Read the Gospels: JC is not PC (John MacArthur)

Let's be brutally honest: most of Jesus' teaching is completely out of sync with the mores that dominate our culture.
I'm talking, of course, about the Jesus we encounter in Scripture, not the always-gentle, never-stern, über-lenient coloring-book character who exists only in the popular imagination. The real Jesus was no domesticated clergyman with a starched collar and genteel manners; he was a bold, uncompromising Prophet who regularly challenged the canons of political correctness.

Consider the account of Jesus' public ministry given in the New Testament. The first word of his first sermon was "Repent!"--a theme that was no more welcome and no less strident-sounding than it is today. The first act of his public ministry touched off a small riot. He made a whip of cords and chased money-changers and animal merchants off the Temple grounds. That initiated a three-year-long conflict with society's most distinguished religious leaders. They ultimately handed him over to Roman authorities for crucifixion while crowds of lay people cheered them on.

Jesus was pointedly, deliberately, and dogmatically counter-cultural in almost every way. No wonder the religious and academic aristocracy of his generation were so hostile to him.

Would Jesus receive a warmer welcome from world religious leaders, the media elite, or the political gentry today? Anyone who has seriously considered the New Testament knows very well that he would not. Our culture is devoted to pluralism and tolerance; contemptuous of all absolute or exclusive truth-claims; convinced that self-love is the greatest love of all; satisfied that most people are fundamentally good; and desperately wanting to believe that each of us is endowed with a spark of divinity.

Against such a culture Jesus' message strikes every discordant note.

Check the biblical record. Jesus' words were full of hard demands and stern warnings. He said, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost?" (Luke 9:23-25). "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple" (Luke 14:26).

At one point an unthinkable Roman atrocity took the lives of many Galilean pilgrims who had come to worship in Jerusalem. Pilate, the Roman governor, ordered his men to murder some worshipers and then mingled their blood with the sacrifices they were offering. While the city was still reeling from that awful disaster, a tower fell in the nearby district of Siloam and instantly snuffed out eighteen more lives.

Asked about these back-to-back tragedies, Jesus said, "Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish" (Luke 13:2-5).

Ignoring the normal rules of taste, tact, and diplomacy, Jesus in effect declared that all his listeners were sinners in need of redemption. Then, as now, that message was virtually guaranteed to offend many--perhaps most--of Jesus' audience.

Those with no sense of personal guilt--including the vast majority of religious leaders--were of course immediately offended. They were convinced they were good enough to merit God's favor. Who was this man to summon them to repentance? They turned away in angry unbelief.

The only ones not offended were those who already sensed their guilt and were crushed under the weight of its burden. Unhindered by indignation or self-righteousness, they could hear the hope implicit in Jesus' words. For them, the repeated phrase "unless you repent" pointed the way to redemption.

© Copyright 2009 by John MacArthur. All rights reserved.

From: http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/grace-to-you/read/articles/read-the-gospels-jc-is-not-pc-9614.html

Song for Sarah (Randy Stonehill)

This means a lot to me. It was the first Christian song I ever heard, and it was shared by a very special guy in my life:

Why we Don't Hold Our Pastors Accountable?

The church has had enough spin, denial and closed-door settlements. Leaders must demonstrate humility and repentance.

A few years ago a minister in my city went through a divorce, and the messy details of the settlement between the pastor and his wife were reported in our newspaper. But when the divorce was finalized there was no public statement. The man’s wife disappeared from the stage, her photo vanished from the church website and nothing further was said. Zip. Nada. No comment.

The message: It’s none of your business what happened between the pastor and his wife. He’s the anointed messenger of God. Just follow him.

Another pastor in my city stepped down from his pulpit briefly for unknown “indiscretions”—and then it became known that he had been carrying on an affair with a stripper from France. The man never resigned from leadership, and his wife eventually divorced him. Today, this preacher appears on Christian television, and he still has a following.

The message: Anointing is what’s important. Character is secondary. If a guy can preach the paint off the walls and get everyone shouting, then relax—it really doesn’t matter how he runs his personal life.

Then last month, Bishop Eddie Long of Atlanta settled out of court with four young men who had accused him of using gifts, trips and jobs to entice them into sexual relationships. The pastor of 25,000-member New Birth Missionary Baptist Church told his congregation last fall that he would fight the charges. But in late May, Long agreed to pay an undisclosed amount to the four men, and the terms of the agreement were sealed. The church said in a statement that the settlement was engineered “to bring closure” and that the congregation will now “move forward with the plans God has for this ministry.”

The message: Case closed. We are never going to tell you what happened. It really doesn’t matter whether your pastor committed serious sins.

