Thanks to Divine Intervention for the majority of the material included in the following article.
In Christ,
Des
Divine Intervention - The Gospel According to Oprah
Oprah Winfrey proclaims herself a Christian. In fact, she did as recently as Thursday, February 15, 2007 on her show while yet providing her enthusiastic support of the New Age theology and teachings of The Secret. But in a segment sometime ago of "Oprah After the Show", where she speaks unscripted and unrehearsed with her studio audience, she states "There couldn't possibly be just one way [to be saved]." Oprah must have skipped over the Bible verse where Jesus said:
"...I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14:6 KJV)
You can't be a Christian without Christ. Just because one says they're a Christian doesn't make it so...
And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. ~ Acts 4:12, ESV
And sometimes I wonder if the antichrist might be Oprah
It puts me in a true rage
That she pumps the new age
On television
Like five days a week
Yet only a few gauge
That that won't get you saved
from Hell, so listen
'Cause my God came to speak!
shai linne - The Solus Christus Project
Watch the Video where Oprah denies the only Savior, Jesus Christ. Then pray for the richest woman in the world who is only a heartbeat from Hell.
23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. 25 For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? 26 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. ~ Luke 9:23-26, ESV
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Church Attendance: Is It Important?
Beloved, I encourage you to read this excellent article by Earl Blackburn on the importance of church attendance. May our Lord use it to encourage and if necessary convict you on the blessing and beauty of the Lord's Day. Let us pray that we can continually call the Sabbath a delight until we enter our eternal Sabbath rest.
Soli Deo Gloria!
In Christ,
Des
Church Attendance: Is It Important?
by Earl Blackburn
Being faithful and consistent in attending a true church of Jesus Christ and worshipping God is extremely important; more important that you may realize. Irregularity and unfaithfulness in attending church conveys a certain message and produces definite short-term and far-reaching effects. Failure to assemble yourself with the Lord's people at all stated meetings for worship, unless you are sick or legitimately hindered:
1. Reveals a cold heart and lack of fervent love to Christ who instituted local churches (Revelation 2:4 & 3:20)
2. It shows disregard for the apostolic example and command of God's Holy Word. (Acts 2:41ff; Hebrews 10:25)
3. It robs you of blessing and help for the days ahead.
4. It cheats the brethren of blessings and help they would receive from your mutual ministry to them (Thessalonians 5:14; Hebrews 10:24, "And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works." ~ ESV
5. It grieves the Holy Spirit who dwells in each believer individually, and in the church as a whole.
6. It grieves the Elders who oversee you and minister the Word of God to you. (Hebrews 13:7 & 17; 1 Thessalonians 5:12,13)
7. I can influence others, by your poor example, to become unfaithful, lazy, indifferent and selfish. (Many young Christians have said, "Brother or Sister So-and-So do not come regularly, why should I?" You are a letter known and read by all men. (2 Corinthians 3:2, 3a)
8. It discourages brethren in the body with whom you are joined.
9. It is a poor testimony to unbelievers who see you inconsistently. (see John 13:35; 1 John 3:13,14)
10. It demonstrates your lack of vision for the future of that particular church of Jesus Christ in which you are a member. (Jeremiah 29:10,11)
11. It makes you a covenant-breaker in your commitment to God and to the church where you are a member.
12. It is a dreadful and empty step toward backsliding and apostasy. (study Hebrews 10:25 in its context of verses 19-39)
13. It shows disrespect for the best and the brightest day of the week, Sunday - the Lord's Day, the day on which the Lord Jesus rose from the dead.
A Christian is saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone and this saving grace causes One to love Christ's churches (see Psalms 27:4; 84:1, 2 & 10; 87:1-3). If there is no love for Christ's churches or no concern to be identified with a local church, the one's faith is suspect. True and saving faith creates a love for the things Christ loves. He "loved the church and gave Himself for it," (Ephesians 5:25) John Owen put it well when he says:
"It is the duty of everyone who professes faith in Jesus Christ, and takes due care of his own eternal salvation, voluntarily and by his and by his own choice to join himself to some congregation of Christ's institution...no particular person is to be esteemed a legal, true subject that does not appear in these His courts with a solemn homage to Him." (Works, Vol. 15, 'Duty of Believers to Join Themselves in Church Order,' pp. 319-327).
May each of us say from his heart, as David said of old, "I was glad when they said to me, Let us go into the house of the Lord." (Psalm 122:1)
Soli Deo Gloria!
