18 “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll.19 And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll.”
Why it Matters
I believe The Revelation is a complete book of prophecy of the signs of the end of this age that proceed Christ’s return.
I believe we are warned not to add anything to it or take anything from it because :
1. it is complete
God gave us everything we need without making the signs incomplete pieces of a puzzle or needing any other books or scrolls to added to them in order to be able to:
A. prepare for the Test about to come upon the whole world.
B. To prepare to be witnesses as we stand against the the Evil One.
C. To prepare for the 4 Horseman and the economic famine and chaos, wars and plagues they usher in.
D. To prepare for and warn others to accept Christ by faith to prepare themselves for Christ’s return for us, also known as The Rapture.
E. To prepare so we can avoid The coming Wrath of God.
My take on why this is so critically important-
Many who are waiting for the Daniel 9:27 prophecy events to occur first as many do believe , the Temple in Jerusalem is to be rebuilt, sacrifices reinstated, a 7 year peace treaty, the treaty is violated at 3 1/2 years and sacrifices ended, and the abomination that causes desolation is set up in the temple, the Man of Lawlessness is revealed, are most likely waiting for events that actually happened in 70 A.D.
This is critical- Therefore people will be waiting for warning signs that are not for the End of the Age, and there will be many who lose faith when they need it most as a result.
The events of Daniel 9:27 ARE NOT clearly in Revelation. Nowhere in Revelation are the events In Daniel 9:27 clearly or even vaguely similar.
If anyone adds signs or takes away signs from this book they are complicit in the eternal death of those who will inevitably miss their opportunity to prepare for Christ’s return because they spread misinformation (lies) that people will wait for but they never happen, leaving them disillusioned and lost.
A loving Father didn’t hide the primary sign of The End of the Age in another scroll/ book of the Bible. (I’m referring to Daniel 9:27.)
The first signs are actually the Four Horseman, and I believe the first horse, the White horse , has already begun.
These Four Horses usher in the time of testing, the great Tribulation, and come just before the Rapture and then The Wrath of God.
Accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior today.
Jesus is God in human form, and He came down to us to give up His life freely as a Holy sacrifice for the sins of any and all who receive Him by simply believing in Him and asking Him to come in and abide in their hearts by faith. He conquered death when He rose from the grave after 3 1/2 days because it was impossible for death to hold Him. He promised to never leave us or forsake us if we do so.
“Behold, He comes in the clouds, and every eye shall see Him.”
Are these the Events that Precede Christ’s Return For His Servants and the Great Tribulation and Christ’s Reign on Earth?
For most of us, the Covid-19 Pandemic began in December of 2019.
My overwhelming sense was that the events taking place in the world could be setting the stage for something much bigger, perhaps even something Biblical was taking place and the events that lead to Christ’s return.
Now it’s becoming easier to imagine how the mark of the Beast 666 monetary austerity could come to pass, even here in America.
Now we can see the world has been pushed into economic hardships that could usher in such austerity measures if they continue to worsen.
-A Brief Overview of Revelation with applications to current geopolitical and scientific events.
Pre-Tribulation vs. Pre-Wrath
Until recently I have always held a pre-tribulation belief because of the old testament illustrations of Noah’s Ark, and Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot’s family, but also because of 1 Thessalonians 1:10 – all are a rescue from wrath to come.
I now know that the 4 Horsemen of Revelation are not considered the wrath of God in Revelation. As bad as those events are, the Wrath of God is even worse.
“and to wait for His Son, Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.”
And the details of 1Thessalonians 4:13-18 in that same epistle serve to confirm and complete just what Paul means by “the wrath to come” and how that rescue has become known as The Rapture.
1 Thessalonians 5:9 “For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath, but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
But suffering for the testimony of Christ and suffering God’s wrath / judgement are 2 different things to the believer.
We are saved from judgment but called to suffer with Him if need be.
I believe many who call Christ Savior will live through Revelation 6 and the events of the Four Horsemen and Six of the Seven Seals.
The Times of Testing ,Testimony, and Suffering for Christ as we share Christ with a world drowning in hopelessness
The First Seal is opened- The Rider on a White Horse, I believe this happened in February 2022.
I believe The White Horse began when Russia invaded Ukraine. Rev. 6: 1-2
“There before me was a white horse , its rider held a bow and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.”
Notice the alignment with scripture- no mention of this rider accomplishing anything at the onset! But the ongoing campaign is slowly weakening us as it drains our resources, and setting the stage for the next rider.
The Second Seal is opened- The Rider on a Firery Red Horse
I believe this is China. Rev. 6: 3-4
“It’s rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make people kill each other. To him was given a large sword.”
