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Millions of Muslims are NOT Becoming Christians Because of Dreams!
Many sources report that, in the words of Roman Catholic conservative Dinesh D’Souza, “Millions of Muslims are Converting to Christianity After Having Dreams and Visions of Jesus Christ.” Charismatic sources agree with the Catholics about millions of Muslims becoming Christians through dreams and visions. So do Southern Baptist mission agencies.
These visions and dreams clearly prove that:
1.) Continuationism is true and cessationism is false. God is continuing to give revelatory dreams and visions today. We have lots of testimonials, and testimonials can’t be wrong.
2.) Any passages of Scripture that seem to teach the cessation of revelation with the completion of the canon must be reinterpreted in light of the overwhelming proof from the dreams and visions.
3.) If this can happen in Muslim lands, it can happen here. Instead of the hard work of teaching people to skillfully preach the gospel, and working so that they grow spiritually to the point where they love to go house to house, we should encourage people to seek after signs, wonders, and dreams, because that is how there will be millions of new converts here in our country as well.
Right?
Wrong.
Why?
Scripture is the sole authority for the believer’s faith and practice (2 Timothy 3:15-17). Scripture is more sure than any experience–even hearing the audible voice of God Himself (2 Peter 1:16-21). Scripture, therefore, must never have its teaching ignored, altered, overlooked, or changed because of what someone claims he experienced. Indeed, even if everyone in the whole world said something was true, but Scripture said otherwise, the Bible would be right and everyone would be wrong: “Let God be true, but every man a liar” (Romans 3:4).
Scripture teaches cessationism, as the studies linked to here clearly demonstrate. There are no Apostles today or apostolic gifts (Ephesians 2:20), the canon of Scripture is complete (1 Corinthians 13:8-13), and God Word is His completed revelatory speech.
Furthermore, Scripture teaches that “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17); conversion comes through Scripture (John 15:3). Men are “born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Peter 1:23). So nobody has been born again because of a dream. The Holy Spirit produces the new birth as sinners, enabled by grace, respond to the gospel recorded in the Word of God. This is “thus saith the Lord.” I don’t care what someone says happened in his dream. God’s Word is infinitely more reliable than someone’s dream, and Scripture teaches that people are born again through hearing the gospel, not having dreams and visions.
So how do I explain the dreams? I don’t need to explain people’s dreams. The Bible tells me to live by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4), but it never tells me that I need to explain what someone said he saw in a dream. I don’t need to explain dreams of people who say they left Islam and rejected Allah and the Quran for Christianity. Nor do I need to explain the dreams of people who say they left Christianity for Islam after having a dream. How am I supposed to know what is going on in someone else’s head when he is sleeping? The vast majority of the time I can’t even remember my own dreams. Yet I need to explain what someone tells me happened in his dream, or what someone tells someone else who tells someone else who tells someone else who prints an article with no documentation in a charismatic magazine about a dream?
I am suspicious that these “millions” of converts are allegedly taking place in lands far, far away where it is impossible to verify anything. For example, in the Dinesh D’Souza video above, there are no sources provided and no way to verify anything. This is typical–indeed, D’Souza is a scholarly man who tends to document his material far better than does the average charismatic magazine. With these millions of alleged converts to Christianity, true churches–independent Baptist churches–should be overflowing in Muslim countries, as Islam is allegedly collapsing and true Christians are allegedly becoming a huge percentage of the population. But are these people-if they even exist–becoming true Christians, or leaving Islam for other demonic religions, like Roman Catholicism or Oneness Pentecostalism? What would someone leaving one false religion for a different false religion prove? Scripture teaches that we see Christ by faith, enabled by the Spirit, in the Word (2 Corinthians 3:18), and all images of Jesus Christ are idolatrous violations of the Second Commandment (see the relevant resources here). So are they seeing the real Jesus in a dream? Also, where are all these people? Why is this only (allegedly) happening in places far, far away where we can’t actually verify it? I think of how Jack Hyles claimed that through “God’s power,” allegedly in conjunction with carnal promotion and marketing techniques that manipulated people and are found nowhere in Scripture, he had far more “saved” in one day than the Holy Ghost did on the Day of Pentecost, although not even one person was added to First Baptist of Hammond, Indiana on that day through these “saved” people, and people close enough to the situation to investigate claimed that the vast majority of these “saved” people were just as lost as before. I think of how Keswick continuationist John A. MacMillan, who is promoted among Independent Baptists at schools like Baptist College of Ministry. MacMillan claimed to have an amazing technique for casting out demons, which was copied by him and promoted at one of the yearly Victory Conferences at Baptist College of Ministry and Falls Baptist Church–but people who were close to the situation claimed, on the contrary, that the demons were in control of everything. I think of how Evan Roberts and Jessie Penn-Lewis, with their dreams and visions, destroyed the 1904-1905 Welsh revival. Scripture is sufficient, so even if I were confronted with signs and wonders of the quality that the Antichrist will perform in the Tribulation, I would still go by sola Scriptura–Scripture alone. But the alleged evidence for these dreams and visions seems to be woefully lacking. They aren’t like the real revelatory miracles in the Bible before the miraculous gifts ceased.
