SOUTHERN BAPTISTS PRAISE CHUCK COLSON (Friday Church News Notes, April 27, 2012, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Southern Baptists and “conservative evangelicals” demonstrated their great compromise and spiritual blindness by praising Chuck Colson unequivocally following his death last week. He was praised by Al Mohler, Richard Land, Bryant Wright (SBC president), Frank Page, David Dockery, and Ed Stetzer, among others, all of whom are known as conservatives (“SBC Leaders Say Colson Was Evangelical Giant,” Baptist Press, April 23, 2012; Al Mohler’s The Briefing, April 23; Ed Stetzer’s blog, April 21). None of these “conservative evangelical” leaders mentioned the fact that Colson was one of the most effective builders of the apostate one-world church, wielding nearly as much influence in this wretched business as that other prominent Southern Baptist, Billy Graham. Colson was ecumenical from the time of his conversion in 1973 and grew ever more radical in this heretical philosophy through the years. In his forward to the deceptively-titled 1990 book Evangelical Catholics, by Roman Catholic author Keith Fournier, Colson said, “... it’s time that all of us who are Christians come together regardless of the difference of our confessions and our traditions.” In his 1993 book The Body, Colson said, “The body of Christ, in all its diversity, is created with Baptist feet, Charismatic hands, and Catholic ears--all with their eyes on Jesus.” Colson was one of the authors of the 1994 Evangelicals and Catholics Together statement, falsely claiming that Catholics, Protestants, and Baptists agree on “core beliefs.” After his meeting with Pope John Paul II in 1995, Colson proclaimed that the pope was a great defender of “Christian orthodoxy.” In his speech at the Promise Keepers conference in Memphis in 1996, Colson called division a sin and said that when Christians aren’t one they are working against God. In 1998 Roman Catholic Michael Timmis was named chairman of Colson’s Prison Fellowship, and the next year it was report more than 70 percent of Prison Fellowship chaplains were Roman Catholic (Calvary Contender, Nov. 15, 1999). In his 2003 book Being the Body, Colson expressed thanksgiving that “fresh winds are blowing everywhere among Catholics and Protestants” (p. 86).

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It is significant that present processes, which are the only kinds of processes which can be tested by the scientific method, are not in any way creative processes. That is, the basic laws of modern science, which describe these present processes, are laws of conservation and deterioration, not of creation and integration. These laws deal with the fundamental behavior of matter and energy, which actually include everything in the physical universe, and are known as the first and second laws of thermodynamics.

Thermodynamics (from two Greek words meaning ‘heat power’) is the science dealing with the conversion of heat and other forms of energy into work. It is now known that everything in the universe is energy in some form, and everything that ‘happens’ is basically an energy conversion process. Thus, the first and second laws of thermodynamics could just as well be called the first and second laws of science. All processes in the universe, as far as known, have to obey these two laws.

The first law of thermodynamics is also called the law of energy conservation. This law states that, although energy can be changed in form, it is not now being either created or destroyed Since all physical phenomena, including matter itself, are merely different forms of energy, this clearly implies that creation was an event of the past and is no longer going on.

The second law of thermodynamics, stated in nontechnical form, says that all physical systems, if left to themselves, tend to become disorganized. Thus, machines wear out, processes run down, organisms get old and die. Any temporary increase in organization requires an input of energy from outside the system itself.

These two universal laws are basic in all disciplines of modern science. Verified by thousands of experiments, from the nuclear level to the astronomic level, with no known exceptions, they clearly indicate that nothing is now being created and taht the original creation is ‘running down.’

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The following are three of the most common arguments that are used against those who publicly reprove the compromise and error of influential Baptist leaders.

Shooting the Wounded

Through the years, I have frequently heard the accusation that preachers who give warnings about Christian leaders are guilty of “shooting their own wounded.”

For example, I received the following e-mail that charged me with doing this in regard to an open exhortation I published about Clarence Sexton’s Friendship Conferences.

“I am deeply upset at the private letter you posted on your website to Dr Sexton. Thanks for shooting your own and not calling Pastor Sexton personally to get all of the facts.”

The fact is that I had sent that letter to Dr. Sexton via his own website months before I published it, and I received no reply. I found out later that he says that he doesn’t use e-mail, and that is fine, but he could have dictated a reply to one of his many co-workers or secretaries.

