Gospel River Association

Not A Weak Willow Tree Next To A Creek

Marching Toward The Flames…But Entertained

Written By: GospelRiverAdmin - Apr• 30•12

Seeker sensitive church is little more than psychologically entertaining medicine for those needing something to make their lives better while they march toward the flames of eternal separation from an infinitely just God.  God’s Word will not-cannot fail.  Justice must be carried out and there are only two options: 1. Justification through repentance and faith alone, in Christ alone…or…2. Eternal separation from God.  Now, most seeker sensitive churches would have you believe that this is not as bad as it seems.  Go to almost any seeker driven church website and you will be hard pressed to find a complete biblical account of eternal separation.   They usually down play this doctrine and leave out the strong punishment aspect.   If they actually use the word Hell it is softened.  In fact, I just looked at a seeker church website and they use the word Hell and only mention separation from God.  Then they end the paragraph (short one on this subject I might add) with eternal union with God is heaven.  They make sure that the positive taste is left in the readers mouth.  If they are offended by the previous Hell statement  they are left with the focus of Heaven.

In regard to sin here is something you should expect to see on their websites.  Talking about sin…”This attitude separates people from God and causes many problems in life”.  Problems in life?   Have they read the Bible?  People who have not been justified by the blood of Jesus Christ are more repulsive to a Holy God than they can possibly imagine.   As stated above, God’s Word WILL NOT- CANNOT FAIL!  Justice must be satisfied and that only comes from God imputing Christ’s Righteousness to those who respond to the Gospel in faith (faith God gives them).  The Gospel is not even connected to how you can have a better life.  The Gospel is how your life and everything about it is repulsive to God and you must fall on the mercy of God provided in Christ’s death.  Christ rose from the dead in victory over sin and death to provide eternal life to those who repent and believe.   The seeker driven church knows nothing of this.  They are depending on some psychology of man to make people happy with God so they can build a larger church.  When we finally see how wicked our sin is before God, then the name Jesus starts to mean something.  This only comes from God’s Holy Spirit convicting us of our wickedness.  Dead men cannot hear, Dead men cannot feel, Dead men cannot see, Dead men cannot do anything to move toward God.  That is the reason this seeker stuff is absolute nonsense.  If the Gospel in the Word of God is not preached, there is nothing to quicken the dead person’s soul to receive the Gospel.

If you are in one of these seeker churches and you are not uncomfortable with the messages, you are very likely not a Christian.  There is no hope for you except the Gospel of Jesus Christ convicting you of your sin, God’s righteousness and God’s judgement of your sin.  I would suggest you pickup your bible and allow God’s Word to speak to your dead soul.  Read the Book of Roman’s and pray “Dear God please speak to me.  I have no conviction about the wickedness of my sin.  I need your help to convict me.  Please, God, speak to me through your perfect Word and reveal the true Gospel to me”.   If you are in one of these seeker churches and you are not bothered by the messages,   God help you!  Salvation is a miracle on the order of the creation of the universe.  You need a miracle.  Pray for a miracle.

 

New Book (“Falsified”) About The Wicked Seeker Driven Church

Written By: GospelRiverAdmin - Apr• 30•12

I heard Vince and Lori Williams on the Janet Mefford show today.  Janet was interviewing them about their new book “Falsified”. Vince and Lori were both falsely converted and did not realize it like millions of individuals in seeker driven churches all over the U.S. I applaud their efforts and pray that this book will help a few more souls realize that they are lost and are just being entertained in these consumer driven churches.

http://vinceandloriministries.blogspot.com/

My Heart Is Filled With Thankfulness

Written By: GospelRiverAdmin - Apr• 20•12

Our fine music minister has been having us sing this modern hymn at church.  I find myself singing and humming it throughout the day.

Lyrics Here and Kristyn Getty (her husband and Stuart Townend wrote it) singing it below:

My heart is filled with thankfulness
To Him who bore my pain;
Who plumbed the depths of my disgrace
And gave me life again;
Who crushed my curse of sinfulness
And clothed me in His light
And wrote His law of righteousness
With pow’r upon my heart.

My heart is filled with thankfulness
To Him who walks beside;
Who floods my weaknesses with strength
And causes fears to fly;
Whose ev’ry promise is enough
For ev’ry step I take,
Sustaining me with arms of love
And crowning me with grace.

My heart is filled with thankfulness
To him who reigns above,
Whose wisdom is my perfect peace,
Whose ev’ry thought is love.
For ev’ry day I have on earth
Is given by the King;
So I will give my life, my all,
To love and follow him.

