06.29.10
Posted in Discernment, Outreach at 9:10 am by Administrator
We have had a host of run-ins of late with Jehovah’s Witnesses as we’ve sought to engage our community in public evangelism. Sadly, the JWs are about the only religious group that is actually beating the bushes in our area. On one Friday while street preaching I was approached by a Brewton Police Officer. When I asked the female officer about her religious background she informed me that, though she had gone to a Baptist Church at one time, she was presently studying with the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The very next morning myself and Bro. Mike spent two very frustrating hours dealing with a JW that we had once preached to in the jail. That very same day Bro. Kyle and Ms. Kim got tied up with another JW while distributing tracts at a local Airport Open-House. Most recently while at the county jail for ministry visits the JWs were there dealing with a man that had once come to our church services on Tuesday nights. The Watchtower Society’s false gospel is continually taking men and women captive in our area. It became clear that we as a church must do something to counter-attack this spiritual wickedness in our town.
The way that we undertook this was by carrying out a bulk mailing outreach last week. We sent out 2,677 mailings warning people of the Watchtower Society. We had the help of 35 Christians that helped to stuff the envelopes and attach the labels on a Sunday nights. Included in each envelope was a short note of explanation, a simple gospel tract entitled “The Way to Heaven,” and James Melton’s excellent pamphlet entitled “The Plain Truth about the Jehovah’s Witnesses”. You can view that pamphlet by clicking here. On Sunday Morning there were three watchtower magazines laying at the door of the church, so there’s no doubt they’ve made their way in to mailboxes all over Brewton.
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06.16.10
Posted in Bible, Discernment at 4:27 pm by Administrator
The practice of cremation, or the incineration of the body, has become increasingly popular in our society as frugal, practical Americans have wearied of the after-death racket of fancy caskets and pricey burial plots. But as with all matters, believers ought to seek out the mind of the Lord in the pages of scripture as to the disposal of the body after this life over. In truth, the matter of cremation versus burial is not one in which the Christian is left to his own fancy, or even the dictates of his own conscience; it is, rather, an issue on which the Bible has a good deal to say.
The Divine Precedent
The question we must ask is, “How would God go about disposing of a human body?” The answer to this question can be easily answered from the scripture. There is one place in the Bible where God Almighty conducted a funeral. The scene is set forth in Deuteronomy 34 and the deceased is the Lord’s servant Moses. Moses died “according to the word of the LORD” (v. 5) and then you’re told that God buried him. No one assisted in these arrangements for no one knew where his sepulcher was located (v.6). Granted, funeral expense was not an issue, but God could just as easily burnt the body as buried it, yet he chose the latter.
Perhaps an even more salient example would be the Lord Jesus Christ. The details of his burial were not happenchance, but the careful fulfillment of an age-old prophetic plan (Isa 53:9). When God came to earth in a body of flesh He chose to be buried, and so significant is this detail that it stands out as one of three distinct parts in the definition of “the gospel” as disclosed by the Apostle Paul (1 Cor 15:3-4). When we apply the popular test of “What would Jesus do?” in this matter the answer is clear.
If the question be asked, “Did God ever practice cremation?” the answer is yes, in a way. He burnt the bodies of the inhabitants of Sodom in Genesis 19. He burnt Nadab and Abihu when they offered “strange fire” in Leviticus 10. He saw that Achan and his household were burnt with fire following the sin that led to Israel’s defeat at Ai (Joshua 7:25). The Lord even commanded that those guilty of incest or whoredom be burnt in Leviticus 20:14 and 21:9. In each of these cases the fire from God represents His judgment as it does throughout the scripture. To have the body burnt in hell is the eternal lot of the lost soul (Matt 10:28), and for whatever convenience an urn with ashes may afford I’m reminded that the conversion of the body to dust is the result of the curse upon man for sin (Gen 3:19).
There’s not a single Biblical example where any saint or patriarch chose to have their body burned after death. In fact, the burials of the patriarchs seem to be an important theme beginning with Abraham’s family right on to the burial of Joseph (Joshua 24:32). This stands in stark contrast to what appears to be the essentially pagan practice of cremation. The practice of causing one’s seed to pass through the fire was a distinctively idolatrous exercise originating among the heathen (2 Chron 28:3, 33:6, etc). The Lord even pronounces a curse upon Moab for his practice of cremation according to Amos 2:1-3.
