Ten Lies

Jr., in an article entitled “Ten Lies of the Devil The World Believes About Bruce Jenner” writes:

The devil is resourceful and hard working. There is no temptation he will not use, no stratagem too tiny to try us with. He does, however, have a few areas he specializes in. He is called Satan because he is an expert at making accusations. He delights to accuse us when we are innocent, and when we are guilty. He is also a murderer and has been from the beginning. Those who hate Him, we are told, love death (Proverbs 8:36). He is also not just a liar, but the father of lies (John 8:44). When we hear a lie we ought to smell sulfur. Every lie has his hoof prints on it. Of late the broader culture has been rather frantic in telling and believing lies with respect to Bruce Jenner, and we Christians too often face the temptation to believe them. Here are ten we must never give in to.

10. Bruce Jenner has become Caitlyn Jenner. No, Bruce Jenner has hired doctors to mutilate his body and present the lie that he is now a woman. He is a man.

9. Gender is a social construct that can be chosen at will. No. From the beginning He has made us man and woman.

8. If our feelings don’t match reality, reality will have to change. I don’t dispute that Bruce Jenner wishes to be a woman. But what needs to change is his wish, not the immutable reality he has found himself in.

7. Having our desires “met” will make us happy. No, repenting and believing on the Lord Jesus Christ will make us joyful. The One who designed us gives us His law not to make us miserable, but to show us the way of life. His law is always and everywhere an invitation to joy, not a burden to be carried. If it feels like a burden to us, we must change, not it.

6. Failing to celebrate the mutilation of Bruce Jenner’s body, and failure to affirm the lie that he is now Caitlyn is mean-spirited, narrow and cruel. No, sin is never something to be celebrated, and to be against something is no more narrow-minded than to be for something. One wise friend recently pointed out the irony that it is Christians who prefer the real Bruce Jenner to the faux one, and his purported friends who prefer the fake to the real.

5. Bruce Jenner’s change is no one’s business but his own. No, public decisions have public consequences. It’s true enough that we have plenty of our own sins to worry about. It’s true enough that Christians have no need to hunt down hidden sexual perversion to shout it down. I am honestly not interested in what people wear in the privacy of their own homes. But Bruce has made his choices the world’s business by seeking the world’s attention, appearing on national television and on the cover of a national magazine.

4. Non-Christians are bad people who do this kind of thing and Christians are good people. No, apart from the grace of God in our own lives we’d find ourselves in the same mess or worse as Mr. Jenner. Even with his grace we yet struggle against and fall into sin.

3. Homosexuality is the same as any other sin. No, not all sins are the same. All sins are rebellion against the living God and are due His eternal wrath. But that doesn’t make them all equally rebellious or equally evil.

2. Homosexuals just want to be left alone to do their own thing in private. No, homosexuals insist that the rest of the world approve of their sin. And many are more than willing to use the force of the state to make it happen, whether through indoctrination at the government’s schools, or intimidation through its courts.

1. God will be mocked. No, God will not be mocked. The unsurpassed swift embrace of sexual perversion in the broader culture isn’t a surprise to Jesus. Rather, even as He ordained the rise of Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar for our good and His glory, so He has ordained even this. He will use it for His purposes.

We must guard our minds against the devil’s lies. And we must not lose heart. Jesus always wins.

My Journey out of the Word of Faith

is PASTOR JOHN SAMSON of King’s Church in Peoria, AZ (see www.KingsChurchAZ.com & www.EffectualGrace.com) to discuss his JOURNEY OUT OF THE WORD OF FAITH MOVEMENT INTO REFORMED THEOLOGY. John was not only once a “Word of Faith” preacher but also a TALK HOST on the “Word of Faith” movement’s TV oasis, the Trinity Broadcasting Network, before realizing, abandoning & repenting of his heretical ways.

John has filled-in as guest host for Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries on a number of occasions on his “Dividing Line” broadcast, and is the author of “Twelve What Abouts: Answering Common Objections Concerning God’s Sovereignty in Election”.

Back in September 2014, I hosted Dr. James White’s “Dividing Line” Broadcast and discussed something of my journey out of the word of faith movement.

The Lord’s Day = Sunday

Matt 28:1 Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2 And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. 4 And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. 5 But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.

1 Cor 16:1 Now concerning the collection for the saints: as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. 2 On the first day of every week (Sunday), each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come.

There are some in our day who suggest that Sunday worship is something that was entirely unknown among Christians until the time of Emperor Constantine (272 – 337 AD), and make the claim that its religious roots are entirely pagan. However, the facts of history totally negate this theory. In celebration of Christ’s resurrection, the early Church moved the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday (the first day of the week), calling it “the Lord’s day.”

Here are some quotes from the early Church:

The Didache – “But every Lord’s day . . . gather yourselves together and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure. But let no one that is at variance with his fellow come together with you, until they be reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be profaned.” (Didache 14 [A.D. 70])

The Letter of Barnabas – “We keep the eighth day [Sunday] with joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus rose again from the dead.” (Letter of Barnabas 15:6–8 [A.D. 74])

Ignatius of Antioch – “Those who were brought up in the ancient order of things [i.e. Jews] have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s day, on which also our life has sprung up again by him and by his death.” (Letter to the Magnesians 8 [A.D. 110])

Justin Martyr – “But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Savior on the same day rose from the dead.” (First Apology 67 [A.D. 155])

The Didascalia – “The apostles further appointed: On the first day of the week let there be service, and the reading of the holy scriptures, and the oblation, because on the first day of the week [i.e., Sunday] our Lord rose from the place of the dead, and on the first day of the week he arose upon the world, and on the first day of the week he ascended up to heaven, and on the first day of the week he will appear at last with the angels of heaven.” (Didascalia 2 [A.D. 225])

Athanasius – “The Sabbath was the end of the first creation, the Lord’s day was the beginning of the second, in which he renewed and restored the old in the same way as he prescribed that they should formerly observe the Sabbath as a memorial of the end of the first things, so we honor the Lord’s day as being the memorial of the new creation.” (On Sabbath and Circumcision 3 [A.D. 345])

“For the Christian, every Lord’s Day is to be a celebration of the resurrection of Christ.” – R.C. Sproul

Here’s Dr. John MacArthur addressing the subject: