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I enjoy Twitter. I get news, fast, 'meet' like-minded Christians who encourage each other, and usually have a laugh. People really are very funny and witty. There are two guys who are usually re-tweeted by someone I follow. One is the Surly Deacon and the other is the Church Curmudgeon. Church Curmudgeon's tag line is "It ain't the way it used to be, I'll tell you that."
The Church Curmudgeon said the other day, "I am big! It's the deacons that got small! #DeaconMovieLines".
I thought that was pretty funny ... because we're all part of the body in equal standing before the Lord.(1 Corinthians 12:27-31).
If you know that famous movie line from Sunset Boulevard and how Gloria Swanson nailed the delivery, all the better. Here is Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond:
"The Surly Deacon said on Twitter the other day- "Under the cover of darkness someone (me & Ted) replaced the 2008 Baptist hymnal with the 1975 one. Contemporary worship has to go."
The wit for me is that the Surly Deacon thinks 2008 Baptist hymnal is contemporary. There's depth to that comment if you think about it.
Here is something more sobering, especially in light of today's headline from Drudge regarding yet another threat from Iran's President Ahmadinejad that Iran's only goal in life is to annihilate Israel. When, oh, when will the US top level officials begin to understand Iran really means it? Iran not coincidentally wants to annihilate the US as well. They're just not as vocal about it.
Here is the headline:
Ahmadinejad: World forces must annihilate Israel
"In a speech published on his website Thursday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the ultimate goal of world forces must be the annihilation of Israel.... Ahmadinejad added that "liberating Palestine" would solve all the world's problems, although he did not elaborate on exactly how that might work. ... Ahmadinejad, who has called the Holocaust a myth, has previously called for Israel's annihilation, in a 2005 speech in which he used a Persian phrase that translates literally as "wiped off the page of time."
Psalm 83 says they would say that:
"O God, do not keep silence; do not hold your peace or be still, O God! For behold, your enemies make an uproar; those who hate you have raised their heads. They lay crafty plans against your people; they consult together against your treasured ones. They say, “Come, let us wipe them out as a nation; let the name of Israel be remembered no more!” (Psalm 83:1-4).
If you live in the US and you are reading this, don't get too comfortable. The video below shows how easy it is for Iran or one of its paid proxies can attack us and send us back to the year 1700 in one second.
Joel C. Rosenberg brings us up-to-date on the war drums in Israel-Iran-Syria, you note, the exact hot zone today and the exact prophesied hot-zone at the end of days according to Isaiah 17:1, Psalm 83, and Ezekiel 38-39.
Here is a short clip on the tenuous and vulnerable position the US is in this very day.
The US is in a vulnerable position before her enemies, but no Christian is. We are safe in Jesus. No matter what happens, we are safe in His arms.
"The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing." (Zephaniah 3:17)
I thought that was pretty funny ... because we're all part of the body in equal standing before the Lord.(1 Corinthians 12:27-31).
If you know that famous movie line from Sunset Boulevard and how Gloria Swanson nailed the delivery, all the better. Here is Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond:
"The Surly Deacon said on Twitter the other day- "Under the cover of darkness someone (me & Ted) replaced the 2008 Baptist hymnal with the 1975 one. Contemporary worship has to go."
The wit for me is that the Surly Deacon thinks 2008 Baptist hymnal is contemporary. There's depth to that comment if you think about it.
Here is something more sobering, especially in light of today's headline from Drudge regarding yet another threat from Iran's President Ahmadinejad that Iran's only goal in life is to annihilate Israel. When, oh, when will the US top level officials begin to understand Iran really means it? Iran not coincidentally wants to annihilate the US as well. They're just not as vocal about it.
Here is the headline:
Ahmadinejad: World forces must annihilate Israel
"In a speech published on his website Thursday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the ultimate goal of world forces must be the annihilation of Israel.... Ahmadinejad added that "liberating Palestine" would solve all the world's problems, although he did not elaborate on exactly how that might work. ... Ahmadinejad, who has called the Holocaust a myth, has previously called for Israel's annihilation, in a 2005 speech in which he used a Persian phrase that translates literally as "wiped off the page of time."
Psalm 83 says they would say that:
"O God, do not keep silence; do not hold your peace or be still, O God! For behold, your enemies make an uproar; those who hate you have raised their heads. They lay crafty plans against your people; they consult together against your treasured ones. They say, “Come, let us wipe them out as a nation; let the name of Israel be remembered no more!” (Psalm 83:1-4).
If you live in the US and you are reading this, don't get too comfortable. The video below shows how easy it is for Iran or one of its paid proxies can attack us and send us back to the year 1700 in one second.
Joel C. Rosenberg brings us up-to-date on the war drums in Israel-Iran-Syria, you note, the exact hot zone today and the exact prophesied hot-zone at the end of days according to Isaiah 17:1, Psalm 83, and Ezekiel 38-39.
Here is a short clip on the tenuous and vulnerable position the US is in this very day.
