“Life Coach” Joel Osteen and his wife speak out on Larry King Live, providing mostly that same sound advice you could get from any good motivational speaker with an occasional “Christian” cliche about using YOUR faith or how “God will see you through”. Even when Larry King served up opportunities for the Osteens to inject sound doctrine or take a solid stand on Scripture, they smilingly dodged the challenges. You can see a clip here. 

With the size of the ‘congregation’ at their ‘church’, one might wonder the impact for the Gospel Osteen could have if his ‘sermons’ actually contained the substance of the Gospel and sound Biblical doctrine!

“No signs can be more alarming than the growing infidelity and worldliness which I see among those who call themselves Christians. Does this nation really intend to cast off the fear of God and the doctrines of Holy Scripture to follow the vain imaginings of the sophists and the fashionable follies of the great? Are we to see again unbelief and luxurious sin walking hand in hand? If so, there be some of us who mean to take up our sorrowful parable, and speak as plainly as we can for truth and holiness, whether we offend or please. Be it ours still to thunder out the law of God, and proclaim with trumpet clearness the gospel of Jesus, not batting one jot of firm belief in the revelation of God, nor winking at sin, nor toning down truth, even though we fear that the only result will be to make this people’s hearts gross, and their ears heavy, and their eyes blind.” – Charles Spurgeon, 1885

The Christmas season, and especially the big day itself, evokes all sorts of thoughts and feelings ranging from the purely secular to the intensely religious. Regardless of the actual date of Christ’s birth, or how we ended up having a holiday to celebrate that birth, it IS the reason for the season.

Our thoughts of Christ’s birth are filled with nativity scenes, angels making announcements, wise men following a star, peace on earth and good will toward men. During the Christmas season, most of us become kinder toward family members, friends, co-workers, neighbors, and complete strangers. We might send a larger donation to our favorite charity, or volunteer to serve at a local soup kitchen or homeless shelter. After all, God gave us His Son so we should give more to others and do our little bit to make our world a more peaceful place.

In the midst of all these wonderful thoughts, I wonder how often we think about the ‘rest of the story’, as Paul Harvey would say. While we might speak of Christ coming to earth to die for sin, how often do we consider that He came for that very purpose, that he came to die. The Father sent His own Son to earth on a mission to die – for OUR sin.

Php 2:6-8 tells us this about Jesus:

“. . .who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

That Christ would die for our sins was in the mind of God before creation. At some point in His human life Jesus also realized His mission and ‘set His face toward Jerusalem’ and the very cross upon which He would die. During His life, Jesus spoke often about His destiny, along with his resolute obedience to the Father’s will. Many to who He spoke would not really understand until later, after the Holy Spirit came and brought clarity and understanding.

I am not saying that to focus primarily on the birth of the Christ Child is somehow wrong. I am merely drawing attention to ‘rest of the story’ that is at times forgotten or set aside, and encouraging anyone reading this to take advantage of the many opportunities to not only share the real meaning of Christmas being Christ’s birth, but to also include ‘the rest of the story’ in that sharing.

May you all celebrate a wonderful and meaningful Christmas as you share the precious Gospel!

Dr.Michael Youssef, Leading he Way Ministries uncovered the following 13 heresies in the popular novel The Shack.

1. God the Father was crucified with Jesus.

Because God’s eyes are pure and cannot look upon sin, the Bible says that God would not look upon His own beloved Son as He hung on the Cross, carrying our sins (Habakkuk 1:13; Matthew 27:45).

2. God is limited by His love and cannot practice justice.

The Bible declares that God’s love and His justice are two sides of the same coin — equally a part of the personality and the character of God (Isaiah 61:8; Hosea 2:19).

3. On the Cross, God forgave all of humanity, whether they repent or not. Some choose a relationship with Him, but He forgives them all regardless.

Jesus explained that only those who come to Him will be saved (John 14:6).

4. Hierarchical structures, whether they are in the Church or in the government, are evil.

Our God is a God of order (Job 25:2).

5. God will never judge people for their sins.

The Word of God repeatedly invites people to escape from the judgment of God by believing in Jesus Christ, His Son (Romans 2:16; 2 Timothy 4:1-3).

6. There is not a hierarchical structure in the Godhead, just a circle of unity.

The Bible says that Jesus submitted to the will of the Father. This doesn’t mean that one Person is higher or better than the other; just unique. Jesus said, “I came to do the will of Him who sent me. I am here to obey my Father.” Jesus also said, “I will send you the Holy Spirit” (John 4:34, 6:44, 14:26, 15:26).

