T19:00:00.000-05:00

A survey was recently taken among “Young Fundamentalists.” Seventy-two percent of those surveyed were graduates of Bob Jones University, Maranatha Baptist Bible College and Northland Bible College.

• 49% of these “fundamentalists” admitted to having drunk alcoholic beverages. (Only 9% said they no longer drink)

• 75% of these “fundamentalists” did not believe drinking alcoholic beverages was Biblically wrong.

• 51% of these “fundamentalists” were not sold on Christian schools for their children.

• 57% of these “fundamentalists” did not use the King James Bible.

• 51% of these “fundamentalists” said, if they started a church they would not call it a Baptist church, even though fifteen of the twenty-one schools surveyed were Baptist Colleges.

• 10% of these “fundamentalists” felt that women could be pastors or deacons.

• 58% of these “fundamentalists” believed in Calvinism. (That God created millions of people for no other purpose than to have them burn in hell for eternity.)

• 86% of these “fundamentalists” had no problem with contemporary music in churches.

• 49% of these “fundamentalists” said they were not committed to being a fundamentalist.

• 62% of these “fundamentalists” said they believe that fundamentalists have majored in the minors.

• 48% of these “fundamentalists” said we should not preach music standards.

• 13% of these “fundamentalists” did not believe Hell was a literal place.

One can only guess what percentage of “fundamentalists” will not be concerned about these statistics.

The faithful pastor who refuses to compromise would be better to teach his people in his local church than send them off to a college that turns out students with views of fundamental Christianity seen in this recent survey.

-Courtesy of fairhavensbaptist.net - Pastor Bob Kirkland

Quotes Worth Quoting - 5

2011-11-22T07:00:00.000-05:00

"One of the most commoncauses of emotionally disturbed people today is the average American home.Instead of experiencing security-building love between their parents; childrenall too often see and feel the traumas of hostility, hatred, and animosity betweenthe two people they love most, their mother and father.

From this hostility,children develop emotional insecurity and fears that follow them all throughlife. God’s plan for home life is different from this general experience. Hewants the home to be a haven of love where husband and wife and children livewith a sense of security and a feeling of acceptance."

Dr. Terry L. Coomer

The Respectable Rebel

2011-11-14T07:00:00.000-05:00

As I walk downtown, I meet two young men that I have known for some time. The first we’ll call Joey. He used to attend our church but he quit a few years ago; he also dropped out of school. Joey is dressed in black, baggy clothes with a long chain hanging down his leg. He has tattoos and body piercing in several places that I can see, and God only knows where else. He has a blank look on his face that makes me suspect that he is “on something”. He walks slowly with no definite purpose or destination. Everything about him says, “I’m a rebel, and I want you to know it!”

Then I meet James, an entirely different type, also from our church. He is neatly dressed, he has no markings of the world as Joey does, and he greets me with a big smile and a firm handshake. I congratulate him on his recent high school graduation; he graduated with highest honors, by the way. I ask James about his plans for the future. He tells me that he is going to a certain college where he will study pre-med. Then he plans to get into a certain medical school, and then will specialize, etc.

I look at James and sadly remember Joey, thinking to myself, what a world of difference in the two! James is a respectable young man who knows what he wants and how to get it. He knows where he’s going and how to get there. James will certainly be an asset to society. We need more young people like him!

A strange thing happens as I walk away. The Holy Spirit seems to bring some verses to my heart. “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” “For ye are bought with a price.” “And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?”

I remember James’ words, “I want to…I plan to…I’m going to…I will...” I notice a lack of words like, “God wants me to…God is leading me to…I’m praying about…” I conclude that James is a rebel like Joey; he just is a respectable one! Neither boy is surrendered to God and seeking His will. Neither is following Jesus and carrying his cross. Neither is dead to self. Neither is remotely thinking about taking the Gospel to the heathen as Christ commanded.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying a Christian shouldn’t be a doctor, or have any other honorable occupation. I am saying it is sinful for a Christian to choose his own way and not live by faith and seek God’s will for his life. C. Austin Miles put it this way: “Not what I wish to be, nor where I wish to go, for who am I that I should choose my way? The Lord shall choose for me, ‘tis better far, I know. So let Him bid me go, or stay.” Judging by the fact that there are thousands of language groups without any Scripture, billions of people who have never heard the Gospel, and tens of thousands of cities without churches, I would have to conclude that most Christians are indeed choosing their way, not God’s. They may be respectable but they are rebels nonetheless.

If you are among the few who are completely surrendered to God, and if He directs you toward a foreign mission field, please consider how the nine-month Baptist Bible Translators Institute course could help you learn the new language and culture much quicker and better.

By Rex L. Cobb, Director
rexcobb@BaptistTranslators.com

BBTI is an Independent Baptist ministry, sponsored by East Side Baptist Church of Bowie, Texas. Please contact us for more information and a free CD presentation and catalog: BBTI, P.O. Box 1450, Bowie, TX 76230, (940) 872-5751, info@BaptistTranslators.com, or http://www.BaptistTranslators.com.

For the Love of the Family Ministries™
Missionaries to America’s Forgotten Mission Field, the Family
Pastor Terry L. Coomer
Ministry of Elwood Bible Baptist Church
P.O. Box 535
504 North 12th Street
Elwood, Indiana 46036
765-552-1973
TLCOOMER@juno.com
www.fortheloveofthefamily.com

Evolution... Humanism Dressed Up in a Lab Coat

2011-11-12T12:00:00.000-05:00

The following is the testimony of Gary Parker, Ed.D. in biology/geology from Ball State University:

“I wasn’t just teaching evolution, I was preaching it. ‘It was millions of years of struggle and death that brought mankind and all the other animals and plants into being,’ I told my college students. I praised Darwin for being the first to understand how evolution worked. ... I let students freely express their religious beliefs, but would not let them use their personal faith to challenge what I considered the rock-hard science of evolution. I thought it was part of my duty as a science teacher to deliver my students from silly old superstitions, like taking the Bible literally and trying to refute evolution with ‘creation science.’

“The change began when Dr. Charles Signorino, a chemistry professor at the college where I was teaching biology, invited my wife and me to his home for Bible study. ... I started studying the Bible, primarily to criticize it more effectively. ...

“Make no mistake about it--creation/evolution is a salvation issue. I do not mean you have to have a detailed knowledge of creation science to be a Christian; I simply mean that belief in evolution can be for many, as it was for me, a powerful stumbling block to accepting (or even considering) the claims of Christ. Paul warned Timothy to avoid the oppositions of science falsely so-called, which some have erred concerning the faith (1 Tim. 6:20-21). Evolution is really ‘humanism dressed up in a lab coat,’ a man-centered worldview that uses scientific jargon to put man’s opinions far above God’s Word (as Eve did in the Garden).

“My extensive knowledge of, and zeal for, evolution certainly prevented me from even considering that God might be real and the Bible true. So what happened. Well, Dr. Signorino, the colleague who invited me to the Bible study, was not only a superb Bible teacher, he was also a scientist respected internationally for his work in chemistry. He challenged me to look again at the science I thought I knew so well. Confident that science would support evolution and refute ‘4C’ biblical literalism, I gladly accepted the challenge.

“The battle began. For three years, we argued creation/evolution. For three years, I used all the evolutionary arguments I knew so well. For three years, I lost every scientific argument. In dismay, I watched the myth of evolution evaporate under the light of scientific scrutiny, while the scientific case for Creation-Corruption-Catastrophe-Christ just got better and better. It’s no wonder that the ACLU (actually the anti-Christian lawyers union) fights by any means to censor any scientific challenge to evolution! ...

“About that time, I got a copy in the mail of the first book I ever wrote, a programmed science instruction book called DNA: The Key to Life. Up until that time I thought people who wrote books, especially textbooks in science, knew what they were talking about. I had a nearly straight A average and earned numerous academic awards, and my book had been reviewed by experts on DNA, but I knew all the uncertainties that went into it. (Indeed, when I published the second edition five years later, I put the first edition aside and started fresh, so much additional knowledge about DNA had been gained.) It finally dawned on me: if experts in science can write books that have to be continually corrected, revised, and updated, perhaps God could write a Book in which He said what He meant and meant what He said: eternal and unchanging truth, an absolutely sure foundation for understanding life useful to all people at all times in all places!

“Looking now at the Bible as the truly true ‘History Book of the Universe,’ I was lifted out of the prison of time, space, and culture, and enabled to see past the shallow and ever-changing words of human experts to the deep and never-changing Word of the Lord God, Maker of heaven and earth! I experienced who Jesus is and what Jesus meant when He said, ‘You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free’ (John 8:32). ...

“I could now look at familiar facts in unfamiliar ways--ways that made more sense scientifically and helped me to solve some of the origins problems that had puzzled me as an evolutionist. As I looked at biology with the blinders of evolution finally removed, the biblical theme of Creation-Corruption-Catastrophe-Christ was reflected everywhere! ...

“... some said that if I only knew more about fossils, I would give up this ‘creationist nonsense’ and accept the ‘fact of evolution.’ Then the Lord did something fabulous for me: a fellowship from the National Science Foundation for 15 months of full-time doctoral study. With fear and trembling, I added a doctoral minor in geology, emphasizing paleontology and origins, to check out the fossil evidence firsthand. I had excellent professors, including some Christians, but all assumed evolution without question. However, what they taught me about fossils made it hard to believe in evolution and easy to accept the biblical record of a perfect creation, ruined by man, destroyed by the Flood, restored to new life in Christ. ...

“At the end of my geophysics unit on radiometric dating, the professor was going over the long list of assumptions required to convert any measurement of radioisotope amounts into some estimate of age. Midway through the list of unwarranted assumptions and inconsistent results, the professor paused to joke that if a Bible-believing Christian ever became aware of these problems, he would make havoc out of the radiometric dating system! Then he admonished us to ‘keep the faith.’

“Keep the faith. At bottom, that is all there is to radioactive decay dating: a faith the facts have failed. At bottom, that’s all there is to evolution: a faith the facts have failed. Evolution was only able to get a toe-hold on science because of 19th-century ignorance of molecular biology, cellular ultra structure, ecology, and systematics. Discoveries in these fields completely crushed evolution as a science, but it persists only too well as a secular religion protected from contrary evidence by the anti-American censorship lawyers united” (Gary Parker, Persuaded by the Evidence, edited by Doug Sharp and Jerry Bergman, pp. 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 258, 260, 261).

Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. Established in 1974, Way of Life Literature is a fundamental Baptist preaching and publishing ministry based in Bethel Baptist Church, London, Ontario, of which Wilbert Unger is the founding Pastor. Brother Cloud lives in South Asia where he has been a church planting missionary since 1979. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/wayoflife/subscribe.html . TO UNSUBSCRIBE OR CHANGE ADDRESSES, go to the very bottom of any email received from us and click "Manage My Subscription." If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 28th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://www.wayoflife.org/publications/index.html. Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but only from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/wayoflife/makeanoffering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org

WAY OF LIFE LITERATURE SHARING POLICY: Much of our material is available for free, such as the hundreds of articles at the Way of Life web site. Other items we sell to help fund our very expensive literature, video, and foreign church planting ministry. Way of Life’s content falls into two categories: sharable and non-sharable. Things that we encourage you to share include the audio sermons, video presentations, O Timothy magazine, and FBIS articles. You are free to make copies of these at your own expense and share them with friends and family. You are also welcome to use excerpts from the articles. All we ask is that you give proper credit. Things we do not want copied and distributed freely are items like the Fundamental Baptist Digital Library, print edition of our books, PDFs of the books, etc. These items have taken years to produce at enormous expense in time and money, and we need the income from the sale of these to help fund the ministry. We trust that your Christian honesty will preserve the integrity of this policy.

Quotes Worth Quoting - 4

2011-11-09T07:00:00.000-05:00

We ask, “would you like to know for sure that you will go to Heaven when you die?” Well, who wouldn’t? Jesus never, ever, offered Heaven as an incentive for people to get saved and neither did His followers. Heaven is a tremendous by-product of salvation; however,salvation deals with our repenting of our sin against God.

Man needs to understand that we need to fall on our faces and repent before God even if there were no such place as Heaven.

Local Church Ministries - An Outreach Ministry of FairHavens Baptist Church - www.fairhavensbaptist.net!

Quick Thought: Abiding in Christ and Answered Prayer

2011-10-25T07:00:00.000-04:00

1 John 3:22 and John 15:7 &16 reveal to us the link between abiding in Christ and answered prayer.

Answered prayer is the by-product (fruit) of fellowship with God through obedience (keeping) His Word. We abide in Christ by not allowing anything (any sin issue, self issue, or submission issue) to come between us and Christ.

By abiding in Christ and allowing His Word to abide in us (like a branch in the vine), the life of Christ can work in and through us to produce fruit that will glorify God.

In John 15 and 1 John, the Bible makes it clear that in keeping God's commandments, we both obey and show our love for God. The word keep means to practice, to do or to perform, to obey, to observe in practice, not to neglect or violate.

In light of these truths, the reason for unanswered prayer in many lives becomes obvious. A lack of fellowship with God and a lack of faithfulness to God's Word results in a lack of fruitfulness (prayers go unanswered).

Whoso despiseth the word shall be destroyed: but he that feareth the commandment shall be rewarded. Proverbs 13:13

Quotes Worth Quoting - 3

2011-10-24T07:00:00.001-04:00

We may communicate our beliefs, but we live our realities. What we say we believe is not the same as what we believe. If our beliefs are realities to us, we will live within that reality. That reality will impact every moment of every day of our lives. That reality will impact every decision of our lives and the establishment of the priorities of our lives. If we say we believe in the resurrection of the dead and the translation of living believers at the any moment (eminent) return of Jesus Christ for His Church Age saints, that belief is only our reality if that truth impacts every decision and every priority of our everyday lives. If it does not, it is not our reality. It is only a fantasy to us. If we do not live in our professed reality, our spiritual lives are nothing but a pretense before God.

-Dr. Lance Ketchum

The Scopes Trial of 1925

2011-10-24T07:00:00.000-04:00

The following is from the new book SEEING THE NON-EXISTENT: EVOLUTION’S MYTHS AND HOAXES, which is available from Way of Life Literature.

The Scopes trial of 1925 is a major evolutionary icon, allegedly proving that evolution has won over the Bible and Christianity, but the way it is typically presented is a myth. In particular, the 1960 Hollywood movie Inherit the Wind staring Spencer Tracy is a cheap propaganda piece. In History of Modern Creationism, Dr. Henry Morris observed that “the Scopes trial was evolution’s great triumph...” (p. 76).

Dr. Morris said that when he spent six weeks speaking on creationism in New Zealand in 1973, the government-controlled television broadcast Inherit the Wind repeatedly in each city he visited (History of Modern Creationism, p. 77).The trial was held to determine whether John Scopes was guilty of teaching evolution in a public school classroom contrary to Tennessee state law. (The law forbade any state-funded educational establishment to teach “any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.”)

The trial was arranged as a showcase by the American Civil Liberties Union in their agenda to dethrone the Bible from a position of authority in American society. It was a major milestone in man’s end-times rage against Almighty God and His holy law (Psalm 2:1-3).

“The idea of the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee, seems to have been hatched in New York by officers of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The legal defence, which hired famous criminal lawyer Clarence Seward Darrow, was arranged and paid for by the ACLU and members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The ACLU released to the Tennessee newspapers a call for a teacher who would break the 1925 state law against teaching evolution” (Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution, p. 99).
Clarence Darrow was a profane, philandering man who was willing to use any cheap trick to defend the guilty. (He was tried twice for jury tampering and bribery. Acquitted through the efforts of an equally slick lawyer, Earl Rogers, Darrow was forbidden to practice law in California.)

But Darrow was not selected merely because he was a clever lawyer. He was a committed Darwinist, an atheist who said, “I don’t care about the book above.” The weekly meetings of the Evolution Club congregated in his Chicago home. The portraits of his heroes decorating the walls of his office included Karl Marx (Hal Higdon, The Crime of the Century). A year before the Scopes Trial, Darrow had defended the wealthy teenage killers Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb who admitted to murdering 14-year-old Bobby Franks just for “a sort of pure love of excitement.” On a lark to commit the perfect crime, the 19-year-old young men said, “It was just an experiment. It is as easy for us to justify as an entomologist in impaling a beetle on a pin” (Higdon). Leopold and Loeb were atheistic Darwinists, heavily influenced by the “God is dead” philosopher Frederick Nietzsche and by Darwin’s foremost German disciple Ernst Haeckel. Leopold said, “There is no difference between the death of a man and the death of a dog” (Higdon). Though the young men snickered through the trial and showed absolutely no remorse for their vile crime, Darrow saved them from the death penalty with the philosophy of Darwinist determination and natural selection. In his closing speech at the sentencing hearing, Darrow denounced the “old theory” that man has a free will and is accountable for his actions, which he called a “barbarous and cruel” view, calling for its replacement with a new, enlightened view of modern science that “human beings are machines determined wholly by their heredity and environment” (John West, Darwin Day in America, p. 46). He even painted Leopold and Loeb as victims of the tragedy, because they killed Bobby only “because they were made that way.” Darrow went so far as to say that blame can never be fixed on human actions, because “every influence, conscious and unconscious, acts and reacts on every living organism.”

If Darwinian evolution is true, Darrow was correct in extrapolating this deterministic philosophy, and Leopold and Loeb were right in comparing the murder of a human being with the impaling of a beetle on a pin. Can a monkey make a moral choice? If man is merely an evolved bacterium, there could not possibly be ultimate meaning to life or an absolute basis for blame and punishment. Are termites morally accountable if they weaken the structure of a house and it collapses, killing the occupants?

Leopold and Loeb’s heinous crime was definitely a product of Darwinism. As Erle Stanley Gardner, lawyer and author of the Perry Mason novels, observed: “Loeb and Leopold were merely the first bits of flotsam carried along by a swift stream, which had originated deep in the springs of changing thought and which was destined to rise to flood. Those muddy waters are still rising, and the flotsam being swept along in increasing quantities is frightening” (cited from Higdon, The Crime of the Century, chapter 13).

On the other aisle at the Scopes trial was William Jennings Bryan, a three-time presidential candidate and outspoken defender of the Bible, who assisted with the prosecution. The trial was a great media event. It was covered by more than 200 reporters who wrote about two million words. Sixty-five telegraph operators “sent out more words to Europe and Australia than had ever before been cabled about any American event” (R.M. Cornelius, Scopes: Creation on Trial, p. 10). It was the first trial to be broadcast nationally on radio (by station WGN in Chicago).

Most of the reporting was highly biased against creationism. It was “specifically designed to destroy creationism and the fundamentalist revival which reached its climax in this media event” (Morris, p. 70). When asked why he never attended the trial sessions, one reporter answered, “Oh, I don’t have to know what’s going on; I know what my paper wants me to write” (Warren Allem, Backgrounds of the Scopes Trial, p. 92).

The image typically portrayed of William Jennings Bryan is of a sincere but bumbling and not very intelligent man, but this is nonsense. Bryan was called “The Great Commoner” because he had a heart for the common man and a gift of communicating truth in a simple way, but he was a very intelligent, studious man.

The book In His Image (1922) contains the James Sprunt Lectures that Bryan delivered at Union Theological Seminary. The very invitation to deliver these prestigious lectures is evidence of Bryan’s intellectual stature. Previous lectures had been delivered by such men as J. Gresham Machen and G. Campbell Morgan. Bryan delivered a carefully-reasoned presentation on such questions as the existence of God, the divine inspiration of the Bible, and the soul of man. From a reading of these lectures, it is obvious that he was an intelligent, well-read man.

In his discussion of Darwinism, Bryan made the following observation:“But the Darwinian doctrine is more dangerous because more deceptive. It permits one to believe in a God, but puts the creative act so far away that reverence for the Creator--even belief in Him--is likely to be lost” (In His Image, p. 90).
That is a brilliant observation.

It is obvious that Bryan had read Darwin’s two major works and had understood them. His critique is devastating. Consider this:“Darwin does not use facts; he uses conclusions drawn from similarities. He builds upon presumptions, probabilities and inference, and asks the acceptance of his hypothesis ‘notwithstanding the fact that connecting links have not hitherto been discovered.’ He advances an hypothesis which, if true, would find support on every foot of the earth’s surface, but which, as a matter of fact, finds support nowhere” (In His Image, p. 91).
Bryan described the vacuity of Darwin’s arguments perfectly.

The reason that Bryan was so hated by evolutionists in his day was that his arguments against Darwinism were effective. The same was true for Samuel Wilberforce before him.

At the same time, Bryan made a serious error in holding to the day/age theory and thus allowing for the possibility of millions of years of time for creation to occur. “Probably the most serious mistake made by Bryan on the stand was to insist repeatedly that he had implicit confidence in the infallibility of Scripture, but then to hedge on the geological question, relying on the day/age theory. He had been warned against this very thing by George McCready Price. Darrow, of course, made the most of it, ridiculing the idea of people claiming to believe the Bible was inspired when its meaning was so flexible that one could make it say whatever he wished” (Morris, The History of Modern Creationism, p. 73).
Though evolutionists try to portray Bryan and all Bible believers as ignorant people, blindly following a mythical religion, it was actually the evolutionists at the trial that introduced myths into the court record and were later proved to be complete fools (though I have never seen this reported by the mainstream media).

Nebraska Man and Piltdown Man were mentioned in affidavits by “expert witnesses” Fay-Cooper Cole and Horatio Newman (professors at the University of Chicago), and Judge Raulston allowed their reports to be read into the court record on July 20, 1925.

These alleged ape-men fossils were offered as evidence of evolution.

Nebraska Man had been announced in 1922 by Henry Osborn, president of the American Natural History Museum. In June of that year, the popular and influential Illustrated London News published a two-page black and white drawing of Nebraska Man based on collaboration with Grafton Elliot Smith of the British Natural History Museum. The drawing depicts Mr. and Mrs. Nebraska Man. They are stooped and naked, human in body but somewhat ape-like in the face. The brutish caveman holds a club while his “wife” holds some small animal while looking at the male with a very stupid expression on her unattractive ape face. A couple of months before the Scopes Trial, Henry Osborn wrote that Nebraska Man “constitutes infinitesimal but irrefutable evidence that the man-ape wandered over from Asia into North America” (The Forum, May 1925).

It turned out that Nebraska Man was based upon a single tooth that was later found to belong to a pig, and not even an extinct one!

