The Greater Danger

Watch, listen or download the complete message: "If The World Hates You: Preaching Christ in the Face of Hostility" by Albert Mohler here.

The Fear That Is The Beginning of Wisdom

Watch or listen to the full message by Albert Mohler speaking at the 2016 Shepherds’ Conference, General Session 6 here.

The Three Great Exchanges

Watch, listen or download the full message: "Suppressing the Truth in Unrighteousness: The Gospel of Christ Confronts the Conspiracy of the Ages" by Al Mohler given at the 2014 Shepherds' Conference here.

Preaching with the Culture in View (T4G 2006)

"If you aren't really clear, I mean really clear in your expository preaching about what the gospel means, it will be heard by many people as a new form of therapy." -Albert Mohler

Download or listen to the full message here.

Live Dangerously - Al Mohler

Southern Seminary Convocation Message "The Year of Living Dangerously" you can find the full length message here.

This Is a Hard Saying

Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, came to speak in chapel at The Master's College on March 9, 2011.

Listen to the full message here.

Truth-Telling in a Time of Tragedy: September 11, 2001

[This message was preached on September 13, 2001--two days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2011. It is republished in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of those attacks. An extended reflection on these events from the perspective of 2011 will follow.]

Preachers are expected to speak when no one else has any idea what to say. This is not an enviable position. Standing at the graveside, the dying bedside, the scene of the accident, the preacher is supposed to know what to say, when nothing seems right to say.

Sometimes, saying nothing is best. We can be too hasty to speak, too eager to explain, too superficial in our answer, or too arrogant in our presumption. At other times, silence would be mere cowardice and the abdication of calling and responsibility. To fail to speak in these moments is to deny one’s calling and to fail the supreme test of authentic ministry.

Continue reading at www.albertmohler.com.

No Little People, No Little Sermons

Excerpt of a message on John 9 given by Al Mohler at the Shepherds' Conference 2010. Download the full video from http://grace.ly/sc2010video

Doing Away with Hell? Part One

by Albert Mohler

Current controversies raise this issue anew among American Christians and even among some evangelicals. Nevertheless, there is no way to deny the Bible’s teaching on hell and remain genuinely evangelical. No doctrine stands alone.

• Keep Reading →

Read Part Two here.

The Seeker Sensitive Movement

HT: Truth Matters

All Roads Lead to Heaven?

All Roads Lead to Heaven? — Kathleen Parker Does Theology by Albert Mohler

What catches the attention of a columnist for The Washington Post? A recent column by Kathleen Parker indicates that theology has become a focus of national attention. Kathleen Parker used her column in The Washington Post to take on Franklin Graham and his belief that belief in Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation.

Parker began her column with the fact that Franklin Graham prayed outside the Pentagon last Thursday, rather than inside, having been disinvited by the Pentagon as the speaker for its scheduled National Day of Prayer service. Graham, you will remember, was disinvited because of statements he made about Islam — statements directly referenced by the Army spokesman as “not appropriate.”

Those statements made clear reference to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the only message of salvation, to Christ as the only Savior, and to Islam as an evil belief system that pulls millions away from faith in Christ and delivers no hope of salvation. In a later interview, Graham made his point about the uniqueness of the Christian Gospel, adding Hinduism as another example of a false religion.

All this was too much for Kathleen Parker, who asked: “Oh well, it doesn’t matter where one prays, right? All prayers lead to heaven. Or do they?”

She took direct aim at Franklin Graham’s theology, arguing that “Graham’s views didn’t sit very well with secular Americans or even non-evangelical Christians.” Well, probably not — and that serves to indicate what makes evangelical Christianity distinct from secular Americans and secularized Christianity.

But, Parker advised her readers, evangelicals are not likely to hold onto this belief for long. In her words:

Graham isn’t alone in his views. A survey of 1,000 Protestant pastors, conducted by an evangelical polling firm, found that 47 percent agree that Islam is “a very evil and a very wicked religion.” But such opinions may be confined mostly to an older generation. Evangelicals under 30 believe that there are many ways to God, not just through Jesus.

In essence, Kathleen Parker was advising secular America that the distinctive evangelical belief in the necessity of belief in Christ for salvation has a generational expiration date stamped on it. She then cites research by David Campbell of Notre Dame and Robert Putman of Harvard indicating that “nearly two-thirds of evangelicals under 35 believe non-Christians can go to heaven, vs. 39 percent of those over 65.”

Continue reading here.