7. God submits to human wishes and choices.

Far from God submitting to us, Jesus said, “Narrow is the way that leads to eternal life.” We are to submit to Him in all things, for His glory and because of what He has accomplished for us (Matthew 7:13-15).

8. Justice will never take place because of love.

The Bible teaches that when God’s love is rejected, and when the offer of salvation and forgiveness is rejected, justice must take place or God has sent Jesus Christ to die on the cross for nothing (Matthew 12:20; Romans 3:25-26).

9. There is no such a thing as eternal judgment or torment in hell.

Jesus’ own description of hell is vivid … it cannot be denied (Luke 12:5, 16:23).

10. Jesus is walking with all people in their different journeys to God, and it doesn’t matter which way you get to Him.

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one will come to the Father but by me” (John 14:6).

11. Jesus is constantly being transformed along with us.

Jesus, who dwells in the splendor of heaven, sits at the right hand of God, reigning and ruling the universe. The Bible says, “In Him there is no change, for He is yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 11:12, 13:8; James 1:17).

12. There is no need for faith or reconciliation with God because everyone will make it to heaven.

Jesus said, “Only those who believe in me will have eternal life” (John 3:15, 3:36, 5:24, 6:40).

13. The Bible is not true because it reduces God to paper.

The Bible is God-breathed. Sure, there were many men through 1,800 years who put pen to paper (so to speak), each from different professions and different backgrounds, but the Holy Spirit infused their work with God’s words. These men were writing the same message from Genesis to Revelation. If you want to read more about the place of Christ in the Scripture, read “We Preach Christ” (2 Timothy 3:16).

In the forward to Michael Horton’s recently published book “Christless Christianity”, William Willimon, Bishop of the United Methodist Church in Birmingham, Alabama writes:

“Here we are in the North American Church – conservative or liberal, evangelical or mainline, Protestant or Catholic, emergent or otherwise – crranking along just fine, thank you. So we’re busy downsizing, becoming culturally relevant, reaching out, drawing in, making disciples, managing the machinery, utilizing biblical principles, celebrating recovery, user-friendly, techno-savvy, finding the purposeful life, practicing peace with justice, utilizing spiritual disciplines, growing in self-esteem, reinventing ourselves as effective ecclesiastical entrepreneurs, and, in general, feeling ever so much better about our achievements.

Notice anything missing in this pretty picture? Jesus Christ!”

“This is a tough book, but well written, fast paced, and wonderfully grounded in classical Reformation Christianity. Our poor old, compromised, accommodating church is here subjected to withering theological critique. Here the roots of our current theological malaise are exposed and we see the wrong turns we took when we began taking ourselves more seriously than God. The boredom and conventionality of the contemporary church are assaulted. Michael Horton diagnosis our trouble in stunning unavoidable candor. Therapeutic, utilitarian deism is named, nailed and defeated with the best weapon God has given us – the gospel of Jesus Christ. Presumptively evangelical Christianity is exposed as the latest recruit to the cause of insipid, culturally compromised liberalism.”

“In the process of reading this Jesus-induced polemic, you will be recalled to the power of the gospel. God forgive us for selling out our great intellectual treasure – the gospel of God with us – for a mess of psychobabble and pragmatic, utilitarian, self-help triviality.”

This is an important book. I’ve been listening to the broadcast series from the White Horse Inn since it began in January of this year. More about the book can be found here, including access to the book’s first chapter.

The following excerpt is from the sermon “The Glorious Gospel of the Blessed God,” preached Sunday morning, 30 June 1867, at Camden Road Chapel, London. In that sermon, Spurgeon carried on an imaginary dialogue with the “epistemological humility” of his day. (Read Postmodernism today). It was posted by Phil Johnson over at Pyromaniniacs.com.

“Someone demands, “How am I to know which is the gospel?”

You may know it by searching the Scriptures.

“But one sect says this, and another sect says the reverse.”

What have you to do with the sects? Read the Book of God for yourself.

“But some men do read it and arrive at one opinion, and some maintain the opposite, and thus they contradict themselves, and yet are equally right.”