Another example of the accusation of “shooting the wounded” is contained in the following e-mail that I received a few years ago:

“I grew up in Murfreesboro, TN and was and am still associated with the Sword of the Lord and the Bill Rice Ranch. I hated it then and still do when a Christian brother bashes another Christian brother over things instead of preaching and trying to win souls to Christ. It is said that the Christian Army is the only army that stabs its wounded and kills off its own. I have to say it is very true. I am also a Marine, and we were taught to pick up those who are wounded and even dead, not leave them to die or to be mutilated by the enemy. We as Christians do just the opposite many times.”

What does “shooting their own wounded” mean?

(first published December 15, 2010) (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)

Since attending Bible School in the 1970s, I have gone through several evangelistic courses and found them to contain many helpful things. Yet something is wrong with the standard technique, because all too often they produce a host of empty professions, and hopefully we know that an empty profession of faith that doesn’t change the life is not biblical salvation.
“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
“They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate” (Titus 1:16).
“He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 John 2:4).
I read about a pastor who reported 4,000 professions in five years of ministry, but the church only grew from 98 to 100.
I read about a first-year missionary who reported over 700 professions of faith -- and 25 baptisms.
One evangelist comments: “How could you even pen those words without asking yourself if there isn’t something wrong with that picture? I seem to remember 3,000 saved at Pentecost, and 3,000 baptized! The most refreshing missionary that I have heard in a long time gave his update to our church recently. He has been in Poland for 14 years and to date knows of only five people who have been saved under his ministry. Just like at Pentecost, he only counts the ones who have been saved, baptized, and are in the church. Most of our ‘one, two, three, pray after me’ fellows would have dropped his support a long time ago! Myself, I would drop the guy with 738 saved and 25 baptized and shift the support to the fellow from Poland!”
After I graduated from school and moved back to my home town before we started missionary deputation, my pastor my wife and me to follow-up on the church’s Foster Club outreach. Each week the ladies would report many “salvations,” but no one was following up the “decisions.” We were given a stack of cards and began our follow up, but we quickly found that these “saved people” wanted nothing to do with us and had no interest in the church in particular or the things of Christ in general. Most wouldn’t even let us into the home. I thought to myself, that is not the type of salvation I got.

THREE QUESTIONS FOR WARREN BUFFETT (Friday Church News Notes, April 20, 2012, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - I want to say something about the “Buffett Rule” tax that the Republicans blocked this week. Actually, I have some questions for the billionaire Warren Buffett who proposed the thing. First, in light of the well-documented fact that the U.S. government is spending money wastefully like a drunken sailor and throwing money around like a mad man where it has no business, isn’t the problem a spending problem rather than an income problem? Second, where is the evidence that if the U.S. government confiscated every dollar from every millionaire that this would solve the deficit spending issue? Third, why don’t you mind your own business? You are most welcome to give every dollar of your present and future income to the government and to live on a social security pittance, but stop encouraging the drunken sailor to rob other people who don’t share your befuddled mental condition?

“Now Korah, the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On, the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men: And they rose up before Moses, with certain of the children of Israel, two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown: And they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them, Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is among them: wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the LORD?” (Numbers 16:1-3).

A group of men led by Korah rebelled against Moses and Aaron and charged them with exalting themselves above the congregation (Num. 16:1-3). This is a strong warning against rebellion toward God-ordained authority. Compare Hebrews 13:7, 17.

1. The rebels were leaders (v. 2). Instead of leading the people in confessing their sins and glorifying God obeying His Word, they stirred up the people to rebellion. Compare James 3:1; Jeremiah 23:1-2. This reminds us that God’s people must not blindly follow church leaders. They are to be tested by God’s Word (Acts 17:11; 1 Cor. 14:29; 1 Thess. 5:20-21).

2. Their sin was motivated by jealousy and pride. Korah was jealous of Aaron because God had chosen him and his sons for the priesthood. Dathan and Abiram, sons of Reuben, were probably jealous because the tribe of Judah was put at the head of the marching order even though Reuben was the firstborn (Num. 2:1-3). They were not content to accept God’s calling on their lives. Compare Romans 12:3.

