Continuing to watch the series Counterfeit Christianity -- I'm learning a lot from this. I used to try to keep up with this sort of expose' but this one goes into territory I'd managed to miss.
This is part 2 of 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pgH0_PkkIo More about the Emerging Church. Then gets into bad Bible "translations" that are complete rewrites by individuals with an agenda, such as Eugene Peterson's The Message, It's scary to think what he's looking at when he faces God. They don't discuss the Greek manuscript problems my Bible blog is about: The Great Bible Hoax of 1881, but argue for the reliability of the Bible text even referring to the manuscripts that are corrupt, since the are so old (because the Church rejected them as corrupt and disuse preserved them). Since most of the text even in those corrupt mss is accurate this isn't too serious a problem, but if anyone gets into comparing them with the Textus Receptus the problems will emerge because many important passages are missing from the older texts, expunged by early heretics according to Burgon, and some words were altered in the Greek that change their meaning. (Dean John William Burgon wrote about all these problems, which is the main subject of my blog.)
Part 3 of 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYGZa6VJ47c This one covers the New Age movement in the 60s, Woodstock, the influx of gurus from India and spin-off pscyho-spiritual systems like est and Silva Mind Control; also Anthony Robbins, psychology, Jungian etc.
Part 4 of 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0miQLx_Suqw Globalist indoctrination of children in the schools, Earth worship/ environmentlism, evolution as against biblical creation, . M. Scott Peck. Health and fitness systems that incorporate demonic practices from Hinduism and other Eastern sources. Deepak Chopra, Ayurveda. Yoga, Energy centers or chakras (Kundalini. An excerpt from the Andrew Strom film I've linked in the upper right margin is included), Reiki, Acupuncture, Acupressure, etc. All deceptively described by their practitioners in nonreligious terms of course.
Part 5 of 5 Oprah Winfrey Harry Potter Rick Warren's Daniel Plan
Turns out there are Three Volumes of this series. The second volume also has five parts, and apparently focuses more on Church History. The development of Liberalism in the early 20th centure is where Part 1 starts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H-ybDrKiU0 World Council of Churches, Catholic Ecumenism, Dominionism, Global Christianizing movement, Calvin's dominionism
Wide is the Gate 2, Part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHUOjzKZpfE Continuing world Christianization movements. Dominionism. Youth movements. Latter Rain. Henrietta Meers, Neo-Marxist environmentalism, global warming, evolutionism. John Piper. Saddleback occultists. Willow Creek/Hybels Anti-Israelism/pro-Palestinianism. end times
Wide is the Gate vol 2, Part 3. Roman Catholicism: Sacramentalism, Mystical Contemplation, Interfaith Ecumenism Mormonism IslamVol
Vol 2 Part 4 Reformed Theology: the New Israel Allegoricl eschatology. This one is tricky for me, or some of it is.
I studied Amillennialism (allegorical eschatology) enough to reject it completely. It makes no sense at all and ignores what the Bible actually says.. The literal reading of Revelation has to be true, it makes no sense otherwise.
As for Reformed teaching about how the Church is the fulfillment of all the promises to Israel, it is possible to defend that from scripture, BUT there is too much left over that doesn't fit into that interpretqation, that must refer to literal Israel. I had a terrible time accepting the idea that the Church and Israel will be saved separately, and it still bothers me, but John MacArthur's preaching is persuasive and I've accepted it. It fits with the whole scenario of Rapture - Tribulation - Millennium which follows a simple straightforward reading of Revelation.. I hold out maybe 2% possibility that this is going to need to be revised at some point.
(One tenet of current eschatology I continue to disagree with is this idea that we aren't going to recognize the Antichrist until after the Rapture which means Christians won't recognize him. This is part of the idea that the Great Apostasy or "falling away" that must occur before he is revealed is yet future. But one thing the Reformers argued very effectively was that the Great Apostasy was the Roman Catholic Church itself as it rose to prominence over the centuries before the Reformation. Its doctrines are apostate. It started out Christian and accumulated pagan superstitions galore that became its theological life as it were. The biblical doctrine of salvation by grace through faith alone was buried under a mountain of these superstitions that came from pagan Rome. All this should definitely be recognized as the Great Apostasy too many churches think is unfolding only now. No, what we are seeing now is in some sense a building on that Roman apostasy. Most of it is created BY the Roman Church as they seek to bring the whole world under its leadership. This film series shows the influence of Rome at every turn in the doctrinal corruptions that are the subject of its investigtions. THEREFORE, we don't need to be waiting for this apostasy, the Reformers nailed it over five hundred years ago.
