He Was Just A Man!

I've heard that over and over now
that he is dead and I have started this
blog. I have criticized not the man but his theology
and his ministry methodology.

But while he was alive he was a god in the sight of so many. The Bible was inerrant because he said so. People came to Jesus simply because he ask them. If he said, "don't buy a John MacArthur Study Bible," folks believed him. If he said pickles have souls then you stopped eating pickles! His wife shamelessly sang to him from the same pulpit that God's Word was preached and a teary eyed audience joined her in "man" worship.

Christ died with just a few friends to carry him to a borrowed tomb. Peter and Paul were martyred to the glee of heads of state. Adrian Rogers was memorialized as a head of state and now you say he was just a man!

May I remind you again as I have over and over that he was in close proximity to the worst sin imaginable, an ordained associate raping his own son and keeping it secret for seventeen years.

The lingering question is why didn't Dr Rogers know about it? Was God unable to break through and intervene? Did God let this happen and keep Dr. Rogers in the dark?

Is there something wrong here? Could God's wrath be stirred for some reason unknown to us?

Bellevue has now regrouped and moved on with Steve Gaines leadership. Little by little the church will grow back but where is the legacy that Adrian Rogers left?

Someone's Wonderful Grandmother

I ordered a used theology book over the Internet and I received it in good condition except someone had noted on the dedication page: "To Kim and Tony please read page 82 that is so plain to me and explain so well I love you Nana XXXXX"

So here is page 82 (I'll share the title of the Book later)
Likewise, the idea that man must attain salvation by works or merit - that he must do something in addition to the work of Jesus on the cross in order to be saved, i.e. repent, be baptized, hold out faithful to the end, say the rosary, do penance, etc., adds a variable to the equation of salvation making the outcome uncertain. Salvation by human works puts a question mark where God has put a period. Scripture, however is clear concerning the certainty of salvation (2 Sam. 23:5; 2 Tim. 2:19; Jno. 6:37), a fact that can only be explained if salvation is all of grace and none of works.

The team cooperating in salvation, then, is the monergistic team of Father, Son and Spirit, not the synergistic team of God and man. God the Father began the work in the everlasting covenant. God the son executed the work at the cross of Calvary. God the Holy Spirit applies the work during each individuals natural life. From start to finish, salvation is of the Lord.

Warning To Adrian Rogers' Followers!

The Om SakthiSpiritual Movement (from their website)
Humanity stands at a point in history where the world is shrinking and our different cultures and religions are in conflict. This has the potential to destroy almost everything we have accomplished in our short time on this world. This diversity is the wealth of our world and should be embraced. If people realize that we all share the same God and that He/She has allowed us this diversity so that we can each find our own way to Her/Him, then we can accept our differences and even embrace them in peace."
"Also known as the Adhiparasakthi Movement, the purpose of the Movement is to bring Adhiparasakthi's message to the world and serve humanity by helping those in need. Our Guru, known as Amma (Tamil for mother), is the Guiding Light and Spiritual Force behind the Movement. He/She teaches that the greatest form of worship is service to humanity and that we can all serve God together within our individual religions without strife, thus the motto: "One Mother One World." The Movement undertakes many charitable and educational activities and urges its devotees to take an active role in helping people in their communities."

The message Dr. Rogers preached has the early beginnings of synchronization that makes it acceptable with the Om SakthiSpiritual Movement. His free offer to man is the humanistic leaven that satiates the whole loaf. The modern emergent gospel will be a part of the one world religion ruled by the antichrist!

The biblical message of grace is unacceptable to a one world rule. Election and predestination authored by a sovereign God are incompatible with the World's systems. There is no wiggle room for human reasoning to decide. The principles of grace of necessity must be altered to be considered by the world as acceptable.

If your gospel is derived from a steadfast adherence to Dr Rogers, you should seriously consider the problems and prayerfully study the Bible for a correct course. The problems are not minor as so many say but they are major and they have serious consequences. This is a love worth serious analysis as to its biblical content.

Christmas In New Orleans

Christmas in New Orleans. . . enjoy!

