“He who has received His witness has set his seal to this, that God is true.”
– John 3:33
Since God is true in everything He does, we can trust Him and His Word.
Evangelicals
That Narrow Gate
Positive beliefs are not popular these days. A mistaken desire to maintain a spirit of tolerance among all races and religions has produced a breed of Januslike Christians with built-in swivels, remarkable only for their ability to turn in any direction gracefully. The philosophy behind this whole thing is that religious beliefs are matters of personal choice, and that the Lord adapts His saving truth to the individual, varying it according to the cultural background, educational level and social situation of each one. Whatever this is, it is not Christianity.
How to Lose Your Joy
Modern Reformation
The Pelagian Captivity of the Church
R. C. Sproul
Shortly after the Reformation began, in the first few years after Martin Luther posted the Ninety-Five Theses on the church door at Wittenberg, he issued some short booklets on a variety of subjects. One of the most provocative was titled The Babylonian Captivity of the Church. In this book Luther was looking back to that period of Old Testament history when Jerusalem was destroyed by the invading armies of Babylon and the elite of the people were carried off into captivity. Luther in the sixteenth century took the image of the historic Babylonian captivity and reapplied it to his era and talked about the new Babylonian captivity of the Church. He was speaking of Rome as the modern Babylon that held the Gospel hostage with its rejection of the biblical understanding of justification. You can understand how fierce the controversy was, how polemical this title would be in that period by saying that the Church had not simply erred or strayed, but had fallen-that it’s actually now Babylonian; it is now in pagan captivity.
Faith & Reason Conference Gauteng – 12 May 2010
By GV Swart – 22 May 2010
The conference was held at Kerk Sonder Mure in Centurion, which was kindly provided to the organisers free of charge. In itself I believe a charitable gesture and certainly not a cheap one. The venue is state of the art modern church buildings / auditorium with all the expected bells and whistles. Sound systems, lighting, stages, projection systems, CCTV in various areas, large auditorium seating +/-2000, other smaller conference rooms, kitchen areas, gardens, parking lots, guards on duty, foyer with book stalls, etc.
First impressions on arrival were formed by a large GDOP (Global Day of Prayer 2010) banner prominently positioned on the corner outside the building. organisers, participating speakers, presenters and audience members who were gathering within the building, however, presented quite a different picture. Wonderful how God works to enable His Truth to be promoted via all means. The venue certainly had no relevance to the message which issued from it; simply a set of walls enclosing a group of God’s people for a few hours.
Prof William Lane Craig, Pastor Ray Ciervo and Mike Willenborg, three Americans from what constituted the main body of the Faith and Reason team 2010, did presentations. Details of each presentation are far too extensive to mention here. Suffice to say that their impeccable preparations, evident depth of knowledge of the subject and most strikingly, their motivation by means of true faith made for an event which I will certainly not easily forget. Once again it glaringly exposes the dire need for quality impartation of the Word in our country, and the severe lack of guidance with which we currently struggle. Another fact which comes to mind is that these speakers needed no media assistance (TV, music, slideshows, side acts) to bolster their presentations.
For the Love of His Truth 