News Snippets From All Beats

Out of respect for John Piper’s years of Christian service, some are asking that Piper’s video he made explaining his reasons for inviting heretic Rick Warren to speak at his Desiring God conference be viewed and then privately responded to only to Piper.  That might be the proper course of action if this was the first monumental lapse in discernment to be made by Piper.  This is not, however, a singular incident, but the continuation of a trend.

Piper has previously invited another heretic to address his audience; albeit posthumously, and by means of epigraph.  In his 2002 book Brothers, We Are Not Professionals: A Pleas to Pastors for Radical Ministry, Piper introduces one of his chapters using words of G.K. Chesterton.  In 1908, Chesterton proved happy to call God a liar by discrediting the Genesis account of creation because it didn’t line up with the favored world view of Darwinian evolution.  That was no one-time lapse either; Piper made further endorsements of Chesterton by citations in books he published in 2003, 2004, and 2005.

Piper’s readers continue to not only meditate on Piper’s work, but also his endorsements of Chesterton as well; fawning over the heretic’s words.  The harm that would be caused by Warren speaking at Piper’s invitation is incalculable. As for Piper’s video explanation for endorsing Warren, his reasoning was puerile, and his on-camera demeanor seemed so befuddled that a plea of non compos mentis could be entered on his behalf.   John Piper needs to retract his invitation to Warren, publicly repent for the damage he has done to the simple in the faith, and retire while he has the mental faculty to do so by his own free will.

The Church does not need any more supposedly strong men for the Lord publicly degenerating into senility whereby they give the heathen opportunity to blaspheme God, and the simple in the faith cause to stumble.  Piper made this a public discourse, he has had ample time to be reached and corrected by those near him with discernment, and he has yet to repent.  This is now the appropriate way to respond; publicly.  John Piper: you had your apostasy, now eat it so it will go away.

CS: Controlling Scripture for this article available here.

Baptists across the nation woke up a little groggy Monday after losing an hour of sleep to daylight saving time, and many may have missed the biggest betrayal their denomination has ever seen. At least, that’s what the leadership may have been banking on when they released their declaration that will live in infamy. In a stunning display of bowing to world opinion, global politics, and the earth goddess Gaia, the Southern Baptist Convention enrolled its 16 Million members into the Green Religion of earth worshiping environmentalism Monday with the stroke of a pen. Through the issuance of “A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change” they committed their members to the observances of this pagan religion, and obligated them for future performance of its sacraments.

The reason the SBC has thrown Christianity and the Bible to wind was explained in their declaration. “Our cautious response to these issues [global warming] in the face of mounting evidence may be seen by the world as uncaring, reckless and ill-informed,”¹ and the world’s good opinion of SBC, in the mind of their leaders, is now far more important to them then God’s. Yet, good information is not what the SBC is acting on.

What the SBC means by mounting evidence is not scientific evidence, but mounting hostility from the opposing Green religion. By this enjoinment of the largest Protestant church in America to the Green Evangelicals, SBC leaders, like signatory and SBC president Frank Page, hope to now curry the same world acceptance that Rich Cizik, director of National Association of Evangelicals, enjoys on the world stage for his tireless efforts at converting the millions in his organization to Gaia.

While the SBC minced words in their declaration to insure its members that they will not require partaking of the most sacred sacraments of Gaia worship, it is only a matter of time before the pressure of world opinion once again forces SBC leaders to succumb.

Indeed, their declaration itself uses anticipatory language which leaves open more compliance in the future to prove their allegiance. “We realize that simply affirming our God-given responsibility to care for the earth,” reads the text, “will likely produce no tangible or effective results.”² Further, they admit to knowing what tangibles the Greens value most as evidence for true conversion:

We realize that we cannot support some environmental issues as we offer a distinctively Christian voice in these arenas. For instance, we realize that what some call population control leads to evils like abortion. We now call on these environmentalists to reject these evils and accept the sanctity of every human person, both born and unborn.³

It’s a call that will be completely ignored. If the Greens had any inclination at all of heeding a Christian voice, they wouldn’t be ardently practicing this pagan religion which is a complete rejection of Christianity.

By not referring to murder as murder, the SBC has used a political maneuver to get their members through the door of their new sanctuary, but they will find themselves in hostile territory. Greens follow Gaia, they don’t follow Christ. They bow before the earth, they don’t bow before God. And they will not be the ones unequally yoked with non-believers. That would be the Christians, who are the enemies until they follow SBC’s example and repent of their faith and join the Greens.

