Acts 2 begins with the day of Pentecost. The apostles receive the Holy Spirit and are able to speak in whatever languages were necessary for communicating the gospel in Jerusalem. "Men from every nation under heaven," as it says in the text, understood the message in their own language. Some of the Jews thought the apostles were drunk. But Peter stood before them and delivered the good news of salvation.

He shared prophesy from the Old Testament concerning Jesus Christ, the Son of God put to death by lawless men, and rose again from the grave. This was preordained by God, but that did not absolve the guilty of their sin. Peter's hearers were "cut to the heart" and asked the apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" To which Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."

I wish I could say that filmmaker Darren Wilson and company had at least this much understanding of what it means to present the gospel when they made their movie, The Holy Ghost. But they do not show any hint of knowing, even at a basic level, what the gospel is or even who the Holy Spirit is. This documentary is a travesty that reduces the Spirit of God to sidewalk parlor tricks, salvation to magic words, and evangelism to guitar songs no one knows or understands.

If you don't read anything else of the review that follows, just know that the Wanderlust produced documentary entitled The Holy Ghost is heresy. It is a false gospel (actually, it's no gospel at all) that will lead a person to hell. It will not lead anyone to salvation in Christ. If the Holy Spirit does indeed save a person who watches this documentary, it is in spite of it, not because of it.

This costs $25 on DVD. Don't buy it.

I've watched this movie having taken advantage of the free world-premier online (which is still going on today). I am offering this review not just so you can save a few bucks on buying the over-priced DVD, but so you won't get bamboozled by this nonsense doctrine.

In the Beginning

The documentary begins with Genesis 1:1-3 -- that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the Spirit of God hovered over the surface of the waters. Not including this passage, there are ten scripture references in the film overall: 1 Corinthians 2:4, 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, Titus 3:5, Isaiah 59:21, Psalm 139:7, 1 John 4:7-8, Psalm 81:10, Psalm 138:1, Psalm 95:3, and Matthew 28:20. I wrote them all down as they came up. Pretty sure I didn't miss any.

I also tried to keep track of when the words "sin,""repent" (or repentance), or "salvation" were mentioned. I didn't start doing this until about 15 or 20 minutes in, so this is given that I didn't miss any early on. The word "sin" is mentioned 5 times. Not any single one of those times is it ever explained. Sometimes the word "junk" or "stuff" is used as a substitute, but that's not an explanation of what sin is or what it does to our relationship with God.

Lists of sins are given many times in the New Testament, but here are just a few of those thorough references:

"Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be decieved: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God." (1 Corinthians 6:9-10) 

"Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." (Galatians 5:19-21) 

"Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth." (Colossians 3:5-8)

That's my sin. That's your sin. The Bible says that before we come to Christ, we are dead in our sins and the objects of God's wrath (Ephesians 2:1-3). God loved us so much that he didn't leave us in that state, but sent His Son to die in our place. This means he became the atonement for our sins. Christ then rose from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit showing that in him is power over the grave. The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 6:23). Only those who follow Christ will enter into his life.

Romans 8:9-11 reads, "You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you."

Without the Spirit, one will not accept that Christ is the Son of God who takes away sin. It is the Spirit who testifies about the identity of Christ Jesus (1 John 5:6). The Spirit is not some mystical force. He is the third person of the Trinity. He is the very power that brought Christ back from the dead. He is working the same miracle in us to give us life though we were once dead in our trespasses. If a person is not in Christ, they don't have the Spirit of God, and they're still dead in their sins.

That message is never spoken about in this documentary. Given that "sin" is never defined, there's no call to turn from it. Therefore, the words "repent" or "repentance" are not heard a single time. If they came up early in the film, I missed them. The word "salvation" is heard only twice, but like with "sin," it's never defined. Salvation? Salvation from what? If you don't know what Jesus is saving you from, then he is not your savior and no salvation has occurred.

John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, and whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life." Twenty verses later, in John 3:36, it says, "He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son does not have life, but the wrath of God remains on him." So what has Jesus saved us from? The wrath of God burning against our sin.


That message is vital to the presentation of the gospel. A person cannot be saved without knowing what their sin is and that it has separated them from God. Furthermore, a person who is not saved does not have the Holy Spirit. And that totally usurps everything about this documentary!

These filmmakers lead people not to the way of eternal life, but to a path of false assurances. It's a road that leads to hell. That is why this documentary is heresy. The truth of God's Word, the realities of his love, are never proclaimed. The filmmakers will say that they are declaring it. But they're lying. Whether or not they're charlatans, I don't know. Are they deliberately conning people with this stuff? What is evident is that they reduce the power of the Holy Spirit to street magic.

The Holy Spirit In the Mormon Temple?

After a few strange interviews at the beginning, the filmmakers get admittedly bold by visiting the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City. Outside they encounter a young man and introduce the "Holy Spirit" to him. This team of sidewalk missionaries consists of Tommy Green, Jamie Galloway, and Will Hart. One of them puts their hands over this young man -- not on him, but hovering over him -- and makes him feel goosebumps.

They assure him that's the power of the Holy Spirit. The young man claims to feel chills. His armpits get cold, he says, and goes as far as saying, "My nipples got hard." I'm not making this up. The team of Green/Galloway/Hart would say things like, "Whoa, do you feel that?" then go, "Double it, double it," as if they're summoning the power of the oh good grief I can't even finish this sentence it's so ridiculous. I was done with the movie at this point.

Double it!

This is the first "Holy Spirit" encounter in the documentary, and apparently inciting the Holy Spirit means walking up to people on the street and dropping their body temperature. This is the kind of things you see on those ghost shows, right? Someone investigates a dark, haunted room and goes, "Whoa, did you feel that? The temperature just dropped!" Perhaps the documentarians know that, and that's why they chose to title it The Holy Ghost instead of The Holy Spirit?

In addition to being ghost hunters, they're also psychics. They ask another young man, "Am I detecting metal in your body?" It turns out he has screws in his wrist, but this is already after he told them he had joint trouble. They ask another youth, "Am I detecting something about your intestines?" Yes, he had a mass in his gut removed. Yay. Good job, guys. You know how to do a cold reading. Maybe you could team up with Theresa Caputo in the next movie (yup, they've already planned a sequel).

As they walk up to the temple gate, they encounter a street evangelist preaching against the lie that is the Mormon faith. As far as I could tell, this man was teaching gospel truth. In talking to him, he reveals himself to be a cessationist, meaning that certain spiritual gifts were given during a certain period of time to authenticate the message declared by the apostles. When the last of the apostles died, those giftings "ceased."

Some element of cessationism is necessary to believe, otherwise there would be no reason to close canon. The New Testament will never be added to. It's complete. To believe that the gifts of the Spirit still exist today in the same measure that they existed in the apostolic era is to say that there will be another Apostle Paul or John. And there will never be another Paul or John. The Apostle Paul said he was the last to ever be made an apostle, and that is exactly how 1 Corinthians 15:8 is to be understood.

A cessationist does not necessarily believe that God no longer performs miraculous healings. Some probably take cessationism that far, but most are not closed to the idea that God still may work some kind of miracle in a person's life -- according to his good purpose, of course -- or give a foreign language to a missionary in order to communicate the gospel, which is what the gift of tongues really is (the subject of speaking random gibberish never comes up in the movie, thank heavens).

Unfortunately, this movie gives a very biased view of cessationism. They reference pastors Chad Norris and R.T. Kendall, and how these two experts explain cessationism is not only inaccurate, it's delivered with a bitter tinge. The direction of the movie very deliberately makes the evangelist in front of the Mormon Temple out to be a buffoon who does little to nothing to advance the kingdom.

As that evangelist's wife reveals, they've only seen about 4 or 5 people become Christians in the 30 years that they've been evangelizing in front of the temple. The filmmakers treat this as ludicrous. They then walk up to a group of teens, perform a little more street magic, and lead them in a prayer of "salvation." Except that it's not. They make it look like they're leading people to Christ, but it's as legitimate as their body-temperature-dropping Holy Ghost parlor trick.

The Sons of Sceva didn't fare so well doing this. (Acts 19)

The whole thing is a scam. Perhaps they're in on it, or perhaps they're being manipulated by a dark spirit themselves. They present their mission as being able to accomplish more in a few minutes than their contrasting evangelist has done in 30 years. While they're "praying" (it's more like chanting magic words) with the teens, they let the voice of the evangelist be heard preaching in the background. He's made to look like a fool while they make themselves out to be heroes of the faith. That's prideful and manipulative. It's slanderous. It's sinful.

Not once in any of their street encounters do they share the gospel. They don't talk about sin, they don't talk about repentance, and they don't tell their hearers that they're under the wrath of God unless they come to Christ. Though they're outside the Mormon Temple, they never tell anyone that the Mormon Jesus is not the Jesus of the Bible. If a person worships a different Jesus, they're under a different atonement. If they're under a different atonement, they will go to hell unless they repent and believe in the true Christ.

But the Green/Galloway/Hart street missionaries do not care about heaven and hell. The reason why they don't tell people these things is because they're ministers of the flesh, not preachers of the Word. They are sensuous appeasers, the kind that Jude specifically rebukes in his letter (Jude 1:4). It's very likely that the Jesus worshiped at their churches is also a different Jesus. God, help them if that's true. I hope they come to understand this and repent of their false gospel.

The Holy Spirit At a Korn Concert?

Todd White -- a motivational speaker in dreadlocks who claims to have been an atheist and a drug addict for 22 years until Christ set him free but he doesn't actually know what that means -- teams up with Brian "Head" Welch and Fieldy of the band Korn. They go out to the lobby area of the arena where scores of people are waiting to get into a Korn concert.

Both Welch and Fieldy claim to be born-again Christians, but that has to be called into question. First of all, their testimonies basically sound like they substituted the Holy Spirit for their former drug addictions. The Spirit is just their new trip. They talk about how God's Word is amazing, but don't quote any of it or what it revealed to them about their sin. Secondly, they've not actually repented of anything. They're still in Korn. Are you familiar with Korn's lyrics? It's filthy stuff. Lead singer Jonathan Davis has a custom-made HR Giger microphone stand so lewd, I can't post a picture of it.

So here's a picture of a real mic stand.

The filmmakers actually show people at that concert throwing their bras on stage, flipping off the camera, and acting like animals. It's hard to believe if Welch and Fieldy truly were born again and had the Spirit of God inside of them, they'd continue to associate themselves with such things of the flesh.

So anyway, White uses Welch and Fieldy before the show to attract people. Of course they're going to come over: "Dude, it's Head and Fieldy!" White then proceeds to do miraculous healings. For example, he demonstrates the power of the Holy Spirit by making a professing atheist's leg grow longer to even out his back (edit: fake). They get a group of several dozen to gather around them and pray them to salvation. It's one of those magic-word/repeat-after-me/sinner's-prayer incantations that don't save anyone. Again, no gospel, no Word of God, and no understanding of sin is ever presented.

While words like sin, repentance, and salvation make seldom appearances, the words "dude,""bro," and "man" are heard a lot. There's another word the movie commonly associates with the Holy Spirit: "Risk." Yeah, apparently a person first has to have "risk" in order to be filled with the Holy Spirit. But Wilson and company's version of risk turns out to be not so risky.

The Holy Spirit In a Hindu Temple?

The last adventure in the movie takes the film crew to the oldest city in the world. Damascus? No. Varanasi, India. Yeah, that was new to me, too. Throughout their visit, the documentarians are constantly emphasizing how dangerous it is for them to be there. They could literally be torn to pieces just for talking about Christ. So they don't! What they do is just as much a gimmick as their street-magic bunk.

They get Jesus Culture musician Jake Hamilton to strap on a guitar and sing praise songs throughout the city. Of course this attracts masses of people. One of his audiences looked to number over a thousand. But this has nothing to do with the Holy Spirit. It has to do with Jake being a talented musician and singer.

Yes, he's singing Christian songs, including a version of Amazing Grace called Freedom Song. So why is it that he's not being torn to shreds in a Hindu city that heavily persecutes Christians? Because he's being protected by the power of the Holy Spirit, right? No. It's because no one can understand a word he's singing!

Missionary Mark Marx who is with the crew will walk among the people Hamilton attracts. He will pray for them and gives them the "Holy Spirit." It's the same trick as before -- it's just giving a person chills. You know, they probably get chills because someone is invading their personal space, putting their hands on them, and murmuring "spiritual" words in a low voice. Just a guess.

In none of these encounters Marx has with anyone is Christ ever mentioned. Okay, I take that back. In one of the biggest crowds, he pretends to heal a man's knee and says something to the effect of, "In the power of the Lord Jesus." But it's clear the man he's healing doesn't speak English. Christ is never proclaimed. He's never preached. No one is ever told to turn from their sin. So much for "risk."

By far the most spiritual board game I've ever played.

After singing to a poor district in the city, Hamilton addresses the crowd through a translator. This is it. Here's his golden opportunity to tell them about Christ in words they will understand, right? No. Here's what he says: "I came to India for one reason. I'm only singing in the streets to tell you that no matter where you're at, no matter what you do, no matter how rich or poor, you are loved. You are loved. You are loved." Oh, Jake. You forgot to tell them to just believe in themselves.

The film crew get to go inside the Hindu Temple of Shiva, even to the holy of holies -- which, again, they heavily emphasize is very, very dangerous for them to do and foreigners just don't get to do that. It's only because they are protected by the Holy Spirit, they say. But like with the Mormon Temple, the gospel is never shared. No one is ever told they worship a false god and need to repent and follow Christ. We only get to see the inside of the Temple of Shiva. That's all.

As Jake Hamilton would go on to say, "We're not trying to convert thousands of people." Right, they're not even trying to convert one. Another said of their experience in India, "We openly proclaimed Jesus as Lord." Far from it. It is director Darren Wilson who closes the film by saying, "The Holy Spirit is here on the earth so that people might see and believe that God is good, God is here, and with God all things are possible."

That last statement, that with God all things are possible, was something Jesus said to his disciples when they asked, "Who then can be saved?" This was right after Jesus addressed the Rich Young Ruler who asked, "What must I do to have eternal life?" The disciples were so baffled by Jesus's response that salvation seemed impossible to them. That is why Jesus says, "With man, this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible." (Mark 10:17-31)

Unfortunately, salvation is a subject that Wilson and company just don't understand. It's the blind leading the blind -- right off the cliff into the abyss that separates us from God because of our sin. The cross of Christ is not the bridge they use to get to eternal life. They're trying to get there with cheap tricks and magic words. God help them and call them to repentance.

Is There Anything Good That Can Be Taken From This Film?

No.

Okay, I give. One of the things that I will say the movie made me think about was this: Am I as bold to go into the streets and share the true gospel of Jesus Christ with strangers as these false teachers were with doing magic tricks and spreading lies?

That seems like a back-handed question, but it's a legitimate one. If I'm not bold enough to step out on the street and present the true gospel, then I'm leaving the streets to false teachers and soothsayers who claim to be from God but present a different gospel. If I truly believe the Word of God to be true and desire all to come to repentance as the Father does, then I need to step out and proclaim the gospel of Christ in all places.

The only other redeeming quality I can say this movie has is that it's a telling guide as to how messed up much of the American church has become. The filmmakers unintentionally reveal our growing biblical illiteracy. The Sinner's Prayer from a generation ago is alive and well and continues to offer false assurance of salvation. The movie also exposes how warped Bethel Church, Jesus Culture, Willow Creek, and similar churches are in their understanding of the gospel.

And what are Meredith Andrews and Michael W. Smith doing offering their opinions about the Holy Spirit along side musicians like Korn and Lenny Kravitz? The latter pair are not to be considered authorities of the Spirit. Smith and Phil Vischer, who's also in the film, are both men that I have admired and contributed to my growth as a Christian. Their appearances were very minimal, probably not even two minutes of screen time combined. I hope that they didn't actually know what they were getting into when they agreed to be interviewed.

The movie claimed to put God in the dirctor's chair. It did not. Where the gospel of Jesus Christ is desperately avoided, the Holy Spirit cannot be present. Where the Holy Spirit is not present, God is not either. This documentary can only deceive. It will not lead anyone to Christ. It tells the viewer little to nothing about the film's title subject -- the Holy Spirit.

The WWUTT video "Jesus Hates Religion?" was posted on Sunday evening. In 48 hours, it had about 3,000 views, received 240 likes, and been shared a few hundred times. I'd received comments of it already being shown in Bible studies. But by Tuesday night, I deleted the video.

I'd like to be able to say, "Numbers don't matter," but that wouldn't be true. I am grateful for every share and every view we get on a video (and every listen I get on the podcast).  I read every comment and e-mail, though I may not always get the chance to respond. The feedback does matter.

But the feedback did not have to do with why the video was removed, nor was its popularity and approval-rating enough to satisfy the conviction the Spirit impressed upon me. The tone in the video simply wasn't kind. That's why I removed the video. I've since re-written the script and posted a new version, still under the same title...



In 2012, 22-year-old Jefferson Bethke created a video called Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus. It was an instant YouTube sensation, viewed 6 million times in less than three days (and admittedly makes this video creator a tad jealous).

In that few days after the video dropped, Rev. Kevin DeYoung wrote an article posted through the Gospel Coalition entitled Does Jesus Hate Religion? Kinda, Sorta, Not Really. Just about everything that needed to be said about Bethke's video, DeYoung nailed it.

The short response is this: No, Jesus does not hate religion. Christianity is a religion (despite the often-repeated pulpit cliche, "It's not about religion, it's about a relationship"). And while Bethke does make some solid gospel points, he misuses so many words that DeYoung rightly labled Bethke's poem, "unhelpful and misleading."

Within a day of DeYoung's article, he and Bethke had a personal exchange. Bethke said his intention was not to deride religion altogether, but specifically "false" religion, targeting the hypocrites and those who claim to be Christian but don't act like it. He admitted he had chosen his words poorly and that if he could do the video again, he would have done some things differently.

This was just a few days after the video had first been posted. It had already been seen six million times, but why didn't Bethke go ahead and delete it? Maybe I'm asking for a simple solution that isn't all that simple. I just have to wonder -- If Bethke understood the problems, why didn't he at least create a follow-up? Instead, he rode the popularity to the New York Times bestseller list, writing a book entitled Jesus > Religion.

I'm guessing that's pronounced, "Jesus [is greater than] Religion."

Personally, the video was an eye-roller the moment I saw it. Bethke's very first line is, "What if I told you that Jesus came to abolish religion?" Already, it's wrong. Jesus didn't come to abolish religion. He came to destroy the work of the devil (1 John 3:8). Though Bethke later clarified what he was really trying to say, thirty million people have not read DeYoung and Bethke's exchange to know the truth from the not-quite-the-truth.

Bethke said, "If I can be brutally honest, I didn't think this video would get much over a couple thousand views maybe, and because of that, my points/theology wasn't as air-tight as I would've liked." The size of one's audience is absolutely no excuse for bad theology.

I don't expect any one of my Sunday-morning sermons to be heard by more than 200 people. But brothers and sisters, I labor to make sure the doctrine is Bible-based and rock-solid. Those 200 people that hear my sermon are under my care as their shepherd. For their sake and to the glory of God, I want to get it right.

Bethke put together a planned, written, choreographed, and directed video. And yet in all that planning, why didn't he check his doctrine? I've not seen enough to believe that Bethke's conviction for his theological errors runs deep enough. He has used the popularity of Why I Hate Religion But Love Jesus to the point of making himself a teacher, and he probably shouldn't be. At least, not yet.

But I agree with DeYoung that Bethke seems like a solid Christian young man who desires to make Christ known. That I'm not in disagreement with. And that's why I removed the first take of Jesus Hates Religion? and decided to come at the subject with a slightly different tone.

My first video started with a poem that parodied Bethke's. I changed my voice not to imitate Bethke or make fun of him but just for differentiation. However, after posting the video and hearing it a couple times, it did sound like I was mocking him. The poem I wrote may have been funny, ear-catching, and may have made a solid point, but it wasn't the best approach.

A person who needs to know the truth might hear me in that video seeming to mock Bethke, and the message they needed to hear would get lost: "Well, this guy is just annoyed because this other guy made a really popular video! That's why he's making fun of him!"

Peter said to give a gentle and respectful answer so that when we are slandered, those who revile our good behavior in Christ may be put to shame (1 Peter 3:15-17). I don't think I did gentleness and respect well in my first attempt. The second video is more direct, maybe less-creative, but it's a more respectful way to approach the issue.

And again, the conviction was all mine. I did ask one of my fellow elders what he thought of the video, but that was after I already deleted it (he agreed I went a little far). The video was otherwise getting as favorable a response as any other video. Yeah, I received a few negative comments. We get those, too. But no one person's comment caused me to remove the video.

Originally I was going to do a two-video series on religion. The first one was "Jesus Hates Religion?" The second was, "It's Not a Religion, It's a Relationship?" (all of the video titles end in question-marks, in case you didn't notice). After I removed the first video, I combined the two scripts. I think the result is a stronger and more gospel-centered point than I started out with.

I've noticed that Bethke just came out with a new book this week. (The timing of my video with his book release was purely coincidental as I don't keep up with Bethke.) I remain concerned about his place as a teacher. I don't think he's fit and I don't think he's ready. But I agree with DeYoung that Bethke is a Christian guy who wants to make Christ known.

The Lord is using Jeff Bethke. I've said stuff on the internet before I regret saying. I get that. His video is still problematic, and the truth needs to be understood. But he shouldn't be mocked by a brother. As Paul said in Philippians 1:18, "What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice."

Hey, maybe since I can't parody Bethke, he could parody himself. Like, make a follow-up to Why I Hate Religion But Love Jesus, as DeYoung suggested he do. Only do it right this time. With sound doctrine.

In 1 Kings 18:21, the prophet Elijah as directed by God stood before Israel and told them to pick a side: "How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him. But if Baal, then follow him." Yet the people did not answer him.

So Elijah issued a challenge. A fight to the finish. Elijah vs. the priests of Baal. One true prophet against 450 false prophets. Each would take a bull and place it on their own altar. The priests of Baal would pray to their god, and Elijah would pray to his God. The God who answered by fire, igniting the sacrifice on the altar, was the true God. And all the people said, "Let's do it!"

Elijah let the priests of Baal take the field first. They built an altar and chose their bull. Then after preparing the animal and laying it on the wood, they danced around it calling on Baal from morning until noon. "O Baal, answer us!" they cried. But there was no voice, and no one answered as they limped helplessly around their altar.

The word for "limped" in verse 26 is the same word for "limping" in verse 21. The priests of Baal had this awkward dance that they did, an ascetic contorting of the body that was rather uncomfortable and painfully exhausting. Eventually the priests started cutting on themselves, a self-mutilating display of false humility before a false god.

As they did this, the Scripture says that Elijah mocked them. "Cry aloud for he is a god," he shouted. "Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened!" The priests raved on all the more, their blood all over them. But as verse 29 records, "No one answered. No one paid attention." Because there was no god there.

Elijah's turn. He called on the people to come near to him, and they did. He took twelve stones that represented the twelve tribes in Israel, and with them he built an altar. He dug a trench around the altar deep enough that if a person stood in it, the top would have been above the knees. On the altar Elijah laid the wood, then cut the bull in pieces and laid it on the wood.

Then he instructed, "Fill four jars with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood." These were huge storage jars which would have held enough water to soak the altar and run into the trench. Yet Elijah said, "Do it a second time." And they did. Then, "Do it a third time," and they did until the trench was full. Then Elijah prayed;

"O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God and that you have turned their hearts back." (1 Kings 18:36-37)

The fire of the Lord fell from heaven and consumed the offering. The wood. The stones. The dust. Even the water. All of it. Gone. And when the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, "The Lord, he is God! The Lord, he is God!" Then Elijah instructed that all 450 prophets of Baal who deceived and manipulated the people be seized, and they were taken to Kishon where they were slaughtered.

Why do I mention this story? Because it's a great story, of course. And through it we might be reminded of God's loving patience, his faithfulness, and his mighty power. It is God who saves us, and to him belongs all glory.

But I confess, there's another reason I wanted to bring this up. Sometimes I hear this story used to justify how it's okay to make fun of the lost; those who are on their way to hell unless they repent and follow Christ. Hey, Elijah did it in 1 Kings 18:27, so therefore I can do it, too! I've observed this reasoning given by apologetics and discernment ministries responding to criticism because they mock unbelievers and false teachers.

But those who use 1 Kings 18:27 in such a way are taking it out of context. When Elijah mocked the priests of Baal, he wasn't just throwing random jabs and blind haymakers. Each one of his insults had a specific meaning. Yes, even his point about Baal going off somewhere to take a leak (relieving himself).

The word that appears in 1 Kings 18:27 for "mocked" is a variation of the Hebrew word hathal, which doesn't just mean mocked. It also means "deceived." Elijah was doing more than just mocking. He was egging-on the priests of Baal, pushing them to become more emphatic so that the Israelites would see no matter how loud they got, Baal did not exist to answer them.

Each insult, if you will, was specific to the attributes of the god that the priests of Baal were calling out to...

• "Either he is musing..." The false gods the pagans worshiped were considered to be a source for knowledge. Different gods possessed different knowledge. If Baal was off somewhere being contemplative, then apparently he had to get his knowledge from somewhere else and couldn't be considered a reliable source of understanding.
• "Or he is relieving himself..." Baal was a god of rain, which in this story Israel had not seen in over three years. Elijah was mocking the priests by saying that Baal must not care about the Israelites, and was off in some other land giving them water instead. That makes Elijah's insult all the more hilarious, saying that Baal's "rain" was the god's pee on his worshipers' crops.
• "Or he is on a journey..." Elijah was suggesting that maybe the priests of Baal were worshiping in the wrong spot. Sometimes pagan gods had to be journeyed after in order to be found, or there were certain spots designated as a channel through which that god could be contacted. A wandering god, whose location is inconsistent, makes things pretty difficult for the people to find him.
• "Or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened." According to the pagans, the reason why there was no rain was because the god of rain was asleep. Therefore that god's priests had to awaken him. Elijah was straight-to-the-point with this insult; the idea that a god needed to be woken up was pretty ridiculous. This was also said to provoke the priests to cry louder.

Contrast these insults about Baal with the attributes of the true God that Elijah called upon...

• God does not seek knowledge. He does not need to be contemplative. He is the source of all knowledge (Proverbs 9:10, 1 Corinthians 1:4-5, Colossians 2:2).
• God stores up and sends both fire and rain (2 Peter 3:6-7). Remember, Baal's a rain god, and Elijah told the priests of Baal to call upon their rain god to produce fire. Not only can Baal not do that, he can't do anything. He doesn't exist (1 Corinthians 8:4).
• God does not wander, or needs to be journeyed after on the earth in order to be found. He is always with his people (Matthew 28:20, John 14:18).
• When God rests, this doesn't mean he is asleep or inactive (Psalm 121:3-4). He listens to the  prayers of his people (Psalm 6:9), and knows their words before they say them (Psalm 139:4).

This was Elijah saying, "Your god does this, but my God does this!" All of his comments were intentional and purposeful, meant to direct the nation of Israel to what the true God was about to do before their very eyes.

The Israelites saw the 450 priests of Baal doing their little song-and-dance giving it everything they had and getting no response. Then over here was one confident prophet of God. He took a stand when no one else would, mocking Baal and all of his false attributes because he knew that false god did not exist and therefore could not retaliate.

Elijah precisely and obediently prepared his sacrifice. His methods were wise, raising up stones that represented the people of Israel, as if to tell them, "What you are about to see is grace for you, because the Lord your God loves you. He is faithful to you though you have been faithless toward him. He is calling upon you to repent."

As God with fire consumed that sacrifice and everything around it, the Israelites became astounded and worshiped God. God turned their hearts back to him (1 Kings 18:37). Just as God burned up the stones that represented the tribes of Israel, so he could have done to them for following false gods. But he was patient and loving toward them.

