(Editor’s note: Kyle sent this in as a comment. I liked it so much I made it into a posting. And exercising my privileges as editor and BD, I made a couple or three modifications to it.  But I don’t believe I changed the general sense of what Kylesie had to say.)

To understand the errant doctrine of Arminianism we can look at a simple aspect of one of the more interesting forms of mathematics: Probability.

For example consider a coin. A coin has two sides, heads and tails. Every time I flip the coin, there is one chance in two that the coin will land on heads. There is the same chance that it will land on tails. If I flip the coin 100 times, the probability is that it will land on heads fifty times and tails fifty times. In all probability If I were to perform this exercise for even more tosses, the likelihood is that 50% of the time it will land on heads and fifty percent of the time it will land on tails. This percentage becomes more likely the more I toss the coin.

However, let us look at something different, something called “possibility”. It IS “possible” that I can flip the coin 100 times and it could land tails up all 100 times Although very improbable, it IS “possible”. So we can’t discount the possibility of 100 heads or 100 tails in one hundred tosses. Keep this in mind for we will come back to this later.

The Arminian claims that it is ultimately up to the individual to accept the atoning sacrifice on the cross. This in essence is the free will doctrine which is espoused by these neo-Pelegians who think that man has the final decision regarding his salvation. If this is true then it is obvious that man only has two options.

1. Accept Jesus as Lord and savior
2. Do not accept Jesus as Lord and savior

It is pretty simple. That being said, after the atonement on the cross there is a set of two improbable possibilities we need to look at according to Arminianism.

1. It is “possible” that NO person would accept Jesus as Lord and Savior
2. It is “possible” that everyone would accept Jesus as Lord and Savior.

Although statistically improbable in either direction it is possible. And this leads to the crux of the matter. Mathematically Arminians deny the ABSOLUTE Sovereignty of God. In their view, according to free will God is only 99.9999999999… % likely to save at least somebody. However, there was a statistical possibility of .0000000000…1% that God’s atonement on the cross would be in vain and would save nobody. Afterall, it’s possible that everyone, in exercising their free will, may reject the work done by Jesus Christ. Because of this at the moment of death after Christ said, “it is finished” He could not state with 100% certainty that His work on the cross saved ANYBODY. There is the slimmest of slim possibilities that he died in vain and the whole Bible from Genesis on would be a lie. There is, according to the Armininians, the POSSIBILITY.

Now some of you may say I’m being too technical. But I don’t think so. God is either 100% Sovereign, or he is not. When it comes to God, 99.9999999% is not enough. He has to be perfect in everything He does.

In closing Calvinism is the only way that guarantees with 100% probability AND complete certainty that people will be saved. After all Jesus stated that there are those who would be drawn to the Father through Him.

Let me expound further.

I wrote this after some deep pondering between Calvinism VS Arminianism. After some time a few things came to mind considering the free will doctrine which to the best of my knowledge had yet to be considered.

It dawned on me that because Free will is of man and initiated by man’s ultimate decision it had occurred to me that it is possible that NO ONE would choose salvation.  Once this thought occurred to me a light bulb, if you will, went off in my mind.   I said to myself, “Self, with Arminianism God could have never been 100% sure that the death, burial, and resurrection would save anybody any time before or after Calvary”.

To sum up, Armianism requires God to sit back and wait to see if anyone accepts His offer of salvation. According to them, since God has no say in who accepts and who doesn’t, there is the POSSIBILITY that everyone on the Earth could reject His offer. And thus, there is the POSSIBILITY that God’s plan would save no one.

Once I had established these facts it dawned on me that no matter the likelihood of salvation we could not with 100% accuracy know that anyone would ever be saved. Once this was established it is by the Arminian’s own philosophy proven mathematically that God could NOT be 100% sure His salvation plan would result in anyone being saved. Under this supposition, the sovereignty of God which is not 100% but only 99.9999 - - fill in the number of nines you want - - certain. Alas it could be conjectured that God, by the view of the Arminians, is NOT in TOTAL control and NOT TOTALLY sovereign.

To expound upon this let us look at the definition of Sovereign.

1. Not controlled by outside forces autonomous, independent, self-governing.
2. Greatest in status or authority or power, supreme

By definition the God of Arminianism fails to meet the definition of Sovereign. Free will (as defined by the Arminian) dictates that mankind controlled his own destiny on this side of the cross.

Let us look at another characteristic of God. He is described as being omnipotent, or having unlimited power.

By the free will doctrine God fails to meet the standard applied to Him. He could not have unlimited power but rather is limited in his power because

1. He was not the final authority on who is saved and
2. Albeit remote, he could not with 100% certainty claim that His crucifixion would save anybody.