3. The rebels were neighbors. They were sons of Kohath and sons of Reuben, and they all resided in tents on the south side of the Tabernacle. (Compare Num. 2:10 and 3:29.) Neighbors should exhort one another to godliness and obedience, but these neighbors exhorted one another to wickedness and rebellion. Each believer needs to be the kind of friend and neighbor that pleases God and edifies man, and we need to be careful not to develop close associations with rebels. The Bible warns that “evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Cor. 15:33).

In response to the report “Mark Driscoll to Speak at Liberty University,” Friday News, April 13, I received a reply from a young man who identified himself as “an alumnus of Liberty University and a member of Mars Hill Church” (pastored by Driscoll). He said that he is not concerned about any of the things I mentioned (e.g., champagne dance parties, beer brewing lessons, hosting secular rock concerts), and he concluded with the following comment:

“I only wish more preachers would take a stand against the many fundamentalist Pharisees who cloak their self-righteousness behind man-made rules.”

I wrote to ask “exactly which Bible-believing fundamentalist is a self-righteous Pharisee,” but he did not reply.

The term “Pharisee” is thrown around lightly today, but to charge someone with being a Pharisee is a very serious accusation. It is to charge them with being a self-righteous hypocrite who denies salvation through grace, who hates sinners, who exalts tradition to the same authority as God’s Word, and who is a Christ-rejector.

If believing that Christian rock and Mark Driscoll’s “champagne dance party cultural liberalism” is evidence of self-righteousness, then most Bible-believing Christians in past centuries were hardcore Pharisees.

This report could also be titled “What Is Missing from Sexton’s Friendship Conference” or “Friendship vs. Truth.”

The third annual Independent Baptist Friends International Conference is being held this week (April 15-20, 2012) at Crown College in Tennessee with the objective of urging independent Baptists to unite in friendship for local and world evangelism.

Pastor Clarence Sexton, the founder of the Friends conferences, says he is not trying to create a large movement or to unify all independent Baptists. He doesn’t want to create a new organization. He does not want to control anyone or to abuse anyone’s conscience. He simply wants to urge IFB preachers in all parts of the world to partner together in their towns and regions for the furtherance of evangelism.

In preparation for this year’s conference Dr. Sexton said:

“There is AN IRREDUCIBLE BODY OF TRUTH (e.g., who God is, what His Word is, what He says about salvation, the local New Testament church). There are a number of things that are in THIS IRREDUCIBLE BODY OF TRUTH. And I believe that all over the world that God will raise up circles of friends. They have the truth; people need the Lord; and they are going to work together. ... This should happen in every state, on every continent, among every people group” (Sexton, “On the High Road with a High Vision of God,” YouTube.com, April 9, 2012).

He gave examples of how that preachers are coming together in various places in answer to this challenge.

He said that this is a vision that God has given him, but the underlying philosophy is unscriptural. It is the “in essentials unity; in non-essentials liberty” heresy that has been so effective in uniting evangelicals. Sexton refers to the “essentials” around which unity and joint ministry is possible as “an irreducible body of truth.”

In the name of “freedom,” people frequently leave good Bible-believing churches to join one of the looser, easy-going congregations that abound in these apostate times. Commonly, they are lackadaisical about church attendance, putting more emphasis upon personal and family relaxation and recreation, upon sports and the great outdoors and an endless variety of fun. They exchange their feminine dresses for pants and shorts and other immodest attire, even joining the near-naked crowd at the poolside and on the beaches. They trade the sacred hymns of the faith for jazzy charismatic “praise” music and Christian rock. They develop a more tolerant attitude toward doctrine, emphasizing, instead, “love” and “unity,” fellowshipping with anyone who “loves Jesus.” As they pursue this new path, their ecumenical sympathies and appetite for “liberty” increases, as does their aversion to biblical separation.

When asked about the change, they say: “I feel more liberty now, more love; I am having fun; I am glad to be free of legalism; I don’t hear criticism at my church; no one judges what others do. It’s a breath of fresh air. We’re finally free of Pharisaical bondage.”

Through the years, I have witnessed with sorrow a number of Christian friends who were captured in this fleshly trap.