Note that the question is not if God is powerful enough to give people dreams. The question is not one of God’s power. It is one of what He has said He would do in His inspired revelation, the Bible–and in that revelation He has said that the giving of revelation through dreams has ceased. Nor is there a category of “non revelatory” dreams that are infallibly from God. If God gives infallible truth, then it is revelation. If it is not infallible truth, then God is not speaking in the dream, for God cannot lie, but only speaks and reveals infallible truth.
What if I come across someone who actually is serving the Lord faithfully in a true church, but who says that having a dream was part of how he became a Christian? Doesn’t that mean that I need to reinterpret Scripture? No. God is sovereign, and He can use all kinds of things to get people thinking about religion or about His Word. I know someone who is a faithful Christian who, before his conversion, liked to watch creationist videos while smoking pot. That doesn’t mean I commend the pot smoking. I know someone else who called on a ghost (likely a demon) to come to him, and then says that the ghost came at night and almost killed him. The demonic intervention led this person away from agnosticism to openness to the supernatural, and years later he became a Christian. That doesn’t mean I support agnostics calling on ghosts or demons. So if someone says he had a dream and that led him away from Islam to Christianity, I’m glad if he trusted in Christ, while everything contrary to Scripture that took place in his life–including the alleged revelatory dreams–are chalked up to God’s merciful and providential grace, and need no further explanation. (This is even apart from the fact that we cannot see people’s hearts, and even in true churches people without the new birth can enter and appear to be genuine believers for a time, so I cannot rule out the possibility that the person who claims to have been born again after seeing a dream is not a true child of God.)
So are millions of Muslims being born again because of dreams? No. Nobody is being born again because of a dream. Are Muslims having dreams that lead them to all kinds of religious experiences? Very possibly. Why? There could be all kinds of reasons. I do not need to speculate.
What I do need to know is what Scripture teaches. The Biblical truth of cessationism is being weakened in some independent Baptist churches because people are not thinking Biblically, but are allowing what people say is happening in their dreams to justify changes to Biblical beliefs on charismata. You are dreaming if you think it is right to change one’s doctrine and practice from what Scripture teaches because of what some other person says he saw when he was sleeping.
Never change or set aside God’s Word because of an experience or what someone says. That was part of Satan’s original technique that caused the Fall in Genesis 3. Go with Scripture–not the dreams. As Christ said, “thy word is truth” (John 17:17). Give Muslims gospel truth, such as in The Testimony of the Quran to the Bible pamphlet. Reject the dreams. Do not be deceived.
Christianity: Pro-Racism, Pro-Slavery White Man’s Religion–Reject it for Atheism!
I have written a pamphlet dealing with attacks upon the Bible and Christianity from its (alleged) racism and (alleged) support of chattel slavery, compared with the (alleged) anti-racism and anti-slavery position of atheism. It deals with the objection that “Christianity is the racist white man’s religion” and, as the Freedom From Religion Foundation claims, “[W]hite supremacy [is] interwoven with Christianity … inextricably intertwined.” (Sources for all quotes are in the pamphlet.)
Click here to read the pamphlet Biblical Christianity vs. Atheism on Racism and Slavery
You may think that such claims are so ridiculous that they do not deserve a refutation. You are correct about them being ridiculous—and, as Bethel Baptist Church, where I serve the Lord, is not majority white now and has not been for a very long time, reflecting the ethnic diversity of the area, it is indeed a very foolish claim. However, sadly, in secular college campuses and in liberal media these egregious falsehoods are regularly propounded. Not that long ago a very angry black man at a place where I was passing out gospel literature said that all white Christians were supporters of white nationalism. (He also said, ironically, that they all denied it when he said that to them. Hmm… ). He said he had a degree in religious studies. (Perhaps they should give him his money back.) In any case, the attack on Christianity from its alleged racism and pro-slavery position is very much out there.
The pamphlet demonstrates that:
1.) The Bible rejects racism.
2.) Christian churches in Bible times rejected racism—for example, the church at Antioch had a leader in the category of “prophet and teacher” whose name was “Simon the Black” and another born in Africa, while the rest were all from Asia; an African whose family became close to the Apostle Paul helped Christ carry His cross; etc.
3.) Christian churches and the wider realm of Christendom were profoundly impacted by Africa. Did you ever think about the fact that possibly the two most influential people in the history of Western Christendom were from Africa—namely, Tertullian and Augustine? Furthermore, the ancient Anabaptist movements, the Novatians and Donatists, were both led by African Anabaptists. Did you know that the Baptists were the first group of churches in the American South to come out against slavery?
4.) Christianity very rapidly spread from Israel to Africa to China to India to Britain.
5.) Ancient paganism was pro-slavery while Christianity was pro-slave (since it taught that “All Lives Matter,” and therefore the lives of slaves, people of darker and lighter skin, etc. all matter), and Christian influence, unique among world religions, led to the abolition of slavery.
6.) Modern racism actually stems from the Enlightenment and its rejection of Biblical Christianity, combined with the anti-creation philosophy of biological evolution. (This fact should be taught in all public schools, and at the very least every student in Christian schools needs to know this. Did you know it?)
7.) Slavery exists today in atheist countries such as North Korea and China, in accordance with the racism of people like Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, Hegel, and David Hume. Everyone should know that Darwin anticipated genocide by whites of “lower races”:
“The … Caucasian races have beaten … [others] in the struggle for existence. … [At] no very distant date … the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world.”
Everyone should know Marx said:
“Let us … speak of the beautiful side … of the slavery of the blacks in the East, in Brazil, in the Southern States of North America. … [S]lavery is an economic category of the highest importance. Without slavery … you would have … the complete decadence of modern commerce and civilization. … [S]ave slavery … [c]onserve the good side of this economic category.”
8.) The pamphlet then explains how spiritual slavery is the worst problem people suffer today. It illustrates that the root causes of racism (pride) and slavery (covetousness) are sins that the reader has been guilty of, and how, through the ransom payment of Christ, they can become spiritually free from the control of the sins that lead to racism and slavery now and eternal hell fire in eternity.
I would suggest reading the pamphlet yourself, keeping the link or a few copies on hand for people who run into this objection when preaching the gospel. I would also suggest that Christian schools, in history class, when they teach the Enlightenment and the impact of evolution and its pre-and post-Darwinian influence in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, make sure students know that modern racism came from these movements. Missionaries in Africa, the Caribbean, and, frankly, on most of the globe should know these things and share them with those to whom they minister.
Cancel culture should cancel Darwin, cancel Marx, cancel Biblical skepticism, cancel evolution, cancel atheism, and cancel agnosticism.
Everyone should recognize Christianity is the best friend of those who are against racism and slavery.
Click here to read the pamphlet Biblical Christianity vs. Atheism on Racism and Slavery
–TDR
Updated Seventh-Day Adventist evangelistic pamphlet
The evangelistic pamphlet for Seventh-Day Adventists, “Bible Truths for Seventh-Day Adventist Friends,” has been updated to include Ellen White’s statement: “[T]hose who claim that their faith alone will save them are trusting to a rope of sand,” Adventism’s teaching that Christ’s blood is useless for those who have committed one wilful sin, and (relatively recently) the addition of their teaching that baptism forgives sin. If your church does not already have some good resources for members of this cult, I would like to commend this composition to you for your use. Your Baptist church can get its church name on it by downloading a Word doc of the pamphlet at the All Content page at FaithSaves and then personalizing it. Copies can be made through a Baptist printing ministry or by just making some on a copy machine.
–TDR
Improved Evangelistic Bible Study #3 Is Now Available!
I am happy to report that a version of evangelistic Bible study #3, “What Does God Want From Me?” which covers God’s law and the penalty of sin to awaken or convict a lost sinner, is now available in an improved version. It is now nicely in color with good looking pictures and other features that make it more physically appealing than it was previously. Studies #1 and #2 in this “prettified” format are also available. Studies #4-7 are being worked on and, Lord willing, will become available in the not-to-distant future.
Please note as well that video files of the studies being taught are also being made available–#1-5 are currently live, and the videos for #6-7 are in the list of things to get done. We would appreciate prayer for helpers with the video projects.
You can watch Bible studies #1-5 or download the “prettified” studies #1-3, as well as the older versions of #4-7, at the page here:
Foundational Bible Studies
as well as viewing them on YouTube here. Feel free to “like” them, post a comment on the YouTube channel, or share them on social media (if you are on social media, I am not on it) as these things help other people find and watch the studies.
If you wish to personalize these resources by adding your church address to them, you can also do that by accessing MS Word files of the evangelistic Bible studies at the All Content page here.
–TDR
Why I Got Vaccinated for COVID
I believe Scripture does not directly address whether someone should be vaccinated against COVID or not. Within a church people should have liberty to follow their conscience. I made the decision to get vaccinated. Here are the reasons why. Please consider them respectfully. If you agree, that is great. If you disagree, that does not mean you do not love the Lord Jesus Christ, and I hope we can respectfully and rationally discuss our reasons, and we can still “receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God,” and still “with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 15:6-7).
1.) I got vaccinated because vaccines have saved millions of lives. Compare, for example, David Cloud’s articles on life before and after typhoid vaccines, smallpox vaccines, and yellow fever vaccines. God tells man to subdue the earth and have dominion over it (Genesis 1), and the scientific method and science are part of the way that we obey that command. I got vaccinated because I believe I am helping to stop a disease that has killed or contributed to the death of millions of people world-wide, and in this way am loving my neighbor as myself.
2.) I got vaccinated because I believe it helps to save the health and lives of the Lord’s people in His churches. I know of good churches where people have died from COVID. I know of numbers of the Lord’s saints who were hospitalized because of COVID. I know of numbers of the Lord’s people that had to go on oxygen because of COVID. Some of them were elderly, but others were young. By way of contrast, I don’t know anyone who has died of the flu or had to go on oxygen because of the flu. And these are just people I am familiar with–there are countless numbers of the saints of Christ in other places who have likewise gotten sick, been hospitalized, or died. I want to do what I can to help God’s saints be able to serve the Lord Jesus Christ on earth for as long as possible until He comes.
3.) I got vaccinated because even if one does not get hospitalized or die from COVID, it is not a fun disease to have for many people. Some people I know who got COVID months ago still have issues with their sense of smell now and have other problems. When they were sick it was not a good time for them. I would rather not risk getting really sick and having ongoing effects possibly a long time later when I could just get a poke in my arm and go about my day just like normal. My only side affect was a slightly sore arm for a short time. Also, I am much less likely to have to lose several weeks of income quarantined, and much less likely to cause other people and businesses to have to lose their livelihoods for several weeks, and I would like to prevent those things from happening.
