Never Move On

Last year, I discovered this lady on XM radio and was automatically drawn by her profound lyrics.  She is the worship leader at James MacDonald's Church, Harvest Bible Chapel.  She's about 29, and there is no doubt that her songs are specifically singing to or about Christ.  These aren't New Age positive messages, this is real Gospel singing.

I decided to showcase this song because of my constant battle against "New Kinds of Christianity" that creep into the church unnoticed due to people not checking their Bibles to see if what people say lines up with what Christ said.  First Brian McLaren cropped up with his New Kind of Christian, which, to borrow a phrase, is neither new nor Christian.  Then he duped Rob Bell into tossing out Sola Scriptura in favor of loving people and building heaven on earth. 

The key line in this song, "Never Move On" is, "I don't need a new truth.  All I need is more of you.  Do the Cross I will run for all my Savior has done.  I will stay here never move on."  Listen to this song and then move on to more of Meredith's stuff.  You'll be impressed.

The Monkey

Inspired by Eddie Eddings's latest Random Word challenge.

Monkey, monkey in the dark
Come with me into the park
There some folks will reenact
Christ's death, resurrection and other facts.

The monkey looked upon the nails.
However, his understanding fails.
For saving him, this cross had no use
He only saw cosmic child abuse

How sad this ape should so thinketh
Even Bell said of himself in his book, "He stinketh."
Unless you see this man as God,
Of course you'll think all this is fraud.

God gave himself to save us from
Death and sin and heathendom.
Unless you accept his life and death
And life again, you'll perish yet.

Giving Thanks

I'm kind of inspired by Pilgrim Mommy or Persis who keeps a blog called Tried by Fire.  She writes a thankful list every Thursday in keeping with Thanksgiving.  I can't say I'll do this every Thursday, especially since today is Wednesday, but I do this often in my prayer list.  Usually I have a long list that takes me more than a week to pray through every name, and when I'm done I start over.

So, I'm like a DJ, I'll sing from a hymn book to pray and dedicate each song to each prayer request and I do about ten songs a day.  But when I start a new page of prayer list, I take one day off to just sing the hymns.  then I take a day to dedicate the songs to things I'm thankful for.  Then I go on with complaints and normal prayer requests.  I start a new list this week, so when I get to the thankful part, I'll post them here.

1.  I'm thankful for the internet.  Seriously.  It's like a blessing and a curse but you realize how you can spread the Gospel with this thing?  You don't even need to leave your pajamas.  Just write a blog.  The Great Commission has never been so lazy.  And I'm so introverted in real life.  When I started a Xanga blog years ago, it's like I started communicating better.  Now I have a Blogger blog.  I hope to keep this up.

2.  I'm thankful that I have a home.  Jesus had no place to lay his head, and I have a whole upstairs to myself.  And it's still clean from when one of my mother friends came over to help me clean when Mary was moving in, but I'll save her for later.

3.  My dad.  My mom was so blessed to have married a guy like him.  My mother passed away two years ago, and my dad does whatever he can for me and my autistic brother.  He lets me live with him for free, pays my taxes, gives me money, and he is a godly man.  I'm so much like him that our personalities clash but deep down, Andy Smith is my hero.

4.  My church, Trinity Evangelical Presbyterian Church.  Not only am I thankful for that church, but for the pastor and his wife.  Scott and Debbie Emmons.  I've known them a long time.  Debbie was one of mom's best friend and has been a mother to me the past two years.  I had so much trouble finding a church home out of seminary, and they decided to let me on as their youth pastor.  I've seen the youth group grow from 0 to about 10 if everybody who came came at once.  Nothing short of God's work.  I also joined the church, which probably wouldn't have happened, but I was so wanting to not have my name associated with the PCUSA anymore.  So, now I'm EPC fo reals.

5.  Mary Steward.  She has regularly watched Andrew, my brother, and now she has moved in with us and it gives me so much more freedom.  It gets me out of the house more.  Perhaps I really will find a job now.

6.  I have more time on my hands.  I also have more time to get my Erskine Transcript to Clayton State University.  I had in my head the idea that the application was due June 15.  No, it's July 15.  Whew!  I can breathe now.