The point of the story is not 1 Kings 18:27. The point of the story is 1 Kings 18:37! Elijah's purpose was not to denigrate the priests of Baal. It was to exalt highly the saving grace of the Lord our God. It is God alone who saves.

Folks, it is not okay to act like jerks toward those who are supposed to be our mission field. There may be times when rhetorical devices like parody or sarcasm can be employed in order to get a point across. I've done that before. But we must be wise in how we use them. There are other times when such devices can be misused and are not acceptable. I've done that before, too.

When you take a Bible verse out of context in order to build an entire hermeneutic around the idea that it's okay to insult others or point fingers and laugh, your motives are self-serving. That is not loving and it is not Christ-like. You're using the Scriptures to justify your behavior rather than being filled with the entire counsel of God and letting his word guide your behavior.

We are instead to follow the example of the Apostle Paul, who wrote "even with tears" about those who "walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things."

Paul did not grab these individuals to be used as material for his vlog or podcast (or whatever the first century equivalent was) and deride them with put-downs much to the applause of his audience. He wept over them, even the ones who made his ministry hard on him (Philippians 1:15-18), just as Christ wept for those who would not listen to him (Luke 19:41-44).

Paul went on to say, "But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself" (Philippians 3:17-21).

If we are confident citizens of the kingdom of God, as Elijah was a confident prophet of God, we must preach the word of God in love and care knowing that he will do his work to bring about repentance and saving faith.

I think also of Charles Spurgeon who said, "If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our dead bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for."

As Dr. Russell Moore has said, "The message of the kingdom isn't, 'You kids, get off our lawn!' The message of the kingdom is, 'Make way for the coming of the Lord!'" That was Elijah's message. That is to be our message, too. In the gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of salvation for all who believe.

#PrayForParis has been a common hashtag on Twitter and Facebook since the terror attack in Paris, France on November 13, 2015. About 129 people were killed in coordinated attacks around Paris, and over 300 more injured.

Should we pray? Absolutely we should. I spent some time in prayer Saturday evening that God's will and his justice would be done, and that through this tragedy people would be saved, repenting of sin and coming to know the Lord Christ as Savior.

But the call to pray is not in and of itself a noble thing. We can pray with the wrong kind of motivation (James 4:3). A person can pray to the wrong god (Jeremiah 14:22). ISIS is praying for Paris, too. They're praying Paris would be destroyed.

You could argue that I'm taking #PrayForParis out of context: "No one is posting #PrayForParis and calling for them to be destroyed," you might say. But let me ask you something: What are you praying for? Are you praying for the victims and their families? Good! But what are you praying will happen for them? That they would find peace? What kind of peace are you asking for when you pray that?

I hope you understand my heart as I'm asking these questions. I'm not trying to be cynical. I want to help you, and I want God's name to be glorified. That's all I am after here. Do you know what you are praying for when you are asking God for peace?

The Bible describes the peace of God as being beyond all understanding (Philippians 4:7). That's because the peace that comes through Jesus Christ is not as the world gives (John 14:27). It is peace with God (Romans 5:1). It is understanding that if we are in Christ, our sins are forgiven, and we are no longer under his wrath (John 3:36). That's real peace.

Is that the kind of peace you're praying for? A peace that's more than just relaxation of the body and a stillness in the soul? Are you praying for peace that comes through forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ our Lord?

More specifically, let me ask you this: Are you praying for repentance in Paris, France?

There are some who will decry what I am saying here as being "too soon." It is never too soon to call anyone to repentance. I have stood at the hospital bed of a man dying from COPD brought on by exposure to Agent Orange, and though he was clearly suffering, in love I told him to repent of his rebellion against God and know the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior.

In that moment, politics didn't matter. Anyone's opinion of past events that resulted in the respiratory condition that this man was dying from were not going to save him. What mattered was the man's soul. He did not know the Lord, and he needed to. And that moment was the only moment I had to pray for his rebellious heart, sing hymns to him, and tell him about Jesus.

This is how we should be praying for Paris, France -- standing by the hospital bed of a sick culture, calling upon them to repent of their sin and know Christ as Savior. If you care about Paris, that is what you will pray for. It is never too soon to preach the gospel and call the lost to repentance.

Do you understand that the worst of the Paris carnage occurred at the Bataclan, a concert venue where a band called Eagles of Death Metal were playing? Eighty people were killed there. Have you looked up Eagles of Death Metal? One of their songs goes like this...

Who'll love the devil?
Who'll sing his song?
Who will love the devil and his song?
I'll love the devil!
I'll sing his song!
I will love the devil and his song

The next verse is, "Who will kiss the devil? I will kiss the devil on his tongue!" That's the first song of theirs I came up with just Googling "Eagles of Death Metal Lyrics."

Please understand, this is not me pointing a finger at eighty people and saying here's why they deserved to die. We all deserve to die because all of us have, at some point, followed the devil (Ephesians 2:1-3). But God who is rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, saved us from death by giving us life in Christ (Ephesians 2:4-6).

The terrorists were following the devil also. They were not listening to God. They were listening to the father of lies who's been a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44). Whether we're talking about the terrorists or those being entertained by singing the devil's praises, they must turn from their sin and follow Jesus or they will suffer consequences that are far worse (Matthew 10:28).

Jesus was once asked about a terrorist attack. Pilate had slaughtered some worshipers in the temple and mixed their blood in with their sacrifices. Jesus said, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish" (Luke 13:2).

For many that night, victim or terrorist, it is too late to repent. It is appointed for a man once to die, and after that comes judgment (Hebrews 9:27). For many who live on in the aftermath of that attack, they have not yet learned that they need to turn from following the devil and repent of their sin. It is for them we must pray.

Did you know that there is a social media push right now to try to send Eagles of Death Metal to the top of the charts with their cover of Duran Duran's song Save a Prayer? Here's the lyrics of that tune...

You saw me standing by the old
Corner of the main street
And the lights are flashing on your window sill
All alone ain't much fun
So you're looking for the thrill
And you know just what it takes and where to go 

Don't say a prayer for me now
Save it 'til the morning after
No, don't say a prayer for me now
Save it 'til the morning after

If you go on, you'll see that the song is clearly about a one-night stand. The singer, Simon Le Bon, is trying to coax a woman into going to bed with him. "Don't say a prayer for me now, save it 'til the morning after." In other words, let's get our "thrill" on right now, and then pray for my forgiveness in the morning. But for some, the morning is too late.

This is the song that Paris and the many who are "praying" for them want to see rise to the top of the charts as some kind of remembrance anthem. When you change your social media profile picture to a French flag overlay and say that you stand with Paris, is that what you're standing with? (Admittedly, I'm a little more cynical about French flag-waving. ISIS bombed a Russian plane on October 31 killing 224 people, but we didn't start waving Russian red and gold.)

Not that there's anything inherently wrong with changing your Facebook page to blue, white, and red. You may have sincere and heart-felt intentions, not just because everyone else is doing it. This still comes back to the question: Why are you doing that? What exactly do you want to have happen?

God is doing something, even in the aftermath of violence, that we would not understand even if he told us what it was (Habakkuk 1:5). Let your heart's desire be that God's will would be done, and that all would come to a saving knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4).

Pray for Paris. Pray for repentance.

Through the ministry When We Understand the Text, I've fielded a few questions about Steven Furtick and whether or not he is trustworthy. To give the best answer that I can, I've decided to use Steven's recent appearance at Bishop T.D. Jakes' mega-plex, the Potter's House, where he preached this past Sunday. This is written in love, so that the people of God will be able to test and know that not everyone who claims to be of God speaks the counsel of God (1 John 4:1).

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

I went to the Potter's House website to pull up Sunday's sermon, but first I had to sit through more than five minutes of Potter's House commercials. Then the camera showed this multi-millon-dollar stage with "Endure the Race" lit up on a video screen. Someone off-camera sang-shouted, "I just want to tell you what I think about you!"

Suddenly a bunch of singers and dancers came running out to pop music and a dazzling light show. Multiple video screens went into hyper seizure-inducing screen-saver mode. Everyone rushed the stage and started jumping up and down. Oh, great. I thought I had accidentally clicked on a link to a concert. Nope. This was a Potter's House worship service.

After the music, Jakes came out to do announcements and his money pitch, all to flashing lights and drum and organ fills. There were some more videos of other preachers at recent Potter's House events. Apparently everyone at the Potter's House -- black and white, men and women, young and old -- preaches with a throaty grovel, and you're just not preaching unless you're also removing all phlegm from the presence of God. (At one point, Jakes coughed and eluded to phlegm and dry throats being from the devil. It's probably because you're abusing your throat, Thomas.)

Jakes' wife joined him on stage and they prayed to God rebuking disease, infirmities, and abnormalities, because "we're about to step into our blessing. I declare and decree in the name of Jesus that the blessing of the Lord will break out." Because apparently no blessing can come unless you declare with your mouth it will come. That's what Jakes believes and teaches. The Bible says no such thing.

He said, "We give you the praise as if what we are believing you for is already done. We don't have to wait to see it. We don't have to wait 'til it comes in the mail. We don't have to wait 'til the loan is paid. But right now by faith, we praise you as if it were already done, in the name of Jesus." (Of course, he's shouting this as he goes.)

Now that sounds about right. Don't we worship God believing the victory is already won? Doesn't God ordain all things, good or bad (Lamentations 3:37-38)? What would be the problem with believing that it's already done? Because again, Jakes believes it is the power of the human will that manifests the blessing of God. If we just believe that it's already done, and say that it's already done, then it will be done.

But that's not how the will of God works. It's not the Christian equivalent to mind-over-matter or wishing on a star or a motivational speech. God will accomplish his will whether we will believe in it or we will not. Are you in obedience to God's will, or are you trying to accomplish your own will?

The Hidden Will and the Revealed Will

There's a difference between God's hidden will and his revealed will. What has yet to be seen is his hidden will. Our obedience to God now is according to his revealed will. Ephesians 5:17 says, "Do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is." That doesn't mean that a person try to find the hidden counsel of God. It means knowing how to live according to counsel of God as found in the Bible, his "revealed will."

When Jesus taught us to pray, "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10), he was teaching us to ask God for the ability to obey the decree of the King, the commands of Christ, his revealed will. This was not a lesson in mind-over-matter: "If you just believe in it hard enough, then God will make his will come true for you." Praying for God's will to be done according to your will-power is praying that your will be done.

Jakes does not pray for God's will to be done. He can't, in any way that is pleasing to the Lord, because he does not know God (Romans 8:7-8). That seems pretty bold and judgmental for me to say that. You're right, it is. But I'm not making that judgment by my own authority. I'm simply stating what the Bible says. T.D. Jakes denies the nature of God. He does not believe that Jesus is the Son of God the Father. The Bible calls such a man an antichrist (1 John 2:22).

Jakes' Rejection of God's Revealed Will

In The Potter's House statement of faith, it says, "There is one God, Creator of all things, infinitely perfect, and eternally existing in three manifestations: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." But God does not manifest himself as Father, Son, and Spirit. He is Father, Son, and Spirit. He is one God, three persons.

God has clearly revealed himself to us this way in the pages of Scripture. A person comes to the faith in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). As I've said elsewhere, salvation is a Trinitarian work: It is given by the Father, it is acquired through the Son, it is experienced in the Holy Spirit.

All three persons of the Trinity are distinctly displayed at Jesus' baptism (Matthew 3:16-17). Jesus said he was sent by the Father to do his will (John 6:38), and whoever else does the will of the Father is his brother and sister (Matthew 12:50). The will of the Father is to look on the Son so that you might have eternal life (John 6:40). He said the Father would send the Spirit in the name of Jesus, the Son (John 14:26). Jesus prayed to the Father, not to himself (John 17:1-5).

Jesus said that whoever knows him knows the father also (John 14:7). He said that no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone whom the Son chooses to reveal him (Matthew 11:27). Therefore, we can know this: a person who does not know Jesus as the Son, and God the Father as his Father, knows neither the Father nor Jesus and is not saved, for God has not been revealed to him.

T.D. Jakes Does Not Know God

Hey, at least Jakes believes God is one, right? Well, the Bible says even the demons believe that, and shudder (James 2:19). More than that, the demons know the Son of God (Mark 5:7), so it could be argued the demons know God better than Jakes does! Though Jakes knows God is one, he does not know him as Father, Son, and Spirit -- not three manifestations, but three persons in one.

In his book Judge Not, Todd Friel writes, "In other words, if T.D. Jakes went to a party with God, he could not attend with the Father, Son, and Spirit at the same time. T.D. could attend with only one manifestation of God at a time. That is a heresy called modalism. The Council of Nicea condemned this teaching as heresy in 325 AD."

Friel went on to quote the Athanasian Creed, written in 385. The Nicene and Athanasian creeds did not make up Trinitarian doctrine; they simply summarized and affirmed that which the Bible taught. The Athanasian Creed states as follows:

Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the universal faith. Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled; without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. 

And that faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the substance. For there is one Person of the Faith, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit... 

So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; and yet they are not three Gods, but one God. So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, and the Holy Spirit Lord and yet they are not three Lords but one Lord... 

He therefore that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity.

The early church taught from the teachings of Christ that if you deny the Trinity, you will go to hell. You are in league with the devil. You are an antichrist. It's that big a deal.

Now, that doesn't mean when you show up to heaven's gates, you're going to have to give a theological textbook definition of Trinity. Your pastor is not going to tell you, "Boy, you better be able to explain Trinity to me right now or you're not actually saved!" (at least, he shouldn't tell you that). You're not fully going to be able to understand this concept of One God in Three Persons because you're not God. But to deny that about God is to deny something fundamental about God. It's to deny God himself.

That's Jakes' theology. And as I've written about before, when a doctrine as fundamental as the Triune nature of God is rejected, a lot of other wormy doctrines will follow. It is common among Oneness Pentecostals, as it is of Jakes, to believe that you have the ability to unlock the power of God with your words. You can hear it in the way Jakes prays. But the reason he believes that is because he does not know God.

And Steven Furtick Probably Doesn't Either

Steven Furtick is a Southern Baptist minister, pastor of Elevation Church in North Carolina, one of the fastest-growing churches in the country (as I keep hearing over and over and over again). Does Furtick affirm the doctrine of the Trinity? Yes, he does. But though he appears to know God, he still advances heresy, glowingly lifting up those who, with just a little discernment one can tell, are against God.

I should clarify that a person can praise a false teacher and simply be mistaken or misled yet not compromise the authenticity of their faith. Tertullian did this in his defense of Montanus. I believe Francis Chan and Ronnie Floyd also misunderstand how much of a false teacher Mike Bickle really is, but I don't doubt the genuineness of their saving faith.

So why would Furtick's endorsement of Jakes also make him a heretical preacher? Because this is not merely a shared respect for one another. It's not like Furtick just met Jakes and gave some weird "I love you, man" speech like Chan did of Bickle. Furtick hails Jakes as one of the greatest preachers on the planet, and openly admits he watches Jakes to learn how to be like him, even taking material from Jakes' sermons and putting them in his almost every week.

Here's what this comes down to: The Bible describes T.D. Jakes as an antichrist, and the bulk of church history would say he's without salvation, yet Steven Furtick is borrowing the teachings of an antichrist and repeating them, telling everyone else to listen to them, extolling his greatness, attempting to emulate him, and, as you would have seen in Furtick's presentation at the Potter's House on Sunday, even pouring a great deal of money into it.

From Elevation to the Potter's House

Jakes welcomed Furtick to the stage and Furtick began his warm-up with cheap cheers from the crowd like some kind of hypeman. That's what he does: "Who's excited to be at the Potter's House? Let's go by section: Who's excited over here? Who's excited over here? How about you guys? Let me hear from the balcony! Everybody down here wave at the balcony!"

His attempt at humility was facepalm-worthy: "You will probably have better preachers than me come through here, but you will never have one that is more honored to stand here than the one you have standing before you today. I promise you that." Crowd applauded. "No, I'm serious, man." He gave a check for $35,000 to Jakes' ministry, which had something to do with Furtick being 35 years old, and he made sure everyone heard about it and saw him do it.

This is shortly after Furtick did this big interview where he said that Jesus wouldn't want him to reveal how much money he makes. But then he showed up to reveal to everyone how much money he gives, which apparently corresponds with his age times 1,000. I don't know what Jesus told Furtick about how much money he makes, but I know he said not to lavish praise and adoration upon yourself for what you give (Matthew 6:1-4).

Furtick also said it would be arrogant for him to reveal what he's given. Um...

Furtick jokingly said to Jakes that the check was a peace offering for all of the times he stole material from Jakes' sermons. He said that if Jakes received royalty checks from everyone who swiped stuff from him, he'd be the richest man on the planet. Between Sunday services at Elevation church, Furtick said he would get on his computer to watch the live stream of Jakes' sermons at the Potter's House. He called Jakes "the greatest preacher on the continent," and his wife the "first lady."

He said, "For all of us preachers, you know no matter how good you preach on any Sunday morning, you are only one click away from the T.D. Jakes app to be reminded that your sermon was just okay. You gotta time it carefully when you watch it on Monday. It'll make you suicidal."

...Suicidal?

"And that's his announcements," Furtick continued to fawn. "His announcements are better than your sermon."

Coming from an antichrist? No. They're not. As Furtick continued to lavish praise, he said Jakes is ambidextrous and "can beat the devil with both hands." In fact, he is doing the work of the devil.

This was nearly 90 minutes into the service, and it took me two days just to get that far, so I didn't listen to Furtick's sermon. But I bet I could tell you what it was about: he grabbed two or three verses from an Old Testament Bible story having something to do with a king or a battle, and took it out of context and applied it to explain why you're not getting what you want.

He used rhyming contrasts, like "It's not a stumbling block, it's a humbling block." His cadence went up and everyone cheered. He said "you"a lot. He talked about how great Steven Furtick was and how God blessed him because of how faithful he was, and how unfaithful others were who didn't have the believing power that Steven Furtick has. It's always the same.

His teaching is lacking in biblical discernment in a lot of ways. I've never felt like his sermons pointed the hearer to God, but rather to himself or themselves. However, he sure dispenses a lot of gusto when it comes to directing others to false teachers. Be careful of those who have an appearance of godliness but deny its power. The Bible says to avoid such people (2 Timothy 2:5).

Why Be So Direct?

Why was it necessary for me to be so forthright in calling out these men by name? For a couple of reasons. First of all, it's because I love God and desire his glory to be proclaimed. It is the church's calling to do that, even a defender of the truth (1 Timothy 3:14-16, 1 Peter 2:9).

The second reason is because I love you and I love Jakes and Furtick enough to show them their errors and call them to repentance. As a pastor, I have been appointed to hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that I may give instruction in sound doctrine and rebuke those who contradict it (Titus 1:9). There are those upsetting entire church families, teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach, and they must be silenced (Titus 1:11).

Paul said that of those who fancy themselves shepherds and teachers, as Jakes and Furtick do, if the persist in sin, they must be rebuked in the presence of all so that the rest may stand in fear (1 Timothy 5:20). Names are named when necessary because names are named in the Bible (1 Timothy 1:20, 2 Timothy 4:14, 3 John 1:9-10).

So Christian, I appeal to you as I contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints, keep your ears from turning toward the irreverent babble of false teachers. I hope that Jakes and Furtick indeed repent before it's too late, and that those who listen to their teaching will listen no longer, but instead fix themselves on the sound words of Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

A friend of mine on Twitter, who goes by Millennial Puritan, posted a history of Thanksgiving and why it matters to Christians. I thought I would share it here so you can share it with your friends and family as you give thankfulness to God for all his provision!

In 1614, a Patuxet Indian named named Squanto was sold into slavery in Spain and was purchased by a Spanish monk and set free. Squanto was taught English, but above all he was introduced to Christ and was saved. In 1619, Squanto returned to England with the Wampanoag to find his tribe completely wiped out by disease. But in his faith, he did not waver.

Meanwhile in 1608, a group of Christians in Great Britain called the Separatists (similar to the Puritans) fled to Holland for religious freedom. The Separatists only found poverty and a culture that was undoing their Christian values. In 1620, they sold everything and indentured themselves to make a harrowing trip across the Atlantic to the New World in hopes of finding religious freedom.

Aboard the ship known as the Mayflower, William Bradford led 102 individuals on this trek to America. The trip lasted 9 weeks, and was miserable. Many got sick and two people died. A woman gave birth to a child while aboard that ship.

They endured storms and a broken ship. One of those storms blew them (providentially) off course. Their original destination is not known, but likely they were trying to land further south where the weather would have been warmer.

On November 9, 1620, land was sighted and Psalm 100 was read as a prayer of Thanksgiving by William Brewster. The area where they landed was Cape Cod in what would become Massachusetts, and eventually settled in Provincetown Harbor.

They formed a colony under the drafted contract known as the Mayflower Compact, likely drafted by Brewster who had a university education. This was the first statement of self-government in the new world, signed by every adult male. They also elected their new ministers and appointed other church officers.

On December 21, they named their colony Plymouth. The winter was devastating. Half of the pilgrims died, yet survivor remained instead of fleeing back to Great Britain.

The spring of 1621 brought hope and providence as Squanto and the pilgrims met. He was the only Indian in the area that was both a Christian and had the ability to communicate English. (Tell me God isn't in sovereign control of your affairs). Squanto taught the Pilgrims how to hunt, grow corn, and catch fish.

William Bradford, the governor at that time, called Squanto "A special instrument sent of God for good beyond their expectations." Picture how Joseph was sold into slavery in Egypt. When he was set free, he became Egypt's second-highest ruler and saved his family from famine and death. Though Squanto being sold into slavery was an evil act, God used it for his glory to save many others.

That fall, their first harvest was so bountiful that Bradford proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving to God. The Pilgrims invited their Indian friends to join who brought venison and wild turkey. They feasted, played games, and above all gave thanks to God... for three whole days! (So see? Those Thanksgiving leftovers are still in the spirit of the holiday!)

Why do we celebrate Thanksgiving? Because we honor God for his sovereign goodness and provision over all of our lives, and above all the salvation purchased for us through Jesus Christ that made this story and all of our stories possible.

Happy Thanksgiving!

In the wake of the shooting a week ago at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood facility, Karen Swallow Prior wrote an article for Christianity Today entitled Loving Our Pro-Choice Neighbors in Word and Deed. The article has caused a bit of a stir, particularly because she said it's unchristlike to call a woman who gets an abortion a murderer or describe abortionists as monsters.

We're supposed to try and encourage a person to choose life, not push them away with inflammatory rhetoric. She says, "Referring to abortion providers as 'abortion ghouls,' clinic volunteers and workers as 'deathscorts' or 'bloodworkers,' and women who obtain abortions as 'murderers' is worse than inflammatory: it is unchristlike."

The short response to this is no, it's not. Jesus called the Pharisees white-washed sepulchers full of dead mens' bones and all manner of uncleanliness (Matthew 23:27). He said it to their faces in the presence of a crowd. That's the same as calling an abortion doctor or Planned Parenthood-loving democrat an "abortion ghoul." There's no difference.

On the one hand, I understand the point Prior is trying to make with her article. Like Prior, I've volunteered in pregnancy care centers and done some counseling with men and women who have had abortions (we often forget there are men in this equation also). We're probably not going to gain any ground by breaking the ice with, "You killed a baby. You're a ghoulish murderer. Now repent and get saved." The truth can be said in an a way that's inconsiderate, and we've been commanded to have compassionate hearts (Colossians 3:12).

On the other hand, we can become so politically correct in our rhetoric that the words we don't say are also inconsiderate. When it comes down to it, Prior is making an argument for political correctness. The logic is that we shouldn't say "murderer" because in the current string of political thought, abortion isn't murder and we're just going to turn off the people who need help and encourage trigger-happy vigilantes to take the law into their own hands.

But even from a counseling standpoint, it is not a good idea to withhold describing abortion as murder. A person will not experience true healing until they understand what they have truly done. God will forgive a sin even as great as the murder of a baby, which is what abortion is. A person must learn that abortion is murder. The loving thing to do is teach them. It is love for the person we are counseling, and it is loving the future generations of children that need saving.

While We Were "Messed Up"

Romans 5:8 says, "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." A few times, I've witnessed someone (usually a youth pastor) quote that verse like this: "God shows his love for us in that while we were messed up, Christ died for us." Often I've approached them and asked why they said "messed up" instead of "sinners."

Typically they will tell me that those who aren't Christians don't understand what sin is. On one occasion, the individual was actually bold enough to tell me that "sinners" is too harsh a term. I replied this way: Instead of changing the wording, you should teach your hearers about sin so that they can know repentance, grace, and the love of God.

By substituting "mess" in for "sin," we completely lose sight of what sin is. "Mess" can be your lack-of-style, the funky cowlicks in your hair, the people who have failed you, the lack of friends that you have, the opportunities you never got, the debts that aren't your fault, the pile of trash on the floorboard of your car, or your sports team that just can't seem to win the big one.

That's what we think of when we think of our lives being "messed up." We don't actually own any of our mistakes. It's all these unfortunate circumstances that have contributed to my mess. Even though no one else loves my mess, even though my parents don't love my mess, even though my ex doesn't love my mess, God loves me and my mess.

While it's true that God loves his children no matter how "messed up" they are, sin is worse than a mess. It is breaking God's law. It is rebellion against God. It's blasphemy. It's selfish. It's saying that our ways are higher than God's ways. It makes us enemies of God.

And sin is our fault. It flows from a foolish and ungrateful heart (Romans 1:21). There is no one else to blame for our sin. We are willing participants in our sin. And for that, what we deserve is God's wrath (Ephesians 2:1-3).

Fortunately, God loves us so much that he didn't let us remain his enemies. He sent His Son Jesus to die in our place, and all of the wrath that was due us for our sin was poured out on Christ instead. God didn't merely pardon our sin. He paid for it! He took the record of debt that stood against us with all its legal demands and nailed it to the cross (Colossians 2:13-14).

God's eyes are so holy that he can't even look at us in our sin (Habakkuk 1:13). But Christ has removed our filthy garments and clothed us with new robes (Revelation 3:18). We are called to repent: seek forgiveness from God for our sin and no longer walk in our old sinful practices. We are to put on the new self which is being made after the likeness of Christ (Ephesians 4:21-24).

As I've shared this with those who misquote Romans 5:8, I said the loving thing to do is to teach the Scripture as God meant for it to be understood, and then explain to your hearers what sin is and what repentance is. To withhold the truth about sin is unloving (Ephesians 4:15), which Prior acknowledged in her article. The Bible calls it stupid to not reprove others (Proverbs 12:1). Withholding the truth is lying.

Don't Lie to One Another

Colossians 3:9-10,16 says the following: "Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator... Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God."

When saying that calling abortion doctors ghouls and women who've had an abortion murderers is unchristlike, Prior never mentioned any Scripture related to the point. She played with a few passages to set up her argument (all of which were from Proverbs, which is not read the same way one would read, say, the gospels), but no Scripture to hammer the point home.

I was left with the impression that she placed some of the blame for the shooting in Colorado Springs in the hands of the people who have raised their voices in the public square and called abortion "murder." Maybe that's speculative on my part, but that's the impression I got. In which case, according to Prior, John Piper, John MacArthur, and Matt Chandler need to tone it down.

She thinks it's unwise to use the word "murder" even when trying to persuade a person to choose life. So abortion is wrong, but we shouldn't tell them it's wrong? (I'm not twisting her words. That's how the logic plays out.) Why would someone ever be convinced to choose life if they're not convinced that abortion is wrong? What's the big deal then?

Perhaps we should look at what Christ actually said. There is much to learn from Proverbs. It is as much the word of God as the rest of the Bible, and I've argued before the whole Bible is the word of Christ, not just the red letters. But to know the mind of Christ, we're going to have to go beyond Proverbs and look to more direct Scriptures for our understanding.