The Righteousness Of The Best Of Us - The Saints Struggle With Original Sin

"Things About Bellevue That Embarrassed Me!" I posted in March

NASS' comment on her blog "... Then Steve Gaines had to do what he does nearly every week and make it about him. He jumped up and immediately broke into an "impromptu" a cappella solo and the congregation soon joined him. Please, pastor, I'm trying to give you some helpful advice here. It's not about you! (Nor is it about Jamie, but The Jamie Show has become a Bellevue staple.) These little spur-of-the-moment, pastoral solos, tacked onto the end of a congregational hymn or inserted into the middle of a sermon are not "impromptu," they unnecessarily and inappropriately call attention to yourself, and IMO they are not conducive to a positive worship experience."

TN Lizzie said...
"One guess where she got the tiara. "There's no telling ~ Craig or her sons? Her DIL's? Any of the Mamas who have been drawn closer to Christ through the Moms ministry? No, I was thinking from Donna Gaines. Do you really think Donna would let go of her tiara?
1:02 AM, December 16, 2008

My comments about Joyce Rogers, NASS' comments about Steve Gaines and Jamie Parker and TN Lizzie's about Donna Gaines are abrasive comments perhaps bordering on unacceptable. However they do point out the consequence of original sin in the lives of the best of believers. They point to the hold that "him who has the power of death" still has over the "not yet glorified" believer. These comments point to the inclination "concupiscence" to evil of even the sanctified. In our battles against the evil of the world and Satan, the least victorious is the battle against the flesh! We can renounce abortion and denounce Satan all the while giving place to the flesh, perhaps the most deceptive of our enemies. We ourselves are our greatest enemy. The sin of Adam and the sin of the world resides potentially in our souls. It is a daily battle to keep ourselves in humble obedience to all God has for us. These failures are so easily hidden until people like NASS, TNLizzie and myself so abrasively point them out.


So often we neglect this aspect of original sin, if we believe in it at all, that not only are the worst of humanity very evil but the best of humanity share in this heritage as well. Scripture says we all have sinned and fallen short of the kingdom of God.


Joyce Rogers, singing to her husband, the pastor of a great church, was drawing attention from the worship of God to the worship of a man. Dr Rogers should have stopped her from this awful show of flesh. If the best of us don't know how to contain the base elements how can the rest of us expect to do the right thing? This is a battle we all must fight and it requires the help of the Holy Spirit daily to do the right thing.

In Praise Of Prevenient Grace"

"And can it be that I should gain"
Charles Wesley


Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound in sin and nature's night
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light
My chains fell off, my heart was free
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
My chains fell off, my heart was free
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

This verse is declaring the wonder of prevenient grace not the new birth. It is praising the enabling grace of God whereby a sinner rises to his feet to make a choice to follow Christ. If a Calvinist sings this song he has to change not the words but the sense of the verse. The Wesley brothers kindly requested that anyone of nonsensical theology please note in the margin or at the bottom of the page that they are not a part of such "dog­ger­el" men who would seek to mend their theology. I beg leave to men­tion a thought which has been long up­on my mind, and which I should long ago have in­sert­ed in the pub­lic pa­pers, had I not been un­will­ing to stir up a nest of horn­ets. Ma­ny gen­tle­men have done my bro­ther and me (though with­out nam­ing us) the hon­our to re­print ma­ny of our hymns. Now they are per­fect­ly wel­come to do so, pro­vid­ed they print them just as they are. But I de­sire they would not at­tempt to mend them, for they are real­ly not able. None of them is able to mend ei­ther the sense or the verse. There­fore, I must beg of them these two fa­vours: ei­ther to let them stand just as they are, to take things for bet­ter or worse, or to add the true read­ing in the mar­gin, or at the bot­tom of the page, that we may no long­er be ac­count­a­ble ei­ther for the non­sense or for the dog­ger­el of other men. -John Wesley

Naturally in our day of "it doesn't really matter what you believe anyway" such issues are of no importance. The next time you sing this hymn in Church, unless you just sing praise choruses, remember who wrote it and make a mental note that this is not the new birth nor regeneration but a Wesleyan song about prevenient grace leading to a sinner exercising his will to decide for Christ.

Now if you are saying, "Charles, you are making a mountain out of a molehill. This is just theology and when I worship in church it comes from my heart and as long as I am sincere that is all that matters to God." Remember this we must seek to worship God not just in spirit but truth.

edited to add I found this song in the hymnal at my church yesterday. When the SBC sings this song it is sung in praise of divine enablement that causes a person to rise and make a choice for Christ. When my pastor gives an altar call he assumes that those coming forward have been enabled to come and accept Christ. As a Calvinist I bow my head and pray that the regenerate will come forward confessing their sins. I am also praying for the unregenerate to remain seated until they are called! Salvation does have a protocol. Without this there is confusing destruction evidenced by churches filled with unregenerate members.