Who told you that? That is impossible. Men cannot be equally right when they contradict each other. There is a truth and there is a falsehood; if yes be true, no is false. It may be true that good men have held different opinions, but are you responsible for what they may have held, or are you to gather that because they were good personally, therefore everything they believed was true? No, but this Book is plain enough; it is no nose of wax that everybody may shape to what form he likes. There is something taught here plainly and positively, and if a man will but give his mind to it, by God’s grace he may find it out.

I do not believe that this Book is so dark and mysterious as some suppose, or, if it were, the Holy Spirit who wrote it still lives, and the Author always knows his own meaning: you have only to go to him in prayer, and he will tell you what it means. You will not become infallible, I trust you will not think yourself to be so, but you will learn doctrines which are infallibly true, and upon which you may put down your foot and say, “Now, I know this, and am not to be duped out of it.”

It is a grand thing to have the truth burnt into you, as with a hot iron, so that there is no getting it out of you. The priest, when he took away the Testament from the boy, thought he had done the work; “But,” said the boy, “sir, what will you do with the six-and twenty chapters which I learned by heart? You cannot take them away.” Yet memory might fail, and, as the lad grew into an old man, he might forget the six-and-twenty chapters; but suppose they changed his heart and made him a new creature in Christ, there would be no getting that away, even though Satan himself should attempt the task.

Seek to carry out the sacred trust committed to you by believing it, and believing it all. Search the word to find out what the gospel is, and endeavor to receive it into your inmost heart, that it may be in your heart’s core forever.

Next, as good stewards we must maintain the cause of truth against all comers.

“Never get into religious controversies,” says one; that is to say, being interpreted, be a Christian soldier, but let your sword rust in its scabbard, and sneak into heaven like a coward.

Such advice I cannot endorse. If God has called you by the truth, maintain the truth, which has been the means of your salvation. We are not to be pugnacious, always contending for every crotchet of our own; but wherein we have learned the truth of the Holy Spirit, we are not tamely to see that standard torn down which our fathers upheld at peril of their blood.

This is an age in which truth must be maintained zealously, vehemently, continually. Playing fast and loose as many do, believing this to-day and that to-morrow, is the sure mark of children of wrath; but having received the truth, to hold fast the very form of it, as Paul bids Timothy to do, is one of the duties of heirs of heaven. Stand fast for truth, and may God give the victory to the faithful.

We must believe the gospel and maintain it, for it is committed to our trust.” – C. H. Spurgeon

This blogger heartily agrees……..

Dr. Gill’s first words at the Carter Lane Meeting House.

The Meeting House at Carter Lane, Southwark, was opened on Oct. 9 1757. The Carter Lane Declaration of the faith and practice (based on the 1729 Goat Yard Declaration) had been drawn up. At the opening meeting John Gill, preached from Exodus 20;24. In the course of his message he made the following comments.

“As we have now opened a new place of worship, we enter upon it recording the Name of the Lord by preaching the doctrines of the grace of God, and free and full salvation alone by Jesus Christ; and by the administration of gospel ordinances, as they have been delivered to us. What doctrines may be taught in the place after I am gone is not for me to know; but as for my own part, I am at a point; I am determined, and have been long ago, what to make the subject of my ministry. It is upwards of forty years since I entered into the arduous work; and first sermon I ever preached was from these words of the apostle, ‘For I am determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified:’ and through the grace of God I have been enabled, in some good measure, to abide by the same resolution hitherto, as many of you here are my witness; and, I hope, through divine assistance, I ever shall, as long as I am in this tabernacle, and engaged in such a work. I am not afraid of the reproaches of man; I have been inured to these from my youth upwards; none of these things move me.”

For those interested, there is an online collection of John Gill’s works at the Reformed Reader.

The fundamental problem in the evangelical world today is not inadequate technique, insufficient organization, or antiquated music, and those who want to squander the church’s resources bandaging these scratches will do nothing to staunch the flow of blood that is spilling from its true wounds. The fundamental problem in the evangelical world today is that God rests inconsequentially upon the church. His truth is too distant, his grace is too ordinary, his judgment is too benign, his gospel is too easy, and his Christ is too common. -David Wells, God in the Wasteland

This is the last of three posts concerning “meekness”, used with the permission of the author (Dr. Paul Brownback, Evangelical Reformation).

The Results of Deformed Meekness

Dr. Paul Brownback

Have you ever thought of what it is like to be in combat? Perhaps you have had that experience. However, most have not. Imagine what it is like to live in an area inhabited by enemy soldiers possessing the weapons, training, and intent to destroy you.

