Monthly Archives: June 2017

Can Faith Forestall Death and Give You Longer Life?

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Here’s a recent article (original source here) written by my pastor friend in Kenya, Elly Achok Olare:

CAN FAITH FORESTALL DEATH AND GIVE YOU LONGER LIFE?

I pose this question because of a post I read from a Facebook conversation. The person wrote among other things this statement which we wish to investigate in the light of scripture.

“The reason as to why God brought Jesus on the scene is to restore us to longevity even though it is a choice based on an individuals level of knowledge and understanding (Hosea 4:6)”.

This is an extremely startling statement, but sadly one that is representative of the majority report within the faith movement. It is lethal because it paints Jesus ‘in good light’ our knight in shining armor-sentiments which easily resonate with the scripturally ignorant majority. It is not an innocent statement when it is marinated in proof texts – illegitimately pressed beyond their proper hermeneutics.

What this person is saying, in not so many words, is that longevity of life depends upon your level of knowledge. If you die in-car crash as have many good people from the word of faith movement, and HERE I CALL ATTENTION TO DR. MYLES MUNROE who crashed with a private plane close to 2 years ago. Well…says this logic, his premature death (by the way what is premature or mature death?), was due to His knowledge and understanding. Or the late Dr. Paul Crouch, the great founder and proprietor of Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), who died of cancer as well.

So to be honest, this faith, this knowledge and understanding is not working very well for its adherents does it? Sooner or later the strongest faith preachers reckon with sickness and disease just like the rest of ‘mere mortals’. They soon come to terms with the naked reality they have been fighting to rebuke, declare and confess away-they all soon die, many at a relatively young age.

The illusion is just that -illusion, it’s a fairy tale sold to millions who fear death and are desperate to cling to some kind of hope. It is palatable to those who are not sure of the life hereafter and would cling to this one as long as possible. Why would one embrace the fact of their death when they have no idea what the other side of life portents for them? The other side is a scary unknown for many and the maximum they are likely to embrace is the one offered in disguised forms by the faith movement.

Joel Osteen would call it “your best life now”. As Pastor John MacArthur has observed “For those outside Christ, this is indeed your best life…because an eternity of untold torment in the lake of fire awaits you on the other side when God unleashes His unmitigated wrath on you. This is what the Rich man in Luke 16:19-23, found out. However for those who trusted truly in the redeemer this is your worst life, your master Himself tells you “in this world you will have many troubles .” The Apostles who bore the Gospel that saved you are united in their testimony that your life here on this earth will be full of sorrows and pain and hurt and suffering (Romans 8:18-23, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, 2 Corinthians 12:7-10).

For those redeemed by the sin atoning blood of the lamb like Apostle, the faith message is ridiculous. They say “to die is gain…for to be absent in the body is to be present with the Lord (which is far more preferable). This is a mindset that is at stark variance with the faith preachers, it has to be because it a language of children of zoonotic, not children of Babylon, it is the speech of the future glory, not one of present material aggrandizement.

Our forefathers in Africa lived much longer than the word of faith preachers yet their knowledge and understanding of scripture was very low, in many cases zero. On a comparative scale, I would say the knowledge of foods and herbs my forefathers had served them better than this faith serves its adherents. Conventional medicine does a whole lot better than the word of faith prescription .Most of the big names of this movement I know of suffer from one terminal illness to another (they do a great Job of hiding it from the public, but make no mistake, these men fall I’ll like the rest of us).

We know Benny Hinn struggles with a heart disease. Creflo Dollar was recently diagnosed with a cancer and the list goes on. Of course their convenient teaching allows them to lie in the name of faith by what is called “positive confession” (itself a justification for living in denial or simply outright lie).These men and women have the best doctors in the world looking after them, doctors procured by the large amounts they solicit for In terms faith seed. They ask you to depend upon a system they themselves don’t depend upon. It is to say the least treacherous and hypocritical.

