speerjp1

Bro. Cloud is right. As some have pointed out, there have always been weak churches that like to retain the label of IFB. The most irksome thing is that they refuse to simply leave the "movement" they so obviously despise. I was in an IFB church for a short time where the pastor seemed to bash independent baptists at every turn. He used all the famous one liners: "We IFB's are the only ones that shoot our wounded", "We IFB's are the only ones that can't get along", "We IFB are the only ones that don't love the brethren", "We IFB's are the only ones that are late for church all the time", "We IFB's are the only ones that don't pray" and so on and so on. (Lies and misrepresentations, all.) All the while, the preaching was lacking severely, the music was going downhill fast, sin was pouring into the church, and those trying to maintain some semblance of biblical separation were not welcome in that church. From all he said, you would have to come to the conclusion that the worst people in the world were those who claimed to be a part of the IFB movement. I entreated him on the matter expressing my concern with the misrepresentations he was perpetuating for the sake of trying to motivate his flock, to which he responded that it was all true. If he had such a problem with IFB's then why did he insist on staying within the movement? Why not take it off the sign? Why not change the church name to Community Fellowship or some other ambiguous name type? The same goes for the larger, more influential churches and schools: why not just move on? Why insist on trying to drag all of fundamentalism along with themselves away from, primarily, biblical separation? It seems that most know that the day they leave fundamentalism, their religious influence will disappear or at least be so reduced that the current leadership would do anything than reduce their own sphere of influence. It seems to be a primary motivator in these situations. How much influence do they have? That equals power. It is power and influence described nowhere in the NT.

Very good analysis by Bro. Surrett!! :thumb:

Having been the victim of covered-up abuse myself, a lot of what was said in the 20/20 episode and on this thread hits close to home. I thought the 20/20 production was relatively balanced in its approach and they did not verbalize a conclusive view that all IFB churches are cults or that they all have the types of problems highlighted in their show. Near the beginning and again in the closing sequences, they equated having standards (specifically dress and music standards) with being a cult, which is dishonest, and they also edited the music and video clips of IFB churches to come across in a very sinister way. Those seemed to be the two most unwarranted representations of IFB churches in their show. They definitely could have gone much further in their attacks, but didn't, and for that I am thankful. I had also already heard of the women who were interviewed and who seem to have made it their personal goal to destroy the name of fundamental churches through broad-brushing all fundamental churches as being evil and heretical. Their efforts are based mostly on separation issues and allegations of oppression. It seems to me that they add in and magnify the stories of abuse to make their other positions less assailable. One of the best points raised by the interviewer was the disingenuous practice among most IFB churches of denying their common roots and spheres of influence. The pastor who so graciously granted an interview did a good job of answering most of the questions, but when questioned about the island-like facade adopted by most IFB churches when trouble arises, he dropped the ball. There are very few truly INDEPENDENT Fundamental Baptist churches left. In my opinion, it seems like the "I" in "IFB" most often stands for "Institutional." This opinion is based on the widespread practice of most churches to limit their fellowship to a very tight institution based sphere of influence. Along with joining in some sort of fellowship, most will also only defend those IFB's who are members in good standing with an approved ministry that has sprung from their own preferred institution or association or fellowship. The thing that disturbed me most as I watched was seeing the letterhead of a prominent IFB lawyer (who, by the way, has helped some of the worst examples of IFB preachers, pastors, and evangelists out of a plethora of legal troubles, mostly having to do with sexual perversion) in one of the video clips of Pastor Phelps' statement to 20/20. To me, that only hurts the credibility of Dr. Phelps. Besides, he says on his own website that there are many particular things he would have done differently in hindsight, so he shouldn't be surprised that others would follow his own lead in finding fault with the way things were handled years ago. The most encouraging part was seeing a relatively young IFB pastor not defending the lunacy that can indeed be found in some corners of IFB-dom. It was disturbing, however, that he had not figured out a way to let the folks in his church know that he had two registered sex offenders in his church. Every pastor should be aware of who is sitting in the pews of the church where he is the watchman and should find some way to properly warn those for whose very souls he is watching. In that regard, it should be every pastor's goal to keep the children in the watch-care of the church from having to find out the hard way who among their fellow church-goers struggles with sexual deviance. One thing that all believers should know is that God's grace is sufficient for every need and in dealing with every situation. It will never be acceptable in His eyes for people to use their scarred past to attack those who would endeavor to stay true to God and His word. In fact, God isn't interested in leaving such scars in our past when He can so thoroughly heal us by His grace. I am a testimony of His power to heal from such wounds. By the way, I am still an independent (not beholden to any institution), fundamental (desiring to be separated from this world unto God for his own glory), Bible-believing baptist. Praise the Lord and Him alone!

