No, I am not a herpetologist but I know the Creator and the following is an example of His marvelous handiwork.
Bible
2Timothy 2:22 Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
Sadly, the following is not unique within the SBC only but something is terribly wrong that these things continue to occur! As the Lord Jesus said several times ‘have ye not read’ seems to apply to the following churches!
‘A Southern Baptist Convention church affiliated with the Tennessee Baptist Convention and the Sevier County Association of Baptists is one of four churches that have been disfellowshipped by the SBC Executive Committee.
Antioch Baptist Church in Sevierville was dropped for employing a pastor who confessed to two counts of statutory rape. Also disfellowshiped for affirming homosexuality were Towne View Baptist Church in Kennesaw, Ga., and St. Matthews Baptist Church, Louisville, Ky. West Side Baptist Church in Sharpsville, Pa., was disfellowshiped for employing as its pastor a registered sex offender.
The EC decisions came during an executive session following the recommendations of the SBC Credentials Committee. The decisions were announced in a plenary session at the close of its two-day meeting in Nashville on Feb. 23.
Following the SBC action, Pastor Randy Leming Jr., of Antioch Baptist Church, Sevierville, since 2014, announced his resignation on Sunday, Feb. 28. Leming declined to provide a statement to the Baptist and Reflector.
Leming pleaded guilty in 1998 to two counts of statutory rape of a minor when he served as pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Sevier County. The offenses occurred in May and June of 1994, when he was 31. He lost his appeal of the concurrent 18-month sentences he deemed harsh. (‘According to a 1998 decision in a Tennessee appeals court, Leming was 31 and a pastor at Shiloh Baptist Church in Sevier County in 1994 when he performed oral sex on a 16-year-old victim on two occasions. Shiloh Baptist is within six miles of the Antioch church.’ https://julieroys.com/abuser-resigns-pastor-church-ousted-southern-baptist/?mc_cid=fb1c3d299d&mc_eid=b13d34ad49)
The SBC repurposed the Credentials Committee in 2019 to make inquiries and recommendations for action regarding instances of sexual abuse, racism or other issues that call into question a church’s relationship with the SBC.
“We take no pleasure in recommending that a church is not in friendly cooperation with the convention,” Credentials Committee chairman Mike Lawson told Baptist Press. “We would like nothing more than for all our churches to be in harmony on such vital issues. But when the available information shows clearly that we are not, it is necessary to take action.
“We are grieved, but we believe it was the right decision to recommend and will continue to pray for all involved,” Lawson said.
The Tennessee Baptist Mission Board was not informed of the SBC’s decision to disfellowship Antioch Baptist Church until after the decision was reported by The Tennessean on Feb. 23, according to Randy C. Davis, president and executive director of the TBMB.
“Now that this has been brought to our attention, we will begin the process to better understand the circumstances surrounding Antioch Baptist Church’s situation,” Davis said. “The SBC Executive Committee had a full year to work through its process and to better understand the situation. It is important that Tennessee Baptists also understand the complexities.”’https://baptistandreflector.org/sevierville-pastor-resigns-after-sbc-disfellowships-church/?mc_cid=fb1c3d299d&mc_eid=b13d34ad49
THIS JUST HAPPENED WITHOUT A DESIGNER?
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God
Ephesians 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
‘If you want to identify the variety of tree in a garden, one of the most uncomplicated ways is to identify the fruit it grows. Ancient wisdom instructs if you observe the fruit you’ll know the root.
I’ve never bought into the BLM political movement con, because the fruit was immediately obvious to anyone with an inclination to discern things beneath the surface. Rather than noble pursuits of justice, the very name sets up divisions between people: black and everyone else. If it were just a statement of the obvious – of course “black lives matters” (to which most people initially responded “duh”) – it would be just a euphemistic, short-sighted name.
However the observable fruit of the political organisation is not just racial division, but seething hatred and boiling rage, lawless violence, destruction of property and wanton murder. BLM turns cities which nurture its philosophies into war zones where the poorest of people are most hurt by the devastation wreaked by the anarchy.
There’s much more well-documented evidence of the anti-Christian, anti-family, anti-freedom social destructiveness of BLM, citing BLM itself as primary sources. But what’s recently been revealed is just how demonic they admit to being.