7.  My church children.  I love those kids.  They are all different ages, and some come from sad situations, but they are all so sweet, and most of them are pretty profound theologically.  And more testifying to God's veracity, one of my 8th graders accepted Christ at home a few weeks ago and I can tell.  She finally has accepted the Trinity and is really deep when she gives answers.  The Lord has really moved in her family who hadn't really gone to church before they joined us.

8.  The Normans.  They have a 17-year-old boy with many disabilities, including autism and Down's Syndrome.  He has many problems.  I've babysat him for 10 years now.  I'm so thankful that they use me and I even get paid.

9.  Sunshine and lawnchairs.  I live in Hotlanta.  It's been a drought, but I also keep it freezing in my room, so it's like a treat to sit outside in a lawnchair.  I don't have a swimming pool, but if I sweat enough, I feel the same effect.

10.  And it's raining tonight, a much needed rain.  Sadly, the lawnchair, which is made of cloth, will be soaked.  But I may just sit in it tomorrow in my swimsuit.  Then I'll have a swimming pool.  Yay!

Adventures with David

Today was week two of Beth Moore's lessons on David.  I still think her David study was my favorite one and it's just as good doing it a second time. 

First, we had prayer time.  The lady leading the group today, while praying, said something disturbing, "We worship you the most."  I thought, "The most?"  Does that mean we worship something else?  We aren't to worship God the most, we're to worship him alone.  He is God and he shares his throne with no one.  But that had nothing to do with Beth's lesson and I never could find a good moment to correct her.

Very good discussion today on Saul.  Saul is a very interesting case because the Holy Spirit actually left him!  I think Beth made a strong case for Perseverance of the Saints by citing Romans 3:38, nothing can separate us from the love of God.  Beth assumed that the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament did leave people before Jesus's death and resurrection.  Afterward, Jesus assures believers that once we have the Holy Spirit, he'll never leave.  This strikes me odd because the same God rules both the testaments.  My study Bible notes said the same thing as Beth, and this was from before Zondervan started publishing Wrong Bell's hogwash. 

I don't think Beth is wrong, because the OT does say that the Spirit left Saul, but I see it as Saul never having anything to do with him in the first place.  It seems that in the OT, the HS did only come to specific people such as prophets and leaders to guide them in their jobs.  He did this for Saul at first, but Saul kept resisting and resisting the Spirit until at last Saul insisted on doing things his way, making himself God.  This still seems to contradict Irresistible Grace to me, but then, I never get the idea from Scripture that God ever intended for Saul to be a permanent king, which leads me to my next musing...

One lady commented that if Saul had repented for his deeds perhaps God would have kept him on the throne after all.  Maybe, but I doubt that.  Saul, like Beth said last week, had a name that meant "asked for."  The people asked for a king, and God gave them what they "asked for," Saul.  He was a good looking, tall king, who later proved to have a big ego and had no clue what he was doing.  He certainly did not seek the Lord's direction while leading his people.  God intended David to be a Messianic figure, as he was an ancestor of Christ.  God wanted to show them his ideal king, a man who did everything for God and not for himself.  He also wanted to foreshadow Christ, God in the flesh, the true Savior that the Pharisees and Sadducees did not expect.  They wanted a warlord who would defeat the Romans, not a man who would come to save the Romans along with the Jews. 

Finally, one line from Beth that disturbs me that almost on Arminian territory.  I'm fairly certain from past studies that Beth is at least a fan of Calvin and Spurgeon, but has enough Arminian theology to keep being published by LifeWay.  "Remember, the cross would have been God's worst defeat had the people not had cause to exclaim, 'He's alive!'"  Beth's point is that we should always affirm that God is true and alive in the face of Goliath and people like him, but what Beth actually said is the the cross might possibly have been one of God's defeats.  She did not mean that, but still, God always planned to crucify Jesus to save us.  Satan did not want Jesus crucified and did whatever he could to stop him.  But Jesus had to die for us so that we could be saved and so that we could properly glorify him one day.  God would not be the God he is had he not needed to save us from some evil.  So no, the cross would never have been a defeat, and if Mary Magdalene had not spread the Word of his resurrection, someone would have. 

