Satire: CCLI buys licensing rights for the Psalms

Disclaimer: None of what you are about to read represents actual reality.  Never, ever, EVER would something like this happen.  I'm just trying my hand at some satire, that's all.  If you find yourself even remotely entertained, I will be pleased.

Having said that, you may proceed.  Enjoy!

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CCLI, the largest copyright corporation serving the Church today, holding the copyrights for tens of thousands of Christian songs, announced today that they have bought licensing rights for the book of Psalms.

"There are few songs as dear to the hearts of Christians as the Psalms", noted a CCLI spokesperson in an interview. "However, people were just butchering them. Take, for instance, Psalm 1:1 as paraphrased in the Message Bible.  It is obscured beyond belief.  That is why we are proud to announce that we have taken these beloved poems under our legal ownership. I assure you that, at only a small cost to you and your church, you will be able to enjoy them, pure and undefiled."

This move on CCLI's part was not without criticism, however. Pastor and Bible Teacher John MacArthur spoke out in a statement this evening stating that CCLI's move was "blasphemous".  Likewise, Paul Washer of HeartCry Missionary Society stated "we will not bow".  John Piper, in a manner reminiscent of his reaction to Rob Bell's book Love Wins, merely tweeted "Farewell, CCLI".

Also, an unidentified teenage blogger living in Canada, which is essentially the north pole as far as any American is concerned, challenged CCLI, saying: "Are you saying that if I read the Psalms without paying my copyright fee, you will send your copyright police into this frozen wasteland to punish me for it?  I dare you, bring it on! See if you can avoid the polar bears!"  He then proceeded to write a post in which he quoted and discussed the 119th psalm extensively.

When asked what would become of those who refused to pay CCLI a dime for their reading of the Psalms, the spokesperson continually changed the subject.  Reporters were also curiously unable to find out from whom the licensing rights of the Psalms were bought.  

When asked what their next move would be, CCLI informed reporters that they were considering "licensing the Song of Solomon and the Proverbs" in the "near future".

The New Purpose of this Blog

Having thought of it, I have decided what I will do with this blog.

While my main blog is devoted to theology and encouragement for the Christian, this blog will be more of a personal blog, where I voice my thoughts on various subjects. I assure you, it will be no less "Christian" - I will still continue to discuss spiritual things on here. However, my subject matter will be broader. I will discuss things that are not strictly theological.

I hope you enjoy reading what I have to say on here. If not, well, at least I have somewhere to ramble :).

Reader Update

   As it is, I have moved my Blog to WordPress.  Why then, do I continue to post the same stuff here?

I said I would do so for the advantage of those who read this blog, so I would give them time to transition over to my new blogging site, rather than alienating them with a sudden site change which they knew nothing about. It has now been a while, and I still seem to be getting a substantial amount of pageviews on this blog - more so than on my WordPress site.

I thus encourage you to go check out my WordPress site here.

Since I am still getting so many views, I will continue to post the same stuff on here as I do on my WordPress site for the time being.

However, I am also doing some brainstorming - thinking of things I want to do with this blog.  Sometime in the near future, I will begin re-purposing it.  I'm not sure what I will do with it yet.

Whatever I do, I have no intention of abandoning it.

Postmodernist ideas and the Gospel Do Not Mix

We live in an age where truth is considered to be relative, and no one supposedly has any business telling anyone else what is right and wrong.  It is considered ‘hateful’ of one to tell another person that they are doing something wrong.

The way people talk these days, it seems as if all the world’s problems might be solved by tolerance.  If we would just tolerate everyone and everything, the world would be a much better place.  If we would just accept people the way they are, and not try to shove our views down their throat, the world would be such a peaceful place.  If only people only stopped judging people for the way they live, or the way they dress, or the way they believe ….

