Homosexuality & A People Abandoned By God!

John MacArthur speaks the plan truth about what happens to a nation when God abandons them… watch this video and listen to this somber warning from one of the leading Pastor and Theologians of our day.

When God Abandons A Nation

John Piper also posted an insightful article on gay marriage today titled: “My Eyes Shed Streams of Tears”— Thoughts on the New Calamity

In this article Piper writes:

My main reason for writing is not to mount a political counter-assault. I don’t think that is the calling of the church as such. My reason for writing is to help the church feel the sorrow of these days. And the magnitude of the assault on God and his image in man.

Christians, more clearly than others can see the tidal wave of pain that is on the way. Sin carries in it its own misery: “Men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error” (Romans 1:27).

And on top of sin’s self-destructive power comes, eventually, the wrath of God: “sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming” (Colossians 3:5–6).

What is even more troubling to me than what Piper writes is what Romans 1:28 says about those who embrace Homosexuality… “God gave them over to a reprobate mind”

Most Christians think that God is going to Judge us for embracing/normalizing Homosexuality at some point in the future… While that is true, there is more going on here than that.

This verse (Romans 1:28) tells us that Homosexuality is a result of God’s judgment already being poured out on a people. Notice how that first “God gave them over…” then we find the results of that abandonment by God is a people who embrace Homosexuality.

Piper is right to warn us of “the sorrow of these days” in which we now live.

Grace for the Journey,

The Gay Agenda's Assault on Religious Liberty

The Baptist Press is reporting today that N.Y.'s new Gay Marriage law makes no provision to protect the Rights of an "Individuals" Personal Religious Liberty: (See B.P. article here)

In fact, this new law all but guaranties that the Religious Liberty rights of private business owners and their employees in certain businesses in the state of New York will be… “Voided” by activist Liberal Judges in the state. The B.P. article linked to above reports “if you have a private adoption agency that is not overtly religious but believes they want to adopt kids out only to moms and dads -- they're not covered.”

The B.P. article goes on to say: “It does not protect, for example, a bed and breakfast owner who is using their own private personal property in the type of intimate setting that a bed and breakfast is. It does not protect licensed professionals. For example, it does not protect counselors. It also does not protect lawyers -- you may have a family law attorney who does not want to do a same-sex divorce because of their deeply held religious beliefs. It does not protect fertility doctors who may have a strict belief and only want to help [heterosexual] married couples because they believe a kid deserves both a mom and a dad.”

In other words, it does absolutely nothing to protect the “Personal Religious Liberty Rights” of the private citizen of the state of New York.

In seeking to grant “Special Rights” to one group of its citizens, the State of New York has chosen to strip another group of its citizens of their rights to say no based upon their personal religious objections. I wonder what the founding fathers of this nation would say, not to the issue of Gay Marriage, but to the assault on the "Religious Liberty" of the "Private Citizen" that this new law represents.

Grace for the Journey,

Receiving God's Word with Joy!

Friends, watch this video and see the joy as the Kimyal people group of Papua, Indonesia welcome the arrival of the New Testament in their language.

This is so powerful!!!

Dr. Mohler (vs) Peter Lumpkins: Do the Clothes make the Man?

Dave over at SBC-Voices appears to have gotten a little squeamish over me and others raising the issue of Peter Lumpkins (P-Lump's) appearance and dress at the SBC convention last week. So I will post it on my blog where I have no issue with such a discussion taking place.

I have always been told that how a man dresses says a lot about the man, and that both men and women dress to communicate a message to those who see them.

Watch the following video and tell me what your response is to the dress, appearance, and demeanor of both men.

YouTube - Al Mohler Responds To Peter Lumpkins

Would you like a little cheese with that “Grape Juice?”

I must admit that sometimes I get a little irritated by these guys who insist that Jesus never turned the water of John chapter 2 into wine, but actually turned the water into grape juice.

Here is a short reply I posted over on SBC-Voices a little while ago addressing this issue. I share it here only because, until someone (anyone) addresses the issue I raise here concerning the trustworthiness of our Bible Translators then I really am not at all interested in discussing this issue with them.

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David,

Please look up the word “Wine” in any/every English Dictionary… What does it/they say?

Now look it up in any/every English Translation of the Bible… What does it/they say?

If you are correct then every English Bible Translator that has ever lived has gotten it massively wrong… and we need a new Bible.

For me, I think I will trust that all those English Bible Translators are not wrong… Just saying!

Grace for the Journey,

"Great Commission Giving" Affirmed By SBC

Mark Kelly at Baptist Press reports that seven recommendations from the SBC Executive Committee were approved by messengers during the opening session of the SBC annual meeting in Phoenix on June 14, 2011. Of the seven recommendation approved at this year’s convention, four were related to the "Great Commission Resurgence Task Force Report" that was adopted at the 2010 annual meeting in Orlando, Fla. I only want to mention just one; “Great Commission Giving”.

Here is the recommendation that was approved by the messengers to the convention:

-- Adding a new Annual Church Profile reporting category called "Great Commission Giving" to highlight each church's financial commitment to Southern Baptist mission enterprises. The recommendation also reaffirmed the Cooperative Program as "the most effective means" of missions outreach and asked churches to increase their Cooperative Program contributions by 2.5 percent of undesignated receipts by the end of the 2013 calendar year.

If you listened to the “Doomsday Bloggers” here, here, and here... you would come away thinking that affirming "Great Commission Giving" in the SBC would be the death of the Cooperative Program. It is quite refreshing to see that the vast majority in the SBC do not agree, and that the vast majority of Southern Baptist believe that we should celebrate "All" that our churches are doing to fulfill the Great Commission.

Today is a very good day in the SBC!!!

Grace for the Journey,

Help Feed The Children of Belize

I need your help. You can feed a child without giving a dime!

We made our International Servants FaceBook page last night. For every LIKE we get within the next 2 weeks, a donor has pledged to donate $1 to our Feed-A-Child program in Belize. $1 will feed 2 children that day!

Go to: http://www.Facebook.com/InternationalServants then click the LIKE button. Please also click the SHARE button, it will enable you to post a link to our page to your Facebook wall.

Grace for the Journey,

Motion to be made to form GCR study committee | The Pathway

It is being reported on "The Pathway" web site that a motion will be made at the SBC Convention this coming week to "study the GCR Task Force Report"...

I would be very interested in knowing who will be speaking to this motion, and who will be speaking at the meeting prior to the convention at the Hyatt Hotel in Phoenix to discuss their strategy... That information will tell me all I need to know about this motion...

I don't have the facts yet, but I would be highly surprised if this is not an attempt by the ANTI-Great-Commission-Resurgence folks (yes they are still out there) to kill or hinder the work of the GCR in the SBC. Regardless of the vote in Orlando last year these folks just can't get over the fact that they lost this issue and move on.

Below is the full article from "The Pathway" web site:

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PHOENIX – A group of conservatives intend to make a motion Tuesday at the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) annual meeting in Phoenix calling for the creation of a committee to study various aspects of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force report.

It is not known who will make the motion, but it is being supported initially by about 100 messengers. Those messengers are scheduled to discuss the motion and other issues before the SBC at a public meeting, 5 p.m., Monday, at the Hyatt Hotel across from the Phoenix Convention Center. Current and past SBC leaders are scheduled to speak as well.

The motion states, “that the Convention create a special committee to be called the Unity Committee, to review, evaluate and make recommendations about perceptions and realities about the impact and implementation of the GCR Task Force Report during the past year by SBC entities, state conventions and related organizations and networks, that the committee bring a report and recommendations to the 2012 SBC annual meeting; and that the Committee be comprised of 21 members to be appointed by the President, fully representational of Southern Baptists and that the minutes, records and proceedings from the Committee’s meetings and work be open to the Southern Baptist public and available to all Southern Baptists no later than 12 months after it has given its report to the SBC.”

BY STAFF Motion to be made to form GCR study committee | The Pathway

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Wade Burleson: Now Is the Summer of Our Discontent: The 21st Century Demise of the SBC

The 2011 Annual Meeting for the Southern Baptist Convention officially begins next Tuesday morning, June 14, 2011. Membership in SBC churches has decreased for five years in a row, dropping 500,000 members since 2005. Attendance at this year's Southern Baptist Convention will be the lowest in nearly five decades, struggling to reach 5,000 in attendance. What has happened to the SBC?

There may be as many postulated reasons for the precipitous decline in the SBC as potential messengers in Phoenix next week. From my own personal experiences with the inner workings with the SBC I offer five reasons why the SBC is perilously close to becoming purely irrelevant. It is possible for changes to occur to prevent the SBC from her imminent and ultimate demise, but it will require immediate and effective leadership, something not yet demonstrated at any level of the SBC. The five reasons for decline are:

(1). The demonization of disagreement.

When we conservative evangelicals spend more time defining why other people are theologically wrong rather than powerfully living out the gospel of Jesus Christ, we construct our own platform for decline. The fanatical attempts to demonize other evangelicals who express a desire to cooperate with the Southern Baptist Convention in church planting and missions--a demonization due to perceived disagreements over secondary issues--guarantees the demise of the SBC.

(Continued in the link below)

Wade Burleson: Now Is the Summer of Our Discontent: The 21st Century Demise of the SBC

Screwtape on the Southern Baptist Convention

My dearest Wormwood,

Though it gives me no pleasure to do so, I must tip my hat to you for the wonderful developments you have initiated in regards to the Southern Baptist Convention.

Surely you need no reminder of the perilous situation we were facing in the not-too-distant past. I had nearly come to the conclusion that all hope was lost. But alas, you surprise me, dear nephew! You have done it again. (It is obvious that I have taught you well.) I do hope you will keep up the bad work.

Still, there is much work to be done.

Remember that arrogance and pride is your greatest inroad into the Convention.

(continued in the link below)

Screwtape on the Southern Baptist Convention