HERE IS A QUESTION, is there any faith preacher (even the greatest of them like Kenneth Hagin) who does not age? Do their skins wear out and sag? Does white hair come upon their heads? Do they lose steadily the agility of youth like all humans? Do they get to menopause or sterility? Does their strength fail and voices distort with age? Do they get a point where they eyes fail, eye muscles weaken and they have need of reading glasses? If your answer is yes (in whatever format) that’s what is called the process of death. Death works in and on us while we live-we are dying while we live. Death is in that respect natural and native to all humans since the Fall of man. Continue reading →

The Regulative Principle of Worship (Article Series)

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What follows is a very helpful series of articles by Dr. Ligon Duncan, written in July 2014 at his blog of ligonduncan.com:

Why how we worship matters
July 12, 2014

Protestants have always believed that how we worship, the manner of our public worship, matters. The main reason for this is because Protestants believe that the Bible itself, in both the Old and New Testaments, commands a number of important things about how we are to conduct ourselves in gathered worship.

There are, of course, historical reasons for this interest in the manner, or how, of public worship as well. For instance, the Protestant reformers believed that the way you worship actually influences and reinforces what you believe. That is one reason they were so interested in reforming the worship practices of the church in their day. They did not believe that you could make a Protestant with Roman Catholic worship. More deeply, they believed that much of Roman Catholic worship was unbiblical (and that it undermined the Gospel), and hence they wanted to reform congregational worship according to the Bible. Indeed, John Calvin said that there were two main issues at stake in the reformation: biblical worship and justification by faith (in that order!). So, for Calvin, how we worship is no small matter.

But isn’t focusing on “how” we worship a little legalistic? Worship is a matter of the heart, right?, and so doesn’t focusing on the outward manner of worship get us off on the wrong track. Well, I hear that objection and I am not unsympathetic to its concerns. Externalism and formalism are both serious problems when in comes to public worship. Certainly the Bible vigorously and extensively condemns hypocritical external piety and shows a prime concern for the state of our hearts in approaching God. But the Bible also show a serious concern about the manner of our worship. Heart and form need not be set in opposition. The Bible shows an interest in both.

Furthermore, Protestants are not concerned with the manner, or how, of worship, with the forms and circumstances of public praise, simply for their own sake, but for the sake of the object and aim of worship.

In other words, Protestants understand that there is an inseparable connection between way we worship and whom we worship. It has often been said that the Bible’s teaching on idolatry shows that we become like what we worship, but it also indicates that we become like how we worship, because the how and the who of worship are linked.

The Protestant reformers (from whom we have learned much about Scripture) understood two things often lost on moderns. First, they understood that the liturgy (the set forms of corporate worship), media, instruments and vehicles of worship are never neutral, and so exceeding care must be given to the “law of unintended consequences.” Often the medium overwhelms and changes the message.

Second, they knew that the purpose of the elements and forms and circumstances of corporate worship is to assure that you are actually doing worship as it is defined by the God of Scripture, that you are worshiping the God of Scripture and that your aim in worshiping Him is the aim set forth in Scripture.

So the Protestant approach to liturgy (not a word Calvin liked, but by it we simply mean: the order of service) is based on this foundation. Protestants care about how we worship not because we think that liturgy/order of service is prescribed, mystical or sacramental, but precisely so that the order of service can assist and get out of the way of (rather than distract and impede) the gathered church’s communion with the living God. The function of the order of service is not to draw attention to itself but to aid the soul’s communion with God in the gathered company of the saints by serving to convey the word of God to and from God, from and to His people. Continue reading →

The Regulative Principle of Worship

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A Banner of Truth article by Terry Johnson (original source here)

Jesus rejects the worship of the Pharisees saying their worship was futile because they were teaching their doctrines rather than God’s doctrines. They were worshiping according to their will rather than according to His will.

In Taylors, South Carolina on March 11th 2003, the Rev. Mr. Terry Johnson, Senior Minister at Independent Presbyterian Church in Savannah, Georgia, opened the spring theology conference for Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary with an address on the Regulative Principle of Worship (RPW).

A minister in Central Georgia Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), Mr. Johnson began with the subject of the importance of worship, stating, “You can make a case that there is a true sense that the whole Bible is the story of the establishment of the true worship of the true God.” Citing John 4:22, Mr. Johnson proceeded to defend the biblical basis for the regulative principle.

Because the whole Old Testament is in a sense the story of the establishment of the true worship of the true God, Biblically there could be no more important subject, and certainly that is also true of our Reformed tradition.

Carlos Eire, in his War Against the Idols, reminds us that the central focus of the Protestant Reformation was this very issue. Furthermore, the Puritans and the British monarchs battled over it for 100 years, and today the importance of worship is being underscored again. Continue reading →