I believe that large sword is perhaps the economic effect of China taking Taiwan and the resulting sanctions on all nations that disapprove. The USA has been very naïve to have become so dependent on a communist country for so much and so has the whole world. A terrible down-cycle of economic and social chaos will be triggered effecting currency values , bank failures, and all logistical commerce including foods and agricultural supplies and the cost of energy and transportation, and most of our pharmaceuticals.
This horse and rider sets the conditions for the next 2 horsemen.
The Third Seal is opened- The Rider on a Black Horse
Rev. 6:5-6 “Its Rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard a voice among the four living creatures saying, “Two pounds of wheat for a day’s wages, and six pounds of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!”
Economic Collapse-
The rider on the black horse could be described as ushering in economic austerity. The scales the rider holds could represent food rationing and the necessity for careful measures in the distribution of limited supplies.
I find it interesting that the call is to be extra careful with the oil and the wine.”
The Fourth Seal is opened- The Rider on a Pale Horse -Will this usher in the Mark of the Beast 666?
Rev.6: 7-8 “I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword , famine , and plague , and by the wild beasts of the earth.”
Notice wild beasts and recall how often God has referred to men as beasts throughout His Word and even The Beast of Revelation is a man.
Gangs could rule as resources run out and men start to behave like animals more and more, even preying on each other!
The Fifth Seal is opened – A Call for God to Judge the earth and avenge innocent blood.
The Fifth Seal is opened- Rev. 6:9-11
“when he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the alter the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice,“How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?”
Notice that the indication is that God has not yet begun to judge the inhabitants of the earth. The blood of the saints has not yet reached the limit God has set before He unleashes His judgment!
“Then each one of them was given a white robe and told to wait a little longer , until the full number of number of their fellow servants, their brothers and sisters , were killed as they had been.”
At this point it’s hard to imagine but yes, things DO get a whole lot worse later on, but the saints who are alive and remain will be raptured before judgment and the full wrath of God is poured out. The Seventh Seal is yet to come. But first, the sixth seal and the final event that proceeds Christ’s return FOR His saints, a great Earthquake that is felt worldwide followed by the sealing of God’s Jewish servants and the rescue/rapture of all believers from every nation, tribe, people and language which no one could count.
The Sixth Seal is opened- Prelude to Judgment and Wrath – Sealing and Rescuing – The Rapture
Rev. 7: 1- 4
144,000 Sealed – The 12,000 from Each of The 12 Tribes
7 After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree.2 Then I saw another angel coming up from the east, having the seal of the living God. He called out in a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm the land and the sea: 3 “Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.”4 Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel.
(Jump to verse 9)
The Great Multitude in White Robes – Gentile Believers -The Rapture
9 After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice:
“Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”
11 All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying:
“Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!”
13 Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?”
14 I answered, “Sir, you know.”
And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 15 Therefore,
“they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. 16 ‘Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat down on them,’[a] nor any scorching heat. 17 For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; ‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’[b] ‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’
Notice that verses 13-14 ask “where did these come from?” Meaning they were not there before. Jesus, who saves us from the wrath to come.” 1 Thes. 1:10 fits Rev. 7: 13-17.
Notice that verses 16-17 describes their previous state of being, hunger, thirst, scorching heat, and sorrow. All believers will rescued from the wrath to come at the opening of the Seventh Seal, when God’s wrath/ judgement of earth begins.
This salvation can be yours.
Trust Jesus and His finished work of atonement for our sins on the Cross.
Jesus who is perfect was the perfect sacrifice,the only perfect person worthy to pay for our sins.
He paid for our sins on the cross and defeated death by raising from death.
He conquered death and offers life to anyone who is willing to receive it.
He is waiting for you to accept His free gift of righteousness and the eternal life which He purchased with His own righteous blood for all who believe and ask in faith.
Just pray something like this ,”Jesus, I know I am a sinner, come into my heart and change me as you promise, make me new, make me yours as I trust your sacrifice for me on the cross when you died for me to take my punishment and rose from the dead to defeat death. Thank you , in Jesus name I pray, Amen.”
Christ will never leave you, you are His, bought with His blood and sealed with His Spirit. John 3:16 and Ephesians 1:13-14
The signs of Christ’s return mark a tiny blip on the line of history. They are only few short years that preclude Christ’s reign on Earth for 1,000 years.
These times of testing are a short bridge between the temporal and the eternal.
Those who sincerely place their faith and trust in Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross to pay for their sins and ask Him to be their Lord and Savior are at that moment marked with a seal , God’s “Holy Spirit, the down payment that guarantees the purchased possession resurvey in Heaven for you.” Ephesians 3:13-14 (The Holy Bible)
This is Ultimate Hope. It comes from trusting Jesus’s Ultimate Love expressed for us on the Cross by His willful obedience to God to pay for our sins. No greater love has ever been expressed.