4.) I got vaccinated so that I can have greater ministry to the elderly. I would like to be able to go into a nursing home to preach the gospel, not limit my opportunities to go into an elderly person’s home to preach the gospel door-to-door, pick elderly people up for church, and so on.
5.) I got vaccinated so that I do not give people a reason to stay away from the Lord’s house on the Lord’s Day. They don’t need to be afraid that I am going to make them sick. I also do not want to give weak people a reason to stumble. I would much rather get a little poke in my arm than hang a millstone around my neck and be cast into the sea (Mark 9:42), but it is better to have that bad situation with a millstone than cause others to stumble.
6.) I got vaccinated so that if I have opportunities to preach or teach the Word in other countries my ministry will not be limited by being unvaccinated and unable to get into the country.
7.) I got vaccinated to defend religious liberty. Religious liberty is increasingly under fire, especially from the left in the USA. Many restrictions on churches meeting at all were very bad, and they were justified by the threat of the spread of disease. I believe I am taking away this excuse to attack Christ’s churches and restrict them and their worship and their ministry. If the majority–which always has been and always will be unregenerate (Luke 12:32)–thinks of churches as places where anti-vax conspiracy people spread disease all over the place, they will want to shut them down. If they don’t like churches because of the gospel we preach, that is fine. If they don’t like us because we are taking a “stand” for something not in the Bible, like opposing vaccination, that is not good. Assembling, as Christ commanded, to worship the Triune God, is something worth fighting for and dying for. I do not believe opposing vaccination is worth fighting or dying for. (I also believe supporting vaccination is not a doctrinal issue and should not cause division in a church.)
8.) I got vaccinated because I believe it will help our church to be able to minister to everyone in the community, not just people who subscribe to certain conspiracies or hold certain unconventional views on science.
9.) I got vaccinated because it can help with evangelism. If I am at a public transit station passing out gospel tracts to thousands of people, they might be afraid to take one from me if I am unvaccinated, or I might give them an excuse not to take one. Furthermore, I am more likely to get sick by being out with very large groups of people, and I want to be able to minister without increasing my risk of infecting others.
10.) I got vaccinated because I do not want my unvaccinated brethren in Christ, or other fellow humans in God’s image, to get sick. If a high enough percentage of the population gets vaccinated, COVID will be unable to spread as effectively, and those who do not get vaccinated will also be safe. If not enough people get vaccinated, while the vaccinated people will be protected, those who are unvaccinated will remain vulnerable. I would like to help protect those vulnerable people.
11.) I got vaccinated because, while none of us knows the future, it is very possible that this virus will keep mutating so even people who have gotten COVID already may get it again in a year or so. There are churches that have very few vaccinated people, and where for a variety of reasons they either neglect or refuse to social distance, mask, etc. COVID has gone through many such congregations, sickening many, hospitalizing some, and killing a few. At least for now if practically everyone has already gotten sick, though, they have antibodies just as if they had been vaccinated. If this is a once-for-a-lifetime situation, it would still be very sad for precious saints of the Lord to be in an untimely grave, or on oxygen for weeks, teetering on the brink of death or life, with many others unable to smell or taste properly for months. Unfortunately, COVID may become a yearly thing like the flu. It would be terrible for churches to have COVID sweep through every year and hospitalize or pick off a few of God’s sheep every year. By getting vaccinated, and getting a follow up in future years if necessary, I can do what I can to prevent a recurrence of serious and sometimes deadly sickness among the Lord’s people.
12.) I got vaccinated because I believe it fits in with the real world that God made, which is not the imaginary world of conspiracy theories from InfoWars and its kidnapped children who are in slave labor on Mars, or lies spread by countries such as Russia that are spreading vaccine disinformation. I don’t want God’s Word and His infallible truth associated with such things, or for people to associate the Bible or Christianity with such false ideas or with a failure to be able to think logically and rationally, when Scripture strongly favors a “sound mind” and commands, “come, let us reason” (2 Timothy 1:7; Isaiah 1:18). Of course, not everyone who has not received a COVID vaccine is a follower of InfoWars or accepts Russian disinformation. People may have many reasons for not getting vaccinated which may be better than these ones—for example, if a person already had COVID and was treated with monoclonal antibodies or convalescent plasma, in conjunction with his doctor’s advice it may be good to wait a few months before getting vaccinated. If a husband forbids his wife from getting vaccinated, then she should not get vaccinated. But if InfoWars or another highly unreliable Internet source is why we are not getting the vaccine, it might be wise to reconsider that reason, at least.
13.) I got vaccinated to honor my father and my mother. My family is helping to care for an elderly parent who has not yet believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. This person does not believe in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. I do not want this loved one to get sick because of me, hindering my ability to share the gospel, or even worse, pass into an eternity without Christ, because I did not get vaccinated. I also do not want my ability to witness to this loved one hindered by adopting anti-vaccination conspiracy theories and having this person think that the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ–which is overwhelming–is like the evidence for anti-vax conspiracies, which is, at best, far from overwhelming.