Allow me to be blunt for a moment: This is absolute and utter nonsense. This view of tolerance is both impossible and hypocritical.  It is impossible to tolerate everyone’s beliefs and views, and no one does so.  If I believe I can steal all I want, will that be tolerated?  According to this view, I could steal all I want, tell people not to ‘judge’ me for it, and thus evade justice.   Of course, such an excuse would not be accepted in such an instance – if I am a robber, I will be punished for my crime, thus proving the impossibility of such a view of tolerance.

Continuing my example above, if  I were to steal something from this 21st century postmodernist , he would be very quick to ‘judge’ me, saying that it was wrong of me to do so, without any respect to the fact that his worldview permits anyone to do what is right in his own eyes without having to face ‘judgement’ for it. The hypocrisy of such a one is thus made evident – he professes to tolerate anything and everything, but in reality, there are things that he cannot tolerate.

Look at the gospel.  What could be more antithetical to this view of tolerance?  It is made abundantly clear that he who does not believe on Christ will not see life, but he will rather have the wrath of God abiding on him (John 3:36). Jesus makes it clear that He is the only way, and NO ONE can come to the Father but by Him (John 14:6).  If Christianity and the gospel are true, all other beliefs regarding God are false.  Thus, the postmodern 21st century unbeliever will hate the gospel – it runs contrary to everything he believes.  And, by the way, in hating the gospel, he will be further demonstrating his inability to tolerate anything and everything.

Having said that, I will now share with you something I saw on Facebook the other day.

There is a good deal wrong with this. Behind it lies the mentality discussed above –  I don’t get to tell anyone what is wrong.  Subtly, it diminishes the gospel and promotes an unhealthy type of tolerance. I will go through this point by point.

1. Yes, I am a Christian.

Good. That’s great.

2. No, I don’t hate gays.

Good. Neither do I.  However, chances are, the word ‘hate’ is used in a different sense then I would use it.  I believe that being homosexual is morally wrong.  This does not mean I hate homosexuals – I certainly don’t.  However, to some, believing that homosexuality is wrong would be equated to hating those who practice it.

3. No, I won’t shove the Bible down your throat.

I’m not sure what that means, but if you are planning on preaching the gospel, you must make it clear that the Bible is your authority.

4. No, I won’t tell non-Christians they’re going to hell.

Then what business do you have showing them the way to heaven? If you do not tell them that they are sinners and under condemnation because of their transgression against a just, holy, and righteous God, they will not see their need for Jesus.  The gospel will be worthless to them.

5. And no, I am no better than anyone else.

True, but if you are saved, you are a new creation.  Christ has taken out your heart of stone and given you a new heart.  It is your desire that others experience this transformation.  This statement could lead to the impression that the gospel did nothing for you.

6. I was saved by the Almighty King, and was put on this planet to love Him and the people He made, and to share the gospel. Period.

Yes, true – but without telling people that they are sinners and under condemnation, you’ve stripped the gospel of its power – it’s really no gospel at all, but a remedy to a nonexistent problem.

There is so much more that could be said about this, but as it is, it is after midnight, and I do not feel like embarking on a very long and eloquent discourse about it.

I will close with Proverbs 14:12.

Proverbs 14:12 “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”

May God grant us, that we go not down the way which seems right, but the way that is right, and that we would lead others to it – giving them the pure, undefiled, and entire gospel of Christ.

Taking Sin Seriously

“Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!”. (Luke 5:8)  These were the words of Simon Peter after Jesus caused the disciples’ net to fill with fish.

What caused Peter to beg Jesus to leave? Was he out of his mind? Not at all – he was simply doing what we all would do if we realized His holiness and our sin.

It seems to me that people are taking the redeeming work of Christ for granted, sometimes even to the point of using it as a cover for their sin.  Using our liberty as an occasion to sin is antithetical to the whole purpose and import to the gospel which brings us that liberty in the first place.