What Did Jesus Actually Say

In Matthew 23, we read what are called the seven woes. Jesus addressed the crowd and his disciples in the presence of the Pharisees, and warned the people not to follow their false teaching. In the last of his woes, he said the following:

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, 'If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in the shedding of the blood of the prophets.' Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation." (Matthew 23:29-36)

Brood of vipers = Abortion ghouls. Same thing. Prior's argument that "referring to abortion providers as abortion ghouls... is unchristlike" simply doesn't hold water.

Did the Pharisees murder Abel and Zechariah? No, they did not. In fact, they probably hadn't murdered anyone yet, and still Jesus called them murderers. He warned his disciples that the murder that was in the hearts of the false teachers would be revealed when prophets sent to them by God (referring to himself and later the apostles) would be killed and crucified.

Likewise, those who are not the children of God have murder in their hearts. God will give them over to their sinful passions and they will be revealed (Romans 1:28-29). He will send them a strong delusion "so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness" (2 Thessalonians 2:11-12).

Last month, I made a very impassioned appeal to a former congregant who showed signs of following a delusion instead of walking in the truth. In that moment, I really didn't care how he perceived the manner in which I said what I was saying. I feared for the eternal state of his soul, which I said to him. You are not listening, I said, and this will go very bad for you unless you repent. But he remained stubborn and cold.

There are settings when that kind of passion is necessary and Christ-like. Jesus did it. So will I. (My eyes have filled with tears as I write. Emotions surrounding some recent events have gotten to me. But I hope you understand the sincerity by which I write when I say these things. I boast not in myself but in the Lord.) There may be other settings when that kind of passion may not be as helpful, and a more gentle touch is required. It takes discernment to know the difference.

Consider Jesus's conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. He was direct but loving, showing her more care than was customary according to the cultural norms. When addressing her, he didn't say, "You're an adulteress. Now go get all your friends to hear me preach." It should not be overlooked, however, that Jesus indeed pointed her sin out to her, and the woman quickly changed the subject (John 4:16-20).

Jesus showed himself to be the long-awaited Messiah. The woman responded with such enthusiasm that she brought the entire village to listen to him preach. Part of her testimony was, "He told me everything I ever did!" (John 4:29). It didn't scare her off. It led her and many Samaritans to repentance.

Wise to the Ways of God

There is a gentle way in which we should go about reaching women (and don't forget men also) who have had an abortion. Jesus said to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves (Matthew 10:16). Pointing a finger at someone and calling them a murderer might be the correct label. But it might not be the wisest or most gentle course of action.

It is equally unwise and disingenuous to make the "murderer" label completely taboo. A man or a woman guilty of abortion must be shown why what they have done is murder. They have destroyed what was made in God's image. To not show them that is worse than unwise. It's unloving. If they don't know what they've done, they cannot repent of it, nor can they be healed.

In Psalm 51, David prayed that his sin would be ever before him so that he could be purged of his sin, washed of his iniquity, and completely restored in the righteousness of God. Then and only then would he be able to lift praises to God that would not be rejected. For if we cherish sin in our hearts, the Lord will not listen to us (Psalm 66:18). Don't let a person hide the sin that keeps them from God's healing and saving grace. The truth will set them free (John 8:32).

Let us be wise to the Scriptures and the ways of God, imitators of Christ and also his apostles. "When human lives are at stake, our language must reach not the bears but the heavens." That's not my line, by the way. It's Karen Swallow Prior who said that. And on that point, I wholeheartedly agree. Let us speak to please God and not men.

A little over a year ago, I wrote an article about a then-lesser-known blogger named John Pavlovitz, warning Christians to stay away from his stuff because he's a wolf in sheep's clothing. A couple days ago, he wrote a blog that confirms just how true that continues to be.

His article is entitled 10 Things This Christian Doesn't Believe About the Bible. It's a mad irony that every one of his bullet-points begins, "I don't believe the Bible." I wish I could say he's removed the wool and leave it at that, but unfortunately too many people are still being devoured by his rhetoric.

I don't often write more than one article about a false teacher. None of my points from that first article have changed. But I've received a few messages about his blog and thought I would offer a response, defending the sheep and eager to teach sound doctrine (1 Peter 5:2). Here are Pavlovitz's ten points, followed by what the Bible actually says.


1) What Pavlovitz Says: "I don't believe the Bible was dictated by God."
He says that the Bible was written by human beings who brought some of themselves, their emotions, and experiences into the writing. That's absolutely true. In fact, it's necessary study. That's part of understanding context: to know who the author was, who his audience was, what his purpose was for writing, when it was written, what was going on at the time, etc. Unfortunately, Pavlovitz is not trying to make a sound doctrinal point. He's trying to distance himself from those who teach the Bible is the very word of God, and persuade others not to listen to them.

The Bible Says: "All Scripture is breathed out by God, and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16). Every single word of the Bible is exactly what God intended its writers to put down, guided by the Holy Spirit (Isaiah 59:21, Zechariah 7:12, Acts 4:31). There are even times when God audibly told the writers what to write (Exodus 34:27, Revelation 3:14). To say none of the Bible was dictated is to say that Moses and John were liars. The Bible says that if you won't believe Moses and the Prophets, neither will you believe Christ (Luke 16:31).

2) What Pavlovitz Says: "I don't believe the Bible explains the time and manner of earth's creation and population accurately."
Genesis 1 and 2 are a who story, not a how story, he says. However, he thinks the Bible isn't clear but science is. Genesis "should not be read as a literal explanation of the fashion or timetable of what Science clearly tells us were the far older and more gradual evolutions of life than a literal Biblical translation contends."

The Bible Says: "By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible" (Hebrews 11:3). I believe all things were created instantaneously by the word of God, not because I read Genesis 1 and 2 a certain way, but because I believe the whole Bible. Peter wrote a day was coming when people wouldn't believe that all things were formed by the word of God (2 Peter 3:5). What Pavlovitz doesn't care to understand is that science doesn't say anything. Scientists do. And the Bible tells us not to be taken captive by "empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of this world, and not according to Christ" (Colossians 2:8).

3) What Pavlovitz Says: "I don't believe the Bible accurately represents women for the times in which we live."
I don't believe Pavlovitz has any idea how the Bible represents women. It's common for him to talk about the Bible but never reference it. These blanket generalizations are meant to appease secular readers and misguide the saints -- if the latter were possible (Matthew 24:24).

The Bible Says: Men and Women are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), and receive the same reward (Galatians 3:28)), but God has uniquely designed them for different roles (1 Corinthians 11:3). For one such example, watch this :90 video. I also went into a deeper explanation of this in my teaching series on Titus, which you can view on YouTube here. Each of those 15 videos are about 5 minutes in length.

4) What Pavlovitz Says: "I don't believe the Bible has much of consequence to say about gender identity and sexual orientation."
Perhaps you're aware there's an ongoing debate about whether or not certain passages in the Bible actually condemn homosexuality? Well, Regardless of the outcome of those debates, Pavlovitz doesn't care what the Bible says about it. Whether homosexuality is a sin or not, whether or not the research even shows how a homosexual lifestyle would destroy a person, Pavlovitz would go right on telling someone to keep being gay. How is that loving?

The Bible Says: Homosexuality is a sin that God has promised he will judge, and to encourage a person in that sin is unloving (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). For a clear and concise explanation, complete with the good news of the gospel, watch this :90 video.


5) What Pavlovitz Says: "I don't believe the Bible provides a unified, consistent message regarding marriage, war, violence, or sex."
By this point, it's difficult to digress from an obvious pattern: "I don't believe what the Bible says about anything."

The Bible Says: Paul said to the Colossians that in Christ "are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments" (Colossians 2:3-4). Everything we need to know, our complete satisfaction, is in Christ Jesus. It is through him and his word that we are able to understand everything about the world, including how God designed marriage (Ephesians 5:22-33), that God has a purpose with war (Matthew 24:6) and even violence (Habakkuk 1:1-5), and that sex is a gift from God meant to be enjoyed between a husband and a wife (the entire book of Song of Solomon).

6) What Pavlovitz Says: "I don't believe the Bible is without error."
"While the Bible can contain great truth," he says, "it cannot be as pure and pristine as it would need to be to be called perfect or without inconsistencies or inner conflicts." This is the same Satanic whisper the serpent hissed in Eve's ear: "Did God actually say...?" (Genesis 3:1)

The Bible Says: His word is perfect and true (Psalm 18:30). Heaven and earth will pass away, Jesus said, but his word would never pass away (Mark 13:31). The word of the Lord stands forever (1 Peter 1:25). God has exalted above all things his name and his word (Psalm 138:2).

7) What Pavlovitz Says: "I don't believe the Bible is the only source through which we hear or experience God."
He takes a poke at Sola Scriptura as well, Latin for "by Scripture alone." It is one of five solas and a doctrine that teaches the Bible is the ultimate authority in all matters of belief and practice.

The Bible Says: The Bible is the very word of God. While all of creation clearly speaks of God's eternal power and divine nature (Romans 1:20), that's not how we get to know God. You can know I exist because you saw my face in a picture, but that doesn't mean you know me. How do we know God? By reading his word. And it is through his word that we can understand how God can communicate through every other experience. This :90 video explains.

8) What Pavlovitz Says: "I don't believe the Bible should guide our government."
"It is irresponsible to try and superimpose the Bible on our civil system," he says, "as our government (like all governments) does not represent or serve people of a single faith tradition."

The Bible Says: The government is on His shoulders (Isaiah 9:6). There is no governing authority except that which is given by God (Romans 13:1). Jesus himself said to Pilate that the authority Pilate had been given came from God (John 19:11). We are to be subject to the governing authorities, but we are first citizens of the kingdom of God before we are citizens of this earth (Philippians 3:20). Therefore, all matters of public policy should be in submission to God also. I guarantee you John Pavlovitz will vote his beliefs when he steps in the voting booth. Yet he's trying to say you shouldn't, and neither should any politician lead according to their beliefs, if that belief is guided by God's word.

9) What Pavlovitz Says: "I don't believe the Bible can be objectively interpreted or evaluated."
This would be laughable if it wasn't so sad. As Pavlovitz said in point number 2, science should be accepted as objective and incontrovertible truth. But the Bible shouldn't be.

The Bible Says: Lean not on your own understanding (Proverbs 3:5). The Bible says whoever trusts in his own mind trusts in a fool (Proverbs 28:26). And the person who trusts in his own flesh is cursed (Jeremiah 17:5). For more, watch this :90 video.

10) What Pavlovitz Says: "I don't believe the Bible is worthy of worship."
This is a back-handed statement as if to suggest that those who revere God's word as inerrant are actually bowing down and worshiping a book. The Bible is "not Divinity" he says, "and cannot and should not be made into an idol to be blindly worshiped, especially when that worship reinforces or justifies discrimination, bigotry, or injustice based on race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, birthplace, or income level." Uh... what?

The Bible Says: God's favor is upon the one who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at his word (Isaiah 66:2). The Bible does not advocate racial discrimination or that a person should be looked down upon for any reason. What it does say is that God loved the world enough not to leave us in our self-absorbed, self-glorifying sin, but sent his Son Jesus to die in our place as a sacrifice. All who believe in Jesus will receive eternal life. Those who do not are under the wrath of God (John 3:36). Let us love the world as God does, enough to take that message of the gospel of Jesus Christ to everyone without prejudice or hesitation.

BONUS 11) What Pavlovitz Says: "I don't believe the Bible should be used to defend the Bible."
Pavlovitz came back and added an 11th thing he doesn't believe about the Bible, making an excuse for why he doesn't quote any Bible verses in his piece. He basically thinks it's rude to quote Bible verses.

What the Bible Says: Jesus quoted Scripture quite a bit, other than the fact that everything he said was the word of God anyway. Look at Matthew 21:12-17. In the story of Jesus cleansing the temple, each response he gives is an Old Testament reference. One figure I read said that Jesus quoted the Old Testament 78 times from 27 different books. His apostles quoted the Old Testament 209 times. If Pavlovitz really wanted to be like Jesus, he'd know the word of God, he'd love it, and he'd use it.


In Conclusion
John Pavlovitz wrote to me back in September and said that my opinion "is no less valuable or correct that anyone's, regardless of how you feel about it." He didn't seem to understand that same measure of judgment applies to him as well. His blog is called Stuff that Needs to Be Said. But based on Pavlovitz's own standards, that stuff possesses no real value, regardless of how he feels about it.

This man calls himself a pastor, but he doesn't believe the Bible. That's heresy. Christian, I hope you can see how such voices shouldn't be trusted. Do not listen to false teachers scratching itching ears to suit worldly passions (2 Timothy 4:3). Listen to the word of God. Repent of your sin and obey the words of Christ. Those who obey him are the ones who are truly his, and no one will snatch them out of his hand.

The following is a letter I sent to Bob Cesca in August, 2015, responding to an article he wrote for Salon.com. I never got a reply from Mr. Cesca. There are some points in this letter that I believe are relevant to current headlines involving Planned Parenthood. The following is for your edification. Some edits have been made for grammar and spelling.

Greetings, Mr. Cesca

My name is Gabe Hughes, a pastor in Kansas. I read your Salon article, Wing-Nut Conspiracy Theorists Have Done It Again: The Truth About Planned Parenthood Hoax Revealed. You had a few "facts" that weren't accurate. I wanted to shed a little light on them for you. You used the word "objective" to describe your facts, so considering that you believe in objective truth, I hope you will receive this objectively. I offer this to bring peace.

"Planned Parenthood is not selling fetus parts for profit or otherwise."

Actually, they are. These are quotes from Planned Parenthood staff, and none of these comments are doctored or taken out-of-context. They imply what they imply:

• "They want to break even. And if they can do a little better than break even, and do so in a way that seems reasonable, they're happy to do that." That was Dr. Nucatola in the first video. Mr. Cesca, "do a little better than break even" is profit, is it not? "Happy to do that" means they want profit, right? She went on to say that Planned Parenthood tries to do this in a way that "doesn't look like they're making money." If that's what PP is trying to do, then is it not possible they've fooled you into thinking they're legit?
• "You know, in negotiations, the person who throws out the first figure is at a loss, right?" That's from Dr. Mary Gatter, haggling over the prices of fetal body parts. If Planned Parenthood is not trying to make money, why is there not a flat fee? When CMP asked about a flat fee, we got this next quote...
• "I think the per item thing works a little better, just because we can see how much we can get out of it." That's Dr. Savita Ginde, Vice President and Medical Director of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains.

"Only three percent of Planned Parenthood's activities involve abortions."

In 2013, Planned Parenthood performed 327,653 abortions at their clinics. They did 1,880 adoption referrals, and prenatal services for 18,684 clients. So abortion is 94 percent of the pregnancy services offered by Planned Parenthood. (Rev. Kevin DeYoung debunked the 3% myth a few years ago. You can find his article here.)

Even by the most liberal estimates (no pun intended), it'd be hard to present a case that abortion is any less than 12 percent of Planned Parenthood's total services. PP saw 2.7 million total customers at its health centers in 2013, and performed 327,653 abortions. So 12 percent of their total clientele got an abortion.

Reasonably the 94 percent number is more accurate, though it's probably more fair to state that number this way: Of every pregnant woman that walked into a Planned Parenthood center in 2013, we know that 94 percent of them walked out no longer pregnant.

"Per the Hyde Amendment, no federal funds can be used for abortions. And there's no evidence Planned Parenthood has done so."

That's not true. And you say it yourself in your next bullet point...

"Consequently, de-funding Planned Parenthood would put into jeopardy its ability to save lives and, germane to this issue, prevent abortions. The Washington Post editorial board concluded: 'No federal money is used by Planned Parenthood to provide abortions except in some rare exceptions.'"

So The Washington Post actually concluded that federal funding has been used to pay for abortions. That, Mr. Cesca, is illegal. [Edit: It could be argued that the Hyde Amendment allowed for federal funds to be used in the case of incest, rape, or to save the life of the mother, but the Post doesn't specify that. The evidence clearly shows Planned Parenthood is using taxdollars to pay for abortions. No doubt about it.]

"Along those lines, in 2013 and 2014, 3,577,348 patients were provided with birth control services by Planned Parenthood. That's upwards of 3.5 million potential abortions prevented. What happens when these services disappear? Maybe the press should quiz anti-choice Republicans about this one."

My personal feelings about certain methods of birth control aside (and what actually constitutes as "birth control"), I want you to reasonably consider your statement. According to you, 3.5 million people received birth control from Planned Parenthood, and if federal funding to Planned Parenthood were to be cut off, 3.5 million people would now have no other way to get birth control, and we'd see a potential rise in 3.5 million abortions. Does that really seem like a reasonable claim?

What if I were to make this claim: "If Planned Parenthood were to lose federal funding, the 3.5 million people who previously received birth control from Planned Parenthood would stop having sex out of fear of having an unwanted pregnancy." Does that seem like a reasonable claim to you? No, it doesn't seem like a reasonable claim to me either. But it's just as reasonable a deduction as the one you made.

"Additionally, Planned Parenthood would lose the ability to conduct breast, cervical and colorectal cancer screenings — hundreds of thousands per year. It’d also lose the ability to perform thousands of vasectomies every year. How many unwanted pregnancies will result from the loss of this particular option?"

Again, you're concluding that women have no other way of receiving these services. You're also concluding that without government funding, Planned Parenthood will no longer be able to provide them. Why is it so unreasonable to demand that Planned Parenthood be able to stand on its own like every other non-profit that survives without government funding?

You're attempting to justify that it's okay for Planned Parenthood to receive federal tax dollars while dismembering and distributing the organs of dissected fetuses -- for profit or not is beside the point -- so long as they provide these other services. Who cares what those videos show or what's going on in a Planned Parenthood freezer or back room, right?

"Journalist Nicholas Kristof reported that Planned Parenthood and other family planning facilities 'prevent about one million unintended pregnancies a year, of which 345,000 would have ended in abortion.' This according to the nonpartisan Guttmacher Institute."

Again, there's a radical conclusion being drawn. But let me only state here that the Guttmacher Institute is as non-partisan as Planned Parenthood. GI started in 1968 as a division of Planned Parenthood. Partisan they are indeed. GI exists to advance birth control and abortion.

"If women who visit Planned Parenthood are forbidden from donating fetal tissue to biomedical labs, that tissue will be tossed in the waste bin. Republicans appear to prefer this option for some reason. Meanwhile, eliminating the legal tissue donation program would put a damper on research into preventing Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease."

There are no other ways to acquire tissue for research than through an abortion? We can end a viable, growing human life as long as it saves other lives? That's the only way Alzheimer's and Parkinson's cures work?

And I'm not calling a fetus in the womb a human life just to support my argument. I'm taking that from another Salon writer who fully acknowledged that a child in a womb is indeed a living human person, yet would choose to kill that human person anyway. Are you arguing for the same thing, Mr. Cesca? Killing human lives to save lives and making the tax-payer pay for it, their scruples be damned? Is that really the pro-choice ethic?

Thank you for reading, and I hope you will carefully consider my comments. If indeed this is something that has convicted you -- if it has cut you to your core to realize a fetus is not some discardable tissue but is in fact a human life, needing to be protected and cherished -- then I hope you will repent of this murderous sin. There is forgiveness in Christ Jesus.

As you have recognized, there is such a thing as objective truth -- a truth that exists outside of ourselves. That truth is established in Christ alone; the way, the truth, and the life. No one gets to the Father God except through him. All of us have broken his law and deserve death, but it is through Christ that we receive eternal life. If you would like to know more, I'd love to share it with you. I look forward to hearing back from you.

Pastor Gabe

Dear Pastor Gabe

Thank you for When We Understand the Text and all your videos. I noticed in your video on Jehovah's Witnesses that you mention Seventh Day Adventism, and you mention that an Adventist can be a Christian, but in the fine-print you say that you wouldn't advise attending a Seventh Day Adventist church. I wasn't able to find a WWUTT video on SDA though. Do you have one? 

I grew up SDA, then when I got to college I started attending a reformed Baptist church. It was there I met my wife and she happens to have an SDA background as well. Recently we've been talking about it and wondering if the SDA church might be a mission field for us. Here's the question that I have: Do you think that the Seventh Day Adventist Church can be reformed, or do you think that a person should leave the SDA church altogether? Thank you again for all that you do.

Josh, Tampa, FL

Thank you for your e-mail, Josh! No, we don't have a WWUTT video on Seventh Day Adventism, although that's one I've been meaning to do. The short answer to your question is this: No, I do not think the SDA church can be reformed. I have known and worked with a few Adventists whom I believe to be born-again Christians. But if you were to come in to an SDA church with gospel-centered and doctrinally-sound teaching, the church would change so drastically that it would not look at all like the Seventh-Day Adventist church looks now.

Consider the doctrine behind the church's namesake: Seventh Day Adventist. One of their fundamental teachings is Sabbath worship. Now that sounds harmless enough. What's the big deal if a church wants to worship on Saturday? Romans 14:5-6 says, "One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor to the Lord." So isn't the Adventist just choosing to worship on Saturday because he's fully convinced that's the day he should worship?

It actually goes quite a bit deeper than that. Infused in the Seventh-Day Adventist movement is this entire hermeneutic related to the Sabbath Day. When you go to the SDA church's website, there's a section of by-laws over 6,000 words long committed to proper Sabbath observance. A person's keeping of the Sabbath Day serves as kind of a "test" as to whether or not that person is genuine in their faith and worship of God:

"Meaningful Sabbath observance indicates that acceptance of God as Creator and Owner and acknowledges His authority over all creation, including oneself. Sabbath observance is based on the authority of God's Word. There is no other logical reason for it."

Sabbath observance also has eschatological implications. In other words, it even plays into their beliefs and teachings about the end-times:

"Meaningful Sabbath observance testifies to the fact that we have chosen to obey God's commandment. We thus recognize that our life is now lived in obedience to God's Word. The Sabbath will be a special test in the end time. The believer will have to make a choice either to give allegiance to God's Word or to human authority."

Even though these by-laws don't teach that if you break the Sabbath you'll go to hell, they do seem to imply that if you are not a regular observer of the Sabbath you are not truly a worshiper of God, and in the end you'll be excluded from His kingdom.

Contrast this with Colossians 1:16-17 which says, "Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ."

Huh. Yeah. That verse kind of sounds important.

To bring in Christ-centered teaching such as this reference in Colossians -- with an understanding of certain Old Testament laws being types and shadows that point to Christ Jesus -- would un-do a fundamental Seventh-Day Adventist teaching on the Sabbath. They would essentially be losing the very thing their name is predicated upon. So again, gospel teaching would change Adventism so much, it wouldn't even resemble an SDA church anymore. The SDA church is not a reflection of the early church as Christ meant it to be. It can't be reformed.

I understand why someone would think it could be. Adventists uphold the infallibility of Scripture, substitutionary atonement, resurrection of the dead, justification by faith alone, and overall their doctrine resembles trinitarian Protestant theology (but with an Arminian hermeneutic). This is why I believe a person can become a Christian in the SDA church (unlike the Jehovah's Witnesses, who teach heresy). But if that person is growing in their understanding of the Scriptures, and if they really know what their movement is teaching, they shouldn't remain an Adventist.

Another common doctrine in the SDA is annihilationism: the wicked will not suffer eternal torment in hell, the Adventists teach, but instead will be permanently destroyed. This is simply unbiblical. Matthew 25:46 says the wicked will go away into eternal punishment. Revelation 14:11 says that the worshipers of the beast will be tormented day and night, and they will have no rest.

Now, not every SDA church is the same. Like most Baptist churches, each congregation is autonomous. Some don't teach the more controversial secondary matters. But the church overall is still founded on false teaching.

Ellen G. White, one of the principle founders of the movement, made a bunch of wonky predictions influenced by notorious false teacher William Miller. White backed Miller's prophecy that the end of the world would come in 1844. When of course that didn't happen, she used Miller's same method to predict that the end of the world would come in 1851.

Ellen G. with her husband, James White. (Not Dr. James White.)

She blamed the fact that the world didn't end on the Seventh Day Adventist congregants because they didn't have enough faith. If they had been "united upon the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, how widely different would have been our history," she said. Despite her flops, the Adventist church still holds her writings as an authoritative source of truth. From their 28 Fundamental Beliefs:

"The Scriptures testify that one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is prophecy. This gift is an identifying mark of the remnant church and we believe it was manifested in the ministry of Ellen G. White. Her writings speak with prophetic authority and provide comfort, guidance, instruction, and correction to the church. They also make clear that the Bible is the standard by which all teaching and experience must be tested." 

(Yes, because apparently the Bible's declaration of it being authoritative wasn't enough, and we needed Ellen G. White to tell us.)

There are a number of tertiary and secondary issues that Adventists elevate to the level of "fundamental," and this divides Christians, not unifies them. As Dr. Al Mohler explains, "The misjudgment of true fundamentalism is the belief that all disagreements concern first-order doctrines. Thus, third-order issues are raised to a first-order importance and Christians are wrongly and harmfully divided."

My recommendation to a practicing Seventh-Day Adventist is that they leave the church and attend a sound, gospel-teaching church. Note that I say attend another, not start another. I think if someone leaves the SDA and goes right to starting a new church, there are some potential dangers there. I won't go into my whole opinion on it, but let me just point to 1 Timothy 3:6. An elder or an overseer "must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil."

It's simply too soon to come out of false-teaching and start your own church. Look for a good, gospel-centered, doctrinally sound gathering and get fed. Grow under the teaching of someone who is submissive to and passionate about the word of God. Perhaps your ministry, Josh, will be pointing others toward churches that offer Christ-centered teaching, and away from the bad teaching of Seventh-Day Adventism.

This Q&A was featured on the WWUTT podcast episode #120. You can subscribe to the podcast by clicking here!

J.D. Greear, Pastor of the Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, posted a blog today on The Biggest Questions I Get On Genesis 1 and 2. I'm not asked his first question as often, but I get asked the second question all the time: "Do the creation accounts of Genesis 1 and 2 contradict each other?" and "Does Genesis 1 teach that God created the world in 6 literal days?" I have to say that I had problems with both of Greear's answers.

Before getting to that, let me say first that I have loved J.D. Greear's teaching. I've read a couple of his books, including Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart, which I quoted from in my own book 40 of the Most Popular Bible Verses (and What They Really Mean). I still recommend Stop Asking and Gospel to others.

What I know of Pastor Greear, I believe him to be a solid teacher and a faithful pastor. He is a brother in Christ. But surely he had to know someone was going to express a disagreement with his answers to these Genesis questions (I'm sure I'm not the only one). I offer this not to divide, but to provide sound counsel and instruction according to the word of God.

I'm going to respond to Greear's two questions in reverse order. He addresses an understanding of Genesis 2 first before rendering a verdict on Genesis 1. Well, in order to come to a proper understanding of Genesis 2, we need to understand Genesis 1 first, right?

Answering the Second Question First

When asked, "Does Genesis 1 teach that God created the world in 6 literal days?" Greear replies, "Genesis 1 doesn't give us enough to come to rock solid answers about the creation timetable." Yes, it does. As we read in Genesis 1:5, "And there was evening and there was morning, the first day." Same goes for the second day, then the third, and so on. That's a day -- not a whole lot of other ways to interpret that.

Greear's understanding of Genesis 1 is influenced by "the scientific nuances of our contemporary creation v. evolution debate." When he says "the focus of Genesis 1 is not how God created but that he created," he's only saying that because he's being sympathetic to the idea that it could have occurred over hundreds of millions of years through evolutionary processes. If that's not what he had in mind, then Genesis 1 absolutely tells us how God created everything.

