Lane Chaplin Interviews Dr. James White

Lane Chaplin has interviewed Dr. James White on the topic, "Does Reformed Theology Matter?"(source) http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=3466

JOHN MACARTHUR: WHEN BEING “NICE” IS WRONG By Ken Silva

The problem is that the needed reformation within evangelicalism won’t occur at all if false ideas that undermine our core theological convictions cannot be openly attacked and excluded. When peaceful coexistence “with our deepest differences” becomes priority one and conflict per se is demonized as inherently sub-Christian, any and every false religious belief can and will demand an equal voice in the “conversation.”

That has actually been happening for some time already. Listen, for example, to what some of the leading voices in and around the Emergent movement have said. Tony Campolo is a popular speaker and author who has a major influence in evangelical circles. He believes evangelicals should be in dialogue with Islam, seeking common ground. In an interview conducted by Shane Claiborne,Campolo said:

I think that the last election aggravated a significant minority of the evangelical community, believing that they did not want to come across as anti-gay, anti-women, anti-environment, pro war, pro capital punishment, and anti-Islam. There is going to be one segment of evangelicalism, just like there is one segment in Islam that is not going to be interested in dialogue. But there are other evangelicals who will want to talk and establish a common commitment to a goodness with Islamic people and Jewish people particularly.

Brian McLaren is perhaps the best-known figure in the Emergent conversation. He thinks the future of the planet—not to mention the salvation of religion itself (including Christianity)—depends on a cooperative search for the real meaning of Jesus’ message. In McLaren’s assessment, this means an ongoing dialogue between Christians and followers of all other religions. This, he is convinced, is of the utmost urgency:

In an age of global terrorism and rising religious conflict, it’s significant to note that all Muslims regard Jesus as a great prophet, that many Hindus are willing to consider Jesus as a legitimate manifestation of the divine, that many Buddhists see Jesus as one of humanity’s most enlightened people, and that Jesus himself was a Jew, and without understanding his Jewishness, one doesn’t understand Jesus. A shared reappraisal of Jesus’ message could provide a unique space or common ground for urgently needed religious dialogue—and it doesn’t seem an exaggeration to say that the future of our planet may depend on such dialogue. This reappraisal of Jesus’ message may be the only project capable of saving a number of religions, including Christianity.

Indiscriminate congeniality, the quest for spiritual common ground, and peace at any price all naturally have great appeal, especially in an intellectual climate where practically the worst gaffe any thoughtful person could make is claiming to know what’s true when so many other people think something else is true. Besides, dialogue does sound nicer than debate. Who but a fool wouldn’t prefer a calm conversation instead of conflict and confrontation?

In fact, let’s state this plainly once more: Generally speaking, avoiding conflicts is a good idea. Warmth and congeniality are normally preferable to cold harshness. Civility, compassion, and good manners are in short supply these days, and we ought to have more of them. Gentleness, a soft answer, and a kind word usually go farther than an argument or a rebuke. That which edifies is more helpful and more fruitful in the long run than criticism. Cultivating friends is more pleasant and more profitable than crusading against enemies. And it’s ordinarily better to be tender and mild rather than curt or combative—especially to the victims of false teaching.

But those qualifying words are vital: usually, ordinarily, generally. Avoiding conflict is not always the right thing. Sometimes it is downright sinful. Particularly in times like these, when almost no error is deemed too serious to be excluded from the evangelical conversation, and while the Lord’s flock is being infiltrated by wolves dressed like prophets, declaring visions of peace when there is no peace (cf. Ezekiel 13:16). Even the kindest, gentlest shepherd sometimes needs to throw rocks at the wolves who come in sheep’s clothing. (The Jesus You Can’t Ignore: What You Must Learn from the Bold Confrontations of Christ, 17-19)

John MacArthur

The above article was taken from http://apprising.org/2009/08/john-macarthur-when-being-nice-is-wrong/ by Ken Silva

An Evening Prayer for Sanctification and Protection

Psalm 141 (New American Standard Bible)

Psalm 141

An Evening Prayer for Sanctification and Protection.

