Brownsville, Lakeland, and Irma

In 1995, the Brownsville Revival broke out in Pensacola, FL, and lasted over five years. More than four million people attended, with at least 200,000 new converts to Christianity, receiving the power to work indescribably great miracles. More than a thousand enrolled in the supernatural ministry training school, hoping to harness their new supernatural apostolic anointing to work miracles and spread the wonderful message of Brownsville.

In April 2008, the Lakeland Revival broke out in Lakeland, FL. Lasting over six months and led by Apostle Todd Bentley, this revival had over 10,000 nightly attendees and hundreds of thousands more watching over the internet. Over the course of this apostolic outpouring, tens of thousands of people were brought to Christ, and myriads were anointed with apostolic, miracle-working power.

So, Florida should be chock full of Spirit-empowered, apostolically anointed, miracle-working believers who can do greater works than Jesus (per John 14:12). And Jesus calmed a raging storm. So as this massive Hurricane Irma is barreling down on the state...

You know where I'm going here, and you already know that it isn't going to happen. Oh, sure, there may be a total loon starved for attention who will try it and accomplish nothing (update: when you need an attention-starved total loon to accomplish nothing, Kat Kerr and Lance Wallnau have you covered). But the vast majority of these self-proclaimed workers of miracles won't even bother trying. Much like how Benny Hinn never seems to bother healing all the patients in a children's hospital, these folks yammer endlessly about their great power to do the miraculous, yet go mysteriously silent when they could actually be of use. I'd like to offer some reflections on this for your consideration.

1) Their lesser interpretation of John 14:12 is wrong and they know it.
The interpretation widely accepted within Charismaticism limits the "greater works" to miracles, and they claim that anyone who has received the Spirit can and will do miracles surpassing what Jesus was able to do. Then they consistently fail to do so, and rarely make even a token attempt. Though they say they believe this interpretation, few of them even try to act like they do, and none of them - not individually, not all of them combined - have a track record that would confirm it.

Now why do I call it the "lesser" interpretation? Because their strict focus on miracle working eliminates the actual greater works - bringing new life to spiritually dead sinners through proclamation of the gospel, building the church. This is shown in Acts, which was in circulation before John's gospel was written, and serves as a record of the ministry of the Apostles. This verse must be understood such that the greater works Jesus mentions are those emphasized in Acts. There we find that the miracle working was continually downplayed, while gospel preaching is central.

Take all the miracles recorded in Acts together, and you get less than Jesus did in just Matthew 8 and 9. But what greater works do we see? "There were added that day about three thousand souls." "As many as were appointed to eternal life believed." "The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul." And on and on. Those are the greater works Acts emphasizes and Jesus meant - the proclamation of the gospel bringing sinners to repentant faith in Jesus Christ.

That was the emphasis of the ministry of Peter, Paul, John, Philip, and the like. Their obsession with miracle working shows them to be not like Simon Bar-Jonah but Simon Magus.

2) The actual number of people who came to faith in Christ at these revivals is probably zero.
I was going to say the reported number of converts is greatly exaggerated, but let's cut right to it - based on everything I've ever seen from these revivals, there is zero chance anyone could be saved through them. Faith comes through hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. To be saved, the gospel must be preached - and so far no one has produced any evidence of that at these so-called revivals.

Lakeland was primarily Todd Bentley. Zero chance of gospel proclamation there. Brownsville lasted five years, so maybe in those hundreds of messages, something Biblically sound snuck through. I've personally heard several dozen of them, from luminaries such as Steven Hill, Michael Brown, Yonggi Cho, Jentzen Franklin, and Rodney Howard Browne, and if they are at all representative...

Chris Rosebrough has been digging up Brownsville sermons for the last year or so. Listen to a few, such as these recent examples from Michael Brown and Jentzen Frankin. Can someone be saved by that? There are numerous other examples, and they follow a similar pattern. The main focus of the sermon is the greatness of the preacher. The secondary point is "Yay, revival!" There will be a heavy dose of "you have to do this better!" Any scripture brought up will be twisted beyond recognition and discarded. Jesus will scarcely be mentioned if at all. You might get the occasional blatant heresy. And the gospel will be completely absent.

When I evaluate sermons, I ask what the result would be if someone fully believed and completely obeyed everything that was said. In the case of every single Brownsville sermon I've ever heard, the answer is the same - the listener would remain dead in his sins and destined for hell.

I'd love for someone to prove me wrong here. Just one example of the gospel being clearly and faithfully presented at one of these revivals. But the more I've heard from Brownsville, Toronto, Lakeland, the Fire and Glory one in San Diego now, the less likely it seems anyone can produce it. It just isn't there. And without the gospel, nobody is being saved.

3) Whatever spirit was leading these revivals sure wasn't the Holy Spirit.
I don't know how someone could listen to Todd Bentley for more than about three minutes and not figure out he's demonic. But Brownsville also produced a cavalcade of people who were obsessed with signs and wonders, cared nothing for sound doctrine, buried the gospel, preached messages that left their hearers damned, and preached themselves instead of Christ. If that isn't demonic, what is?


After all that, we can answer the original question - after two huge miraculous revivals, why isn't Florida overwhelmingly full of Spirit-empowered apostolically-gifted Christians who can command Hurricane Irma to stop? Because Scripture does not promise us that kind of power, so these people wouldn't have that power even if they were Christians, which they're not.

A word about Antifa

I would like to say a quick word about the growing "anti-fascist" movement that calls itself Antifa. But first, a story.

My freshman year of college, I lived in a dorm on campus. One of the dorm rules was that you were not allowed to build certain things in your room, including lofts. A loft provides precious storage space to a cramped dorm room, so everyone would want one, if only they could get around the problem of lofts being specifically forbidden.

Some friends of mine decided to take a creative stab at getting around the "no lofts" rule. They went ahead and built a loft in their room, then carved the words "NOT A LOFT" into the side. One day when an RA happened to see the not-a-loft and pointed out that lofts were not allowed, someone responded, "True, lofts are not allowed. But (pointing to the words), as you can clearly see, this is NOT A LOFT."