In Christ,
Des
Church Attendance: Is It Important?
by Earl Blackburn
Being faithful and consistent in attending a true church of Jesus Christ and worshipping God is extremely important; more important that you may realize. Irregularity and unfaithfulness in attending church conveys a certain message and produces definite short-term and far-reaching effects. Failure to assemble yourself with the Lord's people at all stated meetings for worship, unless you are sick or legitimately hindered:
1. Reveals a cold heart and lack of fervent love to Christ who instituted local churches (Revelation 2:4 & 3:20)
2. It shows disregard for the apostolic example and command of God's Holy Word. (Acts 2:41ff; Hebrews 10:25)
3. It robs you of blessing and help for the days ahead.
4. It cheats the brethren of blessings and help they would receive from your mutual ministry to them (Thessalonians 5:14; Hebrews 10:24, "And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works." ~ ESV
5. It grieves the Holy Spirit who dwells in each believer individually, and in the church as a whole.
6. It grieves the Elders who oversee you and minister the Word of God to you. (Hebrews 13:7 & 17; 1 Thessalonians 5:12,13)
7. I can influence others, by your poor example, to become unfaithful, lazy, indifferent and selfish. (Many young Christians have said, "Brother or Sister So-and-So do not come regularly, why should I?" You are a letter known and read by all men. (2 Corinthians 3:2, 3a)
8. It discourages brethren in the body with whom you are joined.
9. It is a poor testimony to unbelievers who see you inconsistently. (see John 13:35; 1 John 3:13,14)
10. It demonstrates your lack of vision for the future of that particular church of Jesus Christ in which you are a member. (Jeremiah 29:10,11)
11. It makes you a covenant-breaker in your commitment to God and to the church where you are a member.
12. It is a dreadful and empty step toward backsliding and apostasy. (study Hebrews 10:25 in its context of verses 19-39)
13. It shows disrespect for the best and the brightest day of the week, Sunday - the Lord's Day, the day on which the Lord Jesus rose from the dead.
A Christian is saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone and this saving grace causes One to love Christ's churches (see Psalms 27:4; 84:1, 2 & 10; 87:1-3). If there is no love for Christ's churches or no concern to be identified with a local church, the one's faith is suspect. True and saving faith creates a love for the things Christ loves. He "loved the church and gave Himself for it," (Ephesians 5:25) John Owen put it well when he says:
"It is the duty of everyone who professes faith in Jesus Christ, and takes due care of his own eternal salvation, voluntarily and by his and by his own choice to join himself to some congregation of Christ's institution...no particular person is to be esteemed a legal, true subject that does not appear in these His courts with a solemn homage to Him." (Works, Vol. 15, 'Duty of Believers to Join Themselves in Church Order,' pp. 319-327).
May each of us say from his heart, as David said of old, "I was glad when they said to me, Let us go into the house of the Lord." (Psalm 122:1)
Monday, February 19, 2007
Christian Purity In A Fast and Loose Age
My Pastor preached a powerful sermon yesterday concerning sexual purity, "Christian Purity In A Fast and Loose Age" that I strongly recommend that you listen to and share with anyone that our Lord may lead. Christians of every age and sex must be continually reminded that God commands us to live in holiness even though this world bombards us with a myriad of sexual temptations and mocks us for what we believe. Let us by His grace and by the power of His Holy Spirit, "put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires." ~ Romans 13:14, ESV
Christian Purity In A Fast and Loose Age ~ 1 Thessalonians 4:3
For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality ~ 1 Thessalonians 4:3, ESV
In Christ,
Des
Christian Purity In A Fast and Loose Age ~ 1 Thessalonians 4:3
For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality ~ 1 Thessalonians 4:3, ESV
In Christ,
Des
Friday, February 09, 2007
EVENING
Charles Spurgeon's Morning & Evening
Friday, February 9, 2007
EVENING:
"Lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil [or, the evil one]." ~ Luke 11:4
What we are taught to seek or shun in prayer, we should equally pursue or avoid in action. Very earnestly, therefore, should we avoid temptation, seeking to walk so guardedly in the path of obedience, that we may never tempt the devil to tempt us. We are not to enter the thicket in search of the lion. Dearly might we pay for such presumption. This lion may cross our path or leap upon us from the thicket, but we have nothing to do with hunting him. He that meeteth with him, even though he winneth the day, will find it a stern struggle. Let the Christian pray that he may be spared the encounter. Our Saviour, who had experience of what temptation meant, thus earnestly admonished His disciples—"Pray that ye enter not into temptation."
