Fundamentalism: Good or Bad?

Are you a fundamentalist? What exactly does the term mean?

To listen to an apologetics.com radio show on J. Gresham Machen's book, "Chrisitanity and Liberalism," Click the link below. It can also be downloaded on itunes as a podcast.

Christianity and Liberalism

God Bless,

Doug

God's Plan To Prosper You Includes Your Death

For the Christian, God's plan to prosper and not to harm you includes your death. Often when we talk about trials and God doing his work in us, we think about Job, but what about the Christian who dies in the prime of life and didn't escape their trial? Did God fail to prosper them, or do we have to assume that they deserved it? The answer to both of these questions is, no. God's is doing a work that is bigger than us, and His ways are higher than ours.

God Bless,

Doug

Only Those Completely Leperous Can Be Declared Clean

"If men knew themselves, God would heal and pardon them." - Blaise Pascal

God Bless,

Doug

How to Be Irrelevant

Homosexuality: Be Careful What You Say

What I find when it comes to the topic of homosexuality, is that many times Christians want to soft-peddle it in order to make people comfortable. This desire to soft-peddle tends to be driven by the outrage that is often unleashed by the homosexual community upon those who think their lifestyle is sinful. When we see this, many think, oh no, we have offended them, they will never know we love them if we do that. The problem with this type of thinking is that it usually assumes that the outrage is justified when in fact it is not. Often, the charges against Christians have nothing to do with the homosexuals actually being unloved, and have more to do with them not wanting anyone to tell them they are in sin. If we kowtow to these objections we are actually bowing in reverence to their sinful rebellion to the Word of God. I for one chose not to do this because I love them dearly and see them as totally depraved sinners, just like I was until I was brought to faith by the conviction of the Law, and told how Christ fulfilled the Law on my behalf and bore my wrath on the cross. It will not do to act like someone sins are small and then present the Gospel. Like Luther said, Christ did not pay a meager price on a meager cross for someones meager sins. He paid the ultimate price, because our sin (mine, yours, and the homosexual's) are disgusting and need to be rejected immediately.

Doug

Porn and Paper Pastors - Dan Phillips

Here is a thought provoking post by Dan Phillips of the Pyromaniacs.

Porn and Paper Pastors

God Bless,

Doug

The Opposite of Justice is NOT Mercy

What Are You Seeking?

The Christian life is more about seeking to be someone who is longsuffering and patient, than it is about seeking gratification in earthy comforts and pleasures.

Doug

"God is Dead" (Understanding Nietzsche)

Miserable Christians

When you desire sinful things and desire to serve Christ, you will be miserable, because when withdraw from your inordinate desires you will be saddened, and when you give into them you will find them empty and burdensome compared to Christ. This is why some Christians are less at peace than some people who do not have Christ. But the realization of this is often what God uses to draw us closer to Him. For the burden of the world is always greater than the easy yoke of Christ.

Doug

(This is a thought that was brought home to me while reading Thomas A. Kempis and from experience.)

Is The Love of The World Driving You or Your Church?

From Calvin’s Institutes…

“Whatever be the kind of tribulation with which we are afflicted, we should always consider the end of it to be, that we may be trained to despise the present, and thereby stimulated to aspire to the future life. For since God well knows how strongly we are inclined by nature to a slavish love of this world, in order to prevent us from clinging too strongly to it, he employs the fittest reason for calling us back, and shaking off our lethargy. Every one of us, indeed, would be thought to aspire and aim at heavenly immortality during the whole course of his life. For we would be ashamed in no respect to excel the lower animals; whose condition would not be at all inferior to ours, had we not a hope of immortality beyond the grave. But when you attend to the plans, wishes, and actions of each, you see nothing in them but the earth. Hence our stupidity; our minds being dazzled with the glare of wealth, power, and honours, that they can see no farther. The heart also, engrossed with avarice, ambition, and lust, is weighed down and cannot rise above them. In short, the whole soul, ensnared by the allurements of the flesh, seeks its happiness on the earth. To meet this disease, the Lord makes his people sensible of the vanity of the present life, by a constant proof of its miseries.”

Read the entire section here: Of Meditating on the Future Life.

Shocking Message To Pastors & Churches

Christians Shouldn't Disagree on Doctrine!

From the Triumphal Entry to the Cross

Then the multitudes who went before and those who followed behind cried out, saying; Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the Highest! Matt. 21:9

Though it is called the triumphal entry we know that Jesus had only one purpose in mind when he came to this earth, and that was to be our sacrifice. As he entered Jerusalem He rode on the donkey heading for His destination, the cross. In the words of the old spiritual, we who know this can cry “Ride on King Jesus, no one can hinder Thee.”

Jesus was not merely riding into the city, but riding forward to the cross. He knew by the end of the week He would be beaten, spit upon, and crucified. But the thought of this torturous death was not the most grueling image, It would have been thoughts of that final moment, when He was to take on the sins of us who call on Him as Lord, and His Father whom He had obeyed perfectly would turn His face away from His son and pour His justice and wrath upon Him. In anguish, He knew, He would cry out “Father why have you forsaken me”.

On the way to the cross, the entry must have been bittersweet. As we consider this moment we know that nothing could have hindered Him from reaching His goal. As He rode, His mind would have most likely been directed to those He came to save. Maybe He saw our faces, knowing that without His death, he would have to watch us die. For we were born sinners, hopeless, condemned already. Maybe He looked at us, as a man who would look into the eyes of His bride as disease steals her away.

Whatever He was thinking, He was not going to let anything stand between Him and His bride. He was driven by His love for us, and when the time of the crucifixion came, He reached His destination. Upright, between two thieves, nailed to the cross, and having a spear thrust into His side, the cleansing blood and water flowed. His final cry was “It is finished”. The purchase had been made, and the powers of Hell had been broken. In the words of Charles Spurgeon “no sin of the believer can now be an arrow to mortally wound Him”.

All those who have faith in Him have been saved by His grace and have every reason to sing…

Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed Be the Name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the Highest!

-Doug Eaton-

On Contentment - William Plummer

"What shadows we are--and what shadows we pursue!"

"Humility is the mother of contentment."

"Those who realize that they deserve nothing, will be content with anything."

When we become lifted up with pride, and think we deserve something good at God's hands--it is impossible to satisfy us. But with the humble is wisdom, quietness, gentleness and contentment. He who expects nothing, because he deserves nothing, is sure to be satisfied with the treatment he receives at God's hands.

The proud man is like a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke. He is turbulent and fiery. He alienates friends; he makes enemies. He has much trouble and sorrow--where the humble man passes quietly along. Pride and contentment do not go together. Neither do contentment and carnal ambition.

"Do you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not!" (Jeremiah 45:5)

Our actual needs are not many; but the ambitious create a thousand desires and demands, which are hard, if not impossible to meet.

He who is carnally ambitious, will not be content with whatever he gains, because each elevation widens his horizon, and gives him a view of something else which he greatly longs for. And so he is tossed from vanity to vanity--a stranger to solid peace.

Are you ambitious for the things of this world?
Then you are your own tormentor!

-William Plummer-