https://www.christiantoday.com/article/third.of.uk.adults.pray.and.attend.church.regularly.poll/137463.htm
Monday, September 27, 2021
False Doctrines Which Can Lead To Hell For Perpetrators and Recipients Thereof.
Doctrine is “a set of ideas or beliefs that are taught or believed to be true.” Biblical doctrine refers to teachings that align with the revealed Word of God, the Bible. False doctrine is any idea that adds to, takes away from, contradicts, or nullifies the doctrine given in God’s Word. For example, any teaching about Jesus that denies His virgin birth is a false doctrine, because it contradicts the clear teaching of Scripture (Matthew 1:18).
As early as the first century AD, false doctrine was already infiltrating the church, and many of the letters in the New Testament were written to address those errors (Galatians 1:6–9; Colossians 2:20–23; Titus 1:10–11). Paul exhorted his protégé Timothy to guard against those who were peddling heresies and confusing the flock: “If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing” (1 Timothy 6:3–4).
As followers of Christ, we have no excuse for remaining ignorant of theology because we have the “whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27) available to us—the Bible is complete. As we “study to show ourselves approved unto God” (2 Timothy 2:15), we are less likely to be taken in by smooth talkers and false prophets. When we know God’s Word, “we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming” (Ephesians 4:14).
It is important to point out the difference between false doctrine and denominational disagreements. Different congregational groups see secondary issues in Scripture differently. These differences are not always due to false doctrine on anyone’s part. Church policies, governmental decisions, style of worship, etc., are all open for discussion, since they are not directly addressed in Scripture. Even those issues that are addressed in Scripture are often debated by equally sincere disciples of Christ. Differences in interpretation or practice do not necessarily qualify as false doctrine, nor should they divide the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 1:10).
False doctrine is that which opposes some fundamental truth or that which is necessary for salvation. The following are some examples of false doctrine:
• The erasing of hell. The Bible describes hell as a real place of eternal torment, the destination for every unregenerate soul (Revelation 20:15; 2 Thessalonians 1:8). A denial of hell directly contradicts Jesus’ own words (Matthew 10:28; 25:46) and is therefore a false doctrine.
• The idea that there are “many paths to God.” This philosophy has become popular recently under the guise of tolerance. This false doctrine claims that, since God is love, He will accept any religious effort as long as the practitioner is sincere. Such relativism flies in the face of the entire Bible and effectively eliminates any need for the Son of God to take on flesh and be crucified for us (Jeremiah 12:17; John 3:15–18). It also contradicts Jesus’ direct words that He is the only way to God (John 14:6).
• Any teaching that redefines the person of Jesus Christ. Doctrine that denies the deity of Christ, the virgin birth, His sinless nature, His actual death, or His physical resurrection is false doctrine. A group’s errant Christology readily identifies it as a sect or cult that may claim to be Christian but is actually teaching false doctrine. Even many mainline denominations have begun the rapid slide into apostasy by declaring that they no longer hold to a literal interpretation of Scripture or the deity of Christ. First John 4:1–3 makes it clear that a denial of biblical Christology is “anti-Christ.” Jesus described false teachers within the church as “wolves in sheep’s clothing” (Matthew 7:15).
• Teaching that adds human religious works to Christ’s finished work on the cross as necessary ingredients for salvation. This teaching may pay lip service to salvation by faith alone but insists that a religious ritual (such as water baptism) is salvific. Some groups even legislate hairstyles, clothing options, and food consumption. Romans 11:6 warns against attempts to mix grace with works. Ephesians 2:8–9 says we are saved by the grace of God, through faith, and nothing we do can add to or take away from it. Galatians 1:6–9 pronounces a curse on anyone who changes the good news of salvation by grace.
• The teaching that presents grace as a license to sin. Sometimes called “easy-believism,” this false doctrine implies that all one must do for right standing with God is to believe the facts about Jesus, pray a prayer at some point, and then resume control of one’s life with the assurance of heaven at the end. Paul dealt with this thinking in Romans 6. In Matthew 7:21–23, Jesus warned those who adopt this doctrine that they did not know Him at all. Second Corinthians 5:17 states that those who are “in Christ” become “new creatures.” That transformation, in response to a believer’s faith in Christ, changes the outward behaviours. To know and love Christ is to obey Him (Luke 6:46).
Satan has been confusing and perverting the Word of God since the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:1–4; Matthew 4:6). False teachers, the servants of Satan, try to appear as “servants of righteousness” (2 Corinthians 11:15), but they will be known by their fruits (Matthew 7:16). A charlatan promoting false doctrine will show signs of pride, greed, and rebellion (see Jude 1:11) and will often promote or engage in sexual immorality (2 Peter 2:14; Revelation 2:20).
We are wise to recognize how vulnerable we are to heresy and make it our habit to do as the Bereans did in Acts 17:11: “they . . . examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” When we make it our goal to follow the lead of the first church, we will go far in avoiding the pitfalls of false doctrine. Acts 2:42 says, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” Such devotion will protect us and ensure that we are on the path Jesus set for us. GOT QUESTIONS.
