Jesus Wins, Rob Bell and not your definition of ‘love’

Below is a response to Rob Bell’s Love Win video

HT: The Adopted Son

Related Post:

To hell with hell Rob Bell?

To hell with hell Rob Bell?

If you are a Christian and you are part of the blogosphere, you could not escape the discussion about Rob Bell’s new book Love Wins which is …

A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.

Rob Bell addresses one of the most controversial issues of faith—the afterlife—arguing, would a loving God send people to eternal torment forever…? With searing insight, Bell puts hell on trial, and his message is decidedly hopeful—eternal life doesn’t start when we die; it starts right now. And ultimately, Love Wins.

Here is his promotional video

When a person has a low view of scripture, this is the beginning of every heresy. As you can see, he questions if  ’only a few elect people’ make it to heaven. Well the bible answers this clearly:

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. (Matthew 7:13-14)

When we view God as an ‘all-loving’ but we leave out the character of his justice and his wrath, then we are left with a distorted view of God. To just focus on just one attribute of God is to only show one side of  ’his coin’. Here is a video which demonstrates the absurdity of this

Now I will readily admit the the doctrine of hell has to be one the hardest things for our human minds to get our heads around. If I was totally honest, sometimes I do believe that it is a bit severe. However, I know that God is totally just and I trust his judgment more than I trust my own which I know is often flawed. I cannot deny what the bible teaches and I cannot try to make it fit into what I think it should say and what my intellect dictates. Also, when you understand the bad news, it makes the good news of the gospel even more glorious because you understand that we deserve nothing from God but his punishment

Even Martin Bashir can see how contradictory his views are in the interview below. Rob is unable to answer the simple question of does the decisions that we make down here, affect where we go after we die and Martin rightly concludes that he is amending the gospel to make it more palatable. Take a listen.

Carlton Pearson shows his support of the book in the video below and also, as I have stated before, clearly continues to show his low view of scripture where he demotes hell to ‘the divorce court’ for example.

The bible clearly warns us about people like Rob Bell and Carlton Pearson and we would do well to stay well clear of them and their teachings.

Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. (Matthew 24:11)

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.(2 Timothy 4:3)

I recommend reading this article which tells us what our response should be in all of this.

Related Posts

Rob Bell: A Brother to embrace or a wolf to avoid

The marks of false ‘christian’ teaching and teachers Part 11 – The Gospel of Inclusion

The Lexi Show: Bishop Carlton Pearson “The Inclusion Conclusion”

A letter for your greedy Pastor/favorite Mini-star

Have you ever been a sucker and put your name on the mailing list of some of these so called preachers who are just after your money after which yo then get diluded with various mail asking for money or maybe your pastor just begs for it every Sunday in the guise of , if you give, you will be blessed. Courtesy of the FBI aka Preacher Bureau of Investigations, I challenge you to send this letter or even better, give it to them direct and see if they practice what they preach. I think I know what the response will be.

Dear Mr. Pastor Dude

Please do not send me another letter requesting that I support your ministries efforts around the world. I am not sure if you are aware of it or not but there exist ministry opportunities right here in (insert your City here) that are being ignored while you fly over us in order to get to (insert the City here).

Since you believe in sowing and reaping so much then why not exercise your supernatural faith by sowing a seed into my light bill or mortgage?  My mortgage is £989, and according to your preaching on sowing, if you pay it then you (Mr. Preacher Dude) can expect a 100 fold blessing from God.

Since you preach giving then I think it will be an awesome display of your faith in what you’re preaching if you take this opportunity and pay my mortgage today! Don’t sit there in fear Mr. Pastor Dude, God is waiting on you to apply your faith with this seed offering as you witness the power of sowing a seed.

And if you sow this seed today into my mortgage I will also add you to my list of preachers who have signed up to be a covenant partner with my Child Support Payments.

Covenant preachers will receive a special message from me each month highlighting how my bills are getting paid because of their faith. So today Mr. Pastor Dude, I am asking you to do your part and make sure the storehouse is full as according to Malachi 3:10 which ask that we bring all of the tithes into the storehouse.