The leaders of BLM are calling on the spirits of the dead, claim to receive power from them and talk with these spirits by name. This is now an open secret.’ https://goodsauce.news/blm-calling-on-the-dead-spiritism-is-now-an-open-secret/
“But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” (Mark 13:32)
‘This verse has always been difficult to understand. If Jesus was God, how could He be ignorant of the time of His second coming? Indeed He was, and is, God, but He also was, and is, man. This is a part of the mystery of the divine/human nature of Christ. In the gospel record, we see frequent evidences of His humanity (He grew weary, for example, and suffered pain), but also many evidences of deity (His virgin birth, His resurrection and ascension, as well as His perfect words and deeds).
He had been in glory with the Father from eternity (John 17:24), but when He became man, “in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren” (Hebrews 2:17), except for sin. As a child, He “increased in wisdom and stature” like any other human (Luke 2:52). Through diligent study (as a man), He acquired great wisdom in the Scriptures and the plan of God. After His baptism and the acknowledgment from heaven of His divine Sonship (e.g., Matthew 3:16-17), He increasingly manifested various aspects of His deity, but He still remained fully human.
With respect to the time of the end, this depends in some degree on human activity. For example, He said that “the gospel must first be published among all nations” (Mark 13:10), and only God the Father could foresee just when men will have accomplished this. Although the glorified Son presumably now shares this knowledge, in His self-imposed human limitations He did not.
In no way does this compromise His deity. In our own finite humanity, we cannot comprehend fully the mystery of the divine/human nature of Christ, but He has given us more than sufficient reason to believe His Word!’https://www.icr.org/article/12648/?utm_source=phplist9294&utm_medium=email&utm_content=HTML&utm_campaign=March+12+-+The+Limited+Knowledge+of+Jesus
In the land of fruit and nuts the schools are now teaching students to chant to the Aztec god of Human Sacrifice! Yes, that’s what you read. Has the true God written Ichabod on America?
‘California is set to vote on a new curriculum for K-12 students, even as it faces criticism for promoting the belief that Europeans destroyed native religions with Christianity, and for one particularly troubling lesson: Teachers will lead students in an Aztec chant meant to please a god of human sacrifice.’https://nationalfile.com/california-teachers-to-lead-students-in-aztec-chants-to-god-of-human-sacrifice-in-new-curriculum/
The Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is what these students need!
Romans 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
James 1:11-12 “For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.”
Many people do not realize that there is a fundamental disconnect between deep-time astrophysics and deep-time biology. This disconnect is known as the “Faint Sun Paradox”, first formulated in 1972 by astronomer and broadcaster Carl Sagan.
Single-celled life is supposed to have evolved in the Earth’s primordial oceans 4,000 million years ago. Water should have collected into oceans about 4,400 million years ago – 140 million years after the formation of the earth.
At that timescale, the Sun would still have been a young star, with only 70% of its energy output today. This would not provide enough heat to melt ice into water, so all the Earth’s water should have been frozen – meaning that single-celled life could not evolve in it.
Creationists see flaw after flaw with these evolutionary ideas. There is no mechanism for life to have evolved from non-living molecules in that primordial ocean. But it turns out that other evolutionary scientists don’t even have a model for the existence of water. So a fiddle factor would be something that could produce a greenhouse gas to warm the earth up. Canadian scientists are suggesting that bacteria obtained from Lake Kivu in DR Congo, which metabolize by producing iron oxides and methane, could be the key. Large iron ore deposits are offered as evidence. But the study fails to give a mechanism for where the methane went.
Once again, evolutionary ideas are seen to be unscientific, while biblical ideas of design are more logical.’ https://creationmoments.com/sermons/faint-sun-and-new-paradoxes/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=faint-sun-and-new-paradoxes&mc_cid=f432d69107&mc_eid=00c1dcff3c
‘Beth Moore has announced she has left the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) although she is “still a Baptist.” Not sure if that means she now identifies with the churches of the New Testament that were totally independent—self-propagating, self-governing, and self-supporting.
Moore was shocked that so many SBC pastors supported Donald Trump and was highly critical of him (as was I) and saw only his grossness, not his greatness. She was seriously offended at the Billy Bush recording (as I was) where Trump boasted about grabbing women sexually.
Moore could not see the good that resulted from Trump’s policies—numerous babies saved from abortion, Blacks and Hispanics lifted out of poverty, religious freedoms protected, a strong economy that helped everyone, massive tax cuts, oppressive regulations removed, a wall built to keep out undesirable illegal aliens, etc.
