“ Thanks Thomas ” Hi Thomas, Yes I'm committed to doing several more of the sermons in the 6 volume "Puritan Sermons" anthology. The next one will be by William Jenkins.
“ Great Sermon! ” I want to strongly recommend this sermon, it's by a Ruling Elder, Keith Phillips, and is extremely convicting particularly for members and congregations that like Ephesus may be orthodox, but might be in danger of having lost their first love.
“ Wow! A Powerful Defense of the Sovereignty of God! ” Thank you Pastor Sean for this message, I particularly appreciated the way you pointed out the tendency Christians have to want a God of their own making rather that the awesome and all-powerful God of the bible as well as your explanation that getting what we deserve would mean everyone goes to Hell! We should be very grateful that "...by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God!" (Eph. 2:8)
“ Good Series ” Excellent and Helpful stuff from Tim Challies, I'm really surprised this hasn't gotten more hits than it has given the dearth of good information and preaching about the opportunities and perils of modern social networking.
I have to admit to being shocked that Sermonaudio posted this as it is disinformation being widely spread by the Iranian government in an attempt to defuse support for Pastor Nadarkhani amongst Western Christians.
Nadarkhani is a member of the Evangelical Protestant church of Iran. He pastored an EP church in Rasht. Iranian agents have been placing reports that he is a Oneness Pentecostal on the internet because a) the Oneness Pentecostals are not recognized in Iran (even by Christians) and b) they know most of us believe you must be Trinitarian to be a Christian. They have also accused him of rape and running a brothel, even though his conviction was for apostasy and converting Muslims.
I would SERIOUSLY recommend you read the articles on Nadarkhani at Compassdirect going back several years: http://www.compassdirect.org/?view=Search+results&query=nadarkhani
Even the Wikipedia Listing for Nadarkhani is more accurate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youcef_Nadarkhani
“ Thank You Pastor Harris ” I am grateful to Pastor Harris for taking a principled and biblical stand against the apostasy that has become so popular in our day. Thank you for proclaiming the truth in age of itching ears and fable spinners (2 Tim. 4:3-4).
I'm amazed that Williams made this stand as well, but more importantly it exposes several things. First, it exposes the grave error of the Constantinian view of church/state relations. Because the Church of England is established, its buildings are technically the possession of the Queen and "her government" can do with them whatever they see fit regardless of whether it is good or evil. The only question for them is "is it legal?" In this case, they are demanding they be used for gay civil unions. The real problem was in declaring that any mortal man, be it Pope or King, is head of the Church. Only Christ is the Head and Savior of the Church.
Secondly, it exposes the fact that politically conservative no longer means socially conservative. We have come to the point where political conservatism is becoming Libertarian and amoral.
Interesting isn't it that the world's solution to the problems caused by a manifestly unbiblical practice (enforced celibacy) is another unbiblical practice (women's ordination)?
But then again it shouldn't surprise us when their solution for the "problem" of pregnancies caused by fornication is murder.
I've been sent a few iterations of this story via email already. It's being billed in conservative media as yet another instance of a Christian "bible study" being unreasonably forced to seek a permit to meet by a local city.
While that has happened in other cities, after doing a little digging it seems more likely that the actual story here is that a health and wealth church is hosting a lot of it's activities at the husband and wife pastor team's house in a residential neighborhood (including their youth group meetings) and the neighbors complained about having 40-60 people plus vehicles descend on one house every week.
Now whether or not you believe that churches should be allowed to do this, the media need to make clear this is NOT the city persecuting a typical home based bible study. A business or another non-profit would likely get nailed for doing this as well.
On their website, if you click on the calendar of events ( http://shilohtc.org/main/index.php?option=com_jcalpro&Itemid=24 ) you'll find that at least TWO of the church's activities are held at the Pastor and Pastorette's home EVERY WEEK.
The article in WND is somewhat misleading. Wallis is not Obama's pastor, Obama does not attend his church, or any church for that matter, so to say that Wallis is Obama's pastor in the way that Wright was is misleading. Wallis is a member of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships which was started by President Bush. Not surprisingly most of the clergy (it includes Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and Muslims) on the council are politically and theologically liberal, so singling out Wallis from a group of other members of the religious left makes little sense. But methinks an article saying "Obama's spiritual 'advisors' are a bunch of socialists" wouldn't have had the same oomph as comparing Wallis to Wright.
A while back Robert Gagnon wrote: "“gay marriage,” as the ultimate legal sanctioning of homosexual behavior, will bring with it a wave of intolerance toward, and attack on the civil liberties of, those who publicly express disapproval of homosexual practice (see Alan Sears and Craig Osten, "The ...Homosexual Agenda"). The latter will be regarded, legally and morally, as the equivalent of virulent racists." Throughout the west we are already seeing a steady drift towards making it legally impermissible to teach what the bible says about homosexuality and forcing all institutions to parrot the homosexual agenda.
I recently touched on the subject of President Obama's LGBT pride month declaration in the context of a sermon on the biblical view of "cross-dressing" and gender bending.
[URL=http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=611091552260]]]No, Cross Dressing is Not OK[/URL]
“ Great Sermon! ” I don't often recommend sermons, but this one on the relationship between pastors and their congregations is one of the best I've heard. This is well worth listening to.
I think a certain degree of overthinking is going on here in regards to the prayer ending. It is currently extremely impolitic to end a prayer in Jesus name, in fact at the last Republican convention when Franklin Graham ended his prayer in Jesus name the transcript of the convention prepared by the RNC *actually dropped the reference* and inserted simply "Amen."
Call me cynical, but I think it more likely that the Pastor was either asked, or it was suggested or implied, that he end his prayer some other way and he tried to comply with something that would at least seem biblical and not offend.
Further supporting evidence that this was probably the case is seen in the fact that Miles McPherson, Pastor of the Rock Church in San Diego, and another "pray-er" at the convention ended his prayer:
"We pray these things to the Lord our God. Amen."
I don't know of any examples where prayers at either convention where actually prayed explicitly "in Jesus name."
Just wondering what you all think about the closing? Jesus is acknowledged and is called Lord, and he closes using part of the Lord's Prayer, and yet the prayer itself is not explicitly offered in Christ's name. Personally, in pulpit prayer I even close the Lord's prayer in Christ's name. Any pastors out there ok with the bare amen format?
“ Great Sermon! ” It's seldom that you hear such a convicting sermon preached with such power and clarity or a preacher who dares to express sincere and righteous anger at sin. I heartily recommend this sermon!
11/30/11 12:43 AM