Try God Mr. Pastor and see if he will open up a window and pour you out a blessing because you have sowed your seed in fertile ground, which just happens to be my bills.

Yours Truly

(Your Name)

This ‘pastor’ goes too far

I could not believe it when I saw this video but then again, I could for this is indicative of the state of the church at present. What is even sadder are the sheeple in the congregation who are laughing, praising God and there doesn’t seem to be any disgust with what they have just heard.

Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. (Colossians 4:6)

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. (Ephesians 4:29)

Should Fallen Pastors Be Restored

Back in 2009, it was revealed that the former home secretary here in the UK, Jacqui Smith had claimed expenses for pornographic films that her husband had watched.  As a result Mrs Smith  resigned from her position because of the damage it would have to the Labour Party if she remained in office.

On 20 April 2010, an explosion occurred on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, operated by BP. Eleven people were killed in the blast and oil began to leak from the ocean floor at a rate variously estimated to be between 5,000 and 100,000 barrels per day. As a result, chief executive, Tony Hayward eventually resigned from his post as he knew that with all the bad press, it would not be good for him to continue in his role because it would add to the damage of BP’s already bad reputation.

Does that mean that Jacqui Smith they should never ever work for the Labour Party again in any shape or form or that  Tony Haywards should never work in BP again? No it doesn’t mean that at all but it does mean that they should not be in a prominent leadership role because the name of the Labour Party or BP will be at stake.

The world can see the sense in the decision to step down for the greater good of a political party or a company’s name. However, when it comes to christianity and some pastors, the name of Christ is not precious enough for them to take a back seat because they seem to have their own agenda and feel that, for whatever reason, they must come back up to the front and carry on as normal.  So we have examples of the divorces of  Juanita Bynum and Thomas weeks, Paula and Randy White, Benny and Suzanne Hinn, all with no biblical basis and some of those mentioned being divorced twice. Then we have the more serious controversies such as Ted Haggard having a sexual encounter with Mike Jones and receiving drugs from him and Pastor Goodman back in 2004 who “was jailed for three and a half years for sex attacks on a woman worshipper. He was also jailed for perverting the course of justice and an attempted sex assault on a 19-year-old woman. He had been accused of preying on four women at the Victory Christian Centre”. However he is back in the pulpit at the now Victory 2 Victory Christan Church. I hope that Pastor Albert Odulele doesn’t hope to go back into the pulpit in a few years time. John Macarthur says this about the problem:

It has always saddened me over the years as I’ve watched church leaders bring a reproach on the church of Jesus Christ. What’s shocking to me is how frequently Christian leaders sin grossly, then step back into leadership almost as soon as the publicity dies away.

Some time ago I received a CD that disturbed me greatly. It was a recording of the recommissioning service of a pastor who had made national news by confessing to an adulterous affair. After little more than a year of “counseling and rehabilitation,” this man was returning to public ministry with his church’s blessing.

That is happening everywhere. Restoration teams–equipped with manuals to instruct the church on how to reinstate their fallen pastor–wait like tow-truck drivers on the side of the highway, anticipating the next leadership “accident”. Our church has received inquiries wondering if we have written guidelines or a workbook to help restore fallen pastors to leadership. Many no doubt expect that a church the size of ours would have a systematic rehabilitation program for sinning leaders.

Gross sin among Christian leaders is a signal that something is seriously wrong with the church. But an even greater problem is the lowering of standards to accommodate a leader’s sin. That the church is so eager to bring these men back into leadership is a symptom of rottenness at the core.

Some have claimed that a leader’s failure makes him more effective in shepherding fallen people. That is ludicrous. Should we drag the bottom of sin’s cesspool for the most heinous sinners to lead the church? Are they better able to understand the sinner? Certainly not! Our pattern for ministry is the sinless Son of God. The church is to be like Him and her leaders are to be our models of Christlikeness.

We must recognize that leadership in the church cannot be regarded lightly. The foremost requirement of a church leader is that he be above reproach (1 Timothy 3:2, 10; Titus 1:7). That is a difficult prerequisite, and not everyone can meet it.

