Secularities of America?

1) Apple CEO proclaims homosexuality a divine gift, revealing extent of cultural shift on issue

Tim Cook Speaks Up, Bloomberg Businessweek (Tim Cook)

2) Taiwan gay pride march displays importance of theological beliefs to culture’s morality

Taiwan Shines as Beacon for Gays in Asia, New York Times (Andrew Jacobs)

3) Colorado governor warns rapid legalization of marijuana as too costly

For Marijuana, a Second Wave of Votes to Legalize, New York Times (Kirk Johnson)

Go slow on pot, says Colorado governor, Financial Times (Barney Jopson)

4) Cultural influences creating and influencing celebration of Halloween crucial to consider

Shoppers to spend $350 on Halloween costumes this year – for their pets, Washington Post (Sarah Halzack)

Church History and Heresy and Definition

My Dad's preaching was about the Bible as far as I remember. He did not teach only Baptist were right, of course he didn't say it was wrong either. He was first Bible and then Baptist. He didn't teach legalism in any form. He like Jerry Falwell as well as he liked J. Frank Norris. He never spoke ill of Billy Graham whom he knew personally when Billy was just a teenager) Dad focused on the truth rather than pointing out all the false teaching. He was simple in his preaching but a smart preacher and person as I remember.

Christian doctrine was not establish in 1611, the King James Version translation of the Bible is not a Christian doctrine. I don't believe its a Christian heresy to believe that if you read from the NIV, RSV, ESV, NASV, you are reading heresy nor that you are preaching Christian heresy if you quote from a translation other than then the KJV.

Live and learn about these things. We lived in a square box most of our lives about what we are suppose to believe. Every time I read from the NASV I look around to see if my Dad is here. Its not the kind of Bible translation that is so important as much as the interpretation of the text that is important

HERESY

there seems to be a variety of bandwidth within FV. Why a new denomination? Because all the other denominations (see earlier posts) which have rejected FV teaching won't allow covenant theology to be talked about in the way FV does without calling it heresy.

hERESY IS A TERM USDED FOR AN UNACCEPTABLE DOCTRINE. WHAT IS A HERESY TO ONE GROUP MAY NOT BE HERESY TO ANOTHER.

THEOTOKOS refers to the person who gives birth to a god.
Aphthartodocetism  and monophysitism in the 6th century
Aphthartodocetism is a 6th century Christian heresy related to, but more extreme than the Monophysite heresy. Aphthartodocetism held that the body of Christ was incorruptible and that Christ's sufferings were therefore entirely voluntary. The heresy was supported by Julian, bishop of Halicarnassus, and the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I.   http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/heresies/g/Aphthartodocet.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphthartodocetae

Monophysite n Christianity, one who believed that Jesus Christ’s nature remains altogether divine and not human even though he has taken on an earthly and human body with its cycle of birth, life, and death.  One holding the doctrine that Christ has a single inseparable nature that is at once divine and human rather than having two distinct but unified natures.

  http://www.theopedia.com/Monophysitism

The Christological position called monophysitism asserted that in the person of Jesus Christ there was only one, divine nature rather than two natures, divine and human, as asserted at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. In the development of the doctrine of the person of Christ during the 4th, 5th, and 6th centuries, several divergent traditions had arisen. Chalcedon adopted a decree declaring that Christ was to be “acknowledged in two natures, without being mixed, transmuted, divided, or separated.”

This formulation was directed in part against the Nestorian doctrine—that the two natures in Christ had remained separate and that they were in effect two persons—and in part against the theologically unsophisticated position of the monk Eutyches, who had been condemned in 448 for teaching that, after the Incarnation, Christ had only one nature and that, therefore, the humanity of the incarnate Christ was not of the same substance as that of other human beings.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/389961/monophysite

Monophysitism (from the Greek monos meaning 'one' and physis meaning 'nature') is the christological position that Christ has only one nature, as opposed to the Chalcedonian position which holds that Christ has two natures, one divine and one human. There are two major doctrines that can undisputedly be called monophysite:

Eutychianism holds that the human nature of Christ was essentially obliterated by the Divine, "dissolved like a drop of honey in the sea".

    Apollinarianism holds that Christ had a human body and human "living principle" but that the Divine Logos had taken the place of the nous, or "thinking principle", analogous but not identical to what might be called a mind in the present day.

 http://www.theopedia.com/Monophysitism

The churches that until the mid-20th century had been traditionally classified as monophysite, those of the so-called Oriental Orthodox communion, have always disputed the label, preferring

the term miaphysite (from the Greek mia, “single,” and physis, “nature”) to identify their shared view that both divinity and humanity are equally present within a single nature in the person of Christ and describing their traditions as “non-Chalcedonian.”