The Defining Principle
For the believer the issue is of even greater consequence simply because our body does not belong to us. Our bodies belong to God, in life (Rom 12:1) and in death (1 Thess 4:16), and this possession was obtained at a great price (1 Cor 6:19). When speaking prophetically of His own death and resurrection, the Lord Jesus compared his body to a seed in John 12. The seed only bears fruit upon falling in to the ground and dying (12:24). This is why the burial of Jesus Christ was so significant. It was an empty tomb, not a missing heap of ashes, that testified to His victory over death. Likewise, the believer’s body is compared to a seed in 1 Corinthians 15. The context is the resurrection and five times in that passage you’re told that this seed is sown (15:35-44). Seeds are for planting, not burning. The point to all of this is that cremation simply does not look forward to the resurrection. Obviously, this is not to say that the charred remains of saints can not be put back together by the power of God, for many a believer has given his life at the stake for the very cause of a resurrected Savior. However, death is not the end of God’s plan and purpose for this earthly tabernacle. Though this body be ever so vile and sinful, some day it shall be transformed, fashioned like unto His glorious body (Phil 3:20-21). With that in mind a proper burial becomes a distinctively Christian practice, for if the scripture be true, there will likely be those that stand over our empty grave some day, even as others looked in to an empty tomb nearly two-thousand years ago, and the only explanation will be, “He is not here, for he is risen”!
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01.14.10
Posted in Books, Discernment, Uncategorized at 2:41 pm by Administrator
Nobody with a remotely functional conscience has any trouble seeing the demonic roots of most of the vampire movies that pepper the shelves of movie rental stores, yet Twilight (the movie) has been deemed by some as being “family-friendly” since it avoided fowl language and extreme sexual content. Perhaps Hollywood is growing more wholesome. Whether or not you have a conscience, common-sense will debunk that possibility. The fact is that the devil is getting better and better at going undercover in these last days. Perhaps there has never been a better example than these Twilight books (and their “good” vampires) of Satan being “transformed in to an angel of light” (2 Cor 11:14). Twilight is accomplishing for the satanic practice of vampirism what Harry Potter has so effectively accomplished for witchcraft: bringing the practice in to the mainstream, minimizing its dangers, glorifying its power and pleasure, and ultimately desensitizing an entire culture to something that is utterly satanic in origin. These latest efforts by the enemy have been incredibly effective, to the extent that undiscerning and unsuspecting parents are actually putting these books in to the hands of our youth. Authors like Meyer and Rowling are, in turn, depositing the seeds of demonism in to these impressionable minds. As for the “Christian” adults that are wrapped up in such books, it is simply a testimony of a Laodicean church that quit reading the word of God and let the television establish their moral standards and undermine their religious convictions.
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01.13.10
Posted in Books, Discernment at 10:29 am by Administrator
Blood Lust
In First Timothy chapter four “doctrines of devils” are associated with commanding people to abstain from meats (v. 3). In the New Testament there is actually just one prohibition in diet set forth by the scriptures and that is blood (Acts 15:20). This isn’t limited to the New Testament either. It is so uniformly abominable in the sight of God that it is the outstanding prohibition found before the law (Gen 9:4), under the law (Lev 7:23-24), and after the law. To make light of something that God so clearly abhors, as vampirism does with the consumption of blood, is folly at least and blasphemy at worst. The vampire family that is central in the Twilight saga has such respect for human life that they feast on animals only, but this is a far-cry from justification of these novels if we take a Biblical world-view.
Appointed to Die
Bella (the main non-vampire character) is so smitten with Edward (the kind and chivalrous blood-sucker) that she’s prepared to give him her soul by submitting to his bite so that they might spend eternity together (Edward is a youthful 107 years old). The whole concept of some creature under a curse to live endlessly feasting upon blood is not only evil from the blood lust standpoint, but makes a mockery of the curse of sin as found in the Bible. The curse of sin in the Bible means death (Rom 6:23), and after that death, the judgment (Heb 9:27).