It was like the other day when one of my 8-year-olds asked me, "What if everybody died at once?"  I assured her that's not going to happen.  She kept asking.  So I finally explained, there will be a day when Jesus comes.  He'll take all his followers to heaven and then he will burn all those who hated him in the fire and they will spend eternity in hell.  But I wandered to this scenario because both Beth and my friend were bringing up scenarios that can't happen.  Until Christ comes, nobody's going to die all at once, and there will never be a time when the cross is a defeat.  In fact, it's God's greatest victory.  Perhaps some hyper-Calvinism is getting in the way of my thoughts, because we are responsible for telling people that God is alive and that Jesus is Lord, but ultimately, God controls all that.

I would love your thoughts!

Implicit Faith

Rejoice!  I have finally downloaded Michael Horton's The Gospel Commission onto my Kobo.  I've only read the introduction and part of the first chapter so far, but I know it will be very good and helpful in my ministry.

"Discipleship cannot mean going with the flow; it requires swimming against the current not only of contemporary culture but often of contemporary church life and experience."  This is my facebook status at the moment.  All too often if teenagers don't drop out of church when they go to college, then they find some mega-church that may or may not teach the true Gospel.  And if you live in Conyers, GA, then you may have attended such a church your whole life, though it may or may not be a mega-church.  I was part of this culture in high school at my PCUSA home church.  


It was like my church was two churches.  There was the old crowd that stuck to tradition and hated the idea of anything other than piano and organ in church, much less drums.  And there was the new crowd that wanted contemporary music and other instruments.  I'm still part of the latter crowd though I have a foot in both worlds.  Now, Smyrna has a sprawling youth group with many programs, but I don't think any of them truly knows what it means to live as a Christian.  I can't tell many of them apart from non-Christians I know of.  In fact, most unbelievers are better behaved.


It's the problem with implicit faith.  American churches take for granted that if they do know the true Gospel, then the children automatically know it.  This is a fatal error.  You have kids that don't even know that Jesus is God in the flesh or that he rose from the dead.  They grow up hearing, "Jesus did this," as if Jesus is our great moral example, but they can't live up to that, nor do they want to because they think Jesus is just some weak guy who cries all the time.


Few people in Rockdale County know that Jesus is to be the supreme ruler of their lives.  We have Christians that sleep around, live with their significant others, look at horoscopes, and support homosexuality.  They even go green.  They say they believe in Christianity, but they have no idea what that means, and we have failed as society to teach the next generation the ABCs of the Gospel.  Their faith is implied, though they don't know what we believe. 


And lastly, there is a growing confusion of people who don't think church is necessary for spiritual growth.  I was at Borders today and saw a guy I had met last year at a friend's house.  The friend had said he's a Christian, but he doesn't go to church.  That's not possible.  Although there are plenty in churches who aren't Christians, if you are a Christian, you will go to church.  


And lastly, there is this one church on Conyers I visited for a special program.  The kids are out of control.  Not only do they run wild, they shout profanities at the age of 6.  The people light up cigarettes, forgetting that people would like to not get cancer and live past 50.  And for the summer, they are basing their sermons off of movies.  They have the cool lights and music, but they don't have true Bible teaching.  At best, they have moral teaching from characters in the Bible.  Morals do not help if Jesus is the one ruling them.  I seriously don't see that church producing godly fruit, just people who want their golden ticket to heaven and live the rest of their lives as they please.


Let Jesus be the Lord of your life, and find out what he really says and who he really is in the Bible.  The Bible has the Words that can awaken you to eternal life, not some movie or electric guitar.

Holy Spirit vs. Beelzebub

Matthew 12:22-37 is the text that I used for Children's Church today.  That's right, children.  Three girls ages 7 and 8.  And on Pentecost.  Please read the text because I'm not going to quote it.


This is the text where Jesus heals a man with a demon, and then the Pharisees try to say he did that by the power of Satan or Beelzebub.  First I had them define a demon.  A demon is an angel who decided that he hated God and followed Satan in his fall.  Beelzebub, of course, is just another word for Satan who was also an angel one.  Jesus had healed a man by the power of the Holy Spirit, and the Pharisees credited the miracle to Satan. 

It was at this point that Jesus declared that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is the only unforgivable sin.  Blasphemy can be defined as saying anything about God that is not true and attributing evil to him.  Have you ever worried about blaspheming the Holy Spirit?  If so, then you have not committed this sin.  Some commentaries say that you cannot commit this sin today.  I disagree, but God's unelect who die without accepting Christ will be unforgiven because they resisted him their whole lives. 

