O Timothy April 2011 - Way of Life Literature

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W A Y O F L I F E L I T E R A T U R E many tens of thousands of unique visits to our web site every month), and I am critiqued publicly all of the time by countless men. I can’t recall ever being contacted first, and I have never written to any of those men and reproved them for not coming to me, and I have never wanted my “supporters” to reprove them. If I publish a book or a sermon series or a video presentation that influences people, other preachers have a right and responsibility to warn about my teaching if they think it is in error, and they don’t have to come to me first. I would certainly prefer that they critique me honestly and in a gracious, Christhonoring way, but at the end of the day, that is not my business. Their critiques of my public preaching ministry are between them and God. I can respond to their warnings by repenting of error if I believe they are right or I can challenge the accuracy of their critique, but I am not going to say they have no right to do warn about me publicly if they think they have a Scriptural basis. Likewise, when a man builds an institution and draws students into his school from many other churches so that he can train and influence them and when he publishes material that is distributed around the world and when he conducts large conferences attended by people from many other churches and when he preaches at conferences in many places, his doctrine and practice is NOT a private matter. I have every right to issue godly, scriptural warnings in a gracious manner in regard to public preaching and practice, which is what I do, and Pastor Chappell and their supporters and students have every right to reply to my warnings. But they have no scriptural right to mock and ridicule me, yet this is exactly what has happened. I’ve been called every name in the book. I’ve been treated like a fool. I’ve been bossed around like some silly puppy. Consider the following choice words from a West Coast senior: “I strongly suspect ... that you are nothing more than a selfproclaimed, unbiblical, loud-mouthed, arrogant false prophet that attacks others to try to gain influence and respect for yourself. ... You are a vicious, raucous, poisoned, ignorant complainer. ... Your hypocrisy and misinterpretation and outof-context use of the Bible sickens me. May God have mercy on your soul you arrogant, raunchy man. I cannot help but wonder if those who call you ‘brother’ are sadly mistaken. ... you’re full of holes, arrogance and grotesque pride.” How is that for a piece of godly communication from a mere kid to a grandfather preacher who has been in the battle for Christ in this dark world for a long, long time But as he said, he is defending the “man of God” and I guess anything is allowed when you are so highly motivated. BEWARE OF THE SCOOPING/ SLIDING VOCAL STYLE (Friday Church News Notes, March 18, 2011, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - It is common to hear the world’s scooping/sliding vocal technique in specials sung in Bible-believing churches. The reason is not that the singers are trying to be worldly, but they are simply imitating the style of music that is heard everywhere in the pop culture and which predominates in Southern Gospel today. In his book How to Sing for Money, Charles Henderson defined scooping as “sliding up to a note from an attack below its true pitch,” and he identified it as a “common practice as a swing effect” (1940, p. 36). Note that the scooping technique was created as a part of the modern dance music scene, which is all about sexual license. The technique is a fitting accompaniment to the sensual backbeat rhythm. In a secular book The Foundations of Rock, Walter Everett says, “Many rock vocalists reach out to their audience largely through the PHYSICALITY of their singing.” Scooping has even been described as “sexual utterances” (Charles Brown, The Art of Rock & Roll, p. 68). Everett observes, “Classical singers traditionally strive for constant beauty of tone, but this is rarely of interest to rock vocalists, who reject the dogma of there being one ‘right’ way to do anything.” This is a telling statement. Note that rock vocalists don’t care about beauty of tone, but God’s people should strive for beauty in singing style because we are serving the God of beauty and order and are singing about His lovely truth. Further, rock singers contort their voices and slip and slide around the notes because they have rejected absolute truth. Their singing style reflects their philosophy of moral relativism. Decades ago Dr. Frank Garlock issued the following warning. “The identical methods employed by the world to make the sound sensual are now b e i n g u s e d b y m a n y p o p u l a r contemporary Christian music vocalists. THE STYLE ITSELF REFLECTS AND PROJECTS A PHILOSOPHY. These techniques include swaying and dancing, scooping (sliding up to a note from an attack below its true pitch), vocal sliding, flipping below and above the actual written melody, whispery, breathy voice, and delayed vibrato” (Garlock). These are not things that God’s people should imitate. We would also observe that the scooping style of singing is not only sensual and worldly, but it also draws attention to the singer. In contrast, when we sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, the attention should be fully upon the Lord and upon the message of the lyrics. ROB BELL’S LATEST SWIPE AT HELL (Friday Church News Notes, March 25, 2011, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Rob Bell’s new book Love Wins has stirred up something of a hornet’s nest of controversy, which we find puzzling. The man has been denying an eternal fiery hell and teaching a universalistic faith for a long time. In a 2005 interview with Beliefnet, Bell said “the church must stop thinking about everybody primarily in categories of in or out, saved or not, believer or nonbeliever.” In his influential book Velvet Elvis, which is popular with a great number of Southern Baptists, he described a marriage that he conducted for two pagan unbelievers who told him that “they didn’t want any Jesus or God or Bible or religion to be talked about” but they did want him to “make it really spiritual (p. 76). Bell agreed with this ridiculous request and said that his pagan friends “are resonating with Jesus, whether they acknowledge it or not” (p. 92). Bell’s most recent book, Love Wins, is just more of the same. Not only does he preach near-universalism, he preaches a false god, a false christ, a false gospel, a false heaven, a false hell, you name it. He is a master of taking Scripture out of context and shoehorning his heresies into a text. Though Bell has denied that he 20 1 Timothy 6:20,21