As for Piltdown Man, this missing link turned out to be a complete hoax. Doctored fragments of a 500-year-old human skull, an orangutan jawbone, and a couple of chimpanzee teeth “discovered” in the Piltdown gravel pit in Sussex in 1912 were accepted by experts at the British Museum and elsewhere as an ancient ape-man. It was given the scientific name of Eoanthropus dawsoni (“Dawson’s dawn-man”) in honor of its discoverer Charles Dawson (who probably perpetrated the hoax). For 40 years, Piltdown Man was broadcast throughout the world as a major evidence of evolution and used to silence Bible believers. A plaster reconstruction was given a prominent place in the British Museum of Natural History. Drawings, paintings, and statues of Piltdown proliferated. The one by Louis Rutot, titled “Man of Sussex,” depicted Piltdown as an ape-man (a half-ape, half-human head on a hairy human body) making a crude tool. Piltdown was adopted into textbooks, described in encyclopedias, represented at museums, introduced as evidence in the Scopes Trial, and discussed in hundreds of articles and scientific papers. Arthur Woodward of the British Museum devoted an entire book, The Earliest Englishman, to Piltdown. Finally in 1953, the British Museum announced that the “fossils” had proven to be fabricated.

Even though the Scopes Trial was won by the creationists (John Scopes pled guilty of teaching evolution contrary to state law) and even though the evidence for evolution introduced at the trial turned out to be bogus, the trial had the dramatic effect of furthering evolution and “intimidating Christians.” “Multitudes of nominal Christians capitulated to theistic evolution, and even those who retained their belief in creation retreated from the arena of conflict” (Morris, The History of Modern Creationism, p. 74).
The ACLU’s role in the Scopes trial is telling. Whereas in 1925 they sued to allow the teaching of evolution in America’s public schools, pretending that they only wanted freedom of expression in education, in 2000, in the case of Kitzmiller v. Dover, they sued to prevent the teaching of an alternative to evolution (intelligent design). The back cover of Jonathan Wells’ The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design states:“Why did the ACLU turn from defending the free-speech rights of Darwinists to silencing their opponents? Jonathan Wells reveals that, for today’s Darwinists, there may be no other choice: unable to fend off growing challenges from scientists, or to compete with rival theories better adapted to the latest evidence, Darwinism—like Marxism and Freudianism before it—is simply unfit to survive.”

____________________________
Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. Established in 1974, Way of Life Literature is a fundamental Baptist preaching and publishing ministry based in Bethel Baptist Church, London, Ontario, of which Wilbert Unger is the founding Pastor. Brother Cloud lives in South Asia where he has been a church planting missionary since 1979. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/wayoflife/subscribe.html . TO UNSUBSCRIBE OR CHANGE ADDRESSES, go to the very bottom of any email received from us and click "Manage My Subscription." If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 28th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://www.wayoflife.org/publications/index.html. Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but only from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/wayoflife/makeanoffering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org
WAY OF LIFE LITERATURE SHARING POLICY: Way of Life’s content falls into two categories: sharable and non-sharable. Much of our material is available for free, such as the hundreds of articles at the Way of Life web site. These are sharable. Other items we sell to help fund our very expensive literature, video, and foreign church planting ministry. These are not sharable. Things that we encourage you to share include the audio sermons, video presentations, O Timothy magazine, and the hundreds of Fundamental Baptist Information Service (FBIS) articles. You are free to make copies of these at your own expense and share them with friends and family. You are also welcome to use excerpts from the articles. All we ask is that you give proper credit. Things we do not want copied and redistributed are items like the Fundamental Baptist Digital Library, the print and eBook editions of our books, etc. These items have taken years to produce at enormous expense in time and money, and we need the income from the sale of these to help fund the ministry. We trust that your Christian honesty will preserve the integrity of this policy.

Quotes Worth Quoting - 2

2011-10-21T07:00:00.000-04:00

I think many times as pastors we believe our church people understand a whole lot more than they do. Also, it has been obvious to me that there has been a lot of instruction on church building, but not on building lives to glorify God. After all, the desire of our life should be to seek to glorify God moment by moment, I Corinthians 6:19-20, “What know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

-Pastor Terrry L. Coomer

The Practice of Private Prayer

2011-10-18T07:00:00.000-04:00

(Originally published 12/08/07)

Matthew 6:6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

For many, the horror of the Judgment Seat of Christ will be the smallness of their prayer life. God forbid!

Someone has said that most "Christians" spend, on average, about five minutes in prayer a day. In addition, it has also been stated that most preachers spend about ten minutes a day in prayer on average. Again, God forbid!

As I read Matthew 6:5-15, I am reminded of the importance of the practice of private prayer. Here, the Lord Jesus taught us several things about this important, yet neglected, subject.

He taught us that:

I. There ought to be a WHEN to our praying.

In reference to almsgiving, prayer, and fasting in Matthew 6, the Lord Jesus said WHEN. The word when implies that there is a time for praying.

In Psalm 55:16-17, the psalmist said, "As for me, I will call upon God; and the LORD shall save me. Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice." Evidently, the psalmist had set aside some "whens" in his life for praying.

When do you pray?

II. There ought to be a WHY to our praying.

The emphasis of Matthew 6 and the particular passage we are studying has to do primarily with our motives in prayer.

In Matthew 6:5, the Lord says, "And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward."

If we pray in order to impress or gain the praise of men, two things are true of us: 1. We are Hypocrites. 2. We have our reward.

Prayer should be more than an empty or vain display; it should be an act of devotion to our Lord! Our lack of praying, if it be such, evidences our lack of devotion to the Lord.

Why do you pray?

III. There ought to be a WHERE to our praying.

I say quickly that the best kind of praying is CLOSET praying!

In Mattthew 6:6, the Lord says, "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."

The Englishmans Concordance tells us that the word translated closet in verse 6 is also translated in another place in the King James Bible as secret chambers. No doubt, the best commentary on the Bible is the Bible!

While the word closet does signify a place, it's emphasis is on privacy! The Lord Jesus tells us that the majority of our praying should be done in a private place.

To be clear, I am not speaking against public praying. The NT Scriptures give examples of the church gathering together for prayer, and God showing up in power, but underlying all public prayer should be a private prayer life!

No doubt, the pillars of a strong spiritual life rest on the foundation of private prayer.

Not only, When do you pray? and Why do you pray? but Where do you pray?

Private Prayer is beneficial for 3 reasons:

1. It eases your mind.

In private prayer, nobody is listening but God! There is no one else to impress. There are no interruptions, no interference, and no chance of being overheard. IT ALLOWS YOU TO BE YOURSELF.

2. It enables you to bear your heart.

Private prayer enables you to practice 1 Peter 5:7, "Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you."

Generally, people don't bear their heart in public. However, in private prayer alone with God, you can truly cast your cares, the things that concern you and cause you anxiety and uneasiness of mind, upon the Lord.

3. It encourages you to expectantly hope in the Lord.

There is a promise regarding private prayer. The Lord Jesus said, "thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly," Matthew 6:6.

If we practice private prayer, the Lord promised that there will be a public reward! There is, according to this verse, a direct connection between our private prayer lives and our public performance in the work and will of God.

God help us, as the Scripture says in Acts 6:4, to give ourselves continually TO PRAYER and the ministry of the word.

Understanding the Heart of Your Pastor

2011-10-12T07:00:00.000-04:00

"And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding" (Jeremiah 3:15).

I understand there is a ten thousand dollar fine with time in jail for killing eagles, since it is our national bird. A little owl is giving the lumber companies fits as environmentalists seek to preserve its habitat. There are a number of birds and animals on the endangered species list. Frankly, I feel we are overlooking one of the most endangered one: the faithful, godly pastors among us.

When I was a lad my greatest hero was my pastor. No Old Testament child ever stood before Moses with any more awe than I before my pastor. He was my example, my hero, and my best friend. I hung on to his every word and patterned my young life after his Biblical preaching. My own heart was filled with reverential appreciation and a willingness to follow without question or complaint. Such was the attitude of most church members 50 years ago. The pastor was the man of the hour and the respected leader in the community. I have lived to see the disturbing change that has risen up against the faithful servants of God. They are mistrusted, lied about, criticized, misused, hounded, and the most "bashed" profession on earth. I want you to examine some of their greatest sources of discouragement. I have preached over fifty years in their churches and know their problems.

THE GREATEST DISCOURAGEMENT IS APATHY AMONG THE CHURCH MEMBERS.

Apparently it was a problem from the beginning. In Jeremiah 2:32 God lamented, "...my people have forgotten me days without number." It is heartbreaking to see how many professing believers simply do not care. The church is reluctantly a part of their life but the enthusiasm and priority for church things is missing. It has been submerged under all the earthly things they have allowed to become first. One can be so earthly minded they are no Heavenly good. When a pastor constantly is battered by a barrage of excuses, poor attendance and little support, it is devastating. How can he build a fire when no one wants to be warmed? His heart can burn with zeal and excitement over the potential around him only to be greeted by the "ho hum" of status quo members. The constant dripping of their unconcern slowly moves him toward discouragement and despair. If a request to candidate arrives when he is in such a state it is not hard to figure what will happen. He may go to his study to pray but his wife will go to the bedroom to pack. Apathy is the hardest thing a pastor faces today.

Pastors face a dearth of respect and a breakdown of trust. I sense this everywhere on the part of the children of God. Since the exposure of the TV ministers of deceit and the emergence of cult phonies it seems all men of God have come under closer scrutiny. Your pastor deserves your respect and trust as he seeks to lead you in service and worship. He has nothing in common with that bunch. Scripture is very clear as to how you should treat your pastor.

"...we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you; And to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake. And be at peace among yourselves" (1 Thessalonians 5:12-13).

The pastor should be held by the congregation on a very high level as the undershepherd of the flock. We have lost a whole generation of children that have sparse respect for the pastor, for they were not taught this Bible command. The phone and the dinner time gossip mill has largely turned our youth away from pastoral respect. THE MOST WOUNDED TEENS ARE THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN BOUNCED FROM CHURCH TO CHURCH BY PARENTS WHO COULD NOT GET ALONG WITH THE PASTOR. The Bible is very clear.

"Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you" (Hebrews 13:17).

BOARD RUN CHURCHES OR STUBBORN FAMILY RULERS ARE OFTEN SOURCES OF GREAT DISCOURAGEMENT TO GOOD PASTORS.

The Bible gives pastoral office first place. Deacons are to be pastors' assistants and not pastors' resistance. Suspicion, debate, stubbornness, refusal to change, and pride have always been problems to a pastor. The statement, "We have always done it this way," has been a barrier in many a church. The pastor must offer loving, biblical leadership which in turn will earn the respect and trust of the flock. Scripture teaches "...that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment" (1 Corinthians 1:10). Such respect and trust between pastor and congregation coupled with the power of God ensures the gates of Hell cannot destroy the church. Further heartache comes from those who refuse to obey the Pastor. We cannot escape the clear admonition to "obey them that have rule over you..." (Hebrews 13:17). The father is to be the head over the earthly family. The pastor is the head of the church family. Because of pride many families refuse to obey the Biblical discipline of the pastor. Remember, "Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised is wisdom" (Proverbs 13:10).

Some members obey until a pastor's advice runs contrary to their desire. THOSE MEN WHO HAVE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS KNOW THE EXPLOSION THAT OCCURS WHEN A CHURCH KID HAS TO BE DISCIPLINED. Often a person seeking council walks right out and does the opposite. It is hard for a pastor to shrug his shoulders and watch some families' self-destruct. Most will willingly follow the advice of a dentist or a doctor but often refuse biblical correction and proven direction. Again Hebrews 13:17 reminds pastors, "...they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief..." The best sermons come from the pastor who senses the backing of the members of the church. Anything else will be unprofitable. Churches are seldom hurt by the forces without; they are hurt from friction and disobedience from within. The godly believer will find a church with a faithful pastor he can follow and obey. Stubborn refusal to be led has caused many a pastor to move on. That is tragic, for the rebellion and refusal to obey is still there to assault the next pastor.

YOUR PASTOR CAN BECOME DISCOURAGED BY A LACK OF LOVE.

Remember, you are told to "...esteem them very highly in love..." (1 Thessalonians 5:13). In one church, I followed the pastor to the pulpit to be introduced. As he stepped up, every kid in the auditorium jumped up and shouted, "He's my pastor and I love him." I was thrilled at the demonstration of love they offered him. We must teach our children by example to love the man of God. They can be taught to love him and express it repeatedly. Parents should really work at this and give it great priority. You will listen to someone you truly love. Love for your pastor should be often voiced and demonstrated. Go beyond the usual comment at the door after the Sunday service. Plan ways to show your love and that of the family. You cannot "over-love" a pastor. In order to gain love one must give it. Let me encourage you to choose every way possible to assure your pastor of your love. The glare of someone's criticism will be softened by the kind words and deeds of your affection. Please encourage your pastor with repeated proof of your love and loyalty to him as the man of God. He needs it and deserves it. His sermons will be better, and God's love will shine more brightly on your family.

MEN OF GOD ARE FURTHER HINDERED BY A LACK OF CONGREGATIONAL REVERENCE.

Today's church services tend to lean further toward entertainment than worship. In Hebrews 12:28, we are clearly instructed to "... serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear." Teach your children the importance of the worship service and carefully monitor their actions. The church should not be a playground. Use the nursery for your little ones so they will not disturb others around you. Require your older children to sit up, not to bring toys, and to truly listen to the sermon. Teens can take notes but should not write notes and quip comments to each other in the meeting. Parents need to regulate where they sit and be able to observe their actions. Try refusing them Sunday dinner unless they can state three points of the pastor's sermon. Wow, how mean can I get? Seriously, it will help to show them the importance of gleaning from the messages preached in their presence. When someone prays, all should pray. Special music should add to the spirit of worship and be listened to prayerfully. Most of us have a lot to learn about worship. Your pastor can lead in worship if your attitude is one of worship.

PASTORS CAN BE FURTHER HURT BY THE RARITY OF TOTAL DEDICATION.

The scientist must see some successful experiments. The doctor must see his talents and medicine working. The lawyer must be winning some cases. The man of God encouraged by the promises of the Word should be blessed in seeing his efforts producing fruit. Nothing discourages like the "flash in the pan" brief experiences among some members. I have often had some real spiritual young man pointed out as a blessing to all. Pastors rejoice in these, but they are so few. Romans 12:1 cries, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." This promise is not for the few but for every child of God who wants to be used. A farmer who prepares the soil and sows diligently watches for fruit. It is discouraging to get little produce after many hours of labor. Do not leave your pastor wringing his hands in the middle of the church garden because so little of the seed sown brings forth fruit. Honor his labors by growing and flowering your very best. God must have your all or he will not use you at all. The pastor's trophy case should be filled with many who prove the effectiveness of his labors and the power of the Lord.

Often a man of God suffers a lack of appreciation. He and his family must never be forgotten in their special times. Birthdays, anniversaries, and other special milestones should be noted and celebrated. Once again it is impossible to "over love" your pastor and his loved ones. You are told to remember "...without ceasing..." your pastor's "...work of faith, and labour of love..." (1 Thessalonians 1:3).

He does so many things for the families of his church each year which are sadly taken for granted. Give him some parties, perhaps send him and his wife to the Holy Land, and be sure they get away for some paid vacation. Do not make him pay the pulpit supply. One must be sure a pastor can get out from under the load occasionally. Appreciate his hospital calls and counseling and all the errands he often runs for church folk. Never take a pastor for granted. Bathe him and his family with personal expressions and church appreciation. It will be returned many fold in better messages and longevity from the man you love. He ought to be able to serve you with joy. Great appreciation will help.

MANY PASTORS STRUGGLE BECAUSE OF INADEQUATE FINANCES.

It often is necessary for a pastor to work at a secular job as a new church is getting started. He will bear this short time overload to get things started. As soon as possible the man of God must be allowed to labor full time for your church which should well support him. The church must be sensitive to the growing needs of their pastor and his family. The only time I almost punched a deacon was when one said, "We keep our preacher poor so he won't get a big head." Boy was I tempted! Every working person loves to have a raise and the encouragement of more finances that represents a job well done. Your pastor works 24 hours a day and is never able to fully relax at the end of that day. His hourly wage can never catch up with his hourly commitments. He needs a generous salary plus benefits. Cover his insurance and housing allowance. Put him in a decent car and give him a gas allowance for his visitation. Deacons should access needs yearly and raise his salary as an encouragement for a job well done. One pastor had to use all the meager salary the church gave for the college bill of his son. He and his wife had to seek out extra work to keep food on the table. This detracts from his availability to do a full job of preparation and prayer for his preaching. If his wife works for the church, pay her. I hope you will not get a coronary, but a pastor should make double the pay of the overall average of the workers in the church. He is to be "counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the. word and doctrine" (1 Timothy 5:17). One cannot pay a faithful pastor too much as he labors with all his heart and strength for you and your families. Do not force your pastor to leave the ministry because he cannot make ends meet. Remember, "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his reward" (1 Timothy 5:18). Poor finances cause hundreds of pastors each year to give up the battle. Do not let it happen to yours!

ANOTHER PROBLEM FACED BY THE PASTOR IS SHORTAGE OF WORKERS.

An ideal church is one whose members are "...stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord..." (1 Corinthians 15:58). The pastor is to be the overseer but not an all doer. He simply cannot do all the things that need doing in a church. Each member has a talent and should divide up the responsibility of the work around the church. A shortage of choir members, irregular attendance at various meetings, unfaithful Sunday School teachers, and lazy members all add to the pastor's daily load. Members should take pride in pitching in and doing whatever needs doing. Sharing the work lifts the load upon the few and gives all the members a sense of this being "my church." Graduate from the Sunday morning do nothing crowd to active participation and "...be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only..." (James 1:22).

YOUR PASTOR ALSO FEELS THE LOAD OF COMMUNITY PRESSURE.

He knows the admonition "...let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not" (Galatians 6:9). Still there are some areas that are extremely hard to pastor in a church. The skeletons of past church battles and old church squabbles often have spilled out into the community. People are slow to forget and if a few disgruntled ex-members wag their tongues, the neighborhood can be poisoned against the church. Some churches are in dying areas or such small towns that the potential for increasing membership is not there. Sometimes local laws and civil requirements further hinder the growth of a church and discourage the pastor. It is never easy to fly like eagles when surrounded by a world of buzzards.

LASTLY, A PASTOR CAN SUFFER FROM PERSONAL BURNOUT AND PROBLEMS OF ILL HEALTH.

He must remember the promise, "My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness..." (2 Corinthians 12:9). However, the demands of the pastorate never seem to end. His family needs his love and daily leadership. Someone always is in need of a hospital visit, and counseling sessions always loom. The business meeting is soon to come, and all must be ready. Sermons must be researched and given with freshness after, hopefully, hours of prayer and study. A pastor will tend to forget all the victories and be weighted down by the problems of the church. This constant pressure can cause human breakdown and disease takes over. It is hard to study with a throbbing head or backache. A stomach ulcer or a failing heart and more serious body hindrance can drain the man of God. He can become filled with misgivings and question marks about his future service for the Lord. Old warriors hate to lay down their weapons and leave the battle to others. An older pastor may have to shift gears and proceed at a slower pace, but the wisdom of his many years will offset the change of pace.

I was once asked what I thought of preaching as a profession. I replied, "To me it is not a profession but a passion." I am sure most God-called men feel the same. In one great old time battle, Aaron and Hur held up the hands of Moses as the battle progressed. Victory came because they stood by him and shared the load. You must do the same with your own dear pastor. Stand beside him in the final battles of the church age and together the victory will be ours.

--Dr. Hal Webb

This message by Evangelist Hal Webb is reprinted from the now-defunct Maranatha!!!! paper published by Westside Baptist Church of Natchez), January-February 1997

http://www.wayoflife.org

Getting Used to the Darkness!

2011-10-06T07:00:00.000-04:00

Like the frog in the gradually heated pot, God’s people who are careless about separating from Hollywood’s filthy fare become desensitized by it. Consider the following...

A missionary friend was eating a meal with a fundamental Baptist pastor and his wife a few years ago when the topic of the movie Titanic (rated PG-13) came up. When the missionary expressed his opinion that the movie is ungodly, the pastor’s wife said that they had seen it and had enjoyed it. The missionary asked what they thought of the nudity in the movie, and the pastor’s wife said it was “tastefully done.”

“I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me (Psalm 101:3).

December 17, 2009 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org)

Quick Thought: The Relationship Between the Saved and Sin

2011-09-26T22:00:00.000-04:00

Romans 6 details for us the new relationship between the saved and sin.

It tells us that we are "dead to sin" (v2); "freed from sin" (v7); that sin has no "dominion" over us (v14); that we are no longer the "servants of sin" (v17); "free from sin (v18); "free from sin" (v22).

Therefore we shall not "continue in sin" (v1-2); we are to "walk in newness of life" (v4); we are not to let sin "reign" in our mortal body (v12); we are to not yield our members to sin (v13); we are to yield to righteousness (v19); we are to serve God (v22).

What is your relationship to sin? It is hard to have victory over something that you are in cahoots with! ("cahoots"= conspiring together secretly). It is foolish to trouble ourselves with figuring out what a weight is (Hebrews 12:1) if we are ignoring the obvious sin issues in our lives.

Changing the Glory of the Uncorruptible God

2011-09-23T07:00:00.000-04:00

In Romans 1:21, the Bible tells us that mankind knew enough about God to know how He should be glorified. In spite of that knowledge, they refused to glorify Him either with their lips (neither were thankful) or with their lives (vain in their imaginations... foolish heart... darkened). In effect, they rejected the God's revelation of Himself and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, etc...

Men are still in the business of changing God's revelation of Himself into a likeness more palatable to sinful, fallen man. As a case in point, consider the following article:

SHACK GOD FAN RE-WRITING BIBLE

- A fan of the non-judgmental father-mother god presented in the popular novel The Shack is re-writing the Bible to conform to his idol. It’s called The Shack Bible Project, and the author says: “In talking with people about the book, I heard one thing over and over again: ‘Wow, THE SHACK’S vision of God is awesome! Too bad it doesn’t sound much like the God of the Bible...’ I got tired of hearing that, so I decided to so something about it. ...

In The Shack, Paul Young gave us a new lens through which we might see God more clearly. In The Shack Bible Project, I am trying to read the Bible afresh through that lens.”

Here’s a little taste of the Shack Bible’s blasphemous garbage: “Jesus said ‘Three years together, Philip, and now you say you’ve never seen me? Dude, I know you’ve already seen Papa because I know you’ve seen me. Don’t you get it? I am in Papa, and Papa is in me. The words I speak are Papa’s words. The works I do are Papa’s works. I don’t do it on my own. Papa who lives in me does it. She is in me, and I am in her. If you can’t believe it just because I say so, then believe based on what you’ve seen her do through me’” (The Shack Bible Project, John 14:9-11).

The Shack is resonating loudly with a wide range of professing Christians, including many Southern Baptists, because they have never been born again and they have rejected the God of the Bible for a figment of their own imagination. It is a direct fulfillment of Bible prophecy: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Timothy 4:3-4).

(Friday Church News Notes, September 23, 2011, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

It's as simple as that!

