If I Went to Jail Would You be Ashamed of Me

I admit sometimes I lack patience with a certain group of people and rather than press the “ignore” button and keep walking, I do sometimes choose to take on the situation. Some would say this is a major fault of mine, even sin, and others would say this is the desire to Defend the Faith and Contend for Truth (which again, many would say is wrong to do because it causes division and is ‘unloving’). The particular group I’m referring to here is professing Christians who do not believe the Bible is sufficient, but must be mixed with Humanism and Psychology, who think that pleasing and blending with the world is more important than faithfulness & obedience to Christ, who play footsie with New Age Spirituality, and who dislike the authority of scripture, the exclusivity of the Gospel, and evangelism. I’m talking about the apostacy.

Of course the DMV was closed today.

I bumped into a man who is on staff at a Ne0-E megachurch. He was telling me that he is in seminary so I thought he might be preparing to be a pastor. But he is taking advanced Counseling and Psychology courses. I asked him if he did “Christian Counseling” which utilizes Psychology primarily, or “Biblical Counseling” which utilizes the scripture. He was telling me that now these two camps are now blended together. He kept dropping the word “Spirituality“–and I gave him the benefit of the doubt –at first, although that buzzword set off my alarm bells. Then he started sounding more like a New Ager. He said, “Things are different now” (referring to the many beliefs of the clients, and the new methodology); “if someone comes in saying they do crystals or moon rocks (or such), then we work with that.”

I asked him to affirm what I was hearing: that what he was telling me was that he must operate as a functional Universalist in his counseling sessions. He did not deny. I challenged him, asking why he cannot just operate as a Christian, and he said, “It would not work” (because they want to help people). Then I asked him if he was telling me that Pragmatism was more important than faithfulness to Christ? That did not go over well.

The old city jail bars, in use for 40 years, are now a museum display.

Since he was sounding very New Age, I asked him about sharing the Gospel with the clients and he told me he always leaves them (the unbelievers) with “the Golden Rule”- encouraging them to “do unto others”. When I said that is not the Gospel, he told me he would only talk about that “when the door is open”. He had an expression and tone that indicated, “That is not appropriate”. I asked him if Jesus’ words in Mark 16:15 and Mat. 28:18-20 were not the open door? . He got agitated and challenged me: “Well why don’t YOU go down to the DMV and preach! And when they throw you in jail, well, how about that!” (He made it sound like it would be the most contemptible and dreaded thing that could happen.) But raising my arms up in an attitude of victory,

I told him joyfully, “Wonderful! That would raise up more and more bold courageous evangelists who would be glad to go to jail for the Gospel!”

He shook his head, as if I did not get his point. He explained, “No! No! We would….” ( he indicated in word and facial expression that the rest of the Christians would be disgusted and look with disdain and embarrassment upon me.)

One of the new beefed up high security city jail cells.

If choosing Truth and faithfulness to the Lord Jesus Christ lands me in jail someday, the Compromising Christians will be ashamed of me. But those who believe the Word and trust and follow Jesus regardless of the consequences, will not be ashamed. I trust that by the Spirit, God will have you either visit me in jail, or else he will move you out on the street, preaching and telling the Gospel, to your joy, and His glory.

Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God.. 2Tim1:8

For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed..2Tim1:12

Listen! Sermon Jam: John Piper UNASHAMED!!

Stuff from Last Week

A week ago Saturday there was a man on the corner holding up a ‘Yes on 8’ sign. It said something about ‘Yes on 8 = religious freedom’. Well I thought, there was a guy who may be open to talking about spiritual things! So we had a long conversation. After asking him to explain to me what the connection is between prop.8 and religious freedom, I started getting into the gospel with him. He happened to be a Mormon, but I did not get into it about the deity of Christ; rather I spoke to him about man’s accountability to God. After going over the gospel with him and talking about sin, righteousness and judgment, and after hearing clearly what are God’s terms (faith in Christ’s alone) and what He does not accept (self righteousness, religious works) he still insisted that it is up to each of us to earn our own salvation through religion, good works, being a good person and keeping God’s Law (by trying hard). I left him happy in his self-righteousness. A seed sower can sow the seed, but it is God alone who makes it sprout unto life and yield a good harvest.

On Friday the kids and I had lunch with relatives in my hometown. Then the we went to a local park. I always thought that I would never witness to anyone in my hometown, mainly because of issues relating to Mark 6:4, “A prophet is not without honor except in his home town and among his own relatives and in his own household.” So I was sitting on a bench, and this 88 year old woman comes and sits next to me and starts talking. She brought up the terrible fate our country seems to be heading towards, and I used that to bring up what is much more important: our relationship to the Holy Creator God. At first she kept referring to sinners as “those people”. After going through the Law and what Jesus said about the spiritual meaning of it, she began to realize that she was in that category, too. She was so happy to hear the gospel. She told me at the end of our conversation that she had been wondering all her life, waiting for someone to explain to her how to be in right relationship with God. She previously thought she must light candles, pray to the saints and hope that works out. Just because we are without honor in our hometown does not mean that God will never have us witness there. And whether we are honored or not, God will be glorified in the end.

