A Question for Dispensationalists

Will the unborn children of non-believing mothers be included in the Rapture?

I'm not being facetious. It's just that I've never heard this addressed before, and, as excruciatingly detailed as they are, no dispensational End Times chart mentions it.

If Hell Is Real, How Can God Be Loving?

Pastor John Piper answers:

Am I Growing in Love?

I often ask myself this question: Do I take more pleasure in seeing the guilty get what they deserve than in knowing that I am getting what I don't deserve? I confess that sometimes the answer scares me.

Putting Sermons into Proper Perspective

Whenever you hear someone preach, ask yourself this question: Why did Christ need to suffer and die on a cross in order for this sermon to make sense? And pastors, it wouldn't hurt for you to ask yourselves the same question.

(As heard on the White Horse Inn, 11/22/09.)

No Women in Heaven?

I can understand why some might think that after reading Revelation 8:1.

This Week in Calvinism - November 20, 2009

• David writes, "In the end, Calvinism is really about hope: the belief that God knows what he's doing. It means that even evil itself is subject to his authority, that our groanings are the language of our yearnings for a place beyond, that such things are but shadows of a brighter land in which the object of our hope and affection, the author and perfecter of our faith, waits with absolute certainty and power."
  
  
• Pray like a Calvinist...and work like one too!
  
  
• Bill O'Reilly on Calvinism.
  
  
• John Piper offers some advice for those times when you don't want to do what you ought to do.

No Hell?

Just because you don't believe in something doesn't mean it isn't true. What we see in this video is akin to someone committing a murder, being convicted in court, standing before a judge, and believing no sentence will be passed down because the judge happens to be a kind man.

Note especially what is said at 3:53. Those of us who believe in Hell are "believing in a place that no one would rationally think of in this day and time." Translation: Forget what scripture says, because going by the world's concept of rational is how we should live.



This is what happens when words like "holy," "just," "sin," "punishment," and "atonement" cease to have any meaning.

How to Rid the Church of Goats

Today's Grace Gem is from D. J. Ward:

The best way to purify the church and keep it pure is to get rid of all the goats! And the best way to run the goats out of the church is to feed them sheep food. God's sheep will grow in grace under the preaching of grace, but goats will go hungry because they choke on sheep food. They will soon leave and go somewhere else. Preach sovereign grace!

This Week in Calvinism - November 13, 2009

• The Wittenberg Door addresses the issue of whether or not God's love is a "forced love" (part 1, part 2).
  
  
• Steve's a Calvinist who believes that our assurance must rest on the concept of a universal atonement.
  
  
• The Regulative Principle of Worship in historical perspective.
  
  
• Triablogue's Steve Hays introduces us to yet another anti-Christian book from a bunch of "hack village atheists."
  
  
• Calvinistic Cartoons turned one year old yesterday. Happy birthday, Eddie!

This Week in Calvinism - November 6, 2009

• Dan Borvan shares a few of the things he has unlearned over the years.
  
  
• This past weekend we remembered the Reformation leaders.
  
  
• Here's a blogger trying to understand Calvinism. Two points down, only three to go!
  
  
• When Calvinists speak of God saving those who die in infancy, is it just a matter of wanting to have our cake and eat it too? Calvinists maintain that all fallen, sinful human beings, even those with the capacity to understand, reject God. That's the concept of total depravity in a nutshell. Wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that the salvation of infants merely reinforces the fact that salvation is all of God?
  
  
• Les Lanphere attempts to prove Calvinism without Paul.

Green VBS

You know your church has simply run out of ideas when it chooses to substitute gospel-centered teaching with green-centered teaching:

The theme for this VBS package? Mark 4:1-9, the parable of the sower, of course! Seeds. Planting. Growing. See how nicely that ties in to environmentalism? Here's a sample of the study plan:

And you thought the parable had something to do with the preaching of the gospel and the responses of those who hear it. No, the real lesson we're supposed to learn is that God's love can help us overcome life's challenges, enabling us to better care for the planet.

Man, Spurgeon was way over-thinking this parable.

This Week in Calvinism - October 30, 2009

• Daniel thinks that both Calvinists and Arminians hold to a theology that is contrary to Christ.
  
  
• John Piper addresses the question, "How willingly do people go to Hell?"
  
  
• Phil Johnson on the problem of evil.
  
  
• Can God know everything and still give us free will?
  
  
• Eddie has unearthed an old Spurgeon cigar ad.

This Week in Calvinism - October 16, 2009

• Hank at Think Wink is up to part 13 of his five-part series on objections to Calvinism.
  
  
• Despite being the most popular view of the atonement, there are problems with Arminian universal redemption. (Yes, I realize not all Arminians believe everything presented here.)
  
  
• Calvinism (not really) refuted.
  
  
• No-point Calvinism?
  
  
• A while back, Roger Olson challenged Calvinists (especially those who criticize books like The Shack) to come up with a novel presenting a clear picture of their own theology. He thinks the picture of a God who actually is in control of life's tragedies would send people scurrying from Calvinism. Triablogue's Steve Hays has an excellent response.

Fahrenheit 451, Fundamentalist Style

You're invited this Halloween to Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, North Carolina, at 7:00 pm for a night of great preaching, singing, warm fellowship, and fried chicken with all the sides. Oh, and a good old fashioned book burning.

Slated for destruction are all the modern (i.e. post-1611) Satanic Bible translations such as the NIV, NKJV, and NASB. Also on the menu are books by popular heretics like James Dobson, John Piper, John McArthur (sic) and Mark Driskol (sic). Missing from the list are the ESV translation and books by R. C. Sproul, but I'm sure these are just oversights.

Naturally, you can't have a holy bonfire without the obligatory collection of Devil's music. The folks at AGBC will be ridding the world of vile recordings from every genre imaginable: "country, rap, rock, pop, heavy metal, western, soft and easy, southern gospel, contempory (sic) Christian, jazz, soul, oldies but goldies, etc." (I'm not really sure what they consider to be acceptable music, but I'm pretty sure I don't own it.)

If you want to spoil the Devil's favorite holiday this year, swing on by Amazing Grace Baptist Church. And don't forget your torch!

What David Letterman Can Teach Us About the Gospel

On the David Letterman blackmail/sex scandal, Russell D. Moore writes:

Letterman said the extortion note was disturbing, first of all, because he feared the mysterious correspondent was watching him. Someone who knew this much about his life, would this figure be tapping him on the shoulder from the shadows? Pulling him into the back of the car?

Letterman also, though, was upset by the note because it was true. ...

... You and I once felt a deeper, more primal blackmail, and it scared us to the core. In fact, we often still do. Now, for most of us, it's not the same kind of transgression or the same type of discovery. But we’re blackmailed just as surely, in fact even more so.

The Scripture says that Satan's reign over this present order is by holding us captive through the slavery of the "fear of death" (Heb 2:15). And why are all humans afraid of death? Because, like Letterman's letter in the back of the car, our conscience is pointing us to judgment, with a "black box" of evidence of our guilt (Rom 2:15-16).

Read the full article here.