Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Sacrificing to Moloch

The Watcher's Lamp warns of the "Mystical Convergence of the Purpose Driven, Seeker Sensitive & Emergent" movements as they lead countless thousands (millions?) of deceived souls down the broad way that leads to destruction:

"The tip of the mystical iceberg that is Youth Specialties has flags planted on it by Saddleback Church, Willow Creek and the Emergent movement.

A review of some of the guest speakers for this year's National Youth Workers Convention reveals the Who's Who of the mystical & contemplative..."


It should come as no surprise to those who have kept up with the pernicious activities of the Purpose Driven Pope - "Pastor" Rick Warren, the ecumenical Seeker-Sensitive Circus Church ringleader Bill Hybels of Willow Creek, or the neo-liberal ooze that comprises the emergent cult, that this unholy trinity should seek to come together in order to corrupt the young and impressionable with their brand of demonic faith.

A quick peek beneath the thin veneer of Christianity that these groups have applied to themselves demonstrates they are not of Christ. The common thread which runs through the Purpose Driven, Seeker Sensitive, and Emergent camps is their tolerance for and/or downright embrace of the ungodly.

Their man-centered theology can be summed up as "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. He's provided everything and done all He can, but you still lack one thing, you just need to 'follow Jesus' to be complete".

And let's be honest here, this sort of easy-believism is appealing to our carnal nature. It sounds great! "I get to hold on to my pet sins, hang out with the old crowd, go where I want to go and do what I want to do because God loves me and I'm following Jesus!" Sadly these spiritual snake-oil salesmen package and present the gospel as though it costs nothing, but in truth it costs EVERYTHING:

Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.
(Matthew 10:32-39)

As we see from the above verse Jesus doesn't give even the slightest indication that belief is easy or that becoming his disciple is a cost-free and painless process, quite the opposite. To claim otherwise is to present another gospel, a cheapened gospel that seeks to diminish the hard demands of Christ in order to make the case that you simply need to "add Jesus" to your current lifestyle. Yet according to scripture to apprehend Christ is to give up ourselves completely, totally, and without reservation. This is a sovereign, God-inspired act which can be summed up as obedience. Godly obedience is foreign - even anathema - to our natural, autonomous fleshly nature. Yet we should note that Jesus Christ's earthly ministry was marked by perfect obedience to the Father which culminated in His obedience on the cross.

There is no such thing as a disobedient Christian. Certainly Christians can and do sin - frequently - but their character is marked by contrition for sin and the seeking of forgiveness as opposed to continuing in patterns of unbroken and remorseless sin. This is evidence of unbelief and disobedience no matter how long you've been a member of your local church, how many mission trips you've gone on, how faithfully you've tithed, how many Sunday School classes you've taught, or how many sermons you've preached.

The lesson here is that it does not matter what creeds are confessed, how much scripture has been memorized or what "good things" a person has done, the one who practices lawlessess (disobedience) will be excluded from heaven. He or she is an unbeliever in danger of eternal damnation:

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. (Matthew 7:21-23)

This is a very strong admonition and should serve as a stark warning to those who profess to know Jesus Christ, and who undertake to preach and teach His Word. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb. 10:31), and those who corrupt His Word and mingle it with the uncleanness of humanism, mysticism, and paganism and then feed this spiritual poison to their flocks ought to be terrified and ashamed and fall on their faces in repentantance for their grievous error before the Lord of Hosts, the Infinite Creator and Judge of the universe.

In the passage from Matthew quoted above the Lord gives us a glimpse of the coming judgment of those who profess to know Him and who protest that they did many wonderful things for Him. Sadly, tragically, their words and hearts are empty and Christ will turn them away to everlasting destruction. This passage is often perplexing and deeply unsettling, particularly for professing Christians. The poor condemned souls in this passage clearly aren't pagans, nor are they making the claim that they served a different god by mistake; they're professing they know Jesus and have served Him. They recount before Him the many wonderful deeds they performed in His name.

But the problem with their professions of faith and good works is that they are empty claims of human achievement. The "many" who are turned away in divine judgment are the same we met in Matthew 7:13 who took "the broad way which leads to destruction". It's no mystery what's happening here. Jesus repeatedly warned of the self-righteousness of the Pharisees and stated unequivocally that their brand of righteousness, in other words human righteousness or self-righteousness, was not akin saving faith; the righteousness that comes from God alone and is imputed by His son. The condemned souls in Matthew 7:21-23 represent people who trusted in themselves and the things they did - supposedly in Jesus name - to earn them a place in heaven, but faith doesn't work this way, and never has. Man cannot earn God's favor through external works apart from living out righteousness based on true faith:

For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them. But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.) But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:5-10)

Once again we see this is the common theme shared among the Purpose Driven, Seeker Sensitive, and Emergent movements; they seek to sacrifice you and your children to the Moloch of lawless ungodliness. The enemy is no fool and he understands that corrupting the youth is his best hope to assure continued future apostasy and dilution of the faith. Satan is using these so-called "Christian leaders" as dupes and the wicked one is silently guiding their fleshly, carnal, humanistic programs to further his demonic goal of replacing the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ with another gospel, a "culturally relevant" model of hell's own design.

Friends let's not be deceived. When the Barna polls and statisticians tell us of the overwhelming "Christianity" of the United States and report there are more than a billion "Christians" living in the world one has to wonder about the broad way and the "many" who will stand before the Lord one awful day and hear those fateful words, "I never knew you, depart from me". "Many" who identify themselves with Christ will be turned away by Him in judgment. It's no doubt that it was with this in mind that the inspired Apostle Paul challenges us in 2 Corinthians 13:5 to "Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves!" In fact Christians are commanded to self-examination each time we partake of the Lord's Supper (1 Corinthians 11:28)!

Let us not rest on our human works or on our intellectual assent to the truth claims of Christ, but let us fall on our faces before the Lord in humble obedience that He might justify and sanctify us by His power and mercy. If our lives as professing Christians don't reveal growth in the grace and righteousness and holiness that flows only from the Throne of God established in our hearts then we need to examine the reality of our faith in the light of scripture.

And it is under careful examination in the light of scripture we find that "the writing is on the wall" for the Purpose Driven, Seeker Sensitive and Emergent movements, and the message is clear: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. Those who are within the harlot churches which represent the scarlet woman ought to heed the admonition of scripture to "come out of her" and flee to Christ.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. (Romans 12:1-3)