Spiritual Fitness for 2016 – Part 2

hands on Bible

I had the blessing and honor to be back on the Prepper Recon show with my friend Mark Goodwin. This is Part Two of our conversation focused on getting spiritually in shape for 2016. Spiritual fitness will be your most important prep if you intend to face the dark days ahead. To learn more about being spiritually prepared, listen to Dr. Mike’s archived messages from Calvary Chapel Lima.

Click here to listen.

Mike’s Mix For Your Sunday Reading – March 2

Lot’s of interesting articles from around the blog world this week.  Here are a few that I read.

“The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”  Philippians 4:9

If you believe these articles could be helpful for others to read, then love your neighbor as yourself and share it via Facebook, Twitter, or email with the buttons below.

I welcome your reactions and thoughts in the comment section below. Keep your responses mature, reasonable, and constructive.

As always, providing links for your own reading and research is not an endorsement of everything you might find on a site.

Catholicism—Christian? Or Cultic? by Dave Hunt

The evangelical church today is being seduced as never in its history. It faces a danger so grave that, although we have discussed this problem before, it must be addressed again with new insight and vigor. If evangelicals succumb to the seduction, as they increasingly are doing, then their gospel witness will be submerged in confusion and could eventually be lost—a tragic and new dimension to the apostasy from which the church and the world will never recover. Most astonishing and alarming is the fact that (with few exceptions) evangelical leaders and even the major cult watchers refuse to acknowledge this threat. We are therefore compelled to address the subject once again with renewed concern.

For decades evangelicals have diligently and faithfully attempted to identify, analyze and warn the church against cults . Included in the standard list are Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Science, Unity School of Christianity, Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church, etc. Yet the most seductive, dangerous, and largest cult (many times larger than all of the rest combined) is not included in the list! Most cult experts refuse to identify this horrendous cult as such! Instead, they accept it as “Christian.”

Worst of all, this cult (which preaches a false gospel that is sending hundreds of millions into a Christless eternity) is now embraced as a partner in “evangelizing the world” by many groups that preach the biblical gospel. Major denominations, such as the Anglican and the Episcopalian church, are involved in merger talks with this cult. The Assemblies of God hierarchy has been engaged in “fruitful dialogue” with this cult, whose members are now widely perceived as born-again Christians. As a consequence, the evangelical church faces an unprecedented crisis that threatens its very survival.

The above is a severe, solemn, and devastating charge to make—a charge that we have documented in the past and in support of which additional evidence will now be given. We challenge any church leader to a public debate who declares that this assertion is false. If proven wrong, we will publicly repent. But if this accusation is true, then a major shake-up in the evangelical church is required, including repentance by many of its most highly regarded leaders. We solicit your help in providing church leaders with the facts they need to identify this cult—facts of which I [Dave] was ignorant years ago when I, too, failed to identify the Roman Catholic Church as the cult that it is.

What is a “cult?” In his book, Rise of the Cults , Walter Martin defined cultism as “…any major deviation from orthodox Christianity relative to the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith.” Though unmentioned by Martin, Roman Catholicism is undeniably a “major deviation from orthodox Christianity” on many “cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith,” and thus, by his own definition, a cult. Recognition of this fact ignited the Reformation! To deny that Roman Catholicism is a cult is to repudiate the Reformation and mock the millions of martyrs who died at Rome’s hands, as though they gave their lives in vain.

But, says someone, since the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), the Roman Catholic Church no longer teaches and practices what it did at the time of the Reformation. That popular idea is false. To counter the Reformation, Rome’s foremost theologians met from 1545-63 in the Council of Trent. Its Canons and Decrees , which rejected every Reformation doctrine, remain the standard authoritative statement of Roman Catholicism, and adherence thereto is required by Catholic catechisms. Opening Vatican II, Pope John XXIII declared, “I do accept entirely all that has been decided and declared at the Council of Trent.” Vatican II went on to reaffirm Trent’s Canons and Decrees . No, Rome has notchanged since the Reformation—except superficially.

