Hypocrisy

2Jn 1:9  Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son.
2Jn 1:10  If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting;
2Jn 1:11  for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds.

False Wisdom Like Psychology Ruins Lives

“Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing.” - James 3:16

False wisdom ruins lives.

Renowned eighteenth-century theologian Jonathan Edwards said the following about the effect of the Fall on man:

Sin, like some powerful astringent, contracted his soul to the very small dimensions of selfishness; and God was forsaken, and fellow-creatures forsaken, and man retired within himself, and became totally governed by narrow and selfish principles and feelings. Self-love became absolute master of his soul, and the more noble and spiritual principles of his being took wings and flew away.

Edwards’s analysis certainly agrees with what James is saying: man is self-centered (cf. James 3:14, 16). Where self-centeredness exists, there will be negative results. One such result is “disorder” (v. 16). The term refers to disorder that comes out of instability and chaos. Earthly wisdom will never produce harmony or love because it’s proud and self-indulgent. It destroys intimacy, love, unity, and fellowship, and in its place brings discord and chaos. You can see the result of earthly wisdom all over our world today. Anger, bitterness, lawsuits, and divorces are just part of the legacy.

“Every evil thing” also results from earthly wisdom (v. 16). The phrase speaks of something worthless or vile. Greek scholar R.C. Trench said it contemplates evil, “not so much that either of active or passive malignity, but rather of its good-for-nothingness, the impossibility of any true gain ever coming forth from it.” The Greek word translated “thing” implies that false wisdom produces nothing of any practical value. At its best it produces worthless things; at its worst it produces vile things.


Which kind of life do you prefer? One that is characterized by love and unity, or by instability and chaos? A life with fulfillment and meaning, or with emptiness? If you want a life that satisfies and has eternal value, choose divine wisdom! 

~John MacArthur, Strength for Today devotional

This is why the world's wisdom of psychology destroys families and all relationships. Psychology has Self at its center creating bloated egoes which is destructive. Self preservation is the number one golden rule in psychology. At its root is hostility toward God and Scripture, therefore all that proceeds from it is worthless and evil. This is also why psychology can never be married to biblical Christianity; it is the very antithesis of Scripture itself, from its origins to its views and practices. This IS what James was talking about in James 3!

Rather true knowledge and wisdom are found in Christ Jesus and His Word alone:

1Co 1:21  For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 

Col 2:2  that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God's mystery, that is, Christ Himself, 
Col 2:3  in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 
Col 2:4  I say this so that no one will delude you with persuasive argument.

Col 2:8  See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. 

Col 2:9  For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, 

Col 2:10  and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority; 

Psa 1:1  Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; 2  but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. 

Joh 17:17  Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.

The Divine Election & Human Responsibility

Divine Election and Human Responsibility Commentary on Romans 9 by John MacArthur

So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? (Romans 9:18–20)

A question, or objection, that Paul anticipates and responds to is: Why does God then still find fault? For who resists His will? In other words, if God sovereignly has mercy on whom He desires and hardens whom He desires, how can human beings be held responsible? How can they be blamed for their unbelief and sin, when their destiny has already been divinely determined? Again, such reasoning challenges God’s justice and righteousness.

As Israel was conquering Canaan, “Joshua waged war a long time with all these [Canaanite] kings. There was not a city which made peace with the sons of Israel except the Hivites living in Gibeon; they took them all in battle. For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, to meet Israel in battle in order that he might utterly destroy them, that they might receive no mercy, but that he might destroy them, just as the Lord had commanded Moses” (Josh. 11:18–20).

Such commands of God, with which the Old Testament abounds, seem totally capricious and cruel to worldly, carnal minds, which accept only what fits their preconceived ideas of right and wrong, justice and injustice. Consequently, they judge even God by their own finite, biased, and sin-tainted standards.

God’s utterly sovereign will is just as clearly taught in the New Testament. Later in this letter to Rome, Paul tells his readers: “That which Israel is seeking for, it has not obtained, but those who were chosen obtained it, and the rest were hardened” (Rom. 11:7). In his first letter to Thessalonica, he declares that “God has not destined us [believers] for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:9).