PENAL SUBSTITUTIONARY ATONEMENT IS THE GOSPEL

Let’s get this straight; [in the penal substitutionary atonement] we’re either seeing the truth, or a lie. This either is the Gospel, or, it is not. The dividing line is abundantly clear; we either believe that the sum and substance of the Gospel is that a holy and righteous God—Who must demand a full penalty for our sin—both demands the penalty and provides the penalty, through His Own self-substitution in Jesus Christ—the Son—whose perfect obedience, and perfectly accomplished atonement, has purchased for us all that is necessary for our salvation—has met the full demands of the righteousness and justice of God against our sin.

We either believe that, or we do not. If we do not, then we believe that the Gospel can be nothing more than some kind of message intended to reach some emotive level in the human being, so that the human being would think better of God, and might want to associate with Him. Or, we would transform all of these categories in the theological into the merely therapeutic, and argue that the whole point of the atonement is that we would come to terms with our own problems, and come to understand that there are resources for the repair of our troubled souls beyond which we previously knew.

Or, we would make of the atonement the merely political; that it is to send some kind of signal, both to God’s people—as they would define themselves—and to the larger world. It is important that we understand that the central thrust of the Scripture, though, is undeniable. That’s one of the great accomplishments of the work that has been done in this field. Some of which, we will review. One of the most crucial of these works you were given, the Pierced For Our Transgressions book. If you will deal with it, if you will read it, if you will honestly reflect upon it—if you will work through the biblical texts—it will become a matter of [ir]refutable truth; that the central thrust of the Scriptures atonement, is that God demanded a punishment for sin, and requires it by His own holiness and justice, and that He provided it in Jesus Christ—Who died on our behalf—paying in full the penalty for our sin.

Not only associating Himself with our sin, but becoming sin for us, in order that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. We come to understand that, not only is this the central thrust of the Scriptures, the Gospel as defined and presented in the Scriptures is reaffirmed and preached in the Reformation, and in the tradition that became known as the “evangelical” tradition—and the evangelical movement. We come to understand that the atonement for sin is first objectively accomplished for those who come to faith in Christ through the perfect sacrifice of Christ, and the full satisfaction of God’s righteousness. We understand that this atonement is subjectively experienced by the believer through redemption, and through union with Christ, we understand that this atonement is divinely applied by the Holy Spirit, Who convicts the soul of sin; [and] opens and quickens the eyes and the soul to see and to believe, and then sets His seal upon the believer. (Why Do They Hate It So: The Doctrine of Substitution)

Dr. Al Mohler

Pulpit Highlights with Al Mohler

Shepherds' Conference 2010
Download the full video from http://grace.ly/sc2010video

Air Conditioning Hell: How Liberalism Happens

by Albert Mohler

Though any number of central beliefs and core doctrines were subjected to liberal revision or outright rejection, the doctrine of hell was often the object of greatest protest and denial.

Considering hell and its related doctrines, Congregationalist pastor Washington Gladden declared: "To teach such a doctrine as this about God is to inflict upon religion a terrible injury and to subvert the very foundations of morality."[3]

Though hell had been a fixture of Christian theology since the New Testament, it became an odium theologium—a doctrine considered repugnant by the larger culture and now retained and defended only by those who saw themselves as self-consciously orthodox in theological commitment.

Novelist David Lodge dated the final demise of hell to the decade of the 1960s. "At some point in the nineteen-sixties, Hell disappeared. No one could say for certain when this happened. First it was there, then it wasn't." University of Chicago historian Martin Marty saw the transition as simple and, by the time it actually occurred, hardly observed. "Hell disappeared. No one noticed," he asserted.[4]

The liberal theologians and preachers who so conveniently discarded hell did so without denying that the Bible clearly teaches the doctrine. They simply asserted the higher authority of the culture's sense of morality. In order to save Christianity from the moral and intellectual damage done by the doctrine, hell simply had to go. Many rejected the doctrine with gusto, claiming the mandate to update the faith in a new intellectual age. Others simply let the doctrine go dormant, never to be mentioned in polite company.

What of today's evangelicals? Though some lampoon the stereotypical "hell-fire and brimstone" preaching of an older evangelical generation, the fact is that most church members may never have heard a sermon on hell—even in an evangelical congregation. Has hell gone dormant among evangelicals as well?

Read the full article here.

Where Does the Story of Christmas Begin?

Listen to Albert Mohler answer the question: Where Does the Story of Christmas Begin here.