We are too soft on sin.  We live in a generation which abhors the idea of moral authority, and sadly, Christians have compromised when it comes to sin.  And no, I am not talking about being gay (although that too is an issue). I am talking about sin in the believer’s life, which is often taken way too lightly.  We mumble a prayer of half-hearted repentance, console ourselves by saying something fuzzy about ‘grace’, and do it all over again.

Sin is a direct affront to God almighty, who gave His son for your redemption.  It is no small matter – if we truly loved the Lord with all our heart, soul, and mind, every sin we commit would make us weep.

So then, what shall we do? Let us go to the scriptures.

  “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” – Hebrews 12:1-2

Let us take our sin – or rather the mortification of it – very seriously, that we may look to Jesus and draw nearer to him unhindered.

We must also realize that we are now in Christ.  Satan is no longer our lord.  We have been delivered from the power of Satan to the power of God (Acts 28:16).

Finally, we must truly love the Lord.  The more we love Him, the more we hate sin.  The more we love him, the more seriously we take our pursuit of Him.

Love Wins, The Response: Part 2

This will be the second (and sadly, final) post I am making in response to Rob Bell’s book Love Wins.  If you have not read my first post responding to this book, I encourage you to do so.

I have been quite busy lately, and I continue to be, so I will not be going through the book chapter by chapter as I originally intended.  Rather, I will simply make some general observations about the book.

Bell essentially re-invents the gospel and Christianity itself.  Instead of the Lord being a just, holy, righteous God who, out of His love, sent Jesus Christ His Son to fulfil the Law and die for our sins, He becomes one who cannot possibly execute His justice – since that would be contrary to His love.  Bell writes of salvation as if it were an obligation, rather than a privilege.  His main support is emotional appeal, coupled with out-of context scripture quotations. He ignores a whole host of scriptures which would cry out against the things he are teaching.  It goes on and on.

The book teaches universalism (the belief that all will be saved) without actually claiming to.  On Page 107, we read this: “At the heart of this perspective is the belief that, given enough time, everybody will turn to God and find themselves in the joy and peace of God’s presence.  The love of God will melt every hard heart , and even the most “depraved sinners” will eventually give up their resistance and turn to God“. He then goes on name church “fathers” who supposedly believed it, such as Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and Eusebius.

While that position would certainly be something a lot of people would be very willing to believe, the Bible does not teach it. There are some scriptures which would seem to suggest it, such as Colossians 1:20.  However, if you would like to believe that such verses teach it, you have quite the mill to grind.

Consider, for example 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9. “And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.”  To reconcile this with Universalism and Rob Bell’s position would be difficult indeed.

Even more difficult to reconcile with Universalism is Jesus’s Parable of the wise and foolish virgins.

” Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.  And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.  Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.  But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man cometh.”  (Matt. 25:1-13)

This parable is quite clear – there is coming a time in which grace will no longer be extended.  Now is the accepted time, and now is the day of salvation (2 Cor. 6:2).  If sinners do not repent in this life, it will be too late in the life to come.

Consider the terrifying proclamation in Revelation 22:11: “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.”  This verse is, in itself, a death-blow to universalism. In the world to come (which is being dealt with in Revelation 21 and 22), there will be no more sinners repenting and no more saints sinning.  Those who died as unregenerate sinners will forever be unregenerate, and those who died redeemed will forever be redeemed.

Do I recommend anyone reading this book?  Are there a few good points we can get out of it?

I do not recommend it to anyone who is grappling with the questions the book deals with. To such people I would rather recommend Francis Chan’s Erasing Hell and Mark Galli’s God Wins. If you are firmly rooted in the truth, and you are not easily swayed, then it may be good for you to read it – it gets you thinking, at the very least.

That said, does Love Wins raise any good points?  A few.

1. We do not believe in Christ merely to escape hell.  Bell repeatedly protests the fact that Christians seem to be Christians for the sake of avoiding hell.  There is so much more to being a Christian than simply avoiding hell – he is right in that regard.  However, a proper understanding of the gospel, rather than universalism, should serve as an antidote to the “I’m just in it to avoid hell” mentality.