In His perfect wisdom, and in perfect righteousness and justice, God has destined some people for salvation by His grace and, because of their sin and unbelief, has left others to damnation by His wrath. Speaking of unrepentant unbelievers, Peter writes, “These, like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, reviling where they have no knowledge, will in the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed” (2 Pet. 2:12).

Many critics of such doctrine, supposedly coming to the defense of God’s justice, fail to acknowledge that every human being since the Fall has deserved nothing but God’s just condemnation to an eternity in hell. If God were to exercise only His justice, no person would ever be saved. It is therefore hardly unjust if, according to His sovereign grace, He chooses to elect some sinners for salvation.

It is not, of course, that we can fully understand what God reveals about His sovereign election and predestination. It can only be accepted by faith, acknowledging its truth simply because God has revealed it to be true. As believers, we know that, in ourselves, we deserve only God’s rejection and condemnation. But we also know that, for His own sovereign reasons, God has elected us to be His children and, in His own time and way, brought us to saving faith in Jesus Christ. On the other hand, we also know that our human will had a part in our salvation. Jesus said, “All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me.” That is the choice of God’s will. But Jesus immediately went on to say that “the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out” (John 6:37). That is the choice of man’s will, which God graciously accedes to for all who believe in His Son.
Continuing simply to proclaim God’s sovereign righteousness and justice rather than trying to explain it, Paul turns a question back on those who would question the Lord. On the contrary, he says, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? In other words, it is blasphemous even to question, not to mention deny, God’s right to hold men accountable when they are captives of His sovereign will.
It is obvious from Paul’s wording that the ones who might be asking such questions would not be seeking God’s truth but rather self- justification. Attempting to excuse their own unbelief, sinfulness, ignorance, and spiritual rebellion, they would be apt to accuse God of injustice.

But because human understanding is so limited, even sincere questions about God’s sovereign election and predestination ultimately must go unanswered. As already noted, it is one of the many truths about God that we must accept by faith, simply because He has revealed it in His Word.

End quote.

Consider these powerful verses on God's absolute and unchanging sovereignty and also man's responsibility for his own sin:

Acts 4: 27 Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. 28 They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.

John 19: 11 Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.”

As for man's part, God must first exchange the heart of stone and give a heart of flesh, along with giving faith and repentance. ONLY THEN can a person SEE his utter sinfulness before the thrice holy God and his total need for salvation, as well as his deserving of Hell. Without this regeneration (John 3 calls is being "born from above"), one can't see it at all and continues to consider the things of God to be foolish and can't understand them; he continues to be hostile in his mind toward God (1Cor. 2:14; Rom 8:7). The natural response of man toward God is hostility, anger, hate, rebellion. The natural response of a New Creation is to run toward the Only One Who has the words of eternal life: Jesus Christ, the ONLY way, Truth, and Life; the Great Shepherd of our souls; the Only Redeemer; the Resurrection And The Life: The One Who Alone offers Living Water.

Apostate Terrorists: do they terrorize your or your church into silence?

Thanks to Apprising Ministries for John MacArthur's excerpt from Jude. Its been a while since I heard this and thought it was even more appropriate now than ever before. Here's a portion:

"Now Jude t hen writes this epistle to serve as a warning and to give for us a portrait of these apostate terrorists. These are people who have been exposed to the faith, exposed to the truth, who have defected from the truth, who have denied the truth, who have rejected the truth. But who have kept the name Christian, kept some identification with the person of Jesus and with God and therefore remaining within the framework of Christendom have become subtle, hidden deceivers. And unless the church has acute powers of discernment, unless the church is willing to pay the price of exposure, unless the church can get over its sappy sentimentalism about not wanting to say anything that offends anybody, it’s going to allow itself to be devastated by these imbedded satanic Al Qaeda." ~MacArthur

Do YOU Pass The Test of Faith In Genesis 1 As Written?