There are some sins that irreparably shatter a man’s reputation and disqualify him from a ministry of leadership forever. Even Paul, man of God that he was, said he feared such a possibility. In 1 Corinthians 9:27 he says, “I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.”

When referring to his body, Paul obviously had sexual immorality in view. In 1 Corinthians 6:18 he describes it as a sin against one’s own body–sexual sin is in its own category. Certainly it disqualifies a man from church leadership since he permanently forfeits a blameless reputation as a one-woman man (Proverbs 6:33; 1 Timothy 3:2).

Where did we get the idea that a year’s leave of absence and some counseling can restore integrity to someone who has squandered his reputation and destroyed people’s trust? Certainly not from the Bible. Trust forfeited is not so easily regained. Once purity is sacrificed, the ability to lead by example is lost forever. As my friend Chuck Swindoll once commented when referring to this issue–it takes only one pin to burst a balloon.

What about forgiveness? Shouldn’t we be eager to restore our fallen brethren? To fellowship, yes. But not to leadership. It is not an act of love to return a disqualified man to public ministry; it is an act of disobedience.

By all means we should be forgiving. But we cannot erase the consequences of sin. I am not advocating that we “shoot our wounded.” I’m simply saying that we shouldn’t rush them back to the front lines, and we should not put them in charge of other soldiers. The church should do everything possible to minister to those who have sinned and repented. But that does not include restoring the mantle of leadership to a man who has disqualified himself and forfeited the right to lead. Doing so is unbiblical and lowers the standard God has set.

So why is the contemporary church so eager to be tolerant? I’m certain a major reason is the sin and unbelief that pervade the church. If casual Christians can lower the expectations on their leadership, they will be much more comfortable with their own sin. With lower moral standards, the church becomes more tolerant of sin and less tolerant of holiness. The “sinner-friendly” church is intolerable to God–that is a frightening condition.

Conservative Christians have for most of the previous century focused on the battle for doctrinal purity. And that is good. But we are losing the battle for moral purity. Some of the worst defeats have occurred among our more visible leaders. The church cannot lower the standard to accommodate them. We should hold it higher so we can regain purity. If we lose here, we have utterly failed, no matter how orthodox our confession of faith. We can’t win if we compromise the biblical standard of moral purity.

What should you do in the current crisis? Pray for your church’s leaders. Keep them accountable. Encourage them. Let them know you are following their godly example. Understand that they are not perfect, but continue nonetheless to call them to the highest level of godliness and purity. The church must have leaders who are genuinely above reproach. Anything less is an abomination.

Pastor Albert Odulele admits sex offences

For those of you who dont know Pastor Albert Odulele is a very well know pastor here in the UK of Glory House

Below is a video on Channel 4 news explaining when Pastor Albert Odulele was charged

Well he has now admitted the offences. As per Channel 4:

Dr Albert Odulele, who runs Glory House International, admitted indecently assaulting a boy aged 14 and sexually assaulting a 21-year-old man – both former members of his congregation.

He entered the guilty pleas at Bexley Magistrates’ Court in south east London and was committed for sentencing at Woolwich Crown Court on a date yet to be set.

Magistrates granted him conditional bail at the brief hearing.

Odulele, who describes himself as a ‘teacher, preacher and evangelical preacher’, is a major figure in the world of evangelical Christianity.

His east London-based church says it has a congregation of 3,000.

There are also branches of Glory House International in Leeds, Birmingham, Nigeria and Brazil.

Worldwide following

And Odulele has attracted many more followers around the world through appearances at international evangelic conferences, on religious TV programmes and videos on YouTube.

His website describes him as an author, speaker and preacher, and boasts of his ‘charismatic style, prophetic delivery and prolific expression of truth’.

Channel 4 News understands the alleged assaults took place in 2003 and 2004.

The court heard how Odulele, 47, initially denied any wrongdoing after he was arrested last summer by the Metropolitan Police’s Major Child Abuse Investigation Unit.

