If the law has not passed away, what then of grace?

Some will try and claim that Jesus’ saying that the Law has not passed away, and Paul’s pointing out that salvation is by grace through faith alone are contradictory. Are they contradicting each other? NO!

Striving to proclaim & defend biblical truth and yet NOT be a grade-A jerk in the process

We Christians are to proclaim truth boldly. This does not mean we be jerks in the process. This is something I have been growing in and am still continuing to grow in during this process of sanctification I think.

Do we have "gods in us"? Or are we totally depraved?

So I am sitting at work this morning, and decide to surf on into a Christian group on MySpace I am a member of. In the usually inactive forum, I see this message left by an apparent member:

I’ve heard so many people say that they feel far from God, or that they can’t feel his presence, or that they can’t connect with God, or that …

If you are struggling in this area and you want to know HOW to find God in you, please go to my blog.

What is this “Finding God in you…” nonsense?!

DO we have a god in us? Answer: NO WAY.

Let’s look at what the Holy Bible says about the nature of man:

“The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” –Genesis 6:5

“And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, ’I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth’.” –Genesis 8:21

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” –Jeremiah 17:9

“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.” –Romans 3:10-18

“And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.” –John 3:19

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” –Romans 1:18

We do not have God in us. There is no “god in you, ” no matter what Oprah says. We have ONE GOD– the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob. The Triune God– Father, Son, Holy Spirit (The Trinity– three yet one). There is no god in us. the only thing that is in us by nature… is evil. man is, by nature, a WRETCH, a God-hater, and a lover of his sin.

There is nothing good within man. Read the Bible. In my reply (basically what I wrote here), I urged her to repent from spreading this heresy and from her sin. I really hope she ceases from trying to lead God’s children astray. It won’t go well for her if she continues to spread heresy among God’s people.

She, on her blog, SEEMED to be writing of Christians who have the Holy Spirit in them. Now… ARE CHRISTIANS FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT? YES. Still, the basic outline of everything she wrote was just very… Oprah-ish. Very contemplative sounding.

So how DO Christians get closer to God? Through prayer and reading the word… not by meditating on “having a god inside of you.”

So please… pray for this young woman.

Issues with… Driscoll

This is going to be EXTREMELY disjointed… it is 5am and I am wiped out. However something needs to be addressed, I think… and that someone (someone) is Mark Driscoll, pastor at Mars Hill Church in Seattle.

Long known as “the cussing preacher,” this ‘emerging preacher’ (more conservative than their Emergent counterparts… or rather, than their universalist counterparts) is none too shy about letting vulgar words of disgust exit his lips while at the pulpit. According to my older bro, Driscoll recognizes his own prideful sin in this and has taken steps to try and improve in the direction of holiness in this very unfortunate area of sin in his life. This is also echoed by my buddy (not personal buddy though, much to my dismay!) Todd Friel of The Way of the Master Radio, as he too recognizes that he’s cleaned up his language to a large extent.

Great. As possibly one of the biggest haters of vulgar speech you will ever meet (I try not to be a jerk about it when it is said around me… that is one of my big 3 that irk me– Vulgar language, drunkenness and smoking), I am thrilled that his speech has been toned back. I recognize that I may be deemed a legalistic possible hypocrite for this… I DO feel there IS a difference between uttering “crap” from the pulpit to uttering “S_ _ t.” Another example… probably a FAR MORE dramatic example is dealing with a topic of sex… it is far more appropriate to use the phrase “engage in intercourse” than… well… the F word, even if used in the correct grammatical use of the word. Ultimately YOU (the reader) and I will need to answer for what is true. And I could be wrong… and you certainly have liberty possibly in this area… but I will remind you of 1 Corinthians 6:12.

Anyway… I am actually a mild fan of Driscoll. Definitely Paul Washer, John MacArthur and John Piper (and other Reformed preachers) hold higher places in my view than Mark does. Still, I have heard Mark speak on the sovereignty of God, divine election, and on sexual purity (somewhat) and I recognize that he has some good doctrinal points. (Although he is very… unschooled when it comes to dealing with the ‘anti-calvinist’ passages in scripture, and would do well to check out Dr James White on the topic.)

… Still… I saw something tonight also while watching some of the video podcasts of Mars Hill Church sermons that really twirked me (is that a word? Firefox doesn’t recognize it on Spellcheck… oh oh).

During the Q&A time at the end of his final service on weekends, Driscoll and Friends allow attendees to text message questions in and he will respond to them in a somewhat lengthy (20 min seems to be the average) Q&A session. First… while describing that the texts would be screened, Mark stated this was due to the fact that someone may attempt to send a picture of a naked girl, because some people find this funny. Mark’s next statement: “Which it is funny!” :-\ the crowd roars in laughter. :-\ hmmm… I don’t know that pornography is something to be handled crassly… unless you are one of those gospel-diluters over @ XXXChurch.com … but anyway…

And then just now, I viewed a question someone had sent in… one that I had wondered about as well. Mark commonly wears T-Shirts while preaching, under a cool track jacket. Now… often these shirts have something to do with Jesus… shirts that I would be rather squeamish about wearing. Apparently a congregation member had thought along the same lines as me. “The T-Shirts you wear, don’t they mock Jesus rather than Glorifying him?” “NO! That’s the whole point!” [crowd laughs] Mark unzips his jacket a bit so the shirt is viewable and reads what it says: “GOD, SAVE ME FROM YOUR FOLLOWERS.” Mark then declares “That’s funny stuff right there!” Again, the audience laughs and applauds. Mark gives a weird glare to the crowd, almost as if to say (via body language, imo) “What a stupid question… you need to lighten up, whoever asked that.”

