For my entire lifetime, liberal theology has presented an alternative to the biblical story.  Man arises progressively through naturalistic origins.  The Christian story is superstition, proceeding from mythology in various cultures with hopes of explaining the past and the present.  Instead of taking the Bible literally, use it as an allegory, a source of archetypes for the physical well-being of mankind.  Truth that might spring from the metaphor parallels with conventional thinking, so the message can change.  Since man advanced progressively, improvements for man come from progressivism.  Cultural change mainly in the way of equaling social outcomes is salvation.  Liberalism is religion in all the ways I’ve just described.  For instance, ‘presenting your body a living sacrifice’ is enduring personal loss as an object of change through education, government, psychology, etc.Before the coronavirus, I talked every week to liberal Methodists, liberal Lutherans, liberal Catholics, liberal Presbyterians, liberal Congregationalists, and liberal Baptists.  My next door neighbor, an elderly man, who just died in the last two years, was a conservative Lutheran, who grew up in a Missouri synod church in Northern Wisconsin, but lived his adult life in California.  There was no Lutheran church for him in our area, because all of them had turned liberal.  He lit up when I talked to him.  It made sense, except for the salvation by grace through faith alone.  He would not accept that he couldn’t be saved through his good works.Social justice could be said to be a branch of the larger denomination of liberalism.  Liberalism accepts social justice in its hierarchy.  Membership of a certain generation within evangelical or fundamentalist churches would not accept liberalism, it’s denial of the bodily resurrection of Christ, the virgin birth, miracles, and the blood atonement.  The door stays closed to classic liberalism, but it opens to social justice, which is a denomination within big liberalism.  In fact, liberalism makes its way into churches through social justice.  Evangelicals have made way for the denomination of social justice into its churches through the lies it has told about social justice to pander to potential constituents.  For instance, they leave out the liberalism of Martin Luther King, Jr.  They embrace to a degree a Mother Theresa as if she were a saint.Even conservative evangelicals present themselves as a face of social justice with stories of stands taken during the civil rights movement against the racism of Southern Baptist churches.  Those types of stories are confusing, because they don’t give a clear delineation for who is preaching what.  There was racism in the United States, but did that mean that the black church leaders were preaching the same message as the white churches?  Even if the varied factions could have put aside the racial differences, would they still be meeting together, aligned with a common doctrine?  Common ground should not be attained by ignoring doctrinal error, including on the gospel.A good source for racial history in the United States is the massive amounts of writing found in the fourteen volumes of the Booker T. Washington Papers (look at the index here).  C. Vann Woodward called them “the single most important research enterprise now under way in the field of American black history.”  Many years ago, I read large chunks of these for hours in order to write a docudrama that our school performed on the life of Booker T. Washington.  Washington was relentless and harsh in his criticism of black clergy.  You can read this even in the classic Up from Slavery, which should be required reading in schools and especially Christian schools.  Washington and George Washington Carver would not be receptive to the social justice movement and its actual, real effects on black people in the United States.How is social justice even infiltrating conservative churches?  It comes into the church with themes similar to and apparent counterparts to orthodoxy.   Those themes fall on the ears and minds of younger members through school and media, unprepared to diagnose the counterfeit.  In many, if not most cases, they also might just be unconverted.  They are thorny ground, raised with the acceptability of worldliness, because their leaders did not inform them well enough on cultural issues.  They even attacked those who did in order to indulge potential members for church growth.  They covered for this with the concept of “gospel first importance” or “essential doctrines,” not found in scripture.  The church lost saltiness on the earth and dimmed light to the world.  It’s probably too late to do anything about the damage, but the churches and leaders should repent, and take the true Christians they have left and stand where they didn’t.  I’m not hopeful.The infiltration of social justice occurs with first a well-known theme of sin.  It is a perversion of the doctrine, but the sin and guilt relates to apparent injustice, which really is differing outcomes based upon socio-economics.  The law broken isn’t the law of God, but political correctness.  There are even standards that must be kept like the Pharisees or the Judaizers of the day of Jesus and the Apostles.  If those standards are not kept, separation occurs like not eating with the Gentiles.  These are almost never real sins that are committed.  Judgment comes on not accepting political correctness or following its standards.  They are changing standards, called progressive ones, but they can change based on progressivism.Younger church members embraced the idea of group guilt for an entire race of people.  Sin and guilt doesn’t work that way in reality.  Sin and guilt are individual, so this is a perversion, an important one.  God says the “soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:20-24).  Group sin and guilt then changes the nature of redemption.  If no one committed a sin, just found himself already guilty for lacking in pigmentation, then there is also no individual redemption or forgiveness.  He must attempt to do penance by showing all the indications that he is woke.  He must use the correct language, take the correct posture, which might include kneeling, and then perhaps to pay an indulgence in the way of reparations, a kind of tithe to the system.  Redistribution of wealth is part of membership in the new group of the redeemed; however, never really finding redemption because the indulgence must keep being paid.The canon of social justice isn’t scripture, except for allegorized scripture.  It is leftist propaganda and psychology.  Members become duped in psychology and sociology.  Members of the Supreme Court have already joined this church by calling transgenders a sex.  There is no outcry in the country, even from evangelicals, because of the fear of retribution of some kind, a shaming way past the level of the shunning of the Amish.Psychology and sociology have been canonized even in churches.  My father hit me when I was a child.  Social justice would shun him.  If I mouthed off to my dad or my mom, one or the other might smack me in the mouth, not in an injurious way.  I am a victim.  I could claim victim status.  This is part of the psychology.  The fear actually kept me from evil.  It wasn’t sufficient, but it helped me in the short term, until my beliefs were settled.  The next generation resents spankings and if it received any physical discipline beyond spanking, that stands as justification for almost any behavior choice in contradiction of authority.Saints in social justice are victims, even if they are wicked criminals, who have robbed and raped.  Victimhood itself is a form of sanctification, where blame shift occurs.  Someone is released from all blame as a victim, a kind of redemption from guilt.Patriarchy is a social construct as a doctrine of the denomination of social justice.  Women are elevated in their position, so that any criticism is also a violation of political correctness in the canon of social justice.  Anyone who says a woman should take a required role is misogynist.  Men themselves in the general canon are misogynists.  Any man who continues on male patriarchy should be shunned.You can see that the doctrine does not center on the condition of the heart.  It is external behavior.  The kingdom teaching would be progress until there is a classless, sexless, completely equal society.  As you might know, this won’t or doesn’t happen.  It will be turned into an oligarchy much like the nation of Chaz up in Seattle right now, ruled by violence.What I’ve described in this post won’t end well.  It is against God.  God is still in charge.  There is a real, true God with a real, true Bible, that is the standard by which He judges.  Someone can invent his own world in his head, but he still lives in God’s world where God is the judge.  True saints should reject the denomination of social justice in the religion of liberalism.   Yes, today you will be persecuted.  You really are salt and light and you are being persecuted for righteousness.  Standing against the religion of social justice is righteous.