Were Luther, Calvin, and the other Reformers alive today, they would denounce Roman Catholicism as the largest and most dangerous cult on earth! Yet the Christian Research Institute and other counter-cult groups refuse to classify it as a cult. In the above book, Martin emphasized that the five major cults at that time had “a following exceeding 8.5 million persons ….” Yet he overlooked Roman Catholicism’s hundreds of millions!

Answers to Cultists at Your Door presents another example. Its authors, Bob and Gretchen Passantino, are described as “experts in cult research [who] have spent years in countercult ministry” (outside back cover of Witch Hunt ). They include such marks of a cult as the claim that it “is the only organization on earth that is following God’s will” and that its leader is “uniquely chosen by God to lead God’s people” and that it alone “offer[s] the Bible’s ‘true’ interpretation on all matters.” Again, the Roman Catholic Church fully fits all of the criteria. It claims to be the only true church, says that its pope is uniquely chosen to lead all of God’s people, and explains that only its hierarchy can interpret Scripture. Yet the Passantinos, like most other “cult experts,” fail to include Roman Catholicism as a cult, though it meets all their own tests!

Mormons must blindly obey Joseph Smith and his successors, JWs dare not question The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, and other cultists must submit to their leaders. Such authoritarianism is the primary mark of a cult. The same blind submission is required of all Catholics. Canon 212 of Catholicism’s Code of Canon Law requires that Catholics must give absolute obedience to their “sacred pastors.” Vatican II states repeatedly that only Catholicism’s hierarchy can interpret the Bible and that papal pronouncements must be obeyed without question. Canon 333 (Sec. 3) declares, “There is neither appeal nor recourse against a decision or decree of the Roman Pontiff.” Vatican watchdog Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s recent 7,500-word “Instruction” declares that dissent about church teachings cannot be “justified as a matter of following one’s conscience.” No cult demands surrender of mind and conscience more fully or arrogantly than Roman Catholicism.

Roman Catholicism is not only left out of the list of cults by the experts, but it is explicitly approved. For example, in Scripture Twisting , James W. Sire, longtime Editor-In-Chief of InterVarsity Press, defines a cult as having “ doctrines and/or practices that contradict those of the Scriptures as interpreted by traditional Christianity as represented by the major Catholic and Protestant denominations… ” (emphasis his). Sire makes Catholicism a standard of orthodoxy against which cults are to be judged. Yet he accuses the cults of twisting Scripture, a technique of which Rome is surely the ultimate master. Sire indicts Mormonism as a cult for adding other revelations to the Bible—but Rome has added far more new revelations to the Bible than the Mormon Church. Sire declares, “There is no guru class in biblical Christianity, no illuminati, no people through whom all proper interpretation must come”—yet that is exactly the situation in the Roman Catholic Church! How, then, does he make it the standard of orthodoxy?

Consider also The Agony of Deceit published by Moody. Each chapter is written by a leading evangelical about a specific false teaching within today’s church. While Agony mostly repeats much that was found in Seduction of Christianity five years earlier, it is another voice issuing many of the same warnings, for which we are thankful. Yet it, too, whitewashes Roman Catholicism. On page 65 it states, “Traditional Roman Catholicism…hold[s] to biblical inerrancy.” In fact, Catholicism explicitly denies biblical inerrancy! The next sentence does acknowledge that the “messages [of Protestantism and Catholicism] are poles apart,” but moves right on without identifying the vital differences.

Page 111 declares, “The Catholic church resisted the mounting heresies with regard to the Person of Christ, and…Protestants would continue to affirm Catholic Christology.” Again, terribly false! Catholicism’s Christology is heretical. It denies Christ’s exclusive role as mediator between God and man, making Mary “co-mediatrix”; it denies the exclusivity of His redemptive work, making Mary “co-redemptrix” (Vatican II credits Mary with a perpetual “salvific role; she continues to obtain by her constant intercession the graces we need for eternal salvation”); and it denies the sufficiency of His redemptive work, declaring that the redeemed must, in addition to Christ’s suffering for them upon the cross, suffer for their own sins here and/or in purgatory, etc. A great deal more heresy is involved in Catholic Christology, such as presenting Him as perpetually an infant or child subject to His mother, perpetually on the cross—but lack of space prevents further detail. The “Christ” of Roman Catholicism is just as false as its “Mary”—as much “another Jesus” as that of Mormonism or any other cult. Let’s admit it!

Several times in Agony it is stated that Protestants and Catholics embrace the same apostolic creeds. This is a partially true but seriously misleading statement. The implication is that the creeds are an all-encompassing statement of biblical Christianity, which they are not. Furthermore, there is a vast difference between the meaning that Catholics and Protestants attach to what the creeds say. For example, while affirming that Christ “suffered under Pontius Pilate,” Catholicism teaches that His suffering was insufficient. In addition to Christ’s suffering, we must each suffer for our sins in order to be saved. We can even suffer for the salvation of others. (The Apostolic Constitution of Jan. 1, 1967, Indulgentarium Doctrina , #1687, urges Catholics to carry “each one his own cross in expiation of their sins and of the sins of others…assist[ing] their brothers to obtain salvation from God.”) This is rank heresy to Protestants. Yet Agony implies that Catholics mean the same thing as Protestants by the creeds—an inexcusable and deadly error in a book by eminent Christian scholars written to point out errors within the church. Though this and the other books cited above contain much that commends them, their approval of Catholicism is tragically misleading.

The deviation by Catholicism from biblical Christianity goes to the heart of the faith, to salvation itself, and thus affects the eternal destiny of those who are deceived thereby. Roman Catholicism rejects salvation by faith and preaches a false gospel of works that cannot save—salvation is not in Christ but in the Church through submission to its edicts and sacraments. The Basic Catechism of Christian Doctrine calls the sacraments “the chief means of our salvation.”

The first of the seven sacraments is baptism, which is performed upon 98 percent of Catholics as infants. It is declared in Canon 849 to be the means “by which men and women are freed from their sins, are reborn as children of God….” The Basic Catechism declares that baptism “is necessary for salvation…cleanses us from original sin, makes us Christians….” Another sacrament is the Mass, which the Catechismdeclares to be “one and the same Sacrifice with that of the Cross, inasmuch as Christ…continues to offer himself…on the altar, through the ministry of his priests.” Canon 904 states that “the work of redemption is continually accomplished in the mystery of the Eucharistic Sacrifice,” thus denying Christ’s triumphant “It is finished!”

Let me remind you of Hugh Latimer’s last words, spoken through the flames to his companion who was bound to the same stake: “Be of good courage, master Ridley…for we shall by God’s grace this day light such a ‘candle’ in England as I pray shall never go out!” Tragically, the “candle” lit by hundreds of thousands of faithful martyrs burned at the stake, if not already out, is barely flickering and in danger of being snuffed completely. Paul Crouch, head of the largest Christian TV worldwide network, demeans the martyrs by calling the issues they died for mere semantics; and he makes a mockery of the Reformers by declaring orthodox the heresies that sparked the Reformation.

Those who believe Rome’s lies and follow her gospel of works for salvation are lost. Failing to recognize this fact, many evangelical leaders and cult experts have themselves been deceived by Rome and need to be confronted and informed. How tragic to assume that Catholics are Christians who merely have some peripheral beliefs and practices which seem peculiar to Protestants but which will not prevent them from being saved. A false gospel is a false gospel, and it damns those who believe it, whether preached by Mormonism or Catholicism. A cult is a cult. Roman Catholics, like the members of other cults, need to be treated with compassion, warned of cultic lies, and presented with the true gospel, which alone can save them.