The SBC leadership has moved its members into the Green sanctuary, and over time they will usher their members closer and closer to the Green alter where their unholy right of abortion must be taken. It is only a matter of time. They will soon become full-fledged earth worshipers demonstrating their reverence by both applauding and practicing the popular method of population control seen by Greens as essential to forestalling global warming. It won’t happen over night, but it will happen soon.

For now, the SBC has put its members on notice that they will be closely watched and monitored for the first stages of compliance. They will begin the conversion process by “increasing awareness in our homes, businesses where we find influence, relationships with others and in our local churches.”⁴ The whole network of local churches will experience Green conformity campaigns from the pulpit, and small groups will be mobilized, and accountability partners will be assigned to monitor home life. If there is one positive outcome to this new chapter in the apostasy, it will be this: the actual spiritual health of the SBC might be fairly measured by the number of members who secede from the organization in the following months.

Notes:

^{1 - 4.} Baptist Press, “A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change,” BPnews.net, March 10, 2008. http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=27585

As the presidential race appears to narrow to one leading candidate in the Republican Party squaring off against his rival in the Democratic Party, Christians leaders are starting to endorse John McCain. Pastor John Hagee of San Antonio Texas has given McCain his endorsement citing McCain’s support for Israel, and his pro-life voting record.¹ While these are in deed characteristics deserving of praise, they do not by themselves overcome McCain’s unsuitability for Christian support.

Potential voters should not be swayed by his strategic support for Israel (as an outpost for democracy), nor his stand against abortion (as politician); though admirably made from his personal convictions. McCain’s convictions are as subject to change as his person is. Only when these, and many other convictions, are grounded on the immutable word of an unchanging and eternal God will they be minted for an economy of the faithful. This reliance on the trustworthiness of God is hardly the case with McCain who, retreating on claims made in scripture, has publicly and emphatically called God a liar.

When asked during the GOP Presidential Debates if he believed in evolution, MaCain gave a resounding “yes” answer.² What this means is that if McCain believes God is lying about the creation account of man, then he could come to believe that God is also lying when he said of permanency and prophetic future of Israel: “Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the LORD, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency! and thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee; and thou shalt tread upon their high places” (Deu 33:29). McCain could also come to believe that God is lying when He speaks of the identity of human beings as fixed while they are yet in the womb (Jer 1:5).

This means that these positions taken by McCain must be discounted as inevitably disposable because he holds them absent their mooring on the word of God, who he claims to prevaricate wherever science finds Him out.

As the time grows short, however, pressure from both to political and religious camps is going to be ratcheted up on Christians to vote for McCain. This is going to be the argument that will be made for the candidate: that he should receive Christian support because he is the lesser of two evils. If you do not vote for him, the argument goes, than a worse candidate will take office, and we, as a nation, will suffer through their appointments; such as those for judges.

That’s how it will be put to voters, but that is not the argument; that’s the spin on the argument. Here it is without the dressing: if you don’t agree to affirm blasphemy (McCain’s accusing the Lord God of lying), then some guy in a black robe will give you reason to fear. But what saith the scriptures?

And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him. (Luk 12:4-5)

This country does not stand or fall on one man, or one president, or nine judges. This nation stands at the patience of the Lord God; who has graciously given us time to do His will, so that some might be saved. And we can not devote ourselves as we should in fidelity on this cause if we constantly allow ourselves to be sided against God in compromise after compromise. Do not profess one thing in the square, and then pull the curtain closed to prevaricate. Fear God.

Notes:

^1. Michelle Roberts, “McCain Gets Endorsement of Texas Evangelical Leader,” Christian Post, February 28, 2008.

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080228/31352

_McCain_Gets_Endorsement_of_Texas_Evangelical_Leader.htm

^2. You Tube, GOP Debate - Evolution Question,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4Cc8t3Zd5E (accessed February 27, 2008)

The list of speakers scheduled to participate in Crystal Cathedral’s Rethink conference in January 2008 reveals promoters will be practicing mental stealth. Of course, a gathering of global influencers would not be complete without a cadre of Teletherapists. They are necessary to persuade attendees to embrace new relationships with unsaved globalists, and to take on new ministries to the emotional needs of the rising global consciousness; instead of ministering the gospel of grace to the lost and the perishing. The lineup includes:

H. B. London - billed as the “pastor to pastors” at Focus on The Family, where he is employed as Vice President, Ministry Outreach, Pastoral Ministries.¹ This purported shepherd-of-shepherds recently earned recognition for assisting in the restoration of fallen New Life Church pastor Ted Haggard; restoring him not to the cross of Christ, but to the serpentine staff of psychotherapy, of which mastery Haggard is now in hot pursuit for his own salvation, and the salvation of others whom he hopes to one day earn a living from; being paid to likewise restore them, to Freud, Jung, and Maslow and the gang.

