THE CHURCH MILITANT
Ephesians 5:11-"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them". This Christian News Blog maintains a one stop resource of current news and reports of its own related to church, moral, spiritual, and related political issues, plus articles, and postings from other online discernment ministries, and media which share the aims to obey the biblical commands to shed light on and refute error, heresy, apostasy, cults, and spiritual abuse.
Establishment poster boy is doing all he can to stop POTUS
The Republicans may have control of the government, but they are
unwilling to get anything done because they are still hoping that
President Trump will fail and they can go back to robbing the American
people blind, hand in hand with the Democrats.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
07-18-2017 • https://www.technocracy.news
SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Jul. 12, 2017– Today Visa (NYSE:V)
announced it is launching a major effort to encourage businesses to go
cashless. Aiming to create a culture where cash is no longer king, the
program will give merchants increased ability to accept all forms of
global digital payments. Visa will be encouraging and helping merchants
go cashless by using innovation to their advantage in order to stay
competitively connected to their customers.
To encourage businesses to go cashless, Visa is announcing The Visa Cashless Challenge,
with a call to action for small business restaurants, cafés or food
truck owners to describe what cashless means for them, their employees
and customers. Visa will be awarding up to $500,000 to 50 eligible
US-based small business food service owners who commit to joining the
100% cashless quest.
“At Visa, we believe you can be everywhere you want to be, and that
it should be easy to pay and be paid in more ways than ever – whether
it’s a phone, card, wearable or other device,” said Jack Forestell, head
of global merchant solutions, Visa Inc. “With 70% of the world, or more
than 5 billion people, connected via mobile device by 20201, we have an
incredible opportunity to educate merchants and consumers alike on the
effectiveness of going cashless.” Benefits of Going Cashless
Visa has recognized the net benefits for merchants when they reduce
dependency on cash transaction. Visa recently conducted a study that
found that if businesses in 100 cities transitioned from cash to
digital, their cities stand to experience net benefits of $312 billion
per year. According to this study, in New York City alone, businesses
could generate an additional $6.8 billion in revenue and save more than
186 million hours in labor, by making greater use of digital payments.
This amounts to more than $5 billion annual costs savings for businesses
in New York. The complete results with the benefits of going cashless
for businesses will be included in the “Cashless Cities: Realizing the
Benefits of Digital Payments” report that will be released by Visa later
this year.
Reported By Gina Kynast
Editors Note: We know that before the Anti-Christ can rule the world
with His mark to demand worship of every person on earth on the pain of
death, the world must move to a cashless society. India and other
countries are already moving that direction. America is now beginning
to prepare for that day. This article is an example of how it will be
accomplished. The banking industry will lead the way. Please read Rev.
Chapter 13 and 14.
Rev 13:11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.
Rev 13:12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before
him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the
first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
Rev 13:13 And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,
Rev 13:14 And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of
those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast;
saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image
to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.
Rev 13:15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast,
that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as
would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
Rev 13:16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free
and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
Rev 13:17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Rev 13:18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the
number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is
Six hundred threescore and six.
_________________________________________________________
Victims
of illegal immigration tell their heartbreaking stories while meeting
with President Trump. This is why we need to end sanctuary cities,
build the wall, and deport the criminal illegal aliens that have invaded
the United States of America.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
An evil is in the professed camp of
the Lord, so gross in its impudence, that the most shortsighted can
hardly fail to notice it during the past few years. It has developed at
an abnormal rate, even for evil. It has worked like leaven until the
whole lump ferments. The devil has seldom done a cleverer thing than
hinting to the church that part of their mission is to provide
entertainment for the people, with a view to winning them. –Charles Spurgeon
Charles Spurgeon, well over a century ago, rightly complained about
the influence of entertainment in the church in order to attract a
crowd. As part of what was dubbed the “downgrade controversy,” Spurgeon
held that the attractiveness of this entertainment to the world was
futile and served no purpose except to muddy the waters between
godliness and godlessness. For the world, itself is not drawn to church
by the preaching of the word of God, for the world sees this as
foolishness.
For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. –1 Corinthians 1:18
What we see today is an aggrandizement of the serious error that
plagued the church in Spurgeon’s time. The professing church has become
an industrial entertainment complex that is substantially driven by
income, and income requires customers. And in a free market economy, if
you want to keep your customers, you must provide the best product or
service in the industry–in the case of the professing church, it’s
entertainment.
