Saturday, March 26, 2011

Don't Debate The Truth: Proclaim It

John MacArthur, "An Honorable Vessel" Part 2.

Thirdly, and now we come to this morning's section, a discerning mind. If you are to be a vessel unto honor, God desires that you have a discerning mind. And this is familiar turf for those of us who have studied through 1 and 2 Timothy. He goes back to a very very important point which he has made repeatedly in these epistles. Verse 23, "But refuse foolish and ignorant speculations knowing that they produce fights." Pursue some things, he says in verse 22, righteousness, faithfulness, love and peace, but refuse some other things...refuse foolish and ignorant speculations. The word "refuse" means that avoid reject, having nothing to do with. And this is not a new message. He has been giving this message to Timothy all through 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy. And it let's me know that Timothy was really...really in a dangerous point in his life. The fact that the Apostle repeats this issue about staying away from false teaching so many times indicates that Timothy must have been flirting with that, that the temptation was to get involved in listening to the philosophers and religionists of the day and get your mind all filled with all of that unbiblical, anti-biblical stuff. And he's saying to him, keep your mind pure, stay away from that stuff, guard your mind, have a discerning mind.

I see so many people who start out affirming the Word of God, expose themselves to the garbage and the trash and the lies and the speculations of so-called theologians who in the name of academia attack the Word of God. And as a result of all of that, it undermines their confidence, undermines the strength of their faith, undermines their convictions, creates all kinds of doubts, the tragedy of over-exposure to the kind of thing that robs conviction and produces nothing but fights and arguments and quarrels, the mind is to be guarded.

Let me tell you a little about your brain in general, since I don't know your brain specifically. But your little three- pound brain that sits between your ears and only occupies about two percent of your body weight but uses up 25 percent of the oxygen supply in your blood just to keep it functioning, your little brain has ten billion cells, at least. Now some of those cells are nerve cells in the cerebral cortex, part of the nervous system. But by far, the majority of those ten billion cells between your ears are memory pockets. Those cells take in everything you experience. And you want to know something? It's all in there. Once it goes in there, it stays in there. It can become more difficult to recall because of non-use, or you could have an injury to some part of your brain or a disease that could erase that. But apart from some such disease and apart from misuse, sort of eliminating your ability to pull it back up out of its little pocket, your brain keeps everything...everything.

And all those ten billion cells are criss-crossed and networked by little tiny fibers. And those little tiny fibers send impulses back and forth from those cells that help you associate all of those little pieces of memory together to make up your whole thought pattern. Now your little memories are locked into those cells by coated proteins which store them. So just know this, whatever you put in there, my friends, is going to find a place and it's going to be networked into the association process in your thinking.

Now you need to protect your mind. Once stored, those little pieces of information become part of the networking of your thinking process. They remain permanently in your mind and mix in the association which can weaken your commitment to the truth which can suck the very strength out of your spiritual life, which create doubts in your mind about what you really believe or whether or not what you say you believe is genuinely true. In Philippians we have a good word, one that we ought to take heed to, Philippians 4:8, "Finally, brethren...Paul says...whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good report...that's six things...if there's any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things." There is no premium ever in the Bible placed on letting your mind be occupied with error. You must have a discerning mind. Your mind is a treasure house, not a dump.

Now if you go back in to 1 and 2 Timothy and just sort of...let me just pick out everything he has told Timothy to avoid, the list is very long because he's given this same kind of instruction repeatedly. Going all the way back to the first chapter of 1 Timothy and just hopping through as far as we've gone, specifically Paul has told Timothy and the rest of us to avoid strange doctrines, myths, endless genealogies, fruitless discussions on biblical assertions, worldly fables fit only for old women, different doctrine not agreeing with sound words, and doctrine conforming to godliness, controversial questions, disputes about words, worldly and empty chatter, opposing arguments of what is falsely called knowledge, battles over words, useless talk which spreads like gangrene. And now he adds foolish and ignorant speculations. The word "speculations," suzetetes means disputings, debates, questionings and arguments. The word "foolish" is the word moros from which we get moron. Dull, stupid, sluggish is its intent. The word "ignorant,"apaideutos means untrained, uninstructed, undisciplined, uneducated, senseless. Stay away from moronic senseless arguments, debates that attack the veracity of Scripture.