A Psalm of David.

¹O LORD, I call upon You; hasten to me!
Give ear to my voice when I call to You!
²May my prayer be counted as incense before You;
The lifting up of my hands as the evening offering.
³Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth;
Keep watch over the door of my lips.
⁴Do not incline my heart to any evil thing,
To practice deeds of wickedness
With men who do iniquity;
And do not let me eat of their delicacies.
⁵Let the righteous smite me in kindness and reprove me;
It is oil upon the head;
Do not let my head refuse it,
For still my prayer is against their wicked deeds.
⁶Their judges are thrown down by the sides of the rock,
And they hear my words, for they are pleasant.
⁷As when one plows and breaks open the earth,
Our bones have been scattered at the mouth of Sheol.
⁸For my eyes are toward You, O GOD, the Lord;
In You I take refuge; do not leave me defenseless.
⁹Keep me from the jaws of the trap which they have set for me,
And from the snares of those who do iniquity.
¹⁰Let the wicked fall into their own nets,
While I pass by safely.

Confessing Christ, false profession, and the numbers game

On one of the blogs I read the subject came up about a local emergent church that places great emphasis on the number of confessions in Christ. This church uses the numbers game as proof that God approves of their church and evidence they are following Jesus. While we praise God for these confessions, some concerns were raised about possible false professions due to the liberal nature of this church. This church uses some very questionable antics by the pastor and staff which prompted me to be concerned about people buying into the church's relevant "culture" vs. responding to God's call to repentance. It's not wise for any church to be overly concerned with numbers. It's even more dangerous to use confession numbers as a poll to see if God is working in a church or not. This type of action can lead to problems like pride and arrogance. This error can grow into believing that if church "A" has more confessions than church "B" then God must be blessing "A" more than "B". In other words, church "A" is excellent and pleasing to God. Church "B" is smaller; therefore church "B" must be doing something wrong in the eyes of God.

I do not advocate confronting people who profess Jesus Christ just because we have some disagreements with their church. As ambassadors for Jesus, it's our job to fortify their faith by simply sharing Jesus in truth and love. What do I mean? Did I not just type that we should not confront or heckle them? Yes, I did. What I mean is we are to share with them our faith, God's grace, and how we love Jesus because He first loved us. We share our repentance from sin, we define repentance in our walk as Christians, and how Jesus saved us by Grace. We should clearly define salvation in a manner that is both sound in the Scriptures and uplifting to Jesus by allowing the Holy Spirit to do His job in His time.

In the Bible we see this disturbing and frightening account by Jesus:

Matthew 7:21-23 (NASB)
^7:21 "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.
²² "Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?'
²³ "And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness .'

This is where the numbers game breaks down and has problems. If a church bases salvation on simply saying "Jesus," repeating a prayer, and doing the works of the church then this frightening event described by Jesus Christ becomes very real. These people did wonderful works in Jesus' name only to have Jesus say that He never knew them! In our human mind we are thinking, "This just does not seem right! How could they know about Jesus but not be saved? They did great things in the name of Jesus! They worshiped Jesus and did miracles in His name! These people knew Jesus, but Jesus did not know them? Why?" The answer is they never repented and accepted Jesus. It's very clear in this passage that not everyone who says, "Jesus" is saved.

When we base serving/worshiping Jesus upon the numbers game, we are only hurting the church in the long run. The result of some confessions may be simply buying into a church culture, a youth program, a children's program, peer pressure, entertainment, relevance, excellent music & worship, following a parent's example, volunteering in the church, etc... anything other than the drawing of the Holy Spirit to repentance and salvation. It's in this type of environment where the church culture might be drawing people to repeat the name Jesus vs. the Holy Spirit drawing people to Him. Can people truly be saved in this type of environment I described? Absolutely yes.