2011-09-15T07:00:00.000-04:00

If there is a basic truth that is universal in training children to be godly, it is the necessity of building a foundation of the Word of God in their lives. This is true for any born-again Christian and that includes the children of God’s people. I fear that Christian parents come to rely on Christian media, Sunday School teachers, church youth programs, and Christian schools to see their youth turn out right. All of these are potentially good and can be a great help; however, the foundation for godly living is often missing in the lives of the children and youth of God’s people. That foundation is a daily absorption of the Word of God.

A young person from a Christian home can go to a Christian school or be home-schooled with a godly curriculum, be faithful to Sunday School and church programs, go to church camp, and be carnal, rebellious, and worldly. Or more frequently, they are just lukewarm and go with the flow, but there are not true spiritual convictions in their hearts. The reason is as simple as it is singular. They are not in the Word of God on a daily basis.

It makes little difference if one is a young person or a seasoned adult. Apart from daily consumption of the Word of God, any believer will be carnal and more worldly than godly. God said to Joshua, millennia ago, “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success” (Joshua 1:8).

That premise and promise has never been abrogated. When a young person, or anyone for that matter, saturates his mind with the Word of God so that it soaks down into his heart, it will modify his behavior.

That is why the Psalmist wrote long ago, “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee” (Psalm 119:11). The idea here is not so much rote memorization of Scripture as it is filling one’s mind with God’s Word to such a degree that it soaks down into the heart. When that has happened, we will not sin against God. The will has been changed.

As a pastor, I watch children from Christian homes who are in Christian schools or are home schooled. Their parents make sure they are at every service and youth function of the church. And yet, these same kids are rebellious, carnal, and have a worldly attitude. Why? Because they are not in the Word in a meaningful way. It’s as simple as that.

The above excerpt is from an article by Pastor David Sorenson and is based on his book TRAINING YOUR CHILDREN TO TURN OUT RIGHT. Churches can order this excellent book from Northstar Ministries, 1820 W. Morgan St., Duluth, MN 55811, 218-726-0209, www.northstarministries.com,
dhs.northstar@charter.net.

Quotes Worth Quoting!

2011-09-09T07:00:00.000-04:00

Spiritual conviction doesn’t come through music that makes you want to dance and through turning the church into a sensual party atmosphere and through lowering the dress standards and speech to the level of a foolish pop-culture ruled society.

Conviction doesn’t come when the churches attempt to replace worldly cool with Christian cool. It comes through serious, separated Christian living and sacred music and the faithful preaching of God’s Word and that not from some textually corrupt version or watered-down paraphrase.

(David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org )

"Forsake the foolish, and live; and go in the way of understanding." - Proverbs 9:6

IMMORAL COUNTRY POP MUSIC

2011-08-26T07:00:00.005-04:00

(Friday Church News Notes, August 26, 2011, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) -

Shania Twain is not only popular on the country scene, she’s crossed over into pop, giving her a much broader audience. Her music is typical of country-pop, with its moral raunchiness covered with a thin veneer of powerless religion.

Consider an excerpt from her song, “God Ain’t Gonna Getcha For That.”

“Hey you, sittin’ in the corner/ Can’t ya hear the jukebox playin’/ Everybody’s up doing the two-step/ And you’re not even tappin’ your toe/ Won’t you let a lady buy you a cold brew/ Loosen you up a little more than you dare to/ Maybe take a ride in my Cadillac/ God ain’t gonna getcha for that. ... He’s much to busy with the guys in the black hats/ There’s nothin’ wrong with a man and a woman flirtin’ with a honky-tonk moon/ God ain’t gonna pay no attention/ If we’re just makin’ use of his invention/ Come on, baby don’t hold back/ God ain’t gonna getcha for that.”

God did invent male and female, but He has also instructed the male and female how to use His “invention.” The Bible says sexual relations outside of marriage are immoral and God will definitely “getcha for that.”

The country music world has a gloss of religiosity, but at its heart we find open rebellion against the God of the Bible and His holy laws. Country music religion pretends that a person can love God and this wicked world, too. The Scriptures warn that this is impossible: “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4).

Peer Pressure!

2011-08-04T18:00:00.021-04:00

Proverbs 1:10
My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.

In Proverbs 1:10, Solomon warned his son that there would be those who would seek to entice him to be involved in sinful practices, questionable behavior, and crooked schemes. Today we refer to such a thing many times as peer pressure, that is the persuasion of those around us and of the same status and standing to do things contrary to our conscience and to our knowledge of what is right and what is wrong.

The phrase peer pressure is generally used in reference to young people, but the pressure to please and to be accepted resides in the adult heart also. There is a strong desire in every human heart to be accepted, and there is nothing that man seems to loathe as much as rejection by his peers. Given such powerful forces, it should not surprise us that plain instruction must be given in our youth to aid us in responding rightly to the wrong kind of outward pressure as we grow up.

I. The Pressure

While provoking to love and good works can be a positive form of peer pressure, our text clearly deals with the negative form of peer pressure known in the Bible as enticement or temptation to sin. The word entice simply means to seduce or to lead astray; it is to induce to sin by promises or by persuasions.

I assert quickly that all temptations to sin promise some seeming advantage or profit. Such was true in the garden of Eden when the Devil promised Eve that by partaking of the forbidden fruit, she and Adam would be as gods. Temptation and enticement to sin are always high on promises but miserably low on the delivery of such promises.

In our text, the allurement was, We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil, v13. The reality was, however, that any pleasure received would surely be short lived. Solomon tells us as he did his son in our text, And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives, v18. Sin is always self-destructive. The chickens always come home to roost!

II. The People

We should never be the surprised by the sources of temptation. In Proverbs 1:10, Solomon simply calls them sinners. Nevertheless it would be quite foolish to think that only strangers tempt to sin. No doubt family and so-called friends are many times the primary sources of temptation! As a matter of fact, in just one criminal justice system, the #1 reason the juveniles in detention gave for being there was WRONG ASSOCIATIONS! Surely one would do well to take heed- evil communications corrupt good manners, 1 Corinthians 15:33.

Unfortunately, many fail to take heed to the first part of 1 Corinthians 15:33, Be not deceived! There have been quite a few in the past, and no doubt many currently who see no harm in associations with the ungodly. And let me interject here: Any individual who leads another or encourages another in sin is himself a sinner! No matter his title or position in church or the community, those that entice to sin are themselves guilty sinners. That being said, many see no reason to separate from the ungodly or from compromising situations. They are deceived into thinking that their manners will not be corrupted by the experience. They have deceived themselves into believing that they are above such a fall.

As a case in point, one must look no further than a man by the name of Amnon. Amnon himself was sick in mind and heart. In 2 Samuel 13:2-3, the Bible tells us, And Amnon was so vexed, that he fell sick for his sister Tamar; for she was a virgin; and Amnon thought it hard for him to do any thing to her. But Amnon had a friend, whose name was Jonadab, the son of Shimeah David's brother: and Jonadab was a very subtil man.

Now if Jonadab were a true friend, he would have told Amnon that his thought pattern and his heart were wicked and that he needed to repent before he messed up his life. Unfortunately, when Amnon really needed a good friend, none were around. At some point, Amnon had chosen people to be his friends who would be accomplices in his sinful lifestyle and not those who would reprove him. The old saying is, birds of a feather flock together. It may not be a proverb, but it is true nonetheless!

2 Samuel 13:5 tells the story, And Jonadab said unto him, Lay thee down on thy bed, and make thyself sick: and when thy father cometh to see thee, say unto him, I pray thee, let my sister Tamar come, and give me meat, and dress the meat in my sight, that I may see it, and eat it at her hand. Verse 11 tells us, And when she had brought them unto him to eat, he took hold of her, and said unto her, Come lie with me, my sister. And finally, in verse 14, the Bible tells us that Amnon raped his own sister Tamar.

Question?!?! Does anyone know what happened to Amnon? After shaming himself by committing such a gross sin, he ended up dead at the hands of Absalom! Does anyone know where Jonadab was when Amnon was killed? To put it plainly, he was no where to be found!

Proverbs 13:20 says it this way, He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed. Notice, it does not say that a companion of fools shall be a fool; it says a companion of fools shall be destroyed! A fool in the Scriptures in not a man with limited mental capacity as we like to think in our modern conception of a fool. A fool in the Scripture describes primarily a lost man and refers to the fact that he lacks the wisdom, enlightenment, and guidance of almighty God that comes through the Scriptures and by the Spirit of God!

Can I ask you a personal question? Who are your friends? What criteria do you use to chose your friends? A pastor friend of mine said recently, "What you will be in 5 years will be determined by the books you read and the friends that you keep." I certainly believe that! The wrong friends will have a negative effect on your life and will encourage you in the wrong direction (a direction contrary to the revealed will of God in His Word); the right friends will have a positive influence and effect on your life and will encourage you to obey Bible principles. Those that entice you to do wrong and to sin are not your friends!

III. The Protest

Proverbs 1:10 says, ...consent thou not. Verse 15 takes it a step further, My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path. If that is not Biblical separation, I do not know what is!

The phrase consent thou not means, "Don't agree with what is proposed!" It means to be unwilling, to simply say No! Verse 15 tells us to STEER CLEAR OF THEM TO START WITH! In other words, don't put yourself in a position to even be tempted. Don't let that be the crowd that you hang around with, let alone receive as a close companion! Leave their presence immediately!

2 Corinthians 6:14 says it this way, Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? To be unequally yoked with someone means to be coupled together with those who hold different beliefs, different sentiments, different opinions than yourself. The context of course is the saved being coupled together with those whose beliefs, sentiments, and opinions differ from God's Word. To be more plain, a saved man shouldn't marry a lost woman and vice versa. A saved man should not go into any type of business engagement, partnership, or any other financial arrangement with a lost man. A saved man should not partner in ministry with those who hold to doctrines that are contrary to the Word of God.

Why not? Well, first of all, because God said so and to disobey God is sin! Secondly, the arrangement will not turn out well. Deuteronomy 22:10 says, Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together. That Old Testament verse is teaching the Biblical principle of separation. A farmer would never be able to plow a field and grow a good crop with an ox and an ass coupled together. They would work against each other. Beyond that, those evil communications would corrupt good manners. The stubborn ass's attitude and actions would detrimentally influence the ox's conduct! We do well to take heed; God says nothing by accident! It will not work for oxen, and it will not work for those of us that are saved either.

I close simply with this thought: No one ever said that living for God would never include hard choices. Being right with God, being close to Him, and being in His perfect will means separating from sin and error and determining to live holy apart from unholy influences that many times include lost family and friends.

Certainly the message here is not one of having a holier than thou attitude, being smug in your own self-righteousness, or living like a hermit on a hill. We should befriend sinners with the purpose of winning them to Christ. Jesus was a friend of sinners; nevertheless during His earthly ministry Christ reached the lost without being yoked together with them contrary to Scripture or partaking in their sin.While we should never forget that we ourselves were once bondmen in the land of Egypt, we must always remember that we are not home yet and can yet be influenced by the wickedness of this world and ungodly associations.

Do You Have A Critical Spirit? - The Hidden Sin (A MUST READ!)

2011-08-02T07:00:00.007-04:00

For The Love of The Family Ministries, Missionaries to America's Forgotten Mission field, the family. Ministry of Hope Baptist Church, 139 Shadow Oaks Drive, Sherwood, AR 72120, Dr. Terry L. Coomer, Pastor, TLCOOMER@juno.com, 501-819-0446, www.fortheloveofthefamily.com, www.hopebaptistlittlerock.com Listen to Dr. Coomer on the worldwide radio broadcast "For The Love Of The Family" every Saturday at 2:00 P.M. and 9:00 P.M. EST on www.aocbroadcast.com or on the Audio page at www.fortheloveofthefamily.com.

(Please note this article was first published in 2007 and is updated and republished).

These messages may be copied in their entirety to help Christians in the rearing of their children for God and building a Christian home. They are not to be changed in any manner or to be sold. This header must be on any copy. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the author.

Matthew 7:1-5, “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye, and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye: and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye”.

John 7:24, “Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment”.

After many years as a Pastor I find that many sincere Christians do not understand what Biblical judgment is. Sadly, many Christians who sincerely desire to seek to rear their children for the Lord fail to do so, because they do not understand Biblical judgment and therefore, instead teach their children to have a critical spirit. While many well meaning Christians believe in their heart they are standing for what is right, because they fail to understand Biblical judgment, they have taught their children to have a critical spirit without understanding the spiritual damage they have done. When the children leave the home they do not live for God and in fact in many instances turn on their parents with a critical spirit and the parent is devastated because they sincerely do not understand where they went wrong. Many churches have been destroyed because of this lack of understanding as well.

First of all let me say, I believe in standing for what is right, Biblical separation and practice it. However, there are Biblical guidelines that should be practiced in the matter.

Years ago, after studying every Bible passage that deals with marriage and child rearing, my wife and I decided to home school our children, because we understood from the scripture it was our responsibility to bring them up in “the nurture and admonition of the Lord”, Ephesians 6:4. We highly recommend home schooling. Let me say to you as a parent, just because you decide to home school your children, does not mean they will leave your house and serve the Lord. Our responsibility as a Christian parent is to encourage and teach our children to have an intimate, personal, passionate relationship with the Lord. The sadness is that many folks have been deceived in thinking that in their desire to stand for what is right that we teach by their own example to have an ugly, critical spirit. I have found that many of these folks believe they are like Elijah of old “that I even I only, am left”, I Kings 19:10.

Folks Elijah had just had the greatest victory of his life and a day later he was living in discouragement, defeat, and despair running away and hiding by himself. He had a spirit about him that was not godly here. God asks him twice, Elijah, “What doest thou here”? I Kings 19:9, 13. When God asks a question twice he normally asks it because he did not like the answer the first time. Elijah’s answer was all about what he had done to stand for God and how spiritual he was and no one else is left and I am the only one.

People with a critical spirit are walking alone, are miserable and in their pride and arrogance will continue to tell you how they have stood for God. Their pride and arrogance makes them feel like they are really standing for God. The question I always ask someone who has the Elijah syndrome is, “What are you doing for the cause of Christ?” Generally the answer is like Elijah’s answer. Unfortunately, it is the wrong answer that will affect many others.

Many times folks have lived this way so long they have allowed a spirit of bitterness to well up in their heart, Hebrews 3:12-13. Verse 13 here tells us, “But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today”. Folks you will not exhort anyone including your children and spouse to really walk with God if you are in verse 12 here “with an evil heart of unbelief”. Hebrews 12:15 is where a critical spirit starts. “Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled”. I hope you see the issue. Bitterness in your heart will cause many to be defiled including your spouse and children and it will affect many others as well. In essence, whoever they come in contact with.

If you will remember, I said earlier a person with a critical spirit is not out to encourage others to walk with God, they do not want to exhort anyone else, they want to prove they are right at the exclusion of all else. Do not misunderstand, God does want us to stand for what is right, but he wants our relationship with him to be right. The motivation behind the stand is where the answer lies.

Hebrews 12:15 explains it very well, “Looking diligently (at who or what? the answer is me), lest any man fail of the grace of God”. How do you fail at the grace of God? “Lest any root of bitterness” gets in your life. To get this out of course you have to pull it out by the root and that is not an easy task.

Folks, I am convinced much damage has been done to our children, spouses and others lives by the “root of bitterness”. Let me give you an example, I am thankful for godly mothers, but I have also found that some mothers who decide they are going to rear their children for God, which is an admirable desire, are doing so with the wrong motivation. In my travels in preaching and teaching on the family, I have found some pretty ungodly spirited mothers who are teaching their children to have a critical spirit. They think they are separated and spiritual. They dress right and have the right look, but internally there is a serious issue going on. (I believe in dressing properly as well). Generally, there is role reversal in the home and the wife is the spiritual leader and she is in control. She also wants you to believe that she is a humble person, who is in submission to her husband, Pastor and is teachable. The farthest thing in the world is true. “Many are being defiled” her husband and her children, other church members. etc. Through her critical spirit teaching, her children leave the home and do not serve God and she is devastated. In essence what she wanted to accomplish and took many hours, days, and years to try to do and sacrificed to do failed, because of the “root of bitterness” in her life.

Quite frankly, if you approach her about any issue she is not comfortable with she immediately attacks you and you are not a spiritual person, and we have to separate from them. “Thereby many be defiled”. Internally, she is a miserable discouraged person, like Elijah, who is constantly in turmoil, but has decided she will stand by herself. In fact she is the only one standing!

The failure is truly understanding God’s plan and purpose and having a real spiritual relationship with God. Let me give you a test here, and let’s see how we do? Maybe right now you are reading this and it is becoming uncomfortable. Your desire is to rear your children for the Lord, but you are finding yourself in my description. When was the last time you actually engaged a person in a conversation about their salvation? If you cannot remember or it has been quite a while or not all, then why not? A person with a “root of bitterness” “critical spirit” believes they are super spiritual but they rarely ever witness to anyone. They are standing for right, but they fail to see the world as God sees it. The world is lost and you have the answer. God desires us to have compassion on the lost . These are people for whom Christ died.

I think you remember the story of the Priest and the Levite, in the story of the Good Samaritan. They walked on by. They were spiritual people in their own eyes, but not in God’s. You see folks many of these people are really pretty miserable inside. They have no joy, and they are teaching their children that as well. God does not want us to walk on by. He wants us to have the joy of sharing our faith with others and seeing them come to Christ. Balance is the key word. How do you see people? Do you see them as someone you do not want to get involved with or do you see them as someone for whom Christ died?

All of this goes back to what is happening in our heart and what our real relationship with Christ is. Do not misunderstand there are things we need to separate from and there are things we should not be involved in. However, it is the motivation of the heart that is the answer for this.

Some time ago, I ran across a mother like I mentioned above who had several children including teens and was home schooling her children. Looked right, talked right, but does not have a clue about what God’s desire is. Through interaction I asked when the children got saved? No one could give a clear answer on that one. The children were not saved, but we are raising them for the Lord? How utterly absurd! Of course, she had a critical spirit, root of bitterness, and a non teachable attacking attitude. Some of the children had the same attitude as well. The husband did what the wife said to do. She was the spiritual leader of the home.

I suspect I have heard more people use Matthew 7:1 to justify sin in their life more than any other verse. “You know you should not judge”. Or they use these verses to rationalize sin in the lives of others. Most generally, this is their children’s lives, family members, or friends.

However, if the Scripture here is saying that we should not judge sin, then there is a load of Scripture we would have to throw out of the Bible. On the contrary God tells us to live for Christ and separate ourselves from those who will not live for Christ. By the way that takes spiritual judgment. II Thessalonians 3:6, 14, 15, I Corinthians 11:31-32 and John 7:24.

The key to Matthew 7:1-5 is in I Corinthians 11:31. “The judgment of ourselves”. Most of us have a real problem with that area. Quite frankly to have a real spiritual relationship with Christ we must do self judgment every day. Our responsibility is to make sure our relationship with God is correct. The devil is very subtle and he uses our own pride and old nature against us. We must be sure our heart is right before God daily.

Let me give you a thought that I hope is helpful. Every day before you start your day, ask God if there anything that stands between you and me today? When God shows you something that is standing between you and Him, confess the sin and ask God to help you not to have any root of bitterness in your heart. Quite frankly, not only is our own relationship with God at stake, but those we come in contact with.

Have you ever noticed the ugliness of a Christian with a critical spirit? Not a pretty sight. Surely, that is not where you wish to be. Generally, they are anger prone people with an angry spirit. By the way that is sin as well, Ephesians 4:29-32.

Matthew 7:3, “And why beholdest thou the mote that is thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is on thine own eye? The question is what is the beam here? The beam here folks is a critical spirit. This is the key to this section. You have met Christians who never think they have done very much wrong. However, they have constantly got something to say about other Christians or those in authority. In essence they are always looking for something. Matthew 7:3 tells us they cannot see the sin of their own life.

Let me mention here that if you really want God to work in your life and you desire that, you will see things about your life you do not like. Spiritual growth and maturity says I will judge my own life. Immaturity says I will judge the life of others without first looking at my own life. Many times God shows folks the need of their life and the changes that must be made and they reject that. But in their rejection of what God shows them they will judge another. They will not see the need they have. Thus the beam that is in their own eye. That beam is a critical spirit that comes from a heart that has the root of bitterness. Notice the promise of God in this matter in, Matthew 7:2. Your life will be judged in the same manner as you have judged others, critically. Of course the person with a critical spirit cannot understand how anyone could or would judge them because after all they are living for God.

In Matthew 7:4-5, the key to remember is he is not talking about here the true judgment of evil and sin. He is speaking about those who are blatant and arrogant in their criticism of others and they don't see that as sin in their life. Folks he has a name for that person in Matthew 7:5, “Thou hypocrite”.

God is interested in us cleaning up our own life. Did you notice in Matthew 7:5 it says, “Then thou shalt see clearly”? In essence the mote that is in thy brother’s eye we may see differently, correctly, or not at all . This all comes back to the beam which is a critical spirit.

If you have a critical spirit in your life, you will grieve the Holy Spirit and you will hinder souls being saved and you will not have much interest in souls being saved. Of course, you will not engage anyone in a conversation to seek to lead them to Christ. This spirit also hinders the spiritual growth of others you come in contact with and it is devastating to you own family. Our children need to see us actively witness to others and they need the experience of sharing their faith as well.

Years ago a Pastor friend of mine told me about a deacon in his church. The man, his wife, and two children a son and daughter came faithfully to every service of his church for years. Their children grew up in the church. On the outward appearance everything “looked” right. Dress right; smell right, outward appearance acted right. The children went to the churches Christian school and graduated. As soon as they left the home they got involved in all kinds of sin. The daughter was involved in drugs and prostitution. The son was involved in drugs, robbery and eventually was put in jail. Dad and mom were devastated. Pastor, “where did we go wrong”? The Pastor went down to the jail to visit the son. He looked horrible and the Pastor asked the boy why did you do this thing? The son shocked him by saying, “I don't want to talk to you, I hate you”? The Pastor said, “Why do you hate me? What have I done to you that you would hate me so much”? The answer was revealing, the son said, “Every Sunday going home from church, my sister and I listened to my dad and mom discuss how much they disagreed with you and how bad you were”? Critical spirit! These stupid parents who attended a fundamental Baptist church destroyed God’s work in the lives of their children, little by little every Sunday, because of their critical spirit. They did not even realize what they were doing. I am sure there were many Sunday’s when the Holy Spirit spoke to their heart to change this behavior, but in their mind this was part of their spirituality. Obviously, their lives were miserable and they made their children’s lives miserable and affected their lives for all eternity. Think about the poor testimony for God and the many others that were now defiled by the “root of bitterness” in their heart.

I am convinced that many Christians live with the “root of bitterness” and critical spirit that affects many. Parents who think they are doing what they can to see their children grow up for God are actually defiling their children by their lack of Biblical understanding of what Biblical judgment is and the critical spirit of their life.