Delayed Posting.
Dr Gail Bradbrook, the co-founder of the climate change extremist group Extinction Rebellion (XR) has admitted to driving a diesel-powered car while she advocates for the total end of fossil fuels by 2030.
The 49-year-old molecular biologist, who founded Extinction Rebellion alongside Roger Hallam and Tamsin Omond, said on Monday that she needs to drive a diesel car because she can’t afford to buy an electric alternative. Breitbart.
Blogger: I can't even afford a hybrid - but I still bought one!
Sunday, September 26, 2021
The Pastor Hero of Mosul.
https://www.christiantoday.com/article/meet.the.pastor.rebuilding.life.in.the.bombed.out.city.of.mosul/137450.htm
Faithful Even Unto Death.
The Christian who wouldn't stop sharing his faith - even when threatened with execution.
Taher is a Christian convert who lived in one of the most oppressive nations in the Middle East – it is not even possible to name his home country for security reasons. He was caught sharing his faith and could have gone to prison, or worse. But God intervened.
He is one of three Christians, persecuted for their beliefs, who will share their incredible stories at Open Doors' free online event, Standing Strong Live 2021 on Saturday, September 25.
Taher scratched the words on the cold wall of his prison cell.
"Ask, seek, knock, and it will be given to you."
He hoped the Bible verse from Matthew 7:7 would encourage others who would find themselves locked away in the cell after him.
Taher had quietly slipped the pen into his pocket after his interrogation that night.
Just days before, the secret police had forced their way into his home and ransacked the house he shared with his wife Donya and daughters Farah and Arezoo.
They had handcuffed him and wrapped a blindfold around his face before driving him away.
"Right then and there, I felt Jesus beside me," says Taher, whose family had been practising their faith in Christ in secret. From a closed country in the Middle East, as a Christian he risked being branded an 'enemy of the state' if his faith was discovered.
Now, arrested and imprisoned, he was facing interrogations every night between midnight and 4am as well as at different intervals throughout the day.
"What do you do when you meet with other Christians?"
"What songs do you sing?"
"What organisation do you work for?"
"What are the names of all the other Christians you know? Write down their names."
The secret service eventually released Taher on bail. During his sentencing, the judge let him go on one condition: he should stop evangelising.
If authorities arrested him again, the judge would have no leniency, and the conviction would be execution.
Taher says: "In a preliminary hearing they sentenced me with apostasy and turning away from my religion.
"Donya and I both agreed that we would continue on this path until the end. We prayed together and we were strengthened in the Lord.
"I was going to accept and embrace any sentence the judge was going to give me. I also knew that the Lord's plans are beyond our comprehension, so I sat in peace in the courtroom.
"After a while the judge said, 'I don't know why, but I want to take you out of the whale's and lion's mouth'.
"It was very interesting for me, because the whale and the lion's den are mentioned only in the Bible.
"That is how I knew that God was acting in that moment."
After Taher was released from prison he continued to minister to fellow Christians. Eventually, however, the situation became too dangerous for him and his family.
The secret police followed them everywhere. He was unable to find a job and the regular harassment became overwhelming.
Taher and his family decided to leave and are now living in Turkey as refugees.
Despite the sadness of having to leave his homeland, Taher says: "When I remember that I am part of God's family and that He did not deprive us of anything – and all I have is not mine, but His - I remember that I shouldn't be upset to lose it."
Join Standing Strong Live 2021 on Saturday September 25 online. Open Doors is also hosting its first ever youth online event on Friday, September 24 – Standing Strong Live Brave Faith Youth Gathering.
Brexit's MIGHTY Triumph.
What Brexit apocalypse? MEP brilliantly lists UK's roaring trade victories outside EU.
A PROMINENT French MEP has brilliantly listed all the trade deals Brexit Britain has signed since leaving the EU. Florian Philippot, president of France’s Eurosceptic Les Patriots party, heaped praise on the UK and slammed europhile doom-mongers who predicted the country’s apocalyptic demise. Highlighting the trade deals the UK has completed with 67+ countries and the EU, he said such a move was only possible with the “freedom” Brexit created.
After The Heresy In The Church of Wales - Where Do The Evangelicals Go?
https://www.christiantoday.com/article/after.the.church.in.wales.same.sex.vote.what.options.are.open.to.evangelicals/137454.htm
Saturday, September 25, 2021
UK Police Persecute Preachers.
https://www.christiantoday.com/article/street.preacher.says.he.was.outnumbered.14.to.1.by.police/137435.htm
Review In Christian Today.
Review of The LegacyMy novel "weaves the true stories of our collective and tragic Jewish history"
Irene Lancaster has written a glowing review of my novel The Legacy in the magazine Christian Today. I am most grateful, and reproduce it here.
