GARBC VOTES BY SLIM MAJORITY TO DISASSOCIATE FROM CEDARVILLE (Friday Church News Notes, September 8, 2006, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Earlier this year the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches (GARBC) voted by a slim majority to sever its ties with Cedarville University in Ohio because of the school’s new affiliation with the Southern Baptist Convention. The messengers who met at the 2006 annual conference passed the proposal by a vote of 311 to 283. Before the conference the Association’s Council of Eighteen called for the separation because “Southern Baptists are inclusivists and permit the presence and ministry of liberals within the convention” (“Two Degrees of Separation,” Christianity Today, Aug. 29, 2006). John Greening, GARBC national representative, said that though the SBC has taken some commendable steps in recent years, no evangelical has done more “to blur the distinction between evangelicals and Catholics than Billy Graham,” whom the SBC recently honored with a statue in North Carolina. The sad part about this is the slim majority by which the decision was made. A large number of GARBC delegates voted against the separation, raising the smokescreen of “second degree separation,” whereas at an earlier time in its history such a decision would have been clear-cut. The GARBC once stood unequivocally against New Evangelical compromise and inclusivism, but that is no longer the case. As a young Christian I was helped on the issue of separation by some of the GARBC literature. One of their old pamphlets was titled “A Limited Message or a Limited Fellowship,” and it warned of exactly the type of compromise that Billy Graham and the Southern Baptist Convention epitomizes. To separate from disobedient brethren is not “second degree separation”; it is obedience to God’s Word. “Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us” (2 Thess. 3:6). To refuse to separate from New Evangelical compromise is not only disobedience, it is unwise, for “evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Cor. 15:33), and, “a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump” (1 Cor. 5:5).

SBC PASTOR AND SEMINARY TRUSTEE SPEAKS IN TONGUES (Friday Church News Notes, September 8, 2006, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Speaking at a chapel service on August 29, Dwight McKissic, a trustee of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, told the students that he speaks in tongues in his “private prayer life” (“Southwestern Trustee’s Sermon on Tongues Prompts Response,” Baptist Press, Aug. 30). McKissic, who is also the pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church, an SBC congregation in Arlington, Texas, said he has prayed in tongues since 1981. In response to the message the seminary issued a statement saying that most people at Southwestern would be not advocate McKissic’s position on tongues but also saying that it was “honored” to have him as a trustee and chapel speaker. It is obvious that Charismatic doctrine and practice continue to make headway in the SBC. Though the SBC Foreign Mission Board passed a ruling last November forbidding missionaries to speak in a “private prayer language,” the head of the Board, Jerry Rankin, admits he has spoken in such a “language” for 30 years. Missionary David Rogers, son of the late Adrian Rogers, SAID HE WORKS WITH MANY MISSIONARIES WHO PRACTICE PRIVATE TONGUES. Thus, it appears that this is not a small issue or one that will go away any time soon. Rankin and those supporting his position are trying to distinguish between public tongues and private, saying that while they are opposed to public tongues they believe there is a private form of tongues that an individual can use to edify himself. In fact, biblical tongues are biblical tongues. The tongues of Acts are the tongues of 1 Corinthians 14. They were real languages that a believer could speak supernaturally. They were a sign to the nation Israel that God was going to send the gospel to every nation and create a new spiritual body composed of both Jews and Gentiles (1 Cor. 14:20-22, quoting Isaiah 28:11-13). Each time tongues were spoken in Acts (Acts 2, 10, 19) Jews were present. As the prophet Isaiah foretold, the Jews rejected the sign and were judged. The last mention of tongues is in Acts 19. The sign, having been fulfilled, ceased. When John Chrysostom wrote in the 4th century about the sign gifts of 1 Corinthians 12-14, he said: “This whole place is very obscure: but the obscurity is produced by our ignorance of the facts referred to, and BY THEIR CESSATION, being such as then used to occur but now no longer take place” (“Homilies on 1 Corinthians,” Vol. XII, The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Hom. 29:2). There is no “private prayer language” in the New Testament. It is the recent invention of Pentecostals and Charismatics who, having realized that they cannot speak in real tongues that can be interpreted (one of the biblical requirements), were forced either to renounce their experience or to create some sort of cockeyed defense for it. There is not one example of a prayer in the Bible that is uttered in unintelligible mutterings that “bypass the intellect.” Jesus Christ did not pray that way and neither did the apostles. The Charismatic doctrine of a private prayer language is neither innocent nor lacking in spiritual danger. The Bible warns repeatedly and forcefully about the danger of spiritual deception, and those who empty their minds are in danger of the devil filling them. 

CALIFORNIA PASSES LAW FORBIDDING SCHOOLS AND BUSINESSES TO TEACH MORAL CODES (Friday Church News Notes, September 8, 2006, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - California governor (R.) Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill on August 28 which requires all businesses and groups receiving state funding (even state disability insurance, unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation, veterans services, or a state grant for an individual student) to condone homosexuality, bisexuality, and transsexuality (“Bill Forces Condoning of Homosexuality,” WorldNetDaily, Aug. 29, 2006). There is no exemption for religious conviction. The bill requires all institutions that receive state aid “to support alternative sexual lifestyle choices.” This means they will not be allowed to speak out against such immoral acts. Sodom would have approved, but we know the end of Sodom, both ancient and modern.