So what should we do? How can we know if everyone who professes Jesus is saved? The short answer is we will never know. We should continue to preach the Gospel and clearly define salvation as the Lord's. We should make a great effort to define sin as sin, and explain the word "repent." We should explain repentance from sin and how we once walked in sin. We explain that God laid a foundation for our new life. This foundation is in Him and not in the love of the world. We should always preach the whole council of God regardless the number of lost people coming to our church.

If I had a church of 15 people and if 10 of those people confessed Jesus Christ as Lord, I praise God and take their word for it! If my church never grew another soul beyond all 15 of my people professing Jesus, I would continue to preach the Gospel, salvation, repentance, and knowing that you are saved by grace. I would not consider this doubting their confessions, but rather fortifying their faith and walk with Jesus. I consider it helping them when they are in need, haunted by their past, tempted by their flesh, tempted by the world, and encouraging repentance when they sin. It's a building block of assurance and teaching them about the Holy Spirit who lives within us. It's not an attack or down play on their confession.

I have an 11 year old son who confessed Jesus. I praise God for his confessing Jesus Christ as his Lord . I take my own advice and try to encourage him in his faith by explaining repentance and salvation to him. I do not want to make him doubt his confession. I want to strengthen him in Grace. I want him to read his Bible, pray, and strive to follow Jesus. I want him to be confident in his faith and know how and why he is saved. I do not want to only focus on telling him about salvation because I want him to mature as a Christian, having confidence in Christ. I know he will experience hardships and may even doubt his salvation, but I want to plant the Word in his heart so that when doubts come the Grace of God takes control, giving him peace. This is not hindering him but leading him in walking with Jesus by example.

I'm not asking for an inquisition or any other type of legalistic manner of watching people's actions to determine salvation. For those of you who want to do that, may I suggest you read about Lot in Genesis 19:6-8 in the OT, and then look in 2 Peter 2:6-8. God said Lot was "righteous," meaning he was a saved man! When we see our brother/sisters in sin we should not question their confession. We should do the following:

1. Pray for them in private.
2. Encourage them in public.
3. Rebuke them in love and compassion.
4. Refrain from gossipping about them to others.
5. Lead them by example.
6. Always point them back to God's grace by sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Churches that do not preach repentance from sin after salvation are doing new Christians a disservice because the lack of teaching leads to carnality. Carnal Christians are weak Christians who are held captive by the lust of the world. This is where I believe many (not all) false professions are born and why we see in Matthew 7 Jesus saying,"I never knew you." A child of God has convictions about sin because the Holy Spirit lives within him. I fear the old saying, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" may hold true because we try to do God's job instead of simply doing what God told us to do. We try to add "culture" to God's Word when God's Word is enough.

I'm not just picking on this emergent church. I know this problem is in every type of church. Regardless of the type of church there maybe some false professions. I fully understand that legalism is just as deadly a venom as what I have discussed in this blog about the numbers game. Following strict man-made rules such as dress codes, men not wearing earrings, only using the KJV, repeating creeds, not drinking wine, not working on Sunday, etc... can and do lead to false professions as well. In the future I will discuss legalism and how it's harmful to the church. I'm just writing about how I personally deal with these issues and expressing my concerns with the numbers game as a means to measure God's approval.

Sour milk?

1 Peter 2:1-3 (New American Standard Bible)

1 Peter 2

As Newborn Babes

¹Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander,

²like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation,

³if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.

Have you ever stumbled to your fridge early in the morning desiring a nice, cool, refreshing glass of milk? I'm sure that you have. How many of you have taken that big early morning "gulp" only to have your stomach turn? Your whole day is stained because sour milk just ruined your breakfast! I've drunk sour milk quite a few times since my sense of smell is very weak. In order for me to smell sour milk it is just rank beyond rank with chunks floating! Since I have been married, if I'm in doubt about the freshness of my milk, I ask my wife to check it for me. If it passes her test then I simply drink it.

Many times growing in the Grace of God is referred to as milk. New Christians are new creatures in Christ, therefore, as infants, we are taught the basics of Grace. In order to grow up as healthy Christians, we move from milk to meat much like we did when we were infants. Our mother nursed us in love and gave us meat as she watched us grow. The same holds true with the Holy Spirit as we grow in Grace.

