Resurrection According to Rob Bell

By Justin Edwards

Words fail me. Rob Bell has reduced the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to a fantastical film production.  Instead of teaching that Christ came to the earth to be the atoning sacrifice for sins of the unrighteous once and for all, that God's wrath was poured out on His own Son for the full payment of the debt of sin, that His glorious resurrection conquered the grave and provides for His children to be raised with Him from death to life, and that all who believe in Jesus and His finished work on the cross will be saved from sin's consequence - eternal hell, Poet Bell gives us an abstract of crafty words for the tickled ear. There is no salvation in this message - it is only a vague, elaborate presentation of futile nothingness. Rob Bell is a wolf leading countless to the slaughter. Rob Bell needs to repent. Rob Bell needs Jesus.

2 Peter 2

Destructive Doctrines

 ¹ But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. ² And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. ³ By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber.

Doom of False Teachers  

⁴ For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; ⁵ and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly; ⁶ and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly; ⁷ and delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked ⁸ (for that righteous man, dwelling among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds)— ⁹ then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment, ¹⁰ and especially those who walk according to the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise authority. They are presumptuous, self-willed. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries, ¹¹ whereas angels, who are greater in power and might, do not bring a reviling accusation against them before the Lord.

Depravity of False Teachers  

¹² But these, like natural brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed, speak evil of the things they do not understand, and will utterly perish in their own corruption, ¹³ and will receive the wages of unrighteousness, as those who count it pleasure to carouse in the daytime. They are spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you, ¹⁴ having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls. They have a heart trained in covetous practices, and are accursed children. ¹⁵ They have forsaken the right way and gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; ¹⁶ but he was rebuked for his iniquity: a dumb donkey speaking with a man’s voice restrained the madness of the prophet.
¹⁷ These are wells without water, clouds carried by a tempest, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.

Deceptions of False Teachers

¹⁸ For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error. ¹⁹ While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage. ²⁰ For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. ²¹ For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. ²² But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: “A dog returns to his own vomit,” and, “a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire.”

Biblical Assurance of Salvation - Part 2

By Justin Edwards

Last week I posted the first part of this series Biblical Assurance of Salvation - Part 1 where Paul Washer made the call to examine oneself as the Apostle Paul exhorted the church in 2 Corinthians 13:5: 

Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified.

Washer continues in the series with a focus on 1 John 1:8-10:
 

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.

If we do not acknowledge our sin, if we say we do not sin, we greatly deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. More than that, we call the Lord over all creation a liar!  Let it be known that a new relationship with God means a new relationship with sin. If you are not sensitive to the sin in your life, if you claim to not be sinning when you are living in it, then your very soul may be hanging in the balance.

Please watch this 30 minute message and use it as a tool to examine yourself. Please pray for the Lord to soften your heart and gives you ears to hear. Throw away your pride and take a few moments to examine your heart. If you have not watched the first message, please do so. If it sounds like I am begging - I am.

Biblical Assurance of Salvation - Part 2 mp3

Rick Warren's Guests of Honor at Easter - The Jonas Brothers

From Crosstalk Blog:  Jonas Brothers Rock Rick Warren’s Easter Service

Commentary – by Ingrid Schlueter

The girls were screaming, biting their fists and swooning as the Jonas Brothers took the stage for Rick Warren’s Saddleback Easter service at Angel Stadium. The reportedly smokin’ hot boy band sang some well-known Easter hymns like “Hold On”, “A Little Bit Longer”, and this doctrinally heavy number:

Everytime I think I’m closer to the heart
Of what it means to know just who I am
I think I’ve finally found a better place to start
But no one ever seems to understand
I need to try to get to where you are
Could it be you’re not that far?
You’re the voice I hear inside my head
The reason that I’m singing
I need to find you
I gotta find you
You’re the missing piece I need
The song inside of me
I need to find you
I gotta find you
Oh yeah
You’re the remedy I’m searchin’ hard to find
To fix the puzzle that I see inside
Painting all my dreams the color of your smile…

Joe Jonas apparently thinks that Jesus Christ is his girlfriend as you can see in this video where he performs the same number in a non-Easter venue. But none of this bothers Rick Warren, of course, who is clearly too thrilled with his new fan, popular Reformed author and teacher, John Piper, to worry about whether Joe Jonas and his own church members actually know who Jesus Christ is.

There is something almost surreal about seeing someone like John Piper now openly endorsing Rick Warren as “doctrinally sound.” Rick Warren and his Purpose-Driven version of Christianity has taken on the flavor of French farce. Boy bands, thousands of girls and women screaming in lust, secular pop songs instead of Christian hymns, Rick Warren tweeting about his “baptisms” live from the scene of the Easter comedy—you could not possibly make this up.

Yet now we have someone internationally respected for his serious books on theology and the Christian life, grinning like crazy on video as he defends the Grand Circus Master of the First Church of the Jonas Brothers.
Whatever personal crisis has led John Piper to this tragic and horrifying turn in his ministry, he should be held accountable for the incredible damage he is doing to the Gospel by this very public meltdown. The time to take a sabbatical is before embracing the guy in the pastoral clown suit, not after—unless the sabbatical is intended to become permanent.

