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The Dumbing Down of Doctrine
The Aims of This Lecture: In my paper, I would like to air the perpetual challenge of presenting doctrine in evangelism, pastoral work and personal witness to a people who find doctrine hard to digest, difficult to understand and indeed, an insult to their view of themselves. I will first look at the fact that even in Christian circles doctrine is dumbed down and then at the methods used and reasons given for such an attitude. I will follow this up by defining doctrine as it is found in Scripture and analysing its obvious use in evangelism and Christian edification. Indeed, I hope to show that no evangelism can be done without doctrine as doctrine is the framework and contents of the gospel. We shall…
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Dealing With Birds Of False Feathers
Dear Friends, The two letters copied below were written in response to charges of Antinomianism, Hyper-Calvinism and false analyses of Fullerism coming from the Founders Journal and their supporters. These accusations were never justified and made by people who did not know me from Adam and had not read my books. One particular person, now long departed from the Reformed faith he professed then to hold, was giving an after-dinner jocular speech in which I was mentioned disdainfully when he was asked by an unamused table-guest why he condemned me so violently and joked about me so unbrotherly yet did not appear to know what I taught. He received the answer that the speaker did not have to read me to denounce me. The brother…
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Why I Am Not A Follower Of Andrew Fuller
Great changes are occurring in the contemporary theological scene and there seems to be a mass exodus from the old paths of our fathers in the faith to the new-fangled paths of what is now known as ‘Evangelical Calvinism’. The inspired teachings of the New Testament, the Reformation and the preaching of such 18th century stalwarts as John Gill, James Hervey and Augustus Toplady are being given up for the teachings of a comparatively nobody who is being re-created as a star, given VIP treatment and promoted as the new Luther, the trumpet blast, the sounder of the alarm, the one who fanned the smoking wick of the evangelical Awakening into a blaze and the prophet of the new evangelism. This person is none other…
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The Problem of Fullerism
The Problem of Fullerism by Paul Fahy (Understanding Ministries) The system of unbiblical doctrines known as Fullerism is becoming popular in our present-day Reformed churches. Originally launched by a small Latitudinarian clique in the late 18th cent., it was denounced by Fuller’s Reformed contemporaries as ‘a gangrene in the churches’. In 1877, the Gospel Magazine joined most of the major Christian periodicals in condemning Fuller’s “excessive and antiscriptural ideas” and testified to their “unfeigned abhorrence of a system that robs God of His glory”. Some modern ex-Reformed evangelicals think they know better and are now proclaiming that Fullerism is the surest way to sound evangelism and the right preaching of the gospel. This is a scandal of major proportion and a testimony that we are…
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51 Election
ELECTION This word has different meanings. 1. It signifies God's taking a whole nation, community, or body of men, into external covenant with himself, by giving them the advantage of revelation as the rule of their belief and practice, when other nations are without it, Deut. 7:6.—2. A temporary designation of some person or station in the visible church, or office in civil life, John 6:70. 1 Sam.10:24.--3. That gracious and almighty act of the Divine Spirit, whereby God actually and visibly separates his people from the world by effectual calling, John 15:19.--4. That eternal, sovereign, unconditional, particular, and immutable act of God, whereby he selected some from among all mankind, and of every nation under heaven, to be redeemed and everlastingly saved by Christ,…
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An Unworthy Gospel (Fullerism)
The 18th century is often called the Century of Reason. This is because Newtonian scientists and philosophers such as Locke taught that the workings of the known world and the ways of the unknown God could all be demonstrated by logical deduction. Men of letters such as Beattie and Blair in Scotland and Lessing in Germany taught that following the paths of logic was akin to following in the footsteps of God. Lessing even went so far as to say that Christ had the right use of reason in mind when He promised that the Holy Spirit would come. In his Education of the Human Race, Lessing pointed out that by the aid of reason, man would go on to perfection and finally reach a…