They are confused about the nature of biblical Christianity, having been willfully enticed by the siren song of the “live according to your own lusts” philosophy of apostasy (2 Tim. 4:3-4).

Consider the following Bible preachers whose sermons were recorded by divine inspiration. Would a person who focuses on liberty and fun be comfortable under such preaching?

“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 11:3-4).

The Corinthian church was careless and carnal and tolerant of error, and Paul was afraid that if false teachers came to them with “another spirit” and preached “another Jesus” or “another gospel,” they would put up with them instead of separating from them. It was not that they would necessarily follow or accept the error; it was that they would be tolerant of it.

This is a perfect description of those who are committed to the unity principle today. Instead of testing everything carefully by the Word of God and plainly exposing false christs and false gospels, they glory in their “unity in diversity.”

A perfect example of this is the March for Jesus rallies which are held annually in many countries and which seek to draw together all professing Christians for a united “testimony for Jesus.”

Marty Klein, the national coordinator for March for Jesus in Canada in 1996, testified that Mormons were welcome to participate.

Alan Sharpe of Ottawa wrote to Klein on May 2 of that year and asked, “I am interested in the March for Jesus. Can a devout Mormon who loves Jesus march in the march?”

Klein replied: “ALL are welcome to join us. However, we make it clear that this is a march FOR Jesus. It is not a protest--we are not promoting anything, but a person (Jesus) and we will not allow Christians or otherwise to parade their various causes.”

In 1 Corinthians 9:22 Paul said, “To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.”

If this is isolated from the rest of Scripture one could assume that Paul was willing to do anything to reach the lost, including adopting their lifestyle, which is a popular principle among the “Christian rock” crowd today.

However, when one examines the context of this verse and compares Scripture with Scripture, we find that Paul did not mean anything like this.

In 1 Corinthians 9:21, for example, Paul says, “To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law.”

Thus, he explains that he is always under the law to Christ and he is therefore never at liberty to do things that would be contrary to Scripture.

LANCASTER STILL USING CCM (Friday Church News Notes, April 6, 2012, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Last year we warned that Lancaster Baptist Church of Lancaster, California, home of West Coast Baptist College, has long used contemporary worship music. The “straw that broke the camel’s back” and impelled me to write about it was their use of “Shout to the Lord” by the radical charismatic ecumenist female preacher Darlene Zschech on a Sunday morning. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. They have “adapted” dozens of contemporary worship songs by some of the most radical charismatic latter rain people. (See “Analyzing ‘Adapted’ CCM Songs,” Sept. 1, 2011, www.wayoflife.org.) Some wrote to reprove me for the warning, claiming that Pastor Chappell didn’t know what was happening and that now the situation is corrected with the hiring of a new music director. That nothing has changed, though, is evident by the March 27, 2012 YouTube posting of a Lancaster group performing “Glorify You Alone” by Gateway Worship. In our new video presentation, The Foreign Spirit of Contemporary Worship Music, we offer extensive documentation of the frightful fact that contemporary worship represents “another spirit.” There is no question about this, and Gateway Worship, led by Thomas Miller, is a prime example. Gateway Worship is the praise team at Gateway Church, a charismatic megachurch in Southlake, Texas. Miller and the other members of the worship team graduated from the charismatic Christ for the Nations Institute. Gateway’s objective is to use their powerful rock music to bring hearers into a “sense and experience [of] God’s presence” (gatewaypeople.com). This is pure mysticism created by sensual music (composed of dance rhythms, non-resolving chord sequences, the dramatic rise and fall of the sound, repetition, sensual vocal styles, and electronic distortion). If you remove the music, you remove the “experience.” Gateway Church holds heresies such as the continuation of sign gifts, prophesying, and end-time apostles. They are using music to build the one-world church through their heresy that ecumenical unity pleases God. Recent speakers at Gateway include some of the most heretical voices in the charismatic latter rain movement. These include James Goll and his “revelatory teaching” (Feb. 8, 2012), “prophet” and “apostle” Dennis Cramer (March 31, 2012), and Jaye Thomas and Corey Russell of the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, part of the New Apostolic Reformation movement (April 21, 2012). Cramer, for example, operates a “School of Prophecy,” promising, “When I’m through with you you’ll be prophesying over everything that moves” (“Level One Prophetic School,” YouTube, Jan. 6, 2007). If that isn’t enough, that Gateway Worship is following “another spirit” is proven conclusively by their acceptance of “The Shack” and its cool, non-judgmental male/female god. On January 12, 2012, The Shack’s author, William Paul Young, spoke at Gateway’s Father’s Heart Seminar. Why would a Bible-believing church like Lancaster want anything whatsoever to do with music written by people like this?????? Why do they continue to use and to justify it and criticize people like me who warn about it? Their poor example is influencing large numbers of people, and they will not be able to undo the spiritual damage they are causing. (For a “mash-up” of Lancaster Baptist and Gateway’s performances of “Glorify You Alone” see http://vimeo.com/39451317)