“My Heart Is Filled with Thankfulness”
Words and Music by Keith Getty & Stuart Townend
Copyright © 2003 Thankyou Music

Stanley Hauerwas On The Modern Church

Written By: GospelRiverAdmin - Mar• 13•12

Stanley Hauerwas (Duke University professor in multiple roles) grew up in Pleasant Grove (Dallas, Texas Suburb)…my stomping grounds.  I do not know much about him but his theology likely does not coincide with mine.  Phil Johnson (Pyromanics blog) posted this video today and stated that he hated to quote Stanley approvingly on his blog but had to agree with him on this church growth issue among evangelicals.  That is, evangelicals in the church growth movement think that they get to make God and Christianity up.  We have all been saying this is foolishness and a liberal guy is stating the same thing.  Smart guy in this sense.

Catalyst Dallas

Written By: GospelRiverAdmin - Mar• 13•12
If you want to throw a portion of what you know about the Bible out the window to reach the culture so you can grow your church on man-centered methods, attend Catalyst Dallas. The lineup is a plethora of purpose driven types (why are you there Matt Chandler?) and the event itself is at a Willow Creek Association church. If you have to tweak the message to reach the people the message will always be tweaked until the message is no longer the message! Look at the description provided…powerful leaders, world changers…who see things differently. If you have a group of supposed christian’s saying they see things differently, there might be a problem.

www.catalystdallas.com

Catalyst is a powerful gathering of young leaders, a movement of influencers and world changers who love Jesus, see things differently, and feel a burden for our generation. We seek to learn, worship and create together with a momentous energy passionately pursuing God.

John MacArthur on Multi-Site Video Pastoring

Written By: GospelRiverAdmin - Mar• 09•12

Rick Warren’s Gospel Ship Has Sailed

Written By: GospelRiverAdmin - Mar• 07•12

Ken Silva and Jim Hinch have done their homework but Rick Warren is such a chameleon that he will never admit that what he is doing is heresy.  Between the Purpose Driven nonsense, signing A Common Word Between Us, and now this.  I believe it is time to write Rick Warren off.  If he is not fully apostate, he has gone way too far at this point to consider him as a credible witness for the Gospel of Christ.

Good ole Ed Stetzer came to Rick’s rescue in this matter.  What that tells me is what I already thought of Ed.  That is, he should not be overseeing our SBC publishing arm.  Ed seems to be okay with any means necessary to spread the Southern Baptist Convention.  This is mere cultic influence and not to the Glory of God.

See Ken Silva’s numerous articles on this subject at www.apprising.org   

Another Harvest Bible Chapel Pulls Out of HBF

Written By: GospelRiverAdmin - Mar• 01•12
For those of you who have followed the Elephant Room 2 situation, you know that James MacDonald, against all wise advice, continued with his insistence on having TD Jakes as a participant at the ER2. James resigned from the Gospel Coalition because some of the leaders there were advising him to withdraw the invitation of TD Jakes to participate in this event. As it turns out James, did exactly what any prideful person such as I would do, and went ahead with it anyway. That is not the bad part, though pride is a wicked monster. The completely unacceptable part was that James and Mark Driscoll ended up giving TD Jakes the right hand of fellowship and called him a brother, even though TD’s theology of God is not Trinitarian and he preaches another gospel (not really a gospel in the true sense of the word) of prosperity. As a result of all this nonsense, the second Harvest Bible Chapel Church has now withdrawn from Harvest Bible Fellowship (church planting arm of Harvest Bible Chapel, Chicago). I applaud their stance regarding the Gospel and biblical decision making revealed in the following link:

http://www.harvestprescott.org/10228/article/article_id/287943/A-New-Season-An-update-from-the-Harvest-Elders

Analysis of Steven Furtick’s Code Orange Revival Message Compared to Matt Chandler’s Earlier Message (earlier in this blog)

Written By: GospelRiverAdmin - Feb• 21•12

Did Adam and Eve Really Exist?

Written By: GospelRiverAdmin - Feb• 21•12

A thoughtful review of a new book (see link below on the reformation 21 blog).  This article is theologically detailed but it important to consider as this book seems to support biblical historicity but as the reviewer points out it opens up potentially dangerous doors.  This is critical as the Gospel Coalition seems to support this book and they are supposed to be mainline theological conservatism.  In addition, Crossway publishers is one of the few publishers that are supposedly careful about what they publish (making sure it is theologically conservative and accurate).  However, I emailed Crossway and asked about it and they referred me to the Gospel Coalition website to support their stance.

http://www.reformation21.org/articles/did-adam-and-eve-really-exist-a-review.php