Maybe the RA appreciated the sense of humor and decided to reward them. Maybe he was stunned at the sheer audacity of calling the loft "not-a-loft" and expecting it to matter. Whatever the case, it was allowed to remain, and went unchallenged the rest of the year.

Now I share that story with you because it's completely ridiculous (but true!). They built something that looked like a loft, functioned like a loft, was actually a loft, but slapped the word "not" on it. Does anyone actually think using the word "not" in the name negated what it clearly was? Call it not-a-loft, call it the anti-loft, call it whatever you want, by design, appearance, and function, it was most definitely a loft.

And that's all I have to say about Antifa.

Deceivers and their Deceived

Within the past few days, I've seen three news stories about deceptive false teachers that had eye-popping numbers. Much could be said about these wolves, but here I want to consider the deceived, those who pack stadiums and cut the checks to support these charlatan ministries.

First: yesterday the offices of uber-heretic Benny Hinn were raided by the IRS (makes sense, long time coming) and USPS (suspected mail fraud perhaps?). When the IRS is through, we may get a peek into just how much money pours in for Hinn every year. Conservative estimates have been in the $100 million range, though it is likely significantly higher. Whatever the actual number turns out to be, it's a gargantuan amount of revenue flowing from deceived to deceiver.

Second: Robert Morris, famous for his "blessed life" version of the damnable prosperity gospel, appears to be encountering significant shortfalls, which would be absolutely hilarious when you consider what he teaches. But forget about the possible losses for a second and look at how much revenue this den of robbers takes in annually - about $147 million. That's... a lot. A thousand times more than my church's annual budget.

Third: Kong Hee, the self-appointed apostle of City Harvest Church of Singapore, had his sentence reduced from 8 years to 3.5 years, and his co-conspirators received similar reductions. Their crime? They had diverted at least $50 million Singapore (~$35 million US) to promote the music career of Kong Hee's wife in an attempt to conquer the media/entertainment mountains of the Seven Mountain Mandate. To have $35 million to use on a side project (largely consisting of the pastor's wife living extravagantly in LA and making awful music videos), you can imagine how much they must be raking in.

Three staggering examples of the extreme amounts of money these wolves have amassed. That cash comes from somewhere - despite the ludicrous miracle-working claims of Hinn and Hee, they can't make money materialize out of nothing. No, there are millions of people willingly forking over their hard-earned money to these charlatans. Why? Why would someone write check after check after check to these grifters? How can they be so deceived?

The unpleasant answer: they give them so much money because they want to. They are deceived because they want to be. They look at what these charlatans promise, and in their hearts they think, "I want that." Whether they are promising God as a means to superpowers and health and wealth like Hinn, or God as the Blessed Life Vending Machine where you put in your dollar and get back a hundred like Morris, or promising God will make you the miracle-working super-soldier who will conquer the world and gather the wealth of nations like Kong Hee, they are promising what the unregenerate, sinful heart wants.

For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. (2 Timothy 3:2-5)
The vast majority of people giving to these wolves are not Christians being duped, but the unregenerate pursuing what the unregenerate heart craves. These wolves, and many others like them, promise all the pleasure and riches and fame the sinful heart desires, with just enough of a God talk veneer to make it look respectable. And the masses go after it, because it is ultimately what they want. They are not the duped innocent but willing participants.

What do we do about it? Keep reading in 2 Timothy and the answer is clear - know, believe, and proclaim the scriptures. In the face of such ungodliness, especially that claiming to be part of the church, we have this charge: Preach the word. In the gospel alone is the power of salvation.

Examples like these show us the depth of our sinful human depravity. Only the word of God can overcome our sinfulness, open our eyes from willful blindness, and bring us to life.

Dentists and Hebrews 4:12

I went to the dentist recently. If there's anything I hate to do more than going to the dentist, it's... well, I can't really think of it right now. The dentist is awful, and I hate going. Always have, always will.

Rarely has a song so accurately captured a profession

The worst part may not be the pleasure they enjoy inflicting on their patient-victims. As much fun as I enjoy having an iron hook jammed into my gums repeatedly, it still might not be as bad as the scolding. You know the part, where they find something, anything, to belittle you for. You're not brushing enough, and if you are you're doing something wrong, and you need to floss more, unless you floss like you're supposed to in which case you probably floss too much and are damaging your gums... No matter how clean your teeth were, no matter if your entire visit took less than five minutes, they have to end it by letting you know that you're utterly incompetent in oral care and your mouth is revolting.

While I was being told that my oral care is so awful it deserves prosecution for war crimes, I couldn't help but think of Hebrews 4:12. Wait, the feel-good verse about the Bible being awesome? Yep, that one. Let's take a look at that verse in context, and see how the fault-finding dentist is a bad parable for one function of the word of God.

In Hebrews, the author is encouraging Christians facing persecution to not abandon the faith and return to their old way of life. He does this by systematically proving the superiority of Christ to every aspect of old covenant Judaism (and by extension all man-made faiths as well). Everything in the old covenant points to Jesus, he is its fulfillment, salvation is only possible through his work alone, and to abandon the faith is spiritual suicide, because any other system is necessarily unable to save. Now that Christ has come as the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises, there is no other way. So Hebrews has two themes continually interwoven, the absolute supremacy of Christ, and the need to persevere in the faith.

In Hebrews 3-4, the author draws a parallel between the work of Christ and the work of Moses/Joshua. As Moses delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt, Jesus delivers us from slavery to sin and fear of death (2:14ff). As Joshua led the people into rest in the Promised Land, Christ is leading his people to the greater rest which still remains, the promised "Sabbath rest for the people of God" (4:9).

