Wired4Truth » Faith

A Heart Opened (1)

Douglas K. Adu-Boahen — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 13:15:39 +0000

Dedicated to my sister Mary aka Poppins – who encouraged me to put pen to paper on this one. Thank you.
The summer of 2010 was a very trying period for me. Most of my friends who have known me that long can bear witness to that, although since then, I haven’t really spoken much about that time. A number of events collided rather badly, finally culminating in the news that I would need heart surgery to replace a mitral valve on August 23, 2010. I’d like to tell you that I went into that surgery optimistic for the future and hopeful for the best. I’d like to tell you that I cracked jokes about the surgery and told folks not to worry. I wish I could but in all honesty, it was one of the most physically and emotionally draining periods in my life.
I first got the news that I would need the surgery while on a holiday with the young people at the church I attended at the time. As it was, I wasn’t 100% myself but that’s a blog post for another time. The news that I was going to have surgery on my heart, then, was not what I wanted to hear. In one sense, it wasn’t news, considering I’ve had a hereditary heart problem since birth. It hadn’t impaired me much growing up – I still played football, ran around and even cycled, albeit getting tired much quicker than everyone else. But with medication, moderation of sorts in terms of diet and generally taking it easy once in a while, I got to cope. Surgery seemed remote – very remote – and yet, here it was. I’m a card-carrying pessimist, and on this instance, my first thought was, “I’m gonna die.” The thought that your life could be ‘cut short’ at any age is immensely stressful – at the age of 19, it only gets worse (or at least, it seemed to).
As the day of surgery drew closer, I began to contemplate a question which, looking back, causes me to shudder. What if I didn’t want to come through the surgery? After all, at that point, life was going terrible at that point, I was seriously down due to my depression and any sense of fight in me was seriously non-existent. Since I figured, I wasn’t going to make it – I started putting my proverbial house in some kind of order. I got in contact with folks who I had ‘bad blood’ with to apologize, I made arrangements for my (at that point) growing library to be given to a few friends and I’d already made plans for the blog you are reading to close down.
All this was terribly distressing to my parents, who really couldn’t fathom why their son seemingly was embracing his own death in such a big way. Here I was – 19 years old, doing my degree, seemingly having my whole life ahead of me and I was just throwing in the towel. Nevertheless, I kept on making plans and putting stuff in place right up until the day of the surgery.

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Don’t Hate The Knowledge – Hate the One Abusing the Knowledge

Douglas K. Adu-Boahen — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 16:30:57 +0000

I like to play basketball – even though at the current time I’m still recovering from an injury and shouldn’t even be thinking of the court right now. One thing I learnt playing basketball against people who could wipe the floor with me was to not hate the player, but to hate the game (I’m sure my brother Phil Naessens down at Theology Today would agree since he teaches tennis). However I discovered that my little principle for playing basketball is a little transferable to pretty much any endeavour you put your hand to, and in this case, the study of theology.

Of late, I have been loving the blog posts of Parchment and Pen (CMP, you’re a beast!). One of the posts I have really enjoyed of late has been his consideration of the need for hermeneutics which was pointedly titled It Does Not Matter What It Means to You. During the comment thread, one particular lady continued to make the point that we don’t really need theology at all. In her last post, a response to a comment I made, she said the following:

Douglas,
I think really the issues you have with me are more than just me being a little “argumentative as you have said in other places. Yes, God gave you a brain, but what does he say about puffed up intelligence?

1 Corinthians 3
16Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
17If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.
18Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.
19For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.
20And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.

Does that sound like God trusts us with our brains? And yes studying God through HIS word, not everybody else’s word.

Galatians 3
1O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?
2This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
3Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?
4Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain.
5He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
6Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.
7Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.
8And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.
9So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.

What? You mean the Galatians started off Spirit filled and Spirit led until someone came along and preached something else and it bewitched them? You’ve got to be kidding that this could happen to Christians. The point is not the Judaizers (if that was who was preaching it, but I think not) but the fragility and vanity of the person who was gullible enough to go along with it.

Now this line of argument – i.e. “theology is problematic/evil, but it leads to puffing up in pride – is not new to me. I live with a Pentecostal pastor (my Dad) and attend his church (long story, search the blog for “the clampdown”) and generally doctrine is looked down upon. My problem with that line of thinking is that it is directly applicable to any sphere. Anything you do can become a means for pride – my question is, “Who is to blame?” Is it theology by its very nature that makes people prideful? Hate to say it, but nope it’s not. If that were true, Paul was incredibly prideful – having penned half our New Testament.