If you are concerned about the growing cooperation between Catholic organizations and major evangelical ministries, please write to them and ask where they stand on this critical issue. The questions could be: 1) What is your organization’s position regarding Catholic doctrines? 2) What is your position regarding organizational participation with Catholics in matters of world evangelization? 3) Are you presently either officially or unofficially involved with any Catholic lay or clerical groups or organizations? If so, on what basis…and to what end? 

http://www.thebereancall.org/content/catholicism-christian-or-cultic

Posted by permission of the Berean Call

Article first published in June, 1991

Are We Too Negative? by Dave Hunt

Are We Too “Negative”?

Critics have long leveled the charge of “divisive” and “negative” against those who would warn the church of unbiblical teachings and practices. I prayerfully consider such accusations, for my heart echoes the same concern. I long just to preach the gospel and to put behind me the controversy that has become such an unwelcome part of my life. Yet in preaching the pure gospel one must carefully distinguish it from the clever counterfeits all around.

How negligent it would be not to warn the sheep of poisoned pastures and false shepherds who promote lies in the name of truth. Yet the odds are staggering. Norman Vincent Peale’s magazines, for example, have 16 million readers monthly, many times our small circulation! The flesh faints with weariness and frustration. Then why persist in a task so lonely and burdensome? Yes, why this burning passion ?

There are, thank God, the many letters of encouragement from those who offer their love, support, and prayers. There are, too, the earnest “thank you’s” from the thousands who have been set free from the delusion and bondage of false gospels—from Catholicism and “Christian psychology” to positive/possibility thinking and positive confession. Yet even without any such encouragement we would be compelled to carry on and would urge you to do the same.

Jeremiah was hated, maligned, imprisoned, and threatened with death because he preached repentance and warned of God’s impending judgment when the “positive prophets” promised peace and prosperity “by the word of the Lord.” Popular opinion opposed him. He became so discouraged that he declared that he would no longer speak for God nor even mention His name. But God’s Word was in his heart and burned like a fire in his bones, so that he had to speak (Jer 20). Yes, above all, it is God’s Word burning within that compels us .

Distressed by accusations of “negativism,” I cry out to God and turn to His unfailing Word. And what do I find there? The very message I am constrained to preach! Christ himself was far more “negative” than I have dared to be. He continually warned of judgment and hell, exposed sin, demanded repentance, rebuked the religious leaders and indicted them as hypocrites, whited sepulchers, blind leaders of the blind, fools. Without doubt, He would be banned from most Christian pulpits and media today!

The Sermon on the Mount is not intended to enhance one’s “self-esteem.” It encourages one to be poor in spirit, to mourn, to be meek and merciful, and promises that those who are true to God and His Word will be hated, persecuted, and vilified (Mt 5). But didn’t Jesus say, “Judge not, that ye be not judged” (Mt 7:1)? Isn’t it unbiblical, then, to accuse a Christian leader of any wrong? On the contrary, Christ could only have meant that we were not to judge motives , for He clearly told us to judge teaching and lives: “Beware of false prophets [i.e., teachers]… by their fruits [lives] ye shall know them” (vv. 15-20). Surely He is calling us to judge false doctrine and deeds!

When Paul exhorted Timothy to “preach the word,” he explained that to do so one must “reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine” (2 Tm:4:2). Paul warned of “vain talkers and deceivers…whose mouths must be stopped [from teaching false doctrine].” He urged Titus to “rebuke them sharply” (Ti:1:10-13). He told Timothy, “Them that sin rebuke before all [i.e., publicly], that others also may fear” (1 Tm:5:20). Clearly such reproof requires a judging that does not violate Christ’s prohibition but which, in fact, He commanded and the apostles practiced—a judging which Satan hates because it unmasks his lies.

The International Genocide Treaty signed by President Reagan in November 1988, makes it a crime to try to convert anyone of another religion or to suggest that their beliefs are wrong. It will soon be a serious crime to call homosexuality a sin. The day is coming when, to protect “minority rights,” we will be prohibited by law from preaching the gospel except in the most “positive” manner. Sadly, much of the evangelical church has already conformed.

