The Dismembering of America Part II

Here is an excellent clip by Brannon Howse that explains well who the Marxists among us are (yes, Martha, that includes B. Hussein Obama!), where they came from, and why they are evil. He begins with Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals."

How about somebody writing a book called, "Rules for Americans?"

BTW, they are in our churches, too:

The Dismembering of The United States of America

. . . is well advanced.

Don't believe it?

Then take a look at this:

We Need True Revival in America

"To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil freedom, and political and social happiness which mankind now enjoys. . . . Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of government, and all blessings which flow from them, must fall with them."

--Jedidiah Morse

HT: News With Views/Dave Daubenmire

Law and Gospel In a Nutshell

To run and work the law commands,
Yet gives me neither feet nor hands;
But better news the gospel brings:
It bids me fly and gives me wings.

You see, the law has no power to give what it demands.

The gospel does.

That is why the gospel is "the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes." Romans 1:16

--HT: Between Two Worlds (poem attributed to John Berridge)

The Big Picture: Very, Very Good News

“The purpose of creation, redemption, and consummation are seen holistically as God’s purpose to glorify Christ by fulfilling the Adamic creation mandate, the universal Noahic promise, the patriarchal covenants, and the Israelite monarchy in Him, thus exalting Jesus as preeminent over the entire cosmos as the agent of creation, the true imago Dei, the Davidic subjugator of all rival powers, the firstborn of the eschatological resurrection from the dead, and the atonement through whom final cosmic peace is found at last (Col. 1:15-23).”

- Russell D. Moore, The Kingdom of Christ (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2004), 108.


“The resurrection and exaltation of Christ accomplish a new unity between heaven and earth, for Christ now has a heavenly body (1 Cor. 15:42ff), a body of glory (Phil. 3:21) and His humanity is now in heaven (Phil. 3:20f; Col. 3:1; Eph. 1:20ff; 6:9), and both serve as a pledge of the ultimate unity of the cosmos in Christ (Eph. 1:10).”

- Andrew T. Lincoln, Paradise Now and Not Yet (Cambridge, UK; Cambridge University Press, 1981), 192.

HT: Of First Importance

Ted Kennedy: Sadly Lost

Ted Kennedy's letter to the Pope shortly before his recent death is very sobering. Every believing Christian should read it and think soberly on these things.

It is obvious that Ted Kennedy was not saved. There is no evidence of saving faith and no assurance whatsoever in this letter. In fact, the language he uses repeatedly shows that he was striving to earn his way into heaven:

"...I have tried to right my path."

"...I have done my best..."

"I have worked..."

"...my work as a United States senator..."

"...I am committed to doing everything I can to achieve..."

And the final clincher,

>"I have always tried to be a faithful Catholic..."

How sad. How very, very sad.

Oh my friends, may all of you who are Roman Catholics or have come out of Roman Catholicism see and take note of the life and infinitely tragic death of Ted Kennedy! False religion always teaches salvation by works, but the true Gospel is that nothing you can do will ever earn your salvation! Stop your striving, and rest in Christ and His once-for-all finished work alone!

"By the works of the law no flesh will be be justified in His sight." Romans 3:20 NASB

More Gospel, More Doing!

I promise you, some of the best people in your churches are getting tired. They don’t need another rah-rah pep talk. They don’t need to hear more statistics and more stories Sunday after Sunday about how bad everything is in the world. They need to hear about Christ’s death and resurrection. They need to hear how we are justified by faith apart from works of the law. They need to hear the old, old story once more. Because the secret of the gospel is that we actually do more when we hear less about all we need to do for God and hear more about all that God has already done for us.

Kevin DeYoung

--HT: Between Two Worlds

Who Said it?

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches... were for the most part little more than Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more than happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the 'winning' side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another....

The answer is ... Pravda, in a recent editorial describing America's rapid descent into Marxisum.

"Pravda" is Russian for truth; in this case, Pravda certainly lived up to its name.

Come to Him

--HT: Defcon

Richly Deserved Chains

So now, the Iowa attorney general says, "We must live by and follow what the courts decide" -- after the Iowa Supremist Court tried to overrule the divinely ordained order of marriage between one man and one woman. Not content with that mockery, this elected official is now threatening county workers with lawsuits if they do not abdicate their consciences and go along with this tyranny.

And no one seems to care what is happening to our freedom to make our own laws through our own elected officials

Really? We "must live by and follow what the courts decide?" If the Iowa Supremist Court decided you had to hold a loaded gun to your head and pull the trigger, would you "live by and follow what the courts decide?"

Do we even recognize the voice of tyrants any longer? Tyrants are ruling us now -- they are just wearing black robes and pretending to be high priests of a profane holy order that worships the human wisdom that is foolishness to God. (I Cor. 1:25)

If we go along with this tyranny like cows, then we richly deserve the chains which will surely bind us and our children before long.