One of the basic teachings from the Scriptures is seen in:

Titus 2:12-13 (New International Version)

¹²It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, ¹³while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ,

The Bible teaches us to say "No" to the things contrary to what God said is good. Notice the wording "present age" and how this did not only refer to the 1st century. We are to live and strive to do what God requires us to do. Living for God means to turn from our sins (repent) and not to be a partaker in the world's sinful systems. This is not legalism as defined by some Christians, but simply obeying the Scriptures as commanded by God. Living for Jesus goes beyond just saying His name, going to church, and worshiping Him once a week. Everyday prayer, study, and striving to follow Jesus are the pure milk of the Word.

The Word of God is pure milk. The word of the world is sour milk. For example: if we mix good milk with 1/2 sour milk, we still have sour milk. God told us to long for pure milk so that we can learn to grow in respect to salvation. When we grow in the Word, we see that salvation belongs to the Lord, and we learn to respect that which He gave us by Grace because we know we are not worthy. What this means is that we are not to use the Grace of God to justify sin because salvation is the Lord's. We should no longer work to try to save our sour milk by adding good milk to the mix. If we continue mixing the sour milk with the good milk, we will not notice the tainted taste. Eventually the sour mixture becomes more of the mixture and we will soon forget the taste of good milk. In other words the sour milk seems like good milk!

What we put in our mind and our heart will manifest itself in our lives. We can only process so much information before we overload our mind. If we fill our minds with the things of God then it helps us grow as Christians. Pondering and taking in the things of the world only stunts our growth. We all struggle in this area, but that is no excuse to wrap ourselves in the world's system.

Colossians 3:8 (New International Version)

⁸But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.

The verses I listed are some basic things we should do as Christians. Putting aside malice, deceit, hypocrisy, slander, anger, rage, and filthy language moves us toward self-controlled godly lives in our walk through this world. If we cannot get past these basic teachings as children of God then how can we ever hope to understand the meat of the Word? Sour milk will make you feel sick, but rotten meat can kill you. We must desire the pure milk of the Word and resist the worldly temptations, our carnal desires, and principles of the world. In other words, when the things of the world become more relevant to us than the Bible we have a problem. We cannot grow in Christ if we are anchored in the world.

The world has no problem with cussing, lust, etc... and the world will tell you that since it is no longer offensive to them then it's o.k. for Christians to cuss because we are all human. Many times Christians who live in this type of rebellion will fire back, "But there are no perfect people...you are a Pharisee!" in order to justify their open sin and rebellion. I agree there are no perfect people, but we do have a perfect God. When Jesus died for our sins and the Holy Spirit moved over the prophets, God knew that we are not perfect but He still gave us commandments to follow about godly living. The book of 1 John deals with us non-perfect people when we sin:

1 John 2:1-3 (New American Standard Bible)

1 John 2

Christ Is Our Advocate

¹My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin And if anyone sins, we have an ^a]">Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;

²and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.

³By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.

Sometimes the sour milk comes from false prophets/false teachers that will teach us that we do not need to obey these commandments. As a newborn Christian, we might be taken captive by these types of teachers. If we study the Bible and pray, we see how God exposes these types of teachers through His Word.

1 John 4:1-3 (New International Version)

1 John 4

Test the Spirits

¹Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. ²This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, ³but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

Let's test the milk and see if it's pure or sour. I could use my nose defect as an excuse to blindly drink sour milk, just like I could use my past to justify living in sin, but I choose to seek help when I'm in question about the freshness of my milk. We should seek the council of God in His Word when we question if what we are saying and doing is godly. I've said many times, "The question is not WWJD but what did Jesus say in His Word?" By referring back to the Word of God we will be able to discern sin and avoid pitfalls that hinder our walk with Christ.

In order for us to grow in Christ, we must drink the pure milk of the Word so we can see the deeper meanings of the meat of the Word. We cannot see God's plan for our lives if we are still unable to digest the milk of the Word.