But there was a problem with ancient Israel, and a warning for us today. Did all who started on the Exodus enter the Promised Land? No. In fact, other than Joshua and Caleb, every single Israelite 20 years and older died in the wilderness. They had gotten right up to the edge of the Promised Land - and there they rebelled against God. His judgment was to send them back into the desert to wander and die, and their children would enter the land (Numbers 13-14).

The author uses this example as a warning and exhortation to us. "Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end" (3:12-14). And again, our primary text:

Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. (4:11-13)

As Israel came to the edge of Canaan, the author pictures us coming to the entrance to God's eternal rest. The standard by which we will be judged, by which it will be decided whether we enter the rest or die in the wilderness, is the word of God. Have we obeyed God's word? And not just our actions - even our thoughts and intentions are judged by God's holy standard.

And nothing will be hidden from God's sight - everything is laid bare before Him. You can try lying to the dentist about flossing every day; when your mouth is opened wide, the truth is evident to him. You can try lying to God, saying "All these I have kept from my youth" (Luke 18:21), but do you really imagine God doesn't see?

The dentist's ability to find fault is nothing compared to the convicting power of God's law. "Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no man will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin" (Romans 3:19-20). When our lives and thoughts are laid bare and judged against the standard of God's word, there will be none who pass, and none who can so much as offer a defense. Every mouth is stopped. Every one is accountable. No one will be justified through obedience to the law, but the depth of our sin will be undeniable.

What hope is there? Who can endure such a judgment, having all exposed before God and judged by God's word, which can discern even our thoughts and the intentions of our hearts? What can we do other than accept the guilty verdict and our well-deserved punishment? Keep reading:

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:14-16)

On our own, we are hopeless, destined to die like the rebellious Israelites. But we have a great high priest who, as the next six chapters discuss, has made complete atonement for the sin of his people. In Jesus, and only in him, we find forgiveness of sins and intercession before the Father. Through faith in him we are forgiven of sins, delivered from the judgment, and granted entry to God's rest.

The Curious Case of Opal Covey

When I moved back to Toledo a couple years ago, I had forgotten how much fun the mayoral elections can be. To help explain how the illustrious Carty Finkbeiner could keep getting elected, just look at the competition, including perennial candidate Opal Covey.

Recently Opal went on the radio to talk about her platform. It didn't go well. So she confronted the host about his sinful defiance of God's will that she must be mayor. Seriously. Just watch:

Another fun interview with her can be found here. Please watch this one to the end. You can thank me later.

These clips and her prophetic electoral history (four previous times she's been told by God she would be mayor, without success) raise a host of questions. The shenanigans on display here don't come about in a vacuum, and frankly what she's doing, while maybe more exuberant, is far too familiar.

1) Where are the people to defend her? Why is there no mention of this on charismamag.com or charismanews.com? She has a prophetic word from God and is being mocked and resisted - why don't they take up her cause? And lest you think this is just too far out there for them to defend, take a look at what they actively promote, and tell me how this is any different from, say, a typical Jennifer LeClaire piece.

2) Why is nobody proposing an "open but cautious" stance? How is it that we all instantly know this is total garbage, but with other 'prophecies' and 'tongues' we're supposed to wait and see because you never know? What, specifically, is the difference between this and the thousands of 'words from the lord' that will be spouted at charismatic churches this Sunday?

3) How is it that a talk radio host in Toledo, OH knows the simple equation that self-proclaimed prophet + false = false prophet, and he's not afraid to tell her so (even as she speaks in tongues against him!), but major evangelical leaders and theologians can't figure it out?

4) How is her schtick any different from what happens daily on TBN? How is she different from the New Apostolic Reformation or IHOP or Chuck Pierce or Patricia King or Benny Hinn or Pat Robertson or Bill Johnson or the Elijah List or Todd Bentley or...

5) Is it the William Tapley effect? As Chris Rosebrough often points out, William Tapley plays the same game as Robertson, Hagee, Cahn, and many others who rake in millions while he's a laughingstock. Why? They're slick and polished, while Tapley is... well, just watch his videos. Is that all that's at play here, why Opal Covey is a laughingstock while Bill Johnson has a global following and TBN rakes in cash by the billions? What exactly is different about her, other than the polish?

6) Note carefully the "I speak in tongues against you". Somehow tongues went from declaration of the wonders of God in understandable foreign language previously unknown to the speaker (Acts 2) to gibberish random syllables as a curse. In other words, from spiritual gift to witchcraft. Now, is that common practice in charismaticism? Before you answer, consider the word-faith theology of Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, and their ilk, the idea that you're a little god who creates the future through the power of your words. How is what she did any different?

7) While it's easy to dismiss her as crazy and disturbed, does she understand the implications of what she's saying better than many? Consider - she claims to have a prophecy that she will be mayor. Fred Lefebvre doesn't accept it and seems to work against it (by exposing her utter lack of qualifications). So she accuses him of the gross sin of opposing the work of god, and pronounces judgment on him. Because god told her she would be mayor, everyone who has heard the prophecy is morally bound to obey, and disobedience to her word is tantamount to disobeying god, liable to the fires of hell.

It all makes for a good laugh, except for one thing - if she actually received a real prophecy, her pronouncement would be 100% correct. She didn't, and she's a false prophet and blasphemer, but if it was actually a word from God, she would have been correct that opposing it is vile sin.

So why does this woman understand this, but so much of the church doesn't? How many pastors have an extrabiblical 'vision' they claim is God's revelation to them? How many projects are launched with no justification beyond "God put this on our hearts" or "God gave us a vision for this"? How often is "God is telling me..." or "God is leading me to..." tossed out in casual conversation, as if direct orders from the almighty creator are on the same level as a comment about the weather?

Why do we put up with this? How do we not understand - if Opal Covey can understand it, I'm sure it's not beyond our grasp - that a divine revelation morally binds all hearers, and to oppose it is sin? If they claim the message is God's word, no matter how soft they sell it, to disobey or fail to support it is direct rebellion against God himself - if it's actually from God. If it's not, and at this point in redemptive history we can safely say it's not, then they are sinning by taking God's name in vain, and they're false prophets.