God said "let there be," and it was. He spoke all things into existence. He commanded them to exist, and they did. He looked at what he created, when he created it, and God called it good (i.e., Genesis 1:10). That displays immediacy. We're clearly not talking about a drawn-out process. Hebrews 11:3 says, "By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible." (See also 2 Peter 3:5 and Psalm 33:6.)

Now, God is obviously all-powerful. He could have created all things by a snap of his fingers -- bam, there it is. Why even bother with doing it over a span of 6 days? There's significance to what was created on each day and why, but that would take up a lot more space. I'll save that for another day. Let's just stick with the picture of one week. Why 6 days?

The answer is in Exodus 20:11, which says, "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." The reason is because God set an example for man to work six days and rest a seventh. That's the reason.

The Sabbath itself is an example, a picture of the rest we find in Christ Jesus. Rather than trying to attain our salvation by works, which we cannot do, we are to rest in the finished work of Christ (Matthew 11:28) who is described as the Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2:28).

Not an accurate depiction.

I know I'm kind of tangenting here (is that a word?) but here's the point: I believe Genesis 1 does tell us the who, what, and how of the creation story. There is then evidence in the rest of the Bible that affirms the 6-day creation. None of Scripture contradicts the 6-day creation. But there are Scriptures that would conflict with the idea that the world came into existence over billions, millions, even thousands of years.

Romans 5:12 says, "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned." There was no death in the world before sin. That is the consequence for sin (Romans 6:23). Sin is so serious, so awful a rebellion against God that it sent the entire universe into upheaval. All of creation awaits deliverance from this bondage of corruption (Romans 8:20-21).

Nothing was corrupted before sin. There could not have been this process of death and decay and fossilization before Adam's sin. What was incorruptible became corruptible because of sin. But we also read that what is corruptible is going to be made incorruptible (1 Corinthians 15:42).

Just as Adam's sin in Eden was the event that sent everything into disorder, the death of Christ on Calvary is the event bringing everything back into order. The cross is the pivotal point in all of cosmic and human history. Colossians 1:20 tells us that God is working through Jesus Christ, "to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross."

When Christ returns, he "will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself" (Philippians 3:21). How is it that our eternal, glorified bodies will be incorruptible, and there will be no more death, no mourning, nor crying or pain (Revelation 21:4)? Because there will be no more sin. God will have restored creation to the state it was in before sin came into the picture.

The gap theory (believing there's a massive gap of time between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2), the day-age theory (believing each day in the creation story is a significantly longer period of time), theistic evolution (believing God created everything through Darwinian processes), progressive creation (believing God intervened in a long creation at different times) -- all of these ideas conflict with Scripture. They are imposed upon the text. Creation didn't happen in such ways. Take it to the bank.

Greear says, "When it comes to the age of the earth, that's a question that scientists and theologians should explore together." I agree to an extent. Both the theologian and the scientist must first be submissive to the full authority of Scripture; rather than the theologian and scientist first trying to find common ground based on a mutual interpretation of Scripture.

The theologian can misinterpret Scripture based on his own pre-conceived notions just as the scientist can misinterpret science based on his own pre-conceived notions. Remember, folks: Science doesn't say anything, scientists do. The evidence for a young earth is there. It's not popular because we live in a fallen world, but it's there. Most people on planet earth won't look for it, and they won't have to. The story of Genesis 1 is clear enough for anyone to understand.

Now, salvation does not hinge on this subject. I don't expect when a person comes to Christ, they're automatically going to accept that all things came into existence in 6 days. But the subject is still very important. A person's understanding of the creation story affects other doctrines, like sin, as I've demonstrated, and even their eschatology (the study of last things).

But there's no reason to divide over the issue. As a pastor, I have had to deal with a person or two in my church who imposed upon someone else that because this other person didn't believe in a 6-day creation model, they must not believe the Bible and they might not actually be Christians. No. That is divisive and wrong. It is thinking the worst of a person rather than letting the peace of Christ rule in our hearts (Colossians 3:15). Greear is right when he says "not to look at others with disdain" on this subject.

Now, while I don't think Greear is being contemptuous, the way he phrases his answer unintentionally demonstrates that even Old Earth Creationists can be divisive. His full answer goes like this: "With all due respect to those who consider this a Priority One issue, Scripture forces me to say: Genesis 1 doesn't give us enough to come to rock solid answers about the creation timetable."

Scripture forces him to say that? When he says something like "Scripture forces me to say" and never actually quotes it, he's drawing lines in the sand, putting the Bible on his side of the line, and whoever is not on his side is not on the side of the text.



Answering the First Question Second

Once we answer the question of Genesis 1, we can then answer the question about Genesis 2, but not before (this response to Greear's answer is going to be much shorter than the first). Why does it look like Genesis 2 contradicts Genesis 1? Part of Greear's answer here is really good.

He says, "Look for the ways in which the contradiction might actually be a complementary rendering before crying foul... We shouldn't be lining up Genesis 1 and 2 to hunt down contradictions -- as if the author who put chapter 2 after chapter 1 was so dumb he couldn't recognize the differences between the two."

Right. The author of Genesis knows way more than we do. So what we should be looking for is what his intention was for writing Genesis 1 and 2 the way he did. The rest of Greear's answer is non-specific and makes errors with his treatment of Genesis 1. But if a person understands that Genesis 1 is a chronological summary of all 6 days of creation and what happened on each of those days, then answering for the differences between chapters 1 and 2 is rather simple.

On day 6 of creation, God created all land animals and the first man and woman. Genesis 1:27 says, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." Genesis 2:4-45 is then the expanded account of Genesis 1:27.

The reason Greear doesn't draw that conclusion is because he doesn't believe day 6 of creation is an actual day. Once again, these are the doctrinal problems one runs into when they try to impose something upon the text that isn't actually there.

Closing Thoughts

You might notice I avoided using the term "6-literal days" except where Greear used it. The only reason we even use the term "6-literal days" instead of just saying "6 days" is because it's become so prominent an idea to believe that a "day" in Genesis 1 describes a much longer period of time. That prominence I believe has shaped Greear's worldview, not his understanding of the text. (Love you, brother, but it's true.)

Thank you for reading! If you have an hour to spare, I recommend watching Dr. Albert Mohler's sermon Why Does the Universe Look So Old?

Dear Pastor Gabe

I was introduced to your blog through Tim Challies website who posted your movie review of Exodus: Gods and Kings. You should do more of those. I really like your reviews. I happened to catch that you collect comic books, or you said you used to. How familiar are you with the character Deadpool? I've heard the content is very adult, and I wanted to know if you were going to see the movie and write a review. Thank you for your dedication to defending the faith.

Alan, El Paso, TX

Allan, yes, I used to collect comic books. That was before I got married and had kids. I don't spend money on that anymore. Occasionally I'll buy a graphic novel, but rarely. Yes, I'm very familiar with the character of Deadpool. No, I'm not planning on seeing the movie, and I don't think anyone should. I'll expound upon those answers in that order.

I've been buying comic books since my parents started giving me an allowance. In Middle and High School, I traded issues with some friends of mine -- just the usual titles like Superman and Spider-Man. Through those exchanges, I latched on to Deadpool, the Merc with a mouth, mostly because it was just so side-splittingly funny. He was a recurring character until he got a regular series in 1997 written at that time by Joe Kelly. I bought every issue Kelly wrote.

Because I'm a nerd.

The comic book was violent, yes, but PG-13 violence in the realm of X-Men. What they're showing in this movie is not at all how the comic books went. They are trying to be over-the-top. It's Ryan Reynolds. It's an irreverent Marvel character. I get that they're using Deadpool to push the envelope on superhero films. Lots of bad language, lots of violence. I'm not surprised.

But varying opinions about violence aside. I know that different people have different views on what's an acceptable use of violence and what's not. My biggest concern about anyone going to see Deadpool is the sexual content. It's bad.

I do not watch a lot of movie previews and I don't read a lot of reviews. Interstellar is one of such movies I've seen having not watched a single preview or read a single review. If a movie sounds interesting and I don't think it's going to waste my time with a lot of special effects and no story (hence why I've only seen one Transformers movie) then I'll go see it.

My wife and I had planned on seeing Deadpool. She knew how much I liked the character. Thankfully we got a tip from a friend who went and saw the movie that the sex is gratuitous, and even pushes the envelope of being an NC-17 film. It's that bad. (Note: Since first airing this review on the podcast this past Friday, I've had other messages agreeing with that.)

It was at that point I started reading the parenting guides, which I rarely ever do. My kids don't see a movie until I see it first, no matter what the parenting guides say. But the parental guide on Deadpool reads like an adult film video stores keep in a separate room. It is very bad.

Desiring God and Tim Challies have both posted articles about the movie. Desiring God specifically wrote about Deadpool. Challies wrote about Sex On the Silver Screen. He didn't mention the movie, but I get the impression he was thinking about the recent superhero flick when he wrote it. Phillip Holmes writes for Desiring God, and he presented 7 questions to ask before seeing Deadpool. I'd like to present those seven questions to you:

1) "When will I tear my eye out, if not now?" 
Jesus said everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away (Matthew 5:27-30). By not seeing this movie, you are tearing out your eye and not subjecting yourself to sin.

Look, it doesn't matter how much you think you won't lust, no matter what you're watching up on the screen. You are a participant in watching two people taking their clothes off and do something with one another that was meant only for a husband and a wife. Ray Comfort doing street evangelism will ask this question: Is it okay to stand at someone's bedroom window and watch them make love? How is seeing it in a movie any different?

2) "Am I longing to see God?" 
Here he uses Matthew 5:8, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Participating in this kind of content stains the heart.

3) "Do I care about the souls of the nudes?" 
The actors on screen are sinning. Unquestionably. And you would pay to watch them do that? How is that any different than paying a prostitute?

4) "Would I be glad if my daughter played this role?" 
This question is very similar to the same kinds of arguments Tim Challies presented in his article as well. I'd highly encourage you to read it at Challies.com (link also above).

5) "Am I assuming nudity can be faked?" 
Holmes says, "Nudity is not like murder and violence on the screen. Violence on a screen is make-believe; nobody really gets killed. But nudity is not make-believe. These actresses are really naked in front of the camera, doing exactly what the director says to do with their legs and their hands and their breasts. And they are naked in front of millions of people to see."

6) "Am I assuming nudity is necessary for good art?" 
I mean, really, the sex acts portrayed in this movie are not necessary. They don't further the plot or enhance the movie in any way. The script-writers, filmmakers, actors -- they're all doing this because they can, not because they're trying to be artistic. If you believe God created sex for the confines of marriage, then you believe this: No one needs to pantomime sex in order to make a movie better.

7) "Am I free from doubt?" 
Here Holmes references Romans 14:32, "Whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin." In other words, you've probably already been playing in your mind whether you should see this movie or that movie. This doesn't just apply to Deadpool. This applies to any move. If you have to ask if you should, you shouldn't. It's a very simple principle.

You have got to take my word on this, and I hope that you follow my example. I'm not setting myself up on a pedestal. You're hearing this coming from a person who grew up reading the Deadpool character. I'm interested in a Deadpool movie. But I will not be watching this film, not even when it comes out on video. I love my God, my Savior, and desire to please him more than I'd like to tickle my imagination with a silly comic book character, filling my mind with all kinds of bad things in the process that I know do not please my Savior.

This is not about making a statement. This is not about sending a message to Marvel or Fox or Hollywood: "We will not see your pornographic movie until you remove all those gratuitous sex scenes!" This movie has already made a ton of money. That won't make a difference.

This is about worship. Romans 12:1-2 reads, "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual act of worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."

Our Lord Christ laid his life down to pay for sins such as these being portrayed in the movie Deadpool, to cleanse us of exactly this kind of stain. He spilled his blood for us that we would not have to experience the wrath of God burning against all unrighteousness (Romans 2:5). If you love him, you will keep his commandments (John 14:15). Keep yourself unstained by the world (James 1:27).

I know this next verse gets tied to movies and music a lot, but that's because it is a perfect fit. It is something we truly have to keep in mind before we subject our minds to the things the world calls entertainment. Philippians 4:8 says, "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."

And we are told, "the God of peace will be with you." The God of peace be with you also. Stay away from this film.

This Q&A was featured on the WWUTT podcast episode #130. You can subscribe to the podcast by clicking here!

About 2/3 of the way through the movie, I was ready to begin my review this way: "Risen is intriguing, but it's not great." I'd have talked about how the costumes, acting, and setting were well done, and that the plot of the film was an interesting idea but could have been executed better. Sometimes it was on the mark and other times searching for something to do.

But by the end of the film, I began to dread writing this review at all. The movie completely fell apart, going from an average wagon to one with no wheels yet still trying to drag it down the sidewalk. Whatever redeeming qualities it had in the first half are completely lost in the second. Risen is just not a good movie, and an even worse Bible movie.


I got to my seat just as the previews were beginning. I was hoping the worst part of my experience was going to be the price of my water (four bucks?!) and the trailer for My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2. Good grief, that thing looks dreadful. The other three movies being advertised were the following:

Miracles From Heaven
I felt a combination of "Oh, brother" and "Hm, so what's the story behind this?" It's made by the same folks who did Heaven Is for Real. Don't expect biblical.

Eddie the Eagle
Dude. That looks great! The movie starts tomorrow (February 26). Drat, I wish now I'd saved my ticket. I like Hugh Jackman.

Money Monster
Yay, Stockholm syndrome! Apparently the American attitude toward terrorists is that they're just misunderstood, looking for answers, and we just need to sit and talk with them.

Alright, now on to the movie. This review does contain spoilers, but that doesn't matter. Nothing is going to save this movie from being rotten.

The plot is set up like a detective story. Jesus has disappeared from his grave, and Joseph Fiennes plays the Roman military tribune responsible for finding out what happened to his body. But the movie doesn't start there. It begins with Jesus's crucifixion at about the point of his death. Pilate tells Clavius (Fiennes) to oversee the disposal of his body.

As Clavius and his understudy, Lucius (played by Tom Felton of Draco Malfoy fame), went to Golgotha, the sky darkened and there was an earthquake. "The gods are angry," Lucius said. "One of them is," said Clavius. Exchanges like that made the first half of the movie enjoyable. The audience isn't played for fools. We know what's going on without having to be shown.

I wasn't crazy with their depiction of Golgotha. It was kind of an enclosure surrounded by walls rather than being on the traditional hill. Historians agree that Jesus was crucified on a high place, and Scripture indicates it also would have been along a road since those who passed by derided him (Mark 15:29). Perhaps the cross was a lot closer to one of the Jerusalem gates than we often envision. The Romans punished criminals so everyone could see them.

At this point in the movie it was an easily forgivable interpretation, putting Golgotha in such a secluded place. Greater liberties with the story were coming. I did appreciate that Jesus was not played by a blonde white dude.

The two thieves were disposed of and Joseph of Arimathea took the body of Jesus to his own tomb. The priests visited with Pilate and Clavius about unearthing Jesus's body and burning it so his disciples couldn't steal it. Caiphas, the high priest, convinced them that a Roman guard at the tomb with the Roman seal over the stone would suffice.

So that's what they did, and Clavius oversaw it himself, placing two guards on watch. Yup, just two. And they got drunk. The Bible doesn't tell us exactly how many guards there were, but we know there were more than two. After the resurrection, Matthew 28:11 says "Some of the guard went and told the chief priests all that had taken place." So there had to be enough soldiers that some of them went and talked to the priests.

Indeed, in the plot of the movie, the priests paid off the guards to make up a story of being held at spear-point while Jesus's disciples robbed the tomb and ran off with the body. Clavius found that out later as he conducted an investigation to find out just what happened with the body of the Nazarene.

There's a cameo of the Shroud of Turin thrown in there.

The film was at its best at this point. The less the movie said and the less it showed, the better it came out. When the movie tried to enter the biblical narrative or say something theological, it was annoying. Clavius interviewed a blind woman named Mariam, and she had some weird line like, "You are seeds already cast. You're too late." I have no idea what that was supposed to mean.

Clavius's interview with Joseph of Arimathea was as close as the movie ever got to the gospel. Clavius asked where the body was, or if Joseph believed Jesus rose from the dead. Joseph said, "If he has risen, I believe Yeshua will embrace you as a brother, even as you slew him." That's not quite Romans 5:8, nor would the movie ever venture near the gospel again.

At last, Clavius got a hold of one the disciples: Bartholomew. At first, the character was light-hearted and fun. He talked like he was mad. That made sense. It does sound maddening to talk about a person being dead two days ago and now he's alive! But some of the things Bartholomew said were hippie-like: "We are few and our only weapon is love!" Oh, brother.

As Clavius's interrogations continued, I wondered if we'd go all the way through the movie never seeing the risen Christ. It would always be talked about but we'd never actually see him, left to make up our own minds at the end. Had Clavius heard enough testimony and eye-witness accounts to be convinced that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead? Was he the Son of God? The movie wouldn't even have to enter the narrative or present the gospel for me to appreciate that approach to telling the story from a cinematic standpoint.

Perhaps I got my hopes up too high because when they did finally reveal Jesus sitting with his disciples, it was a let-down. Clavius came upon him just as Thomas was rushing in to see the holes in his hands and in his side. Then Jesus disappeared, still with Clavius in the room, and the disciples had no idea what to do next. That's when Mary Magdalene spoke up like their mother and said, "He told you to go to Galilee." And they all went, "Oh, right, Galilee."

From this point on, the film was trash. I would go so far to say that the makers of Son of God knew the Bible better than the makers of Risen (and Son of God was an unbearable Bible movie). It's like they had no where else to go and didn't know what else to do, so they just started throwing Jesus stuff in there, only in their version there's a Roman soldier following him around.

The screenwriters started saying, "Isn't there a story in the Bible somewhere about the disciples fishing, and Jesus said to cast their nets on the other side, and they caught so much fish they couldn't pull their nets in? Let's put that in." Seriously, that part just came out of no where. The disciples were just walking along and happened on some boats, so they decided to go fish.

"And didn't Jesus ask Peter three times if he loved him?" Yeah, that sequence in the movie was really forced and awkward.

"And didn't Jesus heal a leper or something?" When Jesus hugged the ill man, the leper wept and said no one would touch him. It started as a touching scene. But then when he got up and walked away, he looked at his hand and was like, "Oh... Hey... I'm healed..." No excitement or praise or appreciation whatsoever. No real astonishment on the part of Clavius either.

Right before Jesus healed the leper, Clavius asked Bartholomew, "Why did you follow him?" After he witnessed the healing, Bartholomew said, "That's why." Oh, right. Okay. It couldn't have been because you thought he was God or anything (Luke 5:8).

The plot here was so aimless even the dialogue made no sense. Jesus, Clavius, and the disciples get to the place they're going to in Galilee and spend the night sleeping on rocks. Clavius goes and sits next to Jesus and they have the following exchange --

JESUS: What frightens you?
CLAVIUS: Being wrong. Wagering an eternity on the wrong answer.
JESUS: Know then.
(I think that's what he said. I missed the line. Either way, he didn't say anything.)
JESUS: What is it you seek? Clarity? Peace? A day without death?
CLAVIUS: *nods and starts crying*

And... that was it.

"I'm crying because I don't know what any of this means!"

The next morning, the disciples woke up and started calling for Jesus. They and Clavius finally see him off in the distance walking toward the sun. He turned around and started walking backward, calling out quotes from Christian bookstore plaques: "You are the light of the world! Go and be my disciples! You will be my witnesses! I will be with you always! Even to the ends of the earth-earth-earth-earth-earth!"

And then he exploded. No, I'm not kidding. Jesus exploded. He didn't ascend into heaven. He exploded. And the only witnesses to it were eleven dudes and one now-ex-Roman-soldier. Honestly, is there ever going to be a movie that actually depicts more than 500 men seeing Jesus alive at one time after his resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:6)? Why does everyone think we're just going off the testimony of eleven clueless dudes and a few hysterical women?

There's sequence where it showed the disciples witnessing to a few men for the first time. It was an exercise in evangelism that is not to be repeated: "It's about how you live, by love or by the sword." Then one disciple looked at the other and said, "That was good. I'm going to use that line again." Please, don't.

Simon asked Clavius, "Aren't you going back to Jerusalem with us to receive the Holy Spirit?" Clavius gave some nonsensical answer. Then Simon said, "He will be with you! Always!" Thanks, Obi Wan.

The movie is told from Clavius's perspective. At the start of the film, we see him telling someone else an account of all that he had witnessed. So at the end, it cuts back to the opening sequence with the man he was talking to asking him, "Do you believe any of what you saw is true?" Clavius said, "I believe. And I could never be the same."

Believe what?! Ugh. It was so infuriatingly bad.

So here's the gospel that the movie didn't deliver: The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 6:23). What you deserve for your sexual immorality, your lying, stealing, hating, blaspheming, and idol worshiping is hell. But Jesus died on the cross for you and rose from the grave so you can be forgiven.

If you are a follower of Jesus, you've been washed clean and clothed with new robes. It is only according to that message that you will never be the same. Leave your former self and your life of sinfulness behind. Follow him, and you'll live forever. Whoever has the Son has life. Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God remains on him (John 3:36).

No one who sees this movie will get that message. They'll be wasting two hours on a started-out-okay-but-crashed-and-burned movie. Avoid it.

Now is the moment: Do these candidates actually care about doing what's best for the country, or do they only care about themselves running the country?

If Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio care about what's best for the United States of America, Marco Rubio should suspend his campaign this week, and Ted Cruz should extend to him a hand of fellowship. We would then have a Cruz/Rubio ticket 8 months before the election, plenty of time to go after Donald Trump and win the republican nomination for President.

To make the ticket even stronger, Cruz should also extend invitations to Dr. Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Jeb Bush, and Mike Huckabee, and offer them cabinet positions (the obvious one for Carson would be Surgeon General). You would have a ticket with a plan for this country already in place before taking office. The people would witness a real sense of leadership.

It would also unify the GOP in a way it has not been unified in years. Right now it is massively fragmented. The biggest perpetrator is Trump. He's not solely at fault, but he's a major reason for the division. A person who is as into himself as Donald Trump is into Donald Trump cannot unify. He will only divide. He is dividing now. He will divide in office. He will divide this country. (Yes, it can get worse than it is.)

Trump has no loyalty to anyone, even his own constituents. Oh yes, Trump fans, he will throw you under his Trump bus and already has. He insults you constantly, but you think it's funny. When he says something like, "I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any votes," he thinks very little of you.

The ironic thing about that comment was that it came seconds after he said his voters were so smart and loyal. That's how his con-game works: he butters you up into buying his shtick. Listen to me: Do you really think it's "smart" to support a candidate who thinks that he could murder someone in broad daylight, even if it was a hypothetical, and not be held accountable for that? The mouth speaks what the heart is full of (Luke 6:45).

Donald Trump is a con-man. He's a Casino mogul, a foul-mouthed strip-club owner (that's not a metaphor -- he owns strip-clubs) who's on his third marriage and has boasted openly about his sexual conquests. He has been on the Howard Stern Show dozens of times as the billionaire and the shock-jock talked about who Donald Trump has had in his bed, and which women he'd like to get in his bed.

And don't say, "Yeah, but those were interviews back in the 90s!" First of all, they weren't. The Howard Stern tapes include interviews as recently as 2014 when Stern and Trump judged the bodies of celebrity women, listing body parts and gauging quality like they were walking through a meat-market. And secondly, it wouldn't matter if they were from the 80s or 70s. Donald Trump is not repentant about anything.

At the Family Leadership Summit last July, Trump was asked if he has ever asked forgiveness for his sins. "I am not sure I have," Trump said. "I just go on and try to do a better job from there. I think if I do something wrong, I think I just try and make it right. I don't bring God into that picture." Jimmy Fallon asked Trump if he had ever been sorry for anything. Trump said he would be sorry if he could ever be shown he was wrong about something first.

This is godless talk. The apostle John said, "If we claim we have not sinned, we make [God] out to be a liar, and his word is not in us" (1 John 1:10). This isn't even the usual cliche of, "Hey, everybody sins, so we're all the same, right?" This is a man claiming that he has no reason to ask God forgiveness for anything.

It makes me think of the story of Ahaz, king of Judah, in Isaiah 7. Ahaz was being pursued by two kings from the north. God spoke to him and said, "Ask the Lord your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights." Now what would you ask for? Anything you want, from the deepest depths to the highest heights!

Do you know what Ahaz asked for? Nothing.

"I will not ask," Ahaz said. "I will not put the Lord to the test."

Isaiah replied, "It is not enough to try the patience of humans? Will you try the patience of my God also?" Ahaz thought so highly of himself that he didn't want God's help. Such arrogance. God was offering him anything he wanted, but Ahaz basically said, "Nah."

Surely you know what happened: all of Judah and Israel were conquered by their enemies and they ceased to be a nation. It was a dark, horrible period for Israel, all because of godless kings who didn't want to bring God into the picture.

Friends, Donald Trump is not a Christian. As I said in a sermon on September 13 of last year, I believe he's popular among "evangelicals" because he reflects the attitude of many Americans. He says the Bible is his favorite book but can't quote any of it. He says he goes to church on Christmas and Easter and always when there's a major occasion. Many professing Christians are going about their faith exactly the way Donald Trump says he does it.

Understand also that Trump is not pro-life. Don't listen to his claims; look at his record. This is a man who has given millions to liberal-democrat, abortion-loving campaigns and candidates for years, including the Clintons (and remember, he's not sorry for any of that). Now suddenly he can just say he's pro-life, and you believe him? His present rhetoric doesn't even sound pro-life. He said he would nominate his sister to the Supreme Court, Maryanne Trump Barry, who, as a judge, has upheld the barbaric practice of partial-birth abortion. Trump doesn't care about our children.

There's not much difference between Trump, Hillary Clinton, or Bernie Sanders. All three of them are liberals who promise things they neither can nor intend to deliver (A 2,000 mile-long wall between the U.S. and Mexico that Mexico is going to pay for? Really?). All three are pro-abortion. All three are for socialized health-care. Both Trump and Bernie Sanders's economic plans are travesties that would raise taxes tremendously on the poor and working-class.

We should expect Clinton and Sanders to be liberal. They're democrats. Of course they're going to say things like Planned Parenthood should get more funding and their practices expanded to kill even more babies. What we should not expect is that kind of talk from the "conservative" candidate who calls himself a Christian (Trump says Planned Parenthood does good work and uses the same rhetoric to defend PP that the democrats use).

A vote for Donald Trump is a vote for adultery, porn, misogyny, divorce, fatherlessness, abortion, bankruptcy, gambling, racism, bullying, arrogance, obscenity, and overall godlessness. As a president, you can also throw in higher taxes, a tanking economy, liberal policies, partisanship (really it would just be a my-way-or-the-highway course of action), and severed relations with foreign governments.

He does not care about you. His only loyalty is to himself. He has said from the very first debate that if he did not win, he would run as an independent. He has no desire to unify. Only to exalt himself.

Donald Trump is presently the most popular individual GOP candidate. But he would not beat Hillary in November, or the combo of Cruz and Rubio right now. Both Cruz and Rubio must show they, unlike Trump, are selfless by putting aside their differences and personal ambitions. Rubio should suspend his campaign, and Cruz should bring him aboard. Men, show us how much you actually care about the American people.

I think it was completely fair to see how Super Tuesday would turn out before any candidate suspended their campaign. I've disagreed with those who have said Carson and Kasich were holding the GOP hostage and needed to pull out. I think Carson did it right. Dr. Carson, thank you for a clean campaign.

But now is the moment. I have not put myself behind a candidate yet, but I would vote for a Cruz/Rubio ticket. (Doctrinal and even some political differences aside,) I believe they are God-fearing, principled leaders who would be a fine fit for this nation's highest office.

Still, this needs to be said: Neither Cruz nor Rubio will save this country (nor will Trump, Hillary, or Sanders for those who think of them as some kind of savior). Only Jesus Christ saves souls. You must turn from your sins and follow Jesus. No matter who's president, we must continue to preach that message with boldness.