Remember, God’s promise if your life is critical in nature rather than cleaning up your own life and looking to God you will be judged in the same manner in your life.

Folks, this is not a command not to judge sin in the life of another. It is a warning about having a critical spirit in your life without regard to the sin in your life. It will come back to get you.

Make sure you understand the principles, pointed out here, because you may feel you are doing everything right and it turns out all wrong. This type of sin always shows up in the lives of your children. It is epidemic in the church today and God wants us to understand He loves us and wants us to have His presence in our lives.

If God speaks to your heart about this do not just let it roll off because it will have great consequence in your life, your spouse, and children. It will affect the lives of many. If after reading this you desire true Biblical change in your life, go to our web site www.fortheloveofthefamily.com, and click on the message, “What to Do Now That I have Failed” or "What Do I Do With A Child Outside The Home Not Living For God?" These messages will give you a step by step procedure to correct this matter.

If you need help because you are caught in the sins of the spirit because of a critical spirit and do not know what to do, feel free to contact us. May God help you today seek and have a real relationship with Him.

Dr. Terry L. Coomer is the Pastor of Hope Baptist Church, and the Director of For the Love of the Family Ministries. He has also served as the Publisher of the nation’s fastest growing daily newspaper. Pastor Coomer holds Family Conferences in the local church. To have a meeting at your church or other needs he may be contacted at (501) 819-0446, tlcoomer@juno.com. There are many helpful articles and material on our web site to help you change your life at www.fortheloveofthefamily.com. We serve the God of answers. If you need help finding those answers you may contact us at tlcoomer@juno.com. To be removed from our mailing list send an e-mail to tlcoomer@juno.com.

The Law and The New Testament Christian (Romans 3:19-24) - Part 3

2011-08-01T07:00:00.008-04:00

As noted in our previous posts, since the early days of the New Testament there has been some confusion concerning the Law of Moses and the New Testament Christian. The question has been, what effect if any should the law have in the life of the New Testament believer? The Bible certainly has much to say on this subject, and in this series we are looking at God's original intent in the giving of the law at Mt Sinai.

We have already noted that The Law Reveals the Sinfulness of Man and also the fact that The Law Reveals the Salvation of God. In this final post we will look at the fact that The Law is Regulated to Condemnation, not Salvation. By that I simply mean that the law was never intended as a means for man to be saved or justified in the sight of God; the law has never had power to make a man righteous.

Romans 3:20 says, Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. And in Romans 3:24 the Scripture says, Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. There is without doubt a definite contrast in these verses! There is no justification by the deeds of the law; justification rather is a result of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, that is, the work that Christ did on Calvary in suffering and bleeding and dying for the sins of the whole world. 2 Corinthians 5:18 confirms, And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

In 2 Corinthians 3:6-9, the Scripture describes that law as one that killeth and calls it a ministration of death and a ministration of condemnation. Now that is not to say that anything is wrong with the law. The law is holy, just, and good. The issue is the sinful heart and deeds of men; the law serves to do nothing but condemn and reveal to man the depravity and deceitfulness of his heart!

On the other hand, the Bible speaks of being justified freely. That phrase simply means to be rendered just or innocent or to regard as just or innocent. Friend, that is something that the law could never do! But, thank God, through the redemption of Christ and by his grace the guilty, condemned, hell-deserving sinner can be regarded by the Holy God of Heaven as innocent and just! What a great salvation indeed!

As stated in previous posts, there is a lawful use of the law, and the Bible is clear that God intended the law to condemn man and to clearly show him to be a sinner. Through Christ, however, all charges are dropped, and as Hebrews 8:12 says, For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. And again in Hebrews 10:17 it says, And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. What a blessed privilege to be delivered from the condemnation of sin and to be treated as if one had never sinned.

I close with the question asked in Galatians 4:21, Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? There are some things that a man will never hear the law say and one of those is JUSTIFIED! All the law can do is cry Guilty, Guilty, Guilty! The law only tells a man that he falls short of God's glory, that he is a sinner, that he is no good. Justification is by grace through faith alone in Christ alone. If you are not saved, turn to Jesus and trust Him today; He alone is in the business of justifying the ungodly!

The Corruption that is in the World through Lust

2011-07-25T20:00:00.009-04:00

^{2 Peter 1:2-4}
²Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,
³According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:
⁴Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

I. The Place of the World

The latter part of verse 4 makes it plain that the world is a place of corruption. That is, it is a place of such depravity, wickedness, and perverseness that it serves to deteriorate moral principles and brings about the loss of the purity and the integrity of those who find themselves engrossed in it.

No wonder the Bible continually warns against loving the world, being a friend of the world, and conforming one's life to the whims and the ways of the world. James says plainly in the latter part of James 4:4, whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

In 1 John 2, the Scripture goes a step further and tells us that the world is a producer of corruption. It says in verse 15, Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. He that is wise must filter the worlds products through the light of God's Word in order to decide to what degree, if any, such product should hold in his life. 1 Corinthians 15:33 warns, Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners. To allow an interchange of words, sounds, letters, messages, pictures, thoughts or opinions, by any means or media that is qualified by the Word of God as wicked, perverse, or sensual is to begin to slide down a slippery slope that leads to a course of life that ultimately invites God's judgment.

All that we allow into our lives as God's children must be judged on the merits of the Word of God. We must consider the end of a thing from the beginning. We must exercise prudence lest we lose our purity and our integrity in the process of obtaining our pursuits. Remember the words of Ecclesiastes 9:9 Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment. As the songwriter said, "You can live as you please, but you must pay the cost." There is a reckoning day for our life choices, good or bad. Be careful of your contact with corruption; it will corrupt you.

II. The People of the World

In the last part of verse 4, the Scripture tells us of the corruption that is in the world through lust. In other words, just as in Romans 5:12 where the Bible tells us that death came into the world as a result of sin, 2 Peter 1:4 tells us that the world is corrupt because of lust. Bro John said it this way in v16 of 1 John 2, For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. In other words, the world is corrupt because man is corrupt. It is man's lust that brings this corruption about.

The word lust in our text speaks of the carnal appetite, the unlawful desire of carnal pleasure, the evil propensity and depraved affections and desires that lie in the heart of man. To say it more plainly, the world is a bad place because sinful fallen man is in it and is producing things with his wicked mind. The world doesn't produce anything on its own; it is man that produces the things of the world.

For instance, in the simplest of terms, what is it that makes a song worldly? Is it not that the music produced by the world and often times the words that accompany such music comes from a depraved heart with corrupt purposes and no design to promote purity or to encourage spirituality.

What is it that makes certain styles of clothing worldly? Is it not that, regardless of the knowledge of those wearing the clothes, those that designed them had some agenda, some mindset that was fed by depraved affections and designs. Mary Quant, the designer generally credited with inventing the mini-skirt in the mid-1960s, admitted that her aim was to entice men and promote licentiousness. She wanted something “daring” and “controversial,” which refers to pushing moral boundaries, something sexually immodest. Can I say simply, she attained her goal!

We could go on and on. The fact is simply that the things of the world were things produced primarily by depraved men. As a Christian, we cannot turn a blind eye to that reality; the Scriptures forbid us to do so. We have a Lord to please and a life in His will to live. We cannot allow God's design for us to be derailed by the worlds call to conform to its standards and to lower ourselves to its moral level.

III. The Parting from the World

2 Peter 1:4 is also clear that through salvation, the divine nature, and the promises of God, we have escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. Galatians 1:4 says that Christ gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father. Bro Peter in, 1 Peter 1 says, As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.

The word escaped carries with it the idea of having fled from and now avoiding danger, to get out of the way, to shun, to obtain security from, to pass without harm, as, to escape danger. Why would we return to that from which we have escaped? Why would we run to and even seek to justify our attraction for that which exists only to destroy us and our potential for God?

Someone has well said, the world does not sit idly by. It seeks to convert and conform the masses to its ways. Romans 12: 2 tells us to be not conformed to this world, thus letting us know that even the Christian is impressionable and can be enticed to align himself with the worlds standards, styles, and stubborn attitude.

I close with this question, can we say with a true heart that whether therefore we eat, or drink, or whatsoever we do, we do all to the glory of God as we are commanded in 1 Corinthians 10:31? Or do we speak of Christ while slowly and subtly identifying ourselves with that which He died to deliver us from?

The Law and The New Testament Christian (Romans 3:19-24) - Part 2

2011-07-25T07:00:00.009-04:00

As noted in our previous post, since the early days of the New Testament there has been some confusion concerning the Law of Moses and the New Testament Christian. The question has been, what effect if any should the law have in the life of the New Testament believer? The Bible certainly has much to say on this subject, and in this series we are looking God's original intent in the giving of the law at Mt Sinai.

We have already noted that The Law Reveals the Sinfulness of Man. In this article we will look at the fact that The Law Reveals the Salvation of God. By that I simply mean that the law points a man to Christ, because the law itself is powerless to justify the sinner, and the sinner is powerless to attain God's righteousness on his own. He must look elsewhere.

1. The Law Reveals God's Standard

Romans 3:20 says, Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

The question here is, what standard does God require for man to go to heaven? The answer is plainly, the righteousness of God. In other words, man must be as righteous as God is righteous in order to go to God's heaven. Therein lies the problem for sinful fallen man: God cannot and will not justify any sinner on the basis of the law because the law requires perfect obedience, and man is helpless to keep God's law perfectly. The law never says justified; it only cries guilty.

Let me illustrate: When I was a young child, my parents took me to Carowinds, a theme park on the North Carolina, South Carolina line.On many of rides at the park there were height requirements that a person had to meet in order to have the privilege of riding that particular ride. Often there would be some cut-out of a cartoon character at the entrance of a ride with a measuring stick attached stating, "You must be this tall in order to ride." I remember several times walking up to a ride and being too short at my young age to ride. How depressing!

Can I say friend, that God's holy, righteous law does the same thing. When God says, "Thou shalt not steal," or "Thou shalt not kill," or "Thou shalt not commit adultery," or "Thou shalt not covet," or "Honour thy father and thy mother," He is simply saying that if you want to go His heaven, "You must be this righteous, this holy to go!" Sadly, there has never been a man yet that was righteous enough, in and of himself, to go to God's heaven! Romans 3:23 says, For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. But there is an answer; there is hope!

2. There is a Righteousness Apart from the Law

Romans 3:21-22 says, But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference.

The righteousness that God requires cannot be attained by keeping the law, and as verse 22 says, that righteousness that God requires is a righteousness that must be obtained apart from the law. It is the righteousness that can only be imparted to a hell-deserving sinner by faith of Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:21 says, For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Thankfully, Christ became sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Christ. In other words, what man could never attain by attempting to keep the law himself (God's righteousness), God makes that man (or imputes unto that man) when he turns to God and trust Christ and Christ alone for salvation. Christ took our sin upon Himself at Calvary, and God puts the righteousness of Christ upon us at the moment of conversion!

Sadly, many today are just like Israel as describe in Romans 10:2-4, they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness [by keeping the law!], have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God [which is by faith of Jesus Christ]. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.

Justification is by faith alone in Christ alone! Man must recognize that his best day as a sinner is still filthy rags in God's sight, Isaiah 64:6. Only by faith in Christ can a man obtain God's righteousness! If you are lost, turn to God from your idols and trust Christ today!

The Law and The New Testament Christian (Romans 3:19-24)

2011-07-22T07:00:00.007-04:00

From the early days of the New Testament, there has been some confusion concerning the Law of Moses and the New Testament Christian. What effect, if any, should the law have in the life of the New Testament believer? The Bible has much to say on this subject, but to begin with, we must understand God's original purpose in the giving of the law.

Notice first of all that The Law Reveals the Sinfulness of Man. While the the law cannot save in and of itself, man cannot be saved apart from the law in that the law reveals to man his own sinful state and need for a Saviour. Many abuse the law in their teaching of it, but the Scripture is clear that there is a lawful use of the law.

In 1 Timothy 1:8-11, the Scripture says, But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully; Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine; According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.

Man naturally thinks himself to be righteous. As a matter of fact, Proverbs 21:2 says, Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the LORD pondereth the hearts.

Men generally compare themselves to human standards of righteousness, and they also generally compare themselves one with another. Neither activity is profitable however because man, in and of himself, has a perverted understanding of both what good and righteousness is in reality. God gave the law because God Himself is the true standard. The question is not, "How do I compare among men?" The question is, "How do I compare to God's righteous, holy standard?"

In Romans 3:19, The Law Declares Man Guilty. The Scripture says, Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

The word guilty simply means to have knowledge that one has committed a crime or an offense and to therefore be liable for punishment. It is the awareness that a man is not innocent! Romans 3:23 says, For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.

In Deuteronomy 27:26, the Bible says, Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them. And all the people shall say, Amen. In short, God says that His law requires complete and perfect obedience. The problem is however that it is impossible for sinful man to keep God's law perfectly and is therefore condemned and found guilty by the law.

James 2:19 says, For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. Someone may say, "I have not committed adultery," or "I have never killed anyone." The the question then is, have you ever put any god before the true and living God? Have you ever dishonoured your father or mother? Or have you ever taken anything that does not belong to you (stolen)? God said that if you break the law in just one point, you are guilty of all. In other words, you are not innocent and are therefore liable for punishment.

In Romans 3:20, we find also that The Law Defines Sin. It reads, Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. Paul described his own condition in Romans 7:7 when he said, What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.

We live in a generation that love to argue over what sin is! According to Romans 7:7, the law reveals to man what sin is; it is the breaking of God's law as revealed in His Word. Notice two truths here: 1. The Law of Moses Reveals Sin Plainly (ie, it leaves no question as to what sin is). 2. The Law of Moses Reveals Sin Personally. Paul said "I" had not known. Our own personal sinful condition is revealed to us through God's holy law!

The Law of Moses was given to make it obvious that mankind is guilty breaking God's law and is therefore a sinner in need of a Saviour.

I must ask a question at this point. Have you ever seen yourself as a sinner in the sight of God? Have you ever recognized your own wretchedness, wickedness, and wantonness? You say, "Preacher, I may not be perfect, but I am not that bad." Can I say friend, as kindly as possible, that that is a good revelation of a bad revelation. Romans 7:12-13 says, Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.

God's law reveals to man the exceeding sinfulness of his sin. In Matthew 19:16, the rich young ruler asked the Lord Jesus, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? The Lord responded, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God. Many have misunderstood this passage to teach that Jesus was declaring Himself to be less than God. Can I say friend that nothing could be further from the truth! By responding as He did, the Lord's message to the young man was simply, "I am God, and you are no good."

My how natural man rebels as such a notion! No good?!?! Perish the thought! Yet it is true; Jesus Christ is God, and man, in and of himself, is no good! In Matthew 19:20, the rich young ruler went on to declare his record and defend his righteousness, but the Lord responded in verse 21, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.

You say preacher, why did the Lord command the young man to do such a thing? I thought salvation was by grace through faith, and not by works? I say affirmatively, salvation is by grace, and it is through faith alone. The Lord responded as he did to show the young man (through the law - thou shalt not covet) that he was less than perfect, that he was indeed a sinner, and that only Jesus could save him!

What was the young man's response, verse 22, But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions. Like so many others, the young man loved his sin more than the Saviour. Having his shortcoming revealed, he refused to repent and went his own way. That reminds me of Isaiah 53:6 that says, All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

The question is not, "Have I sinned?" The question is, what will you do about it? Turn to Jesus today, and trust Him and Him alone for salvation. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, Romans 10:13.

I Supposed I Knew My Bible

2011-07-11T07:00:00.000-04:00

I supposed I knew my Bible,
Reading piecemeal, hit or miss,
Now a bit of John or Matthew,
Now a snatch of Genesis,
Certain chapters of Isaiah,
Certain Psalms (the twenty-third)
Twelfth of Romans, First of Proverbs--
Yes, I thought I knew the Word!
But I found that thorough reading
Was a different thing to do,
And the way was unfamiliar
When I read the Bible through.
You who like to play at Bible,
Dip and dabble, here and there.
Just before you kneel aweary,
And yawn through a hurried prayer;
You who treat the Crown of Writings
As you treat no other book--
Just a paragraph disjointed,
Just a crude impatient look--
Try a worthier procedure
Try a broad and steady view;
You will kneel in very rapture
When you read the Bible through.

-Amos R Wells

Be Not Unequally Yoked with Unbelievers (2 Cor 6:14-18)

2011-07-08T07:00:00.005-04:00

BAPTISTS AND CATHOLICS TOGETHER FOR MOVIE MAKING (Friday Church News Notes, July 8, 2011, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

- Sherwood Baptist Church, maker of the movies Flywheel, Facing the Giants, and Fireproof, promotes unity with the Roman Catholic Church for the purpose of bringing America back to God. Sherwood Baptist is located in Albany, Georgia, in the midst of the Bible belt, but Pastor Michael Catt doesn’t believe what the Bible says about separation from heresy (Romans 16:17; 2 Corinthians 6:14; 2 Timothy 3:5).

The church is aggressively seeking Roman Catholic participation in the promotion of its new movie Courageous. We understand that “Catholics will be sent to the Sherwood Baptist Church’s Courageous Resources site for Catholics,” and as one friend observed, “Those who call themselves Christians will see this Catholic Resources page and be led o believe that Catholics and Christians are Brothers and Sisters in Christ.”

Sherwood Baptist invited the National Catholic Register to view the filming of the movie and Pastor Catt gave the reporter, Matthew Warner, a warn, positive ecumenical interview which was published on the Catholic publication’s web site June 20, 2010. Catt made the following statement in this interview: “When we go across the country and do these screenings, we meet people from every denomination you can imagine, and we instantly have a fellowship and a brotherhood because we have one thing we know that we have in common: we’re family. We’re family members because we are brother and sisters in Christ, and it doesn’t matter what labels we put on.”

This confused Southern Baptist pastor obviously doesn’t believe Jesus’ warning about the coming of many false teachers who will teach error in such a subtle manner that even the elect will be deceived if that were possible (Matthew 7:15; 24:11, 24). Catt doesn’t seem to believe Jesus’ statement that many who profess Christ as “Lord, Lord” are actually lost (Matthew 7:21-23). Catt doesn’t seem to believe what Paul through the Holy Spirit warned about false christs and false gospels and false spirits (2 Corinthians 11:1-3) and the great falling away from the truth in the end times (2 Timothy 3:5; 4:3-4). Pastor Catt might protest that he does believe these things, but if so he certainly does not know how to act on them in any practical manner.

Billy Atwell, another Catholic blogger who was invited to view the filming of Courageous, said that for Baptists and Catholics to work together “we just need a common orthodox Christian framework, and to agree on the issue at hand” (“From Fireproof to Courageous,” Catholic Online, June 18, 2010). To imply that Baptists and Roman Catholics share a common orthodox framework, is a gross error. Bible-believing Baptists and Catholics don’t share the same view of the gospel, for example, which is certainly a fundamental aspect of Christian orthodoxy.

The Bible teaches that salvation is by grace alone through faith in Christ alone without works or sacraments, whereas at the Council of Trent Rome actually cursed those who believe this gospel. (See “How Rome Denies Salvation by Grace Alone” at the Way of Life web site.)

When Atwell refers to the “issue at hand” he is referring to the theme of Courageous, which is fatherhood. Thus we are told that it is fine for Baptists and Catholics to unite for fatherhood. But good fatherhood defined biblically requires that fathers lead their children to Christ, which requires a sound gospel. Further, good fatherhood requires that fathers lead their families in obedience to the “whole counsel of God” and teach their children to “observe ALL things” that Christ has commanded us in Scripture (Matthew 28:19-20).

Good fatherhood, therefore, requires raising one’s family in a thorough-going Biblicist church, and it does not allow Bible-believing fathers to yoke together in ministry and spiritual fellowship with those who teach false gospels and gross heresies (e.g., the papacy, mariolatry, sacramentalism, baptismal regeneration, the priesthood, monasticism, enforced celibacy, reverence of relics, purgatory, Rome as the head of all churches).

Sherwood Baptist is doubtless sincerely trying to help America with its movies, but it is blind to the fact that it represents the very type of shallow, worldly, lukewarm Christianity that has gotten the country into the mess that it is in.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GOOD AND BAD MUSIC

2011-07-02T18:00:00.008-04:00

We are going to try and nail down how to tell the difference between good and bad music, especially if the words are O.K. How can I tell if something is sensual or not, if something is spiritual or carnal? I think of a fellow that didn't know anything about music, and he said to me: "When I read my Bible, when I pray, when I listen to preaching, the Holy Spirit teaches and ministers to me and comforts me, rebukes, instructs, corrects me--whatever it is that I need. But I can tell that the Holy Spirit of God is working in me." And he said, "When somebody sings a song, I expect the Holy Spirit to do the same thing through that song."

I had sung a blues arrangement of "No One Ever Cares For Me Like Jesus," and he said, "Never sing that one in church again." This was years ago.

This man could hardly play "She'll Be Coming 'round the Mountain" on the harmonica, but he told me that, and I promised him that I would never sing that song that way again.

This young man is responsible for his whole family coming to Christ. And the entire time that I have known him, he has spent time alone with the Lord and has put the Lord ahead of any friendship that he has with another man.

When we're all done with this thing, if too much is scrambled--I will try to make it simple--but if it is scrambled, you can always just ask the Lord. Say, "Holy Spirit, teach me; is this song good or bad?" If you have a question, ask the Lord. "Try the spirits" is what 1 John 4 says, "whether they be of God." You'll be able to tell. Some songs are so bad you'll know immediately you ought not to listen to them. Others are more difficult to tell. I still have questions about certain songs I listen to. There are some songs that seem to have a good message, but something doesn't seem right. We want to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit, and if there is something wrong in the song, we don't want to sing it.

BE CAREFUL

Let's look at 1 Peter 5:8-9. "Be sober; be vigilant; because your adversary, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world."

This is a message to Christians. We must be careful, because, though Satan cannot take a child of God to Hell--and praise God for that--he can take a child of God just about everywhere else, if we let him.

I'll never forget something that great preacher R.G. Lee said in the middle of a message in which he was preaching on the crazy devil-possessed man of the Gadarenes. He talked of how Christ cast the devils out and sent them into the swine. I remember him preaching very fervently: "The devil will live in me if I let him; the devil will live in you if you let him; but if you kick him out, he'll go and snook up to some dirty, lousy hog and feel in good company. And that shows you that the devil's second choice is a hog."

I never forgot that. I thought, if I let my body, my spirit, and my thoughts be a place that harbor things that side with Satan, what a mess I would be. I don't like the thought of that. This book says that my body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, and I want that. God says I am to be holy, and I want my body to be holy. I long to be that way, and the Holy Spirit within me longs to have me be that way, longs to have you be that way.