W A Y O F L I F E L I T E R A T U R E believes in universalism, he certainly makes a case for it in this book, though he might have left room for some folk to wind up for awhile in some type of hell. Consider two of many quotes we could offer as evidence: “This insistence that God will be united and reconciled with all people is a theme the writers and prophets return to again and again. ... The God that Jesus teaches us about doesn’t give up until everything that was lost is found. This God simply doesn’t give up. Ever” (Love Wins, Kindle location 1259-1287). “The love of God will melt every hard heart, and even the most ‘depraved sinners’ will eventually give up their resistance and turn to God. And so, beginning with the early church, there is a long tradition of Christians who believe that God will ultimately restore everything and everybody” (Love Wins, location 1339-1365). Bell even claims that Sodom and Gomorrah will be r e s t o r e d ( l o c a t i o n 1 0 5 7 - 1 0 7 1 , 1071-1082). Bell has nothing but ridicule for the gospel that Jesus died for man’s sins and that those who repent and believe (and only those who repent and believe) will be saved. In true heretic fashion, Bell redefines Biblical terms. He defines both heaven and hell as present realities on earth. He says the statements in Bible about hell being a place of fire and torment are mere poetry. ROB BELL’S NEW GOD (Friday Church News Notes, March 25, 2011, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - In his new book Love Wins, Rob Bell isn’t just rejecting the Bible’s doctrine of hell; he is rejecting the Bible’s God and in so doing is rejecting the very God that his grandparents worshiped. Bell’s God is not the thrice holy Lawgiver who hates sin. In Love Wins there is a photo of a painting that hung on a wall in Bell’s grandmother’s house. It depicts heaven as a shining city on the far side of a dark, burning, fearsome chasm. Bridging the chasm is a cross upon which people are walking toward safety. Bell claims that the God depicted in this painting is not great or mighty (Love Wins, location 1189-1229). He calls the preaching of eternal hell “misguided and toxic,” a “cheap view of God,” and “lethal” (location 47-60, 2154-2180). He implies that this God is not a true friend and protector; he says there is something wrong with this God a n d c a l l s H i m “ t e r r i f y i n g a n d traumatizing and unbearable” (location 1273-1287, 2098-2113). He even says that if an earthly father acted like the God who sends people to hell “we could contact child protection services immediately” (location 2085-2098). It is obvious that Bell wants nothing whatsoever to do with the God worshiped by his grandparents. Bell’s god is more akin to New Age panentheism than the God of the Bible. He describes God as “a force, an energy, a being calling out to us in many languages, using a variety of methods and events” (Love Wins, location 1710-1724). Bell also worships a false christ. His Jesus is “supracultural ... present within all cultures ... refuses to be co-opted or owned by any one culture ... He doesn’t even state that those coming to the Father through him will even know that they are coming exclusively through him ... there is only one mountain, but many paths. ... People come to Jesus in all sorts of ways ... Sometimes people use his name; other times they don’t” (Love Wins, location 1827-1840, 1865-1878, 1918-1933). WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO DON’T PERSONALLY TRUST CHRIST (Friday Church News Notes, March 25, 2011, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Whether or not all men without personal faith in Christ go to Hell, the nature of that Hell, and whether or not judgment is eternal in duration is extremely important for the preaching of the Gospel. Will God “save some who have not explicitly professed faith in Jesus Christ” Well, the Bible says certainly not! Ephesians chapter two tells us the condition of every individual outside of regenerating faith in Jesus Christ. He is dead in trespasses and sins (v. 1), controlled by and living according to the working of the devil (v. 2), a child of disobedience (v. 2), dominated by the flesh (v. 3), by nature the child of wrath (v. 3), without Christ (v. 12), an alien and stranger from the covenant of God (v. 12), WITHOUT HOPE (v. 12), WITHOUT GOD IN THE WORLD (v. 12), far off from God (v. 13). The Bible gives absolutely no hope for those who die without personal faith in Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ had already settled this matter before the penning of Ephesians. In His conversation with Nicodemus, Christ said categorically, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). Nicodemus was a very sincere and religious Jew, and if any category of person could have gone to heaven without being born again, it would have been people like him. Jesus Christ said that it will not happen. In that same conversation Jesus said, “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not IS CONDEMNED ALREADY, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18), and, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36). Praise God for the full salvation that was purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ for all that will call upon him in repentance and faith. God IS good; He paid the full price of salvation Himself. We sin, but God suffered in our place. There is no charge of unrighteousness that can legitimately be brought against God. Let us who know the Lord not be guilty of being lazy in getting the Gospel to the ends of the earth. ZONDERVAN’S STRANGE CHANGE OF MIND (Friday Church News Notes, March 25, 2011, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - After publishing the first four of Rob Bell’s books and his Nooma video series, Zondervan decided not to publish Love Wins. The president of Zondervan said the b o o k “ d o e s n ’ t f i t i n w i t h o u r mission” (“Firestorm Grows over ‘Christian heresy’ Book,” CNN Belief Blog, March 8, 2011). Perhaps that means, “This book is too hot to handle.” I don’t see what else it can mean, because Zondervan published Bell’s books Velvet Elvis and Sex God which contained the same heresies as Love Wins. It appears that Zondervan simply foresaw the “firestorm” of criticism and decided to distance itself. In Velvet Elvis (2005), Bell defined hell as “a way, a place, a realm absent of how God desires things to be” (p. 147), and in Sex God (2007), Bell says hell is where “people aren’t treated as fully human” (p. 21). As we have already cited in this Friday Church News Notes, in Velvet Elvis Bell said that atheists can be saved without personal faith in Christ. In a 2005 interview he said that Jesus did not claim one religion is better than another when he said he was “the way, the truth and the life.” Rather, “his way is the way to the depth of reality” (“‘Velvet Elvis’ Author Encourages Exploration of Doubts,” Beliefnet, 2005). This is exactly what Bell continues to teach in Love Wins. To his 1 Timothy 6:20,21 21
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