Also, this needs to be said: No candidate will send this country to hell either. It is God who will destroy a nation that burns with sexual immorality, promotes unnatural relationships, and continues to spill the innocent blood of countless babies every day the way we do through abortion. It is a judgment we deserve unless we repent.

The real Moment of Truth is found in the King of kings and Lord and lords, our Savior Jesus Christ. He is still on the throne. Today is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2). Now is the time to repent of your sins and follow Jesus. To Him be all the glory and the honor, now and forever. Amen!

Following my last review of the movie Risen, I read a comment that the depiction of Jesus in that movie was the best portrayal of Jesus yet. (I didn't retaliate with, "No, [this movie] Jesus was definitely a better movie Jesus!")

Risen's portrayal of Jesus wasn't good. He was generic and non-specific. There was no gospel and no call to repent of sins -- not even when Jesus talked to the sinning and unbelieving Clavius. It was like Clavius needed a loan and was trying to figure out which bank to use, and Jesus said, "I know what you're looking for, and here are all the benefits I offer."

About the best praise I could give to Risen's Jesus was that he wasn't a blonde-haired white dude. They attempted to go with an actor who looked more like a Galilean (even though he's from New Zealand). But the next Jesus Movie of the Month, The Young Messiah, definitely goes back to the European standard of long-haired blonde Jesus.

That's not the only liberty taken by this story's author. And when I say "author," I don't mean the Author of the Bible, since all of the material in The Young Messiah is outside of Scripture. I mean the author of the sandbox novel this playground of a movie is built on.

The film is adapted from the book Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt written by Anne Rice. Yes, this is the same Anne Rice who wrote the Vampire Chronicles, the most famous of which being Interview With a Vampire. I understand that the former working-title of The Young Messiah was Young Messiah: Vampire Hunter. I may have just made that up.

Anne Rice left the Roman Catholic church and became a self-avowed atheist at 18. After a near-death experience in 1998, she returned to Roman Catholicism yet has still maintained outspoken support for abortion and gay rights. It should be no surprise then that on July 28, 2010, Anne Rice wrote on Facebook, "Today I quit being a Christian."

She claimed to be committed to Christ but not to being a Christian. That's like saying she's committed to her husband but not to family. Being married means you're also part of a family, just as being committed to Christ means that you're also part of his body. You can't be a Christ-follower and not be part of his followers.

Enmity with the Body is Enmity with Christ

As a pastor of my church and an evangelist to my city, I cannot tell you the number of times I have encountered individuals who tell me they're Christians, but they do not attend church. It is more common for me to encounter such a person than it is to cross paths with someone who says they do not believe in God.

In my own church have I experienced disloyalty from men and women who cannot remain committed to the body, treating the church as a high school girlfriend rather than the bride of Christ. The moment the doctrine makes them feel uncomfortable or someone looks at them the wrong way, they jump ship for something else, often without a word to anyone.

In both instances -- with the person I meet on the street and the person I don't see in church anymore -- my heart is fearful for the state of their eternal soul. I must be careful not to say neither is saved, but at the same time the church cannot vouch for their salvation either. If church membership, as Mark Dever has said and I agree with him, is an endorsement by a church of a person's saving faith, how can we know a person is saved if they are not committed to the saints?

We read in 1 John 2:10, "Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling." And in 1 John 3:10, "By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother." And verse 14, "We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death."

And in 1 John 4:20-21, "If anyone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother."

The context of this word "brother" is brotherhood. It is specifically other brothers and sisters in the faith. When Jesus tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves, he is saying love everyone. Neighbor applies to every single person. But when Jesus talks about loving other brothers as we love him, that is specifically talking about brothers and sisters in Christ.

The person who refuses to attend church, or the person that leaves a church because things are not going their way, have turned their backs on those they have claimed are their brothers and sisters in Christ. They might say, "Well I don't hate them though. I still love them!" Does a husband who abandons his wife kids still love them, even if he says he does?

The person who refuses the church doesn't understand the church. If they do not understand the church, how can they say they understand the words of the Lord Christ who built the church and by his sacrifice has reconciled us to be part of it?

Why am I investing so much on this tangent in a review about a silly movie? Because we need to be careful about where we get our messages about Jesus. Make no mistake: The Young Messiah is not mere entertainment. There is a message. Are you hearing about Jesus from a person who loves the brothers and sisters of Jesus, or are you hearing about Jesus from a person who hates those whom he has called to himself?

Anne Rice cares not for any follower of Jesus. Therefore, she does not care about him. She is of the devil (see 1 John 3:10 again). If you said you loved me but hated my family, that is the same as if you were to say you hated me. Likewise, we cannot claim we love God but not his children (1 John 5:2). The Young Messiah is blasphemy. Every mention of Jesus in this movie is taking the Lord's name in vain.

Following my review of Risen, I received criticism that I'm just a fuddy-duddy who can't enjoy a good faith-movie. On the contrary, I have given positive reviews in the past to faith-based films (here and here). I thought the most recent adaptation of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was wonderfully done. (How can you disagree with casting Liam Neeson as Aslan?)

But I cannot abide a deliberate misrepresentation of my Savior and my God, especially for the purposes of entertainment. It is a false message perpetuated by the prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2:2). Every pastor and minister who has given their endorsement of this blasphemy, written by a woman who by her own admission hates everything they stand for, will have to give an account of themselves before God.

(Focus On the Family endorses everything under the sun that has even the faintest connection with the Bible. Its president Jim Daly endorsed Noah, a gnostic film made by an atheist, and I wrote a letter to Focus asking Daly to recant. The person from his office who wrote back insisted Daly's comments were not an endorsement. Really? Because neither Paramount nor other media outlets received Daly's comments as anything other than praise. Focus had Anne Rice on the air reading experts from Christ the Lord, so of course they endorse the movie.)

Some have argued that because The Young Messiah touches on a period of Jesus's life that the Bible tells us nothing about, the Bible is not at risk of being misused and we're free to use our imaginations. No, my friends. The Young Messiah definitely abuses Scripture.


My Brief Review

The movie begins by telling the audience that many Jews fled Egypt during the time of King Herod because he was a shill for the Romans. From the very start, two things are made apparent: the writer didn't care for the biblical narrative nor did she pay attention to world history. It would make no sense to flee to Egypt to get away from the Romans since Egypt was under Roman rule!

Herod the Great was appointed king by the Roman government, but that doesn't mean they liked one another. The Jews and Romans had a tumultuous relationship which is why Luke 23:12 is such a significant passage. When Herod Antipas (son of Herod the Great) sent Jesus back to Pilate to be sentenced, the Scriptures tell us that Herod and Pilate became friends. These two men forged a bond of friendship in their mutual enmity toward God.

What movies adapted from novels often don't capture is the tone of the source material from which they are taken. Rice's Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, a portion of which I've read, is written in first person -- from the perspective of a 7-year-old Jesus. It's like it's from the same vein (vain?) as Sarah Young's Jesus Calling, writing down what she thought were the thoughts of God.

There's a scene where the devil, who haunts the young Jesus throughout he film, causes a boy to fall and die. A girl tells Jesus he can raise this boy from the dead just as he raised a bird back to life. This anecdote definitely comes from Rice's Roman Catholic influence, as this story shares similarities with apocryphal texts like the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.

Another scene has the devil hanging around Jesus while he's sick with a fever. Jesus tells him he is not to touch him, and also says that he does not know what is going to happen. Throughout the film we get suggestions that Jesus doesn't actually know he's God, and he picks this up from other people.

I also have a problem with this thing of the devil following boy-Jesus around, which neglects the presence of the Holy Spirit. In Matthew 4, immediately following Jesus's baptism by John the Baptist, the Scriptures tell us, "Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil." There was an ordained purpose behind each one of the devil's three temptations (1 John 2:16) which is devoid of meaning in Rice's made-up universe.

The Romans are continuing to pursue the boy whose family fled Bethlehem several years before, still trying to kill him. But the Romans wouldn't have cared. They didn't get mixed up with anything concerning Jesus's sentencing until he was arrested. It wasn't Roman soldiers Herod sent to kill every baby boy two-and-under in Bethlehem. But this device allows The Young Messiah to use a similar trope as Risen: a Roman soldier's change-of-heart.

Sean Bean plays the role of Severus, one of the soldiers pursuing Jesus. He's really a hollow and empty character. What could have made the movie better was if it was told not from the perspective of Jesus, but from the perspective of Severus. However, reports World Magazine, the film's creators "had to be careful not to let [Severus' story] dominate. His story is only pertinent in relation to the family and the boy."


There's a Superman moment when Mary tells Jesus to keep his power inside him until his heavenly Father tells him that it's time to use it. Really, it was like the scene in Man of Steel where Jonathan Kent told Clark not to use his powers until the right time. And who told Clark when it was the right time? His "heavenly father" (there were lots of forced messianic parallels in that movie, too).

The film concludes with the 7-year-old Jesus talking about what he doesn't know but he thinks he's figured out what his purpose in life is but right now he's just going to live life and experience it all and take it all in even when it hurts.

Oh, brother.

Though Jesus had yet to grow in wisdom and stature (Luke 2:52), he was no less Christ as a boy than as a full-grown man (Luke 2:49).

I remember a song written by Rich Mullins called Boy Like Me, Man Like You, a much more beautiful consideration of the Christ-child. Mullins wondered what Jesus must have been like as a boy, how much like him would he have been, and asked such questions without diminishing Christology.

Two of my favorite lines from the song are these: "Did you grow up hungry, did you grow up fast? Did the little girls giggle when you walked past? Did you wonder what it was that made them laugh?" And, "Did you wrestle with a dog and lick his nose? Did you play beneath the spray of a water hose? Did you ever make angels in the winter snow?"

Such questions are innocent and fun. They are also deeply theological, pondering just how much did God incarnate experience the things as a boy that I experienced when I was a boy! I'd rather spend an afternoon with Mullins on loop than two hours sitting through this movie.

Better yet, I want to spend that time with my Bible. My friends, if you cannot devote that kind of time to Scripture -- if you spend more time in front of a screen watching things like The Bible mini-series than you spend in God's word -- your love of God will be swayed, not reinforced. It is being swayed by individuals who care not for his children and have no fear of God before their eyes (Romans 3:18).

The Young Messiah is yet another film in a long list of movies made by people who cannot endure sound teaching, but accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, turning away from listening to the truth and wandering off into myths (2 Timothy 4:3-4). Do not be edified by such things. Love Christ. Love his body. Go to church.

During my first year as senior pastor, fights broke out in our church over end-times theology. I do mean fights. Fists weren't thrown and faces weren't slapped, but there sure were a few conversations that came pretty close to that. People were shouting at one another down hallways and hollering up and down stairwells. One man in particular was more of a problem than the rest, but several others had to be told to settle down, too.

Some individuals approached me and said that I needed to confront this from the pulpit. Others said that they were excited to hear me preach on the coming of Christ, and this provided the perfect opportunity. I felt like that would make the problem worse.

When I was in high school, I watched a church split over different opinions concerning when the rapture was going to occur. All that was being proposed was that the church remove from its membership requirements that a person had to believe in a pre-tribulation rapture in order to become a member. Some thought that was just flat-out damnable heresy. No pre-tribulation rapture? How dare you! And the church split. I was not going to cause such a rupture in my own church.

So one Sunday, I took about ten minutes at the end of a sermon to address the recent string of controversy. I shared from Acts 1:7-8 when Jesus told his disciples, "It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."

"The point is this," I told my congregation: "When the disciples wanted to talk about prophecy, Jesus turned the conversation back to evangelism. There are more important things that we need to focus on right now, Jesus said. And that's what I'm saying to you. There's a time and a place to talk about the end-times. But right now, we have more important matters to discuss."

About a year later, we were finishing up Colossians and my plan was to move right into 1 Thessalonians. I was already beginning to feel convicted because I knew a study of 1 Thessalonians, chapters 4 and 5 in particular, meant that we'd be talking about the end-times and the Day of the Lord.

One day I was watching videos on YouTube, and a video popped up featuring Purpose Driven Life motivational speaker Rick Warren -- that walking, talking Rolodex of happy-verses in multiple translations who often sounds like he's never read a single one of those Bible verses in context in his entire life. Lo and behold, from Rick Warren's mouth came something that sounded really familiar:

"'It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.' When the disciples wanted to talk about prophecy, Jesus quickly switched the conversation to evangelism. He wanted them to concentrate on their mission to the world. He said in essence, 'The details of my return are none of your business. What is your business is the mission I've given you. Focus on that!' ...If you want Jesus to come back sooner, focus on fulfilling your mission, not figuring out prophecy."*

The top of my head tingled. My face went flush. And just like that, I knew I was wrong. When my words were sounding like Rick Warren's, I realized I needed to go back and figure out where I'd messed up.

I went to my archives and dug up the audio from the sermon where I'd told my congregation we weren't going to talk about the end-times. I went back to Scriptures like Obadiah and Matthew 24 and 25. I talked with trusted friends. I repented before the Lord. Then upon starting our study in 1 Thessalonians, I apologized to my congregation. I misled them to believe teaching about the end-times was not important.

It is very important. It is our hope, the resurrection of the dead, the coming of his kingdom, the restoration of all things, the end of all evil, the final judgment, the wedding feast of the Lamb, the fulfillment of the promises of God! How could we not look forward to that day? How could we not want to talk about it? Though there are those who want to argue, the Apostle Paul said to encourage one another with such words (1 Thessalonians 4:18).

Not only did we talk about it while studying 1 and 2 Thessalonians, we've been talking about it ever since. The Bible tells us that part of gathering as the church means stirring one another to love and good works, and encouraging one another as the Day of the Lord draws near (Hebrews 10:24-25). Concerning his return, Jesus said, "Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes" (Matthew 24:45-46).

So that's how I learned something from Rick Warren. I also learned that the way we handle conflict, particularly regarding doctrine, is not by ignoring it or telling everyone else to ignore it. It must be confronted. We can avoid conflict over doctrine in our churches by teaching sound doctrine in our churches! At the most recent Shepherd's Conference, John MacArthur called for a return of the pastor-theologian to the pulpit. It is important to know sound doctrine, and to teach it. There's no part of the Bible we shouldn't be teaching.

Lest anyone think by this anecdote that I strive to be Warren's opposite, I very rarely listen to him apart from the times I stumble across something of his or he makes headlines by saying or doing something ridiculous. I will occasionally listen to a sermon by a false teacher or read one of their books so I can know how to defend my flock. It's part of my job description as a pastor (Titus 1:9). But I don't listen to false teachers as a model for what I shouldn't be.

My model for preaching and teaching is Christ. The other teachers I learn from also dearly love and carefully handle his words -- whether living men such as Baucham, Chandler, Dever, Mohler, Washer, or those who have gone home such as Edwards, Lloyd-Jones, Schaeffer, Spurgeon, Whitefield. I need help understanding the deep truths of God's word, and these are just a few of the men who have helped me.

I must admit that I've also learned from teachers like Warren who grossly mishandle the word. If I start to sound like them, I've gotten off track somewhere. I need to repent and rightly handle the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15). I hope he learns from his faults, that he repents of his false teaching, and comes to love the sound words of the Lord Christ.

*That excerpt is taken from Warren's book The Purpose Driven Life. I was not able to find the video where I heard Warren say that, but it was virtually identical.

Dear Pastor Gabe

Thank you for the WWUTT ministry! It has been a blessing to me and other people that I know. I have a question regarding speaking in tongues. Can we really advise that it is okay to use any spiritual gift such as tongues for private or mere personal edification? Wouldn't this be a deviation from the rest of 1 Corinthians, and be done in a way that is really not typical of how Paul points that kind of thing out? I'm not saying that someone should not use the gift if it is given, just that I think the biblical use of the gift would not entail speaking mysteries to the wind, so to speak. Paul would rather speak five words that could be understood. How easy is that to do (Jesus saves all repentant sinners)? It seems he's making a point there.

Thank you again!
Neil

That's an e-mail I received last year when I held more liberal beliefs than I hold now concerning the spiritual gift of speaking in tongues. A friend of mine (When We Understand the Text was first brain-stormed in his living room) has since shown me the doctrinal errors in my former understanding. I don't wish to try to explain what I used to believe, but if you watch this video with John Piper and this one with David Platt, you'd get an idea.

What's the position I hold now? The biblical one. The gift of tongues as we see it given starting in Acts 2 is an anointing of the Holy Spirit to testify the message of God in languages that the hearers could understand. That is its purpose and function.

So I'd like to come back to Neil's question from 2015 and answer it the right way in 2016. You're right, Neil. We should not advise that it's okay to use the gift of tongues for personal edification. Paul didn't either. I'd further your question and my answer by adding that the babbling we refer to now as "speaking in tongues" isn't.

I'm going to expound on this response by coming to the text so we can understand what speaking in tongues actually is and what it isn't, all according to what the Bible says. So grab your Bible. But before I get to that, permit me to share my experience from this past week.

Tongue Twisters of the Word

Last weekend at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, some 60,000 people at event called The Call, also known as Azusa Now, prayed in tongues for 15 straight hours on the 110th anniversary of what is known as the Azusa Street outpouring. At least, they think they were praying in tongues. It was actually complete gibberish.

The thing was set off in part by false prophetess Cindy Jacobs who said, "This is that which the prophets foretold. I'm getting ready to open up the greatest generation of young evangelists the world has ever known!" I can definitively say Jacobs was more full of herself than with the Holy Spirit.

It was in the midst of the whole Azusa Now garbage that I made the following tweet...

#AzusaNow There's not one verse in the Bible that encourages or gives an example of praying in tongues.

— Gabe Hughes (@wwuttguy) April 10, 2016

That was preceding a WWUTT video I was working on about praying in tongues (posted on Wednesday). In the 24 hours following the video, I was told I'm not actually saved, called a false teacher, compared to being a "mutt in a dumpster," that I had a rancid heart, I'm dividing the body of Christ, I suffer from typical Baptist false doctrine, and that I needed to be a man and take the video down.

Now, I'm not looking for sympathy. Mere words on faceless internet cannot even compare to the suffering my Savior bore for my sins. I mention those few comments just to make this point -- the subject of speaking in tongues is a very, very touchy subject. And it really, really shouldn't be. Those who place such critical importance on speaking in tongues (emphasis on critical) are at least as guilty as the Corinthians were when they prompted a rebuke from the Apostle Paul for the way they abused the spiritual gifts.

I would say that those who defend the modern western world notion of speaking in tongues are actually guilty of worse than what the Corinthians were doing. For what they are defending as "tongues" aren't actually "tongues" at all.

The defense that is made regarding speaking in tongues typically begins in 1 Corinthians 14. It cannot start there. An understanding of this spiritual gift has to start in Acts 2 where we see the gift of tongues first given. Then 1 Corinthians 14, the last chapter the spiritual gift is mentioned in, affirms its proper function and clarifies its proper usage. I'm not going to quote the entire chapters word-for-word. But you can open up your Bible and see for yourself the context as I give it.


Starting with Acts 2

In the first chapter of Acts, Jesus told the disciples to go back into Jerusalem and wait for the promise of the Father. They would receive power when the Holy Spirit had come upon them, and then they would go throughout Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth preaching the gospel. When Jesus said in John 14:12 that his disciples would do "greater works" than he had done, that's what he was referring to -- taking the gospel out even further by the power of the Holy Spirit.

According to Acts 1:15, there were 120 of them altogether devoting themselves to prayer. Then they cast lots for the 12th apostle who would replace Judas, and the lot fell on a man named Matthias.

At the start of chapter 2, the apostles were together in one place on the day of Pentecost. Pentecost was a feast day when the Jews celebrated the giving of the law at Mount Sinai. This is extremely significant. The day the Jews were gathered together to celebrate the law was the day they would hear the gospel of Jesus Christ who fulfilled the law.

The Scriptures say that a sound came from heaven like the sound of a mighty rushing wind. And divided tongues "as of fire" rested on each one of them (note: It wasn't actual fire but something that looked like fire). Verse 4 says, "And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance." The Greek word for "tongues" here is glossais (1100 in Strong's Concordance) which means "language." I'll come back to this again.

Jews from "every nation under heaven" (Acts 2:5) had come back to Jerusalem to celebrate Pentecost. They had been scattered in the exile about 600 years before. After the exile ended, many Jews returned to rebuild Jerusalem (as in Nehemiah, for example), but many stayed where they were and made lives for themselves. The generations that followed spoke mostly the language of the people they lived among. Still honoring their heritage, they would travel back to Jerusalem for major occasions. Jewish festivals were a hodgepodge of nationalities and languages.

At the sound of the rushing wind and the apostles who were speaking in tongues, the multitude came together, "and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language." The people said, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in this own native language?"

In other words, according to the traditions of those days, there was no reason for the apostles, ordinary Galileans, to have been so educated that they knew the multitude of languages they were speaking. That was recognized by those who observed them. The Bible's description of this ability to speak in tongues is given immediately: a gift of the Holy Spirit to speak in a language of man that the person speaking did not previously know.

Verses 8-11 explain which nations were represented among them, and yet "we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God" (verse 11). Some were asking "What does this mean?" Yet there were others who did not understand what was going on, and they said, "They are filled with new wine." (For some stupid reason, Kenneth Hagin taught this meant the Holy Spirit makes a person indistinguishable from an idiotic drunk.)

Then Peter spoke up to speak to those who did not understand. He said, "Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem;" so Peter spoke in a language specifically for the men and women that resided in that region. "Let this be known to you," he said "and give ear to my words. For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day" (it was 9:00 in the morning, too early to be drunk yet).

Peter said what was happening was a fulfillment of Old Testament Scriptures, when it was said through the prophet Joel that God would pour out his Spirit on all flesh, "and your sons and daughters would prophesy." He showed them how Jesus of Nazareth, killed at the hands of lawless men according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God (Acts 2:23). Peter explained how Christ fulfilled the prophesies of old, and that he was known even by David, their greatest king.

"This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses," Peter continued. "Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, 'The Lord said to my Lord, 'Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.'' Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified" (Acts 2:32-36).

The gospel Peter preached cut them to the heart. They asked what they needed to do, and Peter said, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself."

The Scriptures say that Peter continued to preach them many words, saying "Save yourselves from this crooked generation." This was a long sermon, not limited to just the thousand words we have in Acts 2. Those who were convicted and received his word repented of their sins, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.

Understand that tens of thousands of people heard this message. Three thousand were saved. That's still really fantastic! More people were converted in one day than in Jesus's entire earthly ministry. Again, as he said to his disciples, they would do even greater works than he had done -- because he had given them the Helper, the Holy Spirit, who spoke through them (Luke 21:15), even in languages the apostles did not know.

The people were saved because they heard the gospel. Romans 10:17 says, "Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ." These Jews heard the word of Christ, were saved and were baptized." They heard the message in their own language. That's what the gift of tongues is. That's what the gift of tongues is for.

Other Occasions of Speaking In Tongues in Acts

Speaking in tongues is mentioned only two other times in the book of Acts. But both of these occasions must be looked at in light of what we read in Acts 2.

In Acts 10, an angel appeared to a Roman centurion named Cornelius who told him to seek out Peter who would preach to the Gentiles. Peter had previously been resistant to preaching to the Gentiles, but God had shown him "that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him."

Peter told them about the words of the prophets, Jesus's death on the cross, and the forgiveness of sins through Christ. The Holy Spirit fell on all who heard it. The Jews that were among them were amazed because the Holy Spirit was given even to those who weren't Jews, for "they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God" (Acts 10:46).

Meaning what? Meaning that the Gentiles started speaking in a language they did not know, but perhaps the Jews did, and this was an evidence to the Jews that even non-Jews would receive this gift of the Spirit. The people of God would be made up not just of Jews, but of Gentiles also. Whatever it was the Gentiles were saying in these foreign tongues, the Jews understood them to be praising the Lord. Again, the gift of tongues was given to communicate a message.

In Acts 19:1-7, Paul found some disciples of John the Baptist when he was passing through Ephesus. He asked them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" They said, "No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit." So Paul explained to them that John baptized with a baptism or repentance, but that this was a testimony of the one who was to come after him, that is Jesus Christ.

This is a little different occurrence than what happened in c.10. Note that they were baptized first, then Paul laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. This does not mean that they didn't have the Spirit until Paul gave it to them, as though Paul saved them by touching them. They were saved upon hearing and receiving the gospel, which was why they were baptized. Then they were given an anointing of the Spirit by the authority of Paul as an apostle to speak in tongues.

Verses 5-7 read, "On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying. There were about twelve men in all." It says in verses 9-10 that Paul took those disciples with them and they ministered with him for 2 years. Those twelve men became instrumental in sharing the gospel, which by the power of the Holy Spirit they were able to do in tongues that other men could understand.

Many charismatics and pentecostals will twist these two stories, in Acts 10 and 19, to make the argument that speaking in tongues is the sign of receiving the Holy Spirit -- not a sign, but the sign. If you've never spoken in tongues, they say, then you've never received the Holy Spirit. That is a lie from the pit of hell.

First of all, we do not see those who were baptized in Acts 2 speaking in tongues, nor do we see those described as receiving the Spirit in Acts 8:19 speaking in tongues. The Ethiopian Eunuch that Stephen baptized in Acts 8:26-40 did not come up out of the water speaking in tongues. Again, speaking in tongues is mentioned only three places in Acts. Not one verse in the Bible says we must speak in tongues to show evidence of the Spirit. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 12:30 that not all who receive the Spirit would speak in tongues. End of story.

Do not believe anyone who tells you that you must speak in tongues or else you haven't received the Holy Spirit. They are liars teaching false doctrine. You will find many other teachings of theirs will not line up with the word of God.


Getting to 1 Corinthians 14

Once you understand what tongues are as they are spoken about in Acts, then you can better understand to what Paul is referring in 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14. In chapter 12, he talks about speaking in tongues and the interpretation of tongues being gifts of the Spirit. But he starts by saying, "To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good" (v.7). Gifts of the Spirit are for building up the church, not edifying the self. And it is the Spirit "who apportions to each one individually as he wills" (v.11).

Tongues are listed as the least of the Spiritual gifts (v.28), and as I've already mentioned, not everyone will speak in tongues, nor will everyone have the ability to interpret them (v.30). Though not everyone will have, we should all desire the higher gifts (v.31). Why? So our desire is for the church to be edified, and ultimately for God to be glorified. Paul is instructing them on the proper usage of spiritual gifts because the Corinthians had been abusing the gifts, and desiring the lesser gifts when they should be promoting the higher gifts.

We know 1 Corinthians 13 as "The Love Chapter" of the Bible. It's commonly read at weddings and quoted in lovey-dovey greeting cards. But Paul was not being romantic. He was rebuking the Corinthians. Everything that we read love is in 1 Corinthians 13, the Corinthians were doing the opposite.

When Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:1, "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal." He's not saying he does speak in the tongues of angels. He's being hyperbolic. He's telling the Corinthians that even if you were able to speak in the languages the angels speak, if it was not done in love for God and his saints, it would mean precisely squat.

It should be noted that Paul said to the Corinthians on another occasion that he's heard and seen heavenly things "that cannot be told, which man may not utter" (2 Corinthians 12:4). We cannot speak heavenly or divine languages with our fleshly mouths. Sorry.

Love is the most excellent way. Let all that we do be done in brotherly love for building up the body of Christ. That's the point of 1 Corinthians 13, which falls right between chapters 12 and 14 describing the spiritual gifts.

In 1 Corinthians 14:1-4, we read the following: "Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit. On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church."

Verse 2 is I think without question the most abused verse when it comes to mounting a defense of speaking in tongues. I did the same thing when I thought it was okay to permit the practice. But you must read verse 2 in light of verse 1, and you must read verse 1 in light of chapters 12 and 13, and you must read chapters 12 and 13 in light of Paul's reason for writing to the Corinthians, and you must understand any mention of tongues in light of the gift as it's first given in Acts 2.