The end of the age begins with “Rider on a White Horse bent on conquest.” This Rider may turn out to be Vladimir Putin and his conquest to capture Ukraine. This is the first seal of 7 seals of a time of testing to be opened that proceed the rapture and final judgment on the Earth by God’s command to His Holy Angels.
The second seal is “A rider on a red horse. To him is given a very large sword with which he takes peace from the Earth so that men kill each other.”
This red horse could be China as it takes Taiwan.
The economic fallout of war with China and Russia could collapse many of the economies and supply chains of the world’s western and NATO nations.
The Book of Revelation reminds us repeatedly that these events and others call for “the patient endurance of the Saints”, all who have trust in Christ as Savior and Lord.
Do you have Ultimate Hope?
Believe in Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and Lord and ask Him to into your Heart and He will save you and write your name in The Book of Life as foretold in the Book of Revelation and He will never leave you. The time of testing to come and the patient endurance we all will need require eyes of faith that are fixed on our beloved Savior Jesus Christ.
The Book of Revelation has a unique blessing for those who have willing “ ears to hear” the message Jesus has for all who eagerly await His return. It may surprise many that Revelation actually covers a period of 1,007 years or more.
This has been a demanding task to say the least but after more than 2 years of daily study I have decided it’s time to write.
Though this prophecy evokes great anxiety and fear in many, it was clearly written with great anticipation and hope for the signs of Christ’s return and the redemption of all who placed their faith in Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for them.
My main struggle has been with an attempt to inspire hope instead of disparaging. Second to that I prayerfully wanted to convey what I consider to be the most probable unfolding of the events covering the end of this age , the Great Tribulation of 7 years followed by Christ’s 1,000 year reign on Earth when each day is better than the previous day for a millennium. Finally the Great White Throne of Judgment followed by a new Heaven and a new Earth and sorrow ends as eternity with God begins.
The first few chapters are a message to “the 7 churches”. I believe these 7 churches are examples of the conditions of the churches in the time of Christ’s return for His own. The church should to prepare for Christ’s return for His own before judgement comes to all the inhabitants of the world.
Revelation reveals the events of the final days of the end of this age , testing of all who live on earth, Increasing Plague , famine ,war and starvation begin and worsen with each of the Four Horsemen which leads to utter economic lawlessness so desperate that men kill each other, a great earthquake before the rapture, the sealing of Gods Jewish servants , then the Rapture of God’s own up to Heaven . And then the wrath of God is poured out on earth , hail and fire mixed with blood rain down of the earth, very likely a super volcanoe such as is under Antarctica or Yellowstone or both, an Asteroid Strike, (August 13, 2029 Apophis?) , then several increasingly worse events will make life so miserable that most inhabitants of earth will die, and those who remain will long to die but “death will elude them “.Then the Battle of Armageddon will take place between las the nations of the Earth against Israel, and Christ defeats them simply by speaking their destruction. Satan is bound for 1,000 years and The Thousand Year Reign of Christ on Earth begins. Then Satan is released and a second Battle takes a similar ending. Satan, death and Hades are thrown into the Lake of Fire/Hell, The Great Judgement Seat of Christ takes place for all who ever lived, then the end of time and sorrow as Eternity in Heaven as we live with God forever.
Have you and your loved ones prepared?
The time of testing begins even before the wrath of God is poured out on the earth. Also, The 666 mark of the Beast system begins before the rapture and wrath of God. Only those who receive 666 mark on their foreheads or hands will be allowed to buy or sell.
Only those who love God more than their own lives will be able to pass the testing
God is worthy of all our love and our lives , because that is how God first loved us.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” John 3:16 The Bible
Simply pray, God hears, “Jesus I believe you died for my sins, please come into my heart and save me.”
He will put His Spirit in you, which is His seal upon you, and see you through the short time of testing till till He come for us to save us from the wrath/judgement of God that will be poured out on the inhabitants of the earth.
Jesus not only saves us from Hell and gives us a home in heaven when we decide to rest our trust in Him and His sacrifice for our sins on the cross, He also will save us from the wrath to come, which is when God’s judgement comes upon the entire world in the last days.
“and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—
Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.” The Bible, Ist Thessalonians 1:10
We can be confident that what is written in God’s Word here relates to “The Day of The Lord” because the writer carries this theme throughout the letter to the Thessalonians.
Here in The Bible and the same letter the writer makes it clear his purpose is to encourage knowledge of the ultimate hope to believers that we have in Christ.
“Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.” The Bible, 1st Thessalonians 4:13-18
This does not mean we shall all avoid suffering or death, for Christians always have and currently do suffer for Christ as Christ who also suffered and died for us on the cross.
But as Christ rose from death so shall we also rise to new life for eternity when Christ returns, even as He rose to conquer death.
And we do not grieve as those who have no hope. In fact we receive Ultimate Hope when we ask Christ to be our Savior and Lord. We receive the promise of the gift of eternal life with Christ at that moment based on His payment for all our sins in this life, His perfect righteousness cleanses us , our debt is paid in full.
“The dead in Christ shall rise first.”
Jesus is coming back and His word even says that some of us who are alive at that time will never die.
“we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.”
No matter what happens in this life we can have a confidence that is unshakeable.
Don’t wait. Believe in Christ today and the promises of God’s Word are yours forever no matter what happens.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” The Bible, Gospel of John 3:16
Jesus did for us what we can never do for ourselves, His sacrifice bought our redemption from sin.
“And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.”
The Gospel Story In Arabic with subtitles – A truly inspired sermon.
Many people in the world struggle with the idea that God would become a man.
God loved his creation so much that He became one of us so he could save us from ourselves when we were separated from Him as a result of sin.
At Easter we celebrate God’s great love when He became a man, lived a perfect life, and became the perfect spotless Lamb of God who let himself be sacrificed to pay the price for our sin when He died on the cross.
When He rose again on the third day He demonstrated that He defeated death.
An almost equal amount of people in the world struggle with the idea that someone who is all-powerful could be treated so terribly and still be all-powerful.
We don’t recognize the ultimate power and majesty of Jesus Christ when it is manifested as humility and sacrifice.
God is perfect. To dwell with perfection we also must be perfect in our past, present, and future.
So only a perfect replacement for imperfect righteousness would work for us, and only God is perfect.
And God Came Down as the Man Jesus Christ to personally save us Himself.
He lived as one of us.
Dr. Samuel preaches in Arabic with English subtitles and brilliantly shows how God as Jesus was in control through the Betrayal and His trials and the crucifixion.
“No man takes my life but I lay it down freely” said Jesus (The Gospel of John 10:18)
Unlike anything found in human nature Jesus alone showed us ultimate strength present in ultimate humility for our salvation sake through the entire events of his trials suffering and death.
Perhaps strength through humility is not easy for us to recognize because it is so unfamiliar to humanity overall?
Pride, power, and forced compliance are more familiar to us.
But God through Jesus conquers hearts and minds by demonstrating supreme love for us.
Dr. Samuel also points out how Pontius Pilate and Pilot’s wife both testified that Jesus was a just man, thus fulfilling scripture of the Lamb of God without spot or blemish to take away the sin of the world.
Jesus Christ was even sovereign over death and rose from the grave on the third day.
He is the author of life and gives life to all who believe and place their hope and faith in Him for salvation from eternal judgement.
Do you believe that Jesus Christ did for you what you are incapable of doing for yourself?
The Gospel of John 1:
11“He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.
12But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:
13who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
14And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.“
On September 16, 2017 Nabeel Qureshi passed from this life into the next. Nabeel fought long and hard with his stomach cancer. Now he has no more suffering, no more pain, only unimaginable joy in the presence of God.
In this particular video you will see Nabeel express his confidence in life after death because of Jesus Christ and the love and merciful grace of God.
We will miss you Nabeel.
Thank you for leaving us with three books and dozens of videos to help us find the Truth about God, Jesus, eternity, Christianity in contrast to what is taught in Islam.
A debate was scheduled at the Oxford Museum of Natural History between Atheist Richard Dawkins and Christian Denesh DeSuza, who was called away at the last minute for a family emergency. Luckily Dr. John Lennox was in the crowd and graciously accepted the offer to take DeSuza’s place. Much to Richard Dawkins shagrin.
You see, the two of them debated once before, and Dawkins has apparently been reluctant to debate Lennox ever since.
You will enjoy this.
John Quincy Adams, President of the United States, served on the Board of Trustees in 1832. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
6th President of the United States of America John Quincy Adams on Islam: 1824-1829
“In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar [i.e., Muhammad], the Egyptian, […..] Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST.- TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE…. Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged. The war is yet flagrant … While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace upon earth, and good will towards men.”
Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and from 1951 to 1955. Deutsch: Winston Churchill, 1940 bis 1945 sowie 1951 bis 1955 Premier des Vereinigten Königreichs und Literaturnobelpreisträger des Jahres 1953. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Winston Churchill on Islam:
“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.”
“A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.”
“Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it.”