When we let that kind of thing fester unopposed, a generation of Opal Coveys is the result.

The Obvious Happened. What Now?

The University of Toronto, in good progressive fashion, started using "gender-neutral" bathrooms in some dorms. You will no doubt be shocked to find out that college guys like looking at naked girls, and some particularly sleazy ones decided to do so without the girls' permission.

So what do we make of this? It's tempting to start with "I told you so" and "How could they not see this would happen?", and plenty of good folks are already on that train. The point needs to be driven home that this result is entirely predictable, and this foolishness needlessly puts women and children in harm's way.

There's one problem nagging at me, though. I have a hard time buying the underlying assumption - that the people responsible for these asinine policies couldn't see this coming. These are generally people with advanced degrees - no matter how worthless those degrees may be, they require some intellectual acumen to obtain. Am I really to believe they are capable of academic achievement, yet utterly ignorant of what could happen when young males are granted free access to naked vulnerable women?

Of course they knew what would happen. They don't care. Advancing the progressive agenda is much more important to them than frivolous concerns like the safety and purity of women and children. There are goals to accomplish, and if some women and children have to be sacrificed - through sexual assaults, being torn limb from limb inside the womb, whatever - along the way, that's collateral damage they're willing to live with. Eggs and omelets and all.

The ultimate goal isn't feminism or 'equality' or a gender-free society or any small potatoes like that. Those are mere means to their doomed-to-fail end: the eradication of God. It's the same goal humanity has shared since Genesis 3, when our father Adam rebelled against God and exalted his own creaturely wisdom above that of the Creator. Following Adam's sin-corrupted nature, we rebel against God and fight against all that necessarily flows from Genesis 1:1. God created, and therefore has all sovereignty and right to define. We want to rule, so we do all we can to defy God.

And so we have these projects to cast off what God has said is good. God created male and female, so we invent the choose your own gender adventure society. God rules over life and death, so we claim for ourselves the right to kill at any time, for any reason; people are only alive when we deem them worthy of life. God created man in His image and gave him dominion over animals, so we imagine man in the image of ancient apes, just another animal, one the world would be better off without. There is no truth so obvious that we won't overturn it to send the message, "We are in charge here!" There is nothing so good that we won't destroy it to spite God.

The problem isn't ignorance, but wickedness. The cure is not common sense (though a dose of common grace sure wouldn't hurt!), but repentance. Foolish policies like the gender-neutral dorm bathrooms come from despising the obvious, but not merely the obvious about boys and girls. It comes from despising the obvious truth that God created and rules over us; we have sinned against Him, and deserve nothing but the harshest judgment. Our only hope is to repent and turn in faith in Jesus Christ, trusting his propitiatory death for sin and righteousness credited to all who trust in him alone.

Trailblazing on the Broad Path

I had no intention of writing or hopefully even thinking about TD Jakes ever again. But then I saw this article in my twitter feed, and here we are.

Short version, he's OK with "gay marriage" (or at least the government backing off and allowing whatever), his views on homosexuality are "evolved and evolving", and he thinks at least some churches should openly embrace unrepentant homosexuals. In fairness, for now his Potter's House isn't yet openly gay-embracing, but these statements definitely open the possibility.

I'll let others dive into the more fun aspects here, such as his anti-inspiration description of Paul's letters and his postmodern "I'm not God, so I can't know what any of this means!" hermeneutic, and focus on why he's doing this now.

Above all else, remember that Jakes is a money-grubbing televangelist whose primary theological aim is prosperity - his personal enrichment at the expense of the gullible. This is almost certainly a trial balloon, just wanting to see what kind of reception they get from their victim/donors.

In the wake of Obergefell, it's only a matter of time until churches, even false-gospel outposts of hell like Potter's House, lose tax-exempt status if they continue to oppose homosexuality. Not only will they need to start paying taxes, their income is likely to fall, as people may not be willing/able to give as much without the accompanying write-off. It makes sense to compromise to keep that exemption.

Unless, of course, the outcry against the decision is strong enough. If a large percentage of existing donors are angry enough about the change and stop donating, it could be worse financially than losing tax exemption. In that case it would make financial sense to hold firm and suffer the consequences - and maybe even pick up new donors in the process.

We could add that a church might hold firm because of the clear teaching of God's Word, but, well, TD Jakes.

So I think this is a trial balloon. They no doubt have run numbers on what losing tax exemption will cost, and they're gathering data to project loss (or even potential gain!) from openly affirming homosexual sin. If the numbers are right, expect them to make the formal move soon enough.

And don't be naïve enough to think this stops here. How many megachurches with debts in the tens of millions and budgets that are already stretched too thin can afford to lose tax exempt status? Do you see Andy Stanley or Ed Young or your local Creek holding the line on clear biblical truth, at the potential cost of millions a year?

So give TD Jakes credit. He's nothing if not a shrewd businessman and a trailblazer. Many others will follow the path he's blazing, which is coincidentally broad and leads to destruction.

The Lamest "God Told Me"

This weekend there's a conference in Houston that I would have loved to attend, but will be unable to. The theme of the Sufficient Fire conference is the sufficiency of the Word of God, which stands in stark contrast to the constant barrage of "God told me" theology plaguing evangelicalism. But just because I can't go doesn't mean I can't participate my own unique way - by compiling the lamest examples of someone playing the "God told me" card anywhere on the internet.

I'm not looking for the usual suspects and low-hanging fruit. I mean, any day now Pat Robertson will come down from the mountain with prophecies God gave him for 2015 (much like last year, and every year). We're only a few weeks removed from Perry Noble claiming God told him to preach a sermon against the Ten Commandments and the gospel. That stuff - it's just too easy and obvious, and far better people write far better responses to it.