14.) I got vaccinated because after carefully considering them I did not believe arguments against vaccination are as strong as the arguments for getting vaccinated. The best anti-COVID vaccine argument is that one is supporting abortion by getting a COVID vaccine. However, I do not believe getting vaccinated supports abortion or is anti-life. No COVID vaccine has tissue from any aborted children. It is true that in the 1970s and 1980s cell lines from abortions were placed into labs and used for medical testing. We are now thousands and thousands of generations of cells away from this originally wicked act of getting the cells in this way. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine has more involvement with abortion than Moderna or Pfizer, so I avoided the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, although I do not condemn those who got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. I am not killing any preborn children by getting vaccinated, nor am I supporting the way decades ago a particular cell line was originated by getting a vaccine that is made thousands of generations of cells later when there are no other alternatives. I believe I am very pro-life if I make it so that the lives of the very real people I know who have died from COVID are the end of the death from this disease. Pro-life means I try to stop the unnecessary death of adults as well as those of the preborn. Non-Christian religious pro-life movements such as Catholicism as well as secular pro-life groups also recognize the morality of getting a COVID vaccine, even while they (as I agree) recognize it would be better to get cell lines that originated in a different way. If a treatment for a deadly and dangerous disease was achieved by experimentation on the corpse of an adult person who had been murdered, and there were no other equally effective alternative treatments, I would get the treatment for the disease while advocating for other methods of research and development and trying to eliminate future murders in every righteous way possible. I will do the same in this situation. If you think that there is too much of a connection to abortion to get vaccinated, I respect your concern and don’t want you to violate your conscience. From the way I see, it, however, we probably have a closer connection to abortion if we ever shop at a grocery store that donates to pro-abortion causes and if we pay taxes–as Romans 13 commands–to a government that funds abortion and other terrible evils. Maybe we have a closer connection if we are part owner of pro-abortion companies in mutual funds or other investments (find out if you are here), or if we never warn about abortion through means such as passing out the pro-life, anti-abortion gospel tract here.
Another anti-COVID vaccine argument is that testing has been insufficient. We certainly can always do more testing, and more testing is always commendable, but I believe the likelihood of health problems arising from getting vaccinated is orders of magnitude lower than the likelihood of getting health problems from actually getting COVID. I don’t know anyone who had to go on oxygen or is dead from getting vaccinated, but, sadly, I do know numbers of people who have from actually getting COVID. Testing requirements for vaccines in the US are very rigorous, and the competing companies have every incentive to expose their competitors if another firm’s vaccine is unsafe. Thousands of lawyers hoping for a class action lawsuit, countless doctors, millions of people who simply want safe vaccines, and many other competing interests that make it very difficult for a vaccine known to be unsafe to continue to be marketed in the long term. Also, concern that the vaccine utilizes mRNA and therefore, according to some anti-COVID vaccine conspiracy advocates, changes one’s DNA is simply entirely unsubstantiated and highly inaccurate scientifically. (See also here.) Claims that thousands of people are dying because they got vaccinated, based on misunderstood VAERS data, are simply misinterpreting the data in question and confusing the fact that with millions of people getting vaccinated thousands of people would die afterwards by simple probability does not mean that they died because of the vaccine–one could equally point out that thousands of people died within 24 hours of reading a book or within 24 hours of getting a good night’s sleep and conclude that getting enough sleep or reading books is deadly.
In my opinion, I did not think that other anti-COVID vaccine arguments were very strong after examining both sides of the issue using critical thinking and scientific principles, as commanded in the Bible.
One of the weakest arguments against vaccination that, sadly, I have heard a lot, is that people are only getting vaccinated because they are afraid, while opposing vaccination is the way to be free from fear. In my view, it would be a lot better to make rational arguments rather than imputing motives that one cannot know to the millions of Christians and the many godly preachers and godly households who have gotten vaccinated. For myself, I know that I got vaccinated to honor and show love for the Lord Jesus Christ, to show love for others, and to be a good steward of the life the Lord has given me. I do not doubt that there are many people who have gotten vaccinated because they were afraid of getting COVID and its sometimes serious effects and a lot of people who have not gotten vaccinated because they were afraid of the very rare instances where vaccines have serious side effects. However, I don’t think it would work to go up to a Christian who opposes vaccination and tell him he is just foolishly full of fear and that is why he is anti-vax. That would not get me anywhere. I would probably be more effective if I could show that he was much more likely to be killed on his morning drive to work than he is likely to be killed from getting vaccinated. Nor, if I were against vaccination, would I go up to a Christian who thinks vaccines are blessings from God the Father that save many lives and tell him he is only vaccinated because he is full of fear. If he actually was not full of fear, he would view my false accusation as ridiculous. Instead, whichever side I was on, I would attempt to find logical and scientific arguments for my view instead of assuming things only God knows about other people’s hearts and minds.
So those are the reasons why I got vaccinated against COVID. (Oh, and here is one more–I am tired of wearing masks and look forward to a time when enough people are vaccinated so we can stop wearing them, although I will still wear one when I am supposed to until that time, since I don’t see anywhere in Scripture where it says not to wear one if a private company tells me to on their own property or the government God has ordained (Romans 13) tells me to do it.)
