Biblical Discernment

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Would You Look For Edible Tidbits In The Compost Bin?

By on May 28, 2012

Deceivers will beguile the weak; some have been turned aside by [post]modern doubt; and positive infidelity has its partisans. They begin cautiously by reading works with a view to answer scientific and intellectual scepticism.

They read a little more, and dive a little deeper into the turbid stream, because they feel well able to stand against the insidious influence. They go on, till at last they are staggered. They do not repair to them who could help them out, but they continue to flounder on till, at last, they have lost their footing, and he that said he was a believer has ended in stark atheism, discrediting even the evidence of the existence of God.

Oh, that those who are well taught would be content with gospel teaching! Why should you be so unwise as to go through pools of foul teaching merely because you think it easy to cleanse yourself of its pollution? Such trifling is dangerous. When you begin to read a book and find it pernicious, put it aside. Someone may upbraid you for not reading it all through. But why should you?

If I have a joint of meat on my table of which the smell and the taste at once convince me that it is putrid and unwholesome, should I show discretion by eating the whole of it before giving my judgment that it is not fit for food?

One mouthful is quite enough, and one sentence of some books ought to suffice for a sensible man to reject the whole mass. Let those who can relish such meat feed on it, but I have a taste for better food.

Keep to the study of the Word of God. If it be your duty to expose those evils, encounter them bravely, with prayer to God to help you. But if not, as a humble believer in Jesus, what business have you to taste and best such noxious fare when it is exposed in the market? (source)

Charles Spurgeon

HT: Such Was I

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Thank you  Ken Silva !!

Please visit Apprising Ministries website for lots of info on False teachings and Heresies exposed.

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An Open Letter To Tim Challies

By Cathy Mathews from Sola Sisters

Dear Mr. Challies,

As you may or may not know, we recently posted an article in which we commended your book review of Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts. And then today, a reader forwarded your most recent post, entitled In Which I Ask Ann Voskamp’s Forgiveness…, an article in which you wrote that after Ann Voskamp emailed you, inviting you to lunch, you felt a twinge of remorse over some of the wording of your original article, especially in light of the fact that you might soon find yourself face to face with her, sharing a meal. Continue reading →

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John MacArthur on Spiritual Formation, the Holy Spirit, Rock Star Pastors and Christian Discernment Ministries

By John MacArthur

 Spiritual Formation:  “It’s very dangerous, the spiritual formation. It’s a pagan approach. It’s more like Hinduism than Christianity.”

 The Holy Spirit:  “(W)hen God the Father’s honor is under attack, everybody rises to defend Him…….. When Christ is attacked as to His deity or as to the nature of the cross, we get a movement like Confessing Evangelicals, we get documents responding to ECT [Evangelicals and Catholics Together] on the Gospel. We get T4G, The Gospel Coalition. We get everybody mounting a massive effort to protect the integtrity of the Gospel, Christ, the cross and His vicarious substitutionary atonement. But the Holy Spirit is just being slaughtered everywhere and where is the outrage?”

 Rock Star Pastors:  “(Rock Star pastors) don’t want to ask anything of anybody. Just superficial, name Jesus and rock and roll with us and you’re going to Heaven.”

 Christian Discernment Ministries:  “The Apostle Paul named names all through the New Testament: good, bad and indifferent. There are times when the Church has to be warned when something is dangerous, that’s part of spiritual responsibility…… I think there are times to name names. I have a rule about that and that is, I will respond to anyone who has published something, but nothing that is private. And that’s fair.”

Erin Benziger’s interview with Dr. MacArthur can be read in its entirety here.

 Additional Resources 

John MacArthur: “Who would have thought that John Piper would have Rick Warren at a Desiring God conference?”

John MacArthur: “Don’t Go To A ‘Flat Screen Church’.”

Charismatic Chaos (by John MacArthur)

 

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Counterfeit Miracles , Warnings From Way Back Then ……

John W. Robbins

Editor’s note: This is the Foreword (edited for space) to the new edition of Benjamin Warfield’s 1918 lectures on Counterfeit Miracles, to be released by The Trinity Foundation in June. As the United States becomes more religious, it becomes more superstitious; it is rediscovering and reinventing full-blown heathen religion – signs and wonders, priests, shrines, meditation, “spiritual formation,” “incarnational worship,” spiritual communities, healings, asceticism, monasticism, ecstatic “speech.” Warfield’s explanation of Biblical miracles and his dissection of modern heathenism are more timely today than they were 90 years ago.