Well then what is truly to blame for the fact that some of the most prideful people are sometimes the most spiritually prideful? The sickness of the human heart. The fact that man does not merely commit sins, but that he is a sinner through and through. It pervades into his very nature, taking even good things like theology and using them to the end of self-glorification. What my friend the commenter didn’t understand is that it’s not the thing it and of itself that leads to the pride they were discussing – it is the sin-sickness of the human heart that leads to such.

In other words…don’t hate the knowledge, hate the one abusing the knowledge. In fact, don’t even hate them – pray that the truth in their heart will become a reality in the heart…

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500 Years Ago…

Douglas K. Adu-Boahen — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:30:43 +0000

The (500th) birthday boy...

Well, July 10, 2009 came and went. 500 years and 1 day ago, Calvin was born and little did his parents know that his birth was usher in one of the finest theologians in the history of the Christian Church. Love or loathe him, no one can deny the influence that John Calvin has had on the evangelical, Protestant Churches, through his magnum opus The Institutes of the Christian Religion, his many commentaries, the many preachers who went forth from Geneva and the Reformed churches which stand in the memory of Mr. Calvin.

As we thank the Lord for the gracious life of his servant, may we realise that Calvin is not the real focus of this day – the Godhead are. The Father, in eternity past, chose Calvin to salvation, just as He chose you and me for salvation (John 6:37, 44; Acts 13:48; Romans 9:6-29; Ephesians 1:4-11 – yes Calvin was not specially elected above us mere mortals ) It was the Son who went to the Cross for him, just like any one of us (2 Cor 5:21; Romans 3:21-26). It was the Spirit who drew the young lawyer-in-training to himself out of the darkness of medieval Catholicism (John 6:44) and regenerated him (John 3:3-16).

I think it’s safe to say that July 10 was not about John Calvin at all – this is a day of praise to our Triune God for being with his ever-humble servant, John Calvin, during His earthly ministry. Now he’s enjoying the day off to end all days off – eternity with his ever-living Saviour God. So, Mr. Calvin, we salute you, a humble messenger of the great God.

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Rob Bell – Speaking Out of Both Sides of His Mouth?

Douglas K. Adu-Boahen — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 12:05:23 +0000

Well, my friend “reformed pilgrim” left a comment on my last post exhorting me to check out some videos where Rob Bell, the Emergent preacher, supposedly defends himself from the information presented about him from various sources. This is probably the only time I’d give Bell a platform, but I will on this occasion as I think (to be honest) he is speaking out of both sides of his mouth. Call me harsh and unforgiving but let me be frank: the man continually makes heretical statements in his books, in those annoying NOOMA videos and in his public speaking engagements which, to any Bible-loving Christian, do not sound Scriptural. Here then is Mr. Bell’s supposed defense in three videos. Lord willing, I will respond to these sometime this afternoon when I get back from class:

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Writing Break Update 3

Douglas K. Adu-Boahen — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 00:35:27 +0000

I finished the paper yesterday, but had to take care of family business all day today, which impaired me sending it out. I have found this to be providential as the following was sent to me via -email anonymously:

The Christian Civil War!

The Christian Church is in a Civil War. Many Christians are unknowingly in the enemy’s army, listening to the enemy’s voice, and thinking it’s the voice of God.

They are used by the enemy to attack, slander, expose and neutralize strategic Christian advances and movements. It is a very powerful army, able to do great damage to the Lord’s church, because their attacks comes from within. And because they are among us, it very difficult to spot this army.

If you listen to them carefully you will hear the voice of the accuser of the brethren. Though they can be very religious, refined & educated, and serving the Lord, though their speech is peppered with bible quotes and they recite many scriptural truths, the motivation of their heart is more for accusation than intercession.

They deal in the faults of others like a gambler deals with cards, exposing every sin, flaw or doctrinal error that a person has made. In pretending to be the sheep dog, defending the flock, they have actually divided us.

These are our own Christian brothers and sisters in the enemy camp, we are not fighting against them, but the powers that hold them captive. We must fight to set them free, and bring them back into the Lord’s army.

The battle lines are drawn, we can NOT ignore this war any longer. We have lost too much ground and too many souls to this army, now we must fight for complete victory!

This Christian Civil War was prophesied by other people, and shown to me in a dream.