It's a troublesome thought. When I think of devils filling up a hog and how dirty that is, I think, why would I ever want to be close to anything that would be comfortable in a hog? I thank God someday we will be delivered from the body of this death, and we won't be near anything that's dirty or unclean. You say, is that your own righteousness? No, that's the Holy Spirit within us that tells us so that we want things to be holy and pure. I never had those desires at all before I got saved, but I do now.

In the area of music, I am careful, because at one time it swallowed me up. The devil had my testimony so that no one thought I was saved. For two years they couldn't even tell. Through sin, the devil can swallow up our testimonies.

So we are to be sober and vigilant; mark it down. Someone might say, "But that sounds like a tiring thing." Well, maybe it is, but what it produces in the end is some liberty in Christ and a lot of joy. It's worth it to look out for trouble, and music is a trouble area.

MARCH MUSIC VERSUS DANCE MUSIC

The devil is our adversary. He is against us, because he is against God. This is the basis of march music. God has given us wonderful march music, so the devil says, "If that is what God is for, then I'm against it," and the devil puts the accent on a beat opposite from that of march music. Dance music and march music are direct opposites, because their basic beat is the opposite. Now there are other things involved, which we will look at, but the devil is an opponent of everything that God is for. If God is for good, the devil is for evil. If God says go to church and listen to the Bible, the devil says go somewhere else and listen to something else. I think that's obvious to folks who have gone to church for a long enough time.

There's a basic difference. A march has the beat on one and three. ONE, two, THREE, four, ONE, two, THREE, four. Dance music is one, TWO, three, FOUR, one, TWO, three, FOUR. You can hear that old snare drum playing this difference.

The march type music is the soldier's music. We're going to depict something military if we use the march rhythm. If we use the dance rhythm, we're going to depict something that is opposed to marching, something sensual. This is a basic element of music.

We are to prove all things and hold fast that which is good (1 Thess. 5:21). Once we find good music, we need to hang on to it, and we ought to abhor that which is evil. Ephesians 5:10 tells us to prove that which is acceptable to the Lord. I want my music to be acceptable to the Lord. I want Him to be pleased with it.

We are spirit, soul, and body, and God has given us music to bless us spirit, soul, and body. Here's how it fits together: There are only three parts to music, because God made music, and He made music to be a blessing to man. 1 Thessalonians 5:23--"...and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." All that we are is affected by music.

How does this work? The spirit deals with our thoughts, and particularly our thoughts toward God. If you're not saved, your spirit is dead; and you're not thinking about God. It will take someone else to talk to you about the Lord to get you even to think about Him. Jesus said to His disciples, "...the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life" (Jn. 6:63). In the words of God are life. That's how we get eternal life; we are born again through the incorruptible seed. That has to do with spiritual things.

MELODY, HARMONY, AND RHYTHM

How does that apply to music? Take melody, one of the parts of music. Melody is for our spirit. It is to enable us to commune with God. If I softly hum "Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross," without any particular rhythm or harmony, I make praise to the Lord. That song is a prayer. I can help my spirit by humming a melody. Any piece of music that has a decent melody, though it have no harmony or rhythm, may be used to commune with God. You can think upon the Lord in your spirit. That is what melody is for.

Let's take our soul. That's where our feelings, emotions, and affections are. In our soul we have attitudes and feelings about the things we think about in our spirit. You say, "What is that?" For instance, if I say "Mom," along with that thought that's spiritual, you have a soulish feeling. You go, "Oh, Mom, that fuddy duddy thing," or you go, "Oh, Mom, that's the best thing that ever was," or something in between those two, maybe. If I say, "spinach!" or "barley green," that evokes a feeling, a taste even. "Green peas." "Circus." You have a feeling that goes along with the thought. That's what the soul is. Your ability to like or dislike things is harbored in your soul. That's what gives you your personality, basically--what you like and dislike, and how you react to all those things.

Harmony, on the other hand, is for the soul. A lot of Gospel tunes are written in major keys; they are bright and happy. As young children in grade school we are often taught that major chords are happy, and minor chords are sad. If I play a whole series of minor chords on the piano, you will soon be very weighted down and sorrowful. The minor chords depict sadness. There is nothing wrong with minor chords in and of themselves, but they must be balanced. If we are going to talk about how our Savior was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, we might want to use some minor chords--but not a steady diet of them. You need to mix and balance them with other types of chords.

If I sing "There Is A Land That Is Fairer Than Day" in a major key, Heaven sounds like a wonderful place. But if I change that to a minor key--keepingthe same rhythm and melody--all the sudden Heaven doesn't sound like such a happy, wonderful place. The only thing I have to change to effect this different mood is the harmony.

TEXT PAINTING

My grandfather had a cousin who played piano in the theater. All he did was watch the silent films and try to match the piano or organ music with what was happening on the film. There were no words; all that was going to be expressed had to be expressed from the keyboard. Sure enough, there was a guy with the moustache who wanted to marry the pretty young lady with the long, blond hair. She didn't want anything to do with him, though, so he wanted to get rid of her; and at that point along came the hero, who was the man the pretty lady was in love with anyway. The hero was big and strong, and he was a good guy. He was going to deliver the pretty lady from Oil Can Harry. Before the movie was done the bad guy always figures out what to do--if he can't have her, the train's going to get her, so he ties her up to the railroad track. The hero can't rescue the heroine until he catches the bad guy, because the bad guy is keeping him from saving the girl. All of this went on without words. Everything was built up by the accompaniment on the piano. Somewhere in the middle the bad guy is chasing after the good guy to try to throw him over the cliff, and you have the chase music. It is in a minor key because it's not a happy thing, and it moves along rapidly and grows increasingly furious as the scene progresses.

Then they show you the railroad track and the train is coming closer and closer, and the accompanist plays something called a fully diminished seventh chord; and he keeps raising the chord a half step to raise the tension. It's a scary type of chord, and it, too, is played increasingly furious. Then suddenly it's back to the chase, and the chase music starts; then back to the railroad track, and the music is higher this time and more furious; then back to the chase; then back to the railroad track. The pace of the music increases each time, building the drama in the hearts of the audience.

What this is called among musicians is text painting. It is painting a picture with melodies, harmonies, and rhythms, on purpose, to affect the way people respond to something. There are a lot of people that make money watching television shows and writing music behind them. When I was a boy, I would turn the sound down when I watched scary movies on television; and lo, and behold, they were no longer scary. Think of some guy minding his own business and walking down a dark alley (No one ever explains why he is walking down a dark alley, probably because he is stupid!) all alone at night. In the background you hear a minor chord building in intensity, and you know something is going to happen any minute because of the music. If you turn the sound off, the effect is ruined. It is the music that builds the drama, that paints the picture. These musicians are painting a picture behind that film, and that's big business.

They manipulate people's feelings through chords, melodies, and rhythms. With all pieces of music the composer, with his palate of sounds, paints pictures. He may even look at a painting and write a song. He may look at the sea and the clouds and write a song about these. He may look at a person and write "The Maid With the Flaxen Hair." He may look at the stars and write about all of the planets. The composer paints a musical picture from something he sees or feels.
The most noble thing that can be done is to take the Scriptures and set them properly in music, painting a correct and suitable picture.

THE BEAUTY OF HOLINESS

We want to look at the Psalms for a moment. Psalm 29:1-2--"Give unto the Lord, O ye mighty, give unto the Lord glory and strength. Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness." It says to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Part of worship is praise and singing. What, then, does this Psalm mean?

I heard that even when I was back in the Methodist church, long before I was saved, and I thought, "What is that?"

First of all, our God is holy, and He said that the definition of beauty is something that is holy. No young lady, no matter how beautiful she may be thought of in her face, is beautiful if she is not holy. No thing that man ever created, no matter how skillfully it was crafted, is a beautiful work of art if it wasn't made to be holy. Beauty and holiness go together.

Now this is true when it comes to music and the playing of instruments. Every instrument was made to be played beautifully. God gave the Jews music. God gave King David the ability to make instruments, and the Jewish community today, though they are the enemies of the Gospel, still have a shred of what King David had. Many of the classical musicians are Jewish. If you want to hear how a violin should be played, listen to a Jewish man play it. If you want to hear what an oboe should sound like, listen to a Jewish man play that oboe.

The classical musicians strive to play with the most beautiful tones they can on their instruments. Now, sad to say, some of the music that is written for them is not holy music; and no matter how well they play, it comes out rather strange. But if you want to find out what a trumpet should sound like, listen to the first chair solo player in an orchestra. Those people are so picky that they are fired if they miss a note in a concert recording, and there are fifteen, twenty, seventy, seventy-five, one hundred people waiting in line to try out for that place. They dare not miss a note. As a matter of fact, some of them are fired at practices if they don't play well enough.

I wish that I could say that we could find that standard of excellence among Christians and say, "This is what a voice should sound like; this is what a baritone horn should sound like; this is what a bass clarinet should sound like; this is what a flute should sound like." I'm not sure that we can find it. Sometimes Christians forget that David was "cunning in playing," and we forget to put in the practice that David did.

Today we scarcely hear a saxophone played right. We scarcely hear people sing right. How come? Because people don't appreciate things that are holy. All appreciation for beauty goes right out the door with it. So if someone sings with a poor tone, nobody seems to care.
Things that are made beautiful are a picture of holy things. Now everything that man tries to make beautiful is not holy, but it is at least a picture of holy things. We are to praise the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

We are told that the Holy Spirit that dwells in us is holy, so this is a picture of beauty. The Holy Spirit, God, dwelling with man--that is beauty to the Lord.

The Holy Scripture, God's perfect Word, is a perfect picture of beauty. What this Book does for my soul, for my thoughts, for my life, and for all around me is amazing and wonderful. It is holy, and it is beautiful.

Holy matrimony, as we call it, is supposed to be holy. Hebrews 13:4 says "Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled..." Marriage is a beautiful thing. It is a picture of holiness. The Bible says, "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it" (Ephesians 5:25). The Bible tells me that I am to be faithful to her no matter what. The Bible tells me to love, care for, and cherish her, knowing that she is the weaker vessel. And if she ever lets me down, that is just what the church does to Jesus Christ anyway; but if I love her yet, that is a beautiful picture of how Christ loves us as His bride. Also, she may be a picture of a church that is obedient to Christ, if she is obedient to her husband, and if she reverences him.

That's what God intends to take place in a marriage, so that it is a beautiful picture of something far greater than just the two of us becoming one flesh--of Christ and His church. Matrimony ought to be holy.

This says something about the way we are to worship the Lord. There ought to be some beauty in our singing, in the depths of our spirit and soul, that what comes out might be pleasing unto the Lord and a beautiful picture of holy things. It is to remind us of the Lord's holiness.

I went to Pittsburgh, Michigan, (to play in an orchestra), and I was amazed at how slack I was when it came to music. They did not allow a young person to blat one bad note on an instrument. They could not pick it up and go "blah," even just for fun. They did not allow it. Every note that came out was supposed to be pure. Of course there were mistakes that we made, but Brother Rick Town send would never let a sour note be played on purpose or in jest. He said, "No, they have to come out in praise of the Lord." He was seeking to achieve some beauty in the playing to show forth the Lord's holiness.

That's part of text painting--putting the right sound in the voice or instrument to make a picture of the Lord's holiness.

Turn to Psalm 66:1-2. "Make a joyful noise unto God, all ye lands: Sing forth the honour of his name: make his praise glorious." Our music should be joyful. That means we can put joy into the music. We can paint a picture of joy. "Sing forth the honour of his name." The music should be honorable. Somehow we can put the Lord's honor into the music. "Make his praise glorious." It doesn't say that this is text painting, but this is what God is talking about. It is saying that when we praise God, it can be a glorious praise. It should come from the heart, first of all; and if it does, when we raise our voices and when we play our instruments, it should be our very best effort to bring glory to the Lord's name. We can paint a picture of a glorious Savior if we sing and play right.

This tells us something else. Music can be dishonorable; music can be inglorious, and that's what is going on today, largely.

GOOD RHYTHMS AND BAD RHYTHMS

I said we would talk about rhythm. There are good rhythms and bad rhythms.

I want to show you a few more things about text painting. Think of "How Firm A Foundation." "How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your Faith in His excellent Word." If I play that song with a twinkly, light, "Jingle Bell" touch, with a lot of high notes and a carefree delivery, the mood is wrong for the words. It doesn't fit. The traditional music for this song, on the other hand, is deep, heavy, forceful, and it paints the proper picture of a solid foundation. That is text painting. That is why the song is played with a full, rich, loud, undergirded type of arrangement. It is talking about His excellent Word, about unshakable things from God, so it is played with great majesty and power.

Consider "It Is Well With My Soul": "And Lord haste the day when the faith shall be sight, the clouds be rolled back as a scroll, the trump shall resound..." This is talking about trumpets and the coming of the Lord, and at that point in the song there is actually a fanfare played with the keyboard. That's text painting. All the notes that the pianist plays have a meaning. The timing, the notes, the rhythm--all have meaning. You wouldn't want to put the fanfare at the point in the song which says, "Though Satan should buffet..."! No one wants to herald the coming of the devil. No, the fanfare is for the Lord.

We could think of so many songs to illustrate this. Consider "Crown Him With Many Crowns," which is played with a very royal, court-type, march manner because we are speaking of the Lord's kingliness. Likewise, "I Sing the Mighty Power of God" is always sung with a full, deep, stirring sound.

What if I'm going to speak of the peace of God? Consider, for instance, "Peace, Peace, Wonderful Peace." You will notice that the keys are played lightly and softly, in a restful, gentle manner. Why? To depict the peace that the Lord gives. You wouldn't play that with a heavy beat; you wouldn't jazz that up; it would ruin the picture! If you know the words to any song--if it is peace, if it is meditation, if it is joy, if it is the Lord's greatness--then look for that being painted with the music.

What happens when people take the old hymns and add something to them that doesn't belong? The picture is ruined. Consider "Who can cheer the heart like Jesus ... All that thrills my soul is Jesus; He is more than life to me." The traditional music paints the picture of quiet, spiritual joy, of the lovely abiding relationship between the saint and his Savior. On the other hand, when that beautiful song is put to a modern beat the picture is ruined.

The holy relationship between the Christian and Christ cannot be depicted with the world's sensual love music. Today they are trying to put the sixties sex music into "All That Thrills My Soul Is Jesus," and it doesn't work! Somebody is painting a different picture underneath that beautiful picture of the Lord who only can cheer the soul of a man. They are thereby making light of it.

Let's face it. The things that those sixties bands sang about was having girlfriends that usually didn't last for more than a couple of weeks or months. (There is nothing in the Bible about having a girlfriend, or dating, or going steady; that's just an American fad.) By using sixties music with that grand old hymn, they put all that fickle, sensual,love-sicky, puppy-dog, worldly stuff underneath "All That Thrills My Soul Is Jesus." His love is not fickle; His love is not sensual; it's not that way! And those rhythms, as harmless as some people seem to think they are, are not harmless.

Consider the boogie, and the blues, which is just the boogie slowed down. These are very similar rhythms; only the speed is different. The blues rhythm is found in the old ballads. Hundreds of songs have been written to this "eight to the bar" rhythm. Have you ever heard "I Am Weak But Thou Art Strong" played with a boogie beat? It is the jazzy, Southern gospel style. It is the boogie. It is a dance rhythm. Southern gospel musicians have destroyed a lot of the hymns of the faith by using that jazzy rhythm.

When you put the accent on the wrong beat, it is dance music, and it appeals to your flesh; and somebody can sell more records to you because your flesh likes it! The rhythms appeal to your flesh, and the people that make the records know that. They don't want to appeal to the spiritual Christians who are walking with the Lord; they want to appeal to people that don't walk with the Lord; because they know that more people don't than do, and they want to sell more records. They make their living studying what people are doing, and if there is one thing they know, it is that most Christians are not walking with the Lord.

THE SNOWBALL EFFECT

Sooner or later Christians must get rid of the wrong kind of music, or it will take them the wrong way. There are good Christians who listen to the wrong music sometimes; but after they are instructed, if they keep on listening to that and liking it, I know something is not right. It's one way of finding out where they are at. You cannot feed yourself on carnal music, and take it into yourself, without getting carnal.

Those who try to witness to folk understand the power of rock and roll music, or the television blaring, or something else going on in the background that draws you away from that spirit of being concerned for someone's soul. It's because the appeal is to the flesh, to get you out of the Spirit and into the flesh. The Bible says, "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh" (Galatians 5:16). If you don't walk in the Spirit, you will fulfill the lusts of the flesh; and the Bible says that "when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death" (James 1:15).

I wouldn't care about any of these things if it didn't cause harm to me and to you, but it does. It does. It always does. It's just that it appears to be harmless when the sensual rhythms are disguised somewhat. It leads you on to desiring more sensual rhythms, just like anything else. It creates sensual appetites.

It's in every area of life. If you take one sip of beer, you will take two, three. You start drinking the wines, then the hard liquors. In the drug scene you go from the marijuana and the hash to the hard drugs. It's a progression. "Earthly, sensual, devilish." A little bit of evil to a lot more evil. The Bible warns the Christian to stay away from vain babblings because "they will increase unto more ungodliness" (2 Timothy 2:16). They increase. It's the snowball effect. You put a little snowball at the top of the hill and roll it awhile, and soon it will gather more snow and more snow, and pretty soon you have a whole snowman, or an avalanche, or something else much bigger than the snowball you started with. It's a snowball effect when it comes to your body liking certain rhythms that are meant to stir up your passions.

The devil uses a progression to draw people away from God and holiness. There was almost nobody from my sixties generation that would sing a song about devil worship. As a matter of fact, at the end of my rock and roll years, even though I was not saved, it was a difficult thing for me to even sing about songs that mentioned the devil. I could not understand what the Rolling Stones were doing singing about the devil. I thought, "What does that have to do with hamburgers and French fries and girls and beaches and Coca Cola and surfing and Woodies?" It did not compute, until after I got saved and read the Bible and found that the devil has been trying to get everybody to worship him. And he takes every generation as far as he can.

When you change the rhythm, you tend to change the style that a person sings in. If you play "I Was Sinking Deep In Sin" with a boogie blues background, you feel like singing with an Elvis Presley style. It is hard to play carnal rhythms and sing spiritually.

Of the three aspects of music, it is the rhythm that should be the least important. It is the spirit which is the most important. Dance music is primarily for the body. It's not something that appeals to the thoughts and spirit. It's not something, really, that appeals to the feelings.

SYNCOPATION

Another type of rhythm is syncopation. This is Rumba-type music with the accent just off the beat, so it swings. And when the music constantly swings and puts the accent off the beat, it is sensual. Elvis Presley used to do this in all his songs. Peter, Paul, and Mary also used the Rumba, but they played it slower and quieter. It is the same syncopated, eight-to-the- bar, boogie rhythm. It appeals to people because it is sensual. The west- coast surfing groups in the sixties used the same rhythms, only they played them louder and faster. It was the same type of syncopated dance music, and it enhanced the sexual appeal of the music. As the years have passed, the music has gotten louder, faster, and more complex in some instances; but it is the same basic type of beat.

If one has ever listened to an African drum group play, he will understand that American rock musicians are just catching up to the African rhythms.

In Africa, the heathen are able to play "poly rhythms." Poly, of course, means many. They have all these drums and other percussion instruments, rhythm instruments, that all make different sounds, and they can hear them. They can make one rhythm with their feet, another with their torso, some more with their arms, and some more with their fingers and wrists, some more in their heads; and they can dance six or seven different rhythms at one time. It is an amazing thing; however, it is all sensual; it's all for the body; and it's all created by their ability to hear and put into their bodies those dance rhythms that were created specifically to make their bodies move in ways that are not polite. They make the body move to draw attention to parts of the body in a way that is improper.

That is all that is happening in the rock scene today. They are catching up to some of these African rhythms. And, of course, the Satan worshipers have just turned the amplifiers up to the fullest degree, and many of them do not know, musically, what they are doing anymore. They are just making a lot of noise. Some of them are not even really playing chords; there is not even any harmony or melody there, just a lot of noise. There is nothing for the spirit, nothing for the soul; it is all for the body. Now we have Rap music. What happened to the melody? It is gone. What you don't know is that they have been doing this type of thing in Africa for thousands of years, and there are recordings of that. They will go on sometimes for hours. You talk about dance marathons! They dance until they drop over and are possessed by devils, and then they get back up and they dance again.

What we have in America is a bunch of young people that are so controlled by the devil that when you try to talk with them about the Lord, they can't hear or understand you because of the music which is raging within them. They are so controlled by an evil music that they can't think about their soul and their spirit.

The gospel rock groups today are not all noisy. There are variations because the devil knows what kind of music you like and he attempts to reach you with your type of music. There is some really noisy music for those who like that kind, and there is some not so noisy music for those who like it quieter.

Think of it like this: On one side you have God, and on the extreme opposite side you have the devil. The devil is opposed to everything that has to do with God and wants to draw people away from God and holiness. How does he do this? He works by degrees, by a progression. Here's what happens. Ideally, everybody would be over on God's side, singing and praising Him, seeking Him, fearing Him, finding favor with Him, pleasing and serving Him. That's where everybody ought to be. On this side we have music which is holy and pure, music which deals with man's spiritual nature.

Now let's say we add just a little bit of sensual rhythm to a song. We make it just one degree away from truly spiritual, holy music. It will appeal to a lot of Christians. Then we have some other music that really is boogie, but we call it Southern gospel; and that will appeal to a lot of Christians. They excuse it by saying it is just "down home" music. No, it isn't. It's boogie woogie, but some Christians still think it is O.K. Then there is the Contemporary Christian Music, which sounds like it is being sung in a nightclub. Of course it is big business today, and it is farther still away from painting a proper picture of our Lord.

REACH THE YOUNG PEOPLE WITH THEIR OWN MUSIC?

Then there are those who use "Christian rock" music. They say, "I believe we can reach the young people if we just play their kind of music." I don't buy that, because before I was ever saved I went to hear a rock and roll group singing dirty rock and roll songs and telling me about the Lord Jesus in the songs. You know what I said? As a rock and roll musician I said, "What are they doing playing my music? They are Christians." I had better sense than to believe that they were doing any good. Yes, I went to the concert, but I did not like it. And they all had long greasy hair. There was one fellow, a big, tall fellow, who stood up with a Bible at the end of the concert and preached. His hair was cut above his ears, and you know what? I listened to him.

Afterwards I didn't want to talk to the grubby band members. I felt they were worse off than I was. I just looked at them and thought, "I don't want to be like that." I talked to the tall fellow; and though I did not get saved that night, I was impressed somewhat and I went home that night and told my mother about it. It was only a year or two later that I got saved.

I don't buy that idea that we have to look like and play our music like the world in order to reach them. If you are trying to bring somebody to Christ, you have to show them that the Lord is different than the world; and He is. He is holy, and this world is unholy. Christian rock music does not paint a proper picture of the Savior. Even that fellow, by his short hair and dress, painted a more proper picture of the Lord; and I was willing, at least, to talk with him.

