One of the supreme and crucial teachings of the entire Christian doctrine is Christ’s condition for those desiring eternal life, which is to be born again. But John Piper invented a damnably heretical born again teaching.
I found on Facebook zillions of sarcasm about the born-again experience. Someone said it was demonic. He cited the extra-biblical Pentecostal experience where the congregants fell to the floor and did crazy things. But it is not the born-again experience we are examining here.
That is why in our SANCTIFICATION FORMULA we emphasized the involvement of Christ, our Savior and Lord, and the Holy Spirit in our sanctified life.
The emphasis in this book is the born-again experience lived by true Christians. It is this experience of truth that Christ’s followers chose death over recantation. It explains the willingness of William Tyndale, the father of the English Bible, to be burned at the stake. The unbelievers and atheists see the second birth as a subject for amusement and mockery. But there’s no truth in their misjudgment of Christians for the reality they don’t have any understanding at all.
What is spiritual stability? This query seems unimportant or irrelevant for the unsaved floods of people. They don’t have time for the God of the Bible—not until hunger, disease, or the mystery of death breaks through their lives! Their obsession with the cares of this life deceives them to love themselves more than God.
Praise-Worship Instead of Praise and Worship. Pentecostal theologians say that if you truly praise God, then show it physically. Van Cleave added that a showy-praise practice is an aid to worship. (See Guy P. Duffield and Nathaniel M. Van Cleave. Foundations of Pentecostal Theology. L.I.F.E. Bible Colleg, San Dimas, California 91773. 1987.) In Pentecostal meetings you will find some dancing, clapping, crying, shouting, speaking in tongues, among other forms of worship-disorder. They call it as “praise and worship.” Further examinations of this teaching, however, show that it more fitting for the doctrine to be named as PRAISE-WORSHIP instead of “praise and worship.”