In 1 Corinthians 14:1, Paul says to pursue love (as in chapter 13) and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially to prophesy (as in chapter 12). Why? So the lost will hear the gospel and the saints will be encouraged, which we do in the love of God poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Romans 5:5).

When Paul gets to verse 2 and explains that "one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understand him, but he utters mysteries of the Spirit," he's saying that speaking in tongues does not edify the body of Christ. If a person speaks in tongues to himself, he's only edifying himself, and that's not what we should desire. We should desire the spiritual gifts for the purpose of edifying the body and building up the church.

The rest of chapter 14 is a continued rebuke for the ways the Corinthians were misusing the spiritual gift, while lovingly teaching them how it is to be used properly. It is not in any way, shape, or form giving permission to pray in tongues. And it is especially not permitting or encouraging prayers in gibberish that aren't actually any language at all. It's just gobbledygook we call tongues but really is not.

Not one time in the Bible all the way up to 1 Corinthians 14 is tongues described as some indiscernible mysterious divine language. You have to come to the text believing that qualifies as tongues and read that into the text. When Paul says in verse 5, "Now I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy," he is not saying Paul wants you to speak gibberish in private prayer, nor is he even saying he wants you to pray another language to yourself. He's saying it's good for you to speak in tongues for the purpose it was intended for -- sharing the gospel.

Paul says in verse 6, "Now, brothers, if I come to you speaking in tongues, how will I benefit you unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching?" In other words, speaking in tongues in and of itself does not fulfill some purpose. It's what's being said that's purposeful. If we're praying in languages that mean nothing, then... well, it means nothing!

Now look at verse 10: "There are doubtless many different languages in the world, and none is without meaning..." Can that be stated any more plainly? There are many languages in the world, and they all have meaning. Again, speaking in tongues is not meaningless gibberish or some divine, unknown language.

Paul goes on, "But if I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be a foreigner to the speaker and the speaker a foreigner to me. So with yourselve, since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church." There we have that said again -- desire what is edifying to others and builds up the church.

Verse 13: "Therefore, one who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret." Again, a "tongue" here is a language in the world. And speaking in tongues is not the same thing as understanding what is being said. But a person who prays in a tongue can either be given the interpretation of that tongue, or the interpretation may be given to another.

Verses 14-15: "For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also." And again, Paul is not saying here that he prays in tongues. He says, "if I pray in a tongue." Even his own mind is unfruitful to himself. So what does he desire to do? Not pray in tongues. He will pray and sing with his spirit and his mind so that he and others will be edified.

As kind of a side-note, we also get the instruction here that our songs aren't to be merely thoughtless words that rhyme: "I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also." Paul instructed the Colossians, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God" (Colossians 3:16). Even in the songs that we sing, we are to prophesy to one another the words and works of God.

Paul says in verse 19 something that Neil quoted in his question: "In church I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in a tongue." Those who place such a high importance on speaking in tongues speak contrary to the ministry of the apostles, whom we are told to imitate (1 Corinthians 11:1).

"Brothers, do not be children in your thinking," Paul says, again emphasizing that speaking in tongues is among the lesser gifts. "Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature. In the Law it is written, 'By people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord.' Thus tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers, while prophecy is a sign not for unbelievers but for believers" (v.20-22).

What is said here in 1 Corinthians 14:21-22 affirms the purpose of tongues we saw demonstrated in the book of Acts. Tongues are a sign for unbelievers, declaring the saving message of God in their own language. It is not or is it ever defined as a private prayer language. Paul quotes from Isaiah as Peter quoted from Joel to point out how the gift of tongues fulfilled Old Testament prophesy, and even in the Old Testament, tongues are spoken about as declaring a message in another language.

Paul then expounds on that understanding and goes on to talk about order: "If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds? But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you."

Pentecostal, apostolic, and full gospel churches are in defiance of 1 Corinthians 14:23-40, whether their understanding of tongues is the languages of men or the gibberish they call tongues. Paul again says, "Let all things be done for building up. If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn, and let someone interpret. But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silent in church and speak to himself and to God."

Acting like circus animals (as in the Kenneth Hagin clip from earlier) is not godly. God is not a God of confusion, but of peace (verse 33). All things should be done decently and in order (verse 40).

After 1 Corinthians 14, the gift of speaking in tongues is never mentioned in the Bible again. And 1 Corinthians was one of Paul's earliest letters. We get the impression that the gift of speaking in tongues had an immediate purpose in the earliest years of first sharing the gospel, and once multiple people in multiple languages heard it, that purpose steadily diminished, even within those first 40 years of the early church.


In Conclusion

"So Pastor Gabe, are you saying that the Assemblies of God churches, the Foursquare churches, the full gospel churches, pentecostal and charismatic churches, and any other denomination, even the smattering of Baptist, Presbyterian, Nazarene, and Methodist churches that encourage praying in 'tongues' as we think of prayer in tongues are actually teaching something that is contrary to what the word of God says?"

I would be saying that, yes.

"But Pastor Gabe, that's divisive! That does not promote unity!"

Well, the word of God cuts like a sword (Hebrews 4:12), and Jesus said he's come not to bring peace, but a sword (Matthew 10:34). I'm telling you what the Bible says. If you think that's divisive, it's because you're falling on the sword of God's word. I'm not being divisive by teaching what the gift of tongues actually is and what the Scriptures say about it. The ones who slander their brothers and sisters in Christ over what the Bible does not say about one of the least of the gifts, the gift of tongues -- it is they who divide. Any teaching that is contrary to Scripture divides bodies, not unifies them.

Now, I will clarify that speaking in tongues is not an essential doctrine. Regarding a brother who thinks speaking gibberish is some kind of heavenly language to the Lord, I don't consider him unsaved. But he is misguided. I was, too. Though I never spoke in tongues, I permitted the practice because I did not understand the Scriptures properly regarding this matter. (In that same vein of thought, those who make speaking in tongues an essential doctrine are heretics, for they claim something is necessary for salvation that is not.)

I do not think that the body of teaching of men like John Piper, David Platt, and Matt Chandler should be thrown out because they permit speaking in tongues in what they consider to be a biblical practice. I still greatly respect those men and their teaching. Anything any teacher says should always be tested according to the Scriptures -- even what I am saying here.

My congregation will tell you there is not a subject I will not address. I've had people get up and leave in the middle of service because I said if you teaching your children that Santa Claus is real, you're lying to your kids. I've said if you want to save your children from this wicked and crooked generation, pull them out of public school and homeschool them or send them to a Christian school. I have done this in love, not to be controversial.

The false idea that speaking in tongues as a necessary evidence of salvation is heavy in our community, influenced by pentecostal and apostolic denominations with large attendances. An understanding of what they teach and how to respond is necessary when confronting false teaching with the sound teachings of Christ.

The subject of speaking in tongues is in the Bible, so it must be taught and clarified according to what Scripture says it is, not what we want it to be. When it comes to instructing one another on this or any other subject, we must do it as we must do all things: in love, for the purpose of building up the body of Christ, to the praise of his glorious grace.

The clearest instruction that we have on prayer -- and I do mean clear -- was given to us by our Savior Christ. In the first sermon of his we have recorded in Scripture, he taught us how to pray and what to pray (Matthew 6:5-15):

And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 

And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this: 

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. 

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

For to God is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.

This Q&A was featured on the WWUTT podcast episode #165. You can subscribe to the podcast by clicking here. Thanks for reading!

On Friday, I posted a new WWUTT video on John 10:10 which reads, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." The "thief" is often depicted as Satan. The context refers not to Satan but agents of Satan. Jesus was specifically talking about false teachers, whom he describes as thieves and robbers (see John 10:1-10).

In doing so, Jesus was referencing Ezekiel 34 where the prophet said the following:

"Thus says the Lord God: Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beasts. My sheep were scattered; they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with none to search or seek for them."

When Jesus said to Zacchaeus in Luke 19:10, "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost," this was also a reference to being the Good Shepherd (also John 10:11) who came to seek and to save the sheep who had not been tended by the shepherds. False teachers do not unify the people of God. They scatter them to be devoured by more false teachings, falling into a snare of the devil (1 Timothy 3:7, 2 Timothy 2:26).

Pastor means shepherd. All pastors are called to tend God's sheep, and the sheep are instructed to be subject to the authority of the shepherds (1 Peter 5:1-5). We are warned though that many will pose as shepherds but inside are ravenous wolves (Matthew 7:15). One of the job descriptions of a pastor is to teach sound doctrine and rebuke those who contradict it, warning the sheep against false teachers (Titus 1:9).

The Bible reserves its harshest criticisms for false teachers, and John 10:10 is one of those criticisms. False teachers do far worse than add a few words here or there or take a few verses out of context. What they preach is the teaching of demons (1 Timothy 4:1-2). Irreverent babble and the mishandling of God's word spreads like an infection that causes parts of the body to fall off and leads to ungodliness (2 Timothy 2:15-17).

The Scriptures say that unless they repent of their false teaching, they will be judged as liars, thieves, and murderers (Revelation 21:8). Jesus said not everyone who calls him "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who did the will of his Father (Matthew 7:21). The ignorant and unstable twist the Scriptures to their own destruction. Therefore we must be careful not to be carried away by the error of lawless people and thus lose our steadfastness in the faith (2 Peter 3:16-17).

Do you understand the seriousness? False teaching is a deadly thing. Those who teach falsely will be destroyed, as will those who believe and follow such false teaching. But the Lord knows who are his (2 Timothy 2:19). Those who are his sheep will hear his voice and follow the Good Shepherd (John 10:1-11).


Which brings me back to the video. Some of these thieves and robbers described in John 10 are seen in the thumbnail for the YouTube short (pictured above). From left to right, back to front: TD Jakes, Joel Osteen, Rob Bell, Jesse Duplantis, Joyce Meyer, and Oprah Winfrey. On our Facebook page, a woman named Michelle left the following comment:

"They don't all preach the same thing. And just because they don't fit in your little box does not make them false teachers. Some of them I don't watch, I'll grant you, but I'm tired of people placing false teacher labels because of things they've heard that someone said they think they said and whatever! What are you doing to get people saved besides pointing fingers without checking facts!"

Well, Michelle, the gospel is preached in that video. Jesus is the only way to heaven, and those who are truly his sheep will follow him and receive eternal life. Regarding false teachers, it's not about whether or not they fit in some kind of man-made box, but whether or not they are following and teaching the true words of Christ. Let's examine just the teachers pictured:

Rob Bell
Bell teaches a lot of weird things, but let's focus on his most infamous false doctrine: he denies there is a hell and teaches that everyone, in some way or another, is going to go to heaven, even hostile atheists who never repented of their sins. The Bible teaches there is a hell, and yes, all those who did not believe in Christ for the forgiveness of sins will be sent there for all eternity (Matthew 25:46, Revelation 20:10, 15). Jesus talked more on the subject of hell than did any other figure in the Bible combined. It's a pretty important subject.

Malachi 2:17 says, "You have wearied the Lord with your words. But you say, 'How have we wearied him?' By saying, 'Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.' Or by asking, 'Where is the God of justice?'" God is indeed a loving and merciful God. But to twist the Scriptures as Bell does by denying that God is also a God of wrath and justice is to present a false god -- a god of Bell's own making, not the God of the Bible.

Oprah Winfrey
Oprah teaches that "there are many paths to what you call God."In this video, she also denies that Jesus is the only way to heaven, saying it isn't possible that he's the only way. Lest you think this is just something she said a long time ago, in a miniseries that aired in October, 2015 on OWN, she said that there are "millions of ways to God."

Do I really need to point out the problem with this? Jesus said, "I am the way the truth and the life. No one gets to the Father but by me" (John 14:6). Oprah embraces and endorses a great deal of new age spiritual mysticism. The Bible says those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God (Galatians 5:20-21). "You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons" (1 Corinthians 10:21).

Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyer
Both of these false teachers preach the prosperity gospel, also known as "name it and claim it," a hallmark of the Word of Faith Movement (or as Meyer has referred to it, Seed Faith teaching). Basically their message is to pursue riches by faith. For example, Meyer believes you can speak to your checkbook and be rich. The reason why you don't have wealth is because you haven't asked, twisting Scriptures like Mark 11:24. They might qualify their logic by saying things like, "You're a child of the kingdom, right? Therefore you should be wearing royal robes!"

But 1 Timothy 6:6-10 reads, "But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs."

People are most often destroyed by riches, not blessed by them. Why else would Jesus say that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven (Mark 10:25)? The prosperity teachers heap a burden on their hearers, and then make them feel like failures when they don't accomplish wealth: "Well the reason you don't have is because you did not declare! The reason you don't have is because you don't have enough faith!" These kinds of burdens are what Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for tying onto people (Matthew 23:4), calling them children of hell who produce more children of hell (Matthew 23:15).

To be very clear, the prosperity gospel is idol worship. Osteen and Meyer are two of the names at the top of that list of teachers.


Jesse Duplantis
Oh, where to start? Is there anything that comes out of this man's mouth that's biblical? Duplantis claims he went to heaven and had a personal audience with God. John 3:13 says that no one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, and that is Christ. Duplantis claims God asked him for advice and he told God he was wrong. Job 38:2 says, "Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?"

Duplantis claimed that God has the power to take life but he can't, and that you choose when you live or die. "Death and life is in the power of your tongue, not God's," he said. Well, in 2 Samuel 6:7, God struck Uzzah dead when he touched the Ark of the Covenant. In Numbers 14:37, God killed the ten spies who brought a bad report back from the Promised Land and misled the people. He also killed millions in a global flood. God absolutely will take the life of the godless (Job 27:8). But he gives life to those who trust in Christ (John 5:21).

As Justin Peters has said, and I agree with him, Jesse Duplantis is not a Christian. A person indwelt by the Holy Spirit cannot say such things about God. He preaches about a different god than the God of the Bible. If they preach a different god, they preach a different gospel. It is not the gospel that saves.

T.D. Jakes
I've written previously about Thomas Dexter Jakes who denies the doctrine of the Trinity. God is one God, three persons; Father, Son, and Spirit. How important is it to believe this? It is the doctrine that distinguishes Christianity from every other world religion. Many religions claim to worship gods. Some religions claim to worship one god (like Judaism and Islam). Some claim to believe in Jesus (Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses). But only Christianity worships the one true God who is one being in three co-equal and eternal persons. The Bible explicitly says that he who denies the Father and the Son is a liar and an antichrist (1 John 2:22).

In addition to denying this fundamental doctrine, Jakes, like Osteen and Meyer, is a prosperity teacher. He has said of himself, "I am the power and the kingdom and the glory, and I think I kind of like it that way" (The Wall Street Journal, August 21, 1998), twisting the closing words of the Lord's prayer: "For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever." Isaiah 42:8 says that God will not share his glory with another.

Woman Pastors
It should be noted that every teacher on this short list also believes women can and should be pastors. Joyce Meyer is herself a pastor. Osteen's wife, Victoria, and Jakes's wife also are pastors of their respective churches. This is contrary to what God's word teaches.

While egalitarianism is not an essential doctrine (in other words, a person who believes a woman can be a pastor can still also be a born-again believer), this issue seems to be the one issue of our present time that can be used as a barometer to determine whether or not a church will influence the culture by the authority of God's word, or let their understanding of God's word be influenced by the culture. I am not alone in that determination.

In Conclusion
The Bible says to test the spirits, for not every spirit that claims to be from God is of God and there are many false prophets that have gone out into the world (1 John 4:1). Jesus said each tree is known by its own fruit. A good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Luke 6:43-45). By what they say, we will know if they speak the words of God or the words of the devil.

The Apostle Paul told the Thessalonians to test everything. Hold fast to what is good and abstain from every form of evil (1 Thessalonians 5:21-22). The Bereans in Acts 17:11, more noble than even the Thessalonians, tested the words of the Apostle Paul against the Scriptures to know if what he was saying came from God. There are many who will claim to be apostles, but they are deceitful workmen, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:13-14).

Yes, my friends. These men and women are thieves and robbers. Unless they repent of their false teaching, their portion will be in the lake of fire (back to Revelation 21:8). We must do as Jude did and contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 1:3). Be wise and discerning, testing all things according to the word of God.

The following is a transcript from the When We Understand the Text podcast, episodes dated for April 27 and 28, 2016. Featured was a sermon by Dr. Adrian Rogers entitled "Predestined for Hell? No!" with commentary. The sermon has been unedited and appears in its entirety, as well as my commentary as I gave it. Dr. Rogers' comments are in bold. 

Paige Patterson once said that whatever your views are regarding the subject of God's sovereignty, I pray you'll join me in taking the gospel to the ends of the earth. Amen. When it comes to talking about God's sovereignty, or predestination, or who the elect are, I do not believe this is cause for division. Many brothers of mine, and even members of my own congregation, do not view these subjects the same way that I do. I don't often invest so many words in talking about God's sovereign election, except where it comes up in the text. Since Romans 9 is where we are in our study of Romans, it is the topic of discussion this week.

I hold the view that before the foundation of the world, God has predestined who will be saved and who will be the objects of his wrath. I see that Romans 9 clearly teaches it. In verses 22 and 23, "What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory."

Today, what I would like to do is present the viewpoint of someone who does not view Romans 9 this way. What do the arguments sound like from the opposing position? And the sermon that I have chosen to share is from Dr. Adrian Rogers, entitled, "Predestined for Hell? No!" I believe that this sermon best encapsulates how a person who does not accept the doctrine of predestination exegetes Romans 9.

Dr. Adrian Rogers passed away a little over 10 years ago. He was the president of the Southern Baptist Convention beginning in 1979 and served three terms. Rogers was a staunch advocate of biblical inerrancy. Under his presidency, all liberal and moderate seminary professors in the SBC were removed from their positions if they could not sign a statement on biblical inerrancy. Rogers also chaired the committee that re-fashioned the Baptist Faith and Message, a statement of beliefs my church clings to, into the Baptist Faith and Message 2000.

While Dr. Rogers did many great things for the southern baptist church, he was aggressively opposed to Calvinism. Though he spoke passionately on sin and God's judgment of sin, he hated the doctrine of total depravity. I believe that Rogers's influence is still felt in the SBC today. He's one of the reasons for the soundness in our seminaries, and unfortunately he's also one of the reasons there is such a disparity between those who ascribe to Calvinism and its doctrines, and those who do not.

Rogers's statements regarding predestination were frankly divisive, and you're going to recognize that in the message that you're going to hear. I will be playing this message in full in two parts, split between today and tomorrow. This has not been edited for content. I will be breaking in periodically to explain why Rogers is incorrect, but I also express my agreement as well. I consider Rogers a brother in Christ with whom I will share glory.

Presenting his exposition of Romans 9, here is Dr. Adrian Rogers.

Would you take your Bibles and turn to Romans chapter 9, and when you've found Romans chapter 9, would you look up here. Let me ask you a very serious and a very somber question. Has God created, has God predestined, has God ordained that some people are born to go to hell? That there's nothing they can do about it -- it is all settled. They are a pawn on the chessboard of faith. Is that what the Bible teaches? Absolutely not. The title of our message today: "Predestined for Hell? No!" Predestined for hell, question mark, answer, no, exclamation point. You're not predestined to hell.

Rogers is using some loaded language here, and it's the way he's wording things that causes division among brothers over this issue. "Pawn on a chessboard of faith." See, that's what he thinks of the view of the doctrine of predestination that I hold -- that I think of people as pawns. I rejoice in Christ Jesus my Lord that he saves me (see Psalm 71:1-6), and I pray that everyone I preach to would be saved (see 1 Timothy 2:1-4). Everyone I share the gospel with whether it's from the pulpit or just walking up to a person on the street: I pray that their hearts would be broken and by the will of God, they would know Christ Jesus as Lord. Because of his love and mercy. Because of him who wills it to be done.

The Bible tells us not to quarrel about words, which does no good but only ruins the hearers (2 Timothy 2:14). So while Rogers is going to say things like, "No, exclamation point!" and put a divisive emphasis on some of his language, I'm not going to respond that way. At least I hope not. I want to be as even about this as possible, but still emphatic, still passionate about the word of God with a desire to proclaim his glory. I think Adrian Rogers wanted to do that, too. I think he was a faithful and passionate man of God who wanted to see people get saved. From what I know of him I believe him to have been faithful to his ministry, and I have personally encountered people who call themselves Christians today because of the teaching of Adrian Rogers.

But on this particular subject, he was wrong. And I wish to respectfully disagree with the way that he exegetes Romans 9. You will find that there are places where Rogers and I are in agreement, but we will be in mostly disagreement.

Does God will to save some and destroy others? Yes, he does. Does God desire that the whole world hear his gospel and come to repentance? Yes, he does. And these two ideas do not contradict one another, nor do they perpetuate a belief in a schizophrenic God. There is what God wills to have happen, and then there is what God will do.

God uses even evil and the destruction of the wicked for his sovereign plan. The betrayal of Judas in Luke 22:3, Herod's contempt for Jesus in Luke 23:11, the Jews shouting "Crucify him! Crucify him!" in Luke 23:21, Pilate handing over Jesus to death in Luke 23:24, and the Roman soldiers mocking Christ in Luke 23:26. These were all prophesied. These evil acts God foreordained so we might be delivered from evil. The two things do not contradict.

Luke displays an understanding of this sovereign will where as he would write later in Acts 2:23, "This Jesus was delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God." And in Acts 4:27-28, "Truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontus Pilate, along with the Gentiles and people of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place."

Did Judas, Herod, Pilate, and all the people of Israel and Rome, could they have rejected God's will and done the opposite of what God had predestined, foreordained, had even spoken about through his prophets in the Old Testament? They could not. It was predetermined by God, yet they are held accountable for their actions, and yet no one can find fault with God. That is what we're going to understand and look at further as we continue.

Let's read here in Romans 9, the first three verses: "I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh."

May I say this, friend: that ours is the greatest mission on the face of this earth. That is the salvation of lost souls. Our message is the greatest message, that is the glorious gospel of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And our master is the greatest master, that is Jesus Christ himself. The church that's not interested in evangelism and soul winning is not worthy of the ground that it occupies. We are to evangelize or we will fossilize. Our mandate is to preach the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ to every creature.

The Bible says of that early church in those days the number of the disciples was multipled. In many churches in doesn't even make good addition. We do so little with so much. They did so much with so little. They didn't have any colleges, they didn't have seminaries, they didn't have radio and television stations, they didn't have printing presses, they didn't have finances, they didn't have prestige. They went out to tell the message of a Galilean peasent, a carpenter's son who was crucified. They went out against the imperial might of Rome. They went out against the intellectual sophestry of Greece. They went out against the stiff-necked bigotry of the Jewish religion. And it was said of them that they turned that world upside down.

What a great way he put that: "They did so much with so little, and we do so little with so much." That should be convicting, that we should desire to do all that we can to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ, without prejudice or bigotry because Christ has commanded us to. Matthew 28:19-20 reads, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Now, one of the leaders of the crew was a little Jew named Paul. And what you have here in the Scripture that I just read to you is the heartbeat of a soul-winner. The heartbeat of a man who's interested in evangelism and getting souls saved. And I want you to notice the concern that he had. Look at verse one of this chapter. "I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost."

The Apostle Paul had a sincere concern for souls. He said, "I'm telling you the truth. I am not telling a lie." If I were to ask, "Lift up your hands, how many of you have a concern for souls?" almost every one of you would lift up your hand. But you would have a twinge of conscience because your conscience would not bear you witness. He had a sincere concern for souls.

Look if you will -- he had a steadfast concern for souls. Verse 2: "I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart." The Apostle Paul didn't blow hot and then blow cold. He wasn't up and then down. He didn't get under conviction when the preacher preached about it and then forgot about it when he got home and turned on the television. He had a steadfast concern for souls, and he had a sacrificial concern for souls.

Look if you will at verse 3: "For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh." If I understand plain English, what the Apostle Paul was saying was this: "I would be willing to die and go to hell if my Jewish brothers and sisters would get saved." That's sacrifice. I don't believe I could say that. I don't believe I've come to that place. But I believe Paul was so full of Jesus, that's what Paul said. Paul said, "I'd be willing to take their hell if they could take my heaven." That exactly what Jesus did on the cross. Jesus had a sacrificial concern for souls and Paul is so full of Jesus, he has a concern for lost souls. 

All of that is right on point. And again I reiterate that we must have that same passion to reach the lost for Christ. All people. A sacrificial concern for lost souls. If we are filled with Christ, we should desire for all men to be saved.

But notice as we tighten the focus, he's talking about his bretheren, his kinsmen according to the flesh. He's talking about the Jewish nation. Because the Jews, when they heard about God saving the Gentiles, they were saying, "What happened? What happened to all the promises to the Jews? We're the chosen people! Has God forgotten us? Or has God failed to keep his word and his covenant?" And Paul is going to address that.

But when Paul addresses this message to the Jew, he has a great message to those of us who are Gentiles and to the church of the living God. Because in this, we learn something of the character and the nature of God. All true theology has to learn something about the nature of God. So that's what we're going to learn today as we look in this passage of Scripture: three things about God. And when you learn those three things about God, your theology will come into a focus.

Number 1: You need to recognize that God is the God of sovereign choices. Beginning now in verses 3-5: "For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever."

Now what Paul is simply saying is the Jews are the chosen people. God chose the Jews. Whether you like it or not, whether you believe it or not, it is absolutely true. There is a special people, chosen and blessed of almighty God, they were chosen for a purpose and they were given privilege, and I want you to see the nine special privileges that they had. 

Okay, before we get to these 9 special privileges. God chose Israel because it was through Israel that the Messiah would come into the world. Jesus Christ is that promise. Jesus then fulfilled all that Israel could not do. Just as the Israelites were called out of Egypt, so Jesus was called out of Egypt (Matthew 2:15). Just as the Israelites passed through the Jordan river, so did Jesus (Matthew 3:16). Just as the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years, Jesus fasted in the desert for 40 days (Matthew 4:1-2). But when Israel was tempted, they sinned and fell away from God. Yet when Christ was tempted he remained faithful and perfect. Jesus fulfilled all that Israel could not. He became the faithful witness when Israel was not (Revelation 1:5). Now all who are in Christ Jesus are Israel. Branches have been cut off and other branches have been grafted in, which is an illustration Paul uses in Romans 11.

Israel is still God's chosen people, because we Christians are Israel. God has no plan to redeem any particular race or ethnicity on planet earth. You will find that no where in the Bible. Our only redemption is in Jesus Christ our Lord. We are no longer marked by the flesh, but by the Spirit of God (Philippians 3:3). Now, that point deserves a sermon in and of itself, but for the sake of time, that's as far as I'm going to go. Paul has been unfolding this theology all throughout Romans, not just in Romans 9. It was stated at the start of Romans 3 that no one gets special privilege. Everyone, Jews and Gentiles, we all stand condemned before God and are delivered into righteousness only through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Now here's Rogers' 9 special privileges.

Number one, he called them Israelites. That's a name of honor. Israel means "Prince." Then it says they have the adoption. God spoke of Israel as a Son. Then it says they had the glory. That's speaking of the shekinah glory of God that led them out of Egypt and into the land of Canaan, and the shekinah glory that dwelt in the tabernacle and the temple. They had the covenants, the special agreements that God made with Abraham and Isaac and David. God has made solemn promises to the Jews.

Then they were given the law, the Old Testament law, that today is still the standard of juris prudence and the foundation of all true law. Then they were given the service, the service of God, the levitical rituals and all of this that pointed toward the Lord Jesus Christ. And they were given the promises. God and made glorious and wonderful promises to the Jews. Then, last of all, as he saves the best for last, they were given the Messiah. Christ came, the Lord Jesus Christ. 