APOSTLES AND PROPHETS TODAY (Friday Church News Notes, September 8, 2006, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The Lord’s apostles had miraculous sign gifts to authenticate their ministries (2 Cor. 12:12) and they had seen the resurrected Christ (1 Cor. 9:1; 15-5-9). There are only 12 apostles for all eternity. In the New Jerusalem the names of the 12 apostles are inscribed in the city’s 12 foundations. Their work was to lay the foundation of the church (Eph. 2:20), and when that foundation work was accomplished they died and went to glory and the apostolic office ceased to function. Since then, those who have claimed to be apostles in the sense of Christ’s apostles have been deceived. The popes claim to sit in Peter’s “seat.” Joseph Smith claimed to be an apostle. John Dowie and Frank Sandford and other cultists of the 19th century claimed that God was restoring the apostolic office, and today there are many Charismatics or “Third Wave” evangelicals who believe the same thing. C. Peter Wagner is one of these. Formerly a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, Wagner was influenced by the error of the late John Wimber of the Vineyard Churches, and others, and has gone off into all sorts of unscriptural charismatic-style things such as accepting female preachers, miracle evangelism, “spiritual mapping,” and binding territorial spirits. Wagner claims that the Holy Spirit led he and his associates to restore the office of apostles and prophets in the 1990s. He is part of the “New Apostolic Reformation” and is the “Presiding Apostle” of the “International Coalition of Apostles.” He claims God has assigned them to “communicate to the body of Christ some of the new things that the Spirit is saying to the churches.” In fact, he is deeply deceived. Beware of anyone who claims to be an apostle or prophet today!

NEW HEAD OF THE WCC SAYS ECUMENISM EXTENDS TO WHOLE CREATED UNIVERSE (Friday Church News Notes, September 8, 2006, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The new moderator of the World Council of Churches, Walter Altmann, believes that the divisions among denominations is a “scandal’ and has the objective of unifying them, but he also says that the goal of ecumenism goes beyond the unification of churches. In an interview with the Christian Post, Altmann said ecumenism “extends far beyond the frontiers of the churches and embraces the whole of humankind and the whole created universe” (“Greater Communion Not Minimalist Agenda,” Christian Post, Aug. 28, 2006). This is an expression of gross heresy. The Lord’s Great Commission is to preach the gospel to all men and to establish churches to baptize and disciple those who believe (Matt. 28:18-20; Mark 16:15; Luke 24:44-48; Acts 1:8). That is the pattern we see in the book of Acts. There is no commandment in the New Testament for churches of all doctrinal beliefs to join together in any sort of union. To the contrary, those that hold to apostolic doctrine are required to separate from those that do not (Romans 16:17). Further, the Bible says the created universe is under the curse of sin and will only be set right at the return of Jesus Christ and the establishment of His kingdom. There will be no peace or justice until Christ returns. As for the “whole of humankind,” it is under the condemnation of sin and every individual that dies without Jesus Christ will spend eternity in the lake of fire. Thus, the urgent task of the churches of Jesus Christ is to rescue men from the judgment to come by preaching the Gospel and urging them to be saved. The World Council of Churches has replaced Christ’s Great Commission with a humanistic program of social work and political endeavor; the objective of saving souls has been replaced with that of saving the creation.

BEWARE OF “CHRISTIAN” PSYCHOLOGY (Friday Church News Notes, September 8, 2006, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Psychology and the Evangelical Church” by T.A. McMahon, The Berean Call, March 2006: “Psychotherapy has sold the church the lie that psychology can be integrated with the Bible. That ought to be scandalous to any thoughtful believer. Since psychology and the Bible are fundamentally in opposition to one another, it should be obvious that there can be no real integration of their teachings. Moreover, if the Bible, the Manufacturer’s handbook, isn’t sufficient to cover all things that pertain to life and godliness, then His created beings must look elsewhere for their mental, emotional, and behavioral welfare. And if they must look elsewhere, then the Bible’s claim to be authoritative, inerrant, and sufficient is also false. How influential is psychotherapy in the church? It would be rare indeed to find a topical sermon with no supposed insights from psychology. Typical would be Willow Creek church near Chicago, whose influence is national and international through its 10,000-member association of churches. One researcher of church-growth methods who spent a year at Willow Creek observed, ‘[Bill] Hybels not only teaches psychological principles but often uses the psychological principles as interpretive guides for his exegesis of Scripture. ... King David had an identity crisis, the apostle Paul encouraged Timothy to do self-analysis, and Peter had a problem with boundary issues. The point is, psychological principles are regularly built into Hybels’ teaching.’ Rick Warren’s record-breaking The Purpose-Driven Life furthers the acceptance of psychology in the church by including such psychobabble as ‘Samson was co-dependent’ and ‘Gideon’s weakness was low self-esteem and deep insecurities.’”

CONCLUSION: Friends in Christ, do not be discouraged by any of this. It is God’s will that we know the times (1 Ch. 12:32; Mat. 16:3) and that we be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves. These things remind us that the hour is very late, and we need to be ready for the coming of the Lord. Are you sure that you are born again? Are you living for Christ day by day? “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof” (Rom. 13:11-14).