God Predestines No One To Go To Hell

Adrian Rogers was a cruel author when he wrote this little booklet, "Predestined for Hell? Absolutely not!" He had to have intentionally misrepresented the Calvinist when he accused them of believing that God arbitrarily sends a little baby to hell. By now we all know that he was constructing a straw man argument to turn around and destroy it thus disarming the Calvinist argument.


But what about his belief? Does he believe that God does not predestine people to hell? According to Rogers who goes to hell? Why, all who do not accept Christ as their personal savior.

Those who are capable of moral action can make a decision with the enablement of God for themselves to go to heaven.


What about children who have not reached this capability? Oops! They created a clause that excludes these children. It has been a historic tradition that has been in existence for as long as there were fundamentalist in Britain and America. What about those who are incapacitated intellectually to make a decision. I think they have included them in this as well.

Where did this belief that God does not predestine anyone to hell come from? In the fifth century a man named Pelagius held that a man by the natural power of free will, without the use of God's enablement, could lead a good life. For him Adam's sin was merely bad example. Augustine refuted this and the Catholic Church convened a council, Orange II, 529 AD. Pelagianism was ruled a heresy and the Church firmed up a position on the transmission of original sin.

One of the practical aspects of this was infant baptism, which was a practice of the early church fathers. The Catechism of the Catholic church states: "Because of this (death of the soul) certainty of faith, the Church baptizes for the remission of sins even tiny infants who have not committed personal sin." CCC 403 Original sin is a "certainty of faith" "closely connected with that of redemption by Christ." 407

Pelagius believed that the problem with sin was surmountable. In the sixteenth century the Protestant Reformers were perceived by the Catholic Church as denying original sin, though Luther affirmed it. They were believing that the reformation was heading toward a Pelagian view and thus the Council of Trent was formed to combat that in 1546 AD. 406 The Church's teaching on the transmission of original sin was articulated more precisely in the fifth century, especially under the impulse of St. Augustine's reflections against Pelagianism, and in the sixteenth century, in opposition to the Protestant Reformation. Pelagius held that man could, by the natural power of free will and without the necessary help of God's grace, lead a morally good life; he thus reduced the influence of Adam's fault to bad example. The first Protestant reformers, on the contrary, taught that original sin has radically perverted man and destroyed his freedom; they identified the sin inherited by each man with the tendency to evil (concupiscentia), which would be insurmountable. The Church pronounced on the meaning of the data of Revelation on original sin especially at the second Council of Orange (529)296 and at the Council of Trent (1546).297

The Catholics correctly identified the Pelagian views as surmountable sin not affecting human choice and semi-Pelagian view of sin as insurmountable destroying free choice. All this in spite of the fact that they were practicing a semi-Pelagian gospel themselves. Now doesn't this happen all the time. We see the wrong in others while not seeing it in ourselves.

My guess is that the Catholics saw this as a defection from infant baptism. Their belief in OS affirmed the need to care for the less capable among themselves, particularly infants. This belief in baptismal regeneration was erroneous. But what seems to be important to me is a warning to not abandon the less capable among us. The argument over freedom of choice leads to abandonment of those not capable of a moral choice. Though themselves practicing baptismal regeneration they saw the problems in decisional regeneration!

They also saw the problem with Pelagian corruption of God's character. 1037 God predestines no one to go to hell; for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end. In the Eucharistic liturgy and in the daily prayers of her faithful, the Church implores the mercy of God, who does not want "any to perish, but all to come to repentance": Father, accept this offering from your whole family. Grant us your peace in this life, save us from final damnation, and count us among those you have chosen.

Pelagianism leads to attempts to adjust the sovereignty and character of God to fit in the scheme of human choice. The Catholics affirm emphatically, God destines no one to hell! They also affirm that God does not send someone to hell for rejecting his own Son's offer of salvation! People clearly go to hell for willfully turning away from God (a mortal sin) persistently to the end. Who go to hell? Those who inherit Adam's sin! Who go to heaven according to the Catholic lip service to doctrine? Those He has chosen! God destines no one to hell and all who go to heaven are destined by his choice to go to heaven! What a definite clear presentation of grace!

The Catholics saw the error in Adrian Rogers' theology hundreds of years ago! They failed to see the truth in the Protestant Reformers in the sixteenth century.