But, as Paul said earlier in Romans 2:28-29, "For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God." What Paul was basically saying was this: If you have the Spirit of God in you, you're a Jew. You are the chosen people of God. He's laid that out previously in Paul's letter to the Romans. He expounds on the theology more in Romans 9, 10, and 11. Rogers is confused in assuming that the chosen people of God are an ethnic group of people rather than a spiritual group of a people.

I want to tell you the Jews are God's chosen people. If you want to know what God is doing in the world today, just put your eyes on Israel. The Jew is God's yard stick, blueprint, program, God's prophesy of what he is doing in the world.

Now, they are the ones who gave us the Messiah. I was talking to some Jewish rabbis and they said, "We don't believe that you ought to be trying to win Jews to Jesus Christ." I said, "Wait a minute. My Savior has commanded me to witness. Are you telling me I can't practice my religion? That's religious persecution. By the way, I'm not trying to proseltyze you. The Jews proselytized me. I worship a Jewish Messiah. He is the one who came into the world. He is the Messiah, Israel's Messiah that I love and worship." So God chose the Jew.

Here's one of the dangerous things about this theology that Rogers is sharing. Whether or not he meant to say it this way, he just said he is not trying to convert Jews. He should be trying to convert Jews to Christianity, because an orthodox Jew, a Jewish Rabbi, does not know Christ as the Son of God. So Rogers incorrect theology would lead a person to withhold telling a Jew to repent and follow Christ. I have met people with similar theological views who do not think Jews need to be witnessed to with the gospel.

The ethnic nation of Israel is not some kind of yard stick for what God is doing in the world. They do not recognize Jesus Christ as the Son of God. God's favor is not upon them. Jesus said in Matthew 8:11-12, "I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

And this is what has Paul so vexed at the start of Romans 9. For the sake of his fellow ethnic Jews, who were the first to receive the oracles of God (Romans 3:2), he would go to hell for them if it meant their salvation. And so we should desire the salvation of the Jews. The orthodox Jew does not know Christ.

Let's continue to read here. We're talking about God's sovereign choices. Notice how God chose the Jew. Verse 7: "Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called." 

Now notice something here: Rogers skipped Romans 9:6! The verse he skipped says, "But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel." Why did he skip that? Why did he go from verse 5 to verse 7? I don't want to presume that he meant to be intentionally deceiving, but it's really odd that he omitted the verses that says not all who are called Israel are ethnically descended from Israel. Might it be because he knows how difficult it would be to explain his theological position about who Israel is in light of that verse?

Now what he's saying is that, uh, not all the children of Abraham, uh, were chosen because Abraham had, uh, Ishmael and he had Isaac. What he's saying is that God sovereignly chose Isaac. Uh, God did not choose Ishmael. And then, uh, go on, uh, God did not choose all the sons of Isaac, uh, but, uh, Isaac, uh, had two sons, Jacob and Esau, and God chose Jacob.

He's really stammering here. I try not to question a person's intentions by their stammering because I stammer sometimes just trying to find my words or get back on track. But this is Dr. Adrian Rogers. He knew his stuff. He was a seasoned preacher. He was smooth all the way up to this point and he will smooth out again. But right here he's really fighting to try and explain something having skipped a key verse. Bare with me, I'm going to play bad cop here for a second, but I think he deliberately skipped verse 6, he knows he did it, he's timid about getting caught, and now he's stammering through verses 7-9.

There's my psychoanalysis for today. Perhaps I'm being too critical. If I were talking with Rogers though, if this were he and I right here having a conversation, I would certainly question him for why he skipped verse 6, especially given the version of Israel he was presenting. On that question I am not overstepping my bounds. Let's move on to Romans 9:10-13.

Look if you will as we continue to read, uh, in this passage of Scripture. Look in verses 10-13: "And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated."

So God, uh, didn't choose all the sons of Abraham. He chose one son, Isaac. God didn't choose all the sons of Isaac, he chose one son, that was, uh, Jacob. Now, let's just pause right here because some people are going to be blown out of the water right here. When God says before these children were born, having done neither good nor evil, God chose one of them, and God says, "Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated."

Now somebody says, "Now wait a minute, Pastor. You're telling me when these little babies before they were born, God said I love this one and I hate that one, and that God chose one to go to heaven and one to go to hell?" No, that isn't what it says. Listen very carefully and pay attention: What we're talking about here is national and not personal.

God, when he's talking about Jacob and Esau, God is not talking about one boy, and another boy. God is talking about two whole nations. Put this in the margin of your Bible: Genesis 25:23. "And the Lord said unto her, 'Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels, and the one people shall be stronger than the other people, and the elder shall serve the younger.'" That is those descendents of Esau are going to be one nation that will serve another nation, the descendents of Jacob, which is the father of the twelve tribes of Israel.

He's not talking about two little babies. God here is talking not personal but national. And God here is not talking about salvation. God is talking about service. In verse 12, "It was said unto her, 'The elder shall serve the younger.'" It doesn't say anything about saved or lost, one going to heaven and one going to hell. It is national and not personal. It is service and not salvation.

He's already misinterpreted who is Israel and who is not, so it follows that the rest of his theology on Romans 9 is shaky. His argument here is that God choosing one over the other is national, not personal. But here's the problem: If God were to choose one nation over the other, doesn't that affect every individual person in that nation?

If God chose the United States over Canada, doesn't that have very specific ramifications for every individual person in Canada? If God chose Mexico over the United States, doesn't that affect every individual person in the U.S.? The point I'm simply making is this: Even if I conceded to Rogers' argument that "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated," is national and not personal, that still would not argue away the affect God's choosing has on every individual person.

God does not save nations for being that nation. He doesn't save the United States or condemn the United States for being the United States. He will bless a people because the hearts of its individual persons are worshipful toward God. Or he will abandon a people and remove his presence from them because the hearts of its individual persons are far from God. That is why in the Old Testament God either blessed or cursed Israel, not because they were Israel. Joshua 11:20 says this: "For it was the Lord's doing to harden the hearts of the Canaanites that they should come against Israel in battle, in order that they should be devoted to destruction and should receive no mercy but be destroyed, just as the Lord commanded Moses." Did God harden a nation? No, he hardened the hearts of individuals in that nation so that he could show his love and affection on his people Israel made up of individuals who feared God.

God does not choose one and disregard another, whether we're talking about nations or individual people. As C.S. Lewis wrote about in his book A Grief Observed, and I'm not going to say this quite like Lewis does, but God would not allow one set of events to happen to one person and disregard a completely separate set of events that happens to another person. God doesn't just work in the macro, he also works in the micro. He works in little, tiny details far more intimate than we can dare to summarize with the word "personal." In the whats and wheres and whys and hows that we don't even ask because we think of them as so minutely insignificant, God is working his will to his glory. In each person, and in each grouping of persons.

I remember Spurgeon saying that every dust mote that floats in the air doesn't move an atom to the left or to the right except by God's ordination. Matthew 10:29-31, "Not one sparrow falls to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows." God knows and has fashioned even the littlest, tiniest details. Even your DNA the importance of which we only discovered in 1943. God's cared about the microscopic details of you since before the foundation of the world according to Ephesians 1:4. And according to Psalm 139:16, every single one of your days was written before one of them came to be. Are we actually going to say that our choices were not considered on those pages?

You say, "Well what about that part where it says he hates one and loves the other." Well I want you to pay attention to that also. Look in verse 13: "Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated." Now folks, the way we use the word hate today is completely different than the way they used hate in Bible times. What he's saying is "I have preferred one," not that "I abhor the other."

In Luke 14, Jesus is talking about us being disciples of himself. He says, "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."

Now, do you think that Jesus is teaching us to despise our fathers and mothers, our brothers and sisters? Do you think that Jesus is telling us to despise our little children in order to be his disciples? Heh, no! Listen, I love Joyce more than I could ever love Joyce because I love Jesus. I love Joyce with a love I could not love her with if I did not love Jesus. The word hate as it is used in the Bible simply means preference! 

Now, the way Rogers uses Luke 14:26 is correct, but his usage of Romans 9:13 is out of context. Luke 14:26 does not help us understand the use of the word "hate" here because there are times in the Bible when hate is meant to sound as harsh as it does. For example, when we read Proverbs 6:16, "There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him," the list that follows is not merely preference. God hates haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises evil, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and the seventh thing an abomination, one who sows discord among brothers. Do you hear God saying, "I would prefer that you not do those things." No, he hates them, with all of the disgust that word can muster.

So how do we understand the right usage of Romans 9:13? We need to go back to the passage Paul is actually quoting from, and that's Malachi 1:2-3. Rogers went back to Genesis 25 to try and establish a context of nations in Rebecca's womb. So why doesn't he go back to Malachi to understand the context of what Paul is actually quoting?

Malachi 1:2, "I have loved you," says the Lord, "But you say, How have you loved us?" And the Lord says, "Is not Esau Jacob'e brother? Yet I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert." If Edom says, "We are shattered but we will rebuild the ruins," the Lord of hosts says, "They may build, but I will tear down, and they will be called 'the wicked country,' and 'the people with whom the Lord is angry forever." Your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, "Great is the Lord beyond the border of Israel!"

Now then, does that sound like God merely prefers one over the other? No, he has prospered one and destroyed the other. And he has made an example of them to show his power, and he is worshiped because of it. God has predestined some for mercy and some for wrath for the same purpose: to display the full range of his glory. Those who are destroyed, his glory is shown in his righteous and just wrath. Those who are saved, his glory is shown in his mercy and love. The reason why Rogers does not actually go to the Scripture that Paul is quoting in Romans 9:13, I believe, is because he knows it does not fit his point. Continuing on.

God had a preference, God had a sovereign choice, for this man Jacob, and he did not have a preference for Esau. It doesn't mean he despised Esau. It doesn't he says, "Esau! I created you to go to hell! I hate you!" That's not what it means at all.

Friend, number 1, this is national and not personal; number 2, it deals with service and not salvation; number 3, it deals with preference not despite. If you don't understand that, you're going to get all mixed up and all confused. But God is a sovereign God and God loves lost sinners. You just read in Romans 5:8, "But God hath commended his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." God loves sinners. 

Don't get the idea that Esau was predestined for hell or anyone else is predestined for hell. God chooses individuals. God has preferences for nations -- and it deals in the realm of service. I have two brothers. God called me to preach. God did not call, so far as I know, either one of my two brothers to preach. God said, "I want Adrian to preach!" And that's God's choice. 

God chose me. I didn't choose to preach, I've been called to preach. Does that mean because God called me to preach that he's going to send my two brothers to hell? No. He called me into his service. He said, "You've not chosen me but I have chosen you and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit." 

Yeah, that's an unfair generalization. I would not ever claim, and I don't know any preacher that does claim, that just because I'm a preacher one who isn't called to be a preacher must be going to hell. It's wrong-headed generalizations like that that split people instead of uniting people over this issue. When one side is mis-represented.

Now, this goes both ways. For those that agree with my view of predestination, we must understand and represent the opposing viewpoint in a right way, and never mischaracterize a person who has a different viewpoint. We can love one another, encourage and support one another, and be humble even through our differing points of view. The Bible says that God allows these differing viewpoints to exist in a body so that those who are genuine, those who are able to love one another through these differences, might be recognized (1 Corinthians 11:19).

What we're talking about here, friend, I want to tell you, is national not personal, it is service and not salvation, it is preference and not despite. If you don't understand that, you're going to get mixed up. What we're talking about here is God's sovereign choices. Got it? That's the first thing.

The second thing is God's spotless character. Begin reading in verse 14: "What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. 

"Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory."

Well let's just pause right there and talk about God's character. Somebody might not like God's choices in any realm, and the Jews might say, "What right does God have to break his promises to us? We're the chosen nation!" And what Paul's saying is, as one preacher said, "Your arms are too short to box with God." Who are you, that replies to God? Now listen to me, folks: God is sovereign. 

I want to stop it right there for a second just to define this word. Sovereignty is a term that is used to describe a supreme ruler. It means they have absolute authority and absolute power. In Colossians 1:18, Paul uses the word preeminent. It means God is top and above him there is no other. It means that he is the ultimate decision-maker, and nothing is done that he has not ordained. Lamentations 3:37, "Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it?" Job 14:5, God has appointed the limits of every person and they cannot pass them. There is not a decision that is made that God has not ordained. Because he is sovereign.

God does as he pleases. God answers to no one. Respect this that God is God. And also remember this: God is not fair. God is just. If you think that God has to be fair, you think that God owes you something. If you don't get it, you're all upset if you don't get it, and if someone gets it before you do or gets more than you do, then you're upset because you think God owes you something. God doesn't owe us anything but judgment. God is not fair, God is just. When you realize that God is just, then mercy is going to mean something to you. 

Yes. On this point, Rogers and I are in complete agreement. Preach it, brother.

Now what is he saying here? He's saying, "Listen, I am free to pardon and I am free to punish. I am God, and I will pardon whom I will pardon, and I will punish whom I will punish." Now does that mean that God does that arbitrarily? No. God does as he pleases, but God always pleases to do right. There is no unrighteousness with God. 

Now God pardons according to his sovereign will. Look again if you will at verses 15-16: "For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy." 

Now what is he saying here? Does that mean that God says, "I'm not going to have mercy if you ask for mercy"? No. Does that mean, "If you ask me for mercy, I'll not give you mercy." No, not at all. God is just simply saying that, "If you're saved, you're going to be saved by grace. It's not because you will that I should be merciful to you. It's because I will it." It's not to him that willeth but of God that has mercy.

This sermon from Dr. Adrian Rogers was part of his TV program "Love Worth Finding." So the music you starting hearing there was the end of this half of the sermon, and that's where we are going to break as well. We will pick up the rest of the message tomorrow. By the way, I might also add that a complete transcript of Rogers's sermon and my commentary will be available on my blog this weekend. The address is pastorgabehughes.blogspot.com.

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Welcome back to part two of a sermon we began yesterday with Dr. Adrian Rogers. Over the course of the week, we've been studying Romans chapter 9. I've presented the sound biblical case for God's sovereign election: that according to Romans 9:22-23, God has predestined from the foundation of the world those who will be saved and those who will be the objects of his wrath.

How can a biblical expositor, a person who studies verse by verse through the Scriptures, see that Romans 9 draws any other conclusion? Well, yesterday and today, we've heard what I believe to be the most common arguments against predestination, and that in the sermon of the late Adrian Rogers. Rogers is pulling together a three-point sermon from Romans 9, and so far his first two points have been God is a God of sovereign choices, and God's spotless character.

Regarding the statement in verse 13, "Jacob I have loved, but Esau I hated," Rogers has said, "It is national, not personal; it's about service, not salvation; it's about preference, not despite." But I have shown how much Rogers has had to play with the text  and what he's had to leave out, even skipping a verse in Romans 9 in order to draw shape the theology that he holds. He is reading these things into the Scriptures, not drawing them out from the Scriptures.

We're up to verse 17 now and we'll start talking today about God's purpose for Pharoah. I want to reiterate again that I respect the ministry of Dr. Adrian Rogers and consider him a brother in Christ. But on this particular subject and the way he understands Romans 9, he is wrong. While there was much I agreed with him on yesterday, our differences will become more apparent today.

As we left off yesterday, Romans 9:16 says, "So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. That is a key passage to understanding the doctrine unfolding in Romans 9. Here once again is Dr. Adrian Rogers.

God's mercy is not rooted in man's merit. God's mercy is found in God because God is a merciful God. Write these verses down, Titus 3:5, "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us." That's what he's talking about here. Psalm 32:10, "Many sorrows shall be to the wicked: but he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about." If you trust God, he'll give you mercy. Now look at this one, Proverbs 28:13, "He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy."

If you want mercy, you can have it. You say, "Well, it's according to God who wills to show mercy." That's right! And God wills to show you mercy. God is a merciful God. Listen, pardon is according to God's sovereign will. God has decided that he will show us mercy when we don't deserve it. It doesn't root in our merit but in his mercy. But punishment is according to man's stubborn wickedness.

Okay, notice how Rogers has worded that now. Do you want to have mercy? Then you can have it, because God wills for you to have mercy. Just ask for it, and God will show you mercy. But there's an incomplete understanding there. When a person is genuinely repentant of their sin and asks for mercy, they do so because the Holy Spirit has made them repentant. Acts 5:31 and 2 Timothy 2:25 tell us repentance is given by God. I'll come back to this point later, too.

Rogers referenced Titus 3:5, "God saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit." He didn't include that last part of the verse. It is the Holy Spirit that makes us able to hear the word of Christ and respond to it. Before the Spirit intervenes, we can do nothing good before God. That's also Romans 3:10-11, and Romans 8:6-8. So if no one can do good, how would we be able to repent, which would be a good thing? It's because the Spirit has made us to repent.

And not just repent, but repent in such a way that your offering is pleasing to the Lord. David prayed in Psalm 51:16-17, "For you will not delight in sacrifice or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." So the act of service in and of itself is not enough. It must come from a heart that is made right before God. And how is the heart made right? By Christ. You can pray a prayer of repentance, but it means nothing if the Spirit of God is not there.

Lorraine Boettner in his classic work the Reformed Doctrine of Predestination said that it's not that we are unable to exercise volition, but we are unable to exercise holy volition. Meaning that, sure, you can will yourself to repent. You can stop doing what the Bible says is evil and start doing what the Bible says is good. But you are unable to do that in any genuine way, a way that is pleasing to the Lord, unless the Spirit of God dwells within you.

My friends, be not confused: the regeneration of the Holy Spirit happens first, making you able to hear the words of God and respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ in a way that is good in the eyes of God. This is what Jesus meant when he said unless one is born of the water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God (John 3:5). The water and Spirit are also the descriptors Paul uses in Titus 3:5, which again, Rogers did not give the full passage. Let's keep going.

Begin to read now in verse 17: "For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh--" Now you know who Pharaoh was. Pharaoh was the vile, wicked king of Egypt. And God now is speaking to Pharoah: "Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth."

Now people have raced their theological motors on this. They say, "Uh oh, God made Pharoah so he could raise him up and then knock him down. God created him so he could send him to hell." No, that's not what this says at all. Now listen, when the Bible says God raised up Pharoah, it doens't mean that God grew him from a child. It means God put him on the highest throne. God gave him place and power and prestige that he might bring him down. God set him up in order to bring him down. God raised him up to the very highest throne.

Boy, that sure sounds personal, doesn't it? That doesn't sound like preference. That sounds like God specifically used Pharoah to achieve some ultimate purpose. I just point that out because Rogers is inconsistent with his application of national not personal.

Now what he's talking about is that he's going to be glorified by his judgment on this man. Put in your margin Exodus 9:16, and here's what God says to Pharoah: "And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to shew in thee my power; and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth." 

Yes, absolutely. Same with Jacob and Esau. Again, Rogers' theology is inconsistent here. He doesn't want to acknowledge that God used Esau to show his power. But Rogers acknowledges God used Pharoah for that purpose. And Pharoah was not a descendant of Jacob or Esau, which really hurts Rogers's case that it's national, not personal.

By the way, Cecil B. DeMile made a movie of this called the Ten Commandments and God judging Pharoah, and it's been seen all over the world. Many people who haven't read the book have seen the movie. Now God did not override Pharoah's will. Eighteen times in Exodus we find this phrase: "and Pharoah hardened his heart," or "Pharoah's heart was hardened." About half of those times Pharoah hardened his own heart. Now you have to understand this: Pharoah first hardened his own heart before God hardened his heart. 

Actually no. That's not correct. And it's 19 times, not 18 times. The very first time we see the mentioning of Pharoah's heart being hardened is Exodus 4:21, and it is God saying, "I will harden Pharoah's heart." The next time is Exodus 7:3, God saying, "I will harden Pharoah's heart." The next three occasions are all in Exodus 7, and it says that Pharoah's heart was hardened. It's not until Exodus 8:15 where it says Pharaoh hardened his own heart. And there are only three occurrences where it says Pharaoh hardened his heart. Nine of those 19 times it specifically says God hardened Pharoah's heart.

Now, I'll bend a little bit on this. It could be argued that Pharoah hardened his heart before Exodus 4:21. In other words, Pharoah had already hardened his heart before we pick it up in the narrative, and then God hardened it further according to the narrative. I can give on that one. But, well, before I make the point I want to make with this, I will let Rogers finish his references...

Put these verses down for example. Exodus 8:15, "But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart, and hearkened not unto them." Or Exodus 8:32, "And Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also, neither would he let the people go."

See, the understanding one should arrive at here, by the time you get to Exodus 8:15 and 32, is that God did the hardening. Rogers wants to say that because Pharoah hardened his own heart, then God further hardened his heart. But really the opposite is true. Because God first hardened Pharoah's heart, Pharoah further hardened his own heart. Pharoah is not doing anything or is making any decision that God did not intend to be made.

Even if I wanted to concede to Rogers's point, he's still arguing that God acts against the human will. If God hardened Pharoah's heart after Pharoah had hardened his own heart, that means that God hardened Pharoah to a point where he could not repent, right? Tell me, is that not God acting over the human will? No matter how hard Rogers and others who shares his views try to argue for the freedom of the human will, there will still be in their own arguments examples of God sovereignly enacting his will over the human will.

Now what happened is this: That Pharoah was already lost. God didn't make him lost. Pharoah was vile, wicked, cruel. He was a despot. He had murdered thousands of people. He had a heart set against God. All the judgments of God upon Pharoah, all they did was to crystallize Pharoah in his sin. Listen: God did not harden his heart when he was young and tender, when he was a child. God witnessed to him. God warned him. God sent a messenger to him. God sent the plagues, but Pharoah himself hardened his own heart.

God did not create Pharoah and say, "I have chosen you that I am going to send you to hell." No. God said, "I am going to make an example out of you. I am going to show my power in you. You hardened your own heart, now as a reciprocal action, I'm going to send plagues that will even further harden your heart, will crystalize you in sin, and I'm going to use you as an example for my punishment."

There's a difference between saying that God created Pharoah to go to hell and that God used Pharoah to show his mighty power through him. Throughout Romans, Paul has carefully been laying out a theology of justification, that we are justified before God through Jesus Christ our Lord. He starts out in the first three chapters bringing all men into condemnation before God: "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23), but then says we've been justified by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Romans 3:24).

In chapter 4, he talks about that we receive this justification by faith. In chapter 5, he lays out the doctrine of original sin. In chapter 6, he talks about how if we are in Christ we are to no longer be slaves to sin, but we are slaves to righteousness. In chapter 7, he talks about how just as justification cannot be attained by our obedience to the law, so sanctification is not acquired that way either, but justification is the work of God and sanctification is also the continual work of God. In chapter 8, he talks about how the Spirit drew us to Christ and keeps us secure in Christ, and no one can separate us from the love of Christ. And here we are in chapter 9 where Paul is saying that God's plan of redemption is not according to human will or exertion, but God who has mercy.

God has created all things and all people for his glory. Everything in the Garden of Eden was in a perfect, glorious state. But then when Adam sinned, mankind fell from grace and God subjected all things to futility. All who are born in the line of Adam are born into sin. This is called the doctrine of original sin -- it's a very important doctrine given previously in Romans 5. That means that all who are born in the line of Adam are hell-bound. It is God who by his Sovereign choosing, to borrow form a term that Rogers has been using, called some out of darkness and into his marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9). And he predetermined that before the foundation of the world who would be chosen according for the purpose of his will to the praise of his glorious grace (Ephesians 1:4-6).

This is why hermeneutics are important. Hermeneutics are a method or a theory of interpretation, in this case the way one interprets the Bible. Romans 9 is not some stand-alone chapter. We must be looking at it in light everything we've studied in Romans up to this point, and everything that comes after it as well. God predetermining a person for hell is not the argument being made in Romans 9. It's God being glorified in all ways through all things. Some he has chosen that he might display his glory through mercy, some he has chosen that he might display his glory through wrath.

Now listen to me, folks: God is in the business of getting glory to himself. God is in the business of getting glory to himself. God's love will be magnified in heaven, and God's justice will be manifest in hell. God said, "I raised you up that I may show my power in you." 

Amen. That's where we would agree.

But the only reason God had hardened Pharoah's heart is because Pharoah had hardened his own heart. 

And that's where we would disagree. Rogers's conclusion does not fit the narrative of Exodus, nor does it fit the rest of Scripture, nor does it fit the context of Romans 9.

Now, God has every right to punish sin. God says, "I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy, and, uh, whom I will I will harden." Of course he does. Because he is the God who will give to us. If we want mercy, God will give us mercy. If we harden our hearts, God will further harden our hearts.

So Rogers says that God doesn't initially harden our hearts by the power of his will, but he will "further" harden our hearts by the power of his will. As if God is saying, "Fine, you don't want to repent? I'll make it impossible for you to repent." So, like it or not, using Rogers's own reasoning, God sovereignly reigns over the human will. The reason why a person repents is because God showed mercy to that person. He doesn't show mercy because they were repentant. They're repentant because God showed mercy.

Now let's give another illustration here beginning in verse 19. This is one that has caused many people to have difficulty: "Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?" If God is sovereign, we're just victims! There's nothing we can do about it! 

Notice verse 20: "Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory?"

Now here's the idea. Some people have the idea that God says, "I'm going to make two vessels. I'm going to make a vessel and send that vessel to heaven, and I'm going to make another vessel and sent it to hell. People are just like clay: weak, helpless, insensible clay. And I'm the potter, so I'll just take a lump of clay and I'm going to make a vessel." God made Adrian for heaven, God made you for hell. Nothing you can do about it.

Is that the kind of a God that is displayed in the Bible or in the book of Romans? Listen carefully, folks, and understand what the Apostle Paul is saying here. God did not ordain some for hell. What potter would ever make a vessel just so he could destroy it? Can you imagine a potter in a potter shop making a bunch of vessels and setting them on a shelf and then taking a stick and just breaking them all to pieces? He set out to do that? Of course not!

There are two problems with the way Rogers is expounding upon this example. First of all, he's excluding an important part of the metaphor. Romans 9:22-23, "What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory." Rogers is focusing on one side of the word picture and ignoring the context.

Secondly, Rogers is not trying to understand Paul's metaphor as Paul understood it, or as the Christians in Rome receiving this letter would have understood it. We're not talking about just a bunch of pots on a shelf in a pottery store. Some vessels are made for glory, meaning that they are fashioned, decorated, covered with gold, intricately painted and crafted. Other vessels are just dirt and clay, used for daily tasks but have no lasting value. When they're broken and done, they just get thrown into the fire and destroyed. There's no reason to preserve any part of them because they have no value. The potter decides with his lump of clay which vessels he will make for honor and which will not receive the honor. The vessels don't choose. The potter chooses. That's the analogy.

Paul says in 2 Timothy 2:20, "There are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable." So Paul's question in Romans 9:22-23 is then this -- which is not a hypothetical question. A hypothetical question is a hypothesis or a guess. Paul is not guessing. He is presenting truth to the Roman Christians in such a way that they are made to think about what is being said. These are infinite concepts that are being presented here, that we in our finite minds cannot grasp, which is why he's gently proposing them in the form of this question:

"What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory."

As I've stated before and I will state again: We do not know who the elect are. It is not our place to know who the elect are. God knows that. Our responsibility is to hear the gospel, respond to it, and then take that gospel to the world "for the sake of the faith of God's elect" (Titus 1:1). You still must obey the commands of Christ. No one is exempt from that.

Uh, God did not ordain some people to hell. No! Listen, the reason that some vessels were destroyed is they did not realize the purpose of the potter. Look in verse 20 if you will of this same chapter: "Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?" It doesn't say the thing created but the thing formed. Here God is shaping and some will not take the shaping.