Angels that Sinned
Twilight is essentially a love story; a love story involving a teenage girl and a vampire and all the drama such a relationship entails. Relations between satanically inspired immortals and fair daughters of men actually represents an ancient story-line dating all the way back to Genesis six. It impressed the Lord so much the first time this hellish plot was fleshed-out that God destroyed the earth with a flood.
The Spirit of Antichrist
When the average mind thinks of an anti-Christ character they might call up thoughts of Hitler or some horned, pitch-fork toting caricature from the pits of hell. The Biblical reality is that anti-Christ doesn’t simply denote against-Christ, but “in the place of” Christ, in other words, something dramatically similar, yet false. Edward comes on the scene with a host of characteristics that are far from what we might typically think of when we consider vampires. He’s described by readers as being kind, considerate, loving, generous, and thoughtful (so many of the things that married readers realize their spouses aren’t). But he’s a vampire none the less. When the Man of Sin is manifested in world-wide politics the scriptures tell us that he “by peace shall destroy many” (Dan 8:25). What I’m saying here is that the central vampire character in the Twilight book is amazingly “Christ-like”. Unfortunately for the thousands of ladies that are enamored by his character traits, he is not “the Lord’s Christ” (Luke 2:26). While Edward might be able to discern the thoughts of those around him (Luke 5:22, 6:8), and exercise other apparently divine qualities (such as super strength and speed) he has only the power to destroy Bella’s soul, while Jesus Christ came to seek and to save the lost souls of men, women, and naïve teenage girls.
Tomorrow: Desensitization in the Last Days
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01.12.10
Posted in Books, Discernment at 8:04 am by Administrator
Stephanie Meyer, reared a Latter-Day Saint (Mormon) strangely enough, relates that the Twilight books originated in a very vivid dream that she had (that left her desiring to stay in bed rather than care for her three children). Here’s a scriptural red-flag before you read the first word of any of the books. The word of God warns us of false dreamers: “Which think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams…” (Jer 23:27). Meyer’s dream has served to cause many Christians to forget what God thinks of those sins so commonly associated with vampires (i.e. witchcraft, divination, necromancy, etc.) (Deut 18:10-11). In the books Edward’s sister, Alice, has the ability to “divine” or see in to the future, and Stephanie Meyer’s dream has become nothing less than a prophetic vision given the success of her books. Believer’s are instructed to bring “every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor 10:3), not that Meyer, a backslidden Mormon, is a believer. Given the content and the success of these books and their leavening affect upon the minds of so many people one must wonder what, or rather who, exactly inspired this dream of hers. Meyer states on her official website that as she prepared to write the first book following her fateful dream that “Bella and Edward were, quite literally, voices in my head” (emphasis mine). The first book in the series has an apple on the front, imagery that she admittedly chose because of its association with the forbidden fruit. I wonder if the same voice that spoke to Eve has any relation to the voices in Meyer’s head?
Tomorrow: Doctrines of Devils
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01.11.10
Posted in Books, Discernment at 3:58 pm by Administrator
This will be the introductory post, to be followed by three more entries, regarding a Biblical view of the wildly popular “Twilight Series”:
The pop culture obsession with the Twilight Series and its chic brand of teenie-bopper vampirism has swept the country. I am generally altogether ignorant of such fads and rarely take an interest in learning about them since I realize “the fashion of this world passeth away” (1 Cor 7:31). Yet, I must admit that I am concerned with the reality that this odd obsession has so commonly crept in to the minds and hearts of so many professing Christians. News of these books being devoured on breaks at home school co-op outings, propagated abroad in Christian schools, allegorized in the youth devotions of liberal churches, and strangest of all, commonly read among church-members of conservative, even fundamental, churches, is disconcerting to say the least. Christians have always understood vampirism and its accompanying sub-culture to be anti-biblical and even demonic. To believe that these books and the circulation they have had among many church-goers has had a neutral spiritual impact would be naïve at best. As Christian families have sacrificed the “good book” for the “boob tube” spiritual discernment has taken a nose-dive among American Christians over the past one-hundred years that the debate over the appropriateness of reading fiction by Bible-believing youngsters (once a hot-button question in many Christian circles) has given-way to whether or not teenage-vampires are harmless enough fiction for the consumption of the Christian masses.
Tomorrow: “Dreams and Divination”
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