Showing posts with label Matt Barber. Show all posts

Friday, August 19, 2016

Of Two Evils, 'Neither' Is Not a Choice - MATT BARBER CHARISMA NEWS

Before you cast your vote, consider this. (DorkyMum/Flickr/Creative Commons)

Of Two Evils, 'Neither' Is Not a Choice

You may have seen the meme come across your social media feeds. It's a quote by the fiery preacher and great 19th-century theologian Charles Spurgeon: "Of two evils, choose neither."

I get it. I love reading old Spurgeon sermons and very much appreciate his godly wisdom. I've actually posted this quote on my own social media and felt pretty stinkin' self-righteous about it.

Then it occurred to me. Is it really that simple? Is "choosing neither of two evils" always the right choice? Is it always the wise choice? Is it always the moral choice? What if, God forbid, something like this happened: Let's say that devout Muslims capture you and your family, hold a gun to your head and say, "You have one of two choices: We will either behead your children, or, alternatively, we will cut off your foot, patch you up and send you hobbling along your way. Choose one. If you refuse to choose, we will choose for you."

That's evil. Both choices are evil. Would you "choose the lesser of two evils," or, as Spurgeon suggests, would you "choose neither," thereby sealing your fate and that of your children?

"But that's an unfair analogy!" you say.

OK, I disagree, but let's try another one.

"Imagine our two families are miles from land in a sinking boat," writes pastor John Barber (no relation) at The Aquila Report. "Suddenly, out of the mist, come two boats to save us. One is captained by an adulterer; the other is captained by a thief. Which boat will you get into? You say, 'Neither one. I'm waiting for the evangelical boat which is captained by a devout Christian who will end abortion.' I say, 'You're kidding, right?' You reply, 'Both these guys are reprobates and I'm not going to choose between two evils.'"

To expand on pastor Barber's analogy, let's say that the boat with the thief is worse than first thought. As it approaches we immediately discover that it's crawling with pirates and that if we come onboard, our doom is assured. This certainly limits our options, doesn't it? What now? Does getting on board with the adulterer mean we support adultery, or does it simply mean that, despite his moral failings, we believe he's better equipped to get us to safety?

Indeed, we are on a fast-sinking boat in shark-infested waters, and we're miles from shore with but two boats from which to choose. One of those boats is captained by a thief and full of pirates. The other boat, while certainly imperfect and captained by a fallen, sinful man, at least offers some chance at rescue.

"But there's a third choice!" you say.

Sure, there may be a few pieces of driftwood floating about that represent options three, four or five, but we all know that a piece of driftwood has little chance of saving our families—especially with hungry sharks circling. You may choose a piece of driftwood out of principle, but are you willing to stake the lives of your family on what you perceive as the principled stand?

Doesn't seem that principled to me.

These are perilous times, and we've got difficult choices to make. When we're sinking, sometimes God sends us a boat with a reprobate at the helm. He has a history of doing quite a lot with reprobates.

Will He this time?

God only knows.

Pray hard.

And then pick your boat.

Matt Barber is founder and editor-in chief of barbwire.com. He is an author, columnist, cultural analyst and an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. Having retired as an undefeated heavyweight professional boxer, Matt has taken his fight from the ring to the culture war. (Follow Matt on Twitter: @jmattbarber).

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Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Debunking The 'Separation of Church and State' Myth - MATT BARBER CHARISMA NEWS

Remain undaunted by the threat of government intervention or punitive action by the state. (Reuters)

Debunking The 'Separation of Church and State' Myth

The American church has a problem. It's one part fear, one part confusion and one part apathy. Pastors, priests and rabbis have long swallowed the false notion that all things religious and all things political are somehow mutually exclusive—that never the twain shall meet.

Leading up to Ronald Reagan's landslide presidential victory in 1980, Rev. Jerry Falwell, the founder of Liberty University, captured the crux of the church's apathy problem. "I'm being accused of being controversial and political," he said. "I'm not political. But moral issues that become political, I still fight. It isn't my fault that they've made these moral issues political. But because they have doesn't stop the preachers of the gospel from addressing them. ..."

"What then is wrong?" he continued. "I say the problem, first of all, is in the pulpits of America. We preachers must take the blame. For too long we have fearfully stood back and failed to address the issues that are corrupting the republic. I repeat Proverbs 14:34: 'Righteousness exalteth a nation.' Not military might, though that's important. Not financial resources, though that has been the enjoyment of this nation above all nations in the last 200 years. But spiritual power is the backbone, the strength, of a nation."

Indeed, it is not just within the church's purview, but it is the church's duty to insert itself into state matters relating to morality, public policy and culture at large.

Contrary to popular opinion, the words "separation of church and state" are found nowhere in the U.S. Constitution. Yet many are misled into believing they are.

So why the confusion?

It's been intentionally fomented. It's the byproduct of a decades-long religious cleansing campaign. The First Amendment's "Establishment Clause," a mere 10 words, is the primary tool secular separatists misuse and abuse to "fundamentally transform" America to reflect their own anti-Christian self-image.

Yet these words remain abundantly clear in both scope and meaning. The Establishment Clause states merely: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. ..."

That's it.

And the founders meant exactly what they said: "Congress," as in the United States Congress, "shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."

In a letter to Benjamin Rush, a fellow-signer of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, often touted by the left as the great church-state separationist, spelled out exactly what this meant then, and what it means today. The First Amendment's Establishment Clause was simply intended to restrict Congress from affirmatively "establishing," through federal legislation, a national Christian denomination (similar to the Anglican Church of England).

As Jefferson put it: "[T]he clause of the Constitution" covering "freedom of religion" was intended to necessarily preclude "an establishment of a particular form of Christianity through the United States."

The individual states, however, faced no such restriction. In fact, until as late as 1877, and after religious free exercise became absolute with passage of the 14th Amendment, most states did have an official state form of Christianity. Massachusetts, for example, sanctioned the Congregational Church until 1833.

Even so, today's anti-Christian ruling class insists on revising history. The ACLU's own promotional materials, for example, overtly advocate unconstitutional religious discrimination: "The message of the Establishment Clause [to the U.S. Constitution] is that religious activities must be treated differently from other activities to ensure against governmental support for religion," they claim.

This is abject nonsense. It's unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination—a twisted misrepresentation of the First Amendment. Secular "progressivism" depends upon deception as much as it relies upon revisionism. Yes, "separation" applies, but only insofar as it requires the state to remain separate from the church. That is to say, that government may not interfere with the free exercise of either speech or religion.

For decades, hard-left anti-theist groups like the ACLU, People for the American Way (PFAW) and Barry Lynn's Americans United (AU) have employed a cynical disinformation scheme intended to intimidate clergy into silence on issues of morality, culture and Christian civic involvement—issues that, as Falwell noted, are not political so much as they have been politicized; issues that are inherently "religious."

AU, for instance, annually sends tens-of-thousands of misleading letters to churches across the nation warning pastors, priests and rabbis that, "If the IRS determines that your house of worship has engaged in unlawful intervention, it can revoke the institution's tax-exempt status."

That's a lie.

In reality, there is no legal mechanism whatsoever for the Internal Revenue Service to take away a church's tax exemption. Churches are inherently tax-exempt, or, better still, "tax immune," simply by virtue of being a church. Churches do not need permission from the IRS, nor can the IRS revoke a church's tax immunity.

Since 1934, when the lobbying restriction was added to the Internal Revenue Code, not a single church has ever lost its tax-exempt status. Since 1954, when the political endorsement/opposition prohibition was added, only one church has ever lost its IRS letter ruling, but even that church did not lose its tax-exempt status.

The case involved the Church at Pierce Creek in New York, which placed full-page ads in USA Today and the Washington Times opposing then-Gov. Bill Clinton for president. The ads were sponsored by the church, and donations were solicited. The IRS revoked the church's letter ruling, but not its tax-exempt status. The church sued, and the court noted that churches are tax-exempt without an IRS letter ruling. It ruled that "because of the unique treatment churches receive under the Internal Revenue Code, the impact of the revocation is likely to be more symbolic than substantial." Not even this church lost its tax-exempt status, and not one donor was affected by this incident.

As Mat Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel has observed, "Pastors can preach on biblical, moral and social issues, such as natural marriage and abortion, can urge the congregation to register and vote, can overview the positions of the candidates, and may personally endorse candidates. Churches may distribute nonpartisan voter guides, register voters, provide transportation to the polls, hold candidate forums, and introduce visiting candidates."

Since 2008, the Christian legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom has spearheaded a First Amendment exercise called "Pulpit Freedom Sunday." Since then, thousands of pastors across America have boldly exercised their guaranteed constitutional rights by addressing "political" issues from the pulpit. This has included directly endorsing candidates. These pastors have dared the IRS to come after them, and, not surprisingly, the IRS has balked.

Pastors, this election season follow the lead of Christ. Speak moral/political truths, in love, fearlessly. Remain undaunted by the threat of government intervention or punitive action by the state. And encourage your congregation to vote for candidates who sincerely reflect, in both word and deed, a biblical worldview and biblical principles.

Be "salt and light."

Because Christ didn't give us an option to do otherwise.

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Monday, October 26, 2015

Why Crazy Is the New Normal - Matt Barber, CHARISMA NEWS

"The progressive left under Obama is accomplishing much more than just enlarging government, redistributing wealth and de-Christianizing the culture." (Reuters)

Why Crazy Is the New Normal

No, you haven't lost your mind.

Yes, America has.

If someone just 20 years ago had said, for starters, that we'd someday elect an anti-American president who would intentionally flood our borders with millions of illegal immigrants and Islamist "refugees," that we'd soon celebrate as "heroic" a former Olympic champion for mutilating his body and pretending to be a woman, that we'd have five extremist lawyers on the Supreme Court unconstitutionally force the radical redefinition of marriage to mollify people with same-sex fetishes—you might call that person crazy.

Well, crazy is the new normal. America has lost its mind. We've snapped. Anyone with eyes to see, ears to hear and a brain to think knows it.

But why? How did it happen? What exactly caused America's moral GPS to send our nation headlong into oncoming traffic?

And can anything be done to fix it?

Maybe once in a generation are we so graced with a communicator like veteran journalist and best-selling author David Kupelian. His matchless ability to unpack the complicated issues of our day with simplistic precision is nothing short of genius, a gift from God he has shared once more in his latest book, The Snapping of the American Mind: Healing a Nation Broken by a Lawless Government and Godless Culture.

As I've said before, when David puts pen to paper, it "has the same effect on your brain that yawning has on your ears at high altitude. Things just suddenly pop with crystal clarity." The closest comparison I can make to David Kupelian is author and Christian apologist C.S. Lewis. As a Lewis enthusiast of the first order, I don't make that comparison lightly.

In, The Snapping of the American Mind, Kupelian one ups himself by exploring, in lucid detail, the root cause of our current age of lawlessness and moral anarchy. Yet, somehow, he manages to leave us filled with hope for American revival and renewal.Snapping is just the book America needs for a time such a time as this.

In it you will learn:

How the left has succeeded in redefining not just "marriage," but the rest of Americans' core values, from "equality" to "justice" to "freedom";
Why America, unquestionably the least racist nation on earth, is now being portrayed as a deeply racist pariah state;
Why the United States is intentionally being flooded with millions of needy, dependent, Third World immigrants;
How a group that amputates healthy body parts and has a 41 percent attempted suicide rate is officially declared "normal," yet new "research" suggests conservatives have malformed brains;
Which of the two major U.S. political parties has a far higher incidence of mental illness;
Why Americans today are more stressed-out, confused, conflicted and addicted than at any time in the nation's history—and where this ominous trend is leading;
And much, much more ...

Kupelian, who is vice president and managing editor of WND (WorldNetDaily) and editor of Whistleblower magazine, authored two previous blockbuster bestsellers, The Marketing of Evil and its sequel, How Evil Works.

"The progressive left under Obama," he writes of his new book, "is accomplishing much more than just enlarging government, redistributing wealth and de-Christianizing the culture. With its wild celebration of sexual anarchy, its intimidating culture of political correctness and its incomprehension of the fundamental sacredness of human life, it is also, whether intentionally or not, promoting widespread dependency, debauchery, family breakdown, crime, corruption, depression and addiction."

"Surveying this growing chaos in American society," notes the book's summary, "Kupelian exposes both the utopian revolutionaries and their extraordinary methods that have turned America's most cherished values literally upside down—to the point that madness is celebrated and normality demonized."

In essence, Snapping untangles the modern-day manifestation of the timeless biblical truth found in Isaiah 5:20: "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who exchange darkness for light, and light for darkness; who exchange bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!"

But unlike the woeful occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Kupelian offers a substantive path forward—real hope and real change that will fundamentally repair what the "progressive" left has "fundamentally transformed."

"I don't give up hope," said Kupelian on the radio show Coast to Coast AM with George Noory. "I mean, you could say, if there's no hope then what do you do? You go off, you drop out, you live for yourself, for your family, and you try to live a good life. No; too many people have fought and bled and died to help this country and to help strangers in foreign lands. There's still half the country that has not had their mind snapped."

Which half of the country maintains majority influence over the whole, may determine whether we have any future at all.

The Snapping of the American Mind is good medicine for an America gone mad.

Pick it up today. Read. Learn. Plan.

Because America's time may be running out.

For a limited time, we are extending our celebration of the 40th anniversary of Charisma. As a special offer, you can get 40 issues of Charisma magazine for only $40!

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Thursday, September 10, 2015

Wanted: A Million More Bold Christians Like Kim Davis

Matt Barber believes Christians should follow Kim Davis' example. (Reuters/Marlene Steele)

Wanted: A Million More Bold Christians Like Kim Davis

For the first time in American history a woman has been imprisoned by the government for merely exercising her Christian faith. War has been declared on Christ and His followers.

And there's no turning back.

Anti-Christian persecution is the civil rights cause of our time. The cultural Marxists in power have seceded from our constitutional republican form of government, with its Judeo-Christian moorings, and have supplanted, in its place, a secular-socialist oligarchy. Like Union troops hunkered at Fort Sumter, faithful Christians are now exiles in our own land. Anti-Christian "progressives" have demanded unconditional surrender, and federal Judge David Bunning has fired the first mortar.

Even as I write, a kind, soft-spoken and well-respected civil servant of 27 years sits languishing, like some violent criminal, in a Kentucky prison. She is confined, indefinitely and without benefit of a trial, to a tiny cell. She is a political prisoner in a spiritual war. Like so many accidental civil rights heroes who came before her, Davis, a Democrat who was overwhelmingly elected as Rowan County clerk, has peacefully and graciously refused to violate her Christian conscience.

She has declined to sign her name to marriage certificates that defy God's natural design for the timeless institution. Instead she has requested, as a simple accommodation, that either her name be removed from the marriage licenses, thus eliminating her personalized acquiescence to the Supreme Court's novel attempt to usurp God's authority and redefine this cornerstone institution, or, alternatively, "to allow licenses to be issued by the chief executive of Rowan County or [by] developing a statewide, online marriage license process."

That's it. Simple, reasonable and fair. Our nation has a rich history of respecting the rights of conscientious objectors, and Kim Davis, like tens of millions of her brothers and sisters in Christ, is exactly that.

"There is absolutely no reason that this case has gone so far without reasonable people respecting and accommodating Kim Davis' First Amendment rights," said Mat Staver, Davis' attorney and head of Liberty Counsel, a Christian civil rights organization.

"This is a heaven or hell issue for me and for every other Christian that believes," Davis said on Thursday. "This is a fight worth fighting. ... I've weighed the cost and I'm prepared to go to jail."

And so she has.

Reasonable people can disagree on the propriety of Kim's actions. Some say that she was right in refusing to violate her conscience by signing her name to a legal document that presumes to solemnize that which God condemns. Still others say that she needs to either "do her job" or resign—that she took an oath and is violating that oath.

Nevertheless, all reasonable people must agree that imprisoning this innocent woman for her conscience is both an absolute outrage and gross violation of her constitutional liberties. Even the ACLU thought it was a bridge too far. The fact remains that people don't shed their First Amendment rights when they become government employees.

Kim Davis swore to uphold the U.S. Constitution, the Kentucky Constitution and the laws of the Bluegrass state. When she took her oath, United States law, the Kentucky Constitution and the Kentucky Revised Statutes all reflected the millennia-old definition of natural marriage: "Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Kentucky."