Those of us with young people to raise in our homes are now further challenged to try to explain just how someone with the vast biblical knowledge of John Piper can openly endorse one of the most damaging false teachers of our time. Rick Warren is not damaging because he lacks the right answers theologically. He is damaging because those biblical answers have had no influence on his public ministry. Orthodoxy is worthless if it never leaves the realm of the books on his shelf. Right theology needs to be the bedrock of a pastor’s preaching and ministry life. Anything less leads to a corrupt view of Jesus Christ and a false gospel. Just ask Joe Jonas.

Note: Please read this excellent piece by Daniel Chew regarding Rick Warren’s failed orthopraxy.

Dead to Sin but Alive to God

By Mike Ratliff
 

6 But the righteousness based on faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down) 7 or “‘Who will descend into the abyss?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); 9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. (Romans 10:6-10 ESV)

I write this on April 3^rd 2010, the day before Easter. Of all the markers we celebrate as Christians, Easter was the one I had the hardest time understanding when I was a small child. It seemed so wrapped up in chocolate bunnies and Easter baskets, Easter egg hunts, dressing up in new clothes for church, et cetera. My mother tried to help me see the Biblical connection with our Lord’s Resurrection, but I failed to make sense of it until I was older. I saw it as a teen and young adult, but did not really  “get it” until God had mercy on me, a sinner, and resurrected me unto new life as a Christian.


Even so, when God took me through spiritual boot camp in 2004, I found through it that I had also made the mistake after my salvation of attempting to be pleasing to God via obedience by my own will power (law keeping). After all, the Christian culture I was part of back then was that salvation was some sort of reward for believing and that that believing was within ones own faith and was manifest via one opening the heart to Christ or believing the Gospel by “making up ones mind,” et cetera. It is no wonder that those in that form of Christianity struggle so with the true nature of Christ’s Resurrection and the true impact it has on believers. One of the key passages God opened up to me during that that He used to line me up with His Word, His Truth, the true purpose of the Gospel, and how it works was Ephesians 2:1-10. Here are vv 8-10.

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:8-10) ESV)

Here we clearly see that we are not saved as a reward for believing, but our faith, through which we do believe, is part of the gift of God. We know this because in v9 Paul makes it clear that this is “not a result of works.” If we could look at our salvation and say we have it because we believed then it would be works. On the other hand, if we look at the Gospel and understand that we believed because of God’s resurrection work in us, then we have the scriptural sense right. In v10, Paul tells us that, in this resurrection from spiritual death to spiritual life, we are God’s workmanship, not our own. Also, in that verse, we see that this is a resurrection created in Christ Jesus for good words, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. What is this?

1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:1-4 ESV)

Our Lord’s death on the Cross atoned for our sins. He was our Propitiation. His death, burial and resurrection together is a picture of our salvation. When God saves us, we are new creations. Our old spiritually dead self dies and is resurrected unto newness of life. Paul tells us in these verses that our salvation is not license to walk according to the flesh. No, the fact that some Christian leaders and so many of their followers believe that is tragic. Paul isn’t comparing the Christian walk to law-keeping here. The key for us to understand this is to see the picture of our dying with Christ on that Cross, being buried with Him in that tomb, and being resurrected with Him on the 3^rd Day. We see magnitude of it. Our hearts become filled with gratitude expressed by a joyful surrender as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable unto Him. We devote our lives to being transformed by the renewal of our minds (Romans 12:1-2). Living sacrifices are those resurrected unto this new life in Christ to walk in newness of life.

5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:5-11 ESV)

Our Lord’s death on the Cross was purposeful. He died because He took our sin upon Himself as our Propitiation before the Father. His resurrection makes clear that He has defeated both sin and death. What does it mean for the Christian to be dead to sin? It means that we have died to our pervasive love for and ruling power of sin. The reality of its power being broken in my life came during that spiritual boot camp I mentioned above. When these truths became part of my understanding of the Gospel and who I am in Christ, I saw very clearly that the mastery of sin had been broken in my life by God’s work of resurrection there. Since then, I am saddened when I see professing Christians so patterning their lives after the world and its ways. It does not bode well for the health of the Church when this is so prevalent.

2 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. (Romans 6:12-14 ESV)

This is talking about our sanctification is primarily accomplished as God takes us through His cleansing regimen that includes the Mortification of Sin. We go through tests and trials. We learn to walk in repentance in the power of God. We never forget that we are in Christ by God’s grace, not by our works. He has saved us unto these good works, but they are for His glory and our sanctification. I love v13. This is dying to the desires of the flesh and, instead, seeking God for His glory. He will edify us if we do this as we present ourselves to God as instruments of righteousness.

