Sometimes someone says something outlandish, and someone else puts their finger right on the problem. You can’t help but enjoy reading a comment like that. Here’s an exchange from Defending Contending:

Someone going by the name “Chatal” said,

HOW DARE YOU TELL PEOPLE, ALL ARE NOT CHILDREN OF GOD. BLASPHEMY, THIS SITE SHOULD BE TAKEN DOWN AND THE WORDS WRITEN ON THIS SHOULD NEVER BE READ BY ANYONE.”

And here’s the classic comment from The Pilgrim:

Dear Chatal:

Thank you for your opinion and your candidness regarding your dislike of freedom of speech.

I’m not sure what or who you were referring to as I don’t see anything in the original post about “children of God” so I’m assuming you were referring to someone’s comment (which I do not have time to read all of right now).

Your anger and displeasure are misdirected. You see, your issue is not with whoever said “all are not children of God” but it is with God Himself. So please take up your fight with Him after you have read His inspired Word.

Children of God are:

John 1:12 Those who receive Jesus

Romans 8:14, 16 Those led by the Spirit of God

Romans 9:8 Children of the promise, not children of the flesh

2 Corinthians 6:14-18 Believers, not unbelievers

1 John 2:29-3:2 Believers

1 John 3:9-10 Those who practice righteousness

Children of the Devil are:

Matthew 13:37-39 The tares are the sons of the evil one

John 8:38, 41-45 Those who reject Christ and His words

1 John 3:8, 10 Those who practice sin/do not practice righteousness
I hope this clears up your misconceptions.

Sincerely,
- The Pilgrim

The church and Christians are guilty of many sins, but the question is this: has it followed the example of Jesus too closely or betrayed Him in committing these crimes?

By what standard do we judge the sins of the church? By our own? Then that is of no consequence. By the standards of Jesus? Then we admit his ethic is desirable. If so, then why do we not seek to follow him and confess him too?

Besides all this, whether we confess Him or not, we are not blameless ourselves.

Jim Gourlay

HT: Fixed Nails

“I am not certain why small business owners, the job creation engine of the country, should see their taxes raised in order to protect bond holders of automobile companies or banks, or for union jobs to be preserved in companies that are clearly not competitive.” -John Mauldin, Frontline Weekly Newsletter, May 2, 2009

I like to scroll through the blogs tagged with “evangelism” on occasion, and if there’s something terribly wrong I’ll comment. If there’s an inspiring story of courage and boldness in witnessing I’ll comment. The other day, I happened upon this blog, dripping with sarcasm towards an event and preacher I’d never heard of–Tony Nolan at Winter Jam.

I truly have no idea what went on Winter Jam, and I’ve never heard of Tony Nolan.  I would normally assume that it would be the usual unbiblical Christian M.O. Trick people into coming to some worldly event, and then pop them with the gospel–not usually a biblical gospel, but a squishy version thereof. However, the blogger was mad at Tony Nolan for mentioning hell and sin, so maybe it wasn’t all that bad.

I decided to pick one facet of the blogger’s mistake that I’ve discussed at length in the past. The mistake is saying that creating converts is a bad thing. I really have little patience for it, because I think it’s a very basic mistake, and comes from either:

1. Saying there are people somewhere between saved and unsaved.
2. Believing that the gospel isn’t adequate for salvation. We need to add our impressive discipleship techniques to make it really work.

Either way, I think we need to stand against those mistakes, and I left a comment asking for the blogger’s definition of convert. He said that a convert is “an individual who simply calls on Jesus and continues living life in their previous manner.” So, according to him all converts are false converts? I don’t know if he thinks a convert is going to heaven or hell, but I say you’ve either converted or you haven’t. You’re either born again, or dead in your sins. If someone converts, and continues living in sin, they are false converts. The problem is that you’re distorting the definition if you’re redefining all converts as false converts.

Later his girlfriend left a comment saying,

This blog was more important then what someones definition of “converts” and “disciples”. I am sure there are many definitions in the dictionary at your local library!!! Do you have a library card??? Oh wait what about the internet you can find it there too. http://www.dictionary.com is a great tool when in doubt.

This portion of her comment was leveled at me, and I decided to play along and said,

I agree that there are accepted definitions of disciple and convert available in every dictionary. Hopefully, the terribly unbiblical use of the terms by [the blogger] will lead him to borrow your dictionary or your Bible.