No, the niche I'm going for here is the utterly lame. The times when someone claims "God told me" or "God is leading me to", and you just can't believe they would waste such a trump card on something so incredibly trivial or stupid. For example:

About ten years ago I was leading a Bible study for my church's singles group. My friend Mitch, the leader of the group as a whole, had been trying to get his old friend Jon to come, and one week he finally agreed. Jon missed that study, and the next time we saw him, we asked what happened.
 
"Well, I was planning on going to Bible study, but God told me not to."
 
Oh really?
 
"Yeah, I was going to go, but I heard God say, 'Jon, I want you to go to the video store instead.'"
 
Oh, I bet. So what did the Almighty tell you to get a the video store, pray tell?
 
"A History of Violence. Don't ever watch that, it was awful!"

There you have it. A guy claimed God told him to skip Bible study to rent an awful movie. But at least we were warned not to see a movie we already had no intention of watching!

I would like to think it can't get any lamer than that. But this is your chance to prove me wrong. Put your examples of the most ridiculously pathetic times someone has thrown out a "God told me" around you. And then we can all thank God for the Bible, so we don't need to engage in such nonsense.

No Bad Malarkey Puns

Unless you only get your news exclusively from official Southern Baptist sources or Charisma Magazine, you've probably heard that Alex Malarkey, the boy whose 'visit to heaven' was chronicled in the book "The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven", has finally gotten word out that the book is his father's embellishing of stories he told to get attention. In other words, he never went to heaven (duh), told some wild stories, his dad turned them into a book and made off with loads of cash. Also, we found out that the publishers and bookstores knew this years ago, but continued to peddle it for filthy lucre.

Many pixels have been and will continue to be darkened over this saga, and frankly there will be better places to get news and commentary than here. My main contribution here will be to clarify one talking point and preemptively shoot down another that's sure to come out.

1) The publishers/bookstores just found out this was a fraud. I've already linked Phil Johnson's documentation showing that Tyndale House knew that Alex disputed the book as far back as 2011, despite their claims that they just found out last week. But that's not what I mean here.

I mean that they knew it was a complete load of garbage the instant they saw a manuscript, or even heard a pitch for the book. Seriously, this isn't Discernment 101, this is like the intro to the syllabus for Remedial Discernment.

Did Alex Malarkey die, go to heaven, and come back with a report for us? No. Did Colton Burpo or Don Piper? No. Did the next person to make this claim, or the next, or the next? No, no, and no. And so on.

They didn't just find out this was a fraud. They just found out (in 2011) that Alex was recanting his story. But they should have known all along this story was a bucket of horse manure. (On the bookstore side, the SBC officially condemns this type of book as heretical nonsense, yet their bookstore chain (Lifeway) continues to sell them. This is one of the major driving forces of #the15, a push to call elites to account for things like peddling heresy for profit.)

2) Unbelievers are slandering the church because of this. I have seen this lament, due to how many news and faux-news organizations are covering this and how the reprobate are openly mocking. But what I anticipate - I'm surprised I haven't seen it yet - is that this will be thrown at #the15 and the like. That is, they will say that the reason people are mocking Christ and his church is that they pushed to get the truth and make it known. If we had been content to leave things be, they would have no cause to mock.

I would suggest they take it back a step further - the cause for mocking here isn't that the truth came out, it's that the book was produced at all, then peddled and bought en masse. The problem isn't that Pulpit and Pen got the backstory to the book, it's that Tyndale House published it as if it were a Christian book at all. The problem isn't that people pushed Lifeway to discontinue the book, but that they ever sold it in the first place.

My crazy idea is that there would be less to mock if Christian publishers and bookstores showed as much discernment as a moldy tangerine, and reject obviously anti-Christian books like this outright. People aren't mocking because we've spoken when we should be silent, but because they were silent when they needed to speak.

What Downgrade Looks Like

Early 2008, we had just moved to the northwest suburbs of Chicago. Once we realized that it wouldn't be feasible to stay with our church downtown, we decided to check out the large church about three blocks away, Harvest Bible Chapel, pastored by James MacDonald, whose teaching I was somewhat familiar with from the Walk in the Word radio broadcasts and some small group material. Long story short, we stayed for a few years, until the pachyderms moved in.

Around that time, the local "Christian" TV station started broadcasting Walk in the Word, just some simple video recordings of his sermons. Maybe a few months later, the station put up a bunch of billboards around town advertising their lineup. Imagine my surprise when I was driving past O'Hare airport to see my pastor looking over I-90, sandwiched between Joyce Meyer and (I think) Kenneth Copeland! Other billboards around town featured the likes of Creflo Dollar, Joseph Prince, and someone you may have heard of named TD Jakes.

That Sunday during the sermon, there was a brief aside about the billboards. Essentially, James said that we were pulling Walk in the Word off that station immediately. He said that he and the elders had agreed to go on that station because they had determined to preach the gospel anytime, anywhere - but they had a condition for the station. They were not supposed to use him or the church to make it look like we endorsed the other preachers. Why? He made it very clear that they all - everyone featured on those billboards except Greg Laurie - preached a false, damnable heresy called the prosperity gospel, or some other heresy such as antinomianism. And he wanted nothing to do with that sort of preaching, or even looking like he endorsed its adherents.

Fast-forward to 2014, and we get this:
>

(Or see it here if the embed didn't work)

Fun fact: that TV studio was acquired shortly before we left (without our catapult ride, unfortunately). When it was announced, aside from lying to us about our financial status, James claimed the purpose was to make movies/shows/broadcasts to counter the poison that typically fills supposedly-Christian TV. Now he's handed it over to the chief distributor of spiritual ricin.

All that to say, this is another knife twist, and it's gut-wrenching to see someone fall so far so fast dive headfirst into the abyss.

Theology? Ain't Nobody Got Time For That!

Over the weekend I saw numerous reports of the death of Myles Munroe. At first I thought they were talking about this guy:

...which is odd, since I thought he died before the 138th episode spectacular, but I digress. Myles Munroe was a prosperity shill and heretic extraordinaire; your soul would probably have been in better hands with the incompetent Simpsons psychiatrist.