But he later admitted to police that he had been ‘battling’ with his sexuality for years. He denied the offences were pre-planned.

Glory House International has been a registered charity for 18 years and has a turnover of £2 million a year.

I for one am glad that this has come to light because I believe that so many times, some of us hold leaders up high in an unhealthy way and never question what the the ‘man of God’ says. I have heard some of his messages and it is normally your typical doctrine revolving around prosperity, wealth transfer, self fulfillment, blessings, dominion now and everything else relating to the “What God has for you” doctrine.

Many Christians will be throwing out the ‘judge not’ line and will want to pretend that this stuff doesnt happen in Christendom but as Jesus said, you shall know the truth and the truth will set you free (John 8:32). Adversely, that means that if you dont know the truth (or chose not to) , then you will be kept in bondage. Hopefully this will help people to have their eyes opened and say goodbye to the untouchable preachers.

As my friend says, my prayers are with his victims and not his reputation.

UPDATE: Pastor Albert Odulele has been jailed for fondling a teenage boy. To read more, click here

The Prosperity Gospel by Femi Adeleye

In the UK, unfortunately there are many African churches and ‘Pastors’ who subscribe to the health and wealth prosperity message. It is also popular in Africa itself because it preys on the poor and the desperate who will do anything to get out of their situation, even if that means sowing a seed to get them out of debt but in reality puts them more into debt. 

Please listen to this video as it is a refreshing breathe of fresh air to hear something that is not only an African problem but a church problem

Related Posts:

The marks of false ‘christian’ teaching and teachers Part 5 – The Prosperity Gospel

Money cometh and the anointing money ritual

John Piper – Why I abominate the prosperity gospel

John MacArthur Rebukes Joel Osteen

I for one do not understand how any Christians can think that Joel Osteen is a sound biblical teacher. I have watched his TV program and thought to myself ‘Where is Christ in all of this?’. Why does his book ‘Your Best Life now’ appeal to so many people?

The reason is because Joel’s message is simply the gospel of YOU and is a man-centered message which appaeals to the flesh and not a Christ-centered one which demands that the flesh is crucified with all its sinful passions.  Your transformed life is NOT the gospel and sadly, this is what many people think especially those who go to these type of chruches . Listen to this video as John Macarthur explains why Joel Osteen is a false teacher.

For those who still think that Joel Osteen’s message is sound, click here to take part in a bible quiz

Of Blessings, Breakthroughs and Divine Favour!

I saw this post over on Henry’s blog Spirit of Discernment and thought that I would repost it in full because it is so rampant in our churches today. Again this ties in with giving people false hopes and deceiving them with false promises.

Are you frustrated that the Lord has not answered your prayers for the breakthroughs and divine favour which you seek?

Have you faithfully tithe but find that the “windows of heaven blessings” continue to elude you?

Have you diligently sown your seeds into “good soil” and confessed daily but you are still not receiving a harvest?

Do you “give to God” faithfully but feel like the Lord has abandoned you as you are not receiving anything in return?

If any of these questions apply to you then I have good news for you. The reason why you are feeling frustrated and disappointed is because you have been fed a false gospel. God is not man that He should lie so do not be disappointed in God. God did not make the above promises to you – the man in the pulpit did. The man in the pulpit who presents himself as God’s mouthpiece is the lier and I will demonstrate as I examine those questions one by one.

Firstly, the Lord did not promise you “breakthroughs” or divine favour, man did. The Lord gave you divine favour when He sent Jesus Christ to die on the cross for you and I so that we may obtain mercy – this is Grace, which is divine favour. Man however changed the meaning of divine favour to mean that you can receive “supernatural abundance” in earthly things and sup with kings, which the Lord did not promise you. To obtain true divine favour therefore all you need to do is seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all else shall be added unto you. This does not mean that you will receive all the material desires of your heart but the Lord promises to meet your needs. You should also remember that before you ask, the Lord already knows what you need. In much the same way a parent takes care of a young child without the child needing to ask the parent for anything so too the Father will take care of His children. What “breakthroughs” do you seek therefore?