The Heavens (and the Hubble) Are Telling the Glory of God by Albert Mohler

The images now flowing from the Hubble Space Telescope are simply stunning. Vast nebulae appear as delicate butterflies and the vast reaches of the universe are coming into new focus. All this comes after a feat of modern engineering and expertise as a rescue mission to the telescope last spring replaced two cameras and repaired broken equipment. The rescue mission cost approximately $1 billion, but the life of the orbiting telescope was extended at least five years.

No one envisioned this kind of longevity for Hubble when the telescope was first put into orbit in 1990. Named for astronomer Edwin P. Hubble (1889-1953), the telescope's location in orbit around the earth avoids the distortions of the earth's atmosphere.

Now, with images streaming from the Hubble, scientists are elated and NASA is relieved. "The hair was standing up on the back of my neck to see the potential of this telescope," said John Grunsfeld, one of the astronauts who fixed the telescope back in the spring. Heidi Hammel of the Space Science Institute said, “We’re giddy with the quality of the data we’re getting." Astronaut Mike Massimino simply said, "Thank God, we didn't break it."

It is easy to see why. The images are simply amazing, even to a non-astronomer. These visions have never been seen by human eyes before. In these and so many other ways, this generation has glimpsed the grandeur of the creation like no generation before us.

One interesting facet of the publicity around the new images from Hubble is the inadequacy of the comments offered by so many. Consider this portion of an account by the Associated Press:

The butterfly photo shows details, such as gassy folds in what looks like butterfly wings, that the Hubble previously could not see, said Hubble senior scientist Dave Leckrone.

The glow in that photo and others is hot gas and dust pushed out from the stars, Leckrone said. In a way, it's like a lightbulb, with the star as the filament but the overall glow from the gas, he said.

The images, especially the butterfly, don't just show science, but can evoke a sense of spirituality, Leckrone said.

"What I see is the grandeur of creation, however it got there," Leckrone told The Associated Press.

The Associated Press offers a very credible news story on the Hubble excitement. But consider the statement provided by Dave Leckrone: "What I see is the grandeur of creation, however it got there." As the report indicates, Leckrone suggested that the Hubble images should evoke "spirituality," and not merely a respect for science.

Leckrone may well be speaking honestly about his lack of concern for "how it got there," but I doubt that is all there is to it. How can intelligent people consider the grandeur of the cosmos without pondering, "how it got there?" In the end, the "how" question (or the "who" question) determines the meaning of the cosmos itself. If the universe (and what lies beyond) is merely an accident of physics, the grandeur is simply in the sheer unlikeliness of it all. Beyond this observation, little more can be said. We are left to ponder the cosmos as a freakish accident that provides human beings (also accidents) with an opportunity for amazement.

If, on the other hand, the cosmos is the work of a sovereign and holy Creator, the cosmos is itself a reflection of His character and power -- and the theater of His glory.

According to The New York Times, astronaut K. Megan McArthur reacted to the images coming from the newly-repaired Hubble with this: “I’m in awe of the human ingenuity that could conceive of such a thing and then make it happen." Well, the human ingenuity displayed in the Hubble is indeed impressive -- deeply so. But how do we explain even the wonder of this human ingenuity? Furthermore, how can one's wonder stop at human ingenuity? The real wonder is not Hubble, but what Hubble has allowed us at last to see.

"The heavens are telling the glory of God," sings the Psalmist, "and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands." [Psalm 19:1, NASB] Every atom of creation cries out the glory of God. The Hubble Space Telescope now shows the glory of God in the universe in a new dimension -- and in breathtaking color and complexity. To see these images is to view the work of the Creator in a glory newly disclosed, newly visible to human eyes.

To read of the vast distances and dimensions seen and measured by Hubble's technology is to be reminded just how small our planet really is -- and how even smaller we humans are. As the Psalmist reflected: "When I consider your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have ordained; What is man that You take thought of him, and the son of man that You care for him?" [Psalm 8:3-4, NASB]

The cosmos does reveal the glory of the Creator -- indeed it is inevitably so. The heavens -- and Hubble -- are telling the glory of God. He who has eyes to see, let him see.

_____________________________

Photo credit, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). Main Hubble page with images available here.

I am always glad to hear from readers. Write me at mail@albertmohler.com. Follow my regular updates through the day at Twitter by going to www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler.

Source: http://www.albertmohler.com

How Can a God of Love Send Anyone to Hell?

Albert Mohler answers the question "How can a God who is loving and good send anyone to hell?" He was asked to address that question when he preached recently at Idlewild Baptist Church in Tampa, Florida. Here is the video of that message.