Appearing here in the conference line-up of speakers, London proves once again that he is not only unable to lead pastors, he can’t even lead sheep, or himself, in the right direction: which would be as far from the bazaar as possible. Instead, he is put on the hook as a lure to entice the young and simple in the faith into the camp to be made merchandise of. Certainly it must be a proud moment for Dr. Dobson and Focus on the Family to have helped to give this man legs to walk, and a mouth speaking great things.

Dr. Tim Clinton - is a licensed counselor and marriage and family therapists, and an ordained minister. It is obvious by his other pursuits which one of these opposing views the doctor holds to be superior to the other, and which one he views to be only supplemental to his practice. Clinton is also the President of American Christian Counselors, an organization of other licensed therapists, and the Executive Director of the Center for Counseling and Family Studies, and Professor of Counseling and Pastoral Care at Liberty Theological Seminary. In this last position, it is interesting to note that should pastors reach out for encouragement from a supposed bulwark of theology and doctrine, they will be shown the real power behind the stone, and nursed back to competency with the sour milk of Freud and the gang.

Dr. Les Parrott - is the founder of the Center for Relationship Development at Pacific University. Like his colleagues, Parrott’s concentration is on preaching relationships between other people; married people, unmarried people, and people who are doing the things that were formally reserved for married people, but very little in the way of establishing and maintaining a relationship with God. This is because his Psychology Bible (DSM IV) neither asserts the existence of God nor views relationships with Him as healthy (a diagnostic category has been derived for the treatment of persons to ease them out of a religious view). He is an appropriate choice for officiating in this marriage where “prominent thought leaders become you thought partners.”²

Dr. Henry Cloud - an author and clinical psychologists with a consulting practice who “works with leaders in a wide range of organizations and corporations.”³ With his new book The Secret Things of God: Unlocking the Treasures Reserved for You, Cloud justifies plying his craft on Christians. By asserting the dichotomy of the psychological mind existing separately from the spiritual heart, Cloud suggests the two are at impasse without the power of his psychotherapy to bridge them. He then implies that his work will allow the victorious Word that ineptly gets “locked in their minds” to get activated in their hearts.⁴ Of course, the Bible alone would never do because that is just full of the secrets that get locked in the head, and can’t find their way out to help anyone without the power of psychotherapy to set them free. Not to mention, Cloud would make far less royalties only selling bibles.

These speakers are among those being exalted by Crystal Cathedral for their vain imaginations which are the products of their own reasoning, and the successes they have had in deceiving others with their stratagems. They measure each other by worldly standards, and they are led away by their own conceits. Their carnal reasoning is actually against God; they do not come from Him, they do not express Him, they do not rely on Him, and He will not have them used for Him.

All the “latest thoughts and perspectives,”⁵ or strategies, of these icons are contrived to wage campaigns after the manner of physical warfare, and rely on the weapons wielded by the flesh. The weapons of psychoanalytic observations and manipulative therapies are weapons of the flesh. The eclecticism of modern Teletherapists in applying human techniques to alter thinking and behavior are all strategies and schemes derived and employed by sentient beings relying on their own devices. They are not of God; neither are they for the Christian (2Co 10:3-5).

Notes:

1. Pressroom Biographies, H. B. London, Jr., Vice President, Ministry Outreach/Pastoral Ministries, Focus on the Family.

http://www.focusonthefamily.com/press/focusvoices/A000000029.cfm

2. Rethink, Why Rethink: Rethink Tanks - Learn and Share.

http://www.rethinkconference.com/index.php?option=com

_content&task=view&id=1&Itemid=2 (accessed 10-8-07).

3. Rethink, Speakers.

http://www.rethinkconference.com/index.php?option=com

_content&task

=blogcategory&id=3&Itemid=14

4. Editorial Reviews of Dr. Henry Cloud, The Secret Things of God: Unlocking the Treasures Reserved for You, by Dr. Henry Cloud. 2007.

http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Things-God-Unlocking-

Treasures/dp/1416563601]

9. Rethink, Rethink the Details.

http://www.rethinkconference.com/index.php?option=com_

content&task=view&id=4&Itemid=6

At least six high-profile televangelists, who are also prosperity preachers, are now under investigation by Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa who is on the Senate Committee of Finance. They include Paula White, Kenneth Copeland, and Benny Hinn. So far, they have been asked to provide financial statements and records. The investigation was actually initiated by Ole Anthony who is the founder of Trinity Foundation, a watchdog organization for televangelists. ¹ Since it began in early November, Anthony has been joined by Lee Grady, editor of Charisma magazine in supporting the Senate investigation. The primary complaint of Anthony and Grady is essentially that these religious leaders earn too much money and live too comfortably, and this is hardly grounds for instigating and welcoming a congressional-led “reformation,” as Grady put it.²

We are living in an age where Constitutional safeguards are constantly being circumvented by state and federal laws (e.g. hate crime and hate speech legislation), and congress is rife with those who would jump at the chance to eviscerate Christian pulpits under cover of Christian “watchdogs.” This, and a few other things, should have come to Anthony’s mind beforehand.