So we see a competition among churches today to provide the best
entertainment to its customers in an effort to keep them in the pews.
From Keller’s Redeemer Church putting on a daft display of effeminate
gambol to Exodus Church, an Acts 29 church, commissioning a “deacon(ess) of storytelling” to supposedly aid God’s word in the expansion of “imagination” to counter disbelief. One church in North Carolina, New Hope Church in Garner, NC, led by
Pastor Benji Kelley, actually rides out onto the stage on a
Harley-Davidson with flashing lights and loud Rock & Roll music
while the crowd claps and cheers.
This has nothing at all to do with God, but this is a
self-aggrandizing pastor who desires notoriety and fame for himself.
Nothing–nothing at all–draws attention and points to Christ in this
foolish display of self-promotion. I suppose, however, that if you’re
able to abandon the absolute truth and authority of Scripture, as Keller
does with the creation account for example, then it’s easy to see how
this tommyrot can be passed off as Churchianity in the modern professing
church.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,because
they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served
the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. –Romans 1:24-25
True believers do not need this sort of claptrap, for they are drawn
purely to Christ and His redemptive work on the cross. God’s word feeds
the sheep (Hebrews 5:12-14).
It is not a function of the church to provide entertainment. This
serves no purpose except to make something that is sacred for the
purpose of God’s elect to be more palatable for those who are not drawn
to Christ. Church is not for goats, it’s for God’s sheep, and God’s
sheep are drawn to the preaching of the Word. Goats are repulsed by it.
Spurgeon’s downgrade continues.
_______________________________________________________
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
Tim Keller’s legacy church is wrought with compromise. A church that
is part of the traditionally conservative PCA, problems range from its
members converting to Catholicism to a low view of biblical
authority–Keller is a theistic evolutionist. In November of 2016, under the pastoral leadership of Keller, during
the offertory portion of worship, Redeemer offers up an effeminate dance
routine with three men, Ethan Fuller, Ghaleb Kayali, and Lars Nelson,
prancing around on stage dressed in tight, white clothing and acting in
such a manner that is, well, let’s say, less than appropriate for a
Christian church. Does Redeemer honestly believe that this is somehow glorifying to
God? Men acting like girls prancing around in prairie chasing
butterflies and grabbing each other’s waists?
Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. –1 Corinthians 16:13
See video below (Warning! May be hard on your eyes).
EXCERPT:
"The Gospel does not require the help of human art. If an atheist
experiences this schitzophrenia that Keller speaks of, he isn’t
instantly driven to God. He will continue in his sins. Only the Gospel
has the power to save. He claims we are never going to reach the world
with great Christian art, and yet the Bible never commands Christians to
make great art and show it to all people, but instead to preach the
Gospel."
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
“No one can serve
two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he
will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God
and wealth.”Matthew 6:24
Very few people were surprised when retired mainline pastor and author of The Message, Eugene Peterson, came out in support of same-sex “marriage” on July 12th. His denomination, the Presbyterian Church USA, has been theologically adrift for years. In 2004, the denomination gave approval
for its pastors to perform same-sex “marriages”. So when Peterson
responded to the following question from (same-sex attracted) reported
Jonathan Merrit, with a “yes” it should have come to surprise to no one:
“If you were pastoring today and a gay couple in your
church who were Christians of good faith asked you to perform their
same-sex wedding ceremony, is that something you would do?”
Now, to any Bible-believing Christian, especially a pastor, the
answer to this question is clearly “that’s nonsense.” It can’t even be
“yes” or “no” because there is simply no such thing as a gay couple who
are “Christians of good faith.” The Apostle Paul makes this
exceptionally clear in his epistles to the Roman and Corinthian churches (unless of course, one is reading those epistles out of The Message).
That a liberal Presbyterian would answer “yes” in the year 2017 when
pressed by a progressive religion reporter is about as expected as the
Alabama Crimsons Tide winning ten football games next season. That
Peterson revealed that he had been the pastor to several lesbians who
were “just as Christian as everybody else in the church” is also to be
expected. (Of course, there may be some kernel of truth to his
statement in that a PCUSA “church” with several undisciplined and
unrepentant lesbians is likely to have no Christians whatsoever. So,
these women may have been just as a Christian as everyone else in the
church…not at all Christian). That Peterson’s church hired a gay music
minister is another pedestrian piece of news. What was (but is no
longer) shocking was the frankness with which Peterson let his opinion
of homosexuality be known:
“I wouldn’t have said this 20 years ago, but now I know a
lot of people who are gay and lesbian and they seem to have as good a
spiritual life as I do. I think that kind of debate about lesbians and
gays might be over. People who disapprove of it, they’ll probably just
go to another church. So we’re in a transition and I think it’s a
transition for the best, for the good. I don’t think it’s something that
you can parade, but it’s not a right or wrong thing as far as I’m
concerned.”