Dream: I saw the Lord’s church represented by a military base. Everybody had different positions and jobs. There were ground soldiers, fighter pilots, guards, captains, generals, etc. Everything looked fine and in order. But then I noticed something strange. Everyone was going about their duty when all of a sudden, a dispersed group of OUR ground soldiers (who happened to look like Storm Troupers) started marching in complete unity toward a specific area. This group was comprised of people from all different areas of the military base. They marched onto these wooden platforms that were high above the entrance of the airplane hanger. They marched in lock step, as though they were being given orders by some unseen force. The rest of us were amazed, and didn’t know what to make of this strange situation. When they got to the edge of these platforms they all pulled out their guns (AK-47s). I looked in amazement and said to myself, “what are you guys doing? Who are you responding to?“ When the first airplane came out from the hanger, all the soldiers shot at it. There was no chance for our pilot. Such a hail of bullets came against him that the airplane was destroyed. The pilot could not go fast enough to escape. I thought, “BETRAYAL“. The rest of us who were not part of this group started running in fear. This group shot down one plane after another, it was a complete slaughter. All the pilots tried to go top speed out of this hanger, but they had no chance. We were losing all our best fighter pilots. In real terms, 1 pilot in the air was more powerful that 100 ground soldiers, but none of the pilots could ever get up.
Then one pilot took a different path. Instead of trying to escape, and save his life, he turned his plain straight at the wooden platform that the soldiers were standing on, and crashed right into it, sacrificing himself. This collapsed the structure holding the men, and killed many soldiers in the betraying army. Somehow, after this happened, it broke the unity of that army, throwing them into chaos. They where still hostile to us, but no longer had unity.

This war became blatantly obvious to me when I began building this website. In investigating people who were given face to face visitations by Jesus Christ, I saw a clear and organized effort to discredit them. So much slander was in place, that anyone investigating these people would most likely be turned away before they ever knew their testimony.

For example, in doing a simple Goggle search on Rick Joyner, 4 of the top 5 results were negative, 3 were blatantly accusational. “Dangerous teacher”, “Self-proclaimed Prophet”, “False teacher”, “a man in the grip of evil deceit”, “the spirit of darkness and deception”, “Most unsound and dangerous teachers”, etc. Similar accusation have been made against many of the people shown on this site. In fact, entire Christian websites have been dedicated to the discrediting the God’s people. In many cases there are more attacks coming from within the Church than from secular sources!

Recently many attacks have come against Todd Bentley and the Florida Healing Outpouring revival. These attacks claim that many of the healing miracles that are happening are false, and that the revival is not of God. But upon personal investigation in Lakeland, Florida, I interviewed 25 people were miraculously healed, confirmed by multiple sources (Pastors, Relatives, Friends, etc). I saw 100s of other miracles and signs, but was not able to interview all the people.

This army that attacks strategic movements of God is filled with many well intentioned Christians that have been deceived by the “Angel of Light”. They listen to the voice of the accuser, thinking it’s the voice of Jesus. Many of us, have at one time been a part of this army, used by the devil, but have later repented. When a Christian learns the real voice of the Shepherd, he will never join this army.

This army has been used against every advancement in the Church. The Protestant Reformation, Evangelical revolution, Pentecostal, Charismatic, Prophetic, Apostolic, Spiritual Gifts, Healings, Signs, etc. We can no longer just sit back and assume that this army is just a group of concerned Christians with disagreements.

We must…

Counter them in the media, on the web, in blogs, etc,
Pray that their influence would diminish,
Confront them with the truth,
Bring to light those things they are trying to discredit and slander
Pray that their accusations would not spread, but be rejected
Intercede for their freedom & pray that the Lord’s (redemptive) judgments would bring them back. (not wrathful judgment)

Here are some of the establishments where many of the accusations are coming from.

ApologeticsIndex.org
IntoTruth.org
LetUsReason.org
PFO.org

Discernment.org
DesceptionInTheChurch.com
AspostacyNow.com
Rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/

WordPress.com
DeceptionBytes.com
Pat Holliday

In the coming months, I will go into more detail about this army, and the strategies for overcoming them. Until then, get to praying! Pray Hard!

Needless to say this is libellous and I use the word in its strongest sense. I will now have to address this in the paper, which is why I presume this came my way. I also plan to send a copy of the paper to Robert Brownell, the proprietor of the website where this came from. As for me, it’s back to my Dell laptop

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Plugging a New Ministry

Douglas K. Adu-Boahen — Wed, 28 May 2008 12:19:04 +0000

While I’m wrapping my album review of Trip Lee’s latest project, I thought I’d quickly plug a new ministry for y’all to enjoy.

This is Dr. James MacDonald, senior pastor of Harvest Bible Chapel, Rolling Meadows, IL, and featured Bible teacher on the Walk in the Word broadcast. I’m telling you, this man is off the chain when it comes to exposition. He’s currently going through the book of Philippians and man I’m telling you, this has to be one of the best studies I have heard. If you like podcasting, get his one and spend half an hour in the Word – you’ll be glad you did

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