The Kentucky Legislature has yet to change this law one jot or tittle. Instead, five left-wing extremist lawyers in Washington, D.C., issued an opinion presuming to move the goalposts mid-game. Court opinions are not "the law of the land." Judges don't make laws—only the legislature can do that. Kim Davis is not defying the law; she is upholding it as codified.

Accordingly, she has repeatedly asked, "Under what law am I authorized to issue homosexual couples a marriage license?"

Neither Judge Bunning nor anyone else can answer.

Because no such law exists.

In a statement on Friday, Mat Staver made the same point: "Not long ago 75 percent of Kentuckians passed the state's marriage amendment. Today a Christian is imprisoned for believing what the voters affirmed: marriage is between a man and a woman. Five people on the Supreme Court imposed their will on 320 million Americans and unleashed a torrent of assaults against people of faith. Kim Davis is the first victim of this tragedy."

Indeed, many scoffed at our warnings that Christians will someday be forced to either endorse "gay marriage" or go to jail. Well, scoff no more. That day has arrived. In just two months since the high court's disgraceful Obergefell v. Hodges opinion, the full-on criminalization of Christianity has begun. You must either bow a knee before the false gods of same-sex "marriage" and "gay rights," or face the fiery "contempt of court" furnace. We have moved from anecdotal instances of anti-Christian discrimination to systemic religious persecution.

Here's the formula: 1) Force affirmation of homosexual behavior, abortion or some other institutionalized sin via judicial fiat; 2) Christian objects, refuses to disobey God and requests a reasonable religious accommodation; 3) accommodation is denied and Christian is jailed for "contempt of court."

You're going to hear that term a lot in coming days, weeks, months and years—"contempt of court." It's the straw man charge that will be utilized to imprison not just Christian public officials, but others as well. Christian business owners, lawyers, private sector employees, parents of school-age children who don't want their children indoctrinated by sexual anarchist propaganda and many others will be held in contempt of court, denied due process and incarcerated indefinitely.

The persecution isn't coming.

The persecution has arrived.

And that's what it means to be a Christ follower.

So pray for a million more like Kim Davis.

Become like Kim Davis.

Is she perfect? Certainly not. None of us is. Indeed, before Kim's transformational Christian re-birth four years ago, she was thrice divorced and "played in the devil's playground" for much of her life.

She was lost.

But now she's found.

God has an amazing way of taking empty, broken vessels, rebuilding their lives and then using them mightily for His glory and honor.

Stand, like Kim, fearlessly, lovingly and boldly for Christ, declaring, as did the apostles when faced with a similar decision, "We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29).

Indeed, as the Bible's Daniel, a "public official," boldly refused to disobey God and commit sin by worshiping a pagan king, so too has Kim Davis honored our Lord by refusing to bow before a pagan court—by refusing to call evil good and good evil.

They wanted to make an example of her.

Instead, they made a martyr of her.

And awakened a sleeping giant in the process.

Matt Barber is founder and editor-in chief of BarbWire.com. He is an author, columnist, cultural analyst and an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. Having retired as an undefeated heavyweight professional boxer, Matt has taken his fight from the ring to the culture war. (Follow Matt on Twitter:@jmattbarber).

For a limited time, we are extending our celebration of the 40th anniversary of Charisma. As a special offer, you can get 40 issues of Charisma magazine for only $40!

NEW - Life in the Spirit is your Spirit-filled teaching guide. Encounter the Holy Spirit, hear God speak to you, and enjoy timeless teachings on love, mercy and forgiveness.LEARN MORE!

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Tuesday, February 11, 2014

We Are Not All God’s Children - Matt Barber

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We Are Not All God’s Children

2/10/2014 MATT BARBER

You’ve heard it said that we are all God’s children. This rings flowery and nice.

It’s an insidious lie.

Indeed, God both created and loves—in a way most unfathomable—everyone who ever lived. He wove us together in our mother’s womb and numbered our every hair. But God the Father has only one begotten Son. The rest of us, in order to become one of God’s children, must be adopted—in, by and through—the One who is the Son: Jesus Christ. Those who are not adopted are not children of God. Christ and Christ alone is “the way, the truth and the life.”

Indeed, to become a child of God, we must ask God—through Christ—to adopt us. We mustn’t just believe upon Him, for even the demons believe that (James 2:19), but, rather, we must also accept Him. We must follow Jesus, the one true God, as our only God: “But to all who believed him and accepted him [Jesus], he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12).

Don’t believe? Don’t accept? You have no right to become a child of God.

And that’s unholy hell.

I’m not here to question God. I can neither fully understand nor explain why what He says is so. I can only convey to you that He unmistakably, unequivocally and without stuttering says it is so.

And so it is so.

“‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Is. 55:8-9).

The postmodern concept of religious pluralism is likewise an insidious lie. It’s a relativist tool of deception dreamed up by the greatest of all deceivers. It’s a false religion—jazzed-up paganism—propagated by the rulers, the authorities, the powers of this dark world and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Eph. 6:12).

Merriam Webster defines pluralism—in the context to which I refer to it—as “a theory that there are more than one or more than two kinds of ultimate reality.”

The goal of the pluralist philosophy is to muddy the waters and divert mankind from the “narrow gate” that leads to eternal salvation (Jesus), while, at the same time, herding them along the “broad road” to eternal damnation (anything and everything that denies the singular and exclusive deity of Christ or that rejects the certainty that He alone can save us from hell).

Pluralism is a nonstarter. It’s inherently self-defeating, contradictory and, frankly, just plain stupid. Pick your “ism”—be it progressivism, socialism, Hinduism, Buddhism, communism, Marxism, atheism or another—and central to each you will find the leavening lie of pluralism.

Each of the world’s major religions fundamentally contradicts the other. They cannot all be true. Either one is true or none is true.

Jesus said, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it” (Matt. 7:13). Again, Jesus alone is that “narrow gate.”

Here’s the thing. You can deny Christ until the day you die. But after that, you will deny Him no more. Hate Him you may still, but deny Him you will not. Philippians 2:10-11 assures us “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

John 3:36 warns, “Whoever believes in the Son [Jesus] has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.”

Christ is both tolerant and intolerant, utterly exclusive and wholly inclusive. He said in no uncertain terms, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

Universalists, atheists, pluralists and other followers of false gods and religions, take note: Jesus, rather conspicuously, did not say, “No one comes to the Father except through Me, the Buddha, Muhammad, Ganesh or L. Ron Hubbard.”

The narrow gate to heaven is utterly exclusive.

Yet Christ also promised us this: “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light” (Matt. 11:28-29).

Romans 10:13 is even more direct: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

The narrow gate to heaven is wholly inclusive.

If religious pluralism is true, which it cannot be, then Jesus is a liar. And if Jesus is a liar, then Carl Sagan was right when he said, “The cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be.”

Worm food.

Thank God Jesus is not a liar.

Still, some apostate, celebrity megachurch pastors like Rob Bell have become wealthy calling Jesus a liar. They teach the heretical doctrine of universal salvation, which suggests that, ultimately, everyone ends up in heaven—even those who rejected Christ while here on earth.

Bell and others like him claim that we’re all God’s children.

This is a pseudo-Christian form of religious pluralism that may well condemn untold millions—to include celebrity megachurch pastors like Rob Bell—to the unimaginable horror of eternal separation from God. (Rob, brother, I pray that you’ll repent posthaste and ask Christ’s forgiveness for both your heresy and for leading your flock to slaughter. He’ll forgive you, just like He’s forgiven me for all the crap I’ve pulled over the years.)

And the truth will set you free.

Romans 8:1-2 promises, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.”

By logical extension, the converse is true. There is condemnation for those who are notin Christ Jesus. Until and unless you believe upon, accept and follow Jesus, you remain imprisoned under the law of sin and death.

Unconvinced? You don’t have to believe to quietly pray this simple prayer to yourself: “Jesus, if You’re out there, please reveal Yourself to me. If You’re real, help thou my unbelief.”

If I’m right—if Jesus is not a liar and He is who He says He is—then you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by inquiring further.

If you don’t inquire further, you have everything to lose.

Matt Barber (@jmattbarber on Twitter) is an author, columnist, cultural analyst and an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. Having retired as an undefeated heavyweight professional boxer, Matt has taken his fight from the ring to the culture war.

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Friday, August 19, 2016