The latter phrase (borrow your dictionary or your Bible) was replaced by the blogger with “[edited due to negativity].” Furthermore, I was warned that I was in danger of being banned from the blog.

Neither the blogger, nor his girlfriend offered any sort of biblical defense for any of their viewpoints. I think at some point it becomes clear that they have no defense, and don’t know the Bible very well. I pointed this out to them, and the fact that it appears that Tony Nolan and any commenter who disagrees with them is likely to receive the “intense criticism” that they choose not to stand for themselves.

Finally, the blogger defends his criticism of Tony Nolan, saying it’s OK since he’s a public figure. I guess that pesky verse about “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” doesn’t apply if the other person is a public figure. Not only that, but the blogger took the opportunity to heap more criticism upon Tony Nolan for having the audacity to defend himself on the blog. The blatant hypocrisy on display amazes me.

Personally, I have no problem with calling people on their mistakes, and aspire to be teachable and humble when called on my mistakes. The blogger and his girlfriend pulled no punches with their sarcasm, and I think my sarcasm was mild in comparison. I don’t necessarily think I sinned in responding with sarcasm, but I’m open to opinions. I don’t even necessarily think the blogger and his girlfriend sinned with their sarcasm. The sin arises when they demand to be treated differently than they treat others.

My wife and I are having a terrible time agreeing on what we should name our son, who is due in early May. I’d appreciate your vote, and any thoughts you might have.

A friend and I went to the Christmas parade this evening, and passed out 200 Christmas gospel tracts. (I just uploaded it to the “Downloadable Tracts” page.)  It was a small parade, and I’m very happy with 200 tracts. That’s about 1% of the population of this town.

The thing that struck us about the parade is that while it was a CHRISTMAS parade, it had very little to do with Christ. A small minority of Christians choose not to celebrate Christmas because they say it has pagan origins. They may or may not be right about its origins, but any paganism that was ever being obscured has come out of hiding, and there is very little Christian about how America celebrates Christmas.

A serious weakness of Islam is that Muslims can have their sins forgiven if they have a repentant attitude, believe certain doctrines and do certain good deeds. They say the Judge of the universe will overlook justice and forgive their sins on a whim. They don’t understand the requirements of justice.

It is evident that the Creator of the universe is just, and will punish sin. He cannot forgive guilty sinners without justice being served. Not even a traffic court judge can forgive guilty speeders, but Muslims describe Allah as having even less concern for justice than a human judge. Nevertheless, the true God wanted to forgive sinners, and He came and gave His life’s blood to pay for the sins of His people (Acts 20:28). The Christian is given the payment for His sins as a gift. In doing this, God maintains His justice, and shows infinite mercy to His children by paying our penalty Himself. There has never been better news in the history of mankind!

I attempted to share this shortcoming of Islam with a Muslim on her blog. You can check out our conversation here. It appears that I can no longer leave comments on her blog, and I hope that is due to a computer glitch, and not due to the author banning me in order to squelch the truth.

Most of all, I pray that Roqayah (the blog’s author) would pursue the truth in this matter as avoiding eternity in hell depends on having her sins forgiven, as is true for all of us. I pray that she will understand God’s holiness, righteousness and justice, and that it would drive her to seek the Savior.

In John 20:28, Thomas sees Jesus risen from the dead, and proclaims that Jesus is his Lord and his God. Thomas was a good Jew, and certainly a staunch monotheist. He would never admit that someone besides the LORD was God.

This is a good verse to show Jehovah’s Witnesses. I’ve heard from various sources that they often have never seen this verse. When they see it, their immediate reaction is to say that Thomas was taking the Lord’s name in vain. Supposedly they think this is what Thomas was doing because that is their reaction when they see the verse. I’ve never seen any Jehovah’s Witness do this in person until the other day. In fact, I have it in writing for everyone to see. You can check it out here. The person who said it has made it clear that he or she isn’t a Jehovah’s Witness, but shares many of the same beliefs.

You can check out the story of our witnessing at the Democratic National Convention here.

P.s. The title is a joke. All liars will have their part in the lake of fire (Revelation 21:8), and unless you’ve never told a lie, stolen anything or looked at someone with lust, you deserve to spend eternity in hell. God showed the greatest act of love by giving his blood to atone for your sin. If you repent and put your faith in Jesus, you can have your sins forgiven.