It is not enough simply to “preach the truth” when there are lies that counterfeit it so closely that many can’t tell the difference. It is both logically and scripturally essential to expose and refute today’s pernicious false gospels. Yet to do so is to be opposed by church leaders and barred from most platforms. I am banned even from such evangelical networks as Moody Radio lest I expose the humanism they promote in the name of “Christian psychology.” Why not allow an open discussion of vital issues before the whole church? Are church leaders concerned for truth—or with protecting their own interests?

“Christian psychology” may seem to help for a time, but it undermines our real victory in Christ by redefining sin as “mental illness.” This heresy inspired a host of new terms such as obsessive-compulsive behavior, dysfunctional families, addiction—and more recently the increasingly popular co-dependency myths and Twelve Step recovery programs spawned by Alcoholics Anonymous. In 12 Steps to Destruction , the Bobgans point out that Bill Wilson, founder of AA, based his system upon what was a revolutionary new theory: that drunkenness was not a “moral defect” but an excusable “illness.” Wilson was relieved to learn that he was an “alcoholic”—a new term at the time.

Enlarging upon this lie, “Christian psychologists” have redefined as mental illness all manner of behavior that Jesus, the Great Physician, diagnosed as sin. John MacArthur tells of hearing a woman call into a “Christian psychology” radio program to confess that she couldn’t keep from having sex with anybody and everybody. She was told that her problem arose from an overbearing mother and milquetoast father and that it was an “addiction” that could take years of therapy to cure. So much for Christ’s “Go, and sin no more” (Jn:8:11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.). Disobeying God is no longer sin if one has a compulsion or addiction or has had a traumatic childhood.

In his book, Our Sufficiency in Christ , MacArthur writes, “The depth to which sanctified psychotherapy can sink is really quite profound. A local newspaper recently featured an article about a 34-bed clinic that has opened in Southern California to treat ‘Christian sex addicts.’ According to the article the clinic is affiliated with a large well-known Protestant church in the area.” Several leading “Christian psychologists” interviewed for the article “scoffed at the power of God’s Word to transform a heart and break the bondage of sexual sin.” The director explained that his treatment center would serve to rescue many Christians who had been taught that “the Bible is all you need.” Yet that is what the Bible itself claims and the entire church believed for 1,800 years until the advent of Christian psychology.

In The Journal of Biblical Ethics in Medicine , Dr. Robert Maddox warns that “all manner of sin…from gluttony to fornication, from stealing to bestiality…is [being] labeled as disease, to be cured with chemical, electrical and mechanical treatments.” The Bobgans also quote from University of California professor Herbert Fingarette’s book, Heavy Drinking: The Myth of Alcoholism as a Disease : “I just don’t understand why any churches would go for the disease idea…[it] denies the spiritual dimension of the whole thing.” They also quote Stanton Peele from his book, Diseasing of America: Addiction Treatment Out of Control:“…disease definitions undermine the individual’s obligations to control behavior and to answer for misconduct…[and] actually increase the incidence of the behaviors of concern.”

How astonishing that as the secular world is abandoning the sinking ship of psychotherapy, Christians are jumping aboard, imagining that this doomed vessel will not only stay afloat but add needed buoyancy to the ark God has provided!

It makes me weep to watch the growing deception, to cry out against it, and to be heeded by so few and opposed by so many. Why is that essential correction, which Scripture so clearly demands, left to a few of us nobodies and shunned by church leaders who would be heeded by millions? Write to the most influential evangelical leaders and ask how they can “preach the Word” without involving themselves in the reproof and rebuke of rampant error that Paul said must be at the very heart of biblical preaching!