In Titus he will say the same thing to Titus in verse 9, "Shun foolish controversies, genealogies, strife, disputes about the law, they're unprofitable, they're worthless and a factious man, an argumentative man after the first and second warning, reject him and knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning being self-condemned." Don't waste your time. One or two warnings, you're gone, you're out. Don't expose yourself to ignorant, untrained, uninstructed, undisciplined men who spout senseless arguments against God's precious holy Word...all that does is produce quarrels and fights. You're not to be a fighter and a quarreler and a quibbler and a debater and an arguer.

Arguments with fools are foolish. Proverbs 18 says it so well, it's just so direct. Proverbs 18:2, "A fool does not delight in understanding but only revealing his own mind." Boy, is that true. A fool does not want understanding, he just wants to shoot off his own mind. And verse 6, "A fool's lips bring strife and his mouth calls for blows." You don't want to waste your time with a fool.

Now I'm not disagreeing with what Peter said in 1 Peter 3:15 when he said to be ready to give to any man who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you. If a man comes to ask you, give him a reason for the hope that is in you. But if a man comes to debate you, after one and two admonitions against that man's heresy, don't waste your time. We're not called to debate, we're called to proclaim. We're not called to expose our minds to the lies of Satan, we're called to keep our minds set on the things of God. False teachers pursue debate. Those who are true servants of the Lord pursue harmony and peace. So keep your mind from such things. Guard your thoughts. Have a discerning mind. Be expert in God's Word. Master God's revelation. Proclaim it, don't debate it. And don't expose yourself to the lies.

It's so sad to see how many people who start out in the Word of God and become influenced by all the anti-biblical stuff that they hear from the philosophies of men, religious liberalism and all the rest, literally lose their conviction. They have doubts in their minds. Tragic. Stay away from them. The Bible could not be more clear. There's no justification for you to take the pure mind that God has given you and fill those little pockets of memory with a lot of lies and a lot of anti-biblical information.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

12 Of The Biggest Lies

From Cutting Edge Newsletter (via Don Mitroff):


1.There is no such thing as Truth

2 People are inherently good

3. No one should be offended

4. Men and women are equal

5. A fetus isn’t human

6. The world is overpopulated

7. Americans are greedy and self-centered

8. Islam is a religion of peace.

9. The Jews stole Jerusalem

10. The earth is billions of years old

11. There is no God

12. Jesus was just a good man

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Feminists and Their Daughters: The Rooster Comes Home To Roost


Excerpts:

Why Do We Let Them Dress Like That?


Women of a liberated generation wrestle with their eager-to-grow-up daughters—      

 and their own pasts

By Jennifer Moses
....All of which brings me to a question: Why do so many of us not only permit our teenage daughters to dress like this—like prostitutes, if we're being honest with ourselves—but pay for them to do it with our AmEx cards?.....


I have a different theory. It has to do with how conflicted my own generation of women is about our own past, when many of us behaved in ways that we now regret. A woman I know, with two mature daughters, said, "If I could do it again, I wouldn't even have slept with my own husband before marriage. Sex is the most powerful thing there is, and our generation, what did we know?"
We are the first moms in history to have grown up with widely available birth control, the first who didn't have to worry about getting knocked up. We were also the first not only to be free of old-fashioned fears about our reputations but actually pressured by our peers and the wider culture to find our true womanhood in the bedroom. Not all of us are former good-time girls now drowning in regret—I know women of my generation who waited until marriage—but that's certainly the norm among my peers.
So here we are, the feminist and postfeminist and postpill generation. We somehow survived our own teen and college years (except for those who didn't), and now, with the exception of some Mormons, evangelicals and Orthodox Jews, scads of us don't know how to teach our own sons and daughters not to give away their bodies so readily. We're embarrassed, and we don't want to be, God forbid, hypocrites....
Still, in my own circle of girlfriends, the desire to push back is strong. I don't know one of them who doesn't have feelings of lingering discomfort regarding her own sexual past. And not one woman I've ever asked about the subject has said that she wishes she'd "experimented" more.
Continue here for the full article.

We were telling you women this for years, yet there you were, mocking us and putting us down. Now you're starting to see the results and the hypocrisy of your decisions and mentality. You were warned but you didn't listen.

46 million babies aborted since Roe v. Wade, a divorce rate of at least 50%, sex in elementary schools, kids on psychotropic drugs, teenage pregnancy.... Yeah, more power to you feminists. The rooster has come home to roost. Its not all that, now is it? "Christian" moms, most of are no different than the world. You don't get off the hook because you were a label with "Christ" in it or you attend church.