Source: http://www.albertmohler.com/blog.php#

Are We a Nation of Hindus? by Al Mohler

Those who argue that all religions are essentially the same reveal the fact that they know little about these very different belief systems. The worldview of Christianity is, for example, radically different from the belief structure of Buddhism (some forms of which may actually claim to resist the very idea of beliefs).

These differences in belief systems are apparent in Lisa Miller's recent article for Newsweek. As she explains, "A million-plus Hindus live in the United States, a fraction of the billion who live on Earth. But recent poll data show that conceptually, at least, we are slowly becoming more like Hindus and less like traditional Christians in the ways we think about God, our selves, each other, and eternity."

Many Christians will flinch when reading this. Does this mean that Hindu temples are appearing across the American landscape? Not hardly. What Miller describes is the transformation of the belief system in ways that resemble Hinduism. Her argument deserves a fair hearing.

She begins by quoting a Hindu writing, the Rig Veda: "Truth is One, but the sages speak of it by many names." The idea of one truth known by many names is not new. Indeed, it is central to polytheism and the syncretistic beliefs of several historic and current worldviews. Hinduism is radically polytheistic and syncretistic. According to Hindu belief, the many gods and goddesses of their veneration all represent one fundamental divine reality. The idea of a singular and exclusive truth is antithetical to classical Hinduism.

So what is Lisa Miller's point? She suggests that contemporary Americans, including many who consider themselves Christians, are abandoning the exclusive truth claims of Christianity for a form of theological pluralism or relativism.

"A Hindu believes there are many paths to God. Jesus is one way, the Qur'an is another, yoga practice is a third. None is better than any other; all are equal," she asserts. Christianity, on the other hand, has affirmed that Jesus Christ is the only Savior, and that the only way of salvation is through faith in Him.

"Americans are no longer buying it," she insists, and by this she means many American Christians. She cites a 2008 Pew Forum survey that indicated major slippage in terms of Christian conviction. According to the Pew Forum survey, 65 percent of Americans believe that "many religions can lead to eternal life." More tellingly, 37 percent of those identified as white evangelicals shared this belief.

Miller cites Stephen Prothero, a leading researcher on American religion, who defined this "divine-deli-cafeteria religion" as "very much in the spirit of Hinduism." As he added, "You're not picking and choosing from different religions, because they're all the same." This is not exactly like traditional Hinduism, of course, but it works in much the same way. As he explains, "It isn't about orthodoxy. It's about whatever works. If going to yoga works, great—and if going to Catholic mass works, great. And if going to Catholic mass plus the yoga plus the Buddhist retreat works, that's great, too."

There is every reason to believe that Lisa Miller and Stephen Prothero are correct in these assessments. Without doubt, Americans have been growing more and more accepting of plural and relative understandings of truth. A tragically large number of those who identify as Christians have been drinking from the same wells of thought.

The exclusivity of the Gospel is not merely a facet of the church's message. Indeed, a Gospel that does not affirm that salvation comes through faith in Jesus Christ alone is not the Gospel of Christ, but a false gospel. As Lisa Miller correctly recites, Jesus did say, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me." [John 14:6]

Another aspect of the story is this: Many Americans have such a doctrineless understanding of Christianity that they do not even know what the Gospel is -- not even remotely. A greater tragedy is that so many who consider themselves Christians seem to share in this confusion.

Many observers who trace these trends see this doctrinal shift among Christians as a good development. After all, if you hold to nothing more than a functional view of religion, this might seem to promise less conflict among religious believers. But, if you believe that truth is essential to Christian faith, there is every reason to see these trends as nothing less than catastrophic. Nothing less than our witness to the Gospel of Christ is at stake.

Are we becoming a nation of Hindus? Well, in this sense it appears perhaps we are. The really urgent question is whether the Church will regain its theological sanity and evangelistic courage to resist this trend. If not, being described as a nation of Hindus will be the least of our problems.

Source: http://albertmohler.com/

Why Do They Hate It So? The Doctrine of Substitution

Why Do They Hate It So? The Doctrine of Substitution. This message was given by Albert Mohler at the 2008 Together for the Gospel (T4G) conference. T4G is a bi-annual conference that encourages pastors to take their stand together for the gospel.

HT: http://www.t4g.org/

Polyamory -- The Perfectly Plural Postmodern Condition

Our SSS (Sin Sick Society) is on a rapid downhill path to oblivion. Read this article by Albert Mohler on Polyamory. He writes: "Once a sexual revolution is set loose, it inevitably runs its course through the culture. While the current flashpoints of cultural conflict are focused on same-sex marriage and gender issues, others are biding their time. As Newsweek magazine makes clear, some new flashpoints are getting restless."

Read the rest of the article here