Then you have music that is sung and played by supposed Christians, but it is not Christian music. Amy Grant has done some of that. They call it "cross over" music. She sang a song with one of the singers from the rock group Chicago.

Then you've got your regular country western, and rock and roll, and big band music, and boogie woogie, and rag time, and all the rest. It gets worse and worse and worse, and finally it's heavy metal music; and, lo and behold, all the sudden we are worshiping the devil. Nobody got over there with one hop. No, it is a progression. The devil wants us to plug in anywhere along that line, and the flow always moves away from God and holiness.

Where does the devil have you plugged in today? I'll listen to anything that God will allow; but if God doesn't allow it, I don't want it. I know that if I plug into music that is even one degree off, the devil will try to get me two degrees off, then three, then four, then five. The devil does not rest; he just keeps on. "Why don't you just move over here a little."

A pastor once told me, "You know, those black folks really have it; why don't you stick some of those rhythms into your music. With your voice and your talent..." I thought, "Get thee behind me." I didn't say that, but I just shook my head. The evangelist that was there said, "Brother Ives, don't change your music."

I look at my music, and sometimes I wonder, "Am I a degree off? Am I two degrees off? Am I just fooling myself, Lord?" I want to be on the button.

Some people say, "Why do you make the beat the deciding factor?" Because it controls the rest, the harmony and melody; and that's the only place I can find, in or out of the Bible, to draw the line. If someone says the beat is not the place to decide, then there is no place.

Some say, "I don't like the volume." Well, the Bible says to make a loud noise unto the Lord. You cannot use volume to decide whether the song is good or not. Some people say, "I don't like the speed of the song." There is nothing in the Bible that indicates how fast or how slow to sing a song, as long as you sing it slow enough to understand the words and be able to think what you are saying. Some say, "I don't like any drums." There are drums in a marching band. There are high cymbals and loud sounding cymbals in Psalm 150. There are timbrels in the Bible. You can't rule out percussion instruments just because wrong rhythms can be played on them. Wrong rhythms can be played on a piano, too. It is a semi- percussion instrument, and so is the guitar, because it is struck; so is a harpsichord; so are bells. The only place to draw the line is with the rhythm.

You say, "I don't like the style that they are using." It is the rhythm that causes that style. You say, "I don't like the chords they are playing." They are playing those chords because it matches the rhythm. You say, "I don't think the people ought to clap their hands." The Bible says, "Clap your hands, all ye people." It depends on how you clap your hands-on beats one and three, or two and four! It goes without saying, of course, that the words of a song must be right. Those we check up with the Bible. But beyond that, it is the rhythm in the song that determines if it is right or wrong.

I hope you understand this. When you hear sensual, worldly rhythms in a song, just cut it off. It's not going to help.

MUSIC IS A VOICE AND SHOULD GIVE A CERTAIN SOUND

In 1 Corinthians 14 the Apostle Paul makes reference to music while explaining what is right and wrong about the way we talk, and whether or not we speak in tongues.

"And even things without life giving sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped? For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? for ye shall speak into the air. There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without signification" (1 Cor. 14:7-10).

Verse 7 says even a pipe or a harp must be played distinctly. The more wrong notes you make, the less you can tell what the song is. If I play "Jesus Loves Me" and start missing notes, you might not be able to tell what I am playing. The voice is no longer distinct. We want to hit the right note at the right time, or no one will know what we are trying to say with the music.

Verse 8 mentions the uncertain sound. If you are not sure of the right note, if you don't sing or play with the right spirit, nobody is really sure what kind of a sound you are making; and they will not rally to your cause. They will not believe what you have sung or played. They must know what you are really trying to say. When it comes to God's soldier music, nobody will rally to the cause of Christ and go win souls if you are singing a song with a soul-saving message and music underneath that says "do your own thing." Doing your own thing is the natural way of the sinner. You cannot have a mixed message.

Who would want to waste their time singing music that wouldn't rally anyone to the cause of Christ? Why sing gospel music at all if it won't count for Heaven. The only other motives are money, popularity, and fame--not good motives. God will say, "Wood, hay, and stubble, Christian."

Verse 9 says the message should be "easy to be understood." If my music gets so complicated with so many voices, pretty soon nobody will know what I am saying. If I drown out the singing, nobody will know what I am trying to say. If I play a piano arrangement and change so many notes that the hearers cannot tell what song I am playing, what good am I doing? We need to be careful that what we are trying to say is easy to be understood.

Everybody is not a musical genius. A Christian needs to be sure, first of all, that the message gets across so that people will easily understand that you are exalting the Lord Jesus and speaking of His sacrifice on Calvary being available to all that all might be saved. It needs to be plain.

Verse 10 says every voice has signification. This is true for music. Every group or band is trying to say something. Some people say, "Music doesn't say anything; it just exists by itself." The word "signification" means to signify something with signs or symbols. Every song that you hear is trying to say something. When music plays, it is indeed symbolizing something. It paints a picture. People that play the music the way they play it are saying, "This statement is what I agree with." The song always tells you to do something. It will excite you to action, either good or bad. Music will signify something; it will imply something. It doesn't come out and say, "Do bad; do evil." It will imply it. "Feel this way about it; think about it this way." It leads you a certain way without coming right out and saying it. Music is significant; it has meaning.

Don't ever let anyone tell you, "Well, it's just music." That's what all the gospel rockers say. That's what Stryper says about their music. "It's just music; it doesn't mean anything." Yes, it does. They are a voice in this world, and they are not without signification. They certainly do mean something. What they mean, if you can put it plainly, is that you can be a Christian and live just as dirty as you want. That's about as plain as you can put it. If you know the lives of these people, you would not imitate them; you would not follow them, and you will never get any spiritual help from them if you ever could find them or meet them. They are out there making money, taking your bucks and fooling you because you think there is something there that is Christian--but there isn't.

If I sang gospel rock, I would be ashamed before my university professors who taught me better than that. They knew the difference between the voices that are in the world. They knew that sounds are supposed to be pure, and that music was supposed to contain beauty. The classical composers, even the ones that were not saved, said that music was for the refreshment of the soul and to portray the ennobling things of life. Our Christian music should be understandable to the folks who hear it. The melody should be clear, and the harmony and the rhythm should paint a picture of Christ.

If we use dirty rhythms, dirty harmonies, and dirty melodies, we are not painting a proper picture of Christ. If we use the sensual rhythms and harmonies that the world uses today, instead of painting a picture of the pure, spotless Lamb of God, we will paint a perverted, fornicating Christ. What we do with our music is very important.

Let me read you a poem, and I'm done. What kind of a Christ is portrayed by the music that you hear? How and what do you think of God when you listen to the music that you listen to?

Men's portraits of Jesus are many, I've heard, But none can compare with that found in God's Word. My Savior, no artist hath justly portrayed, But great are God's verses, God's truth there displayed. 'Tis there I see Jesus on Calvary's tree, The Lamb of God once for all slaughtered for me. His stripes for my healing, His wounds for my sin, The blood there He spilled for my cleansing within.

The agony born in His body that day

Was the weight of iniquities taken away.

And taken away were transgressions of mine;

There He made me pure by God's perfect design.

God's Son without spot, without sin, without blame

On Golgotha's hill He bore the curse and the shame.

There He Who was righteous in my place was slain

To freely give righteousness I could not gain.

In paintings no cleansing for sin can I find;

No rest for my spirit, nor peace for my mind,

But there on the canvas of Scripture I see

My Savior, my Ransom, who died to save me.

May we strive to have our music to be as pure as the words of God and paint a picture of a wonderful, saving Christ who shed His blood that our awful sins could be forgiven. I love the Lord. He has completely changed me; and I want my music, and the music of all Christians, to let others know of a Christ who is very pure, very wonderful.

By Alan Ives

Alan Ives is a man of God and a Christian musician. Together with his wife Ellen he has produced some excellent music albums for God's people. Alan knows music. He is highly trained both in secular and Christian styles of music. Before conversion he played in a rock and roll band. The Ives spend much of their time traveling to churches, preaching the Word of God and ministering in music. They are in the Wyldewood Baptist Church of Oshkosh, Wisconsin (Pastor Randy King). The following message was transcribed from an audio cassette. You can get in touch with the Ives directly by writing Concord & Harmony, 328 Rosalia Street, Oshkosh, Wisconsin 54901. Their home phone is (414) 231-4807.

You can send e-mail regarding this article to: revrgk@vbe.com

CHRISTIAN MUSIC SHOULD FEED THE SPIRIT — NOT THE FLESH

2011-06-29T07:00:00.009-04:00

The Christian life is a spiritual life.

A Christian is born-again of the Spirit.

That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. John 3:6-7

A Christian is to walk in the Spirit:

This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. Galatians 5:16

God is a Spirit — and you "MUST worship him in spirit".

God is a Spirit: and they that worship him MUST worship him in spirit and in truth. John 4:24

And a Christian's music should be spiritual — not carnal.

I will sing with the SPIRIT, and I will sing with the understanding also. 1 Cor 14:15

I've had CCMers (Contemporary Christian Music) scream many times, "The Bible doesn't give ANY guidelines for Christian music. It's all a matter of TASTE and PREFERENCE". I usually turn to Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16, and they surprisingly "eye" them for the very "first time"." Apparently it's important enough to the Lord to list them twice. The Bible lists three specific types of Christian songs; psalms and hymns and SPIRITUAL songs. I certainly do NOT think CCM and rock music is a psalm, hymn or SPIRITUAL SONG!

ROCK MUSIC AND CCM IS FLESHLY MUSIC!

Christian music should feed the spirit — NOT THE FLESH.

Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and SPIRITUAL songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Ephesians 5:19

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and SPIRITUAL songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. Colossians 3:16

A Christian has "crucified the FLESH".

"And they that are Christ's have crucified the FLESH with the affections and lusts." Galatians 5:24

The SPIRIT and the FLESH are contrary and opposite. They are enemies.

"For the FLESH lusteth against the SPIRIT, and the SPIRIT against the FLESH: and these are contrary the one to the other:. . ." Galatians 5: 16

It couldn't be clearer — Christian music should feed the SPIRIT — NOT THE FLESH.

And Rock music (which is what CCM is) is FLESH.

There is no doubt — rock music is FLESH. It’s CARNAL. That’s why the world "loves" rock music. The world does not love "spiritual" things – But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians. 2:14) – but FLESHLY, CARNAL things. And that is why the world "loves" rock music. A few "testimonies" from the world:

"But rock music has one appeal only, a barbaric appeal, to sexual desire – not love, not eros, but sexual desire undeveloped and untutored." (Bloom, Alan, The Closing of the American Mind, Simon & Schuster, 1987 p.73) "Its admirers want to make rock appealing by making it respectable. The thing can’t be done. Rock is appealing because it’s vulgar, . . Rock is the quintessence of vulgarity. It's crude, loud, and tasteless." (Pattison, Robert, The Triumph of Vulgarity, 1987, preface, p.4)

Rock music, any rock music – is FLESH! You can label it "Christian", but that doesn’t change it’s nature – it’s still FLESH. You can label strychnine "candy", but that doesn’t make it candy – it’s still POISON.

WHAT IS ROCK MUSIC?
What is the main characteristic of rock music? What makes rock different from other music? Why does rock appeal to the flesh? What is it about rock that is has "taken-over" the music world?

In order to answer that question, let's examine the components of music. Music is composed of three main components; melody, harmony and rhythm. If these ingredients are not present, then it's not music, but noise.

Melody:
Webster's Dictionary defines melody as; 1. Sweetness of sound; music 2. The chief theme of a musical composition. 3. A tune; song (The Grosset Webster Dictionary, p. 372)

Melody is the most prominent part of music. Melody is the theme of the tune. Without the melody line, there is no music. Melody is the horizontal line the notes follow on the music score.

Here's a few quotes from famous musicians on melody:

"Melody is the main thing; harmony is useful only to charm the ear." Joseph Haydn (Wordsworth Dictionary of Musical Quotations, p. 15) "Three things belong to composing, first of all melody; then again melody; then finally, for the third time, melody." Salomon Jadassohn (Wordsworth Dictionary of Musical Quotations, p. 15)
"Melody is the very essence of music." Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Wordsworth Dictionary of Musical Quotations, p. 16)

Harmony:
Webster's Dictionary defines harmony as; Agreeable proportion of sound. A succession of chords. (The Grosset Webster Dictionary, p. 281)

Harmony is when two or more note are played at the same time. Harmony adds depth to the melody line. Harmony is the basis for the formation of chords. Harmony is the vertical line where the notes meet on the music score.

Rhythm:
Our friend, Webster defines rhythm as; The pattern of tones with regard to their relative time value. (The Grosset Webster Dictionary, p. 490)

Rhythm is the movement in music. Without rhythm, music would be one, long continuous sound, or an uncontrollable noise. Rhythm or the beat is the "glue" that holds everything together. The rhythm is an "unseen" but required component of the music score.

WHAT IS DIFFERENT ABOUT ROCK MUSIC?
Because of that, rock is unlike any other music. In other music, the melody is the main component, but in rock – the rhythm or th beat literally takes over the music.

"The rhythm in rock is the dominant part of the sound. The heavy emphasis on the BEAT is what distinguishes rock from every other type of music." (Frank Garlock, Music in the Balance, p. 32) "Perhaps the most important defining quality of rock and roll is the BEAT, . . . Rock and roll is different from other music primarily because of the BEAT." (Charles Brown, The Art of Rock and Roll, p. 42)

And it is that BEAT that the FLESH loves!

"The sexuality of music is usually referred to in terms of it's rhythm — it is the BEAT that commands a directly PHYSICAL response." (Simon Frith, Sound Effects, Youth, Leisure, and the Politics of Rock 'n' Roll, p. 240)
"Rhythm is the element of music most closely allied to BODY MOVEMENT [fleshly, carnal], to PHYSICAL action. Its simpler patterns when repeated over and over [which is exactly what rock does] can have a hypnotic effect on us". (Joseph Machlis, The Enjoyment of Music, p. 19)

Larry Norman, in his song, "Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music", sings about the FLESHLY and PHYSICAL response (moves my feet) of the BEAT of rock.

I ain't knocking the hymns,
Just give me a song that has a BEAT.
I ain't knocking the hymns,
Just give me a song that moves my feet

I've talked to hundreds of young people about the satanic and filthy lyrics in secular rock and nearly every one, replies, "I don't listen to the lyrics. I don't care what the lyrics say. It's the BEAT that I get in to".

Donnie Brewer of 1970's groups Grand Funk says:
"We take the kids away from their parents and their environment to where the only reality is the rhythm and the BEAT." (Hart, Lowell Satan's Music Exposed, p.102)
When secular rock-star, Michael Jackson was asked why he did the filthly-sexual, hand gestures on stage, he replied:
"It's the music that COMPELS me to do it. You don't think about it, it just happens. I'M A SLAVE TO THE RHYTHM." (The Evening Star, February 11, 1993, p. A10)

I've had hundreds of CCMers' say to me, "The Bible gives no instructions on the STYLE of music for a Christian to listen to. It's all a matter of preference and culture." I have read many articles and books by CCM advocates, that claim, the Bible gives no instructions on the type of music for a Christian to listen to.

Don Butler, Gospel Music Association executive director

"There is no such thing as 'gospel music'. Every style and form of music can become gospel, whether it's jazz, pop, rock 'n' roll, or rap." (IM Mar/Apr 1991 p. 27)

But "what saith the Lord"? Does the Bible give us any indication to the type of music we should sing? Did the Lord God who made heaven and earth, who created music and sound, who put so much emphasis on music in His Word — did He forget to tell us what is Christian music?

Not hardly. Thank God — He has given us instructions for our music. Thank God — we can BURY "once and for all" the ridiculous LIE that — "the Bible gives no instructions on the type of music for a Christian to listen to. It's all a matter of preference and culture."

Take an harp, go about the city, thou harlot that hast been forgotten; make sweet MELODY, sing many songs, that thou mayest be remembered. Isaiah 23:16
For the LORD shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; jothe d gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of MELODY. Isaiah 51:3
And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;
Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making MELODY in your heart to the Lord; Ephesians 5:18-19

The Lord God refers to music as — MELODY! According to God — the emphasis of Christian music is the MELODY — not the BEAT! How is it, that the CCM world keeps "parroting" — "the Bible gives no instructions on the type of music for a Christian to listen to. It's all a matter of preference and culture"? Is it because they can NOT read 5^th grade English? Or is it — they do NOT care what God says! I've shown many CCMers Ephesians 5:19, and nearly all coolly, reply, "Aw, It don't really mean that". In other words — "I don't care what God says — I'm gonna rock 'n' roll"!

I'm reminded of the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, as he described some people, much like the CCMers, who "having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not?"

17 And when Jesus knew it, he saith unto them, Why reason ye, because ye have no bread? perceive ye not yet, neither UNDERSTAND? have ye your heart yet hardened?
18 Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? and do ye not remember? Mark 8:17-18

So far we've seen:

1. MELODY is the main theme of music.
2. Rock music emphasizes the BEAT.
3. God defines music as MELODY.

Now are you ready for this? Fasten your seat belt and hold on — here comes a biggee! Most of rock music and CCM does not have ANY MELODY! According to the technical definition of music — rock is NOT even music! According to the Lord God — rock music is NOT music!

NO MELODY = NO MUSIC!

The world famous composer and conductor, Dimitri Tiomkin said of rock music:

"The big beat is deliberately aimed at exciting the listener. . .There is actually very little MELODY, little sense in the lyrics, ONLY RHYTHM [beat]". (Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, Aug., 8, 1965, p. 9J)

Lenny Seidel, a concert pianist and twenty-five year Christian music scholar, gives this definition of both godly music and rock music:

"True godly music will be composed of three elements - all in perfect balance with each other. They are: melody, harmony, and rhythm. Rock "music" has NO MELODY only fragments of melody endlessly repeated. Since there is no true melody, there is no real harmony. There is ONLY RHYTHM. And rhythm in and of itself is not music." (Leonard J. Seidel, Face the Music – Contemporary Music On Trial, pp. 46-51)

In his classic book, The Understanding of Music, author Charles R. Hoffer, answers our question: How does rock differ from other popular music?:

"How does rock differ from jazz and other popular music? One characteristic is its HEAVY BEAT, which led one critic to define rock as 'music in which the bass drum carries the MELODY?'" (Charles R. Hoffer, The Understanding of Music, p. 503)

Popular author, Martha Bayles, writes in her eye-opening book, "Hole in Our Soul: The Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular Music":

". . .ry, ular music seems terminally hostile to any sound traditionally associated with music." (Martha Bayles, Hole in Our Soul: The Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular Music, p. 4)

Even the secular, satanic rockers the Rolling Stones admit rock is NOT music — but NOISE!

"It's a NOISE we make. That's all. You could he kind and call it music." Mick Jagger, Rolling Stones (Roy Carr, The Rolling Stones - An Illustrated Record, p. 37)
NO MELODY = NOISE!

Rock music emphasizes that HARD, driving BEAT. What instrument do you hear more than any other in rock? What instrument is it that pounds out that heavy beat?

THE DRUM
The Bible lists many kinds of instruments: Psalms 150:3-5 says:

3 Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp.
4 Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs.
5 Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals. Psalms 150:3-5

With all the many references to musical instruments, there is one instrument that is NEVER mentioned! The DRUM! Why is that? The drum was a very common instrument in Egypt and the lands around Israel. And yet the DRUM is NEVER mentioned in a King James Bible.
Did the Lord just forget to include the DRUM or is there another reason?
Is it because — drums are associated with voodoo, shamanism, paganism and magic rituals?

"[Drums] represents the beat of the heart and is played to summon up magic powers." (Miranda Bruce-Mitford, The Illustrated Book of Signs & Symbols, DK Publishing, 1996 p.80) "The shaman was the original 'long hair', the first rock star draped in leather, dancing POSSESSED to a rhythm banged out on A DRUM." (Danny Sugerman, Appetite for Destruction, p. 208)
In Siberia, in northern Asia, drums are used in shamanic rituals to heal people. It is believed that the shaman can communicate with the spirit world THROUGH DRUMMING. (Louise Tythacott, Musical Instruments, Thomas Learning, 1995, p. 37)
"Pagan dances and rituals are always accompanied by the incessant BEAT of DRUMS. Rhythm plays a major role in these demonic activities." (Hart, Lowell Satan's Music Exposed, Salem Kirban Inc., 1980 p.71)

Robert Palmer is a contributing editor to Rolling Stone and other rock magazines. Palmer has also taught courses in music at Yale, and many other universities. Palmer was the chief advisor for the highly acclaimed "History of Rock 'n' Roll" that aired on public television. Palmer, an advocate and lover of rock music, is among the leading authorities on rock music. Here's what Palmer says about rock and the drum:

"Bata drums [drums used in voodoo], sacred to the Yoruba people of Nigeria and Cuba: Their push and pull provided a template for the inner rhythms of rock and roll." (Palmer, Robert Rock & Roll An Unruly History, Harmony Books, New York, 1995 p.46) "The idea that certain RHYTHM patterns or sequences serve as conduits for spiritual energies, linking individual human consciousness with the gods, is basic to traditional African religions, and to African-derived religions throughout the Americas. And whether we're speaking historically or musicologically, the fundamental riffs, licks, bass figures, and drum rhythms that make rock and roll can ultimately be traced back to African music of a primarily spiritual or ritual nature. In a sense, rock and roll is a kind of 'voodoo' . . . ," (Robert Palmer, Rock & Roll, An Unruly History, Harmony Books, New York, 1995 p.53)

Palmer describes how drums are used in "voodoo" possession — and the same drum patterns are part of the basics of rock 'n' roll and CCM!