Maybe Beth is blind in one eye and has a thick cataract on the other. Whatever, she does not see clearly.
Moore was also rightly concerned about 400 sex abuse charges in more than 20 years against SBC pastors. Of course, Moore knows that the convention does not license or ordain men; only a local church has that authority, so just a local church can pull credentials. While that is true, nothing keeps SBC leaders from putting accused pastors on probation until their churches look into the charges and resolve the issue. If not resolved, the SBC can remove offending churches from membership.
Moreover, a charge against a pastor does not equal guilt, contrary to mainline feminist leaders. We are told that we must believe any accusation made by a woman. Of course, that is insane. While every charge must be taken seriously, the allegation must be admitted or proved to be true. If a pastor is found guilty, he should be jailed. If a woman is proved to be a false accuser, she should be jailed. While sexual assault seriously impacts a woman’s life, personality, health, and the rest of her life, so does an assault on a man’s reputation affect his job, finances, his relationship with his wife and children, and his future.
I demand Equal Rights and Equal Responsibility, and Equal Accountability.
While I don’t ever want to be considered soft on pastoral sexual assault, it must be remembered that there are 47,000 SBC churches in the U.S. While one case of sexual assault is too many, 400 cases in 20 years out of 47,000 pastors (and almost that many associates) is comparable to the ratios in other denominations and non-church groups.
SBC critics speak of offending pastors (accused pastors) being moved to other locations when charges are made public; however, the SBC cannot move pastors to other places. To move to another church is a decision made by a local church and a potential pastor. That charge against the SBC is not legitimate.
One of Moore’s major supporters (who wanted to nominate her to be President of the SBC), Pastor Dwight McKissic recently left his state convention declaring, “We Are Getting Off the Bus,” meaning he has pulled his church out of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. Moreover, he will pull his church out of the national SBC if he does not like how things go at their national convention.
He has a right to choose with whom to associate as a person and as a pastor.
The President of the SBC, J.D. Greear, said in a statement that he hoped the news of Moore’s departure would cause the denomination to “lament,” pray and “rededicate itself to its core values.” But the SBC, as an entity, left SBC “core values” a long time ago. It is now concerned with critical race theory, feminism, and all progressive issues that makes vice president what’s-her-name Harris stand up and cheer.
The SBC, if not dead, is dying; and the vultures flying over their corporate headquarters in Nashville are indicative of that. (For the metaphor-deficient readers, that is a symbolic comment since Nashville doesn’t have vultures—that fly.) Frankly, it is not a natural death, since the SBC is committing suicide.
I have dealt elsewhere with the convention’s divisive issues in which the denominational leaders have almost always made the progressive but wrong decision. The trend toward an extreme Calvinist position, education at the expense of evangelism, promoting social justice warriors, progressivism over tradition, and female leadership are the reasons crepe will hang on their corporate doors. They are doing it to themselves.
Those are the reasons Beth and others should have left the SBC convention. She made the right decision for the wrong reason.
While all the above hot issues are taking their toll, one of the most divisive is the role of women in the group and in local churches, of which Beth Moore is their main spokeswoman. Of course, that is a decision for a local church to make.
Leftist pastors in the SBC have promoted the possibility of Beth Moore being elected to be President of the SBC! Dwight McKissic, the senior pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, said, “If I thought Beth Moore would accept the nomination or be agreeable to being nominated,… I would nominate her for SBC president.”
He went on to say there was no Scripture to prohibit a female leader of the SBC since it is not a local church; however, there is the problem of having authority over men. He mentioned females who prophesied in the Bible, but that is not having authority over men. Moreover, to deny Beth or any woman a leadership position would be “sinful and shameful,” according to the good reverend.
Nevertheless, refusing Moore as president of the SBC would be Scriptural in my opinion.
Will the SBC make a break with its longstanding position of male leadership and thereby split the denomination? Probably so, and very soon. The SBC is complementarian. That is defined as “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.” In opposition is egalitarianism, the unbiblical position that “men and women are equal in authority and responsibilities, including as pastors.”
A train wreck is about to happen.
As the late pastor Adrian Rogers wisely said, “As the West goes, so goes the world. As America goes, so goes the West. As Christianity goes, so goes America. As evangelicals go, so goes Christianity. As Southern Baptists go, so go evangelicals.”
If the SBC follows the path they are on and nominates any female, there will be a bloody battle on the convention floor resulting in the split heard around the world.
