The Faithful Christian a blog of The Lighthouse Ministries

  I don’t like debating Christians. I’d rather emphasize our common faith and hope in Jesus (Eph. 4:2-5; John 17:20-23). However, there are erroneous doctrines that  need  to be corrected (or at least explored further) because they contradict the Gospel at its very foundation. One such doctrine is pejoratively called “easy-believism.” It is described as a faith that consists  only  in cognitive assent a simple mental acknowledgement of certain Gospel truths apart from repentance or a determination to follow the Savior. Favoring this doctrine, J.B. Hixson writes: Saving faith occurs when one believes in Jesus Christ as the Son of God who died and rose again to pay one’s personal penalty for sin and the one who gives eternal life to all who trust in Him and Him alone for it. ( Freely by His Grace , 145) In support, Hixson quotes Charles Ryrie: The issue is whether or not you believe that His death paid for all your sin and that by believing in Him you can have for...

There are quite a few sayings that Christians like to quote as if they are from the Bible when in actuality they do not. Some even blatantly contradict the Bible. While our nation’s biblical illiteracy shows up in our inability to recognize phrases that come from the Bible, many struggle with phrases that “sound biblical” but come from somewhere else.   For instance:   ” God will not give you more than you can handle.” Not in the Bible anywhere.  If you believe this saying, you need to talk to the early Christians.  They were hated.  They were beaten, imprisoned, tortured, and executed for their faith. What about the reformers?  Thousands of them were exiled, tortured, imprisoned, and executed, why?  For defying the wicked, Roman Catholic Church and for trying to give people the word of God in their own language. For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened b...

America, the once great nation, the lone superpower of the planet has fallen on hard times.  It’s disheartening to say the least, to see how far into the sewer this great nation has fallen in less than 250 years.  We can continue to play the blame game and point fingers at the politicians, the education system, Hollywood, etc, or we can look to the entity who is really at fault and hopefully change the tide. As an undergrad, I read Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville.  He was a French diplomat, philosopher, and political thinker who traveled all over America in 1831 searching for what made America so great.  He believed that religion played a major role in the success of any democratic form of government, but he was Roman Catholic so it’s difficult to know if he was an actual born - again Christian.   Anyway, he described America as a successful democracy, which we are not and never have been.  What America is, is a republic with shades of democra...

French writer Alexis de Tocqueville, after visiting America in 1831, said “I sought for the greatness of the United States in her commodious harbors, her ample rivers, her fertile fields, and boundless forests, and it was not there. I sought for it in her rich mines, her vast world commerce, her public school system, and in her institutions of higher learning, and it was not there. I looked for it in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution, and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great!”   I read Democracy in America in college.  De Tocqueville traveled all over America searching for what made us a great nation and he found the old time church with old time preachers, preaching hellfire and brimstone sermons was what made America ...

I  cry out to the LORD with my voice; with my voice to the LORD I make my  supplication.  I pour out my complaint before Him; I declare before Him my trouble. Psalm 142:1-2 Someone once said you can’t purify water by painting the pump. And yet that’s what we try to do. We think that somehow if we can change the exterior, if we can make conditions such that we never have any hurts or pains, then we’ll be just right. But Jesus focused on what you are, not on what you have. He didn’t say blessed are those who have popularity, those who have position, those who have personality, those who have possessions, or those who have power. I can show you people who have all of these things and are perfectly, exquisitely, miserable. Jesus didn’t say blessed are those who have certain things, but blessed are those who are certain things, including those who mourn. Many church services are filled with cheerleader enthusiasm. I’m not speaking against joy. The Bible says there’s a tim...

  “Church is not a museum for saints, its a hospital for sinners.” This phrase or something like it has been bandied about for years in order to keep Christians clear on what they should expect as members of Christ’s church. Scriptural support for such a statement comes from Jesus' words to the Pharisees in   Mark 2:16 , “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” At first hearing the clever retort feels right. However, it may be misleading. The church is not a hospital for sinners. First of all, this phrase gets abused by people who like to think of sin as an illness and not a personal guilt. Oftentimes people throw this one liner out to lessen their personal responsibility for error. The same could be said of the thoughtless excuse, “I’m only human.” or “Hey, we’re all sinners.” In a related fashion we like to use this phrase in order to dilute the depravity of our sins into just mistakes, temporary boo boos, and poor decisions. Finally, this phrase gives the fa...

That there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears. Hebrews 12:16–17 Perhaps the saddest and most godless person in Scripture outside of Judas is Esau. On the surface, their acts against God do not seem as wicked as those of many brutal and heartless pagans. But the Bible strongly condemns them. They had great light. They had every possible opportunity, as much as any person in their times, of knowing and following God. They knew His word, had heard His promises, had seen His miracles, and had had fellowship with His people; yet with determined willfulness they turned their backs on God and the things of God. Esau not only was  immoral , but was  godless . He had no ethics or faith, no scruples or reverence. He had no regard for the good, the truthful, the divine. ...

 I’ve been thinking about this a lot here lately, how the truth is under attack in the western world.  And it’s not just simple truth, reality itself is under attack.  I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.  Truth…Gods truth especially is far too important to ignore, yet that’s exactly what’s happening in this nation. In one of his dialogues, Plato cites the thinker Protagoras as saying that any given thing “is to me such as it appears to me and is to you such as it appears to you.”  This idea sounds rather modern, doesn’t it?   We hear slogans today that declare “that’s true for you but not for me,” or “that’s just your perspective.” These statements reflect the thinking of a postmodern culture that has reinvented truth to reflect the twisted ideals of the individual while forgetting that truth is absolute, it’s not of any individual interpretation.   Remember the story of the Titanic, the supposedly unsinkable ship that sank in the North Atlant...