"Bata drummers tap out their toques, or rhythm patterns, like signals to the realm of the gods, inviting and enticing them to come on down and mount or POSSESS their horses, or devotees. . .The specific drum patterns or toques include some riffs and licks basic to the rock and roll vocabulary." (Palmer, Robert Rock & Roll An Unruly History, Harmony Books, New York, 1995 p.62)

Here's an episode from the occult, new-age magazine, New Age Journal, describing the "possessing" power of drums. Notice, even the devotees of the occult stay away from those drums:

"I remembered a conversation I'd once had in Cuba with a reporter from The New York Times, 'Stay away from those drums,' he had told me, referring to the ones said to call down the gods in Santeria's sacred ceremonies. 'If I ever really gave in to those DRUMS, my life would change in ways I'm not prepared to take on,' he had added. I knew what he was talking about. It was all there in the drumming. Listen long enough, and some energy field, some kind of interconnectedness, became palpable. I was hungry for those drums. Yet I still ran from them." (A Shaman's Story, by Elizabeth Hanly (A Vodoun priest leads the author on a journey of understanding, New Age Journal, March/April 1997 pp.56-57)

Little Richard, the self-professed "architect of rock ’n roll", readily admits Satan’s control and influence in his life and rock music:

"My true belief about Rock ‘n’ Roll — is this: I believe this kind of music is demonic . . . A lot of the BEATS in music today are taken from voodoo, from the voodoo DRUMS." (Charles White, The Life and Times of Little Richard, p. 197)

Danny Sugerman, an authority on rock music, and author of several books on rock, writes in Appetite for Destruction:

"The shaman was the original 'long hair', the first rock star draped in leather, dancing possessed to a rhythm banged out on a DRUM. . . To these people, communication with the gods was synonymous with DRUMS . . .the body can become the conduit for a deity, a deity not necessarily the same sex as the worshiper, and DRUMS are the catalyst for the whole process. The trance of the RHYTHM then begets the hysteria, which begets what Westerners simplistically call 'possession'." (Danny Sugerman, Appetite for Destruction, p.208, 181)

David Tame writes in The Secret Power of Music:

"Today's DRUMMER differs but little from the shaman in his incessant beating out of a rhythm, and likewise often enters into a form of trance while performing." (The Secret Power of Music, David Tame, p. 199)

The DRUM has always been associated with the paganism and the devil. In fact, a little more than a hundred years ago, drums were forbidden (exy th for the military) in America!

"The arrival of African slaves has had one of the strongest influences on North American music. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, millions of African people were taken as slaves to the U.S. to work on plantations in the South. They brought many of their own traditions with them but were forbidden to play their DRUMS." (Louise Tythacott, Musical Instruments, Thomas Learning, 1995, p.19)

Do you know why New Orleans is the voodoo capital of the U.S, and also the birthplace of jazz? Because drumming was forbidden in the U.S. – except in New Orleans!

"This was especially true in New Orleans. African-based DRUMMING, singing, and dancing, discouraged and repeatedly banned elsewhere in North America, had flourished there since the early eighteenth century. This unique heritage has informed and enlivened New Orleans music ever since, as well as distinguishing it from the rest of American musical culture, making the city an ideal incubator for a nonmainstream music as rhythmically oriented as rock and roll. (Palmer, Robert Rock & Roll An Unruly History, Harmony Books, New York, 1995 p.21)

When the first blacks from Africa were converted to Christianity they knew the power and evil influence of DRUMS. And the converted blacks strictly forbid the use of drums! They referred to the drums as "the Devil's drum". (Martha Bayles, Hole in Our Soul: The Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular Music, p. 138)

"Historically blacks had drawn the line between particular instruments and practices; They permitted tambourines, for instance, but not DRUMS." (Martha Bayles, Hole in Our Soul: The Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular Music, p. 130)

One simple guideline for Christian music is NO DRUMS!
CHRISTIAN MUSIC SHOULD FEED THE SPIRIT — NOT THE FLESH!
CHRISTIAN MUSIC SHOULD EMPHAZIE THE MELODY — NOT THE BEAT!

Copyright © 1995 Dial-the-Truth Ministries

Pop Gods! (1 John 2:15-17)

2011-06-24T14:45:00.001-04:00

POP GODS-

(Friday Church News Notes, June 24, 2011, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

- The pop culture has captured the heart and soul of a vast number of people, from Tweens to Boomers, and it is a worldwide phenomenon. Pop musicians, actors, and athletes are modern gods and goddesses. Consider what they earned from their devotees last year.

In the music field, U2 earned $195 million; Bon Jovi, $125 million; Elton John, $100 million; Lady Gaga, $90 million; Jay-Z and Beyonce (they are married), $72 million; Michael Bublé, $70 million; Paul McCartney, $66 million; Justin Bieber, $53 million.

And we must not forget the sports gods. In spite of his breathtaking tumble from #1 ranking to #13 or beyond, golfer Tiger Woods was still the highest paid athlete, earning $75 million in the year ending May 2011. Basketball players Kobe Bryant and LeBron James were second and third, respectively, at $53 million and $48 million. The top 50 highest-paid athletes earned a combined $1.4 BILLION.

Highest paid Hollywood movie stars include James Cameron ($257 million), Johnny Depp ($100 million), Leonardo DiCaprio ($62 million), Robert Downey, Jr. ($31.5 million), Will Smith ($28.5 million), and Jennifer Aniston ($24.5 million). The top 20 highest paid stars, directors, and producers earned a total of $1.04 BILLION.

"Little children, keep yourselves from idols." 1 John 5:21

Effectual Praying

2011-06-06T20:00:00.004-04:00

I believe that far too many of us are more satisfied with the fact that we have "said our prayers" rather than we are saddened by the fact that our prayers seemingly go unanswered. Prayer is not some religious ritual that the child of God is to painfully endure; it is the blessed privilege of being able to communicate and fellowship with a holy God and to see Him work on our behalf.

In James 5:16, the Scripture says, "Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." In other words, there is such a thing as a prayer that has power to produce the effect desired and the result intended. As one man has said, "Prayer moves the hand that moves the whole world," and additionally, "Anything that God can do prayer can do." I simply ask this question, what exactly is being affected and changed by your prayers?

Notice with me first of all, The Power of Effectual Praying. It has been said that outside of the Psalms, which is a prayer book of its own, there are no fewer than 650 definite prayers in the Bible. Of those 650 prayers, there are no less than 450 recorded answers. I assert here that the God of the Bible is a prayer answering God!

In Psalm 65:2, the psalmist says, "O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come ." There is something in man that longs to commune with his Creator. Those that are saved enjoy the privilege, for Romans 8:15 says, "For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." The act of praying for the child of God is not some dry, dead, formal affair to some cold, calloused, and cruel taskmaster. No! We that are saved pray as a child talks to his father. It is a warm, loving, and close fellowship and communion with God through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Beyond the act of praying, there is the answer to praying. God not only hears, He answers! As a matter of fact, God answers every prayer that He hears! In 1 John 5:14-15, the Bible says, " And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him." God answers every prayer that He hears; He hears every prayer that is according to His will.

This is where many remove themselves from praying ground. In prayer, true prayer, one is quickly reminded who the God is and who the servant is! Can I say that God is not some glorified "sugar daddy" who exists only to satisfy our every whim and desire. Can I say friend that God is not our servant; rather we are His, and it will do us well to understand that prayer is not designed to accomplish our will on earth. It is designed to accomplish God's will on earth.

Remember that Jesus said in Matthew 6:9-10, "After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." Real prayer is first and foremost an act of submission to God. It is the submitted heart that gains the ear of heaven! It is he who's desires are in line with the Father's that sees great answers to prayer.

That leads me to this thought: Not only does God answer every prayer that He hears, and not only does God hear every prayer that is according to His will, but God's will is plainly revealed in His Word. Our prayers are not only to be spiritual prayers (in accordance to God's Will), our prayers are to be Scriptural prayers (in accordance to God's Word).

It is a wonderful truth to realize that God's Word and God's Spirit have never had a cross word! In other words, God's Spirit only speaks to the heart of a man that which can be found rightly divided in God's Word. If you will know what God's will is concerning a matter, you must but look to God's Word!

I have heard well meaning folks pray and ask God to save some family member or friend "if it be God's will." Can I say that the Bible is clear that God would "have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth," 1 Timothy 2:4 and that it is not God's will that any should perish "but that all should come to repentance," 2 Peter 3:9. We can pray for our lost family and loved one's with all the confidence in the world that it is God's will for them to be saved!

Whatever your situation, circumstance, or dilemma may be, search the Scriptures and find the mind of God concerning your request and seek the God of heaven on the authority of His Word!

A man once said that there was no need to quote Scripture while you pray because "God knows what the Bible says." My response is simply this: I do not quote Scripture when I pray for God's benefit. I quote Scripture when I pray for my benefit! Romans 10:17 says, "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." As I pray according to God's Word, my faith is increased as I seek God's perfect will, and I am encouraged that God will indeed hear and answer my prayer.

God's Blessings on Missionary Giving

2011-06-01T07:00:00.004-04:00

Churches that desire God’s richest blessing must get 100% involved in missionary work. That is the Lord’s heartbeat. He emphasized this by repeating the Great Commission five different times in the Gospels and the book of Acts (Matt. 28:18-20; Mk. 16:15; Lk. 24:44-48; Jn. 20:21; Acts 1:8). According to the Acts 1:8 church is to seek to reach its own city, its own region, and the world with the gospel. Such a great task cannot be accomplished in our own might or through our own resources; it can only be accomplished by faith in God. One evangelist challenges the churches with these words: What will God give through you that He will not give to you? That summarizes the attitude that we must have in fulfilling the Great Commission. When we step out in obedience, we can expect God’s blessing and provision.

“Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again” (Luke 6:38).

Churches that take steps of faith in going, praying, and giving experience God’s blessing. Let me give some examples.

Harold B. Sightler pastored the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Greenville, South Carolina, from 1952 until his death in 1995. He came out of the Southern Baptist Convention just prior to establishing Tabernacle. It was only the fourth independent Baptist church in that county. He testified that while he was in the Convention he never met a missionary. Tabernacle Baptist Church learned to operate its own missionary program, and by 1979 the church was giving 70% of its large income to missions, while operating the local ministry on 30%. Tabernacle sent out 36 of its own members as missionaries and was sending monthly support to about 280 others.

In the sermon “The Voice of the Independent Baptist Movement,” which Dr. Sightler preached at a missions conference in 1979 bat Highland Park Baptist Church in Chattanooga, Tennessee, he testified that Tabernacle Baptist Church had started doubling one month’s mission giving each year to help the missionaries with inflation. They took that step entirely by faith, not knowing where the money would come from but trusting the Lord to supply. Dr. Sightler believed in emptying the church’s bank account each week (except for savings for a building program or something like that) to make sure that the Lord’s money was used while there was opportunity. When someone asked him what they would do “for a rainy day,” he replied that they had God for a rainy day! He testified that when you put God first and live by faith you don’t have as many rainy days. The first year they took the aforementioned step of faith, which was in about 1978, it cost them an extra $15,000 beyond their budget for that month. How did it work out? Did they have to go into debt? No, the Lord gave it back to them in the first Sunday’s offering. One lady gave an extra $7,000, and they received three other special gifts of over $2,000 each.

At a preacher’s fellowship in the early 1980s, I was introduced to Pastor Bill Long in North Carolina. His church was only a couple of years old and had just moved into a new building and they had a large debt. He was working a secular job and was not supported by the church. In fact, he had placed a mortgage on his own house to help finance the church building. He told me that he would like to have me visit his church and speak, but under the circumstances, they could not possibly support us financially. I decided to go anyway and I arrived the next Sunday morning to preach and tell about the Lord’s work in South Asia. Before the service, the pastor took me aside and said, “Brother, God has spoken to me this week that we should support you. I don’t know how we will do it, but I believe we must. For now, we want to promise you $25 monthly support, and we will trust the Lord for that amount.” That was more than twenty-five years ago, and they have never missed a month. In fact, they eventually quadrupled the original monthly amount. They obeyed God by faith, and He enabled them beyond their visible means. In the years since, God has blessed them beyond their expectations. Before Brother Long’s death the congregation increased greatly in size. It wasn’t long before the church was able to support its pastor full time as well as assistants. They support many missionaries and have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to missions.

When the Tri-County Baptist Church in Katy, Texas, was starting out in the late ‘70s, they met in a storefront building and were saving toward the purchase of their own property. Eventually they obtained acreage outside of town and had some money in the bank toward a building fund. At that time, they received a letter from a missionary they supported, requesting $10,000 to put the roof on a missionary church. The missionary congregation had poured the foundation and put up the walls, and they were seeking help to finish the roof before the rainy season began. It did not seem reasonable for Tri-County Baptist to help this missionary church with its building when Tri-County did not have its own building; yet this is exactly what the Lord led Pastor Rick Shrader to do. His men agreed wholeheartedly, and the church sent the $10,000, which was a large part of their building fund, to the mission field! God richly blessed this sacrificial step of faith, and within one year, Tri-County had its own beautiful building debt free!

In the early 1990s, Bethel Baptist Church of London, Ontario, was meeting in a storefront building and though they had a growing building fund, they saw little possibility of purchasing their own property because of the high cost of real estate in the area. Pastor Wilbert Unger had a burden to start a printing ministry to send out the Word of God and sound Bible teaching via the printed page across this needy world. At the time there was not a fundamental Baptist printing ministry in Canada. He approached the congregation about using a large portion of the building fund to establish a print shop and to hire a printer. The people agreed, and the project was completed. From the Bethel Baptist print shop, hundreds of thousands of books and Scriptures and magazines in many languages have since been distributed to various parts of the world to the glory of God. What about the church’s building? Within one year of their decision to use part of the building fund to print the Word of God, the Lord opened the door for them to get into their own nice building, and they were paying less for the mortgage than they were for rent in the storefront! Today the building is debt free.

In none of these cases did the churches give in order to get something. The giving was not selfish but sacrificial. It was an act of obedience. They simply trusted God to meet their needs as He saw fit.

These illustrations also show the importance of choosing spiritually-minded men as deacons and finance men. What if there had been men involved in the previous decisions who were not men of faith and evangelistic burden--unspiritual, worldly-minded deacons and treasurers, for example? They would no doubt have discouraged the idea of taking these steps of faith, saying it would not be wise or reasonable “under their circumstances.” Rather than praying and ascertaining the will of God in the matter, they would have complained and resisted the Holy Spirit. If men who lack faith and spiritual burden are appointed as officers, the churches will be discouraged about following God by faith, just as the children of Israel were discouraged by the ten cowardly, faithless spies (Numbers 13-14).

“Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again” (Luke 6:38).

[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/wayoflife/subscribe.html . TO UNSUBSCRIBE OR CHANGE ADDRESSES, go to the very bottom of any email received from us and click "Manage My Subscription." If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 26th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://www.wayoflife.org/publications/index.html. Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but only from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/wayoflife/makeanoffering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org]

My Flesh

2011-05-26T23:06:00.001-04:00

"For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not." Romans 7:18

This flesh of mine has cost me sore.
This flesh of mine is rotten to the core.

It has robbed me of peace that God has wanted to give,
and hindered me from living the life I wanted to live.

There is no telling where I'd be spiritually today,
if I wouldn't have let my flesh have it's way.

It has denied me of power that I long to possess
and caused much of my life to be such a mess.

The privileges in prayer that I should've enjoyed,
this old flesh has caused them to be null and void.

Again I say there is no telling where I'd be,
if I wouldn't have let the flesh have the best of me.

O' the things done in the flesh profit nothing Paul said,
And this old flesh needs to be crucified until it's dead

So I can live pure and clean and have the power of God
all the days of my life while I live on this sod.

O' God help me to overcome this rotten flesh of mine
until my life is truly with yours entwined.

For I love you more than I could ever tell.
I'm so sorry that I've allowed my flesh to so rebel.

Please subdue this stubborn will inside of me,
and allow me Spirit-filled Lord to be.

"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Romans 8:1

"Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." Romans 6:6

Missions Meeting 2011 - Post #6

2011-05-07T16:00:00.004-04:00

Last night we closed out Missions Meeting 2011. It is always a bittersweet time when a meeting closes out. It is sweet in the sense that we know that God worked much in the minds and hearts of His people during the week and that sinners were afforded the opportunity to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. A missions meeting is not an end in and of itself, of course, but rather a beginning of future exploits for the glory of God both for the missionaries present and the church as well.

It is somewhat bitter simply because of the departure of new-found friends and fellow laborers for the cause of Christ. It is such a great joy to meet missionaries and their families and to begin to develop friendships and fellowship with them. While we know that goal is that they "be sent," the human side of us misses their presence. What a glad day it will be when we are all together in glory!

Bro James Ruckman preached from Isaiah 6 and Matthew 28:18-20 last night by asking several questions: 1. Is your church a sending church? (that is, are we praying that God will send people out of our church to preach the gospel?) 2. If not, why would we not be willing for God to send people out of our church? 3. Are you personally willing for God to send you? 4. If not, why not?

Certainly there are many reasons why we should both be willing and ready to go if the Lord should so call. God help us to be minded and determined about the mission of preaching the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth.

Our final missionary for the week was Bro Todd McKeehan, missionary to the prisons of America. Bro McKeehan did a great job both presenting his burden and testifying of God's working in his life concerning reaching those that are incarcerated. He and his family were a great blessing to the meeting!

We grilled hamburgers both before and after the service. I certainly appreciate the work our folks put into this week. It certainly would not have happened without them. We packed up the tent and brought everything home last night. I am excited to see what God will do in the days to come as a result of this meeting!!!

Missions Meeting 2011 - Post #5

2011-05-06T07:00:00.007-04:00

Prepare to Meet Thy God was the message preached last night by Bro Paul Redmond. Both the sinner and the saint will meet God one day. The sinner will be judged for his sin and banished to the lake of fire. The saints will be judged to determine the gain or loss of rewards. What a man does in this life with Jesus will determine where he spends eternity. 1 John 5:12 says, He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.

Bro Tim Mulkey, missionary to the Bahamas, was with us last night and presented his burden and gave his testimony of salvation and how God led he and his wife to the Bahamas. Bro Mulkey is at 96% of his support and is preparing to head to the field in June. Please pray for this family as they prepare to depart.

Bro Carey Hendricks presented his burden for the country of Ireland and preached the Word of God as well last night. He did a tremendous job. We closed the service with Bro Hendricks DVD presentation. All of the presentations by the missionaries have been wonderful.

Tonight will close out Missions Meeting 2011. We are eagerly anticipating this service. Bro James Ruckman will be doing the preaching, and at least 1 more missionary will present his burden and preach as well. It should be a great night. Please pray.

Visitors have been under the tent every night. God has been so gracious to us. We had a fun time at Hurricane Shoals park yesterday. We cooked out and even played some full contact basketball. It was a blast! After the meeting last night we had some good vegetable beef soup. It certainly hit the spot on what turned out to be another cool night under the tent.

Missions Meeting 2011 - Post #4

2011-05-05T07:00:00.012-04:00

The temperature cooled down a bit for last nights meeting, but the spiritual temperature of the meeting continues to be high! We had visitors under the tent, and the Lord met with us.

Bro James Ruckman preached from Isaiah 6 on Brokenness. Men need to be broken over Iniquity, broken over Independence (operating independent of the Lord), and broken over Infertility (a lack of new births into God's family). We may not always see God work as we would like, but we should never be complacent and blame the lack of God's manifest presence and power in our live or our services on the times that we live in. God has done great works in times as dark as these and darker. God help us to not accept the status quo; Lord help us to seek thee for mighty things to be done in a dark and doubtful day.

Bro Michael Chavez and family, missionary to Mexico was with us last night, and he presented his burden and preached from God's Word. It was a tremendous blessing. He has a great spirit and heart for the Lord and the people of Mexico. It was a wonderful blessing to have him and his family with us.

Additionally, Bro Wes Gazaway presented his burden for the country of Egypt and preached from Acts 1:8. We certainly need God's power in these days! The arm of flesh will fail us; we dare not trust our own. Bro Gazaway and his wife were a blessing to the services, and we appreciate their friendship and fellowship.

We are looking forward to a cookout this afternoon. All the missionaries and visiting preachers and their families will spend some time at the park and have opportunity to fellowship with our church in a casual and relaxing atmosphere. The weather should be perfect for it.

Tonight's meeting is at 7:30 PM. Bro Redmond will be preaching again, and several more missionary families will be with us. What an exciting time! It's hard to believe the week is almost over. My prayer is however that the work has just begun in our hearts!

For more information on the meeting CLICK HERE!

Missions Meeting 2011 - Post #3

2011-05-04T07:00:00.008-04:00

Evangelist Paul Redmond preached last night on the thought Stay in the Fight from 2 Chronicles 32:7-8. I am glad to know that the Lord our God is with us and there to help us to fight our battles. We need to stay in the fight because of our Commander, our Comrades, and God's Commandments. It was a great message. I personally thank God for people that are faithful in spite of the the fight and the opposition that comes against them! I am glad that there are more that be with us than with them! It does not appear that way in the physical sense, but it is true spiritually. If God be for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31).

After the main message, Bro David Wilt, missionary to Staten Island in NYC, preached from Matthew 28:18-20 on The Sin of Silence. He dealt with the silence of steps, the silence of speech, and the silence of sentiment. The last point was the focus of the message. We are silent in going and getting out the gospel simply because God does not have our heart.

Bro Trent McKeehan, missionary to New Mexico, closed out the service by presenting his burden, preaching, and showing his DVD. He preached from 1 Corinthians 15:10 on Because of Grace. God used the message and the DVD presentation to touch hearts. Not only were God's people encouraged in the work of the Lord, we were also reminded of the grace of God that has been shown unto us! Bless His Holy Name!

It was a tremendous night in spite of wind and rain. The tent held up wonderfully, and we had a great service. The weather should be great the rest of the week. Please continue to pray for us!

For more information on the meeting CLICK HERE!

Missions Meeting 2011 - Post #2

2011-05-03T07:00:00.004-04:00

Last night, the Lord gave Bro James Ruckman a powerful message on The Filthiness of the Flesh from Psalm 14 and Romans 7:18. God definitely moved and was dealing with folks about the sin issue that plagues man. While God is the complete opposite of all that is termed sinful, man is completely sinful and in need of a Saviour. After salvation, it is the ministry of God's Spirit and the power of God's Word that enables men to live lives pleasing to the Lord.

There were visitors in attendance, and it was great to see several more missionary families come to join us for the meeting. Last night, Bro Christopher Rogers, missionary to Santa Fe, New Mexico, presented his burden and preached from John 6. We have known Bro Christopher since he was a child, and seeing how God has worked in his life and how God is now using him is a wonderful sight to behold.

Bro Paul Redmond will be preaching in the service tonight. I am eagerly anticipating this evenings service, and I am ready to see what the Lord will do.

Please pray for the meeting. Several more missionary families will be with us tonight. Pray that God will work in the heart of sinners. Our church has passed out over 2,100 flyers in anticipation of this meeting. Pray that God will save the lost!

Again, for more information on the meeting CLICK HERE!

Missions Meeting 2011 - Post #1

2011-05-02T07:00:00.008-04:00

The 2011 Missions Meeting started off wonderfully yesterday. Bro James Ruckman preached in the AM service on The Awful Holiness of God from Isaiah 6. Bro Paul Redmond preached last night on What Does Jesus Like About Your Church? from Revelation 2-3. Both messages were good, strong Bible messages and used of the Lord to work in hearts.

Several visitors showed up for the AM service, and we had some surprise visitors in the PM service. One couple from Tennessee was eating at Wendy's across from where the tent is located, saw the service, and came over and joined us. Another gentleman who was passing through and staying in a local motel saw the tent and came and joined us as well. We praise the Lord for sending folks in. Nothing with God happens by accident.

Several visitors have promised to be in the service tonight. Please pray that they will be there and that the Lord will meet the need of their hearts.