The statement above is not something Peterson would not have said 20 years ago but now in the midst of the moral revolution, when being against “gay rights” is socially akin to being for
racism, Peterson obviously felt comfortable enough to speak his mind
freely. That is, until he realized that the Southern Baptists were
listening. The Southern Baptist Convention controls one of the largest
Christian retailers in the nation, LifeWay Christian Resources. While
that entity’s standards for Christian literature are shamefully low, it
will not carry literature authored by gay-affirming authors. Jen
Hatmaker found this out the hard way last October after she came out in
support of same-sex relationships and was promptly banned from LifeWay. When LifeWay caught wind of Merrit’s report, it wasn’t long until LifeWay came calling. The Baptist Press reported on the same day that
Merrit’s story broke that LifeWay would “stop selling all works by
Peterson if he confirms the views reported by (Merrit)”. According to a
LifeWay statement:
“LifeWay only carries resources in our stores by authors
who hold to the biblical view of marriage. We are attempting to confirm
with Eugene Peterson or his representatives that his recent interview
on same-sex marriage accurately reflects his views. If he confirms he
does not hold to a biblical view of marriage, LifeWay will no longer
sell any resources by him, including The Message.”
That meant Peterson would soon be off of the shelves at LifeWay. Only Peterson began promptly singing a different tune upon being
contacted by the retail chain. As reported in Christianity Today, Peterson sought to clarify his remarks from the previous day. Peterson stated:
To clarify, I affirm a biblical view of marriage: one man
to one woman. I affirm a biblical view of everything…When put on the
spot by this particular interviewer, I said yes in the moment. But on
further reflection and prayer, I would like to retract that. That’s not
something I would do out of respect to the congregation, the larger
church body, and the historic biblical Christian view and teaching on
marriage. That said, I would still love such a couple as their pastor.
They’d be welcome at my table, along with everybody else.”
Two things stand out here. The first is that anyone who would
welcome practicing homosexuals who are professing Christians to his
table does not affirm a “biblical view of everything”. Paul told the
Corinthian church “do not even eat” with such a person. The second is
that a professional theologian who is in his eighties and worked as a
pastor and Christian author for his entire career made a theological
statement about long-accepted Christian doctrine on Wednesday and
completely reversed his position on Thursday. That’s unbelievable.
Surely Peterson knows and has known what he really believes just as
surely as he knows that LifeWay sells 12 different versions
of his Message “Bible”. Peterson’s widely accepted social views would
have cost him money with the Baptist bookstore if he doubled down on
them. He realized this and he didn’t double-down. He tried to take his
money and run.
Peterson, it would seem, made a statement in service of his master.
It’s very apparent that Peterson lied at least one day this week.
It’s also quite apparent that Peterson may have been telling the truth
when he said that he “knew of people who are gay and lesbian and they
seem to have as good a spiritual life” as he did. After reading about
Peterson’s statements and actions for the last two days, that’s not hard
to imagine. That LifeWay will sell books by a woman who claims to be writing for Jesus himself, in the Lord’s voice, but not The Message if
Peterson thinks it’s okay to be a practicing homosexual is another
story. Sadly, it’s no less shocking than what has been seen this week
from Eugene Peterson. __________________________________________________ SEE ALSO:
Southern Baptist Entity Head Admonishes Christians
"Today, Southern Baptist entity head, Russell Moore, of the Ethics and
Religious Liberties Commission advised Christians that they should still
read and learn from the now pro-gay author. Moore states in an article at The (Social) Gospel Coalition___."
"Moore continues in his piece for Peterson, stating,
But that doesn’t mean we should throw away our Peterson (or Berry) books."
"Moore continues, There is much I’ve learned from Peterson, and much I am sure I will learn in the future."
"Moore, once again, is propping up a false teacher. What makes Eugene
Peterson any different than any other gay-affirming heretic, such as
Matthew Vines?"