Are you really concerned for your daughters who are growing up too fast? Do you really want to deal with the issues and get some solid wisdom on how to parent and how to have a solid marriage?

You want to do something? Start by growing up and being a responsible adult who thinks outside of her selfish wants, to her daughter's NEEDS. Get out of the high school popularity mentality. Stop living vicariously through your daughter or trying to make up for your absence. Grow up.

Maturity means we have to think outside of ourselves and what the possible results could be if we allow certain sinful behaviors (something the last two generations of women have utterly FAILED AT).

Love means we want and DO what is BEST for our daughters, not what they might want nor what we want through them (living vicariously through them). It means saying "no" early on to your daughter, establishing the authority and respect one must have as a parent, and training her (and yourself), to strive to live in a manner worthy of the Gospel. It means considering that others--friends, parents, future spouses, and your church---and the influence, good or bad, your decisions for your daughters will have on them.

A double-minded man (or woman) is unstable in all his (or her) ways, James 1 says. You cannot continue in the "Your not the boss of ME!" mindset and then be truly concerned about your daughters. The Bible tells us how to parent and what our roles are to be within marriage. Time to start listening to the Creator and do it HIS way, or face the horrific consequences.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Heroes' Transfer: Going Home

See Photos # 54-59 from Yahoo News.

Santa Clarita Army Medic Dies In Afghanistan

Santa Clarita Army Medic Dies In Afghanistan

Written by Carol Rock
Monday, 21 March 2011 13:00

U.S. Army medic and Santa Clarita Christian School graduate Rudy A. Acosta, 19, was killed in combat in Afghanistan this week. The young soldier completed Army basic training Aug. 11, 2009, and was deployed to Afghanistan on June 10, 2010.

The Department of Defense announced Sunday evening that Acosta and Cpl. Donald R. Mickler, Jr., of Bucyrus, Ohio were killed March 19 in Kandahar province, Afghanistan by small arms fire from an individual from a military security group. The incident is under investigation. The men were assigned to the 4th Squadron, 2nd Stryker Calvary Regiment headquartered in Vilseck, Germany.

According to Scott Basolo, Pastor of Santa Clarita Baptist Church, Rudy's father, Dante, told the minister that his son was 58 days from the end of his deployment in Afghanistan, and was scheduled to return to Germany with his platoon.

All that changed Saturday morning.

Basolo was at the Acosta home Saturday afternoon and saw first-hand the outpouring of love for the family, estimating the number of people coming and going to offer condolences and help the family at more than 100.

“Rudy was just a very amazing young man,” he said. “He excelled, he was part of the CIF Championship football team in 2009 and was involved in a ton of extracurricular activities.”

Basolo said that Dante also shared an e-mail he received Saturday morning from one of Rudy’s fellow soldiers, who told Rudy’s father that he was praying for the family, what a great guy Rudy was and that he had some pictures that he would forward to him.

“He thought it was good that there was another Christian guy who took the time to write to him and went on with his day,” Basolo explained. “Then about 2:30 in the afternoon, officers arrived at their door to tell them of Rudy’s death.”

Basolo said that the morning’s email took on a whole new meaning to the grieving father.

“Rudy had such heart for our country, he wanted to be a medic, to help people, be out in the field with them and help share the Lord with them, in case they were out there and near the end of their lives,” he said. “He found out it was much more difficult than he anticipated. There weren’t many Christians in the unit he was assigned to and the last thing they were concerned about was their verbiage. He had a real passion to evangelize to the people he encountered.”

Like most soldiers coming from the battlefield, there were stories that Acosta didn’t tell his parents about how many close calls they’d experienced. Basolo recalled one story Rudy told him when he was home for Christmas that involved a rocket that went through a vehicle he was riding, but did not detonate. Although some of the other soldiers were hit by shrapnel, he was not injured and was able to minister to those who were. Had the rocket detonated, all of them would surely have died. This experience deepened his desire to go into medicine, something that made his parents extremely proud.

“But the Lord had some other plans,” Basolo said quietly.

Dante and Carolyn Acosta and Rudy’s siblings, sister Allie and brother Doran, were taken by military transport to Dover Air Base in Delaware Saturday night. Only five hours had passed between notification and the adjutant arriving at their door to take them to the airport.

During the adjutant’s visit, Basolo said that he shared some information about the circumstances surrounding Rudy’s death, although details were still sketchy and a complete investigation is expected to take as long as eight months.

“Rudy was in the front line action and there was a meeting going on,” Basolo said. “The adjutant indicated that there was an Afghani that was supposed to have military clearance, but someone might have gotten to him. They didn’t know if he was the attacker or not, because he was killed in the action as well.”

Basolo said that today’s regular church services were set aside for a short slide show featuring the fallen soldier and some recollections about him from church leaders as well as his football coach.

“We played Amazing Grace and as we were all singing, it was pretty tearful,” he said.

Because the evening service began at 5 – exactly the time that the transport carrying Rudy’s body was scheduled to arrive at Dover Air Force Base – members of the congregation prayed for the family, who are scheduled to return home tomorrow.

Acosta liked sports, including volleyball, football and swimming. He competed in the Alcatraz Invitational swim in September 2007 with his mother, Carolyn and uncle, Dave Church. He finished in the high-200s, but judging from reports in local and social media pages, he was excited about just finishing.

End quote.

**Update:

According to The Stars and Stripes:

"Wounded in the same incident were Sgt. Christopher J. Hemwall from Monroe, Mich.; Sgt. Zack Hombel from Deer Park, Wash.; Sgt. Patrick W. Shelley from Marana, Ariz.; and Spc. Curtis L. Cole from Kingsport, Tenn., all assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Troop, 4th Squadron, 2nd SCR, according to the 2nd Cavalry Association website."

Thank you to their bravery too!

Soldiers Killed In Afghanistan: Rudy Acosta and Donald Mickler Jr.





















Thursday, March 17, 2011

Charitable Giving To Japan

Charities in the U.S. have raised $49 million for the Japanese cause in the six days since the tsunami hit — a small percentage compared with other recent disasters that caught worldwide attention.
The earthquake that decimated Haiti last year, for instance, prompted $296 million in American donations in the first seven days, according to the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. In 2004, Americans gave nearly a quarter of a billion dollars to the victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami in the first week.

Part of the reason for fewer contributions may be the perception of Japan, which has the world's third-largest economy, as a self-sufficient society, says the philanthropy center's executive director, Patrick Rooney.


It could be that Japan is a wealthy country (even with the given economic problems there in recent years) that donations are low, but perhaps its also Disaster Burnout syndrome. That's what I call it anyway. People can only give so much, especially when we're called upon year after year, disaster upon disaster worldwide, not to mention here at home. Coupled with hard economic times and increasing taxes, one wonders when the limit will be reached. As American citizens, some of our taxes are used to help out countries in times of disaster.

So, when is our giving---any giving-- enough?

**Update**


The International Monetary Fund said on Thursday that Japan has the financial means to recover from a devastating earthquake and ensuing massive tsunami.
"We believe that the Japanese economy is a strong and wealthy society and the government has the full financial resources to address those needs."
Asked whether Japan had asked for IMF assistance, Atkinson said: "Japan has not requested any financial assistance from the IMF."


St. Patrick Was A Baptist

Time to remember once again the truth of biblical Christianity, the error of the Roman Catholic Church and its propaganda by trying to high-jack a Christian Baptist preacher:


In summary:

Number One :St. Patrick Baptized Only Professed Believers

Number Two:St. Patrick Baptized By Immersion Only

Number Three: In Church Government

Number Four: Patrick Was A Baptist In Independence From Creeds, Councils, Popes, etc.

Number Five: In Doctrine
a. Patrick believed in the substitutionary atonement of Christ.
b. He believes in the free gift of the Holy Spirit which comes to the believer at the moment of salvation. (John 14:16).
c. He also firmly conveys the message of the eternal security of the believer
d. He confirms his belief that men must be drawn by God in order to be saved (John 6:44).
e. Patrick affirms his conviction in the sonship of the believer (John 1:12).
f. And the great Irish theologian attests to the fact that all believers are joint-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:16-17)

Number Six: In Terms Of The Lord's Supper, Patrick Was A Baptist

Number Seven: Patrick Rejects The Roman Catholic Dogma Of Transubstantiation

For more go here.

The colors of the Irish flag include Green for the Roman Catholic population and Orange for the Anglican population. White is considered to be the color of truce.