Spin the Bottle at Potential
With the mission statement of partnering with people to reach their God potential, Potential Church steps “puts a new twist” on an old game.
They are soliciting “the most daring questions” we have, which they will place on “the big screen.” Questions they will give “bold answers!”
In the video clip posted on http://SpinTheBottleNow.com, Pastor Troy poses a sample submission and asks, very titillatingly… “Is every sexual position okay?”
Which he answers with the same goofy smirk he asked it with, “Well, some are more pleasurable than others.”
In light of what Paul say in 1 Corinthians 10:23
“All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up.
I ask, while this sort of thing may be permissible I want to know… is it helpful?
Perhaps, but does it build up?
Maybe, let us press on.
The answers to my questions are not definitive, but let us explore the context of what Paul was saying by reading further…
24 Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor. 25 Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience. 26 For “the earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof.” 27 If one of the unbelievers invites you to dinner and you are disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience. 28 But if someone says to you, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat it, for the sake of the one who informed you, and for the sake of conscience—
But it this does not bother my conscience. Hmmm… I do not think there is anything in the Christian life that is about me, so why start here?
Paul, seemingly speaking to our me center Christianity of this generation, has to say…
29 I do not mean your conscience, but his. For why should my liberty be determined by someone else’s conscience? 30 If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of that for which I give thanks?
What is Paul saying… that I am to protect my brothers and sisters from offense?
You betcha!
31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. 32 Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, 33 just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved.
Using titillation to attract people to church is not useful to all, and not helpful to all. It certainly may offend some brothers and sisters. To knowingly bring offense is clearly against the teachings of the bible.
So why do it?
Is it to attract people, through carnality, in hopes they will hear the gospel?
I certainly hope not. But I think Paul Washer can help to explain the reasons why. You see, if you use carnality to attract visitors… you end up with a carnal church. This is plainly evident! Watch Paul Washer explain why…
To my brothers and sisters who call this church their home, I ask… Are there any sheep in your church starving to death?
If you can answer no, I would ask frankly, how do you know?
You see, this carnality is being used to further Hegelian dialectic in the church. This dialectic is what is being used to divide the real church from the apostate church. It is happening today!
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Why Evolution Cannot be True
This is a response to Dan Kuik‘s comment posted to the article Is there any hope for this generation?
I shall try to explain this the best way I can. To some it may be very difficult indeed to hear. I know there are a lot of committed Christians who are scientists, and I praise God for them. It is truly a difficult field to be called into. These scientists are not idiots, however, they may very well be deceived.
As Christians, we are not against science, either. However there are some “sciences” that are truly exist in a gray area between philosophy and science. They are mistakenly accepted as true empirical science, but are not directly observable. Among these are psychology, sociology, and evolution. These fields of research lend themselves to grand theories based on an incorrect philosophy. These philosophies are grounded in stories that may have some truth within them. But regardless of the content of some truth they are still, nevertheless, stories.
The field of science truly endeavors to make sense of creation. Yet, what began as an innocent desire by humanity to understand who we are, it has now gone awry.
That desire to understand, as innocent as it began, has given birth to delusion. This delusion is now being used to deceive people, giving them a convenient excuse to deny God and live their lives as they see fit. It infects them with the irrationality that all truth is relative. Regardless, many trod down that wide path.
This practice, unstopped, leads to destruction and sadly, death. It is this innocent desire that births delusion, then deception, in turn becoming destruction, and finally death. It is the basis for all sin.
First off, let’s establish some things 2 Timothy 3:16 says that all scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness. I will use scripture alone. It is the essence of instruction from a holy God.
Second, I contend that the days we live in are indeed the last days, the signs are plentiful. For my reference, I will use 2 Timothy 3:1-5.
“But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. (2) For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, (3) heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, (4) treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, (5) having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.
Paul goes on to say that such people are “always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.” (2 Timothy 3:7) This is because when using an incorrect philosophy as a basis, one cannot do true science. To begin with one that excludes the very Author and Creator of life will always belie the same!
One must be on guard for this delusion. Jesus Himself said “See that no one leads you astray.” (Matthew 24:4) But one strong warning comes in 1 Timothy 4:1, Paul says “in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons.” In fact Jesus, in Matthew 24:24, says the deception will be so strong “so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.” Those are some strong warnings!
But we must, as watchmen, stand on the wall and warn others. It is not our intention to “pit God against evolution.” Simply for the fact that the converse is already true, evolution has pitted itself against God. I would dare say it exalts itself against the very throne of the Most High.