Despite the growing interest in religion, most churchgoers in America – perhaps most churchgoers worldwide – seem never to have read the Bible. That in itself is a damning indictment of contemporary churches. Suppose a literary club were organized to study Shakespeare, but read only snippets from his plays and a few sonnets, and spent most of its meetings doing other things. Would we call it a Shakespearean society? Hardly. Yet churches that claim to be Christian have not taught their members even the most basic things about Christianity. Most of them, in fact, depreciate the truthfulness and importance of Scripture, and instead emphasize religious ritual; social, charitable, and political activity; and emotional experience. It’s as if the Shakespeare society ignored Shakespeare and spent its time bowling. Churches neither encourage nor practice the intellectual experience of studying the Word of God. That, if it is to be done at all, is to be done only by the experts – the academicians in seminaries and universities. Continue reading →

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Rumours of Monsters and numbers that go bump in your energy drink

I recently read the book Man of Sin, The: Uncovering the Truth about the Antichrist by Kim Riddlebarger. Below are highlights of the book I would like to share with you. I enthusiastically recommend this book, as it gives the eschatological perspective from the Amillennial side and it sure makes a lot of sense of an intricate subject. It has put many things into perspective for me and provides the answers to many questions.

Since I began using the internet as a born again believer, a sinner saved by grace, through faith alone (Ephesians 2:8-9), I have read (and not understood!) so many different view points on the end time Eschatology.  There is so much deception out there and we really need to discern and pray, to be able to sort the biblical truth from the lie. The reading of Riddlebarger’s book,  has been instrumental in my better understanding the end times.

A video clip floating around in cyber space is also not True !! Do not believe this man in the video clip ! Continue reading →

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666 and the Mark of the Beast

By Kim Riddlebarger

If you are a futurist and believe that the beast of Revelation 13 is not connected to the Roman Empire of the first century and remains yet to be revealed at the end of the age (i.e., during the seven-year tribulation period, as dispensationalists teach), then you will not look at the mark of the beast through the lens of the New Testament and the historical situation when John was given his vision.  Instead, you will understand this mysterious mark as something still hidden in the future.  And given the breakneck pace of the advance being made in all forms of technology, it is only natural that futurists would see John’s reference to the mark of the beast as somehow connected to the technological advantage by which the beast and false prophet will enslave the inhabitants of the world and deceive them into worshiping the Antichrist.

As futurists see it, when John speaks of the mark of the beast, he’s essentially predicting that some future form of technology will be utilized by Antichrist to dominate and control the world’s population.  According to Peter and Paul Lalonde, “The Bible says that the mark of the beast and its accompanying technology will be installed by the antichrist–not as an end in itself, but as a means of managing the new world order that is even now being created” (Peter LaLonde and Paul LaLonde, Racing Toward the Mark of the Beast,  Harvest House Publishers, 1994, 148).
Continue reading →

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Antichrist, Great Tribulation, Rapture, 666, and the Second Coming of Christ, but what do the Scriptures say?

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Four Views of the End Times – Teaching series DVD

Speaker Dr. Timothy Paul Jones

What does the Bible actually say about the end times that lead to the return of Jesus Christ? TV shows and movies throw around words such as Antichrist, Great Tribulation, Rapture, 666, and the Second Coming of Christ, but what do the Scriptures say? The differing ideas that divide believers into four major points-of-view are examined in the Four Views of the End Times. This DVD-based study (for personal or group use) explains each view objectively including:

  • Preterism
  • Historicism
  • Idealism
  • Futurism

and the issue of the millennium including: Continue reading →

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“Exciting Worship Opportunity”?

I received this email from our dear brother,  Dr Paul M Elliott from Teaching The Word Ministry  today , as a subscriber to the news letters and I am sharing the warning with you all.

1John 4:1  Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

I would also like to please ask the reader,  brother or sister here,  to please keep Dr Paul in your prayers as he has had some serious health issues to overcome in the last couple of months . We value the ministry of Dr Paul, he has been instrumental in  my understanding of how important Discernment is in the life of a believer, in light of the so many different streams of false teachings that are at the order of the day. Thank you for your prayers.

Email from Dr Elliott : Continue reading →

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Beware ! of the Wide Road that Leads to Destruction

“Joel Osteen openly and confidently says how broad his message is – he’s not even disguising himself any longer as a servant of righteousness. The tickled ears continue to follow him, but the sheep do not follow the voice of a stranger.”   Quote by Justin Edwards

John 10:27-30  My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.  (28)  I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.  (29)  My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.  (30)  I and the Father are one.” Continue reading →

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Concerned To Discern

By on Apr 17, 2012

Does anybody care?