Is this how we’re supposed to run a church? I don’t think so. Neither does Bishop Paul Morton, founder of the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship and a former colleague of Eddie Long’s. Morton rebuked Long in a recent sermon and demanded that he come clean about what happened with his accusers.

Morton aired his public message to Long on June 19, saying: “If you have repented, show me some signs. Show me some humility. You can’t just come and tell me nothing. Tell me something. Those who have stood with you, tell us something. Tell your church something.”

The issue at stake here is crucial: Should a pastor who falls into serious sin—or who is just accused of a serious sin—respond publicly and address the charges? Does he need to be open with his congregation? Or does the Bible give him immunity? Does his standing as a Christian leader give him permission to hide his faults from view?

In the squirrelly world of independent charismatic churches, where accountability is sometimes a dirty word, some pastors think their ability to make people shout and swoon on Sunday mornings gives them a Get Out of Jail Free card whenever they commit a heinous sin. But I don’t see that concept in Scripture, especially when I read the Apostle Paul’s list of required qualities for church leaders in 1 Timothy 3. Notice these:

“An overseer must be … above reproach” (3:2, NASB). The King James Version translates this as “blameless.” That doesn’t mean leaders never sin. But it means his or her record is important. The Greek word is anepilemptos, which means “cannot be laid hold of; not open to censure.” In other words, if a man bilked people out of thousands of dollars, he’s not qualified to be in ministry now because his reputation would bring a reproach on the gospel. A Christian leader should not have a dark cloud of scandal hanging over his head.

“An overseer must be … the husband of one wife” (3:2). Christians have argued for years about whether this verse disqualifies people who have gone through a divorce. Regardless of that aspect, most scholars agree that the sense of the phrase means “a one-woman man”—in other words, sexually pure. Church leaders should not be involved in adultery, fornication, homosexual affairs, perversion or sex with minors. Period.

“An overseer … must have a good reputation with those outside the church” (3:7). Again, the inference here is that a leader’s past is important. If he is dragging the baggage of past marriages, children out of wedlock, rumored affairs or criminal activity, he has no business in the ministry unless those issues can be fully resolved.

“Deacons … must not be double-tongued” (3:8). While this qualification is mentioned for deacons in Paul’s list, I mention it here because we charismatics are the masters of spin. “Double-tongued” comes from the Greek word dilogos, which means “saying one thing with one person and another thing to another, with the intent to deceive.” Sound familiar? People who talk out of both sides of their mouths certainly cannot preach an uncompromised gospel. And liars cannot be trusted to give us the truth.

God has abundant mercy and forgiveness for all of us when we fail Him. But when a leader fails, he must walk through the humbling process of restoration—and this requires full confession, authentic repentance, willingness to accept discipline from others and the good sense to step out of the pulpit, when necessary, until he can be trusted again.

Repost from http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/2011/July02/0251.html

Translation: Bible Cover in Portuguese

Postagem em português.

I translated Lisa Hamblin's pattern (with permission) into portuguese. Photo shows my finished project from her pattern.

Link above takes you to the Portuguese post for this pattern or click
Download the free pattern in Portuguese. The original version is located on Lisa's site at Crochet n More

On Ravelry you can find it in Portuguese or English.

McGee on the End Times: Spiritual Condition of America

What is the spiritual condition of America today?

Dr. David Reagan and I recently had the pleasure of asking this question of our old friend Evangelist Don McGee on the show Christ in Prophecy. Don is the founder and director of Crown & Sickle Ministries (Rev. 14:14) based in Amite, Louisiana. Don travels all over the Unites States preaching about the soon return of Jesus Christ and speaking at Bible prophecy conferences.

Dr. Reagan: Judge Robert Bork was a man who was nominated to be on the Supreme Court. It's a tragedy he didn't make it because he was just personally crucified. Judge Bork wrote a powerful analysis of American society in 2003 called, "Slouching Towards Gomorrah," in which he indicated that our nation like the Old Roman Empire was being destroyed by internal moral rot. Would you agree, and what would be your assessment of the spiritual condition of America today?

Don McGee: I think Judge Bork hit it just dead on. If that analysis was written today, it wouldn't be "Slouching Toward Gomorrah," I think it would be "A Headlong Fall Into the Morass of Evil." I believe that things have gotten much worse since he wrote that. We can see today that there are so many things which are contrary to God's nature and what He said about morality that are being put out there for acceptance by the public. We are not longer a God fearing nation.

