Pilgrims Covenant Church
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    • The Charismatic Movement
    • The Real Antichrist
    • The Greek Orthodox Church
    • Abortion
    • A Response to the Southern Poverty Law Center
    • Homosexuality

"These . . . confessed that they were
strangers and pilgrims on the earth."

Hebrews 11:13

July 4, 2006
Cornerstone Dishonors the "Head of the Corner"

"For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's."
—1 Corinthians 6:20


Cornerstone Festival is represented as a Christian event, but in reality, it is a profane, worldly carnival which promotes false doctrines and dishonors God. Those who truly are Christ's are to bring glory to Him, not take part in activity which dishonors Him and violates His Word.

"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." —1 John 2:15-16

Everything about Cornerstone Festival screams "world" and consequently rebellion to the commands of our Lord. Ecumenical and even New Age religion is common fare. Tattooing and body piercing are accepted and approved. Young women immodestly dressed and men with long hair are commonplace. Ungodly, improper movies are shown. This year, Cornerstone is holding "Days of the Dead" celebrations complete with films such as The Body Snatcher. How can those taking part in such things glorify God in their bodies and spirits? How can those taking part claim to be "a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light" (1 Peter 2:9)?

"Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.” —Psalm 29:2

Cornerstone features ungodly, worldly music. Many of the songs have nonsensical—in a few cases, obscene—lyrics. Many of the singers ape the world's ways as they jerk, gyrate, and screech out those lyrics to ear-splitting music. Such musical performances glorify immature, worldly performers and appeal to the flesh, but they are not holy, and they do not glorify God. Those who take part in such sessions are mocking God in an ugly, worldly way rather than worshiping Him in the beauty of holiness. "For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting" (Galatians 6:8).

"Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded." —1 Peter 2:6

Cornerstone Festival dishonors and misrepresents the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the chief cornerstone of His own spiritual house, the Church of Jesus Christ. Those responsible for this ungodly spectacle would do well to remember that Jesus is "the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords" (1 Timothy 6:15), "whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable" (Luke 3:17).

"And he beheld them, and said, What is this then that is written, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner? Whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder." —Luke 20:17-18

Pilgrims Covenant Church • www.pccmonroe.org
P.O. Box 314, Monroe, WI 53566


June 26, 2007
A Letter to Cornerstone Fans
from Pastor Ralph Ovadal

"To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." —Isaiah 8:20

At 1:00 P.M. today, Tuesday, June 26, I will, by the grace of God, preach a message in the open air to any Cornerstone fans who are willing to listen. At that time, I will turn to the Scriptures in response to the many questions and criticisms directed at me by you since last summer.

Last year, Pilgrims Covenant Church received a flyer promoting Cornerstone Festival. After spending considerable time viewing Cornerstone's official web site, I made the decision to take a small group from PCC to minister at the site of the Cornerstone Festival. To communicate our message, we used several signs with Scriptures on them, gave out flyers, and spent time talking one-on-one with Cornerstone fans. We did not come as enemies to those fans but to share the concern we have for their spiritual well-being by giving voice to our conviction that the music and many of the activities of Cornerstone do not honor God or benefit His people. Yet during our brief time at Cornerstone, we were mocked and called names such as fascist and faggot. Cornerstone fans swerved cars at us, threw things at us, and made obscene gestures. We did meet a number of friendly people as well, but a shocking percentage of the fans reacted to us with open contempt, ridicule, and in some cases, rage!

Since that day at Cornerstone, our church has received numerous e-mail messages from Cornerstone fans in which we have been mocked as being "ignorant" and railed at for being "unloving." We have been accused of being responsible for numerous evils. We have been told we are "the reason the world doesn't like Christians" and that we cause sinners to reject Christ and spend eternity in hell! Cornerstone bloggers have misrepresented our church, talked about wanting to punch us, and waxed less than eloquently about how our type makes them sick.

Because we disagree with the music and methods of Cornerstone based on convictions rooted in the Scriptures, we have been typecast as unfeeling hypocrites, as one CS fan put it, "a church that refuses to extend its hand to the people who need it most." This is in spite of the fact that our church is extremely active in public evangelism in the USA, and we support foreign ministry, including several orphanages and medical clinics in Kenya and Zambia. It would seem those Christian rock fans who make such promiscuous use of "judge not" when it comes to our honest convictions have not hesitated to make all manner of unfounded, unrighteous judgments in defense of their rock music culture—or is it their "rock music idol"? It appears not a stone has been left unturned in that effort.

For instance, the main director of "Cornerstone yoU" took his turn at mocking us in a blog for holding, with many other Christians, the belief that God has faithfully preserved His Word in the Masoretic Hebrew Text and the Traditional Greek Text, or Textus Receptus, and that the correct technique for translating the Bible is formal equivalence, also known as verbal equivalence. Currently, in the English language, only the King James Bible meets that standard. Based on that, the director chose to label us "King James Only" and mock the Bible from which we preach as "the King Jimmy."

