Joie de Vivre A Wretched Man’s Quest To Follow Jesus Christ

John Piper’s exhortation to constantly make all-out war against temptations that we face, our pride, our fleshly cravings and all-enslaving desires in the sermon featured below definitely spoke to me.

Yes, I am guilty of murmuring and murmuring “oh, how I wish to be free of this” and not do anything concrete about it, much less actually wage war against it!

Perhaps you are a better and more conscientious warrior than I am, but I am sure that there are many like me else we wouldn’t have so much heresy and that many hypocrites in our churches today.

If you are honest about it and have been putting off fighting that giant of a sin — be it pride, sloth, pornography, mean-spiritedness, covetousness, or just about any sin — then I pray you take this as the impetus to begin to make constant war.

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God…

– Ephesians 6:13-17

With reference to the alternate title of this post, it has to do with how the sermon was presented.

If you like how it was set to music, then you might also like how other sermons have been treated in the same fashion by the good folks at 10:31 Sermon Jams. Not all of the treatments are good, but there are gems like the one from John Piper I just linked, aptly titled “WAR”.

There’s another site that does the same thing with some of the better sermons called Relevant Revolution. I haven’t gone through much of their treatments yet, but the one I’ve heard — “Go” by Paul Washer — sounds pretty good.

Shalom Aleichem.

The truth well illustrated.

Illustration ‘The Middle East Crisis’ by daVIDb1.

My thanks go out to Alan at Real Christianity who pointed me to this site where one can pick up theology for free if you choose to study the course materials at your pace, or get a certificate for your effort if you pay the US$100 fee.

It does look like my wife and I will be spending some time studying the courses since we’ve always wanted to go through a course in theology.

As Charles Ryrie put it, every Christian should be a theologian, and most of us are already one even if we don’t realize it. The salient point is whether we are good or sloppy theologians.

Theology is for everyone. Indeed, everyone needs to be a theologian. In reality, everyone is a theologian — of one sort or another. And therein lies the problem. There is nothing wrong with being an amateur theologian or a profession theologian, but there is everything wrong with being an ignorant or sloppy theologian.

– Charles Ryrie
Basic Theology (Wheaton, IL: 1986), 9.

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In case some of you don’t already know, I love listening to Way of the Master (WotM) Radio — I think it’s one of the better Christian radio programs available over the Internet, in addition to White Horse Inn.

A feature of the daily two-hour broadcasts on WotM is street evangelism, when they share the evangelism experience with listeners.

I’ve been listening to the station for some time now, and I think this is one of the most touching and encouraging evangelism experiences I’ve heard — it reminds me of two important points when it comes to sharing our faith:

1. Never judge a book by its cover, and don’t be intimidated by tattoos, chains and spiky hairstyles on people, or just their outward appearances. In all honesty, most times we tend to think such folks bite and will chase us away with their fists, mock our attempts, or just won’t bother to listen.
2. Don’t count on your ’strengths’ to convince the person. Present the Gospel and let the Holy Spirit do the work in convicting the hearts of those who have heard the Good News.

Listen as Ray Comfort (that’s him in the picture) talks to Brad:

Source: “Way of the Master Hour 1.” Way of the Master Radio. 18 Feb. 2008 <http://www.wayofthemasterradio.com/podcast/2008/02/18/february-18-2008-hour-1/>.

Over the last few days I have been led to read more of the harms of the prosperity gospel and its effects on ordinary Christians like you and me. I don’t specifically look out for these accounts, but I believe God has led me to read them and warn others.

Some are really heart-wrenching accounts where families have lost loved ones and almost everything they owned. In the end, I can only conclude that the prosperity gospel not only takes away all that one has materially and turn one’s life on its head, but, more dangerously, it can also take away lives of those who trust in the falsehoods!

In one such instance that is very well-documented, let me share with you the account from the Parker family.

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Florida Pastor Issues 30-Day Sex Challenge for Congregation

A Florida church has issued a challenge to all singles and married couples in the congregation — that singles go without sex for 30 days while married couples go at it everyday for the same period.

I don’t know about you but I think somehow there’s an implication that the church doesn’t bat an eyelid about singles having sex after those 30 days.

“Our married people are far more fearful than our single people,” said Paul Wirth, the pastor.

As well they should be! Run, Forrest, run!

In other news, this is interesting to me because of my own take on Biblical prophecy:

Rome’s Mayor: UN and Pope For ‘United Religion’

Walter Veltroni today resigned as mayor of Rome to focus exclusively on his campaign to become Italy’s prime minister in the April national election. In his goodbye to the press, Veltroni talked about “a place where religions can meet and talk”.

No prizes for guessing correctly where that might be: Rome.

“I have discussed the idea to make Rome a place where a building could be constructed that would be called ‘United Religion’ with the secretary-general of the UN and the Pope; it would be a place for all religions in the world. I would like to see this idea carried out and to see this place of exchange between several religions”.

HT: Watcher’s Lamp.

Photo “This Kiss” by Rachel Sian.

Perhaps some of you are thinking that after starting the ball rolling on a rather loud debate on the prosperity gospel, judging, discernment, motives, etc, I’m really ’smart’ to keep away and just let things roll while  not saying a word.

The fact of the matter is that I didn’t want to respond to every comment because there’s no point in doing so — the final message gets fragmented into so many comments so much so that the crux of the matter is lost somewhere along the reply to a reply to a reply…

The other fact is that I’ve been doing quite a good amount of thinking, following several comments to the post and personal emails to me addressing the issue.

And I think I’ve come to the point where I think I’m ready to take this issue of why I am doing what I am doing forward to its next level. Initially, I had thought of closing the comments on the last post on the false teachers with a last comment from me (since its my prerogative as its my blog after all, right?), but I thought a post would be better.

Let me therefore lay it all out for you as to my position. Just a disclaimer before we continue: if I quote you on your comment in a negative light, it is NOT an attack on you. Continue Reading