I'm reminded of something that President Lincoln called for in the dark days of the Civil War. He called for a National Day of Prayer and Repentance. He said a lot of things in that call which you can pull up on the Internet and read what he said. One of the important points he made was that we have allowed our prosperity and our independence to propel us into a position where we think we've got everything. It's like we believe we've got a tiger by the tail on a downhill drag, meaning that we don't need to worry about God anymore. But, that is just not true.

Lincoln made that remarkable statement of his, and it basically attributed the whole Civil War as being due to our rebellion against God. He believed we needed to go to our churches and our synagogues and spend a whole day repenting and praying. I think if a President were to issue such a declaration like that today there would probably be an immediate move to impeach him. That's how far we've moved away. And, in a presidential election, I believe that if a candidate would stand up and say, "A National Day of Prayer and Repentance is what I will institute once I am inaugurated," I think that person would feel heat like no president ever has. I believe that he is going to see heat from different directions, too. He's going to see it from the Hollywood elite. He's going to see it from Wall Street. He's going to see it from Madison Avenue. He's going to see it from the Halls of Congress. But, more importantly, he's going to see it from a lot of so-called Christians.

Dr. Reagan: What are some of the indicators of moral rot in America today?

Don McGee: For one, the perversion of homosexuality being accepted as a normal lifestyle and as something that is genetically normal. Supporters of homosexuality even go as far as saying they're born that way, and that it is genetic and they can't do anything about it.

Dr. Reagan: Did you think you would ever live to see churches endorsing same-sex marriage?

Don McGee: When I was a young man I thought that would never happen. Not only are they endorsing same-sex marriages, but many of their leaders who are also practicing homosexuals and lesbians are being ordained as bishops and priests and preachers in direct opposition to God's Word. They pick a pig-path through the Scripture. They take scissors and they cut out what doesn't agree with them.

Nathan Jones: In cutting out the words of God that they don't agree with, they're acting as if Jesus isn't God and doesn't have anything to say about this sin?

Don McGee: Yes, how can you argue with the plain Word of God? In fact, these people don't even argue with it anymore because their hearts are so calloused. They just flat out reject it.

Then, there's the murdering of babies. No country can escape the wrath of God when they kill millions of little babies every year before they are even born. That is sin like other things are a sin, but to harm the innocent is from what I see in the Old Testament and in the New Testament when Jesus said, "Let the little children come to Me," indicates to me that there is a special place in the great heart of God for the innocent.

Dr. Reagan: What about national debt? I consider that to be an immorality.

Don McGee: Stewardship is something that is taught throughout the Bible. Anytime you spend more then you take in, at least in my house, debt arises.

Dr. Reagan: What we are doing right now with out debt would be the equivalent to me going out and buying a fifty million dollar mansion and signing an agreement to pay for it over the next 200 years, putting that debt on my children, my grandchildren, and even my great-grandchildren. That would not be a moral action.

Nathan Jones: Years ago Japan passed something like an inheritance tax where their people could actually sign a contract like for a loan on a house and then pass that expense onto their grandchildren to pay for it. I remember we as a nation all got up in arms about the injustice of that tax when hearing of it, but now even ten years later we are doing the exact same thing to our children, we just don't point it out this time.

Don McGee: You can't make such debts yourselves at your house because you can't print money, but if you are the government then they can print as much money as they want, though it incurs debt and inflation.

Dr. Reagan: There are just so many signs of moral rot in America today. One of them certainly is vocabulary. I remember that in 1939 the first movie ever to have a curse word in it was Gone with the Wind. It was held up by the censors for several months because it had just one curse word in it right at the end. Today, you go to the average movie put out by Hollywood and the language is just absolutely overwhelming in terms of every horrible word you could possibly think of. We've become desensitized to cursing.

Don McGee: Absolutely! I just concur whole-heartedly. Recently I was in a family restaurant and there was a family of four: mom, dad, two kids. The language that was coming out of that father's mouth in front of his little children was absolutely atrocious, but he felt no problem using it.

Nathan Jones: Just go to the playgrounds. My kids play with other kids who swear like sailors. It sad that they are so young and you know they learned those words from their parents.

Don McGee: When I was a teenager, I didn't think girls burped. That was something they just didn't do, but I certainly knew that girls did not use that kind of language. Today, their mouths are as filthy as any sailor that I have ever heard. So, the weaker sex as it used to be called is no longer immune from that kind of degradation and foul language.

Dr. Reagan: We see a lot of moral decay has come from greed. Greed seems to be the motivating force in America today. No matter how much I've got, I've got to have more. This is certainly an indication of the moral rot of the nation. There are just so many signs of this decay. It's rather like the Old Roman Empire all over again in terms of its internal moral rot.

