False Christian teachings, trends….
In the 3-minute video of this post, Warren Peel, of Banner of Truth Publishing, provides an overview of Thomas Brooks’ book, Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices. Since my next post will be on that book, I thought this video would more fully explain the subject matter of Brooks’ book.
The insights in this 15 minute reading of a work by J R Miller, will give readers much to consider regarding their relationship struggles. It is worthy of careful consideration and several hearings, maybe notations… as this is biblical instruction.
Learning to walk in the Spirit is absolutely essential if you would please God and make it into heaven. I am not satisfied with my own comprehension of such verses found in Paul’s epistles. These verses specifically identify a problem that occurs throughout scripture in that God calls us to repent and obey, and we want to rule our own lives and follow our own inclinations…. Seeing the problem clearly in your own walk is the first step in rectifying it. Exhortations that hold out the solution are found in the epistles and generally in scripture; that would be submitting to the Spirit’s guidance out of a love of God; using God’s appointed means, the armor He has given us with which to fight the fight of faith. But to use God’s appointed means of prayer and scripture reading, e.g., when we are bent on pleasure seeking to fulfill the inclinations/lusts of our heart, is impossible….
This post contains 2 videos: the first is a 1-minute video featuring Voddie Baucham wherein he talks about how biblical Christians are being further marginalized in this culture by those worldly Christian professors who drink the world’s Kool-aid and are praised by the world for this foolishness; the second video is 15 minutes in length and provides numerous examples of Baucham’s words playing out in our current culture. The point of these videos is to encourage biblical Christians to continue on in God’s WAY and do not be de-railed by those Christian around you that turn away and receive praise from the world, as your Judge is the One who wrote the Bible and expects His children to honor and obey Him.
If you’ve ever owned a car or a home, you know that deferred maintenance often leads to much more serious and expensive repairs. Doing ordinary, regular, and required maintenance can extend the life of a car or a house for many years. So it is with keeping our hearts. If in our work of surveillance we find that our hearts are growing cold or calloused, we need to make sure that we are doing the necessary upkeep to maintain the spiritual condition of the castle. Fortunately, the Lord has given us a way to ensure that our hearts are maintained. We call these things the ordinary means of grace, which include attending to the reading and preaching of the Word, the sacraments, and prayer….
The article in this post is from Ligonier Ministries, Tabletalk magazine; it is about those things that entangle the Christian soldier. The author, Megan K. Taylor, uses examples of WWII propaganda, and worldly things around us that move us to crave the comforts of civilian life as opposed to getting out and staying on the Christian battle field; she also provided some ideas about dis-“entangling” oneself such as to rejoin the ranks of the active Christian soldiers
The video in this post is a podcast of Pastor Patrick Hines wherein he addresses Christian suffering. He used the text of 1 Peter 1:3-9 and after a brief intro, talked about a Christian pastor who committed suicide, and near the end, he discussed a man who was tortured by Vladimir Lenin’s officers and imprisoned for more than a decade. The latter, grew immeasurably from his ordeal and was more used by God…. Much was said about each man and his response / reaction to afflictions sent by our Sovereign God. You can learn something from Pastor Hines teaching to deal with the afflictions God sends into your life. He discusses a couple of useful books in the podcast.
A W Pink considers Hebrews 10:26-31 in discussing the apostate’s doom. He discusses how preachers had watered down that [and all] scripture in his day [he died in 1952]. They promised believers that if they had accepted Christ [signed a card; uttered the sinner’s prayer…] that their eternal future was secure…. He discussed a three erroneous takes on this passage by Arminians, over-zealous Calvinists; he called out the dispensationalists for “trifling with God’s word.” He aimed to present a biblical take on the passage and seemed to do so. It is an important message for all Christians in this day of far greater heresy and apostasy than in the 1950s. I recommend reading the preceding post on the impact of Christian Liberalism on the church before this post. Video is 43 minutes with a long list of highlights beforehand
The following 5-minute devotional says much about repentance and the hindrances to it. The chief obstacle is self, which he addresses in a succinct but thorough manner. [One big problem of the Christian walk is learning to deny self. This culture has made that a huge problem because we are taught from childhood, by TV ads and by observing what the people around us value, that self-gratification is the height of personal freedom.] Sermon highlights precede the 5-minute video
R C Sproul’s Christian Worldview DVD is very briefly covered in this post. From my notes, I provided ‘nutshell’ definitions for the following philosophical views that are inherent in our culture: secularism; existentialism; humanism; pragmatism; positivism; pluralism; relativism and hedonism. In the last post, I explained a point by referring to pragmatism and thought that a better definition of that term and these other basic definitions could be useful to other Christians in knowing the culture in which they are witnessing Christ. Hopefully, this post will whet the appetite of Christians to hear Sproul on this topic.