One of the clips making the rounds in the wake of Munroe's death puts the heretical focus of his prosperity teaching on full display:



Pure evil. This is prosperity teaching showing its true wickedness: Christ is at best a bit player in your quest for kingdom authority and blessing. Reprehensible.

Now that we have that out there, let me ask: just how different is that from the ministry philosophy of many churches in America today? This isn't an issue just in the extreme fringe that comprises 99.44% of Charismania; a (milder?) form of this problem hits even ostensibly orthodox churches all around us.

Preaching about "felt needs" at the expense of doctrine. The Willow Creek model of saccharine bare-minimum (aiming down to the lowest denominator, and often overshooting) sermons on Sunday, withholding any imitation of doctrine for mid-week services for the super-spiritual. The Saddleback model wherein everything is about you finding your special purpose, where somehow the book of Daniel is about dieting.

Youth ministries where scripture, if taught at all, takes a backseat to games and fluff messages 'to help them get through school this week'. Churches that never preach anything but how to have a better life - better friendships, a better marriage, doing better at work, better sex, better sleep, better breathing, better fitness, better whatever.

If I remember correctly, I was once told not to bother teaching about the doctrine of providence because people don't care about that, they just want to know how they're going to make it through the week.

So yeah, this Munroe character was a reprehensible heretic, and his idea that we shouldn't tell people about Christ and the cross is poison from the deepest pits of hell. But don't be fooled into thinking he was alone, or that his heresy died with him. That same wicked attitude permeates the church all around us.

Find the Baby in this Bathwater

In the most recent edition of Hither and Thither 2.0, Dan Phillips linked to two articles from Charisma magazine online. Morbidly curious, I checked them out and - wow. Have a look for yourself:

Zechariah 1 Holds a Key to a Third Great Awakening, where the author mangles Zechariah before telling about the time he supposedly spent six hours with God in his sanctuary.

Prophecy: Posture Your Hearts to Receive Power at 5:55, which is written by a faux-apostle, features a mix of dreams, numerology, awful word study, sappy Disney movies, utter nonsense, and false prophecy. It's a real tour-de-force.

The sidebar of each article has links to other featured content at the site, and it all looked pretty special, too. But I wasn't sure if that was really representative of what was at this site, so I went to the front page, spun the mouse wheel to scroll down a random amount, and this is what I saw:

 



Three articles, three examples of utter unbiblical nonsense. How to Command Your Angels? An interview on Practical Strategies to Defeat the Devil? Both were garbage. But the sheer stupidity of What the Python Spirit Really Wants stands apart as witchcraft with a thin veneer of Christian language (do read Lyndon Unger's comments, the term "Wiccangelicalism" needs to catch on).

Look, all through the run-up to the Strange Fire conference, the main complaint was about throwing the baby out with the bathwater, of attacking the "fringe" at the expense of the sane, actually-Christian mainstream. I have to ask, is Charisma Magazine part of the fringe, and somehow not mainstream? Because at Charisma, there's no baby, there's not even bathwater, there's just a big tub of toxic sludge.

The Awesome Power of The Word

Not long ago I heard an entertainer-type give his testimony, telling his story of how he was brought to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. He had almost zero exposure to Christianity or scripture until he was 30-ish, when a friend suggested he should read some of the Bible. He chose at random, and read Ecclesiastes. Then he read it again, and again. Solomon's writings cut him to the core, laying low his pride and self-righteousness, and exposing his absolute need for a savior.

RC Sproul has half-joked that he may be the only person in history who was saved through the preaching of Ecclesiastes 11:3: "Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where it falls, there will it lie." Read more of the story of his conversion here.

I was a freshman in college, thinking I was saved because I went to church a lot when I was a kid, but completely lost. I was hypocritically involved in a Christian group on campus, because hey, what better way to soothe my conscience after a week of wanton sin? I was reading the Bible for some reason, got to Ephesians 4:17ff, and was crushed. This passage describes the night-and-day difference between those who are reborn in Christ and those who remain dead in sin, and there was absolutely no doubt which group's description I fit. At that point the choice was to repent and come to faith in Christ, or walk away entirely; either way, continuing to pretend was not an option. Thankfully, God raised me and brought me to faith.

What do all these vignettes have in common? In each case, someone was brought to repentance and faith through scripture that will never be described as evangelistic. I mean, Fred Butler will write Jar Jar Binks fan fic before someone puts Ecclesiastes 11:3 in an evangelistic presentation. Every evangelism class will have you learn Ephesians 2:8-9, but I can't imagine one having you learn Ephesians 4:19. Yet these passages, being the Word of God, are fully capable of convicting of sin and the need for Jesus, the only Savior.

"All Scripture is breathed out by God" (2 Tim 3:16) - and as our Arminian friends uncritically say, all means all. And this scripture, as Paul says, is "the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus" (2 Tim 3:15).

The Word of God is powerful. Preach it.

Prediction I Hope Will Be Wrong

Sometimes I really, really hope I'm wrong. Now, for instance.

Big news came from Seattle this week: Mark Driscoll is stepping down as pastor of Mars Hill. Well, for six weeks, anyway. Serious charges have been brought against him, and he will go on vacation or something while the Mars Hill elders weigh the charges.

Now it should go without saying that we all hope this is a true church discipline process resulting in his repentance. Unfortunately, I suspect the whole thing is a traveshamockery. My prediction I seriously hope is wrong is this: no positive change will come out of this, and in fact I believe this will only make things worse.

Why do I think that? Start with his positively Clintonian statement, carefully crafted to give a façade of faux-repentance without actually repenting, twisting the facts, and making sure everyone knows the real villains are the people who have an issue with him.

Now consider the upcoming process and who will be administering it. Over the last few years, Driscoll has systematically eliminated elders who dare to disagree with him, smeared them as "divisive" per Titus 3:10-11, and stacked the elder board with personally-chosen sycophants. Now this collection of yes-men will choose between these "divisive" former brothers and their meal ticket. Pardon me for being a wee bit skeptical of the legitimacy of this process.