Look at verse 22: "What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath." God who was longsuffering! God is forming, working, forming, but these vessels of wrath are not yielding to the hands of the potter. Put down this verse, 2 Peter 3:9. "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering," same word that's used over here in Romans 9, "longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

Well, Peter said in 1 Peter 2:8 that those who stumble on the word of God do as they were destined to do. So this idea of predestination isn't absent to Peter's letters either.

In 2 Peter 3, the apostle said that scoffers would come in the last days following their own sinful desires. They will say, "Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation." They deliberately overlook that the heavens were formed by the word of God, and then the world that then existed was brought to destruction by God, judged because of their wickedness. That's in verse 6.

Then in verse 7, "But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly." That is an intended, purposed day with people being talked about who on that day will be destroyed. Just because that day hasn't come yet doesn't mean that God isn't slow to deliver. That's what Peter is saying. And we've already talked about it in Romans: "Do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?" That's Romans 2:4. God's patience is meant to lead you to repentance.

Every person has their purpose in the plan of God's glory, some for honor and some for dishonor, and 2 Peter 3:9 in no way says otherwise. On the contrary, it speaks of a specific, planned day when the wrath of God will be poured out on those who have been destined for that day. Proverbs 16:4 says, "The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble."

You say, "But Pastor, it says here that they were fitted for destruction. Look at this verse again and he talks about some vessels of wrath fitted to destruction in verse 22." Let me tell you what W.E. Vine in his Expository Dictionary of the New Testament Words says. Listen carefully: "The middle voice," I know you've been waiting all morning to hear something about the middle voice, but now listen carefully: "The middle voice indicates that the vessels of wrath fitted themselves for destruction." It is not the potter who fits them for destruction. They fitted themselves for destruction. The potter was longsuffering. He did not create them, he formed them. But they were fitted, that is they made themselves, fit for destruction.

God does not create people in order to damn them. God does not create people in order to destroy them. God is a God of love. Now if you think God wants some to go to hell, just listen to this Scripture. It speaks of God who will have all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 

That's 1 Timothy 2:4 that he's quoting there. The problem is the way that Rogers sets that up. He says, "If you think God wants some to go to hell, listen to this verse." I believe that God has predestined some for salvation and some for wrath, but that's different than saying God wants people to go to hell. There's what God wills to have happen, and then there's what God will do. God desires all to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. But he's going to save some and destroy the rest. Ezekiel 33:11 says that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Yet Ezekiel 24:13 says that he is satisfied by pouring out his fury on the wicked. Both statements can be true without being a contradiction regarding the nature of God.

Now, you can harden your heart. The Bible warns against people being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Put this verse down, Hebrews 3:15, "Today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your heart." I'm telling you, if you harden your heart against God, you will crystallize in your sin and God's judgment upon you will harden your heart even more. But God hardened Pharoah's heart after Pharoah first hardened his heart against the Lord. And God destroyed Pharoah, yes he did, because in the longsuffering of God and the warnings that God sent to Pharoah, Pharoah would not accept those warnings, and yes indeed he was made an example of God's wrath. And remember this: God is going to get glory with those in heaven, and God is going to get glory by judgment and those who go to hell.

I'd put this before you: Pharoah couldn't repent. Because God hardened his heart. And it was the will of the Lord to raise him up as an example. That's something Rogers isn't going to touch on because he doesn't believe God hardened Pharoah's heart. There are some who will argue with this theology and say, "Well then God is being unjust if he hardened Pharoah's heart and Pharoah couldn't repent!" That is exactly the very same argument Paul is putting forward in Romans 9:14. "What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! For he says to Moses, 'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.'" Rogers doesn't realize that he's raising the same objections to predestination that Paul has already said his critics would respond with, and Paul answered them.

Verse 19: "You will say to me then, 'Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?' But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, 'Why have you made me like this?' Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and one for dishonorable use?" Who are you to say what God can and can't do? You see? Paul is responding to the same objections that Rogers is raising against the idea that God ordains some to heaven and some to hell. The answer is there in the Scriptures. Rogers just doesn't want to get past his prejudice and read them the right way.

Now, I've said this before to those who share Rogers's view of explaining predestination, and they will say, "Well, you can't blame me. I just read the Scriptures this way because God ordained me to read them this way." Well, aren't you clever. And that may be true. But here's the thing: Paul goes on to say, in Romans 14:21, "Each of us will give an account of himself to God." You're still going to be responsible for your actions. No one is going to be able to stand before God and say, "Well you made me this way! It's your fault!" That's exactly the argument Paul is responding to when he says, "But who are you, O man, to answer back to God?" The qualifier "O man" is being addressed to all men! You must hear the word of the Lord, and respond to it. It is still your responsibility to do so.

Now here's the third thing I want you to see today. Remember God's sovereign choices. God is sovereign. God can choose whomever he wants for his service. God chose Abraham, and God chose Isaac over Ismael, and God chose, uh, Jacob over Esau. God chose these for service, not salvation, that's not what he's talking about. He's not talking about individuals, per se, he's talking about nations. God is moving. There's God's sovereign choices.

Can Rogers give one single reference that says that God chose these men only for service but not salvation? No, he cannot, because it's not in the Bible. The examples that Rogers is giving -- Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. These men received salvation and their brothers did not! And salvation came through their line, Jesus Christ, who was born as a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Yes, my brothers and sisters, this is every bit about salvation, not simply service.

Friend, the second thing I want you to see is God's spotless character. You will never point a finger at God and say God is unrighteous. No, God is not unrighteous. God shows mercy upon whom he will show mercy. To whom will God show mercy? To those who repent of their sin. To those who want mercy. If you want mercy, you can have it. And God gives judgment to those to whom he will give judgment, to those who refuse him. God is a sovereign God. And some people say, "Well God is too good to punish sin." No, God is too good not to punish sin. 

Yeah, I agree with that, God is too good not to punish sin. But again, Rogers presents this as, if you repent of your sin you will receive salvation. Yes, that's true. But I tell you that you cannot repent of your sin unless God intervenes first. Understand this: Before men can be saved, God must act. And I happen to know that if I were sitting across from Adrian Rogers and said that, he'd agree with me. Like I said in yesterday's broadcast, I respect the man and his ministry. But on this subject of God's sovereign election, he simply is not correct.

God is righteous. Now here' the third and the final thing I want you to see: Not only God's sovereign choices, not only God's spotless character, but I want you to see God's steadfast concern. What is God's steadfast concern?

Well notice in verse 23. What is God all about? "And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy," that is the people that are saved, "which he had afore prepared unto glory." That's what he's doing. He's preparing us for glory. All things are working together for good to make us like the Lord Jesus. 

"Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only." He's trying to say to the Jews, look, you've not cornered the market on this thing. "But also of the Gentiles? As he saith also in Hosea, I will call them my people, which were not my people." He's talking about us Gentiles! "And her beloved, which was not beloved." God is saying, "I'm just going to take a bunch of folks that are not part of the covenant promises of Israel and I'm going to include them in." 

"And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God." He's talking about us, folks. What he's saying is, "I am in the purpose of taking both Jews and Gentiles and making them both children of God. This is God's steadfast purpose! The highest privilege on earth is to be a son or a daughter of God.

Wonderfully said. The highest purpose is to be a son or a daughter of God. So hear the words of the Lord and receive salvation.

Now I'm going to give you some Scriptures and you write them down in the margin of your bulletin. I'm just going to show you that God wants all people saved, that God didn't create anybody to go to hell. The first one you've known since you were a child, John 3:16. "For God so loved the elect..." There's something wrong there, isn't it? "For God so love the world that he gave his only begotten Son that if a certain number would believe on Him." No. "That if whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through Him might be saved."

Who gets saved? "Whoever believes." Whoever believes in him will not perish. No matter how you argue it, there's a select number who will be saved. Understanding John 3:16 in context doesn't just mean looking at the verses after it. It also means looking at the verses before it. Jesus is talking to Nicodemus, the pharisee that came to him by night. And much of what he said to Nicodemus was a reference to the Old Testament scriptures which Nicodemus should have known. He was a teacher of the law in Israel.

So in verses 14 and 15, Jesus said, "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life." That's a reference to the story in Numbers 21 when God sent fiery serpents into the Israelite camp to punish the people for their disobedience. Many died from their snake bites. When the people feared God and repented, Moses put a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. If a serpent bit anyone, they just had to look at the bronze serpent and live.

Jesus said just as this happened for Israel, I will do this also for the whole world. Because here's the thing: Nicodemus and other Jews indeed believed that a Messiah, a Savior, was coming, but they believed that Savior was coming for the Jews. In John 3:16, Jesus was saying, "No, I'm not just coming for Jews only, I'm coming for Jews and Gentiles. The whole world of men, from every tribe and every nation." That was a stunning statement to Nicodemus who considered the Messiah to be exclusive to the Jews.

So when Jesus says, "For God so loved the world that he gave to them his only Son" he's talking about the whole world of men, every tribe and every nation. That's the context. Because as we read in Titus 2:14, Jesus "gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works." That's a select group, not every single person.

Now, the Scriptures say that God is reconciling all things in heaven and on earth through the person and work of Jesus Christ, making peace by the blood of his cross, Colossians 1:20. So God did more than send Christ for every person. He's working in Christ to restore all of creation. An understanding of Christ in that way is not limited. It is big! It is very big! Reconciling all things in heaven and on earth making peace, not just in people but in all of creation, in the known and unknown universe, and that means removing those who were evil and followed after the devil.

And God does have a definite plan for them in showing his glory, "enduring with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy which he has prepared beforehand for glory." Once again, Romans 9:22-23.

Isaiah 53:6, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." Jesus died for us all. 

Not everyone's sins have been forgiven or everyone would stand before God as righteous. Only those whom Christ has redeemed, to whom that grace has been given, are righteous. Peter uses Isaiah 53:6 when he says, "For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls" (1 Peter 2:15). That's only those whom Christ has called. Repent and believe are not preferences. They are not suggestions. They are commands. Those who are his sheep will follow them. Those who are not his sheep won't. The sheep whom he has rescued from going astray will hear the word of God and answer to it as Jesus talks about in John 10. Even if it takes years to hear it, they will respond because they are his sheep.

Romans 8:32, "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?"

Context! Context is so important! Romans 8:31-32, "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" Come on. Paul is clearly talking only to believers here.

Some people say Jesus didn't die for everybody. He did! He did! 1 Timothy 2:4, it speaks of God "who will have all men to be saved." 1 John 4:14, "And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world." 

And then verse 15: "Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God." Like John 3:16, that's only those who believe. (I addressed his usage of 1 Timothy 2:4 earlier.)

1 John 2:1-2, "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world."

That's the reason I am glad that I am a gospel preacher. Friend, that is the reason I can say to anybody, anyplace, and anywhere, "If you want mercy, you can have mercy. If you want salvation, you can have salvation. If you want to be saved, I'm telling you on the authority of the word of God that you can be saved and God closes the blessed book, the book of the Revelation 22:17, "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely."

Amen to that. And let us preach it that way. Colossians 1 starting in verse 27: "God chose to make known to the saints," that's all Christians, "how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ." That's our mission. Jesus said go and preach to the whole world. And so we must. God's love is demonstrated in his gospel, and we should desire for the whole world to hear it.

Now friend, whosoever will! 

"Whosoever heareth! Shout, shout the sounds
Send the blessed tidings all the world around!
Tell the joyful news wherever men be found!
Whosoever will may come. 

Whosoever cometh need not delay. 
Now the door is open, enter while you may. 
Jesus is the true, the only Living Way. 
Whosoever will may come! 

Whosoever will! The promise is secure. 
Whosoever will! Forever must endure. 
Whosoever will! Tis life forevermore. 
Whosoever will may come!"

"Whosoever will, whosoever will! 
Send the proclomation over vale and hill
Tis a loving Father calls the wanderer home
Whosoever will may come!"

It is a liable to the character of God that God would say to a little baby, never ever having been born, done good nor evil, "You are going to hell! And there's nothing you can do about it."

See, grah! That's the thing that bugs me about this -- not the whosoever will part, he's preaching the gospel there, quoting from a hymn by Philip Bliss -- but when he says that babies are condemned to hell by God. When Rogers says that, he is specifically targeting those who believe God has predestined some for mercy and some for wrath. That's divisive. That does not unify the body of Christ. I don't preach that God condemns babies to hell. Quite the opposite actually.

I don't believe that for one skinny minute. I preach a gospel of "Whosoever will." 

If Rogers thinks that only the "whosoever wills" go to heaven, then babies go to hell because they never had an opportunity to choose. Now, I don't think Rogers actually believed that. I'm just saying, his logic doesn't fit. It doesn't fit the Scriptures, and it doesn't fit his own position. If you believe that God does not predestine who will be saved, "though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad" as it says in Romans 9:11, then you cannot make an argument for God saving the unborn, or for children who cannot choose, or the mentally handicapped. I can make that argument, because I argue for the doctrine of predestination. But a person who rejects that Scriptural interpretation cannot.

God is a sovereign God. And there is God's sovereign choice. There is God's spotless character. But friend, there is God's steadfast concern. He wants people saved. And he wants you saved. And if you want to be saved, I'm telling you he will save you today. And he will keep you and present you spotless before his throne. Would you bow your heads in prayer? Heads are bowed, and eyes are closed. Would you begin to pray for those around you who may not know Jesus? 

That's a very interesting way to put that. Would you pray for those around you who do not know Jesus. Why? Why would you pray for them? Do you not pray, as Adrian Rogers also prays, that God would break the hearts of those who do not know Christ so that they would receive him as Lord and Savior? Are you not praying and asking for God's will to be done over that person's life instead of their own will? Then you understand Romans 9:16, "So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy." You pray for God to intervene in that person's destructive path as you should. Because it is God's will, not our will, be done. Always.

As Charles Spurgeon has said, "If I find taught in one part of the Bible that everything is foreordained, that is true. And if I find in another Scripture that man is responsible for all his actions, that is also true. And it is only my folly that leads me to imagine that these two truths can ever contradict each other."

Who's Anna McCarthy, I wondered. I've seen her articles bouncing around Facebook and Twitter. The most famous up to this point was entitled When He Became a She, about a time she encountered a former church friend who's now a different sex. Her most recent article, about a ministry in a strip club, drove me to do a little research.

Her blog is called Just a Jesus Follower. I've looked through her material. For claiming to follow Jesus, she doesn't share many of his words. I scrolled through three articles before I finally found her first reference. She said, "Funny thing is, Jesus said if we followed Him, living in Jesus would be easy -- light even. (Matt 11:30)"

I'd be curious to know how she thinks denying yourself and taking up a cross daily is supposed to be easy (Luke 9:23). Jesus clearly said that following him was the difficult road. The easy road is the one that leads to destruction (Matthew 7:13-14). In the same passage she quoted, Jesus said the only people who know God are the ones Jesus chose to reveal the Father to (Matthew 11:27). It's not easy to follow Jesus. It's downright impossible.

In Matthew 11:30, Jesus was talking about the burden of false teaching. The Pharisees and other teachers were making the people believe they had to keep the law to be saved. But that isn't possible. Thankfully, Jesus fulfilled all the law and the prophets. For those who know Christ, their load is light indeed, no longer weighed down by guilt and legalism. We can rest forever in Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath (which Jesus went on to talk about in the next chapter).

My friends, these few paragraphs should be enough to inform you that at the very least, this woman who's "just a Jesus follower" is not following close enough to be teaching about him. James 3:1 says that not everyone should aspire to be a teacher because they will be judged more strictly. Anyone can use his name, but do they know his words? Every teacher needs to be tested -- yes, even me.

Whenever I see articles by someone new starting to pop up, I want to know who that person is. One of my jobs as a pastor is to teach sound doctrine and to rebuke those who contradict it (Titus 1:9). This is in loving guidance and careful attention for the flock of Jesus Christ that I examine this person's teaching.

Who is Anna McCarthy?

Looking up Anna McCarthy proved to be rather difficult as there are a lot of Anna McCarthy's. This is from her website: she has a 501c3 ministry she asks people to donate to; she's an author and speaker; she blogs on the Today show's community page; she has a notable position in her church as her bio says she and her husband, Zac, are "youth directors."

Her first entry, titled Just a Jesus Follower, was posted less than a year ago. She said, "I'm putting away the manuscripts, the books and (yes) my old blog. I'm trading it all in to focus solely on what I believe it means to be a Jesus follower." She went on to say, "Our culture's standard of what it means to be a follower of Jesus doesn't really align with my Bible. Let me explain."

But she really didn't explain. She said that she had been reading the first four chapters of Ephesians "and in John reading about Jesus's ministry" (which is the whole book of John). But she didn't share any of it. Her first entry was 1,700 words, she mentioned this new turn in her life motivated by Ephesians and John, but not one single verse or story stuck out to share.

She did share the words of God, though -- as in, God spoke to her, and not through the Bible. She seldom references his words in the Scriptures, but she will quote what she feels like he's saying in her mind. And apparently God was telling her to invite a married man out for coffee so she could help him fix his marriage because no one else would. Any doubts she had about meeting a man in a coffee shop, she said, was just Satan messing with her mind.

When the man came in and she started speaking with him, she said, "I opened my mouth and let God speak. Everything he had downloaded into me the night before came flooding out of me. I was bold. Freakishly bold. With a dude I'm kinda scared of. THAT WAS GOD." Again, no tidbits of Ephesians or John, which I'm guessing is what she meant by what God had downloaded into her. Yet she said, "Not one word was said that the holy spirit didn't funnel out of me."

I know what I'm going to say sounds harsh, but that's the way these things sound to those who like that kind of reading: Just a Jesus Follower is your typical, subjective, feel-good, "Christian" girl-blog. It is to be completely avoided. Its author does not attempt to teach you anything about what Jesus said, and therefore can't teach you anything about what it means to follow him.

The blog flows almost entirely from subjective, emotional experiences. By comparison, Mormonism, the International House of Prayer, Heaven Is for Real, Beth Moore, and Joyce Meyer also flow from subjective, emotional experiences. They talk about things God said to them in their minds, appealing to feelings rather than the truth.

(As long as I still have you, let me recommend instead two blogs written by sound and awesome women of good character: Beautiful Thing with Jessica Pickowicz, which just recently got started, and Michelle Lesley Books.)

What wisdom Anna McCarthy does share in her blog is bad. Women should not be meeting men with marriage problems in coffee shops, even if her goal is to fix his marriage. (Where was her husband exactly?) It's also not wise for anyone, man or woman, to go in a strip club, even for the purpose of ministry. And that brings me to the article that started me on this search...


She Went to a Strip Club?

The article begins, "A while back I was asked by a group of pastor's wives to go with them to strip clubs. That sentence alone sounds strange. But hang with me. At first I was a little hesitant. And not for reasons you might think. I love people. Especially ones who are broken; it's part of my calling. But, given what I've walked through, I know how fragile broken people can be. And I know how insensitive the church can be. And I was uneasy."

So Mrs. McCarthy was uneasy about going with these pastor's wives to a strip club because she basically thought they were going to Bible-thump the people there. She wasn't uneasy about the strippers or the patrons or what was going on in the club. She was uneasy about the Christians she was going with. Her criticism was of the church, not the strippers who are "fragile broken people."

"But, these weren't just any pastors wives," she went to say. "They had a vision. One that longed to love on women that society had thrown aside. It reminded me a lot of Jesus. So, I jumped on it. Their plan was to visit these clubs once a month to deliver a meal and gift baskets. I joined them the first night and I'll be honest, I had NO IDEA what to expect."

They went into the club and were taken to the back where they introduced themselves and left gifts and food. "I was shocked by what I saw," Mrs. McCarthy said, laying on the drama. "I was raised to believe that no good comes from places like that. Which is probably true on many levels. (I wouldn't suggest making it your go-to for date nights.)"Probably true?

"But, I was filled (as were many Christian kids) with fear about 'places like that.' That 'those people' were heathens and doing all kinds of sinful, shameful things. Which, again, is true of strip clubs. And bars. And many other places. Even churches."

And there you have it again. Mrs. McCarthy doubled-down on her criticism of Christians by comparing the church with a strip club.

Now, there are terrible places that are called churches doing terrible things. There's a false-teaching apostolic church in my own community -- Faith Tabernacle in Junction City -- whose "pastor" was having affairs and his son, who worked in the church, is now in jail for sexually molesting children. But that's not a church. It's a poisonous snake pit full of vipers masquerading as a church. (Yes, somehow that "church" is still open and growing.)

That wasn't the kind of church Mrs. McCarthy was talking about. So far, twice in her blog she displayed a very low regard for the church. Are there sinners in the church? Absolutely. In fact, every single person in every single church is a sinner. But the church is the bride of Christ who is being sanctified and made holy. You really want to compare the bride of Christ with a strip club?

Ephesians 5:25-27 reads, "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish."

Tell me: What strip club is that happening in? Didn't Mrs. McCarthy say that her new blog was inspired by the first four chapters of Ephesians? Oh, but that was chapter 5. Alright, moving on...

Mrs. McCarthy says, "Even churches," and then she goes back to the strip club and says, "But, these girls -- these lovely, girls -- were so... normal. As I talked with one in particular, she reminded me of any young mom I'd talk to in the school pick up line. Minus the fact that she didn't have much clothing on -- I tried not to focus on that."

She went on to say, "They showed pictures of their children, talked of pregnancy (I was pregnant at the time), chatted about trying to get back in shape after having a baby, etc. It was SO NORMAL. But, as we talked, and I looked into their eyes, I saw women -- young, broken women. Who had stories, probably much like mine or yours."

It sounds like Mrs. McCarthy truly cared for those strippers, right? Actually, I think I can make a pretty good case that she didn't. Notice that she said, "Minus the fact that she didn't have much clothing on -- I tried not to focus on that." Mrs. McCarthy overlooked the need to rescue a woman caught in a snare of the devil, participating in sexual immorality with reckless abandon, and instead reveled in her own personal enlightenment.

And she made it sound like that woman's profession was not her fault: "I saw women -- young, broken women." So a stripper is just a victim? In some ways, sure, I won't deny that. But she is not an unwilling participant. How could we possibly argue that being a stripper is not sinful? Yet that's what Mrs. McCarthy is doing through the power of a sympathetic story.

If we truly care for a woman who is a stripper, she needs to be shown her sin, just as Jesus did with the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:16-18), and she needs to be told to repent, just as Jesus did with the woman caught in adultery (John 8:11). Notice both of those references are in John. Mrs. McCarthy said her new blog, a journal of sorts, was inspired by reading Ephesians and John.

No one is actually being helped by the stripper ministry Mrs. McCarthy blogged about. She went on to talk about how a prayer box had been installed in the strip club, and a pastor started doing a Bible study in the strip club. She mentioned how the strippers thought they weren't like the other churches because all the other churches send hate mail. She mentioned that women went on to lead "healthy, restored lives," but did not ever say that meant no longer working in a strip club.

A stripper reading her article would never have thought there was anything wrong with being a stripper, and would have thought that she can get just as much Bible in a strip club as she can get in a church.

But doesn't Jesus meet us where we are? And didn't he hang out with sinners?

The most baffling statement in the whole blog was toward the end, and it was this: "If Jesus were here, walking among us, wouldn't it be just like him to walk into the most un-Christlike place (strip club or whatever) and completely freak the religious folk out?"

Truly think about that statement: Wouldn't it be like Christ to do something un-Christlike? That's the same as saying, "Wouldn't it be like God to do something un-godly?"

No, it wouldn't. God would not compromise nor contradict his holiness and neither would Christ. Jesus didn't do things just to freak the religious folk out. His ultimate, underlying purpose was the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:11).

Where exactly does the Bible fit into Mrs. McCarthy's reasoning? Jesus absolutely would not have ever gone into a strip club. Point me to one place in the Bible where Jesus took his ministry inside a brothel. The question is less "What Would Jesus Do?" and more what did Jesus do and what did he say?

We totally misconstrue the ideas that "Jesus meets us where we are" and "Jesus hung out with sinners" and make them cliches to fit our sensibilities. Jesus meeting us where we are means that he called us out of darkness and into his marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9). He did not wait for us to make ourselves better, since we couldn't do that anyway. He made us better. That doesn't mean Jesus went into brothels. A person who was truly transformed by Christ would not be in a brothel either.

By the way, about this light of his -- Jesus called it judgment. He said, "And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God" (John 3:19-21).

If Mrs. McCarthy and the ministry she was with were actually preaching the gospel, they'd have been hated for it. For by the light of the gospel, they'd have been exposing the work of a strip club, whose entire existence is to profit off of darkness, and that includes the strippers. They're taking their clothes off to make money. Everyone who does wicked things hates the light.

As for hanging out with sinners, Jesus went to their homes and ate with them (Matthew 9:9-13, Luke 19:1-10, etc.), but he did not hang out in places of debauchery. He told his disciples that if they go into a person's home, and that person won't receive the words they say, they're to shake the dust from their feet when they leave (Matthew 10:14). In other words, leave and don't go back. They've heard the truth and refused to believe it.

I'd like to know how those strippers or strip clubs would have actually received their ministry if they had actually told them to repent of their sin and preached the word of God. But we have no indication from Mrs. McCarthy's story that's what happened. It was appeasement, not ministry. It was personally enlightening, to be sure. Maybe you were enlightened by her article in some way. But the ministry was not loving.

There's only one reason I can think of for a Christian to go in a strip club -- that's to get a person out of there right now. Even then, he should let the elders of his church know what he's doing, and he should have someone with him. (Unfortunately, I am speaking from experience. Thankfully, I never had to go inside, but there was the possibility. I first let another leader in our church know what was going on, and I had someone else with me.)

Stand outside and witness to people going in and out. I promise you'll be spat on and have your life threatened. On that, I can also speak from personal experience. This kind of ministry can and should be done in a loving and gentle way (1 Peter 3:15, 2 Timothy 2:25). But do not go in a strip club. Even with the best of intentions, and even if you're able to guard yourself, it's not a good witness to others and will cause them to stumble, and that's a sin against Christ (1 Corinthians 8:10-13).

Wrapping Things Up

Let me say something positive about Mrs. McCarthy's blog. After this first strip club experience of hers, she went to her car and wept. She asked for God's forgiveness for "the way I had viewed women in that profession. Because, people -- that could have been me. It could have been any of us."

And on that point, I will say this: She's right. The Scriptures warn us not to get too high and mighty on ourselves. The Israelites were warned before being given the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 9:4-5), and we who are Christians are warned as we are given the Kingdom of God (Romans 11:20). It's not about what we did, it's about what Christ has done.

Before we came to Christ, we were just as lost. We were following the pattern of this world, the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is at work in the sons of disobedience, just like the rest of mankind (Ephesians 2:1-3). But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior (Titus 3:5).

We were just like anyone. We were walking in darkness until God rescued us -- not because of who we were, but because of who he is. Praise God that he saved us. And pray that as we go out with the gospel, he will turn the hearts of those who hear it.

Unfortunately, I don't really think that was the point Mrs. McCarthy was trying to make. I think the entire blog was based on her personal feelings, which are not always reliable. The Bible says that the heart is deceptive and wicked (Jeremiah 17:9). It's clear that Mrs. McCarthy has a reading base and a broad influence. I pray that with the conviction she's experiencing, she will grow to understand this, and handle the word of God and the name of Jesus rightly.

Anna McCarthy's blog -- including the layout, the appearance, the way her writing flows -- looks almost exactly like another false teacher who works in a church and has led many astray with his articles. I have warned others about him as well. Again, I must say to you -- Not everyone who uses the name of Christ is actually of Christ. Even the devil disguises himself as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14).

The internet can be a rich place, but it is also a very sordid place. There are some great blogs, but there are a lot of bad ones, too. Be good Bereans and test everything you read according to the word of God, the Bible (Acts 17:10-11).

And always be skeptical of anyone who claims to be "just a Jesus follower" but doesn't seem to know his words or share them.