These promises for the believer in no way promise perfection in this life. They do not remove the fact that we live in mortal bodies that age, get sick, and die. My dad was a good man, but, in God’s timing, he aged, got sick, and died. He was not under the dominion of death spiritually. In God’s timing his body will be resurrected as mine will. I so look forward to that and I can with confidence because both of us are in Christ by faith through God’s grace.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Biblical Assurance of Salvation - Part 1

Justin Edwards

We all need Biblical assurance of our salvation. Suppose you have doubts because of the lifestyle you are living. We cannot trust ourselves to whether we are saved, we must go to the Word of God to determine God's will and His sure-fire test of how we can know we are saved. It's what God's Word says about our life, not what we say about it or what others say for us.

There are many who believe there one-time confession or "decision" for Christ is all they need to spend eternity in heaven. If this is you, have you ever examined yourself in light of Scripture? Do you believe you can live any way you want to regardless of what God clearly says in His Word of what a Christian should look like and how a Christian should live? Are you banking on the modern message of "carnal Christianity" and think that you might just get to heaven by the skin of your teeth?

Have you ever considered you have been taught wrong? Have you ever considered what you believe is not Scriptural at all? Have you ever considered you are living a lie? Have you ever considered you have believed in vain? Have you ever considered your faith is dead? Have you ever considered you're not saved at all? Have you ever considered you've been pretending all along? Have you ever considered you may be on your way to an eternal hell?

Do you want to change that? Do you want to KNOW that you are saved? Do you want proof of that?

Are you ready to do it God's way?

Are you ready to examine yourself? 2 Corinthians 13:5,

Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified.

The following is part 1 of 5 from a series by Paul Washer on Biblical Assurance of Salvation. This is serious business, my friend. We must all examine ourselves by the Word of God to make sure what we believe is true and make sure there is clear evidence of the salvation we profess in our lives. The Bible is our guide and we must use it, study it, know it, live it, and love it as if our life depended on it - because it does. Are you prepared to leave earth in the state that you're in? Are you sure about that?

Please take the test so you can know. Don't rely on past experiences or previous words or prayers you've spoken. You must examine yourself God's way. After all, the Bible says "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9)

Don't trust your heart. Take the test. Listen to these upcoming messages and get your nose in the Word of God. Time is running out.

If you need someone to talk to after watching this video, just as Paul Washer says, I will talk to you and guide you until you understand what salvation is, and until God has convicted you by the Holy Spirit to surrender your life to the Lord Jesus Christ. As long as it takes, I will serve you by the grace of God. May He be glorified.  

Biblical Assurance of Salvation - Part 1 mp3 

Atheist Holiday (VLOG)

By Justin Edwards

A Florida judge delivered a unique message in court when a group of Atheists petitioned for their own holiday.

John Piper Explains - March 31, 2010

By Justin Edwards

John Piper took some time yesterday to explain why he has invited ecumenical ear-tickler Rick Warren to his Desiring God 2010 conference. While I disagree with Piper's decision to invite Warren, I will remain in prayer that Rick Warren is exposed for who he is, that the truth about him will be revealed and he won't be able to slither out of tough questions, that the Holy Spirit convicts him unto repentance, and that God use this time for His glory.  Until then, we will have to wait to see how this pans out.

John Piper’s Reason

April 1, 2010 by pastorboy

 
Here, John Piper gives a detailed explanation as to why he is inviting Rick Warren to speak. A lot of my friends who agree with me about what rotten fruit the purpose driven life is, and the whole pragmatic approach to church growth are very angry about this whole idea of inviting Warren to speak. I have to admit, it is not a choice that I would make if I were inviting people to speak.

I am not, however, going to judge Piper’s whole ministry according this move, or even the Driscoll or Wilson move. As a Pastor, I have personally bungled many things and made poor decisions that I have later regretted (and even had to repent of some). But the whole of Piper’s ministry over time, and the respect he has among peers such as RC Sproal, and Albert Mohler, I personally must cut him some slack concerning this decision.

That means that I will not cut off affiliation with John Piper, and I might still attend the conference with a critical ear towards seeing if Piper does in fact ask the hard questions and Warren does in fact satisfactorily answer them. But just like in the Christian walk, we must do more than say words and what we believe, we must walk them out. I am eagerly anticipating to see Warren walk out his beliefs and use his huge worldwide pulpit to declare them, even hoping against all hope that he repents publicly of his pragmatism, his ecumenism, and, indeed, his system which he has intended for good, but has been used to take over and to decimate churches, turning Pastors into CEO’s and Elders into board members of a fortune 500 company.

There is much that has been written and documented about Warren, and his beliefs. There is much more that has been recorded both on video and audio that demonstrate how those beliefs translate into the public sphere. The man Piper believes he is inviting is 167 degrees different than the public presentation; which I believe demonstrates what he (Warren) really believes.

I am going to cut Piper some slack. I am still going to read his books. I am still going to listen to his sermons. I am not going to break fellowship with him because he invited Warren. But I will have a keen eye to see if this will change the public personna of Warren, and a listening ear to see if Warren throws off the pragmatic, man centered approach to ministry. Here is hoping that he does.