The Moment De Toqueville Spoke of Has Arrived

The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.

~ Alexis de Tocqueville (1835)

The Gospel of Satan vs. The True Gospel of God -- Can You Tell the Difference?

A terrific piece from A.W. Pink spells out for us what the false gospel of Satan looks and sounds like. This false gospel "aims to make this world such a comfortable and congenial habitat that Christ's absence from it will not be felt, and God will not be needed." It "appeals to the best that is within."

Ouch! Where have you heard this false gospel lately?

Where have you NOT heard it lately?

The gospel of Satan is not a system of revolutionary principles, nor yet a program of anarchy. It does not promote strife and war, but aims at peace and unity. It seeks not to set the mother against her daughter nor the father against his son, but fosters the fraternal spirit whereby the human race is regarded as one great “brotherhood.” It does not seek to drag down the natural man, but to improve and uplift him. It advocates education and cultivation and appeals to “the best that is within - It aims to make this world such a comfortable and congenial habitat that Christ’s absence from it will not be felt and God will not be needed. It endeavors to occupy man so much with this world that he has no time or inclination to think of the world to come. It propagates the principles of self-sacrifice, charity and benevolence, and teaches us to live for the good of others, and to be kind to all. It appeals strongly to the carnal mind and is popular with the masses, because it ignores the solemn facts that by nature man is a fallen creature, alienated from the life of God, and dead in trespasses and sins, and that his only hope lies in being born again.

HT: Slaughter of the Sheep

Every Believer Should Study Theology

“No Christian can avoid theology. Every Christian has a theology. The issue, then, is not, do we want to have a theology? That’s a given. The real issue is, do we have a sound theology? Do we embrace true or false doctrine?”

R.C. Sproul

What Lies Ahead: "Christianity Loves a Crumbling Empire"

This article by the Internet Monk is worth reading completely. I think it is mostly on-target. The evan-jelly-fish church in America is quite possibly in for a serious and rude awakening.

What is the answer? A return to solid, Biblical theology. In a word, think Biblically and act accordingly:

We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.

Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the "Protestant" 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century.

This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good.

Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I'm convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close.

Why is this going to happen?

1. Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This will prove to be a very costly mistake. Evangelicals will increasingly be seen as a threat to cultural progress. Public leaders will consider us bad for America, bad for education, bad for children, and bad for society.

The evangelical investment in moral, social, and political issues has depleted our resources and exposed our weaknesses. Being against gay marriage and being rhetorically pro-life will not make up for the fact that massive majorities of Evangelicals can't articulate the Gospel with any coherence. We fell for the trap of believing in a cause more than a faith.

2. We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we've spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.

3. There are three kinds of evangelical churches today: consumer-driven megachurches, dying churches, and new churches whose future is fragile. Denominations will shrink, even vanish, while fewer and fewer evangelical churches will survive and thrive.

4. Despite some very successful developments in the past 25 years, Christian education has not produced a product that can withstand the rising tide of secularism. Evangelicalism has used its educational system primarily to staff its own needs and talk to itself.

5. The confrontation between cultural secularism and the faith at the core of evangelical efforts to "do good" is rapidly approaching. We will soon see that the good Evangelicals want to do will be viewed as bad by so many, and much of that work will not be done. Look for ministries to take on a less and less distinctively Christian face in order to survive.

6. Even in areas where Evangelicals imagine themselves strong (like the Bible Belt), we will find a great inability to pass on to our children a vital evangelical confidence in the Bible and the importance of the faith.

7. The money will dry up.

What will be left?

•Expect evangelicalism to look more like the pragmatic, therapeutic, church-growth oriented megachurches that have defined success. Emphasis will shift from doctrine to relevance, motivation, and personal success – resulting in churches further compromised and weakened in their ability to pass on the faith.

•Two of the beneficiaries will be the Roman Catholic and Orthodox communions. Evangelicals have been entering these churches in recent decades and that trend will continue, with more efforts aimed at the "conversion" of Evangelicals to the Catholic and Orthodox traditions.

•A small band will work hard to rescue the movement from its demise through theological renewal. This is an attractive, innovative, and tireless community with outstanding media, publishing, and leadership development. Nonetheless, I believe the coming evangelical collapse will not result in a second reformation, though it may result in benefits for many churches and the beginnings of new churches.

•The emerging church will largely vanish from the evangelical landscape, becoming part of the small segment of progressive mainline Protestants that remain true to the liberal vision.

•Aggressively evangelistic fundamentalist churches will begin to disappear.

•Charismatic-Pentecostal Christianity will become the majority report in evangelicalism. Can this community withstand heresy, relativism, and confusion? To do so, it must make a priority of biblical authority, responsible leadership, and a reemergence of orthodoxy.

•Evangelicalism needs a "rescue mission" from the world Christian community. It is time for missionaries to come to America from Asia and Africa. Will they come? Will they be able to bring to our culture a more vital form of Christianity?