Some examples of how people come close to blaspheming the Spirit: there was a blog where someone used Biblical evidence to prove that people cannot be perfect before going to heaven.  A commenter said that the blog was Satanic.  This blogger used much research to honor God and what the Word actually says, and a commenter carelessly attributed such honesty to Satan.  I don't know if the commenter committed the unforgivable sin or not, but he or she did come close.  If so, then that person has no remorse over it and will always think himself right.

I think another way to blaspheme Christ, if not the Holy Spirit, is to go green.  Environmentalism is a very pagan religion.  Jesus already saved the planet.  We don't have to do it for him.  In fact he is building a new earth for all people to live on.  And when he comes back, there will still be a planet.  We don't need to worry about greenhouse gases and carbon footprints.  In fact, people who go crazy over the environment not only have no faith in God's salvation, they hate people.  They want less children to be born, babies to be aborted, but you will never be able to tell them that they are wrong.

At this point, I compare and contrast the Holy Spirit with an evil spirit.  The Holy Spirit is God himself.  Only Christians have access to the Holy Spirit.  Evil spirits are not equal to God as they are only evil angels.  They try to get into all people's lives.  You can let them in, but you cannot get rid of them by yourself. 

In verses 43-45, Jesus explains how a demon will leave a person, that person gets cleaned up, but then he leaves the house empty, so the spirit comes back with 7 friends and makes that person worse than before.  The problem here is he left the house empty.  He moralized his life on the outside, but he never invited a replacement for the filth that was cleaned out.  Only one person can keep a person clean on the inside, and that is Jesus, therefore you have to pray every day for the Holy Spirit's direction.  He'll even remind you to pray.

Finally, Ephesians 6 says to put on the whole armor of God.  Not your armor, God's armor.  Not some of the armor, but all of it.  Really, it boils down to constantly reading the Bible and praying each day.  God will lead you to what is right and do the rest for you.

Excellent John MacArthur Sermon

I know, all of John MacArthur's sermons are excellent.  But this one totally changed the course of my blog tonight.

In this sermon, MacA highlights very thoroughly attacks on the Bible from the Fall of Man in Genesis 3 to the Jesus Seminar today.  It confirms many things in my mind.

First thing, the PCA denomination is not as conservative as it thinks it is.  He quotes a passage from a Reformed magazine by a PCA pastor about how the Bible is not completely authoritative.  If I recall, this is how the PCUSA got into the trouble it's in back in the days of Karl Barth.  Now the PCA is going this route.  All too often I see PCA people fudging on topics that should be obvious.  Tim Keller supports evolution and BioLogos which claims to be Christian but won't even give credit to intelligent design, much less young earth creationism.  A PCA friend fell into Rob Bell's teachings and didn't understand why I had to rebuke her.  Granted I did it in the comments section on facebook and not in a private message.  But still, it needed to be done.  And now, this anonymous guy writing this article in this reformed magazine.  It makes no sense to stick with complementarianism when you can't even believe Sola Scriptura anymore.  You just become average chauvinists.

Next, I'm even more against the Shack now.  Before watching this, I thought the only thing I did like about the book was its portrayal of the Trinity.  Now, MacA quotes some guy from the 80s who decided that the Trinity was three people who were united by love and who wanted to draw as many children in by love and understanding.  This is totally reflected in the Shack.  It's no wonder I can't read past the fifth chapter of the book.  I finished Velvet Elvis.  I cannot finish the Shack.

Finally, "anyone that claims continued revelation attacks the Bible."  Amen.  There are plenty of people out there who I respect such as Pat Robertson (gotta stick by the Republicans) who are claiming Words of Knowledge but then turn around and say "prophecies" about Haiti that are totally inappropriate.  But we need no more revelation than what God has clearly given us through Jesus and the Bible.  Any extra revelation led to many cults such as Mormanism and even Islam.  If the Holy Spirit truly tells you something then it's going to be found in Scripture, not some word telling you to brush a stranger's hair in the airport.

Any other ideas people?  Watch the video.  It'll be the most riveting hour of your life.  Never mind the idiot audience laughing like the annoying kid at a movie that won't shut up.  Pay attention to what MacArthur says.