These Oriental Orthodox churches—the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Syriac Orthodox Partriachate of Antioch and All the East, the Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church, and the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church—have since resolved almost all of their Christological disputes with the Roman Catholic Church, the major Protestant churches, and Eastern Orthodoxy and have been generally accepted by those traditions as essentially orthodox in their doctrine of the person of Jesus Christ.

TWO NATURES OF JESUS: http://www.theopedia.com/Two_natures_of_Jesus

The two natures of Jesus refers to the doctrine that the one person Jesus Christ had/has two natures, divine and human. In theology this is called the doctrine of the hypostatic union, from the Greek word hypostasis (which came to mean substantive reality). Early church figures such as Athanasius used the term "hypostatic union" to describe the teaching that these two distinct natures (divine and human) co-existed substantively and in reality in the single person of Jesus Christ. The aim was to defend the doctrine that Jesus was simultaneously truly God and truly man. 

One of the clearest passages in Scripture concerning the two natures of Jesus comes from John 1 (see on John 1). The Word (i.e. Jesus) "was with God, and the Word was God." Moreover, the Word took on human flesh (John 1:14). Luke's gospel also says that Jesus "increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man" (Luke 2:52).

Two minds and wills, or one?"Some conclude that when Jesus took on his human nature he possessed two minds, a human mind and a Divine mind, with the human mind responsible for Jesus' knowledge rather than the Divine mind.

Others hold that Jesus had one mind but while in his mortal body he chose to have a subconscious mental part that was inaccessible to the conscious mind and then, after his resurrection, his humanity became dominated by the Divine so his subconscious became accessible."

^[2]^ For an example of the "two minds view", see The Logic of God Incarnate, by Thomas Morris. For the "divided mind" view, which speaks of "two systems of belief [in one mind] to some extent independent of each other", see Richard Swinburne's Christian God, p. 201^[3]^. For a critique of these, see "The Inclusion model of the Incarnation: Problems and Prospects", by Tim Bayne^[4]^.
The view that Jesus only has one will is called Monothelitism.

The Complete Biblical Library. The Interlinear gives the following helps: (1) Greek Text (2) Grammatical Forms (3) Transliteration (4) Translation (5) Assigned Numbers. Plus verse-by-verse commentary. Plus various version. The KJV is in boldface, and then from 60 other versions we show various ways the Greek of that phrase may be translated.

While at FBC in Kansas I bought one volume at a time over a person of a year as they were just coming out. The Complete Biblical Library 16 volume, 10 volumes of Matthew to Revelation and 6 volumes of The NT Greek-English Dictionary of every word in the NT

October Landscaping

Why I Do Not Give An Altar Call

Five and a half years ago I preached my first sermon as the pastor of Rivers of Joy Baptist Church, Minford, Ohio The the deacon and music person stopped me before the service with a question. He wanted to know how I’d be making the altar call.

Having known the history of the church and the two preachers before me I knew what kind of altar calls they were giving for the last fifteen years. The church has a long history of closing the service with an appeal to walk the aisle in order to join the church, recommit one’s life to the Lord, or make a public profession of faith. In fact, many of the members had come to see the altar call as the primary means the church used to reach the lost. They saw the altar call as synonymous with evangelism.

WHY NOT GIVE AN ALTAR CALL?

I trust that many who give altar calls have the best of intentions. In my youth back in the day and even while in Seminary and even while working in churches as a Youth Pastor, the pastor ended the service by asking every person in the congregation to close their eyes and bow their head. Next he would invite anyone who wanted to receive Christ to raise their hand and look toward the pulpit. For about thirty seconds the pastor would scan around the hall, notice the raised hands, and in a calm, soothing voice say, “Yes, brother, I see you. Good, sister, amen,” and so on. I believe this pastor meant the best for these seekers. The music would play, and the song leader would lead the congregation in Just As I Am. And for the next few verses the pastor would plead for people to come to the altar. And over the years I must say there were some cases where the pastor did a good, and other cases there was a very poor presentation of the gospel.

WHY I DO NOT BELIEVE THE ALAR CALL OR INVITATION AT THE END OF THE SERVICE IS WISE TO DO

These are just a few reasons why I think it’s unwise to use the altar call for evangelism.