•Expect a fragmented response to the culture war. Some Evangelicals will work to create their own countercultures, rather than try to change the culture at large. Some will continue to see conservatism and Christianity through one lens and will engage the culture war much as before – a status quo the media will be all too happy to perpetuate. A significant number, however, may give up political engagement for a discipleship of deeper impact.

Is all of this a bad thing?

Evangelicalism doesn't need a bailout. Much of it needs a funeral. But what about what remains?

Is it a good thing that denominations are going to become largely irrelevant? Only if the networks that replace them are able to marshal resources, training, and vision to the mission field and into the planting and equipping of churches.

Is it a good thing that many marginal believers will depart? Possibly, if churches begin and continue the work of renewing serious church membership. We must change the conversation from the maintenance of traditional churches to developing new and culturally appropriate ones.

The ascendency of Charismatic-Pentecostal-influenced worship around the world can be a major positive for the evangelical movement if reformation can reach those churches and if it is joined with the calling, training, and mentoring of leaders. If American churches come under more of the influence of the movement of the Holy Spirit in Africa and Asia, this will be a good thing.

Will the evangelicalizing of Catholic and Orthodox communions be a good development? One can hope for greater unity and appreciation, but the history of these developments seems to be much more about a renewed vigor to "evangelize" Protestantism in the name of unity.

Will the coming collapse get Evangelicals past the pragmatism and shallowness that has brought about the loss of substance and power? Probably not. The purveyors of the evangelical circus will be in fine form, selling their wares as the promised solution to every church's problems. I expect the landscape of megachurch vacuity to be around for a very long time.

Will it shake lose the prosperity Gospel from its parasitical place on the evangelical body of Christ? Evidence from similar periods is not encouraging. American Christians seldom seem to be able to separate their theology from an overall idea of personal affluence and success.

The loss of their political clout may impel many Evangelicals to reconsider the wisdom of trying to create a "godly society." That doesn't mean they'll focus solely on saving souls, but the increasing concern will be how to keep secularism out of church, not stop it altogether. The integrity of the church as a countercultural movement with a message of "empire subversion" will increasingly replace a message of cultural and political entitlement.

Despite all of these challenges, it is impossible not to be hopeful. As one commenter has already said, "Christianity loves a crumbling empire."

We can rejoice that in the ruins, new forms of Christian vitality and ministry will be born. I expect to see a vital and growing house church movement. This cannot help but be good for an evangelicalism that has made buildings, numbers, and paid staff its drugs for half a century.

We need new evangelicalism that learns from the past and listens more carefully to what God says about being His people in the midst of a powerful, idolatrous culture.

I'm not a prophet. My view of evangelicalism is not authoritative or infallible. I am certainly wrong in some of these predictions. But is there anyone who is observing evangelicalism in these times who does not sense that the future of our movement holds many dangers and much potential?

The Gospel and Anarchy

If the power of the gospel is not felt throughout the length and breadth of this land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery, corruption and darkness will reign without mitigation or end.

— Daniel Webster

What Is Sin?

The glory of God not honored,
the holiness of God not reverenced,
the greatness of God not admired,
the power of God not praised,
the truth of God not sought,
the wisdom of God not esteemed,
the beauty of God not treasured,
the goodness of God not savored,
the faithfulness of God not trusted,
the commandments of God not obeyed,
the justice of God not respected,
the wrath of God not feared,
the grace of God not cherished,
the presence of God not prized,
the person of God not loved.

-- John Piper, The Greatest Thing in The World (sermon on Romans 1-7)

The Gospel Is the Greatest Thing in the World

(HT: CRN)

Every Man To His Post

War will always rage between the two great sovereignties until one or other be crushed. Peace between good and evil is impossibility; the very pretence of it would, in fact, be the triumph of the powers of darkness. . .

Glory be to God, we know the end of the war. The great dragon shall be cast out and for ever destroyed, while Jesus and they who are with Him shall receive the crown. Let us sharpen our swords tonight, and pray to the Holy Spirit to nerve our arms for conflict. Every man to his post, ye warriors of the cross, and may the Lord tread Satan under your feet shortly!

-- Charles Spurgeon

HT: Defcon

My Orders Are To Fight

My orders are to fight;
Then if I bleed, or fail,
Or strongly win, what matters it?
God only doth prevail.

The servant craveth naught
Except to serve with might.
I was not told to win or lose,–
My orders are to fight.

--Welsh poet Ethylwyn Wetherald

Rescuing the Gospel from Evangelicals: Kirk Cameron & John MacArthur On...TBN?

TBN (Trinity Broadcasting Network) has become known for false teaching, but Pastor John MacArthur and Kirk Cameron (Fireproof) hit the nail on the head here.

This is the uncompromised Gospel!

If you haven't seen the movie Fireproof yet, don't wait another minute.

(HT: Puritan Fellowship)