Likewise, scripture also says that the Day of the LORD or what we call now the Great Tribulation, can't come UNTIL he is revealed. But the Great Apostasy has already occured and the Antichrist HAS been revealed according to the Reformers, as well as hundreds of others before them, and he is the Pope. The Roman Church dominated Europe in the Middle Ages, ruled over Kings; then lost its power to the Reformation. But its Popes have always sought to assert their right to rule the world and we see their pursuit of that role in all the recent Popes. The Vatican is a sovereign state in its own right so the civil power is already latent in the Roman Church and just awaits the time when it can reassert itself. Which would very likely be the chaotic state of the world we are obviously headed into right now, during which at some point the true Christian Church will most likely be Raptured out of the way so that the Pope can come forward as the great wolrd peacemaker the world will be craving. So, although I hold out a small possibility that I'm wrong and the Antichrist will be someone else, I'm going with the Reformers and pointing to the Pope as the man who will fulfill the role in the end.)
As for Predestination/Free Will the problem is it's beyond our normal ability to understand, but it's a very simple idea: if God is sovereign then nothing in Creation can be beyond His reach. On one level it simply scares me to death that anything would be left up to my own free will because I know how weak I am. If God doesn't do it all in me I'm a lost cause. Not exactly fine biblical theology there.
Generally speaking we have to believe in free will in a casual sense because we are called to obey many things and that means we CAN obey them. But we don't even have to get that sophisticated about it, we don't even have to address the question and most of us probably shouldn't. The Bible is written to ordinary people and ordinary people should just read it and obey it, there's no problem with that. It's a theological nicety that most of us can't wrap our heads around, to say that it is God who does it all. It may be theologically correct, and I think it is, but we aren't able to understand it so it's far better just to stay on the level of knowing we have to do various things as the Bible commands..
It does raise the very spectre of boasting that Paul denounces though. If I can choose anything good, that is to my credit and I can boast about it. This is one big reason the usual defense of free will doesn't work biblically. And again, if anything is left up to me I will botch it and the idea that I have that responsibility is terrifying. I have to think in terms of God's making my obedience possible and in fact He does, after I'm saved, when I have His Holy Spirit within me. Without Him I'll be falling back into my "old man" all the time and failing to walk by the Spirit. He MUST uphold me at every turn. That's what makes me ultimately a Calvinist.
After we are saved we have His power, so the whole question of free will is really about unsaved people. Calvin did derive his thinking from scripture, as I recall it's all there. Fallen man does nothave the ability in himself to choose God. This really ought to be clear from the simple fact that ithout biblical revelation nobody ever discovers the true God. Hindus and Buddhists may study their minds for years and never find God. That's because Calvin is right, fallen man is cut off from God and cannot discover Him and cannot choose Him. God has to intervene to awaken the spirit in us that died at the Fall for that to become possible. This is all on a level we simply can't comprehend, that God is sovereign over all things and yet we are responsible for our actions. Both are true. God and reality are simply beyond our finite capacities to understand. But I shouldn't even be trying to resolve all this theologically because I can't claim I understqand it very well either; and I don't think we sheep should have that job anyway. Just read the Bible as written to ordinary people and that's all that's required of us.
Later: I had more to hear in this segment of the film series and as I've gone back to it I'm just appalled at the utter stupidity of this discussion about the character of God supposedly promoted by Calvinism. They don't know one thing about Calvin's reasoning or the Biblical basis for his views. The only contribution Calvinism could be making to the Emerging Church heresy is not Calvinism itself but their own utterly ignorant interpretation of it. Calvinists follow the Great Commission and preach the true gospel, it is only their ignorance that says otherwise. Blech.
Wide is the Gate Volume 2, Part 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhZAqez4IAk&t=15s Preview says it's to be about Gnostic and Pagan Meditative techniques in the evangelicqal churches.
Later: This part is either mostly or entirely the same as the one on this subject I saw in the first Volume of this series.
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Volume Three deals mostly with the New Apostolic Reformation, following on William Branham and Lake who is new to me, can't remember his initials. Manifest Sons of God, Mike Bickle.
Vol 3 Part 1: New Apostolic Reformation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuCsy1Nkbsg The New Apostolic reformation William Branham Hyperpentecostalism Laughing revival
Has made me question ALL revivals.
Vol 3 Part 2 Gifts of the Holy Spirit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PQmy5o-F7o&t=12s If tongues are false today why should prayer language not also be false?
Vol 3 Part 3 Five Fold Ministry https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3SEkCcnIXE Seven Mountains Dominionism
Vol 3 Part 4 Music: A Substitute for True Worship https://www.youtube.com/watchv=k4R1qoTRP-0 Jesus Culture
Vol 3 Part 5 God Chasers, Mystery Schoolw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-LH_K7o-hI Shaktipat, The Arnotts, Todd Bentley initiates 500 pastors
1 Timothy 4:1 is quoted often but 4:3 about mairrage and meats makes it clear it was the Roman Church that was being warned against. In the latter days ...doctrines of demons... forbidding to marry and commanding abstention from meats
Vol 3 Part 6 Mystical Divine Within https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOwcAVdPyAQ Crowder Tokin the Ghost Drunk in the spirit felt entities among them
Vol 3 Part 7 Little Gods in the End Times Battle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mE-W1-2p4nM Global Agenda. Rick Warren. Rapture is denied, Warrior Bride.