While Anthony, Grady, and others may openly criticize various religious organizations that they disagree with, the fact that they do not approve of another’s free exercise of religion does not entitle them to prescribe religious conduct to them, and require it to be enforced. If they have broken no laws, are not in violation of tax codes, and comply with regulations governing their type of organizations; they should not be investigated by senators at the behest of individuals who find them distasteful, and who do not claim to have suffered at the hands of these organizations.

Even if they had real damages arising from fraud or other such offences, there are other recourses open to them within the law. But even senators miss this point.

Representatives should know better than to launch senatorial investigations into various religions and their leaders merely because some people disapprove of their religious expressions; expressions that they have deemed appropriate to their respective religions, and are supported in by their members. But Senators do err, and the free exercise clause might suffer under the weight of such spurious investigations of churches and synagogues that sap resources and consequently chill free exercise, and free speech.

This last concern, the right of the churches in America to preach against sin to the salvation of the sinner, is the gemstone many legislators have been constructing gear and tackle for, over several years now; with the design of seizing it away. Wayward actions like this one only gives them more leverage.

Anthony and Grady have allowed their personal dissatisfaction with apparently false Christian sects, or apostates, to cloud their judgment; thus making it hard for them to discern the times and appreciate the larger picture. This is a clearly a case where they should have sought to conquer evil with good, the good news of the gospel and real Christian doctrine rightly preached (or wrote about in columns, in papers, on in websites). In particular, Grady’s magazine Charisma is not without room for improvement in this area.

The gullible and the simple will be mislead and fooled by the charlatans and the cults until the end. We do no service to the gospel by endeavoring to outlaw those religions that we disagree with, or know to be false. A very wise man once said of a similar vane that we must suffer some abuse of the press to keep it free. Christians should be willing to suffer a little more for something much more important: the freedom to preach the gospel. This is not to say that we should suffer a false gospel for even one minute, but we are to confront it with the truth, and not with the arm of the law.

Notes:

^1. Lillian Kwon, “‘Prosperity’ Televangelists Probed for Possible Financial Misconduct,” The Christian Post, November 07, 2007.
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20071107/29989_%27Prosperity%27
_Televangelists_Probed_for_Possible_Financial_Misconduct.htm

^2. Lillian Kwon, “More Questions Raised in Probe of Preachers,”The Christian Post, December 04, 2007.
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20071204/30344
_More_Questions_Raised_in_Probe_of_Preachers.htm

Much speculation has taken place over end time prophecy passages, and those found in 2 Thessalonians are no exception. Specifically, the verse found in chapter two which states: “And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie:” (2Thess 2:11). The purpose for the delusion is for all to be damned who believed not the truth and also had pleasure in unrighteousness. Two components of this verse which have received the most attention as to what their substance might be are the lie and the strong delusion. It has been suggested that “the lie” is exactly that, with the definite article preceding the word lie in the text, and that it is actually a personage: the Antichrist, son of Satan.

Support for this view is lent from the words of The Rejected King: “When he [Satan] speaketh a lie, he seaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:44). Again, the definite article is employed, and it should read: the lie. Indeed, Jesus touches on the aspect of Satan being a father earlier in the passage; and elsewhere Jesus, while He was rejected even though he came in His father’s name, He said that the Jews would receive one in the future as Messiah who came in his own name (John 5:43), but what is the strong delusion God will send, or allow?

Others speculated further that the lie is not only symbolic for a person, but also the worst lie that can be told; namely that Jesus is not the Messiah, and that he, the Antichrist, is. In order to get the world’s population to believe him, he will invoke supernatural deception using fallen angels who will pose as space brothers come to help usher in a new millennium after the departure of those unpopular Christians who have been taken off the earth in the rapture of the Church. Using many signs and lying wonders to work his deception, most will be deceived (2Thess. 2:9).

For excellent treatment on this topic, see “The Upcoming Great Deception” by Stephen Yulish PhD, and “Why are Aliens Green?” at Drywind. To see how pervasive the deception is already being orchestrated, see “UFO sightings bring town to a standstill” in The Dailymail.