Beth Moore has already done her splitting—with more to follow. She made the right decision but for the wrong reason.’ http://donboys.cstnews.com/beth-moore-has-left-the-southern-baptist-convention-the-right-decision-but-the-wrong-reason
Charles Haddon Spurgeon was an English Baptist preacher who became known world-wide as the ‘Prince of Preachers’. His whole focus in life after coming to know Christ as his personal Saviour was to preach the Gospel. Along with preaching he wrote many books and the following is WHAT ARE WE AT which is the Second chapter of the book ALL OF GRACE.
‘I HEARD A STORY; I think it came from the North Country: A minister called upon a poor woman, intending to give her help; for he knew that she was very poor. With his money in his hand, he knocked at the door; but she did not answer. He concluded she was not at home, and went his way. A little after he met her at the church, and told her that he had remembered her need: “I called at your house, and knocked several times, and I suppose you were not at home, for I had no answer.” “At what hour did you call, sir?” “It was about noon.” “Oh, dear,” she said, “I heard you, sir, and I am so sorry I did not answer; but I thought it was the man calling for the rent.” Many a poor woman knows what this meant.
Now, it is my desire to be heard, and therefore I want to say that I am not calling for the rent; indeed, it is not the object of this book to ask anything of you, but to tell you that salvation is ALL OF GRACE, which means, free, gratis, for nothing.
Oftentimes, when we are anxious to win attention, our hearer thinks, “Ah! now I am going to be told my duty. It is the man calling for that which is due to God, and I am sure I have nothing wherewith to pay. I will not be at home.” No, this book does not come to make a demand upon you, but to bring you something. We are not going to talk about law, and duty, and punishment, but about love, and goodness, and forgiveness, and mercy, and eternal life. Do not, therefore, act as if you were not at home: do not turn a deaf ear, or a careless heart. I am asking nothing of you in the name of God or man. It is not my intent to make any requirement at your hands; but I come in God’s name, to bring you a free gift, which it shall be to your present and eternal joy to receive. Open the door, and let my pleadings enter. “Come now, and let us reason together.” The Lord himself invites you to a conference concerning your immediate and endless happiness, and He would not have done this if He did not mean well toward you. Do not refuse the Lord Jesus who knocks at your door; for He knocks with a hand which was nailed to the tree for such as you are. Since His only and sole object is your good, incline your ear and come to Him. Hearken diligently, and let the good word sink into your soul. It may be that the hour is come in which you shall enter upon that new life which is the beginning of heaven. Faith cometh by hearing, and reading is a sort of hearing: faith may come to you while you are reading this book. Why not? O blessed Spirit of
all grace, make it so!’
What has become known as ‘Progressive Christianity’ is just another wiles, tricks or schemes of the Devil. The born-again believer is admonished to ‘Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil‘.
A church in Nashville that once held evangelical Bible beliefs has through one pastor moved into the so-called ‘Progressive Christianity’. http://media.prophecytoday.com/PT_Daily/headline.mp3
‘The GracePointe community is leading the theological development and practice of progressive Christianity. This is at the core of what makes us distinct, and is far from a simple label change for a modern repackaging of traditional beliefs. Although Progressive Christianity defies specific doctrines, here is a helpful explanation from ProgressiveChristianity.org. By calling ourselves progressive Christians, we mean we are Christians who:
- Believe that following the path and teachings of Jesus can lead to an awareness and experience of the Sacred and the Oneness and Unity of all life.
- Affirm that the teachings of Jesus provide but one of many ways to experience the Sacredness and Oneness of life, and that we can draw from diverse sources of wisdom in our spiritual journey.
- Seek community that is inclusive of ALL people, including but not limited to: Conventional Christians and questioning skeptics, believers and agnostics, women and men, those of all sexual orientations and gender identities, those of all classes and abilities.
- Know that the way we behave towards one another is the fullest expression of what we believe.
- Find grace in the search for understanding and believe there is more value in questioning than in absolutes.
- Strive for peace and justice among all people.
- Strive to protect and restore the integrity of our Earth.
- Commit to a path of life-long learning, compassion, and selfless love.’https://www.gracepointe.net/about-us
This is NOT Bible Christianity and will only lead those in it to hell.
Galatians 1:6 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel Galatians 1:8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
Galatians 1:9 As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. 2Timothy 3:13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.
whatyareckon 