Apprising Ministries shares an article by John MacArthur, which I in turn would like to post here. Its a much-needed article on the Genesis account of Creation. So many "evangelical Christians" deny the necessity of holding to Scripture as taught, and instead leave room for doctrines of demons like evolution. Don't be fooled, any form of evolution's theory is demonic, and the enemy will sneak it in by any means necessary, including:

renaming evolution, Theistic evolution
taking God out and calling Creation by "Intellegent Designer"
by removing part of evolution (that of man) and only holding to earth's evolution, calling it the "gap theory"

All of these are still from satan, they are still anti-biblical, and they are still of unbelief in the True, faithful, and living Word of God.

Here's a portion of what MacArthur says:


Now, because the Bible is so clear about this in Genesis 1, and then giving us an even further and more detailed look at this creation, rehearsing its elements in a broader way in chapter 2, you face a test at the very outset of the Bible. You’re not going to get past the first verses of the Bible, you’re not going to get past the first verse in the Bible, the first chapter in the Bible, the first two chapters in the Bible without facing a test. And the test is this, do you believe the Scripture? Do you believe the Scripture? That is the test. No one gets past the opening verses of the Bible without having to face the test of whether or not that person believes the Bible to be the authoritative Word of God. Do you submit to Scripture? Genesis 1 is your first test.

Now I’m going to give you three words to think about tonight and we’re going to kind of unpack these words and they’ll be sort of little categories that we can put our thoughts in so we can understand them a little more clearly. The first word is fidelity…fidelity…fidelity, faithfulness. Either you believe what the Bible says or you don’t. That’s the test. You can accept what Genesis says, or you can reject it. You can’t change it, you don’t have that privilege. In fact, were you to add to Scripture or take anything from it would be added to you the plagues that are written in it. There’s no need for you to edit God. There is nothing lacking anywhere in Scripture and that’s true of Genesis 1 and 2 which somehow needs you to embellish it. You either accept it or you reject it, you have those two options.

End quote.

So, where is your fidelity? To pagan, demonic evolution myth, or God's faithful, living Word? No man can serve to masters, folks.


1Ki 18:21 And Elijah came near to all the people and said, "How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him." And the people did not answer him a word.

"Evangelicalism", MacArthur, Spurgeon and Piper

2Pe 2:1 But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.


I was finishing John MacArthur's updated "Ashamed of the Gospel" book and he said something that is very applicable to Piper's defiant endorsement of Rick Warren, Doug Wilson, Paul Tripp, and Driscoll. MacArthur says what many of us have observed ourselves.

Here's what MacArthur says in his book (remember this was before Piper came out defiantly promoting Rick Warren):

"..that liberals arose from within evangelical ranks, used evangelical vocabulary, and gained acceptance through relentless appeals for peace and tolerance. The new modernism is following precisely the same course, and that tactice seems likely to take evangelicals by surprise once again.

Most of the market-driven megachurches insist they would never compromise doctrine. They are attractive to evangelicals precisely became they claim to be as orthodox in their doctrine as they are unorthodox in their methodology. Multitudes are sufficiently reassured by such promises and simply abandon their critical faculties, thus increasing their vulnerability. Unfortunately, real discernment is in short supply among modern evangelicals.

– John MacArthur, Ashamed of the Gospel, p. 200

This is absolutely true and what I've been saying about Piper and the Warren/Piper/Driscoll defenders. Maybe hearing MacArthur say it, they'll actually consider it this time.

"You may believe anything, everything, or nothing, and yet be enrolled in the "Evangelical" army—so they say. Will there arise no honest, out-spoken evangelicals among Dissenters to expose and repudiate this latitudinarianism? Are all the watchmen asleep? Are all the churches indifferent?" - Spurgeon

Spurgeon said:

"We would like to agree with one who says that the bulk of our church-members love the old gospel; but we are not quite sure of it. If there were so general a soundness in the rank and file, would they quietly endure the abounding errors of the pulpits, and the babyish amusements with which congregations are being drenched? We fear the plague is among the people as well as among the priests. Yet, surely, there must be some who will fling aside the dastard love of peace, and speak out for our Lord, and for his truth. A craven spirit is upon many, and their tongues are paralyzed. Oh, for an outburst of true faith and holy zeal!"


Act 20:29 I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; 30 and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. 31 Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears.