September 4, 2008
August 23, 2008
How to Botch an Altar Call!!!
(A few keys for those who don’t want people saved in their altar calls)
- Present an unbalanced message. Only let them see the heart-warming part of God’s character. Preach God’s love but leave out His holiness and justice. That way they’ll think He’ll let them into heaven no matter what.
- Don’t mention repentance until they’re repeating a “sinner’s prayer.” Just get them to say, “I repent of all my sins” while they’re echoing you. They won’t know what they’re saying and they won’t count the cost.
- Above all else, be dignified. Don’t get heart to heart with the people. They would get something out of what you said.
- Skim over the gospel and push the prayer. Pretend the lost naturally understand what Christ has done for them.
- Preach Jesus as a life enhancer not a life rescuer. Tell them how Jesus can improve their life but don’t show them Jesus as the only One who can save them from Hell. People will think if they reject Him they’re only losing out on a spiritual high.
- Try to please the people instead of convert them. Tell them what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear.
- Compromise the message to speed up the process. The Christians who have heard it a hundred times before will be pleased with that. The quicker they get out the quicker they can get to the restaurant.
- Give them the impression that God is so good He won’t send anyone to hell. Don’t present the whole counsel of God or they might realize He is so good that He’ll see to it that justice is served and that all unrepentant sinners will be punished in the fire that is not quenched.
- Speak to sinners as though they were saints. They’ll think they’re God’s children instead of the enemies of God they’ve made themselves into because of their sin. You’ll give them false assurance and mislead them.
- Don’t mention sin or man’s guilt. Resist the urge to explain what Christ came to deliver us from. Don’t show them their need for the Savior. Otherwise it may all make sense.
- Don’t look to the Bible for the substance of your altar call. Only mimic other preachers with large congregations.
- Tell the lost not to feel bad about their sins. That way you will work against the Holy Spirit who’s convicting them
- Whatever you do, never mention Judgment Day. Your audience might take spiritual matters seriously.
- Tell them Jesus is the only way to heaven but don’t explain why. They may think it’s nothing more than fear tactics and leave offended instead of enlightened.
- Confuse the call. This is a great way to botch up an altar call. Don’t let people know you’re asking them to commit their life to Christ. Be vague and general in what you’re saying. Neglect to mention following Christ in your evangelistic altar calls and say things like, “If you don’t feel you’re as close to God as possible raise your hand,” “If you feel lonely come to the front for prayer,” “If you want more of God this is your time,” and, “If you have struggles and need the answer come down.” Just get them to raise a hand. That way no one will be able to count the cost and you’ll even get saints to respond to salvation altar calls, making the results look more successful.
- Only give them half the story. Tell them Jesus died to forgive everyone but overlook the fact that they must personally receive Him to partake of that forgiveness.
- Present the truth as though it isn’t. Be so funny when you share Christ that you belittle the seriousness of the matter.
- Preach forgiveness without repentance. That way no one will know how to be forgiven.
- Be unbiblical. Present repentance and faith as an offer instead of how God does as a command (Acts 17:30).
- Let them think next Sunday is the day of salvation. Don’t make them feel it’s urgent to respond today.
- Never warn of hell. Dangle heaven in front of their nose but rarely mention hell, certainly not as much as Jesus did.
- Only do altar calls inside the church. Never take the gospel where sinners congregate. The lost might get saved.
- Use churchy terms. Use words like, “saved,” “repent,” and “born again,” without any explanation. That way your hearers won’t comprehend what you’re saying. If they can’t understand it, it’s probable they won’t be changed by it.
- Give false assurance of salvation to unsaved Christians. Assure church folk that they are saved even if they bear no fruit. So that you don’t offend the unsaved pew warmers never quote 2 Corinthians 13:5: “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith.” You could lose some financial supporters and have to depend on God.
- Never mention the wrath of God. If you mention it, people might be awakened to flee to Jesus who “saves us from the wrath to come.” ( 1 Thess. 1:10)
- Study how the apostles preached and witnessed and do the opposite. Don’t explain Jesus’ suffering death on the cross. Otherwise they may think of running to Him for forgiveness. Don’t speak of His burial or resurrection or they might realize He is God. Refrain from commenting about the hundreds of eyewitnesses who saw Jesus after He rose from the dead. That way they can go on thinking He’s a fairy tale. Overlook talk of the messianic prophecies Jesus fulfilled or they might realize that the Bible is true. If they see it’s the truth they may see that following Christ is the logical decision. And whatever you do, avoid what the apostles did when it came time to call people to obey the gospel. Don’t tell them to trust Christ and live for Him. That is too accurate. If they know how to get saved your altar call will be a success.
- Put more emphasis on the “sinner’s prayer” then on repentance and faith. Satan will smile over your departure from Biblical instruction. We are never taught to use a ‘sinner’s prayer’ throughout the entire Bible. If you decide to use it and put more emphasis on the technique than on what we’re commanded to preach: faith and repentance you’ll certainly botch things up. A ‘sinner’s prayer’ doesn’t equal salvation, only faith in Christ and repentance toward God do.
- Let Christians think you’re the only one who can do it right. Always leave the impression that they should only invite friends to church and never actually witness themselves. It will keep you in business and the lost unsaved.
- Don’t let the lost know they are. Disregard subjects like Judgment Day, God’s holiness, man’s sinfulness and justice. That way the lost can continue to think they’re “good enough” to get into heaven.
- Rely upon psychological techniques to manipulate people into responding to the altar call. Don’t rely upon the Holy Spirit or they may actually get saved.
- Make sure you’re the main attraction. Remember the goal in botching up an altar call is for people to leave and say, “What a wonderful preacher,” instead of, “What a wonderful Savior.” Draw all possible attention to how great a speaker and person you are. Otherwise people might see Christ in your preaching and get saved.
- Don’t focus upon Jesus. Finally, the best way to botch up an altar call is not to preach the gospel. Just get people to lift up a hand and pray a prayer with you. Resist the urge to speak of the only One who could save them.
Sometimes the best way to get a point across is to put it in a different light. You now know a few ways to botch up an altar call. Please do not employ them. Do the opposite. You may already do some of them. Don’t let pride keep you from changing and doing things in a Biblical fashion. The bottom line is how true we are to Christ and His word. Effectively reaching the lost is our purpose. Let nothing hold you back from that agenda. May God bless you as you seek to win people to Christ in Bible clubs, churches, conferences, on the street witnessing encounters, at your school, and at your workplace.
Adapted from Becoming an Emissary for God by Allen Atzbi
How Can You Sleep at Night?
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This is an excerpt of an email to Ray Comfort from an atheist.
Ray,
You are really convinced that you’ve got all the answers. You’ve really got yourself tricked into believing that you’re 100% right. Well, let me tell you just one thing. Do you consider yourself to be compassionate of other humans? If you’re right, as you say you are, and believe that, then how can you sleep at night? When you speak with me you are speaking with someone who you believe is walking directly into eternal damnation into an endless onslaught of horrendous pain which your ‘loving’ god created, yet you stand by and do nothing.
If you believe one bit that thousands every day were falling into an eternal and unreachable fate, you should be running the streets mad with rage at their blindness. That’s equivalent to standing on a street corner and watching every person that passes you walk blindly directly into the path of a bus and die, yet you stand idly by and do nothing. You’re just twiddling your thumbs, happy in the knowledge that one day that ‘walk’ signal will shine your way across the road.
Think about it. Imagine the horrors Hell must have in store if the bible is true. You’re just going to allow that to happen and not care about saving anyone but yourself? If you’re right then you’re an uncaring, unemotional and purely selfish (expletive) that has no right to talk about subjects such as love and caring.
James Franz
The entire discourse between Ray and this atheist is now in a fascinating book called, Intelligent Design versus Evolution—letters to an atheist.
http://www.wayofthemaster.com/atheistletter.shtml
August 16, 2008
Rick Warren hosts presidential forum Sat. night
Rick Warren hosts presidential forum Sat. night
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Tomorrow night (Saturday), White House hopefuls Barack Obama and John McCain will be fielding questions from evangelical mega-church pastor Rick Warren in a presidential forum at his California church.
The “Saddleback Civil Forum on Leadership and Compassion” will feature each candidate talking with Pastor Warren separately for one hour. Warren says he plans to pose questions on issues such as poverty, HIV/AIDS, global warming, and human rights.
“Both John McCain and Barack Obama, I have known for a long time, before either of them began to run for president. They are very different,” Warren explains. “They have different philosophies of leadership, different philosophies of where government should be and should be headed – and I thought, ‘You know what, these guys will probably trust me to ask the questions that let them say who they really are.’”
Pastor Warren says he will also have Obama and McCain discuss their religious faith. ”The leader who says, ‘I’m going to take my worldview and just put it on the shelf when I make decisions,’ is either an idiot or they’re lying, because you can’t do it,” the well-known Christian author adds. “All of your decisions are based on what you value, what you believe in life. And so I think it’s important to find out what these guys really believe.”
American Family News and OneNewsNow.com will be providing in-depth coverage following the forum.
Do you think Rick Warren’s presidential forum this weekend
will clarify (or did clarify) for voters the theological beliefs of
Barack Obama and John McCain?
—————————————————————————————
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
SHOULD RICK WARREN DO THIS OR NOT?
SHOULD MINISTRIES GET INVOLVED?
Attorney: Judge ‘flat wrong’ in obscenity case
Attorney: Judge ‘flat wrong’ in obscenity case
A Pennsylvania woman will face no jail time, despite being convicted of selling via the Internet criminally obscene stories about the rape, torture, and murder of children.
Karen Fletcher told a federal judge that she never intended to do anything illegal. She began writing graphic stories about violent sex crimes against fictional children in order to focus away from her the evil she had experienced as a child. But federal prosecutors see Fletcher as a pornographer, and a federal judge agreed — sort of.
U.S. District Judge Joy Flowers Conti sentenced Fletcher to six months house arrest and five years probation after she pleaded guilty to six felony obscenity charges. Pat Trueman, special counsel to the Alliance Defense Fund and former chief obscenity prosecutor for the Justice Department, says the sentence in this case definitely does not fit the crime.
“Men would subscribe to her website and be, of course, motivated by the stories that she wrote,” Trueman explains. “And this is how sex crimes come about: People get ideas in their minds and they fuel them with stories and pictures, and then commit crimes.”
And while Fletcher argued that her tortured past and present condition as an agoraphobic should earn the court’s leniency, Trueman disagrees.
“This woman was responsible for the crime,” he points out. “It took a lot of effort to develop a website, to write these stories, [and] to seek money for these stories. She’s guilty. She had the mental state to commit the crime — she has the mental state to do the time. [T]he judge was just flat wrong in giving her a slap on the wrist for this.”
Trueman says he is saddest for the children who have probably been raped, tortured, and possibly even murdered by Fletcher’s customers trying to act out her stories.
Insurance provider grants ‘family’ status to lesbian couple
Pro-family advocates say the choice by a New York insurance carrier to grant “family” benefits to a homosexual couple “married” in Canada is further evidence of the decline of morality in corporate America.
BlueCross BlueShield of Western New York made the decision after the New York Civil Liberties Union filed suit on behalf of an insured lesbian who sought coverage for her partner and the partner’s infant daughter. Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, says this is the sad reality of effective homosexual propaganda and activism.
“The very fact that BlueCross BlueShield capitulated so easily, that doesn’t say much for them as a company,” said LaBarbera. “At one point in society, companies were more moral. Now we see companies leading the amoral rush to fund and subsidize and benefit so-called homosexual ‘marriages’ and homosexual-led ‘families’….”
Though LaBarbera decries the company’s decision to cave to pro-homosexual pressure, he says his greatest concern is for the child being raised in a homosexual household. “I fully believe that these two women love that child, love that baby. But the sad fact is that baby is growing up in a home which is intentionally fatherless, by design — and that’s wrong,” he argues. “And that’s going to handicap that baby’s life as she grows up. She needs a dad. And a ‘replacement dad’ — be it an uncle or some friend, some male friend that these women have — can never substitute for her having a father.”
Extensive social science research shows that children raised by a married mother and fathers typically perform better academically and economically, and are healthier and better adjusted than those raised in what society is referring to as ”alternative” households.
August 11, 2008
God is NOT the Father of all Humans!!! Aug 11
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Bondage
Bondage is not a healthy thing for any of us to be in. No matter how a person has been hurt one thing remains the same and that is PAIN. We all can identify with it, for it carries the same characteristics. But we have to be able to move forward in life, But many can’t because they have allowed this bondage thing to keep them a prisoner! It’s like a bird being in a cage if no one opens the door to the cage the bird will remain a prisoner. From what I see we can’t control how people treat us because we have no control over that person. But what we can do is learn from the pain and forgive that person and move on.
Yet so many of us find it hard to move on in life, and that is because you haven’t forgiven that person and ourselves. Yes when we forgive someone it sets us free from them, but then there is another step and that step is for us to forgive ourselves! We are hard on ourselves at times and it’s okay if we lose it every now and then or if we don’t get it right all the time. That’s just life; we learn as we go.
Now you may ask what do you do when it’s been years since the cause of the pain? Well it really doesn’t matter if it’s been recent or years ago, same thing applies, forgive and move on. And until you can do this you will always remain a prisoner and you will never be able to have healthy relationships in life because you won’t allow yourself to be set free. What I have seen is that we become so accustomed to pain and hurt that we begin to act as though it does not exist, We pretend we are okay we make excuses for it. But deep down inside that issue is still there and one day it will show it’s ugly head. And you have to decide do you want to always be a prisoner feeling unloved unhappy, not satisfied with life, miserable all the time, wishing you could be like others? Of course not you are human but who’s the blame? No one but you, only you can control this..
Let today be the beginning of a brand new start that you will no longer be a prisoner to anyone or anything. Happiness is a choice that only you can decided. Think of it like this! Do you think that the person who hurt you is losing sleep over this? He or she is going on with their life and shouldn’t you be doing the same?
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Virtuous1
August 9, 2008
Greg Messina will share his Testimony & Incredible ministry to Satanist’s.
Virtuous1 has had an emergency and cannot be on the show tonight. PLEASE keep her and her family in your prayers. She should be joining us on Sunday night instead so come by the show and listen to her testimony.
With that said we have a special guest that called in and surprised the fire out of me I must admit. Thankfully, he has “Saved the Day” and I am very happy to have him on the show tonight at 10:30PM Central time.
We will be welcoming, Greg Messin on tonights show at:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/stations/HeadingRight/Total-Deliverance
If
you have never heard Greg’s testimony you will NOT want to miss this. As an
Ex-satanist and other things, Greg now helps people see the truth behind all
these things. From the lies of satanism to the truths of UFO’s. So come join us
for this incredibly awesome show. Virtuous1 Could not be on tonight, she will be
on Sunday hopefully.
Here is a quick over view of their profile on Curs-ed Net Radio Check it out:
Curs-ed Net Breakthrough Radio
The UFO & ALIEN ABDUCTION
PHENOMENON is THE FAÇADE used by “THE BEAST”
(symbolized as a poisonous scorpion,) reflected in the holy writings
of both St. Jude & Enoch. The “wandering stars” ARE the
Fallen Angels angling for their prey – US! Curs-ed Net Breakthrough
Radio will be your source for truth within the UFO phenomenon
glorifying Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God the Father.
You can catch Greg’s show at: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/CursedNet
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