Don McGee: Another aspect of the decay is gambling. When you talk about gambling, you talk about a god. What you are doing is practical atheism. You are believing that you are in control of your life and that you are going to insure your future. You believe that what God has given you is not sufficient and so you've got to go out and get it some other way. For every one person that wins, a thousand people have to lose.

Dr. Reagan: One of the problems is that professing Christians are involved in all of this sin, too. If professing Christians would stop getting abortions, the abortion mills would have to close. If professing Christians would stop buying lottery tickets, they wouldn't have them. Because 85% of the people in America profess to be Christians, it could be argued that we are part of the problem.

Don McGee: Yes, I think that one of the reasons for this is because people really don't understand what "Christian" means anymore. It's become a cultural thing. They believe that since they were raised in a Christian home and went to church maybe once a year that they are a Christian. Cultural Christians claim that since their dad was a preacher or a deacon and their mom was a Sunday School teacher, then automatically they are a Christian.

Nathan Jones: What's sad about all this immorality, this not having the foundation of the Bible anymore, and I remember seeing it a lot especially during the 90's in songs by Alanis Morissette and others, is that after all this pleasure does not fulfill then apathy sets in. People have filled their lives with so much pleasure that never ever satisfies them that they end up becoming hopeless.

Dr. Reagan: That's a good point, Nathan, because most of our children today don't even know basic Bible stories like Adam and Eve and Moses. They don't even know the basic biblical concepts. They are quite biblically illiterate and so they have no moral basis upon which to make moral decisions. They have to turn to television which teaches you to solve all of your problems with violence.

In the next part of our discussion with Don McGee concerning the end times, we'll ask him why there are so many different end time viewpoints.

False Teachers! "Agony of Deceit" [Prosperity Gospel-Word of Faith]

The abundance of false teachers is becoming so much more apparent, I don't know if it's the Holy Spirit showing me the wolves in my path, and He did this VERY clearly recently. I thank Him that I was able to see through the charlatan & I left that Church the very next week!

This video was powerful! James 3:1 says "Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment." Until recently I meditated on this verse and wondered exactly what the "stricter judgment" referred to. I believe these false teachers lead many who are lost to reject the Gospel, they are greedy money grabbers who live in luxury, preach prosperity theology and Old Testament tithing..........thereby effectively leading the lost right to hell - and for that they will be severely judged by God.

Many of the false teachers and the heresies mentioned in the video below are often exposed on the site www.pulpit-pimps.org. Check it out, bookmark and and read it often. It will sharpen your skills at spotting a wolf in sheep's clothing.

ALL we have belongs to God. Giving is important, but as 2 Corinthians 9:7 teaches, it needs to be given with the right heart attitude "Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver." However, we must be good stewards and not give to greedy and false teachers. That is not . You will find many of the ones mentioned in the video below living in luxury, check out Televangelists' Lifestyles.

The first rabbinically approved sacrifice in 1500 years has been performed in Israel

It's been 1500 years since there has been a rabbinically approved sacrifice to take place in Israel and the rabbis did approve a Gentile who trained under the leadership of selected rabbis to perform the sacrifice of two turtledoves recently in Israel. The ceremony took place in the Jordan Valley near Jericho as a number of rabbis watched to make certain all Levitical laws were kept in the offering of these two doves.

There are a number of religious Jews that have been preparing for the building of the temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem who believe that Jews need to become accustomed once again to the offering of animals for the sacrifices called for when the temple is once again standing in Jerusalem.

Jimmy's Prophetic Prospective on the News


A rabbinically approved sacrifice being performed in Israel is tangible evidence that Bible prophecy will be fulfilled. Since the destruction of the Jewish temple in 70AD there has not been an opportunity for Jews to offer any of the required sacrifices called for under Levitical law. Over the last 2000 years there have been several occasions in different parts of the world where rabbis would approve the offering of animals in sacrifice but nothing compared to the days when the temple was standing in Jerusalem. Recently a Gentile, one trained by a number of rabbis, performed a sacrifice of two turtledoves in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea, the first rabbinically approved sacrifice in 1500 years.

This is a part of a program to prepare the Jewish people for the restoration of the sacrificial system that is called for in the first 7 chapters in the book of Leviticus. Daniel 9:27 reveals that the sacrificial system will be restored when there is a temple in Jerusalem. Even the Messiah's temple described in Ezekiel 40-46 calls for sacrifices to be restored as a part of daily Jewish life. There will be two temples in the future for the Jewish people, one in the Tribulation period and then another in the time of the Millennial Kingdom of the future. In both of these temples, sacrifices will be made. In fact for the next temple all preparations have been made and its ready to be built in Jerusalem even right now.

A sacrifice made in Israel recently is indeed evidence that Bible prophecy will be fulfilled.