ICR: Excellent articles for this month

Excellent articles from ICR's "Acts & Facts" this month:

"The Donkey Strategy"

"Balaam's Error And Today's Evangelicals" by Henry Morris III, D.Min. *

Excerpts:

How do “good” people become “enemies of the cross of Christ” (Philippians 3:18)?

Of the many passages in the Bible that contain information or warnings about false teaching, there are four key New Testament passages that will help answer that question. In 2 Peter 2:1-3, the apostle Peter lists five characteristics of the leaders of false teaching:

•They will come from “Christian” churches or backgrounds.
•They will deny the Lord Jesus in some way.
•They will become very popular.
•They will cause shame to the ideals of Scripture.
•They will use human greed and hidden meanings to deceive....

The battle is fought and won or lost in our mind. Circumstances, feelings, popular acceptance, and even miraculous signs are all subject to deceptive manipulation and distortion. Our minds can be deceived (2 Corinthians 11:3).

The passage that outlines the “subtlety” of the enemy is Genesis 3:1-5. It specifies a three-stage process:

• Dispute the accuracy of God’s Word: “Yea, hath God said…”
• Deny the ability of God to do what He said: “Ye shall not surely die…”
• Denigrate the actions of God toward man: “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”

Fundamental to all error is the way that one approaches the written Word of God. Doubt about the accuracy and integrity of Scripture, once entertained, is the first step onto a spiritual slide that ends in utter heresy.
All false religions have other writings that attempt to explain what God “really” meant to say....

All of that pales into insignificance when we begin to grasp the insidious inroads of compromising Bible teachers in the seminaries and in parachurch organizations across this nation. Two fundamental positions emerge from analysis of the writings, blogs, and teachings of those who knowingly embrace a hybridizing of God’s foundational truths:

• The message of Scripture must be subject to the “discoveries” of science, philosophy, psychology, history, logic, or academic analysis and scholarship.
• The Bible, therefore, cannot (indeed must not) be taken as a literal or historically accurate document. All of the biblical text must be “interpreted” in light of a theological system, scholarly historical analysis, or “proven” science.

The result is an increasing fear of controversy among pastors to deal with the errors, a growing ignorance of biblical doctrine being replaced by a “love for God” and “one another” that is both emotional and amorphous, and an ever-increasing withdrawal from “absolute truth.”

End quote.

* Dr. Morris is Chief Executive Officer of the Institute for Creation Research. Morris III, H. 2011. Balaam’s Error and Today’s Evangelicals. Acts & Facts. 40 (8): 4-6.

For the entire article go here. Dr. Morris also explains how to solve this growing dilemma.

"The Failed Apologetic of the Wedge Strategy"

ICR, while engaged in science and research, its fundamentally doctrinal in nature, starting with a high view of Scripture and testing everything including science, theories, books, "evangelical" teachers/pastors, and academia, by It. I really appreciate their stand to not only deal with science, but most importantly deal with doctrinal issues especially the authority of Scripture above everything and using it in our daily lives. They also have a daily devotional called "Days of Praise".