As you probably know, being an online apologetic and discernment labor in the Lord, a large part of the mission of Apprising Ministries has to do with turning over lots of rocks and then shining the light of Scripture upon the various types of snakes that come slithering out when thus exposed.

It’s not a popular mission; not just anyone should be doing it, and it often comes with a heavy cost. For example, the enemy certainly didn’t like it when AM alerted you to Emergence Christianity, the postmodern liberalism of his egregiously ecumenical Emergent Church aka the Emerging Church (EC).

With its core doctrine of corrupt Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism, Satan’s EC had much to do with why e.g. we see things like Beth Moore and Rick Warren openly touting the devil’s best counterfeit of Christianity, the Roman Catholic Church—the mother of deceptions—as a legit Christian organization.

It’s because charismaniacs such as Moore and Warren no longer stand for the purity of the Gospel that I would even have to write pieces like Southern Baptists Assist the Roman Catholic Church to infiltrate Evangelicalism. I’ve told you before, we can trace much of this back to the Church Growth Movement (CGM).

Rick Warren’s Seeker Driven/Purpose Driven approach, and the Emerging Church going after postmoderns with their self-centered spirituality, are but two arms of the same man-centered CGM methodology. What it’s done is to confuse Law and Gospel to the point that the Gospel’s come up missing in much of Christendom.

Here’s a key point: We simply can’t just undue the entire Protestant Reformation because some adherent’s of charismania and contemplative spirituality (they often go hand-in-hand) have now decided in their supposed private chats with the LORD God Almighty that they think He’s suddenly become Rodney King.

Think about it; isn’t the main message that such as these man-lovers espouse to their fellow Christians essentially: Can’t we all just get along? And isn’t the typical “gospel” presentation we hear today: God loves you so much right where you are that He has a wonderful plan for your life if you just become a “Christ-follower”?

Don’t fall for the people-pleasers’ major straw man that genuine Christians don’t care to present the Gospel in a loving manner. That just isn’t true; the following from William S. Plumer clearly represents the heart of the child of God toward their fellow man as we share the Gospel with them:

When we attempt to convince men of sin, we should be very careful not to do it in tones or terms indicative of want of tenderness. Some of the warm and worthy preachers of the last, as well as of the present century, indulged in such language as can in no case be justified.

When we speak of the terrors of the Lord, and warn men of the dreadful doom awaiting them, we should do it in such a meek and tender manner as to convince them that we compassionate their miserable condition as they stand exposed to a fierce and fiery condemnation, the more terrible because it is just— wholly just. On this subject there ought to be no difference. (source)

As far as the Gospel itself, we cannot forget that at the very heart of the Protestant Reformation was the all-important doctrine of justification; i.e. how is a sinful man made right in the eyes of a holy God. Get that wrong, and you are wrong for eternity. This is absolutely no light matter at all.

Here’s what been forgotten:

The classical Reformed and Lutheran traditions have maintained that the doctrine of justification is the articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae, the article upon which the Church stands and falls.

What we’re really saying is that the gospel, that is the good news that God justifies sinners by grace, through faith on account of Christ, is the articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae. So, in the minds of the reformers, the doctrine of justification is synonymous with the gospel. (source)

Martin Luther was right when he said that those “who know how to tell the difference between the law and the gospel should thank God.” And further:

You should distinguish the righteousness of the gospel from the righteousness of the law as carefully as God has separated heaven from earth, light from darkness, and the day from night. ((Martin Luther, Faith Alone [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005], April 22.))

This the apostate Church of Rome has never done, which brought about the Protestant Reformation in the first place. Unfortunately, neither has way too much of the visible Christian community so tainted by the CGM, Rome’s stepchild  That’s why I’m very happy when I come across conferences like the one I’m going to point you to.

I’m also thankful that Apprising Ministries is still blessed of the Lord to be in the position to bring warnings, teachings, and conferences like this to your attention. For you see, another critical function here at AM is to stand with brother pastors and lay people who don’t have the time or resources to search out these kinds of things.

From where I stand, as I strive to keep the brethren apprised of such matters, I believe this is also another reason why Apprising Ministries is well worthy of your prayer and financial support. In this way, you share in our important work. Now, may the Lord raise up more conferences of the nature of the one to follow below.

We join these men in praying that God will help them to awaken others to the truth of the Gospel. And how sad that, just as with the original Protestant Reformation, today the Christian community once again needs to recover the Gospel from those who have buried it with the trash of human works righteousness:

Recovering the Gospel: Evangelism in Sardis (cf. Revelation 3:3)

Western Slope Seminar on Biblical Evangelism April 24-26, 2014

A Call to Return to God-Exalting, Historic Faith and Practice 

Elm Avenue Baptist Church, 1510 North 17th Street, Grand Junction, CO.

Keynote Speaker: Randall Easter, pastor of First Baptist Church, Briar, Texas

Further reading

• HAS THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH REALLY CHANGED?
• RICK WARREN AND TEACHINGS OF DEMONS
• NO TEARS FOR LOST ROMAN CATHOLICS, BETH MOORE?