My prediction is that they will function like a "Blue Ribbon Panel" in Washington. Their primary job is to look like the issue is being taken seriously, give the aggrieved a chance to vent and 'be heard', and make sure no real consequences hit anyone important. They will issue a report vaguely acknowledging "mistakes were made", assuring us all that Pastor Mark is really, really sorry and truly, madly, deeply repentant for his minor imperfections (but reminding us again that those who said anything publicly are a million times worse), making vague claims of continued efforts towards restitution, and then reinstating him without consequence.

But it won't just be without consequence, you see. Now there will be cover as well. When the same things keep happening, and we go through this yet again, the Kool-Aid drinkers will point to this as indisputable, brave, humble repentance, and scold those who dare doubt it. Already instead of thanking those who warned them, the "don't you dare question him now!" scoldings and selective amnesia about their own culpability have flown freely. Next time we go through this, the chorus shouting that we have to pretend nothing before September 2014 ever happened will be deafening.

Again, I hope I'm completely wrong on every part of this. I hope there is genuine repentance, that elders hand-picked specifically for their ability to be spineless yes-men will suddenly become vertebrates and rule justly, and that true restitution is made. But nothing we've seen so far in over a decade of Driscoll makes any of that remotely likely.

I'm a Christian. Should I join a local church?

Since I don't have a ton of time to breathe write lately, I might start a really-occasional series where I give obvious answers to questions that for some reason people feel the need to ask. Up first, the question of whether a Christian should commit to a local church.

Now there are many ways to answer this matter, but I'll just break it down into 4 logical steps and let you take it from there. Here we go.

1) The first and most basic tenet of the Christian faith is "Jesus is Lord".
2) The New Testament is chock full of "one-another" commands which are impossible to obey apart from commitment to a local church.
3) By remaining uninvolved in a church, you declare that you have absolutely no intent of obeying these numerous commands.
4) Which is, shall we say, incompatible with the statement that Jesus is Lord.

And that's all you need to know my thoughts on this matter.

On Acts 29's blessed subtraction

If you're the type to follow the happenings of greater evangelicalism, you've no doubt heard that sorta-famous sorta-pastor Mark Driscoll received the boot of disfellowship to the hindquarters of his association with Acts 29, a church-planting parachurch group he helped start and until recently ran as its chief prophet-king or something. You might say Acts 29 engaged in blessed subtraction, and that he got run over by the bus, joining the mountain of bodies (by God's grace) - if you're the sort of person to make such jokes, and I most certainly am.

This story has been all over the Christian and pretend-Christian corner of the interwebs, so I won't rehash the whole thing. Here I'll just offer a few quick thoughts on the whole affair.

1) Before listening to Driscoll's horrendous "blessed subtraction" message again, I had forgotten it had been a speech to an Acts 29 conference. Am I a bad man for laughing?

2) It can't be easy to oust your group's founder, especially after sticking behind him for so long. As easy as it is to question the move - and we will - it still took some level of courage and/or conviction. On the other hand...

3) When Krusty the Klown announced his retirement, a reporter asked the pertinent question: "Why now? Why not twenty years ago?" Similarly, why was this move made now instead of five or ten years ago? What exactly has changed? Are these issues actually new, or are they just now too public to ignore?

4) To reiterate - there is very little new here. Nearly all of these issues have been knowable for years, for anyone who didn't actively try to not know. See for example here, here, and the multitude here. So again, what has changed? Why do Acts 29 and James MacDonald and Lifeway suddenly have to bail right now, when these sins and shortcomings have been obvious for around a decade?

5) Carl Trueman asks an important question: what did the major evangelical leaders who've been promoting Driscoll for a decade know and when did they know it? I would add, if they didn't know, what could explain that other than deliberate ignorance?

6) With all this happening in Driscoll's extracurriculars, don't forget he's still the sorta-pastor of a church with thousands of people. Having gone through a similar period a few years ago (when my pastor decided little things like "the Trinity" and "the gospel" are insignificant compared to "the Harvest brand" and his personal enrichment), I can tell you how easy it isn't. Disillusionment, confusion, "how could we have been so wrong?" - or the "how dare they attack our hero!" mentality of the personality cult. Pray for them, especially that they can break away and find an actual church.

7) As for Driscoll, he still has 'his' church, and now a bunch of extra fuel for his martyr complex. His two choices are to repent or double down (see Phillips' Axiom #2); early indications do not look good for repentance. I can't pretend to know how this will end, but without genuine repentance, more disaster is coming.

Diet and Discernment

One simple step we can take to drastically clean up evangelicalism is to take how much we care about what we eat, and start caring about how we feed our souls at least a quarter as much.

But first, a word. Taking care of your body is good, idolatry is not. Burdening people with extrabiblical law is abominable. If you think the devastating effects of gluten are worse than the effects of sin, or that diet/exercise can overcome the curse of Genesis 3, you've got a huge problem.

Anyway, maybe you've seen this play out. Someone posts on Facebook about his latest dietary hobby horse, then not long after shares some 'inspirational' babble from Joyce Meyer or Tony Jones. Point out the foolish inconsistency of caring so much about what he eats while so casually imbibing spiritual poison at your own risk.

I'm not calling for everyone to give up eating well - though for some this is no doubt an idol requiring repentance. Nor am I suggesting everyone become discernment bloggers with the word "heretic" always at the ready. All I'm suggesting is, if you wouldn't eat an Arsenic Bar (now with real hemlock!), you shouldn't fill your mind with the spiritual equivalent. For example:

If you won't eat any food with artificial colors, but read and share the artificial Jesus quotes from Jesus Calling, you've got a problem.

If you throw a conniption over a picogram of gluten, but swallow prosperity teaching by the bucketful, there's a problem.

