Creation’s intention!

 

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A conference to watch next week!

A conference I have enjoyed watching and my wife and daughter have attended in recent years at The Master’s College

The theme of the 2013 Truth & Life Conference at The Master’s College is The Word of God. The conference explores the authority and sufficiency of the inerrant Word of God. Participants will learn more about how God’s Word guides and transforms the individual believer as well as the Church, for His glory. If you are in the Southern California area, we invite you to join us January 16-18 to hear from our president, Dr. John MacArthur and noted speakers Dr. Mark Dever and Dr. Sinclair Ferguson. Please join us via live streaming video at www.truthandlife.org.

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Improving your singing on Sunday!

Barry York at Gentle Reformation writes:

According to the forty-seventh Psalm, we are to sing the praise of the Lord “with skillfulness.”   I will leave the musical instruction side of that commandment, with its pitches, note reading, beat, proper breathing, harmonizing, etc., to those more gifted than I am in this area (which would be quite a number of people).   Yet a congregation can make vast improvements in its singing even without choral training.  How?  Simply by listening to and obeying the Word of God’s instruction on how we are to sing in the presence of God.  Consider applying in a purposeful way these short exhortations to your singing as you go to the house of the Lord the next time.

His list in bullet points is as follows:

1. Sing to the Lord
2. Sing with the Lord
3. Be enthusiastic
4. Engage your mind
5. Reflect the mood
6. Admonish the brethren
7. Warn the unbelieving
8. Lift up your voice

He just has a few sentences of explanation for each point. Click here to read the rest.

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The New Moral McCarthyism

Albert Mohler has some chilling words:

A new chapter in America’s moral revolution came today as Atlanta pastor Louie Giglio withdrew from giving the benediction at President Obama’s second inaugural ceremony. In a statement released to the White House and the Presidential Inaugural Committee, Giglio said that he withdrew because of the furor that emerged yesterday after a liberal watchdog group revealed that almost twenty years ago he had preached a sermon in which he had stated that homosexuality is a sin and that the “only way out of a homosexual lifestyle … is through the healing power of Jesus.”

In other words, a Christian pastor has been effectively disinvited from delivering an inaugural prayer because he believes and teaches Christian truth. . .  .

The imbroglio over Louie Giglio is the clearest evidence of the new Moral McCarthyism of our sexually “tolerant” age. During the infamous McCarthy hearings, witnesses would be asked, “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?”

In the version now to be employed by the Presidential Inaugural Committee, the question will be: “Are you now or have you ever been one who believes that homosexuality (or bisexuality, or transsexualism, etc.) is anything less than morally acceptable and worthy of celebration?”. . . .

The Presidential Inaugural Committee and the White House have now declared historic, biblical Christianity to be out of bounds, casting it off the inaugural program as an embarrassment. By its newly articulated standard, any preacher who holds to the faith of the church for the last 2,000 years is persona non grata. By this standard, no Roman Catholic prelate or priest can participate in the ceremony. No Evangelical who holds to biblical orthodoxy is welcome. The vast majority of Christians around the world have been disinvited. Mormons, and the rabbis of Orthodox Judaism are out. Any Muslim imam who could walk freely in Cairo would be denied a place on the inaugural program. Billy Graham, who participated in at least ten presidential inaugurations is welcome no more. Rick Warren, who incited a similar controversy when he prayed at President Obama’s first inauguration, is way out of bounds. In the span of just four years, the rules are fully changed.

The gauntlet was thrown down yesterday, and the axe fell today. Wayne Besen, founder of the activist group Truth Wins Out, told The New York Timesyesterday: “It is imperative that Giglio clarify his remarks and explain whether he has evolved on gay rights, like so many other faith and political leaders. It would be a shame to select a preacher with backward views on LBGT people at a moment when the nation is rapidly moving forward on our issues.”. . . 

We now see the new Moral McCarthyism in its undisguised and unvarnished reality. If you are a Christian, get ready for the question you will now undoubtedly face: “Do you now or have you ever believed that homosexuality is a sin?” There is nowhere to hide.”

Read all of “The Giglio Imbroglio: The Public Inauguration of a New Moral McCarthyism”

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