The Elephant Room is a dialogue forum invented in 2011 by emerging star Mark Driscoll, together with James MacDonald, Steven Furtick, David Platt, Matt Chandler, Greg Laurie, and Perry Noble.

The stated objective is to discuss controversial doctrinal issues with “guests from all places and belief systems” with the goal of theological sharpening.

THE ELEPHANT ROOM AND HEGELIAN DIALECTICS

Digging a little further, we see that the real objective is ecumenism. Driscoll and friends say plainly that their “goal is unity” and that they are opposed to “crouching behind walls of disagreement.” Though they claim to “hold the essential tenets of the faith with a ferocious intensity,” in typical emerging style they contradict this by saying we should “not isolate ourselves from relationship even with those who believe much differently.” There is a Hegelian dialectic at work here. By having public “conversations” with people who “offend you or deny the faith as you see it,” walls are broken down and attitudes are changed.

At first we are shocked by theological error, but through dialogue with heretics the very concept of heresy becomes quaint. Through the Elephant Room we learn that “heretics” are likable people who “love Jesus” and merely have another way of looking at things. We are told that we all “see through a glass darkly,” so no one can claim a corner on the truth. Therefore, instead of separating and condemning, let’s relax and dialogue.

The apostle Paul was so old-fashioned and non-emerging when he persisted in pronouncing God’s curse on the Galatian heretics instead of inviting them to a dialogue. Apparently he just wasn’t clever enough. And he certainly wasn’t cool enough to build a big church in Seattle.

(See also “Hegelian Dialectics: The Devil’s Winning Tool” at the Way of Life web site. There is a search engine.)

The following are some of the major lessons of the Levitical offerings by way of review and application:

1. Man is a sinner and is separated from the holy Creator God by his sin against God’s law.

2. Only through an acceptable sacrifice can man be reconciled to God. The sacrifice required both the blood and death of a perfect, innocent victim, which was fulfilled in Christ. God paid a great price for man’s salvation in that He gave His only begotten Son to suffer on the cross. Salvation is not by good works or sincerity or religion.

3. There is only one way of salvation. Just as the Israelite had to bring the right sacrifice to the right place in the right way, so the sinner must come to God in the prescribed way through the one gospel and the one Saviour.

4. The same salvation is available for all men, rich and poor, rulers and servants (Lev. 1:14; 4:22, 27).

5. All of the Levitical sacrifices point to Christ and the various characteristics of His salvation. He is everything the sinner needs before God, and in Christ the believing sinner is fully accepted. See 1 Corinthians 1:30; Ephesians 1:3. The believer needs to live in awareness of the benefit of Christ and His sacrifice.

“We need to always most thankfully receive His inestimable benefit. In other words, we must by faith accept Christ as our five-fold offering, on the basis of which alone we are saved and have our standing before God. Morning by morning as we awaken let it be with the consciousness that in the burnt offering and meat offering of Christ we are accepted and blessed of God, that in His peace offering we have the right to commune with Him, that through His sin and trespass offering every defect is remedied and every fault will find pardon” (James Gray, Concise Bible Commentary).

6. The perfection and sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice is emphasized in many ways, such as the manifold aspect of the sacrifices (burnt, peace, meal, trespass, sin), the spotlessness of the sacrifice (Lev. 1:3), the blood sprinkled seven times (Lev. 4:6), and the continual burning of the sacrifice (Lev. 6:13). In all of these ways Leviticus is teaching that “Christ is all I need.” See Hebrews 10:10, 14.