Review in Christian TodayMany would say that War and Peace, Tolstoy’s epic 1860s chronicle of the earlier Napoleonic invasion of Tzarist Russia, experienced through the lives and loves of a number of individuals, is his greatest novel – maybe even the greatest novel ever written. At exactly the same time, that very English genius, George Eliot (real name Mary Ann Evans), was writing what she herself considered to be her greatest novel, Romola, based on Florentine Renaissance history also seen through the private lives and loves of a number of individuals. Both these books are, as you might expect, immensely difficult to read. The mind and heart are expected to concentrate on two disparate subjects simultaneously – with individual loves and the great events of world history panning out before us both in parallel and in tandem. Not every reader succeeds in this endeavour and ends up having to choose one aspect as against the other, simply in order to get through the book. Not really what the respective authors – giants of the novelistic genre – would have wished of their readers. It is therefore something of a miracle that England’s greatest Jewish journalist, Melanie Phillips (now living in Israel), has managed to pull off this exacting feat in her very first novel, entitled The Legacy. With The Legacy, Melanie, winner of the Orwell Prize for Journalism, social commentator on the London Times and regular contributor to BBC’s The Moral Maze, has written a novel of intense passion and erudition about an Anglo-Jew of the type that tends to lead our community at present – self-hating, ignorant, officious and immensely unhappy! Gradually, however, our anti-hero (Russell Woolfe) comes to see the light (mainly through his self-harming daughter who rebels and becomes increasingly interested in her rich Jewish heritage) when it dawns on him that he had been terribly wrong, wrong, wrong. Visits to the USA and to Israel confirm him in his growing realisation that the truth is the very opposite of what the usual suspects would have us believe: observant Judaism is the only answer to hatred of diaspora Jews and of the only Jewish state in the world alike. And the young State of Israel itself is not only a haven, but absolutely essential for all Jews, especially for those in diaspora who are estranged from their own people. Living in a London where he daily witnesses Muslim attacks on freedom of worship that are overlooked by Church authorities and the police alike, Russell recalls the stories of the neo-Nazi Oswald Mosley and the Cable Street Riots. He also discovers that his father, whom he had once despised, was actually something of a hero. But for me, the core of the book, the bits that made me weep, is the way Melanie weaves the true stories of our collective and tragic Jewish history – the stories of Roman Masada, the English York Massacre and the recent Polish contributions to the extermination of their Jewish neighbours (their despoiling of the rich Polish Jewish legacy which continues apace as I write) – with her inimitable love for the ground and being of Jewish religious observance and of the Jewish State itself. This is a first in any novelist, let alone one who, in her latest Times column (14 September) is able to express the hope that the present Queen never dies, because unlike several other members of her family, Elizabeth “is the quintessence of duty... and understands... that the duty she owes is to God”. The novel also contains a fair bit of humour: the synagogue service reluctantly attended by Russell after the death of his father could have come straight out of Bar Mitzvah Boy, written in 1976 by Maureen Lipman’s Mancunian husband, the late Jack Rosenthal – the one thing in life that made my Polish-born mother laugh till she cried. The Legacy manages to juxtapose the gentle and expert way in which wounded Hamas terrorists (the goal of whose charter is to exterminate the entire Jewish people) are treated in Israeli hospitals (yes, you read that correctly) – and the fact that around half the Israeli doctors and nurses are Arab (true) – with a lyrical description of the country itself that rang so many bells. For instance, here is Russell’s reaction on alighting at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv for his first visit to the Jewish state that he had once, like all good self-hating Jews, despised:
And this, which all travellers experience on arrival in Israel – the uniquely communal Israeli taxi (sherut) experience – a fitting introduction to this completely insane, anarchic and wonderful country:
And this, on approaching Israel’s capital city, Jerusalem, itself:
Yes, this first novel by great journalist, Melanie Phillips, who always tells it how it is, manages the impossible. It weaves together many histories – Jewish, Roman, Christian, ancient, mediaeval and modern – into a search for truth, for self, for the Jewish place in the world. And the result is a lyrical gem. It is fitting that this review should appear as we celebrate yet another Sukkot festival – when those who can do so will sit outside in their temporary huts, decorated with autumnal foliage and fruit, reminding ourselves yet again that life is fragile and that we cannot depend on anyone except God. Melanie Phillips has done us all a favour by writing The Legacy which, as well as being a faithful portrait of contemporary Britain, is simply the best and most-rounded contemporary Jewish novel that I’ve read in a very long time. Dr Irene Lancaster is a Jewish academic, author and translator who has established university courses on Jewish history, Jewish studies and the Hebrew Bible. She trained as a teacher in modern Languages and Religious Education. |
The Release of Colin Pitchfork.
A few weeks ago - a horrific individual, Colin Pitchfork, was declared fit to leave prison after years of being incarcerated for two separate murders of young girls.
I despair!
We can never know how many would-be murderers will have taken solace from this. It was hardly a deterrent - was it?
Friday, September 24, 2021
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