2.  People think hell is cruel – it is a very disturbing thing for people to believe in. Thus, when preaching even doctrines such as hell, we must do so in a way that is both faithful to the truth and loving.   We teach hell because we do not want people to go there, not because we like being mean and preaching hellfire.

This will wrap up my response to Love wins. I realize a lot more could be said when writing about this book, but I don’t have time to do a chapter by chapter response, and besides, entire books and websites have been devoted to answering this book.  Thank you for reading.

Why I don't believe in Evolution

Note: You can read this article on my WordPress Site here: https://waytruthandlifeblog.wordpress.com/2016/06/03/why-i-am-not-a-theistic-evolutionist/

In this post, I will attempt to explain to my readers why I, as a Christian, do not believe in evolution.  I am not saying "agree with me or else", but rather "this is something you would do well to think about". If you are a Christian, approach the matter in prayer. Perhaps I am in error on some point. Test all things, and hold fast to that which is good.

One of the biggest factors of my disbelief in evolution is my upbringing.  Thanks to my homeschool upbringing, I was taught Young Earth Creationism from a very young age.  Evolution, I was told, was at odds with God's word, and to believe anything other than a literal interpretation of the first eleven chapters of Genesis is to, in essence, undermine the gospel and Christianity itself.

Even as I got older and started to think rationally about the beliefs in which I had been raised, evaluating whether what I had been taught was actually the truth, I never really questioned Creationism.  I still don't.  While that sounds rather naive of me, allow me to explain why.

Darwinian Evolution is incompatible with the Bible and Christianity on so many levels. If one wants to say that God used the process of evolution, (involving death, pain, and suffering) to create a world He called 'very good' (Gen. 1:31), he would have to make some conclusions about God.  For the Bible clearly says that sin brought death into the world, yet Darwinian evolution says that death brouhttps://waytruthandlifeblog.wordpress.com/2016/06/03/why-i-am-not-a-theistic-evolutionist/ght man into the world.  If God used death, a result of sin, to bring man into the world via the process of evolution, then we would have to conclude that God is a sinner, since He brought death into the world.  But since the Bible says that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all, this is not a possibility.

Furthermore, Darwinian Evolution prefers the strong to the weak, with its concept of "survival of the fittest".  Never in the Bible do we see God preferring the strong over the weak.  Consider Gideon and his 300 man army, David and Goliath, and Joshua and the walls of Jericho.  As 1 Corinthians 1:27 says, "God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty"  Here we see, again, that evolution and the Bible are simply theologically incompatible.

Also, if killing was part of God's ordained order of creation, why did God get angry at Cain for killing Abel?  If God used evolution to create the world, then we would have to conclude that God changes His mind, and that He is not sovereign.  Of course, we could not accept that conclusion, because it runs contrary to more scriptures than I will care to quote here.

Of course, there are people who have realized the impossibility of God using evolution in the manner described above.  Most likely in response to this, some persons invented a theory known as the gap theory.  While there are different variations of this theory, it essentially teaches that there is a long period of time between the first and second verses of Genesis 1.  Evolution supposedly occurred during this 'gap'.  Some adherents to this theory claim that Satan was cast down onto the earth, initiating all the subsequent mayhem and chaos.

This 'gap' theory fails miserably in many respects.  First, there is no scriptural evidence for it.  The reason the earth was 'without form and void' was simply because God had not formed it yet.  There is nothing in in those verses to suggest millions of years of evolution. Furthermore, it still does not evade the problems discussed earlier - in the gap theory model, we still see evolution (with all the death, pain, and suffering involved) being used to form a creation God called very good.

And finally, we have progressive creationism.  This theory teaches that God created new life forms gradually over hundreds of millions of years.  According to this view, God directly introduced new life forms, rather than having new species evolve. However, in this view, we run across one of the problems discussed earlier - death before sin.