When I was in Seminary and was attending a church, they all had a visitation/soul winning program. We were ask to go out into the community and share the gospel and invite people to be saved and come to our church. We were to give a ten minute Romans Road presentation of the gospel and ask them to invite Jesus into there heart. And then invite them to church to make it public and get baptized and join the church, all in ten minutes. One pastor of a church said just to invite them to church and he would preach the gospel and they would get saved. And he did and he would plead for them to come forward.

So the question one might asked, "how do you believe a person becoming a Christian if you don't give an altar call?" My answer is "why do you see a person getting saved by giving an altar call?" One might say,"Well, the preachers preaches the gospel and then ask the sinner to get saved." This is the general response of many people in churches today. Even in churches where all the people are "saved" the preachers feels the obligation to give an invitation and invite sinners to be saved, join the church, be baptized.

The question is “Is the church worship service a place where sinners get saved? Is the purpose of the worship service and the preaching the means where by people are supposedly to get saved?

In our church at Rivers of Joy Baptist over the last five years, there have been some who have attended that are not Christians, but 90% of the time those who attend are saved. So should people invite sinners to come to church and hope the pastor has a great salvation sermon and they will get saved that Sunday? My answer to that is NO. Well that is what happens at a Billy Graham meeting doesn't it? Doesn't ever sermon end up with a invitation to invite sinners to get saved?

I am so convinced that the altar calls at those meetings with Billy Graham, or any other place that ask for salvation like that is really quite dangerous. Why would you say that?

While I will say there are those who do really become Christians upon their first visit to the church, there are more that do not become one. A person comes to the altar or to a prayer room after the service and upon giving them the Roman Road verses and they pray, they are announced saved and born again and can't lost their salvation. There is a danger in this process.

How often have I read where the church reports that 600 people have just been saved. (Perry Noble announces almost every week the number that was saved that Sunday) To announced at a person has been saved, after only one moment in his life is really dangerous. Why? How do you know after five minutes that the person has been saved?

The problem of granting people immediate assurance of salvation without taking the time to test the credibility of their profession seems unwise at best and harmful at best. After five minutes the pastor or anyone else cannot know sufficiently that a person has really been saved. What happens many times the person is given by the person talking to them the false confident that they are truly saved. The 600 people announced that was saved, or even the five people announced that was saved, how can you know unless there has been a time to test their credibility of their profession?

What if a person who is attending the church and is not saved how should the preacher preach?

Be clear about the gospel.

Be clear about the gospel. Preach the whole gospel, not just a few words at the end of the sermon. I preached a sermon from Romans 10:9-17 about God's plan for bringing His elect to salvation.

Call people to repent and believe.

In the sermons I preach there in is the Word of God. Every person who is present is to listen with the idea to obey what the Word of God is teaching us to apply to our lives. Every person is responsible to carefully listen and study and know the message of the sermon from the Biblical text that is been preached.

In a sense every message is a salvation sermon. How so? Salvation is not just a one time response to a call to be saved, but one that is to continue to call upon the LORD every day of our lives. Salvation is a means whereby we live a holy acceptable life that glories the LORD.

The preachers responsibility is to preach the Word of God, book by book, chapter by chapter. His sermons should be in the context of the passage of Scripture he is preaching. I don't believe you should add on an invitation to get saved when the sermon has not address how one should become a Christians.

So then how is a lost person to become a Christian if the preacher does not preach a salvation sermon and ask them to get saved and have an altar call or invitation? Good question. I preached that sermon from Romans 10:9-17 that gives that answer.

Every person who is a Christians should be in the mindset of talking to others that are not saved about their lost condition. They should be the one who gives them a clear understanding of what it means to become a Christian. And again it is not wise to announced that they are saved upon their first response. Share with them the gospel yes, ask them if they desire to be saved, give them time to understand. And if the Holy Spirit gives them the understanding to believe then that will happen. Then offer them your time to help them understand what it means to be a Christian. It is called discipleship. Then ask them to come to hear the preaching of the Word of God.

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[1] For a detailed treatment of the dangers of the altar call read Erroll Hulse, The Great Invitation: Examining the Use of the Altar Call in Evangelism (Audoban Press, 2006) and D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching & Preachers (Zondervan, 2011), chapter 14.

2] Arnold Dallimore, Spurgeon: A New Biography (Banner of Truth, 1985), 80.

Hot Wheel Collection and Others P

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Having Fun With Becky October 21 2014

 

Teaching from a Black Board

John Piper and John MacArthur: A Conversation

Adoniram Judson Story

WBF 2014 October Mission Meeting

 

 

WBF Mission October 230124 Baptist Tabernacle in Carlisle Ohio