Living in that environment would alter our demeanor. We would act with greater seriousness and intensity.

This sobriety and intensity is found especially in a leader, who has responsibility for the welfare of those under him. He must maintain an attitude that gets their attention, make them aware of danger, and that motivates them to carry out orders.

“Would you mind bringing some ammunition with you, that is, if its not too much of a burden,” is going to get people killed. Running out of ammo in the middle of the battle because in was inconvenient to carry would spell disaster.

Jesus lived in a combat environment. Scripture tells us that His enemies were looking for a way to kill Him, and they would succeed. More sobering yet was the fact that Jesus had to die to win.

The battle He was fighting was not with the Jewish leaders or the Roman soldiers, both of which would participate in His death. Rather, He was engaged in a cosmic struggle with Satan and the forces of darkness for the souls of human beings.

He asserted that He was meek (Matthew 11:29), but, as previously noted, meekness is not gentleness or mildness, nor was that His demeanor. Rather, He conveyed the intensity and directness of a leader in combat.

As such, He was no Mr. Rogers. His interaction with His disciples resembled that of a Marine Corps drill sergeant. He knew that the welfare of His disciples depended on their attentiveness and obedience.

Scripture often reminds us that we are also involved in warfare. Scripture refers to us as soldiers and calls us to fight. We, too, are also dealing with matters of eternal life and death.

This being the case, living in a combat zone as we do, it would be dangerous to think that gentleness and mildness should be our normal operating mode, as many evangelicals do. Mr. Rogers cannot be our model. This demeanor does not convey the seriousness of the situation. It does not get people to stop deadly behavior. They does not motivate people to life-saving action.

For example, gentleness does not get done the job of discipleship. “I know that for the last three weeks have talked about the need for you to be in Scripture, and you have not made it yet. Don’t let that discourage you. Maybe you will get to it this week.”

How about, “Friend, do you know that the Devil is out to destroy you. You have failed to get to your Bible for two weeks, now. You had better get to it this week or you could be in real trouble. You are wondering around the battlefield without your steel helmet and your weapon. You are going to get yourself killed. Tell me what is so much more important.”

Sure, there are occasions for gentleness, and we see Jesus convey that quality at times. But most of the time He was tough, and we need to be as well if we are going to develop a mature, effective army of Christian soldiers.

Gentleness and mildness are producing spiritual wimps that are losing the battle with the world, the flesh, and the Devil. We could use an evangelical reformation that will replace gentleness with gumption.

I was up early this past Sunday morning and decided to get some things done before heading to church. While I was busy in the kitchen, I turned on a local Christian radio station to listen to something while I worked. One local church had commercials promoting traditional and ‘contemporary’ services depending on your taste in music. The message I listened to(from the same church) might have been preached at either type of service. The Pastor didn’t mention the specific service where it was presented.

The message began with an interesting story about how the Pastor had lost his car keys, having not put them in their proper location the day before because he had been distracted. He went on to talk about how we get distracted sometimes from the Lord and need reminders.

We need to be reminded that God wants to be connected to us and desires a relationship with us. The Pastor didn’t really tallk about why we are separated from God (sin) or how to ‘connect’ to God, but after his message listeners were asked to meditate silently about God while some music was played. There wasn’t even a pastoral prayer, but maybe it was omitted for the radio version.

I can say that it as a nice sounding message, completely non-threatening, no fire and brimstone, no uncomfortable vocabulary like sin, repentance, or judgment – just right to keep ‘seekers’ coming back and ‘Christ-followers’ feeling good about themselves, having already made their ‘connection’ to God. I kept hoping that before the Pastor finished the message he would actually present the Gospel message that contains the power of God to save (1 Cor 15), and that he would challenge believers to something besides needing a reminder now and again, but neither was presented.

I couldn’t help but feel sadness thinking about the two sorts of people that would have listened to the message the saved and the lost, live sheep or ‘dead in sin’ rebels. The sheep didn’t receive food suitable for healthy growth, while the dead received nothing that would have given them life.

I wonder how many other ‘sheep’ in how many other churches are being starved by their ‘shepherds’? How many lost souls, in desperate need of a savior, listen to messages devoid of the Gospel then leave as dead as they were when the arrived?

One thing is certain, those who starve the sheep and abandon the dead will be held accountable on Judgment Day.