Today I received a memo from a researcher who, along with her husband, is among the nobodies crying out against heresy in the church. Her concern was The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning, a Catholic, published by Multnomah Press. In part she said, “Manning teaches…that [a Christian] may continue to live a life of debauchery…describes himself as a [heavy] smoker and someone who became an alcoholic after conversion…wants active homosexuals accepted into full fellowship (p 26) along with other immoral people… teaches an eastern-type meditation (pp 43, 205-206)…twists scripture (pp 23, 28, 73, 173); he says that everyone, but the self-righteous [those that obey God by Manning’s definition], will go to heaven (pp 17, 26, 29)….This book is dangerous…a ploy by a new age Catholic to invade the evangelical church….Christian[s] must be warned that…the once trusted names of Multnomah, Thomas Nelson and Fleming Revell [to name a few] are no guarantee of orthodoxy. What a shame!”

I called her to make certain she hadn’t overstated her case. She read excerpts from the book to prove she had not. Christian publishers can no longer be trusted to publish truth but have become purveyors of death! A dump truck would not have been large enough to haul all of the heresy out of the recent Christian Booksellers convention in Orlando. Even Roman Catholic publishers of the most awful blasphemy and incredible nonsense, such as Paulist Press, were represented alongside evangelicals.

Take, for example, the booth of another Catholic publisher, Our Sunday Visitor . One of their books on display told the story of Padre Pio, a recently deceased Catholic monk admired by Pope John Paul II. Pio manifested the “stigmata,” a bleeding from his palms to make up the deficiency in Christ’s redemptive work on the cross ! Pio believed he was suffering for the salvation of sinners ! He claimed that literally millions of the spirits of the dead, whom he saw with his physical eyes, came to him on their way to heaven to thank him for gaining their release from purgatory! This is only one of Rome’s many heresies . I confronted Sunday Visitor employees concerning the demonic delusion promoted by their books and objected to their presence at a convention of evangelical publishers. They pointed to a nearby booth promoting horrendous, allegedly “Christian” rock music and declared, “We have as much right to be here as they do!” I could only agree.

Mission Frontiers , the bulletin of the U.S. Center for World Mission in Pasadena, California, Vol. 13, No. 4-5, has a biblical passion for world evangelization. In contrast to the Manning/Multnomah justification of smoking, the editorial declared, “Tobacco causes more deaths each year in the United States than heroin, cocaine, alcohol, AIDS, fires, homicides, suicides, and auto accidents combined….More Colombians died last year from smoking American cigarettes than did Americans from using Colombian cocaine.” “Addiction,” or sin?

The editorial also highly commended Pope John Paul II’s recent encyclical on world missions. Disappointment was expressed that the encyclical was “marred by reference at the very end to the idea that…the work of the church is done ‘together with Mary.’” Yet the encyclical was praised and an address given where it could be purchased because it spoke of “people groups,” a term in vogue at the World Center. Sadly, however, 950 million Catholics who need to be evangelized—a special “people group” comprising nearly 20 percent of the world’s population—were overlooked! The editorial, in fact, implied that Catholicism’s evangelism is biblical.

Throughout Central and South America, Catholicism is in the most blatant partnership with spiritism and paganism. In Brazil, I visited Aparecida, the largest cathedral in the world next to St. Peter’s in Rome. It is dedicated to a small idol of a “Black Virgin”—pulled from a nearby lake in a fishing net—which now performs “miracles.” The pope came recently to honor this idol. At the Mass the priest led the people in prayers and songs to the idol, asking it for salvation and dedicating their lives to it. Aparecida’s large bookstore carries many of the same “positive” books that delude Protestants—books in Portuguese by American authors, from Norman Vincent Peale to “Christian psychologists.”

Today’s evangelical leaders shun their duty to oppose heresy. Many of them promote Catholicism, occultism, and humanistic psychology. Therefore we, the nobodies, though few heed us, must cry out even louder to warn the sheep of poisoned pastures and false shepherds. “Positive” or “negative” is not the issue, but rather truth and simple obedience to our Lord and His Word.  Dave Hunt

Originally Published October 1991

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