Satan’s favorite tool is deception, in fact, he is called the deceiver. He also disguises himself as an angel of light, as Paul warns us in 2 Corinthians 11:14 “And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.”
But as with every deception of the enemy, he loves to use it coupled with truth. But a lie, no matter how small, coupled with a truth, no matter how great, is still but a lie. Paul warns us of this by saying a little leaven leavens the whole lump. (1 Corinthians 5:6)
Through subtle deception, evolution exalts itself against some of the very foundational doctrines of the faith. I contend that evolution CANNOT be true in the light of God’s word.
There are too many to go through in a post such as this, so I will choose one.
If, as is posited by Dan, God “used” evolution JUST to create a man, that means that millions of creatures would have had to die before there was even the first man. This means that evolution must establish that man exists as a result of millions of years of death!
But, my Bible teaches me something entirely different. It tells me that man was created by the will of God from the dust of the ground. It tells me that man was created good. It also tells me in Romans 5:12 that death is the result of man’s sin! In fact, because of that first man’s sin, we all inherited that propensity.
So as I see it, man’s wisdom teaches that death brought man, but God says man brought death!
Those two ideas cannot coexist!
Therefore, evolution, as purported, cannot be true. We would have to deny sin, which brings us back to the deception. 1 John 1:8 ” If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
Sin hardens by deceit… Hebrews 3:13. Scoffers are here and they plainly mock Christianity… 2 Peter 3:2-6. Unrighteous people suppress the truth… Romans 1:18.
We need to stand firm… 2 Thessalonians 2:15.
It is not that “Human beings have no less purpose in life,” but that One human’s purpose is then not necessary (John 3:14-17.)
When we read the bible, the warnings are plentiful. Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:21-23 are indeed truly sad. This is an admonition to examine ourselves regularly, and against the very word of God, to identify and deal with that deception. Lest we find ourselves standing in His very presence hearing those fateful words… depart from me.
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The Danger of Sincrety
Today, many are given to this air of reconciliation. Political apologists would have you believe it is centrism or really, being moderate or better, progressive, somewhere between the political extremes of liberalism and conservatism. The real essence of the problem, is that capitalism without morality tends to the anarchy of lust and greed. This is dangerous enough, having liberty requires exercising self-discipline and responsibility. They call it the Third Way. The Third Way is sincrety, simply stated, trying to unite two irreconcilable things. These irreconcilable things are not what they would have you believe, let me explain.
As a society we are encourage to forget God. In so doing we have driven morality out of our schools, our homes, our entertainment and even our government. In return, there is a lack of self-control (Galatians 5:22-23) and personal responsibility, lawlessness grows. Consequently, this requires more of an external control and temperance, usually in the form of government.
This governmental control attempts to dictate morality and communal behavioral standards that apply to institutions and individuals alike. As personal self-control wanes, the reigns of government control must become tighter. This is the tipping the other end of the scale, and the centralized, command-and-control tyrannies of socialism, communism and Marxism. This type of government become dangerous because morality is rooted in the heart of the individual by God and is exercised in relationship to and knowledge of God. When the individual forgets God, and his responsibility to God, and the government then has to dictate morality, it becomes the arbiter of morality, deciding what is right and what is wrong. This is extremely dangerous.
The genius of our founding fathers, was finding a middle ground between these two extemes of anarchy and tyranny. One where the morality of the individual was recognized as God given. And with that personal morality, came sovereignty. This sovereignty required liberty, such that came from God and the government could not take away! They established a ance of power in governmental structure and prohibited the government from infringement on individual rights. This form of government recognized that sovereignty is bestowed upon the individual and not the government!
In the history of the world, this had not been done. As most governments place sovereignty in a person or particular group of rulers, not so in the United States.
The Third Way is not some reconciliation between partisan political extremes, but it is a way to reconcile these two forms of sovereignty. One that requires the individual to cede his control to that of another, transferring sovereignty to the government. Eventually, the government will be the arbiter of freedom, providing the individual with choices. This is just another version of the lie… the one Satan told in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3:1-7. In essence, he took the freedom Eve had to eat of every tree of the garden, and gave her choices; she could remain as she was, or she could be like God.
Look around, we see it everywhere… corporations are bad, yet they pay our wages. Government is good, yet it dips its hand in your pocket to steal your sweat. Becoming a parasite on government largess is good, working hard to provide for your family is not.
Marriage is seen as a restrictive covenant, not as to only benefit the furtherance of a society through procreation. But its very essence must be bended and twisted to satisfy individual whims of indulgence, relegating the ability of marriage as the primary vehicle to sustain society to obscurity. Eventually, that very society shall end up on the refuse heap of history. (That can be the only logical conclusion!)