The background of Psalm 30, written by King David, was his numbering of Israel.  2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21 mention the event.  God offered David his choice of punishments: three years of famine, three months of war with Israel’s enemies, or three days of pestilence. David chose pestilence.  About 70,000 people died in three days.

In Romans 1:28, the Apostle Paul writes, “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind.”  The flow of Romans 1 is that men knew God, but they suppressed that knowledge.  God turned them over to what they wanted, as His act of judgment.  An indication of God’s turning them over, is their “reprobate mind.”  “Reprobate” is depraved.

Race is a social construct. The Bible doesn’t mention race, except the human race, the single Adamic race.

The post analysis of the coronavirus pandemic might and will likely show gross incompetence mainly from leftist mayors and governors in the United States with a corollary influence on everyone else because of the politics and fear. Everyone needs to be prepared for the cover up, massive number of lies.  I’m just predicting here.  The government didn’t know what it was doing.  Other countries, like Sweden and South Korea, did the opposite and succeeded.  This was of the nature of the Russian collusion fraud.  Most of the country is duped and scammed by its most foolish.  The whole nation was hacked.

Today my wife and I drove up separate vehicles to Oregon.  This is the first of a few trips to get moved up.  Straight trip it is less than six hours.  When we got close to the border of California and Oregon, there was a large barn along Highway Five, which on its roof read in gigantic lettering, The State of Jefferson.  If you aren’t from the Western United States, maybe you haven’t heard of it.  I enjoyed seeing those words.  I hope for that state.  Medford would become part of the new state if it came into being along with part of Northern California.

We stopped for gas in a small town in the mountains, and what stood out to me were, no masks.  Masks should feel weird, but I’ve been wearing them so long that now no-masks already felt worse.  “What’s with you people?”  Lighted signs on almost every overpass encouraged to fight Covid-19.  The State of Jefferson has moved on.  I could imagine dart boards with Gavin Newsome on them. The gas station attendant wore no mask.

The two words for missionary are “evangelist” and “missionary.”  Evangelist has in that word, preach the gospel.  Missionary has in that word, mission.  I’m not trying to insult your intelligence.  Indulge this post.  Read on.

The New Testament teaches three offices:  pastor (pastor-teacher, bishop [overseer], elder, preacher), deacon, and evangelist.  From my purview, most people are messed up on the third.  The evangelist has turned into what best might be called an itinerant revivalist.  The evangelist is much closer if not identical to what people call a missionary today.  An evangelist in the Bible really is a missionary.  When Paul and Barnabas were sent out in Acts 13, they were evangelists or missionaries.