After all, it’s POSSIBLE that no one would accept the work he did on the cross. And if it’s POSSIBLE that no one would accept the work He accomplished, then it’s POSSIBLE His work was completely in vain. And of course, that’s just not possible.

I can’t wait for your responses!

Pulpit Pimps | 107 Comments »

Victoria Osteen (Mrs. Willow Boy) has a date! 

Yes ladies and gentlemen, it has come to my attention (thanks to Friend, a reader) that Victoria, the wife of our favorite light weight life coach, has a date.  And it’s not with Willow Boy.  Unfortunately it’s with Sharon Brown and her lawyer in a Houston courtroom.   

If you remember, a couple of years ago, Miss Vickie got really upset because there was a stain in the upholstery of her First Class seat prior to a flight to Vail Colorado, where they were traveling to take part in a missionary project aimed at the snow pixies there in the Rocky Mountains.  Apparently, when the airline servant didn’t jump quickly enough, Queen Willow got a little testy and made a scene.  In fact, here is the testimony being presented by the airline servant:

Brown alleges Victoria Osteen threw her against a bathroom door and elbowed her in the left breast during an angry outburst over a stain on her first-class seat. The Federal Aviation Administration fined Victoria Osteen $3,000 for interfering with a crew member…

Man!  That sounds like something out of an action novel.  Threw her against the bulkhead…elbowed her adversary in the left breast (ouch!).  Who says men fight dirtier than women?    You have to wonder what Willow Boy was doing while his wife, the co-pastor of Lakewood Church was on her alleged rampage.  I’ll wager he was telling all the drones in Cattle class that they can be their best if they just know that God wants the best for them.   

Tell me again why people follow after these clowns and clownettes?  They don’t preach the Gospel, they don’t live the Gospel and it becomes clearer and clearer that they probably don’t even KNOW the Gospel.  Hmmm…now that I think about it, that’s probably why people follow after these clowns – no danger of having to actually be inconvenienced by the truth of the Gospel.  My bad. 

Pulpit Pimps | 136 Comments »

Some of the pimps we cover here are high powered and subtle enough to be really dangerous. Before his introduction to the county police and the free mug shot, Earl Paulk had the veneer of supposed apostolic authority. T. Dexter promotes the idea of being loosed (as opposed to being a maturing Christian).  He’s looked at as the next Billy Graham.  And others are progressing up ecclesiastical ladder by being promoted to bishop, archbishop and grand poobah.

But some of the pimps out there are totally vacuous, offering nothing but their looks, their personality and their willingness to feed the sheeple all the swill the sheeple want to hear. While those are dangerous too, the dispensers of swill are more fun to deal with than anything else.

One of those swill-dispensers is Jamal, the Pimp Prince of Baltimore.

If you remember, about a year and a half ago I told you about my visit to the Empowerment Temple of Doom and the fact that I missed an opportunity to get a picture of one of their vans. Well, one of my operatives was out and about the town last week and stumbled across one of the Prince of Pimps’ transportation units.

If you click here, you can see what I found so incredibly outrageous the last time I was up there.

Look at the van again and answer a couple of questions for me.

Why is there no mention on the side of the van of Jesus Christ? If you’ll notice, there isn’t even a mention of the fact that the van belongs to a Christian organization. Sure, Jamal has the tag “pastor” under his name, but pastor of what? A Unitarian church? A Mormon Church? At least the Mormons drag Jesus and God the Father into their ads. Even if the Father is Adam.

There is, however, a six foot tall image of Jamal the Prince Pimp.

Am I supposed to come to the temple because of Jamal? I thought the idea was to tell people about Jesus Christ, not tell people about Jamal. I thought the idea was to present the Gospel, not present a guy who dresses like a high-end pimp.

But the truth, as unpleasant as it may be, is that Jamal is simply an manifestation of the sorry state of nominal Christianity, especially nominal Christianity within the Black community.

If you take a look at the average mega-church in a predominately Black community, you get messages that are incredibly short on solid doctrine but really long on emotions, long on performance and theatrics, and really long on the scratching of ears. You don’t like being poor? The pastor will promise you that your breakthrough is coming. You don’t like the crummy job you have? The pastor will promise you supernatural success and tell you that you’re the head and not the tail.

And what’s the result of this meat-free diet? Go back and take a look at the Empowerment Temple Four Wheeled Billboard and Advertisement for Jamal.

In those environments, Jesus Christ, the originator and finisher of our faith is secondary to the person who heads the organization. That has certainly happened with Jamal, with Fast Eddie and some of the new pimps like Zachary Timms.

Stay as far away from Jamal as you possibly can. He is a pimp. He butchers Scriptures with the best (or the worst) of them. He appeals to the flesh. He presents flash and dash in place of solid meat. And he promotes himself shamelessly.  These are not qualities you want in a sub-shepherd. 

Jamal-Harrison Bryant | 33 Comments »