People can be very godly and can know nothing about science, can be very godly and know very little about how vaccination works, be very godly and be very into conspiracy theories, can be very godly and can disagree with this post for a variety of other reasons that may be a lot better than those ones, etc. There is a godly man I know in the United Kingdom who thinks the sun moves around the earth, and says he can prove this because if you jump up and come back on earth the earth does not move away while you are in the air. I am thankful for his being able to serve the Lord. He could well have much more eternal reward in heaven than I will have. If you are reading this and you are an anti-vax Christian, please don’t take this post as a personal attack and get angry. Please think about it rationally instead of reacting emotionally. I would also encourage you, if you don’t already, to remember that “he that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him” (Proverbs 18:13), so make sure you are reading both sides of an issue, not just finding people who agree with you on opposition to vaccination. If you have never read a Christian biology textbook such as those by BJU Press, I would encourage you to check one out and make sure your arguments against vaccines, or against the COVID vaccine in particular, do not require the abandonment of basic biology. If you have never read an article on PubMed by one of the top medical journals, like the New England Journal of Medicine, try reading a few and try avoiding YouTube and social media as sources for information on science. See what your doctor says on the matter. I trust that we would agree that we must be very careful as a Christians, and especially if we are Christian leaders, not to tell people falsehoods, even if we are sincere in advocating them, and we must be very careful so people can distinguish between when we are giving opinions of ours that are uncertain and are matters of Christian liberty and when we are giving people the infallible truth of God’s Word. Of course, you are also welcome to comment on this post. I may not have time to get into a lengthy pro and con argument on vaccination, though, so please don’t be offended if I don’t do that.
I believe getting vaccinated is a Christian liberty issue, and have explained why I have gotten vaccinated. If you have not gotten vaccinated, you are still my brother or sister in Christ. If you are a Christian who cares more about my getting vaccinated than you care about what I think on the gospel, on repentance, on sanctification, on the Triune Godhead, on the church, on worship, on the inspiration and preservation of Scripture, and on other crucial Biblical matters of doctrine and life, and care more about my getting vaccinated then you do about what I do to serve the Lord in my personal life, my family, and my church, then maybe you ought to reexamine your beliefs and see if they are Biblically balanced; maybe you are making anti-vax into a doctrinal issue, and just perhaps you ought not to do that.
May the Lord graciously guide you into His will for you in this matter as you search the Scriptures and apply Biblical principles.
–TDR
The Beginning of a New Church and the Place of Discipleship In That
When you arrive into a town or city as a missionary, let’s assume it’s just you. You don’t have anyone else. You start with evangelism. You start with preaching the gospel. You really don’t know that anyone will be saved, but that’s how you start if you are a missionary.
A church is built on the gospel, which is seen in part when Jesus said, “Upon this rock I will build my church.” The grammar of Matthew 16:18 refers “this rock” to the confession of Peter, which could be described as his faith in Christ. The church is built on the gospel, belief in Christ. A church is built with saved people by their hearing the gospel and receiving it. The goal in an area is to get the gospel to everyone who is willing to hear it.
Something else you can do is let saved people know that you are in town. If you are there with a goal of a church starting, then you think there needs to be a church there. That is in part because you don’t think you could say, “Just go to that church.” Depending on the size of the area, there are probably believers there that need your work and you want them to know about it. They could join you. However, no missionary should think that he’s coming somewhere to take people from other churches. He’s there to evangelize first.
If the gospel is going to be preached to everyone, that could be done by the missionary doing it himself. He never stops preaching the gospel until everyone hears it. Is that the way intended by God for everyone in an area to preach the gospel? It isn’t. The command of the Great Commission is “teach all nations” in Matthew 28:19. The word “teach” comes from a Greek word, which means, “make disciples.” The priority in evangelism is making disciples.
The first amount of time, let’s say, year, emphasizes evangelism especially. The goal is to evangelize as much as possible and to disciple those believing the gospel. As soon as someone is converted, you start with discipleship. A main goal of discipleship is to train an evangelist. Your disciple at least by year two himself starts evangelizing. What you’ve done then is multiply the number of evangelists. For that reason, discipleship is the priority. If you had a choice to go evangelizing or spending time in discipleship, you disciple someone. Get in as many discipleships as possible, really disciple everybody.
You disciple even the people you meet, who are already believers. When someone claims to be saved already, he also is discipled. This way everyone is prepared to be an evangelist. You want to take everyone as far as they can spiritually.
Yes, everyone needs to start assembling for church. A church is starting. You start to get everyone you are discipling into every meeting. You will be preaching on all the things from the Word of God these new believers and new members need.
As you move along the first year, you will be baptizing new believers. That is part of discipleship, teaching them on baptism and then baptizing them. Each of them will be baptized into the church. Baptizing is part of discipleship even as seen in Matthew 28:19.
I try to evangelize every day and do most days. I will do less evangelism as more people are saved, because I have to disciple these people. Also part of what I do is to take new converts to evangelize, part of discipleship. Maybe you think that spending less time in evangelizing will mean less evangelism. Over a longer span far more evangelism will occur if new converts are baptized.
New converts need to be made disciples. This will result in more evangelism. When it comes to the church planting phase of the history of a church, discipleship must occur for a church even to start. You aren’t going to have a church without discipleship, so no new church will occur. Even more so, not related to a new church even starting is the glory to God that will go through the increased obedience of a discipled saint. God wants to be followed and new converts don’t know what to do. They need to be taught. They have to be taught so they will live like God wants people to live.