But let us do as we will, we shall be tempted; hence the prayer "deliver us from evil." God had one Son without sin; but He has no son without temptation. The natural man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards, and the Christian man is born to temptation just as certainly. We must be always on our watch against Satan, because, like a thief, he gives no intimation of his approach. Believers who have had experience of the ways of Satan, know that there are certain seasons when he will most probably make an attack, just as at certain seasons bleak winds may be expected; thus the Christian is put on a double guard by fear of danger, and the danger is averted by preparing to meet it. Prevention is better than cure: it is better to be so well armed that the devil will not attack you, than to endure the perils of the fight, even though you come off a conqueror. Pray this evening first that you may not be tempted, and next that if temptation be permitted, you may be delivered from the evil one.
Friday, February 9, 2007
EVENING:
"Lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil [or, the evil one]." ~ Luke 11:4
What we are taught to seek or shun in prayer, we should equally pursue or avoid in action. Very earnestly, therefore, should we avoid temptation, seeking to walk so guardedly in the path of obedience, that we may never tempt the devil to tempt us. We are not to enter the thicket in search of the lion. Dearly might we pay for such presumption. This lion may cross our path or leap upon us from the thicket, but we have nothing to do with hunting him. He that meeteth with him, even though he winneth the day, will find it a stern struggle. Let the Christian pray that he may be spared the encounter. Our Saviour, who had experience of what temptation meant, thus earnestly admonished His disciples—"Pray that ye enter not into temptation."
But let us do as we will, we shall be tempted; hence the prayer "deliver us from evil." God had one Son without sin; but He has no son without temptation. The natural man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards, and the Christian man is born to temptation just as certainly. We must be always on our watch against Satan, because, like a thief, he gives no intimation of his approach. Believers who have had experience of the ways of Satan, know that there are certain seasons when he will most probably make an attack, just as at certain seasons bleak winds may be expected; thus the Christian is put on a double guard by fear of danger, and the danger is averted by preparing to meet it. Prevention is better than cure: it is better to be so well armed that the devil will not attack you, than to endure the perils of the fight, even though you come off a conqueror. Pray this evening first that you may not be tempted, and next that if temptation be permitted, you may be delivered from the evil one.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Blessing in the City
Tuesday February 6, 2007
Faith's Checkbook by Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Blessing in the City
If thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, blessed shalt thou be in the city. ~ Deuteronomy 28:2-3)
The city is full of care, and he who has to go there from day to day finds it to be a place of great wear and tear. It is full of noise, and stir, and bustle, and sore travail; many are its temptations, losses, and worries. But to go there with the divine blessing takes off the edge of its difficulty; to remain there with that blessing is to find pleasure in its duties and strength equal to its demands.
A blessing in the city may not make us great, but it will keep us good; it may not make us rich, but it will preserve us honest. Whether we are porters, or clerks, or managers, or merchants, or magistrates, the city will afford us opportunities for usefulness. It is good fishing where there are shoals of fish, and it is hopeful to work for our Lord amid the thronging crowds. We might prefer the quiet of a country life; but if called to town, we may certainly prefer it because there is room for our energies.
Today let us expect good things because of this promise, and let our care be to have an open ear to the voice of the Lord and a ready hand to execute His bidding. Obedience brings the blessing. "In keeping his commandments there is great reward."
Faith's Checkbook by Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Blessing in the City
If thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, blessed shalt thou be in the city. ~ Deuteronomy 28:2-3)
The city is full of care, and he who has to go there from day to day finds it to be a place of great wear and tear. It is full of noise, and stir, and bustle, and sore travail; many are its temptations, losses, and worries. But to go there with the divine blessing takes off the edge of its difficulty; to remain there with that blessing is to find pleasure in its duties and strength equal to its demands.
A blessing in the city may not make us great, but it will keep us good; it may not make us rich, but it will preserve us honest. Whether we are porters, or clerks, or managers, or merchants, or magistrates, the city will afford us opportunities for usefulness. It is good fishing where there are shoals of fish, and it is hopeful to work for our Lord amid the thronging crowds. We might prefer the quiet of a country life; but if called to town, we may certainly prefer it because there is room for our energies.
Today let us expect good things because of this promise, and let our care be to have an open ear to the voice of the Lord and a ready hand to execute His bidding. Obedience brings the blessing. "In keeping his commandments there is great reward."
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