Saturday I went to the memorial service for a sweet, adorable little 9 year old boy who died a month ago in a horrible car accident. We knew the boy from cub scouts. The mother, just out of surgery and weeks of intensive care, was in a wheelchair, pushed by her husband. I cannot even fathom the agony they are going through. The United Methodist minister’s message was that “we are all born children of God”. He said “God is able to give us hope”, but he did not say how. His message for the family was that “we (the community) are there as courage, hope and redemption”. After an hour I watched as hundreds of crying people exited the building, still without eternal hope. Many people who enter a church building will never hear the gospel there. That is why God is sending you out into all the world to tell them.

New Spirituality is Hot

New Spirituality is hot right now with Oprah featuring A Course in Miracles lessons on her satellite radio show as well as teaching Ekhart Tolle’s A New Earth on her web class. Then there’s Pope Benedict XVl in the country hosting yet another interfaith conference where he will continue the work of joining Roman Catholicism together with Islam and the rest of the world’s religions, based on “common ground”. We also have the Dalai Lama here with thousands going to him for spiritual enlightenment. Public schools are busing children in to hear him promote the “compassion movement”.

And then we have “from within Christianity”, Rob Bell at the Interspiritual Seeds of Compassion conference referring to the Dalai Lama as “His Holiness”, and redefining death and resurrection for a universalist-friendly crowd. He could have used this incredible opportunity to speak of the true God, sin, righteousness, judgment, the Deity and Lordship of Christ, the cross, the love and grace of God, repentance and faith, but he did not. He blended. Why? New Spirituality is hot! It is “New Paradigm” (even though it has really been around since Genesis). Faith in Jesus as the only way is “Old Paradigm”. The world seeks to evolve to the next level of consciousness: the idea that we are all “one”. The Shift; the global transformation, is rapidly coming to completion. This is the idea that we are all one because we are all god. This is the “Christ consciousness.”

So, are you ready to be different? (Are you different already?) Are you ready to not sign up with the one world religion? Are you ready to endure when you see people who call themselves “Christians” join also? Are you ready to be left out? Are you ready for the pressure to conform? Are you ready for what’s next? The world will bow to the enemy’s New Spirituality; the worship of self as god.

Therefore, take up the full armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Eph.6:13.

Audio: Here’s Jan Markell and Warren Smith discussing New Age & Christian leaders promoting the New Spirituality.

Right Before our Very Eyes

I remember, back when I was a young believer, when it seemed every Christian was passionate for God’s Word, when evangelism was a normal activity, and when false teaching was something that happened out there, hidden in the shadowy world of the New Agers and cults.

Now things are different. The New Agers have gone mainstream; popularizing their occult religion in every venue of our culture, from education to entertainment and the marketplace. What used to be found only in a crystal and incense filled Berkeley bookstore is now openly promoted throughout society. Even the main textbook for the foundation of my college major existed to mainstream the New Age. The world religions, the New Agers, secular humanists and the occult have come out from the underground and have normalized their worldview.

Now things are really different. Now we have many from within Christianity, joining in with what is now called the “New Spirituality”. I remember ten years ago when I walked into a bookstore, and saw a prominent display of John Shelby Spong’s book, Why Christianity Must Change or Die. Yes this was a liberal mainline skeptic’s manifesto. But something was up. Then a few years later he gave us A New Christianity for a New World: Why Traditional Faith is Dying and How a New Faith is Being Born. At that point, I realized that Protestant Christianity had joined with the New Age.

Today, ever increasing numbers of Evangelicals are now joining in with the skepticism, doubt and denial of the Word of God. They are speaking the same words as those in the New Spirituality. They have joined the New Faith. They have joined the One World Religion.

Just like God said would happen, thousands of years ago. We are seeing it unfold now, right before our very eyes.

Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostacy comes first, and the man of lawlesness is revealed, the son of destruction…2Thes.2:3.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths. 2Tim.2:3-4.

But false prophets also arose among the people; just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them… 2Pe.2:1.

“Many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am Christ!’ and will mislead many.” Mark13:6.

And I saw another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spoke as a dragon. And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence. And he makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast…Rev.13:11-12.

Listen: Christian Worldview radio. The merger of modern-day “Christianity” and Evangelicalism with the New Age Movement and Universalism. Laying the groundwork for a world religion and a world leader as predicted in the Bible. This is happening fast and you are seeing what the Bible foretold thousands of years ago.

Chart: Biblical Truth (thesis: the Bible), the transition phase(antithesis: the New Age movement), and the New Spirituality (synthesis: Global Spirituality) compared.

Article: New Spirituality Emerging into One Church for the world.

Article: Bringing Christianity into the One World Religion.

Video: The whole world coming together as One spiritually.