Having said that, let us discuss the first chapters of Genesis themselves.  Many believe that these chapters are mere poetry, and whatever they mean, they certainly do not describe creation in the way it actually happened. In response to that I would say this: If we cannot start taking the Bible seriously from the first verse, where do we start taking the Bible seriously?   I mean, if we would like to reject the first Chapters of Genesis simply because they disagree with the current scientific consensus, why not treat every other such chapter in the Bible in that manner?  Do you see where this is going?  If we choose to submit to the ever-changing opinions of man, and attempt to harmonize the Bible to such opinions, we are essentially exalting man's word over God's Word.

Furthermore, if one stops to realize simply just how many foundational doctrines are found in the first three chapters of Genesis, they would realize what great harm they do by insisting it is all poetry.

Consider the following verses:

Genesis 1:27 "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."

Genesis 2:24 "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh."

If we take the opening chapters of God's word as mere poetry, it would be rather difficult to assert that these verses, found within a passage that is otherwise fictional, ought to be taken literally. And yet, Jesus Himself quotes both Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:24 in support of the doctrine of Marriage. (See Matt. 19:4-5)  If these chapters are mere poetry, our Lord would have been mistaken to quote these verses.

But much more seriously, is the matter of the doctrine of sin.  If we believe Genesis 3 to be fictional poetry, we have essentially negated the need for Christ, the cross, and redemption.  And since evolution (even the theistic varieties) teach that death came before sin, further injustice is done to the doctrine of sin.  If it was not Adam who sinned, incurring the curse of death, but it was actually God who ordained sin, death, and suffering, we have no need for Christ's atoning death, because sin is God's fault, not ours.  Furthermore, if it be that Genesis 3 is not literal, the apostle Paul was clearly ignorant of the fact in his excellent discussion on Adam's sin in Romans 5.

Therefore, for all the aforementioned reasons, I cannot in good conscience believe that the first chapters of Genesis are poetry.

You may ask 'Does this mean I have to become a Literal, 6-Day, Young Earth Creationist?'.   Ultimately, the matter is between you and God. As I said earlier, test all things, and hold fast to that which is good.

I realize that the secular scientists  of today are extremely adamant about their belief in evolution.  Although evolution is nothing more than a mere set of assumptions that seems to have some scientific backing, it is vigorously and dogmatically taught as if it  were the truth.  Any mention of the supernatural is dismissed as sheer and utter folly.  Even in a Wikipedia article I read in research for this post, I came across this completely unneeded and biased paragraph:

"The overwhelming consensus of the scientific community is that creation science is a religious, not a scientific view. It fails to qualify as a science because it lacks empirical support, supplies no tentative hypotheses, and resolves to describe natural history in terms of scientifically untestable supernatural causes. Creation science is a pseudoscientific attempt to map the Bible into scientific facts, and is viewed by professional biologists as unscholarly and, even, as a dishonest and misguided sham, with harmful educational consequences."

I see why so many Christians are willing to harmonize the Bible and evolution - those who do not believe in evolution face ridicule for being 'unscientific'.  Even from within the Christian community, those who do not adhere to some form of evolution are ridiculed.  However, as I have already demonstrated, it is inconsistent for a Christian to believe in Evolution.  Rhttps://waytruthandlifeblog.wordpress.com/2016/06/03/why-i-am-not-a-theistic-evolutionist/ichard Dawkins himself admitted to this in a 2011 interview.

In closing, I would like to appeal to Christians to submit to the word of God rather than the fallible word of man, which is as sinking sand.  What man esteems now, they will scorn in future years, just as things that were believed 40 years ago are ridiculed now.  The Word of God, on the other hand, is unchanging.  God, by His Word, established the heavens and the earth.    We are often in error, and our words fail.  His Word, on the other hand, is true.  What He says comes to pass.  Let us therefore trust Him rather than the ever-changing opinions of man.

"For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:  So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it."   - Isaiah 55:10-11

"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." - Matthew 24:35