Paying your tithes and expecting the “windows of heaven blessings” is foolhardy to say the least and no amount of “confessing” will bring those benefits to you. Under the New Covenant a Christian is NOT required to tithe and the Lord will not honour your tithe according to Mal 3:10 because that scripture was not spoken to the church but to Israel under the Old Covenant. Under the Covenant Israel were required to give a tithe not because this would ensure God’s blessings but they were required to give it because the Lord had blessed them. In this sense the tithe was like a tax that the Lord required to sustain the Levites, who had no inheritance in the Promise Land. As such you do not pay taxes to ensure future income but rather you pay it because you already have an income and because it is required by Law. If you are therefore paying the tithe because you think that this will compel the Lord to do something extra for you then you are already giving it with the wrong motives. The Lord is not a debtor to any man – so if you pay the tithe thinking that the Lord owes you something then you have been deceived. In the first place the tithing practice today is a violation of God’s Law – it is therefore the man that collected the tithe from you that owes you, not God.

Some preachers within the Word of Faith movement will tell you that the Kingdom of God operates on the “principle” of sowing and reaping. I contend however that this is not the case. Indeed the analogy of sowing and reaping is often used to describe the Kingdom of God or certain aspects of it but the Kingdom of God is not reactive. It doesn’t depend on us doing something but it is rather all about the sovereign Will of the Father. The Kingdom of God is about salvation which comes by Grace. Grace is God’s sovereign will to lay down the life of His Son, Jesus Christ, to save us from our sins (John 3:16). It was because God first loved us and not that we did something to appease God in order to earn His love, why He gave us this FREE gift. The Lord does not need you to “sow” therefore in order for you to receive a “harvest” from Him. Did Christ not say, “Does the rain not fall upon the just and the unjust?” What did the unjust do to deserve rain from God? Absolutely nothing! Yet even his harvest is being multiplied because of the rain. The following verses which Jesus spake should also be considered:

26Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? 

32(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 33But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

 Since the Lord did not ask you to sow therefore He does not need to honour your sowing with a harvest. You have therefore sown in vain  because you were deceived – you have given your money to a man who lied to you instead of exercising due diligence and being a good steward of what the Lord had already given you.

Lastly, this idea of “giving to God” is perhaps one of the biggest misnomers in the church. How does giving some money to the offering plate or bucket constitute giving to God? Indeed when you give money to church you are contributing to financing the activities of the church but the Lord is not getting a single penny of that money. Man it is that collects the money and man it is that disburses these monies according to how they see fit. The Lord does not need your money, moreover, this idea that money is needed to finance the gospel is simply not true. The Lord Himself was the first pastor and minister of the Gospel yet He did not collect tithes and offerings and other monies to finance the Gospel He came to establish. He did not build a church and set up an administrative structure to which money would flow into. Yet today we are being told that the Gospel cannot go forth without money. This is somewhat ironic when we consider that Jesus called the Twelve and sent them out and specifically told them not to take money or food with them. On their return the Lord asked them if they lacked anything when they went out to deliver the gospel to the Lost Sheep and their response was no. Indeed money is needed to sustain people but we have subscribed to the Roman church model in creating the cash machines we call church today, and financing these cash machines are seen as tantamount to financing the Gospel. The reason why you might not be receiving the blessing therefore is that you mistakenly think that by giving to church you are giving to God and as such the Lord owes you something. You would be more blessed however if you gave to the poor and needy as shown in the following scriptures (noting that it is more blessed to give than to receive, Acts 20:35):

17He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the LORD; and that which he hath given will he pay him again.( Prov 19)

 27He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack: but he that hideth his eyes shall have many a curse. (Prov 28)

“You, not God decide when to die”

The problem with many Word of Faith teaching is that it puts you in the driver seat and God as the passenger. God’s sovereignty does not come into it. I wil readily admit that I was a victim to this type of teaching back in the day and God became my puppet and I would hold him up to ransom constantly reminding him what he said in his word and that he was obligated to fulfill it……in my time and not his.

Below is a classic example of Jesse Duplantis displaying exactly what I am talking about