If you judge people who take their kids to McDonalds, but go to a church where the Biblical teaching is shallower than VeggieTales, you have seriously skewed priorities.

If you make fun of someone else's poor diet, while attending a church that serves up a weekly dose of cotton candy (think "life tips" with a verse or two to 'sanctify' it), it's time to grow up, on both counts, actually.

If you won't dare eat anything that isn't certified 100% pure organic all-natural, but gladly consume and promote a foreign gospel, like the modalist/prosperity sludge of TD Jakes, the word-faith tyranny of Joel Osteen, the "it's all about ME!" narcissism of Steven Furtick, or, well, pretty much anything on TBN, there's an issue. And you have no one to blame but yourself.

The one where Bekah burned her hand

Last Sunday after church, we had a 10-year celebration for our pastor. Being good Baptists, that of course meant lunch. Since this was a little more than your typical potluck, the really important dishes (meats) were kept over sterno heat.

While I was immersed in conversation, Bekah, our 4-year-old, headed to the buffet line with some older yoots. It didn't take too long before the cry rang out - not a typical 4-year-old whiny/drama cry, but THE cry, the one that happens when they're actually hurt. It wasn't easy deciphering what she was saying through the tears and screams and terror, but I was able to pick out a strained "I burned my hand!"

A little first aid, some Neosporin and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle band-aids and a week to heal, and everything's all right. She just had a burn on one finger, and the remnants of that ("I have a hole in my finger!") will soon be completely healed. She's all better now, but when her hand was on that hot dish, it HURT.

As her father, I'm so glad it did. I'm glad she felt the pain.

Now don't get me wrong, I'd obviously much rather not have her burn herself. But getting burned and feeling the intense pain is much, much better than getting burned and not feeling it. Just think how much damage would be done if she didn't feel pain, and just left her hand there while it cooked! So no, I'm not happy she got hurt - but I am so thankful that when she did, she could feel the appropriate pain, pull back from the danger, learn her lesson with minimal damage, and heal.

So let's talk about shame.

The best of all possible scenarios is to not sin, to be righteous, so you have no cause for shame. But this being reality and us all being sinners by birth, we're going to sin. When we sin, when we do what should not be done, we should feel shame. As pain is your body warning you to pull back from greater danger, so shame for sin is a warning of greater danger, a call to repentance. As Paul described the shame he caused the church in Corinth by confronting their sin:

"For even if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not regret it—though I did regret it, for I see that that letter grieved you, though only for a while. As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment! At every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter." 2 Cor 7:7-11

So we do not rejoice in shame in and of itself, but in how conviction leads to repentance and salvation.

Unfortunately, there is another way to deal with these warnings. Rather than pulling your hand back from the fire, you can believe that having your hand in the fire is good, and take pain meds or sever nerves to allow it to stay there. And with shame, we can pretend the sin is actually good, and try to deaden the conscience and silence those who warn us of the danger.

And so the Bible warns of those whose consciences are seared, who seek to enslave others in their sin. We hear of those whose god is their belly, who glory in their shame, for example holding a parade to celebrate their sin. Or as Paul sums up our depravity in Romans 1:32, "Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them." You can guess what God thinks of this, and the destination that way leads.

There is something worse than feeling shame - not feeling shame when you should. When that conviction for sin comes, repent. The worst thing you can possibly do is suppress it. Instead, turn to Jesus, who alone can save.

It's a Girl!

When Lydia was born a few weeks ago, the doctor held her up, I saw her and said, "It's a girl!" The doctor proclaimed, "Congratulations, it's a girl!" The medical records all identified her as "Machel, Baby Girl".

When we called our families to let them know the good news, all of them heard "it's a girl". Our two older daughters were excited to hear they have a little sister. When they got to meet her, they probably said "Baby Lydia is a girl" about twelve thousand times (roughly).

It was incredibly refreshing, dealing with honesty and sanity. Just as there are no atheists in hospitals, there are no gender-queer theorists in delivery rooms.

Could you imagine an excited father saying "It's a girl!", only to have some reprobate say "Actually, we may not know for decades what its gender will be. The outdated male/female model is an ignorant social construct. We now have identified at least 58 gender possibilities, and more are certainly possible. Your child may choose to be a womyn, but it may also be Androgyne, Neutrois, Two-Spirit, Gender Variant, or anything else it may manifest as."

Aside from the unlikelihood of being able to spout that much idiocy at that moment without being punched, nobody would say anything like that because nobody actually believes it. There are just boys and girls, and everyone knows it, and at that moment nobody bothers to pretend otherwise. Any talk of a child developing its unique gender identity expression is nonsensical tripe ("but is the tripe local?" - TGC), an utter absurdity that thankfully vanishes in those moments of clarity, when everyone acknowledges the patently obvious.

But if it's so incomprehensibly stupid and nobody actually believes it, why is it so prevalent and popular? Simple. The absurdity of a create-your-own-gender society pales next to the absurdity of rebelling against your own creator. Because we fully intend to do the stupidest thing imaginable, no excuse can be too flimsy, no justification too ridiculous, for us to incorporate.

Romans 1 describes our predicament. We know there is a God, yet we want to be god for ourselves, so we suppress the truth in unrighteousness. We rebel against our Creator, and His created order. And so we have an advanced society in which "boys and girls are different" and "everything didn't spontaneously come from nothing" rank among the most controversial things you can say.

But there are those blessed moments of clarity - the birth of a child, the nature documentaries where atheists can't go five minutes without using creation language - when the truth is too obvious, and it's clear that we all know it.

Though we try to deny it, everybody knows that we were created, that we continually rebel against our Creator, and that God's wrath rightly is coming against our rebellion.

What we need to know is the solution - repentance and faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sin and reconciliation with God. Preach that.

Lydia Joy

Lydia Joy, born this morning, 7 lb 11 oz. She and her mom are healthy and doing well.

And now we switch from man-to-man to zone.

This is pretty easily the best birthday present ever.