You are right in that the passages I had mentioned are speaking specifically about our relationship with our "brothers" and that does indeed change the dynamic of the warnings Christ was issuing. However, your premise that it is impossible to "commit 'heart murder' or 'heart adultery'" is invalid based on the passage you cited. Jesus never claimed that one could actually outwardly commit any sin simply thinking about it or dwelling upon it. It is clear, though, that his instructions during the sermon on the mount are not descriptive of how the kingdom of heaven will be, but rather examples of how human righteous never had and never would be sufficient for a man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus Christ was informing all men for all time that committing a sin in one's heart causes one to be guilty of that sin in God's eyes regardless of whether or not the sin is ever committed physically. It seems that people have always had the ability to sin in their hearts without actually committing the sin outwardly and physically; that is the essence of Christ's discourse: that the scribes and Pharisees were sinning in their hearts and were just as guilty before God as though they had been performing those acts of iniquity openly and physically. The reason for the insufficiency of their righteousness was not because of what they were or were not doing or whether they were committing sin outwardly or inwardly. The reason their righteousness fell short was because it was their own righteousness. That is why the key phrase in that portion of the sermon on the mount is when Jesus says, "... except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." Our righteousness must be Christ's righteousness. That is the only way it can ever exceed that of the Pharisees and the only way we could ever hope to gain entrance into the kingdom of heaven. Until then, we have an advocate with the Father for all sins, be they inward or outward, known or hidden. Praise the Lord!

Those are great verses from James on the tongue. They demonstrate that great damage can be done with the tongue whether it is on purpose or by accident. That is why it must be crucified with all of our other members daily and given over to the use of Godly purposes and not for our own purposes. (I may be missing something: what do you mean by, "why did God put it in a pool of water?" )

Good one! :lol:

I occasionally listen to Wretched Radio with Todd Friel. I enjoy a lot of things about the radio program and I especially like "Witness Wednesdays" because he spends time evangelizing the lost. I do not listen to the entire program, but I listen to their podcast which is just one segment of the program called "Segment of the Day." Todd Friel uses the Way of the Master's popular "good person test" when witnessing, which is fine, but one thing he has done several times concerns me and I wanted to get some input from the forums on it. If you can, find their podcast from Dec. 22, 2010 and listen to the first few minutes of it. You will hear Mr. Friel tell a young man that if he has ever called someone a "moron" or "idiot" he is a "murderer at heart." I have heard him do this several times. The most well known New Testament teachings on the subject can be found in Matthew 5:21-26 and 1 John 3:15 although the Bible as a whole has much to say about murder. The whole thing seems to have been recently popularized by the Way of the Master's "Good Person Test." However, I have never heard any of WOTM's witnessing tools or resources make the claim that calling someone an "idiot" or "moron" constitutes murder. They tend to stick with the biblical phrasing of "angry with his brother without a cause" or "whosoever hateth his brother" as being prerequisites to being condemned in any way as a "murderer at heart." What do you think? Is Todd Friel stretching it a bit, or is my understanding of what constitutes a "murderer at heart" too limited?

Hi, all! For Mitch: The Bible does indeed give at least one differentiation between men and women's attire: men are often told to have thier "loins gird" in all sorts of various daily activities. Women in the Bible are never commanded to do so. The one passage where this apparently occurs is in Proverbs 31. However, since it is also apparent that this chapter has more to do with church typology than the supposed "Proverbs 31 Woman," it is more figurative and pertains to the church, the Bride of Christ. So there is your consistent difference between men and women's attire according to the Bible. For everyone else: If the command in the Old Testament is not typical of a New Testament fulfillment of foreshadowing or if it is reiterated in the New Testament, then there is no reason to assume that it would have any less bearing in the lives of God's people now than it did before the time of Christ.

I will speak from personal experience to give a demonstration of how I was convicted by this verse more than ten years ago. When I was around 14 or 15 I got into the habit of adding the words "just kidding" to the end of almost every statement I made because hardly anything I said was ever said in seriousness. I would say things that were mostly unkind jokes that were pretty benign, but it often would go to far into sarcasm (which I also struggled with for a while). I finally heard a preacher mention this passage in a sermon and, while I cannot remember his application, I can tell you that I was immediately convicted of the regular foolishness of my words and my constant joking. I was only 17 or 18 and it didn't take but a few days for the Lord to completely remove those two words from my regular vocabulary. Now THAT was his power on display and I thank him often for giving victory in that area.

Galatians 6:2 says "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." The other week, I was asked to fill a pulpit on short notice. It was almost immediately that the Lord burdened my heart with the thought of caring for one another within the church. If we read further into Galatians 6, we find that verse 10 says that we should "do good unto all men, especially unto them who are the household of faith." What about those who are in our very households, though? Should we care for them? Should we prefer them? Should we humble ourselves and consider their needs before we consider our own? These are all things we are commanded to do when it comes to the brethren. They are not suggestions. Is your home a Christ-centered home in which God's word is esteemed as the basis for all? Is your spouse "in Christ"? Are your children "in Christ"? Are they your brothers and sisters? Even if they aren't saved, you would be required to do good to them. But if they are, you should take special care to take every opportunity to do good to them. Look at what Proverbs 3:27-28 says about doing good. "Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it. Say not unto thy neighbour, Go, and come again, and to morrow I will give; when thou hast it by thee." If some good thing is within our ability to perform and is also present as an opportunity, then we are OBligated to perform it. It is no longer a matter of going "above the call of duty." (Think about how rarely, if ever, that statement could honestly and Biblically be applied to the Christian life.) If that good thing coincides with our ability to perform it, it has already become our duty to do it, if I may, "especially unto them who are of the household of faith." What bothered me was the undeniable fact of the rarity of those teachings and, even rarer, the implementation of those concepts into the everyday life of believers. That led me to ask the question "why is there such a lack of active caring for one another and doing good one to another?" The answer can be found in the answer to a more broad question: why do we humans lack in any area of our lives? It all boils down to a lack of love for God, most of all. A lack of love for our brothers and sisters in Christ. A lack of love for the lost. Since we do not have the luxury of being nuetral when it comes to love, those above mentioned lacks translate into surpluses of love in other areas. We often find ourselves with a surplus of love when it comes to ourselves, our comfort, our fun, our own man-made religious models and methods, worldly wisdom, and even lies born of Satan himself. In short, the very things which often bring the most burden, the most likelihood of falling into sin, the most pain, the most suffering, the most heartache to our brothers and sisters in Christ and our own family members, those very things are too often the recipient of our love. Make no mistake, "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other." (Matthew 6:24) We are often taught in God's word to love one another while at the same time we are commanded not to love the world nor the things in the world. It is an indication of the mutually exclusive nature of love. It is what makes God's love for us so powerful and so special: his love is not mingled with anything else. In our homes, our spouses need the unfeigned love and support that comes from truly despising all that would hinder righteousness within the home and within each family member's relationship with God. Our children need the love that comes from hating the things that would take them into a life of heartache and misery. How can we claim to love and care for our family if we are already in a loving relationship with the very things that would tear them, and us, apart? Practice: Based on Biblical principle, make it a household rule that each member should always prefer the other before themselves. Study scriptures that teach humility, love, and selflessness. Set an example of caring servanthood within the home, so that it become the normal way to react outside of the home. Experiment: The next time your spouse needs anything, do your best to do it for them or provide it for them. For example: if you are already in bed and your spouse remembers something that needs to be done, volunteer to take care of it and do it quickly. If you are sitting at the dinner table and there is no spoon for the corn, get up and get it. If your child is struggling with school work, volunteer to help them with it.