The US is in a vulnerable position before her enemies, but no Christian is. We are safe in Jesus. No matter what happens, we are safe in His arms.
"The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing." (Zephaniah 3:17)
Comments
Speaking of Ahmadinijad and Israel, I just saw something I wanted to share with you. I remember a while back you were saying that despite the fact that Hank Hanegraaff is a Preterist, you still think he is an okay teacher of the Bible because he believes the central doctrines.
ReplyDeleteI just saw this and I didn't know if you saw it. Hank, was at the Occupy Wall Street Anti-Zionist Conference in Tehran. Featuring Ahmadinejad and a panel of anti-Israel speakers. Maybe you could find out why he would spend so much money to attend such a conference to begin with. Maybe he has a good reason?
Also, it is fair to say that he is anti-Israel. In his book "Apocalypse Code" he calls Israel the "Whore of Babylon" and says that she has no legal right to the claim because she rejected Christ. He says that the land belongs to the Palestinians, and that it was wrong for Jews to come in and displace them.
Here is a link to him being interviewed at Ahmadinejad's conference.
What do you think? Is this opinion dangerous?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cobjd6QhONk#!
I found a link from his website where he is trying to say that he does not hate Israel. And I don't think he hates Israel at all. But he even admits that he doesn't think they are entitled to the land. And while he says he went there to engage in spirited debate regarding Israel and socialism, he didn't explain why he felt it important to attend this conference to begin with.
ReplyDeleteI know he is not a "Jew Hater" or an anti-Semite. But he does believe that they are the "Whore" of Revelation, and that they have no right to the land. So he went to the conference to tell the people, "just don't kill them?"
I don't get it. That would be like me going to a burning man convention to talk to them about, not using LSD anymore. These are Israels sworn enemies, committed to destroying them. Why would you go, just for a spirited debate?
Ahmadinejad was speaking here. That is just a lot of money,travel expenses, and effort. It just seems weird.
http://blog.equip.org/tag/hank-hanegraaff/
Hi Anonymous,
DeleteThere are few things that are black and white with me. I rarely go away from a Christian male elder in the faith based on one interview...one statement...one moment of their life in Christ. An exception is Rick Warren. I was wary of him from the Purpose Driven Days, but overall still kept an open mind. But when he prayed in the name of Isa at the Obama Inauguration, I switched the tv off and will never again have anything to do with him. He broke the first commandment. There is no recovery from that.
So I'm not dogmatic but willing to see the overall picture of the body of a person's work over time. That’s because no Christian understands all the bible perfectly every day of their long life. There will be missteps, misunderstandings, growth.
Now, just because Ahmadinejad was speaking there doesn't mean it is a bad place to go. As a matter of fact it is a great place for a Christian to go, because who needs the Gospel more than someone so deluded by satan? Guilt by association is something to be considered- but do so carefully.
Second, he obviously holds some political views but those are his right to hold and speak of.
Third, what people say or believe one day may not be true of them ten years ago or ten years from now. For example, one of the greatest preachers of the 20th century and among the 100 most influential people in the world, John Stott, at the end of his 81 years of life decided he was an annihilationist, that our bodies cease to exist at death and there is no hell.
Does that mean I throw out his entire body of work? No, it means I must carefully put on my discernment glasses. Error doesn't happen instantly. And looking at the error, is it one that affects salvation, an essential error? Or is it a difference of opinion of the Doctrines of Grace, or the timing of the rapture?
Martyn Lloyd Jones is another well-regarded preacher and theologian, but he believed in the Charismatic Movement's assertion of constant miracles, and baptism with the Spirit is a work of Jesus Christ distinct from regeneration.
Billy Graham started out strong, but in his adulthood began to say things like, though he believes in the virgin birth himself, that the virgin birth isn't *necessary* for personal salvation, or that Jesus could and does save someone in Africa if they never heard of Jesus.
Jack Kelley doesn't believe in the Doctrines of Grace, and also he doesn't believe in the 6 24-hour days of the record of Genesis, but believes in the Gap Theory.
So at what point will an individual disciple decide that the preacher's stances cause the disciple to be wary of teaching or to go away from it altogether? It is an individual decision based on experience with that person's teaching or preaching, their own level of maturity, and personal discernment.
For me, I went away from Kelley and Graham's teachings because in my opinion the rest of their teachings would be too skewed due to their fundamental error of the virgin birth, Jesus as the only way, the foundational record of Genesis 1. Lloyd Jones and Stott I still listen to, just not the sermons that are on those scriptures or topics with which I disagree with their interpretation.
As for Hanegraaf, I quoted him once on this blog. I know little about him other than the question on which I quoted him and I deemed his answer according to my own understanding consistent with scripture. I don't listen to his show or base anything I believe on his teachings. I don't care to investigate him because he, his show, or his teachings are not a part of my life. Your mileage may vary.
That is how I approach my discerning of various teachers. Discernment is an ongoing skill, and is perfect in the Spirit but flawed in the flesh. Grace and caution in careful balance, is called for.