A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land;  The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?Jeremiah 5:30-31, KJV

As could be agreed upon by most believers, Christians have the right, even the duty, to evaluate and hold accountable to Holy Scripture those who profess the evangelical faith but who, for reason of their manifest beliefs and behaviors, appear to be departing from the faith.[1]

Jude told his readers to “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). To shirk this responsibility means that believers are being disobedient to the faith once for all delivered. To all Christians, the Spirit gives His anointing which places upon them the responsibility to discern the “spirit of truth” from the “spirit of error” (1 John 4:6; 2:20-21, 27). To the congregation at Rome Paul wrote:

Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. Romans 16:17-18 (Compare Philippians 3:17-19.) Continue reading →

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The Hebrew Roots Cult

The Hebrew Roots Cult ~ by Jim Pruitt

4/1/2006

Titus 1:10-11, 13-14 For there are many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, who must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they should not teach…For this reason reprove them severely so that they may be sound in the faith, not paying attention to Jewish myths and commandments of men who turn away from the truth.

What an insidious and devious Enemy we have! The ability to take devout men and women of God who are zealous for good works and twist their desires so as to put them back into bondage to the Law illustrates the truly evil nature of Satan.

I had the recent misfortune of encountering a cult which is growing in influence within Christianity. It is not to be confused with Messianic Judaism or simply seeking to explore the Jewish culture within which most of the Bible was written. Although there are many organizations which are promoting this general view and their specific doctrines often vary, it is generally known as the Hebrew Roots Movement. Continue reading →

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Judging Others – Should Christians Judge?

Naming Names of False Teachers & False Prophets

By Martha Mac / SO4J.com ® / SO4J-TV & Video Productions

Judging Others— Should Christians Judge? – We are NOT to Judge a person’s MOTIVES (Matt 7:1), but we ARE to Judge a Fellow Christian’s: FRUIT / ACTIONS (Matt 7:15-20,John 7:24,1 Cor 5:12–13) to make sure they’re NOT Teaching & Living Contrary to God’s Word, and Essential Christian Doctrine is Correct. Apostle Paul judged 8 Times,& Named the Names of 8 False Converts in 2nd Timothy –

We also encourage you to further read a short article called: BEWARE OF FALSE TEACHERS.

Romans 16:17 (KJV)

    “MARK THEM which cause DIVISIONS & OFFENCES CONTRARY TO THE DOCTRINE which you have learned; and AVOID them.”

Continue reading →

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James White – How do you distinguish Biblical Christianity from false teaching?

Seven minute video clip

With many different Christian denominations, and many different, contradictory messages being preached (even within the same denomination) how can someone work out who’s telling the truth about what Jesus actually taught? If the Bible is, as Christians profess, the Word of God then it’s obviously of vital importance to understand what that word is actually saying, but how can you distinguish Biblical Christianity from false teaching? Continue reading →

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Justin Peters A Call for Discernment South African Seminar Tour – From: 1 – 17 JUNE 2012

FROM: 1 – 17 JUNE 2012

WHAT IS THE SEMINAR ABOUT?

Peter warned his readers and indeed us today that “false teachers will be among you who will secretly introduce destructive heresies” and they “will make merchandise out of you” (2 Pet 2:1-3). Many of today’s false teachers can be found in what is known as the Word-Faith movement, more commonly referred to as the Health and Wealth, or, Prosperity Gospel. Popular American prosperity preachers such as Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Joyce Meyer, TD Jakes, and Joel Osteen are attempting to redefine biblical Christianity by teaching dangerous doctrines designed to distort the Gospel and to enrich themselves at the expense of the poor, the desperate, the sick, and the widows. These false teachers have provided a model for many African preachers to follow and they too are leading many astray. Can we really speak things into existence? Did Jesus die spiritually? Are we little gods? Should all Christians speak in tongues? Should people be slain in the Spirit? Is it always God’s will to be healed? If a person is not healed is it because of a lack of faith? Do signs and wonders authenticate the Gospel? What is the true Gospel? You are invited to attend a seminar entitled A Call for Discernment led by Justin Peters as he explores all these questions and many more from a purely biblical perspective. Continue reading →

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The War of Truth

Charles Spurgeon Sermon

Exodus 17:9 (King James Version)

9And Moses said unto Joshua, Choose us out men, and go out, fight with Amalek: to morrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in mine hand. Continue reading →