:- l Call me boring and irrelevant. I am less than amused by such a shirt. “God, save me from your followers?!” So… someone who professes to be a Christian is asking God to save him from Christ’s bride? That just seems a LITTLE insulting to the Bride of Christ. Okay, so maybe more than a little. I mean… this is God’s chosen people… those whom God has loved and set apart before the foundation of the world… and you just attack her in such a way that makes her seem tyranical and something to be avoided? Do you really not think God is bothered when you mess with his Church? If someone talks bad about my mom, or a friend… someone I have a close relationship with, I get bothered and even angry. That person is close to me, and I get bothered when that person is attacked by another. How much more so with God?

It is not as though this were the only shirt I knew of that he wore that seemed to be less than great when it comes to God. Another one that I just took a gander at includes Jesus as… a DJ at a turntable. Okay. So Jesus is to be in charge of my life and he’s the one calling the shots… “it is not I who lives, but Christ who lives in me.” yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah… I GET that. But still. On a shirt? as a DJ? Interestingly, I have seen (and rather like) a poster which includes an outline/shadowy “iPod silhouette” Jesus playing an electric guitar… with the caption “Jesus Rocks.” Now though THIS doesn’t seem to bother me AS MUCH (again, I don’t know why), a buddy icon available for AIM that includes the same caption and is a gif of Jesus playing the guitar while head-banging… this too I find somewhat offensive… even blasphemous….

This isn’t Mic Jagger. This isn’t DJ-Maj. This is the Lord Jesus Christ we are talking about here! The one who bore upon him the payment for sin so his Children would not suffer eternity in Hell. The one who spoke the Universe into existence. And Mark… and OTHERS who profess Christ wear shirts that jokingly shout JESUS IS MY HOMEBOY and pleads to be saved from Christ’s bride? There just seems to be a disdain for God and Christ here… nearing the point, in my opinion, of blasphemy.

I cannot claim to know Mark Driscoll’s heart… or anyone else who wears such clothing items. And some of what Driscoll says I really take to heart and ponder. I know a lot of my friends look up to him and revere him as a teacher and pastor. Certainly there are worse men who MANY Evangelical Christians lend ears to and absorb how to live an awesome existence in the here and now as opposed to… teaching how one can be free from sin and death. …. And much of Driscoll’s theology DOES ROCK. And I do not claim that just because of this issue I have with the man… that this nullifies everything he has to say. It doesn’t. If it is biblical truth, it is biblical truth. And Driscoll often does preach biblical truth. Conversely, I don’t know that this voids him from this issue, either. The ends do not justify the means.

It is the practice of what occurs from the pulpit that conserns me. The language. the crass shirts. And instead of going into detail about the question, Driscoll really seemed to just blow the question off answering as quickly as possible. I too have struggled with and continue to struggle with the issue that was raised in reaction to his wardrobe.

I do not mean to be focusing on the insignificant. This is something that has been on my heart of late… it really has. Jesus isn’t your homeboy. He’s Lord. Shouldn’t we treat him as such?

And as always, if you feel I am off-base… let me know! I do not have an axe to grind against Driscoll… I tend to like him and try to listen to him whenever I can! However I seem unable to escape this issue. I cannot judge him on where he goes. But as his brother in Christ, am I not qualified to be concerned about some fruit? 1 Cor 5:12

Just some thoughts…

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Yet Another Lie from the Mouths of ‘Christians’…

“Love the sinner, hate the sin!”

Does that phrase sound familiar to you? This simple phrase has been spreading like a disease among both Mainliners and Evangelicals for many many years now. I can remember hearing this and buying into it at a very young age as I had been drawn in to the Unregerate-Friendly Church some years ago. However I learned something today that startled me to be sure. You may be familiar with said quote… but you may not be aware from whom it came.

“Love the sinner, hate the sin.”
–Mahatma Ghandi

… wow. “Christians” are taking THEOLOGICAL ADVICE… from a HINDU??!?!!?

WHAT?!

We should be quoting our Lord Christ Jesus in confronting sinners about the gospel– “Repent and believe in the gospel!” (Mark 1:15). Do we hold the words of an unregenerate Hindu above those of Holy Scripture? Actually, let’s take a look at what the BIBLE says about God’s relationship to unregenerate sinners:

“For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers.”
–Psalm 5:4-5 (ESV, emphasis added).

… and what the Apostle Paul records God’s relationship with sinners…

“… We all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of man kind.”
–Ephesians 2:3 (ESV, emphasis added).

… and from the mouth of our Lord Christ Jesus…

“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”
–John 3:36 (ESV, emphasis added).

So does God love his creation in a general way? Yes. John 3:16. NEVERTHELESS, the notion of “Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin,” is NOT of God. It is another lie straight from the pit of Hell. It is a phrase we use because we don’t want to offend the homosexual, the fornicator, the drunkard, or the dishonest.

But guess what? The gospel is offensive. Telling people that if they don’t repent, they go to Hell– that is offensive. We are to preach the gospel, not “love people to God” (whatever the crap that means!)! We know that the unregenerate (not-born again person) will not enter into the Kingdom. The person MUST REPENT and call on the name of the Lord to be saved! AND THAT is the GOSPEL! That even though God’s wrath abides upon us from birth, if we repent and put our trust in the Savior, we are spared from eternal damnation and receive salvation by grace through faith as a gift from God!! (Ephesians 2:8-9)

“But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? … So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”
–Romans 10:14,17 (ESV, emphasis added)

So Christian, let’s use the BIBLE in describing God’s relationship with sinful man, and not the false teaching from a man of a false religion.

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Currently listening : See the Morning By Chris Tomlin Release date: 26 September, 2006