Proverbs 14:16 says "A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and is confident." I recently saw the title of a new book out by Max Lucado called "Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear". I have not read this book so I cannot endorse it or criticize it in any way, but the title struck me as something to consider within the context of the home. Imagine your home life without fear. Fathers and husbands, imagine having no fear when it comes to making hard choices and tough decisions for righteousness' sake. Think what it would be like to know of some scriptural command that you must implement in your own personal life and in the life of your family and you experience no fear of mockery, distrust, or eye-rolling. Imagine refusing to speak in a demeaning way about your wife at the office without fear of being viewed as "whipped" or "hen-pecked". Picture yourself acting without regard to what any man thinks of your decision. Mothers and wives, imagine having no fear when you are given the opportunity to choose paths that cut against the torrent of secular ideas pushed on you without fear of being condescendingly viewed by others. Imagine deciding to help your husband instead of joke about his shortcomings without fear of being left out of the click. Imagine standing firm with your children, even when they play on your emotions to get their way, without the fear of not being their "friend." Children, imagine having no fear when you choose to simply OBey your parents, as you would the Lord. Imagine being patient with your siblings without the fear of your "stuff" being lost or damaged. Think about choosing to care for the things of God without the fear of losing friends who are free-falling into their places chosen for them by the world, their own flesh, and even the devil. Imagine your lives without these fears. I say "these fears" because in order for any member of a family to act in boldness in ways described above, that member absolutely MUST have a different kind of fear: fear of God. A wise man departs from evil because fear is present. He fears God. He fears falling or causing another family member to stumble. He fears blind ignorance when watchfulness is necessary. He fears the consequences of hidden sin. He fears the repercussions of spiritually weak marriages and families in a lost and dying world. Yes, there is plenty of room for fear in the Christian home. However, that fear must be accompanied by a deep faith in God; a faith that God will overcome our fears through his power and mercy and grace. Think about this: throughout the Bible, men and women were admonished not to fear man, but to fear God. Is it any wonder that the natural tendency is to fear our fallen fellows with little or no regard to such a holy God as ours? Proverbs 14:27 says "The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death." Leave the snares of death behind. You've seen what a lack of the right kind of fear does to families and homes. Embrace the fountain of life in your home. That is, the fear of our Lord. Practice: Decide now to make the hard choices considering your God more than your friends or even your family members. Make it a point of discussion when you talk with fellow family members that God is to be honored above all. Experiment: Pick one thing you have been resolving to do, do better, or to stop doing. (Everyone has these little things hanging around in the back of their mind that they will always acknowledge as areas that need work. Often times, in the life of a Christian, these things are spiritual.) After you've picked one of them, make the God-honoring choice to act righteously in that area.

"Honest, Leroy, I just fount this huntin' forewiller sittin' in the road. Nex' season I kin haul 4 deers at oncet!"

JOB's wife spoke out of despair when she advised him to curse God and die. JOB still had faith in God and trusted the he knew what was best. It seems that, once JOB reminded her of the foolishness of her proposed solution, she realized her folly and corrected herself. It is important that we do not treat Bible characters more harshly than God treated them. Some, like JOB's wife, Peter, and Sarah, are treated horribly from pulpits everywhere, while God was much more forgiving and far less condemning. I think one of the most wonderful points of the story of JOB is the last chapter where he regains everything Satan was allowed to take from him. Not only does he regain what was lost, but the Lord graciously blessed him with double of everything he had originally possessed, even children. God gave JOB twice as many each of all his livestock. The doctrine found in those last two verses of the book of JOB is profound and exciting. JOB's 10 children for whom he sacrificed in the beginning were apparently all believers in God and awaiting JOB in the presence of their God. God gave JOB 10 more children, so that the total number of children JOB had in the end was 20, which is double what he started with! The implications of that passage of scripture should be an encouragement to all who have lost children in this life.

The NT commands for the home are in perfect harmony with the commands found in the OT. The first relationship a husband and wife have is one of being brother and sister in Christ and of being joint heirs with Him and of being fellow laborers for the Lord. In addition to that relationship, we also have the responsibility as husband and wife to exemplify the relationship between Christ and the church and we should strive to have homes as different from the world's idea of the "home" as much as we strive to be separated personally. It is all about moderation and each individual taking personal responsibility for the knowledge of what each will stand to give account for at the Judgement Seat of Christ. Laxness on the part of the husband, though it is a poor example of Christ, is no excuse for usurpation on the part of the wife, any more than it would ever be the place of the church to operate outside of her Groom. By the same token, for a man to feel that his laxness is due in any part to the improper act or lack of help from his wife, he would certainly exemplify a weak Christ, which is the last impression the dying lost need of our Great Savior. In other words, the reaching of those lost should be our concern to the degree that both spouses stop fighting and seeking their own will and choose to work together (both practically and, especially, typically) to reach the lost as a family, once more, just as Christ and his church. Easier said than done, I know, but with both spouses reliance found in God, that scriptural ideal begins to exit the realm of the impossible and begins to become apparent to both the family and the lost onlookers.

I agree that the help a wife should give her husband is largely spiritual, but there are instances, even in regular day to day living, that she is to be of help in a physical way as well. If something can be accurately said in reference to Christ and his church, then, generally speaking, that same thing can be said of the husband and wife and their relationship.