Raise a Godly Family in an Ungodly Area–Is it Possible?
If one is in Oklahoma, there are pages and pages of Baptist churches in the phone book. (Phone book? What’s that? But I digress.) In the San Francisco Bay Area, there are many, many fewer churches that even preach a true gospel, much less take a stand for all the truth in the Bible. Sometimes, in relation to a post like “Evangelize the Bay Area of California!,” some people say, and more people think, something to the effect: “I’m glad you are wanting to do that, but I could never do it. I want to raise my family for God, so we will live in a conservative area, try to move some place rural or stay rural if we are, and never, ever go to a place that is liberal and godless like San Francisco.” Is this a Biblical way of thinking? Do we see this sort of thinking in Scripture?
It is true that if one wants to live a comfortable and easy life, coasting along living the American Dream, doing so in a conservative and more God-and-Bible friendly area is easier. Taxes are likely to be lower; people are more likely to be friendly; everything is nice and pleasant. But where does Scripture say life is about having things nice and easy? Where do “nice and easy” and “take up the cross and follow Me” meet?
Revelation 2-3 records Christ’s commands to seven first century (Baptist) churches. One of these churches was “where Satan’s seat is,” and where “Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth” (Revelation 2:13). Sounds like a really, really rough place. A lot worse than San Francisco, in fact. No martyrs in San Francisco recently. So because the church was in a wicked part of the world, Christ told the congregation that they shouldn’t be in a big, bad city, where Satan’s seat was. He told them to go to some rural place and live the American Dream.
Oh wait, sorry, that isn’t in the text anywhere. Didn’t Christ want the families at that church to be able to raise their children for God? Didn’t He know that you can’t do that in a city “where Satan’s seat is”?
In the book of Acts, the Apostles and their helpers really, really wanted those who received the gospel to raise their children for God, of course. Therefore, we see the pattern that they sought out the areas that were the most likely to have Biblical values and went there first, leaving those in the big, bad cities to perish in their sin.
Oh wait, sorry, that isn’t what they did–they went to the cities first, and even when the Apostles had to flee because of riots, they didn’t tell the church members there to leave their city and go somewhere things were easier.
So this idea that you can’t raise your children for God in areas that are hostile to the Bible is not in Revelation 2-3 and not in the book of Acts. Is it in the epistles? Nope. In the Gospels? Nope. So does it have any basis in the Bible? None at all. It is just made up. The closest you can get to it is that if someone is actively trying to kill you or cause you bodily harm Christ teaches that you can run away. Also, if you go to a wicked place for worldly purposes unconnected to the glory of God and leave godly influences behind to go there (Genesis 18-19), you should expect bad things to happen. Those are both totally different than refusing to go to a liberal part of the United States to help a strong church or plant a church because there is more open evil in the world than in some nice, rural, conservative, Bible-friendly area, maybe in the Bible belt or in the heavily Republican South.
What does matter to raising a godly family is having a strong church that is seeking to obey all of Scripture for the glory of God, and where both parents are actively serving. If you want to raise your family for God, make sure that you have a church like that. Make sure that you have your kids in a strong Christian school or homeschool that is actively seeking to disciple them with close parental involvement, and that you and the school are consistent in the use of the rod and of reproof. If you think you can put your kids in public school because you live in a conservative area, so everything will be fine, you are bonkers. Do the above to raise a godly family. If God is giving you the desire to help evangelize for the purpose of seeing new churches established in a part of the USA that actually needs them really, really badly–in other words, those liberal parts where nobody or almost nobody is preaching the gospel–do not refuse to go because of this made-up idea that you can’t raise a godly family there. It isn’t true. It is a lie, a Satanic lie to confuse people on what is necessary for godly child-rearing and to prevent the Great Commission from being fulfilled. Certainly someone in a weaker church in a more conservative part of the country is more likely to lose his children to the devil than someone in a stronger church in a more liberal part of America.
At least in my experience, people who have adopted this non-Biblical idea usually limit their restriction on moving to liberal areas to the United States. Going to a mission field is OK, even if the place is very wicked. If they were consistent, they would apply this idea to foreign countries as well, which would be the end of world missions. The large majority of the world is more corrupt and with less Biblical influence than remains even in San Francisco, Massachusetts, and other parts of the USA where we still have First Amendment protections and other constitutional privileges as citizens that are not present in the overwhelming majority of the world.
It would be great if some of the people in the Baptist churches on every corner in the Bible belt and in other nice, Bible-friendly areas would get out of their holy huddle and move to parts of the USA and to the rest of the world where the vast majority of the population has never heard the gospel even one time. They should be earnestly desiring to move to places like that and start preaching the gospel to those that have never heard it (Romans 15:20). Maybe the default position should be to help there, and only stay in their nice and comfortable place if it is clearly God’s will that they stay instead of going.
So if you have it in your mind that you would never go somewhere like the San Francisco Bay Area because it is liberal with little Biblical influence, you are not thinking Scripturally. Instead of wanting to avoid going there because of a made up idea that raising a family for God is impossible in such a place, ask the Lord of the harvest what He would have you to do and where He would have you go, knowing that as you actively take up your cross and follow Christ you will have the best chance possible to raise the next generation to do the same.