1 Timothy 3 says pastors do the work of the evangelist.  It’s a requirement.  Pastors are not evangelists, but they do evangelist work.  What is that?  It is preaching the gospel to the lost.  That is in the word ‘evangelist.”  “Eu” means “good” and “angel” means “message.”  The two together are “good news,” which is “gospel.”  The evangelist takes the front end of a church starting.

The pastor does the work of the evangelist, and the missionary, the evangelist, does pastoring. Paul and Barnabas, neither were pastors, but they both did pastoring.  Scripture lists official qualifications for the office of the pastor and the office of the deacon.  They are slightly different, because they are different offices.  The evangelist should have qualities characteristic of someone who would do that job.  Barnabas was a missionary.  The basis for his being in that position was the following traits (Acts 11:24):

For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith.

That list is similar to what we read of Philip, who was an evangelist, and Stephen, who probably was too in Acts 6:5:

And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip.

Philip, who we know was an evangelist (Acts 21:8), was full of faith and the Holy Ghost,  Then Barnabas was a good man, full of the Holy Ghost, and of faith.  The unofficial qualifications for a missionary are a good man, full of the Holy Ghost, and of faith.  It’s obvious he also should be doing the work of the evangelist.  This is a man who should be especially gifted as an evangelist.  There is no spiritual gift of evangelism, but when I say someone is gifted, I mean something like Acts 14:1:

And it came to pass in Iconium, that they went both together into the synagogue of the Jews, and so spake, that a great multitude both of the Jews and also of the Greeks believed.

I’m pointing to two words there:  “so spake.”  Someone can “so speak” that more believe.  What is that?  There are qualities that would result in biblical evangelism.  I see two characteristics of successful New Testament evangelism.

First, since New Testament evangelism is an oral work, those who speak, Peter says (1 Peter 4:11), should “speak as the oracles of God,” which means evangelism needs to be scripture.  Faith comes by hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17).  This is the spiritual weapon to pull down strongholds in people’s minds (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).  1 Peter 4:11 says that “the oracles of God” are what glorify God in spiritually gifted speech.  Paul said this was the basis of evangelism in 1 Corinthians 1-3.

When Paul wrote to Timothy about perfecting saints for the work of ministry (Ephesians 4:11), a major part of which is evangelism, it would have been the knowing scripture to the extent someone could use all of it.  A good example of this are all the evangelistic sermons from Jesus and the Apostles in the New Testament.  Emulate those.  They are filled with scriptural quotes and allusions.

Second, evangelism that will succeed must be bold.  When the Holy Spirit fills someone, he speaks the Word of God with boldness (Acts 4:31).  This was what Paul asked the Ephesians and Colossian saints to pray for him (Ephesians 6:20, Colossians 4:4),  If Paul needed that, every believer needs that.  This is a prayer I pray every time I evangelize.

When my wife and I came to California in 1987, I started as an evangelist and became a pastor.  I’m becoming an evangelist again in 2020.  I am a missionary again.  The church I started in 1987 in the San Francisco Bay Area is sending my wife and I to Jackson County, Oregon to evangelize.  We want to reproduce our church.  I’m leaving someone I trained to pastor.  He has helped me train other men since then.

Upon a church starting, a man trained and ordained as a pastor by our church will pastor that church.  Our church has two pastors.  Hopefully by November our church will have two more pastors.  My wife and I (and also my dad and mom, who live with us) are moving to Oregon, Lord-willing, at the end of June, next month.  Pastor David Sutton will pastor our church.

Our church, Bethel Baptist Church, will support us financially, but we are looking for other support.  I’ve started a church and trained several pastors.  If you are a pastor or really anyone from another church, will your church support our evangelism of Jackson County, Oregon with the true gospel?  Let me know if you are interested in being a part of this work.

I can guarantee you this.  I will work hard at evangelizing this whole area.  I will work at preaching the gospel to every creature.  That’s why we are going.  We want to reproduce our church and we hope you could be a part of it.  We will be true missionaries.   We want to do this and we’re excited about it.

What if a church is started?  If people are saved and a church forms, then we will move somewhere else to start a church.  Right now, when we’re done here, we want to go to England to start another church.  This might sound like an odd combination.  My wife and I took a trip to England two years ago and we are concerned for England in a unique way.  England is hemorrhaging churches.  We want to go there and do something about it.  We want to go there with the rest of our life and preach the gospel, train someone else, and start a church there — but first, Jackson County, Oregon, where 220,000 people live in Southern Oregon on Highway Five just outside of California.

I would be glad for you to call us, encourage us, pray for us, and support us.  Our midweek service is on Thursday night. This first year, I am open either in a virtual way or traveling to your church to present this work.  This will be worth the money your church can give to missions.  You can trust what we will do.  We will do what I’ve described in this post.  Maybe you would just take us on, sight unseen, and some day we can meet in person, so we can get started right away.  If I heard what I was saying, and I was assured it would occur, I would want to support it.

I am a missionary.