This sincrety can be non-sensical , as in the claim that carbon-dioxide is a pollutant, when it is necessary for plants to grow and thrive.
Oftentimes it is subtle, as when we are told pregnancy is not always a human carrying another individual human being. Instead we are asked to believe it is really a lump of tissue, or worse, a parasite! We know, without the benefit of science it is another INDIVIDUAL human being.
The problem with sincrety, is the same as Paul asked in 1 Corinthians 5:6 “Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?”
Think about it, we let a little error cloud our thought processes, will the preponderance of right thinking win out, or will that little bit of error, pollute all of our thinking?
The battle for control of the church has begun… the weapon of choice is SINCRETY! It is even predicted by John in Revelation 3:15-16, Jesus is speaking and says of the church of Laodicea “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”
Is this not a warning from the Savior Himself to be very wary about coupling irreconcilable things?
Why do we accept Yoga in the Christian church?
Yoga at best is against Christianity. It is a system of works based on merging with God. Though some of the language sounds the same, it is a system of works. The poses in Yoga are meant to teach the body how to die! Just peering at the five basic truths of Yoga is enough to make me run!
Why do we accept the peace sign in the Christian Church?
Take the time to find out why. It is not simply a symbol to bring about peace, but is being used to sincretize all of society. It has many different stories of its creation. However, some every citation couples some nefarious meaning to it. One cites its creation to a group with communist and Marxist sympathies. Regardless, it is a symbol of rebellion… and we attempt to reconcile it with our Christianity. That is precisely what it was used for in the 1960s, to rebel against the church and society Curiously, it is accepted and adored by many Christians today!
Why do we celebrate movies like Harry Potter and New Moon in the Christian Church?
They are really good moral stories, but that evil stuff is thrown in just for fun. Come on, incantations and vampires, are not true, yes, but some are carried away unawares. I mean seriously, we are to take character lessons from Edward (a vampire) and proclaim his testimony?
Is Jesus Christ not good enough?
And most dangerous of all, why do we accept the emergent church movement in the Christian Church?
With its focus on the here and now, social justice and sustainability… this is the near end-game of seduction. As Christians, we are encouraged to pray for God’s kingdom to come… it will be a Earthly kingdom, yes. However, it is not our home, or even our hope. Our hope is eternal, as it is written in Revelation 22:14 “Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates.”
There is a war being waged… it is spiritual. It is being waged for individual hearts! It is both overt and subtle, through using subterfuge and Hegelian dialectic it reaches deep into the church snaring elders and pastors. The powers-that-be may just be useful pawns, however they serve the father of lies. He is hard at work, knowing as we, that his time is fleeting. These leaders are moving us to the place we are warned to stay away from… medicority. Jesus Himself warned us of His reaction to mediocrity in Revelation 3:16… “I will spit you out of my mouth.”
I would even point to a hint of this prediction in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, recorded in the Daniel 2:31-45. The image Nebuchadnezzar saw in his sleep was impressive… and it is easily explained by Daniel with revelation from God.
The image is sort of “timeline” of world empires, with the gold head representing the Babylonian empire. Each empire deteriorates, as is evident in its movement from the more prominent position of the head on the body and composition of better materials. As each succesive empire appears, it occupies a less prominent place in the body and the material is of slightly inferior value and density. We find ourselves somewhere close to the feet and toes of the statue… the toes being the final empire. Here is where it is stated in Daniel 2:41-43 as follows:
And as you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom, but some of the firmness of iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mixed with the soft clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle. As you saw the iron mixed with soft clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay.
Here you see sincrety described in the form of iron mixing with clay… but they do not hold together, because iron does not mix with clay.
Christian be wary of everything you are taught… even from your own church leaders. As is written in 1 John 4:1-6:
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
Christian… you can be taught another Jesus. The enemy is working out the last pieces of his dominion. This is his lie, dominion theology taught by the emergent church, to realize Utopia in the here and now. He is using the language of the Christian to lure away captives unaware. Words like justice, hope, kingdom, conversion and salvation arer being used to connect concepts that are biblical with a concepts that are extra-biblical and prideful.
The emergent church is calling for “conversions that can change lives, neighborhoods and this world,” that is meant for the community. It is a gospel of communitariansim (better communism,) and relativism. It is not the true Gospel of the shocking individual recognition of personal sin that leads to responsibility, repentance and service to a holy and loving God through salvation in Jesus Christ.
So let’s be clear: sincretism… in other words is oxy-moronic!
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