Oh, and by the way, while the idea that you can’t raise children for God in a liberal area is not in the Bible, at least you have the Catholic philosophy of monasticism and Ellen White, the cult leader and prophetess of Seventh-Day Adventism, on your side. In her allegedly “inspired” book Country Living, Mrs. White made statements such as:
“[God] wants us to live where we have elbow room. His people are not to crowd into the cities. He wants them to take their families out of the cities, that they may better prepare for eternal life” (17.1).
“Get out of the cities as soon as possible, and purchase a little piece of land, where you can have a garden, where your children can watch the flowers growing” (17.3).
Aww, isn’t that sweet. Too bad it isn’t in the Bible anywhere. If you follow the Bible instead of Ellen White, take up the cross, follow Him, and help to preach the gospel to everyone in the areas where nobody is doing it. God will help you raise your family for Him there. –TDR
Support Bethel and Faithsaves.net When Shopping at Amazon
Black Friday is today, and Cyber Monday is coming up! I relatively recently wrote a post about Amazon Smile and how you can, whenever you shop at Amazon.com, support Bethel Christian Academy, a ministry of Bethel Baptist Church, without paying a penny more for whatever you were buying. However, there is a way to go one better–you can support both a ministry such as Bethel as well as faithsaves.net while paying exactly the same price as you would normally at Amazon.com. If you go to Amazon via the link below:
Support Bethel & FaithSaves
you will support both your Amazon Smile organization such as Bethel and faithsaves.net. (While the page opens to the Amazon page for the book Thou Shalt Keep Them, you do not need to buy that book, but can navigate from there to anywhere on Amazon and you will still end up supporting Bethel or whatever other Amazon Smile organization you use and FaithSaves with what you purchase. Also, Bethel Christian Academy gets exactly the same 0.5% whether or not you also help support fathsaves.net–there is no decrease in the amount given to BCA for having Amazon give a small bit of their profit to FaithSaves also.)
If you don’t want to support faithsaves.net, but only an Amazon Smile organization such as Bethel, you can use the link below to sign up for Amazon Smile, and then afterwards just go to smile.amazon.com:
Click here to sign up for Amazon Smile and/or pick Bethel Christian Academy as the charity of your choice
If you don’t want to support an Amazon Smile organization, but only faithsaves.net, you can use the link below:
I would encourage you to use the first button above and support Bethel and FaithSaves whenever you shop on Amazon.com, and share the link with others so they can do the same (unless your church has its own Amazon Smile account–then support your church–which you can still do by making it your Amazon Smile organization and then just clicking through the first link above). Save this blog post to your bookmarks and click from here into Amazon whenever you are going to buy something from them. (You can also explore other options to get discounts on purchases online here.) The sending church of Dr. Brandenburg does many things for the glory of God in addition to having this blog, from giving people a place to have pure worship for the 7 million people in the Bay Area, to the new church plant that Evangelist Brandenburg is establishing in Oregon, to the faithful ministry and gospel outreach in the Bay Area, to the school and other educational ministries, etc. At faithsaves.net we are working to help Bethel expand its video outreach so that college courses, debates, podcasts, etc. can be online, and the video equipment for all of that is expensive, so support would be a blessing. If Amazon is willing to help out by donating a portion of what you purchase, why not do it? Thank you for your consideration!
–TDR
Updated Evangelistic Bible Study #1
The evangelistic Bible study series online at faithsaves.net are being updated. Study #1, which covers the inspiration, preservation, and canonicity of Scripture, has been updated with pictures and other things that make it much nicer looking. I would encourage you to start using the updated ones if your church uses these evangelistic Bible studies.
In addition to improvements in the appearance of the Bible study, some facts have been updated. For example, the chart below:
You can download an MS Word file of Bible study #1 here to personalize with your church’s information, while seekers can be directed here to get PDFs of it and to have access to other helpful gospel resources.
–TDR
Evangelistic Bible Study #4, “How Do I Receive the Gospel?” is now live!
In previous weeks I had mentioned that videos teaching the evangelistic Bible studies that I have written were being made available. We had made #1, “What is the Bible?” live. That study covers the inspiration, preservation, and canonicity of the Bible. We had made #2, “Who is God?” live, covering who the true God is, including His crucial Tri-unity. We had made #3, “What Does God Want From Me?” live. Study #3 covers the law of God and His objective standard of perfect holiness which He will use to judge mankind in the last day. #5, “How Do I Receive the Gospel?” was also made live–that study covered repentance and faith, the human response to the gospel. However, we were having issues with study #4, so that one was not yet available. However, I am pleased to report that Bible study #4, “How Can God Save Sinners?” is now live. You can watch it at FaithSaves, watch it on YouTube, or watch it through the embedded video below:
Please “like” the video on YouTube and feel free to post a comment if you believe it is valuable, as doing those things help the video gain circulation.
The physical copies of the Bible studies are available online if you can do them with someone in person or over Skype, Zoom, etc. in this era of COVID. I would encourage you to share the videos as well with people who are not willing to do a one-on-one study with you but like to watch things over the Internet.
May the Lord use these studies for His glory and the advancement of His gospel!
Studies #6 and #7, on eternal security and assurance (#6) and the church (#7) are not yet available, but we are working on them. Please feel free to pray for us as it takes a lot of work to have these done well. The actually evangelistic studies, however, are all complete–#6 and #7 are follow-up Bible studies.
–TDR
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