Bro David Wilt, missionary to Staten Island in NYC presented his burden last night after the message. He and his wife Elizabeth and their son Hezekiah have been a great blessing to us already. Several other missionaries will be joining us today. We are truly looking forward to the service tonight. Please come join us if you can.

For more information on the meeting CLICK HERE!

20/20s Hit Piece Against Bible-Believing Baptists

2011-04-18T07:00:00.002-04:00

The 20/20 report “Victim’s Forced Confession” pretends to be a fair and balanced report on abusive churches, but instead it was a hit piece against Bible-believing Baptists everywhere.

The report a mixture of truth, slander, hypocrisy, and hatred of God and His Word.

Let’s begin with the truth.
The report covers the Independent Fundamental Baptist Cult Survivors, a loose Facebook network of those who claim to have been abused by Independent Baptist churches. It focuses on a couple of particular cases of sexual abuse that were allegedly covered up by churches. These cases involved married men who were members of IB churches who had sexual relationships with underage girls.

I have no reason to disbelieve most of the allegations that are made in this context, because I have been warning for decades that some IB churches are cultish. A former IB church member is reported by 20/20 as saying, “The whole culture is you don’t question the pastor.” Another person says, “A man who is essentially unaccountable to anyone else you have a recipe for abuse.”

That is exactly right. I have written many reports about IB pastors such as Jack Hyles of First Baptist Church in Hammond, Indiana, and his predecessor Jack Schaap who require unquestioning loyalty and who treat all forms of “criticism” as an attack on their spiritual authority. Sadly, this problem extends to many IB churches. First Baptist is one of the largest IB churches and its school, Hyles-Anderson College, has trained many preachers since its inception in 1972.

As for the coverup of sexual abuse and immorality in general, there is no doubt that it has happened. Pastors have been “reinstated” at some other church after committing adultery and homosexuality. I think of Jack Hyles’ son, Dave, who after committing adultery with women at Hyles Anderson was recommended to a pastorate in Texas, where he committed adultery with multiple women. This type of thing brings great reproach upon the name of Christ, who requires high moral standards of pastors and deacons (1 Timothy 3; Titus 1). Every Christian is a mere sinner saved by grace, so it should not surprise us to learn that Christians sin, but God requires a lot of those who hold positions of spiritual authority. James said, “My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation” (James 3:1).

Now let’s consider the slander.
20/20’s accusation that Independent Baptists as a movement are a cult and are guilty of the type of abuse documented in the report is slanderous. They should have done a lot more research. The IB movement is very large and diverse. While First Baptist of Hammond and Hyles-Anderson College has a lot of influence, it is only one part of the IB movement. I have documented this in the report “What Is Independent Baptist?” Independent Baptist is not a denomination; it is simply a name that describes churches that are Baptist in doctrine and that are independent in polity.

There are differences among Independent Baptists in such matters as music, dress standards, the Bible version-text issue, Calvinism, Baptist briderism, the practice of communion, alien immersion, repentance and evangelistic practices, pastoral authority, church growth practices, relationship with the Southern Baptist Convention and evangelicals, and other matters touching on ecclesiastical separation.

The bottom line is that Independent Baptists are truly independent. I don’t doubt that there are “good old boys” networks that operate in some IB circles, but there are also large numbers of IB churches that are outside of the influence of these “networks.” Independent Baptists are not yoked together in any organizational sense with other Independent Baptists who might hold a different doctrine or practice. Some of the larger IB schools, such as Hyles-Anderson, West Coast, and Crown, wield influence, but only in their own circles. None of them have a reach that extends to a majority of IB churches. Large numbers of IB preachers are trained either in their own churches or in the countless medium to smaller IB schools that are not under the influence of the larger institutions. IB preachers are a very independent-minded group of men. Large numbers of IB preachers refuse to bow down toward any man-made institution and refuse to kow-tow to the “big” boys.

To lump all IB churches together into one pot of cultic abuse is slanderous.

I have personally preached in hundreds of IB churches whose pastors do not demand “unquestioning loyalty,” whose pastors are humble men who know that they are under discipline just like anyone else in the church, whose deacons and teachers are godly, compassionate men and women and are nothing like those exposed in the 20/20 report.

20/20 interviewed and gave total credence to the criticisms of some people who were allegedly the subjects of abuse in IB churches, but they could have interviewed thousands of people who grew up in IB homes and churches and would testify that they were treated with Christian compassion and grace.

This brings us to the hypocrisy of the 20/20 report.
20/20 found some abuse and possibly some coverup of sexual abuse. We wonder why that should be so shocking in the wicked society in which we live.

20/20’s ABC television network is culpable in creating the climate of moral relativism and the tearing down of divine authority that has produced rampant immorality, including the abuse of women and children. If man is merely an evolved worm, why should he not act out his impulses? If there is no supreme law-giving God, what is the basis for absolute morality? What moral culpability does a termite have when it eats the pillar of a house so that it collapses and injures people? If the Bible is a myth-filled book and Jesus was merely a “good man” and there are no moral absolutes, why would it be wrong for a man to abuse a child? What about homosexuals and their rights? If a homosexual acts out his “love” for boys, who is to say that is wrong? In fact, there are organizations of homosexuals that don’t believe that it is wrong. Will ABC expose them? Will it interview the boys who are the objects of homosexual advances? Will it treat them as victims the same way that it has treated the girls who were allegedly abused by IB church members?

Will 20/20 create a report about sexual abuse and coverup within the homosexual community?

Will 20/20 create a report about sexual abuse and coverup within the Muslim community?

No, because they are hypocrites with an agenda to discredit the God of the Bible, and they are not even handed or balanced in their reporting when it comes to such things.

This brings us to the final point, which is 20/20’s hatred of God and His Word.
Much of the report was devoted to their outrage at the fact that some people still take the Bible seriously.

The sexual abuse was indiscriminately lumped together with the alleged mental abuse created by fundamentalist preaching.

20/20 would have its viewers think that it is abusive to take the Bible seriously and to interpret it “literally.”

20/20 would have its viewers think that it is abusive to believe what the Bible says about corporal punishment. While we reject the foolish statements that were quoted by 20/20, such as spanking two-week-old infants or laying 100 stripes upon children (I have no idea where they dug up that nonsense), we do not reject the Bible’s wise teaching on corporal punishment. It wasn’t that long ago that corporal punishment was used in public schools in America. When I was in junior high school in Florida, our principle had a fearful paddle made from the end of a water ski with holes drilled in it! Most people then didn’t consider that abusive. Corporal punishment can be exercised properly without moving into the realm of abuse, and the vast majority of IB churches believe in a wise, compassionate use of the rod and are opposed to any sort of abuse.

20/20 would have its viewers think that it is abusive to believe that the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church. But the Bible’s teaching on this has been believed by most Christians for 2,000 years, and it was believed by the Jews for thousands of years before Christ came. It is 20/20’s feministic views that are the new kids on the block of human society. The Bible exalts women. Nowhere does it teach them to follow their husbands blindly. Husbands are under divine authority just like women are. Husbands are commanded to love their wives as Christ loved the church, which is a very high standard of love. Any husband that abuses his wife and who treats her with anything other than compassion and respect is disobeying the Bible. Women played a large role in Christ’s earthly life and in the early churches. It was women who were the first to visit the empty tomb and the first to believe in Christ’s resurrection. The church at Philippi started with a woman’s prayer meeting. Phebe was one of the apostle Paul’s helpers (Romans 16:1-2). Priscilla is always mentioned in the context of Aquila’s church planting efforts (Acts 18:26; Romans 16:3; 1 Corinthians 16:19).

20/20 would have its viewers think that it is abusive to preach that there is only one narrow way of salvation through the blood of Christ and that those who reject God’s way will not be saved. But to think that this is abusive is to assume that the Bible is not true, because the Bible plainly teaches this doctrine and if it is true then it could not possibly be abusive to preach it and to warn men and women to be saved in the right way before it is too late. And it could not possibly be abusive to think that those who are not saved in the Bible way are lost. 20/20 painted those who believe this as self-righteous, and doubtless some are, but most Baptists who believe that there is only one way of salvation aren’t self-righteous. They know that they are sinners just like everybody else and they know that they don’t deserve salvation and could not possibly earn salvation through their good works. In fact, they know that their “good works” are filthy rags in the sigh of a holy God (Isaiah 64:6).

20/20 would have its viewers think that it is abusive to preach the Bible’s commands to live in a way that is separated from the wickedness of this present world system. They mock churches that encourage women to dress modestly in a society that flaunts immodesty. They mock churches that seek to maintain music that is “spiritual” in quality and to avoid music that is “conformed” to the pop culture. But the Bible says that the grace of God teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world (Titus 2:11-12). God’s people are taught not to love the world (1 John 2:15-17), not to be conformed to the world (Romans 12:2), and are warned that to love the wicked world system is to commit spiritual adultery (James 4:4).

The 20/20 report “Victim’s Forced Confession” pretends to be a fair and balanced report on abusive churches, but instead it was a hit piece against Bible-believing Baptists everywhere.

April 18, 2011 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -

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Thank God For My Family; Thank God For My Home!

2011-04-16T11:00:00.002-04:00

MAY MISSIONS MEETING 2011

2011-04-12T07:00:00.001-04:00

Our annual May Missions Meeting starts on Sunday, May 1st at 11:00 AM under the gospel tent.

Please visit the following LINK for meeting details:

Missions Meeting 2011

Come join us!

Does Jesus Groove to Rock Music?

2011-04-11T07:00:00.003-04:00

The July 2000 issue of Charisma, the very influential Charismatic publication, has an article exhorting the readers to “Get in the Groove.” The author, J. Lee Grady, mocks traditional Christian music as “dirge-like” and “lily-white” and something only for “grandmothers.” He goes on to make the pretentious claim that worship music in Heaven will feature “a dozen Hammond-B3 organs and a procession of hip-hop [rap] dancers.” Not content with this brazen claim, Grady tells us that Jesus Christ “loves all music--even the funkiest” and that Jesus Christ enjoys dancing with the angels and “grooving to the sound of Christian R&B [rhythm and blues] pumped out of a boom box.”

How does Grady know this? The simple and frightful fact is that he knows no such thing. He is preaching a false christ, and the Contemporary Christian Music movement in general is preaching much the same thing. They tell us that Jesus Christ is not separated from the world, that He loves every sort of music in this wicked world, that He boogies to rock and roll, that He is pleased when His people hip hop around on a stage after the fashion of modern rappers.

I challenge any CCM supporter to show us where the Bible says Jesus Christ dances to rock music. Show us even one instance where Jesus Christ shakes His body or jives to the beat of rock music. Show us even one little hint that the saints in Heaven are dancing around to anything like rock or rhythm & blues or rap music. On the contrary, the Lord Jesus Christ we see in the book of Revelation following the Resurrection and Ascension is not a grooving Jesus; He is a fearfully holy Jesus. When John saw the resurrection Christ, he did not join Jesus in a boogie dance but fell at His feet as dead. The 24 elders are not dancing around with Jesus to some groovy rock beat; they are falling down before Him (Rev. 4:10; 5:8). They are not banging on drums; they are playing harps (Rev. 5:8). There is not the slightest hint of a modern rock dance going on in Heaven.

Grady thinks that Psalm 150 depicts a rock concert, but that is absolute nonsense. The Jews of old observed Psalm 150 in their worship, but they didn’t use rock-type music or anything remotely like rock music. When someone like Grady thinks of drums and loud cymbals, they automatically think of their beloved rock music; but drums and loud cymbals are also components of an orchestra and a marching band. Drums can be used to make all sorts of music other than rock music. Grady says that dancing requires a rock-type drum beat, but that is pure foolishness. I know of no other way to describe it. There are all sorts of dances that do not require a modern dance beat. The Jews and other groups of people have long had traditional dances that were nothing whatsoever like the licentious modern dances associated with rock and rhythm & blues.

At the heart of the battle about music in the churches is the very character of God. Our concept of God will determine what kind of music we use to worship Him and the manner in which we worship Him. If we think that God is a cool dude who hip hops to modern rock music, we will worship him with such music and our lifestyle and very appearance will reflect this concept of God. If, on the other hand, we believe that God is a fearfully holy God before whom the hosts of Heaven fall in awe and reverence, our worship music and our very lifestyle and appearance will reflect holiness and separation from the world.

THE FALSE CHRIST OF CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIAN MUSIC
Contemporary Christian Music is filled with blasphemous depictions of God and Christ. Carman has a song entitled the “Holy Ghost Hop.” He sings about “jamming with the Lamb” on his song “Come into This House.” His Live...Radically Saved video depicts Jesus and John the Baptist as hip-hop street kids. Carman says “Jesus is always cool; He’s got his thing together.” He blasphemously depicts the Lord Jesus walking along in a hip-jive manner, doing “the Messiah walk.” Carman’s Resurrection Rap video portrays Jesus Christ as a street hippie. The crucifixion takes place in a back alley gang fight, and Jesus’ body is tossed in a garbage dumpster. On Carman’s The Standard album Jesus Christ is blasphemously referred to as “J.C.”
“You take Him high/ You take Him low/ You take J.C. wherever you go/ Now tell me, who...who...who...who...who...who?/ Tell me who’s in the house? J.C./ Tell me who’s in the house? J.C./ Tell me who’s in the house? J.C./ Tell me who’s in the house? J.C.”
Carman is not the only CCM musician who uses the blasphemous term J.C. to refer to the Lord Jesus Christ. The group called J.C. and Friends explains that their name can stand either for Jesus Christ and his followers or for J.C. Meyers and his pals (MusicLine Magazine, October 1985, p. 27).

The following song by Daniel Band further demonstrates the blasphemous and worldly philosophy of many CCM groups:
“There’s a party in Heaven/ The bread is unleaven/ The tree of life is growin’ fine/ It’s way past eleven/ My number is seven/ The Lamb and I are drinkin’ new wine” (“Party in Heaven”).
These words are sung to hard rock music. This CCM group seems to think Heaven will be a worldly booze party, at least that is the idea that many worldly people would get from the lyrics.

Consider the following blasphemous statement by Mark Stuart of Audio Adrenaline:
“... the only difference [between rock and Christian rock] is the lyrics and then the difference is sometimes subtle ... at the basic root, there’s no difference. ... Christianity is about rebellion. JESUS CHRIST IS THE BIGGEST REBEL TO EVER WALK THE FACE OF THE EARTH ... he was crucified for his rebellion. ROCK ‘N’ ROLL IS ABOUT THE SAME THING--REBELLION ... TO ME ROCK AND THE CHURCH GO HAND IN HAND” (Mark Stuart of Audio Adrenaline, Pensacola News Journal, Pensacola, Florida, March 1, 1998, pp. 1,6E).
That is absolute blasphemy. Jesus Christ was not a rebel. According to Webster’s Dictionary, a rebel is “one who revolts from the government to which he owes allegiance, or one who willfully violates a law.” The Lord Jesus Christ was not a rebel in any sense. He did not revolt; he did not violate the law. To the contrary, Christ was the law giver, and He came to earth to fulfill the requirements of His own law (Matt. 5:17-19). Christ was not crucified for rebellion. Pilate, the chief political authority who judged Jesus, said he could find absolutely no fault in him. Christ was not crucified for rebellion but for testifying that He was God (John 10:33). Mark Stuart was referring to a false christ.

Petra promotes the blasphemous idea that God is the “God of Rock and Roll”:
“God gave rock and roll to you/ Put it in the soul of every one/ If you love the sound/ Then don’t forget the source/ You can turn around/ You can change your course/ You can love the Rock/ And let him free your soul” (“God Gave Rock and Roll,” Petra).

This song was first sung by the secular rock band Argent. Petra changed some of the words, but the overall message is the same, that God is the author of rock music. To say that the Holy God of Scripture is the author of filthy rock & roll in any sense whatsoever is blasphemy. The father of rock & roll is a god, yet not the God of Scripture but the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4). I know from experience that the true and living God did not put rock & roll into my soul. It was the Devil who did that to foster my rebellion and licentiousness. The very term “rock & roll,” which is commonly shortened to “rock,” refers specifically to illicit sexual relations. Most music dictionaries and histories of rock music admit this. The term was popularized in the early 1950s by Alan Freed, one of the first white disk-jockeys to play rhythm & blues. Noting the sexual connotation of the new music, Freed decided to name it after a ghetto term used by blacks for premarital sex in the back seat of a car. (Freed died young of alcoholism.) To try to connect this morally dirty music with a holy God is blasphemous.

Robert Sweet, of the now disbanded Christian rock group Stryper, had the following saying painted on the back of his drummer chair: “JESUS CHRIST ROCKS.” This is blasphemy. Jesus Christ is the Rock of Ages, but He does not rock & roll. He does not love to boogie-woogie to sensual music. He does not love to watch girls dance licentiously. He does not enjoy stirring up rebellious impulses. He does not love anything connected to wicked rock music. He “loved righteousness, and HATED iniquity” (Hebrews 1:9). He is “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners” (Hebrews 7:26).

Phil Driscoll thinks God is the King of Soul Music. He says, “God is the King of Soul; He’s the King of all rhythm” (Phil Driscoll, quoted by Tim Fisher, Battle for Christian Music, p. 82). We believe this is a blasphemous portrayal of God. The God of the Bible is not the author of rhythms which enhance demonic possession, such as the poly-rhythms used by certain African tribes. The God of the Bible is also not the author of rhythms which stir up illicit passions in men and women, and there are certain rhythms which do exactly that. As we have noted, the very term “rock & roll” itself describes immoral activity; and the musical rhythms associated with rock were designed to encourage this activity.

Messiah Prophet Band goes even further, calling Jesus Christ the “Master of Metal” --
“You hear a loud guitar/ You wonder what we are/ You say we’re all the same/ You see us dressed in black/ Preparing to attack/ You say it’s such a shame/ But do you really know/ The force behind our show/ Our one way ticket home/ WE’RE ROCKIN’ FOR THE ROCK/ And we will never stop/ And this you’ve got to know/ Jesus said upon this Rock my church will stand/ ... HE’S THE MASTER/ THE MASTER OF METAL...” (“Master of Metal,” Messiah Prophet Band).
To say that the high and holy Lord Jesus Christ is the Master of rebellious heavy metal rock music is outrageous blasphemy.

The “Christian” rock group Barren Cross says Jesus Christ is better than marijuana and invites their followers to smoke on His love!
“Give it a chance, freedom at last/ Yours for free, take and receive/ Better than pot, Jesus rocks/ Come and believe/ You will find out joy will come to you/ Take it, drink it, no fee, come and believe/ Smoke on His love -- believe/ Smoke on His love and you will see the rock -- roll/ Believe” (Barren Cross, “Believe”).
We are convinced that this is blasphemy.

We could give many other illustrations, but this should suffice.

WHAT ROCK MUSICIANS SAY ABOUT ROCK MUSIC
Consider the following testimonies of rock musicians themselves as to the nature of rock & roll:
“Rock ‘n’ roll is 99% sex.” . . . “The main purpose of rock and roll is celebration of the self” (John Oates of the rock duo Hall & Oates, Circus, Jan. 31, 1976; interview with Timothy White, 1987, Rock Lives, p. 594).

“Rock music is sex. The big beat matches the body’s rhythms” (Frank Zappa of the Mothers of Invention, Life, June 28, 1968).

“Rock ‘n’ roll is pagan and primitive, and very jungle, and that’s how it should be! The moment it stops being those things, it’s dead … the true meaning of rock … is sex, subversion and style” (Malcolm McLaren, punk rock manager, Rock, August 1983, p. 60).

“Rock is the perfect primal method of releasing our violent instincts” (Ted Nugent, rock musician, Circus, May 13, 1976).

“When you’re in a certain frame of mind, particularly sexually-oriented, there’s nothing better than rock and roll … because that’s where most of the performers are at” (Aerosmith’s manager, USA Today, Dec. 22, 1983, p. D5).

“Rock music is sex and you have to hit them [teenagers] in the face with it” (Andrew Oldham, manager of the Rolling Stones, Time, April 28, 1967, p. 54).

“Rock ‘n’ roll is sex. Real rock ‘n’ roll isn’t based on cerebral thoughts. It’s based on one’s lower nature” (Paul Stanley, cited by John Muncy, The Role of Rock, p. 44).

“Pop music revolves around sexuality. I believe that if there is anarchy, let’s make it sexual anarchy rather than political” (Adam Ant, From Rock to Rock, p. 93).

“Rockabilly was the face of Dionysus, full of febrile sexuality and senselessness; it flushed the skin of new housewives and made pink teenage boys reinvent themselves as flaming creatures” (Nick Tosches, Country: The Twisted Roots of Rock ‘n’ Roll, p. 58).

“Rock and roll is the darkness that enshrouds secret desires unfulfilled, and the appetite that shoves you forward to disrobe them” (Timothy White, Rock Lives, p. xvi).

“Rock and roll aims for liberation and transcendence, eroticizing the spiritual and spiritualizing the erotic, because that is its ecumenical birthright” (Robert Palmer, Rock & Roll an Unruly History, p. 72).

“Rock and roll is fun, it’s full of energy, it’s full of laughter. It’s naughty” (Tina Turner, cited in Rock Facts, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, p. 12).

“Mystery and mischief are the two most important ingredients in rock and roll” (Bono, cited in Rock Facts, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, p. 12).

“Rock and roll was something that’s hardcore, rough and wild and sweaty and wet and just loose” (Patti Labelle, cited in Rock Facts, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, p. 17).

“An incessant beat does erode a sense of responsibility in much the same way as alcohol does. ... You feel in the grip of a relentless stream of sound to which something very basic and primitive in the human nature responds” (David Winter, New Singer, New Song).

“Rock 'n' roll is all sex. One hundred percent sex” (Debbie Harry of the rock band Blondie, cited by Carl Belz, “Television Shows and Rock Music,” as it appeared in The Age of Communication, William Lutz, 1974, p. 398).

“That's what rock is all about--sex with a 100 megaton bomb, the beat!” (Gene Simmons of the rock group Kiss, interview, Entertainment Tonight, ABC, Dec. 10, 1987).

“The main ingredients in rock are … sex and sass” (Debra Harry, Hit Parader, Sept. 1979, p. 31).

“Rock is the total celebration of the physical” (Ted Nugent, rock star, Rolling Stone, Aug. 25, 1977, pp. 11-13).
To take a form of music which was created to encourage and accompany immoral behavior, a music that has literally created an immoral revolution, and to attempt to glorify God with it is a great confusion. It is to confuse the holy God of the Bible with the unholy god of this world.

Those who claim that Jesus Christ grooves to rock music are worshipping a false christ, and that is an extremely serious matter.

“Would to God ye could bear with me a little in my folly: and indeed bear with me. For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that cometh preacheth ANOTHER JESUS, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him” (2 Corinthians 11:1-4).

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