By the way, he also joined with others and took us to task for our imagined sin of water refusal, writing, "We did attempt to take water to them (which was refused) . . . I know for a fact that our staff took water to the PCC protesters, who were exposed in the hot sun and dust. They rejected the offer of water, unfortunately." Apparently, because our behavior at Cornerstone was befitting the cause of Christ, CS people, desperate to document some sort of shocking, ungodly behavior on our part, have spread the word that we committed the sin of not taking all the water bottles offered to us by some. In reality, though we had plenty of our own water, once we saw the offense caused when we said we had no need of more, we accepted the water. In fact, we took home a stockpile of water. We also accepted granola bars, sunglasses, and would have taken the hot dogs, but we had just eaten a big lunch! Yet in a show of pettiness and an apparent determination to typecast the hard-hearted PCC fundamentalists, the "refused to accept water" charge has been hurled at us repeatedly since that day at Cornerstone.

The CS yoU director also knowingly misrepresented us when he wrote this about PCC in his blog: "[A] few hardy souls also tried a dialogue with them, also to no avail." The fact of the matter is, we talked with CS fans for hours in the hot sun until we were almost unable physically to talk! Another employee of Cornerstone wrote and accused us of leaving litter which he had to pick up. In reality, it was CS fans who threw our tracts on the ground. We carefully picked up all litter in our area, including all the crumpled tracts thrown on the ground and, in some cases, at us by those fans. Perhaps some of our tracts were littered in other areas where we did not see them. But surely, the CS employee must have known we did not crumple up our own literature and throw it around!

The reaction of Cornerstone to our simple, biblical outreach, undertaken out of genuine concern and love for our Lord Jesus, has reminded us of the tactics used and the scorn vented against Christians by those who love darkness rather than light. Is this the fruit of a Christian event? "Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit" (Matthew 7:17).

This year, we are here once more to be a biblical witness against the methods and music which we believe dishonor our Lord, pervert His gospel, and do harm to those, primarily young people, who attend Cornerstone. We are here to present a biblical witness to those whose desire is to truly know and obey the Word of God. Rather than write an in-depth and lengthy paper responding to the various objections raised against us by CS fans, we have with us free CDs which feature two short messages I have preached. In one, I respond to some of the issues raised by Cornerstone fans. The other is a message on Christian rock music. Should we run out of CDs, we will take the addresses of those whose requests we cannot meet today and send CDs to them. As I mentioned earlier, I will also be preaching in the open air at 1:00 P.M.

In closing, I want to thank you for taking the time to read this letter. We are not here because we see you, the Cornerstone fans, as our enemy. We are here to "contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints" (Jude 3) and because we have a deep concern for your spiritual well-being, including the eternal well-being of those among you who are not in Christ. With this letter, I have included just a few Scripture verses which I trust the Lord will graciously use to convict the hearts of some of you, even if the "unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction" (2 Peter 3:16).

Pastor Ralph Ovadal

Picture

"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path."
Psalm 119:105

The Cornerstone Claim:
Just preaching the gospel doesn't work anymore. Preaching just turns people off. We have to use other means to reach them.

The Word of God says:

• "From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." —Matthew 4:17

• "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." —Romans 10:17

• "Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." —Mark 8:38

• "Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away." —Luke 21:33

• "For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." —1 Corinthians 1:21

• "Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine." —2 Timothy 4:2

• "For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God." —1 Corinthians 1:18

• "But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts. For neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloke of covetousness; God is witness." —1 Thessalonians 2:4-5

• "For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." —1 Corinthians 2:2

• "Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not; but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God." —2 Corinthians 4:1-2

• "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." —Mark 16:15

The Cornerstone Claim:
If we want to win those in the world for Christ, we must look like the world and be involved in things which appeal to them.

The Word of God says:

• "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." —1 John 2:15-16

• "For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." —Galatians 6:8

• "For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ." —Galatians 1:10

• "Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth." —Colossians 3:2

• "Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid." —Matthew 5:14

• "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." —2 Corinthians 6:17-18

The Cornerstone Claim:
God doesn't care what sort of music we use to worship Him. There is nothing wrong with Christian rock.

The Word of God says:

•
 "Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness." —Psalm 29:2

• "God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him." —Psalm 89:7

• "For God is the King of all the earth: sing ye praises with understanding." —Psalm 47:7

• "What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also." —1 Corinthians 14:15

• "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord." —Colossians 3:16

• "Let all things be done decently and in order." —1 Corinthians 14:40

"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables." —2 Timothy 4:3-4

"Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein." —Jeremiah 6:16

Pilgrims Covenant Church
PO Box 314
Monroe, WI 53566

pccmonroe.org
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  • Gospel
    • From Death unto Life
    • Heaven or Hell?
    • Christ Jesus Came into the World
  • Audio
  • Romanism
  • New Calvinism / Evangelicalism
  • More
    • Bible Versions
    • The Lord's Day
    • Revival & Awakening
    • CCM
    • Women Preachers and Leaders Forbidden by the Word of God
    • An Education Acceptable to God
    • The Christian and Alcohol
    • The Charismatic Movement
    • The Real Antichrist
    • The Greek Orthodox Church
    • Abortion
    • A Response to the Southern Poverty Law Center
    • Homosexuality