“No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.”
— Sir Winston Spencer Churchill (The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50 (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899)
These were not uneducated men who knew nothing of their subject and had simply spoken recklessly.
Rather, both of these great leaders of the free countries of Great Britton and of the United States of America spoke the real truth.
The word Islam means ,”Submit”. (Choice is ultimately not respected, and force is doctrine).
Qur’an (3:151) “We will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve”
In America we do not understand that Islamic doctrine demands NO SEPARATION between church and state. All Muslims believe Islam must advance until all the world submits to Allah, that apostates must be killed, and what the Quran says must be followed. Unlike old Testament violence in the Bible only in a couple of special circumstances, the Quranic verses that call for violence in the name of Allah do so under all circumstances, even today.
There is no new testament in the Quran.
But in the Bible Jesus said,
“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”(John 8:36)
“He,(Jesus), stood up to read,and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down.
The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him.
He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
(Luke 4:17-21)
One religion will bind you, the other resonates, defines, and inspires freedom.
filled in your hearing.”
(Luke 4:17-21)
One religion will bind you, the other resonates, defines, and inspires freedom.
One rules by fear, the other by faith and love.
These representations are based on the central tenets of the religions compared here and not the misrepresentations of said core beliefs. In short, it is when Christianity is misrepresented that violence is perpetrated. Islam is genuine when violence is perpetrated. The confusion comes when we mistake the natural tendancy for evil in human nature with religion in general. Islam is specifically designed to appeal to the darkness in men’s hearts. Genuine Christianity displaces the darkness.
Picture ISIS almost conquering France and all of Europe. That is what almost happened at the Battle of Tours France.
It is considered the most important battle ever won for the sake of civilization. Islam was only about 175 years old, but Islam had conquered three times the area of the Roman Empire at its zenith.
By the sword at the command of Allah.
The Quranic commentaries, the Hadeeth, Bukhari (2:24) – “Allah’s Apostle said: “I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah’s Apostle, and offer the prayers perfectly and give the obligatory charity, so if they perform a that, then they save their lives and property from me except for Islamic laws and then their reckoning.”
“October 732),The Battle of Tours in what is now west-central France.
Abd-ar-Ramān, the Muslim governor of Córdoba, had invaded Aquitaine (present southwestern France) Charles Martel stationed his forces to defend the city of Tours from the Muslims. The Muslim cavalry attacks broke upon Charles’s massed infantry, and after ʿAbd-ar-Raḥmān was killed in the fighting, the Arabs retreared southward. There were no further Muslim invasions of Frankish territory, and Charles’s victory has often been regarded as decisive for world history, since it preserved western Europe from Muslim conquest and Islāmization.”
Later Christian chroniclers and pre-20th century historians praised Charles Martel as the champion of Christianity, characterizing the battle as the decisive turning point in the struggle against Islam, a struggle which preserved Christianity as the religion of Europe; according to modern military historianVictor Davis Hanson, “most of the 18th and 19th century historians, like Gibbon, saw Poitiers (Tours), as a landmark battle that marked the high tide of the Muslim advance into Europe.”[24] Leopold von Ranke felt that “Poitiers was the turning point of one of the most important epochs in the history of the world.”[25]
The Key to Successful Discipleship in Christ is to Answer the Question “Why?”
I believe that most of the shortcomings and failings of the church stem from the failure to successfully answer the question “Why should I give my all to Christ?”
The answer is in the Gospel, and by Gospel I mean the cross and the resurrection of Christ.
Because of His love, we can have a personal and intimate life in Christ, and we can confidently confront the brokenness of this world.
When we have come to love Christ as He loved us, we will together with Christ and by His indwelling Spirit, yearn to give our all to Him becauseHe first gave His all for us.
Our faith is strongest when our love for God is stronger than any fear, desire, or potential loss we could know because it is anchored in a confidence rooted in His love for us, fully expressed by the cross.
I like to say, When we love God with all our heart and soul and strength, then there is no room left to love anything contrary to God.
It is fitting to address you this way and reflect the context of Nabeel Qureshi’s latest book due to be released on March 8th, 2016 by Zondervan Publishing. Qureshi’s book is titled Answering Jihad.
As a former devout Muslim who applied the same level of critical thinking to Islam and Christianity as his academic work, Qureshi is compassionate and credible to speak to the subject of Jihad and Islam.
By the age of 6, Nabeel had read the entire Quran and memorized several Islamic prayers as his parents raised he and his sister to be fully devoted Muslims.
If you are currently a Muslim, you owe it to yourself and your loved ones to make yourself aware of the knowledge and facts contained in this dynamic new book. It is particularly surprising to see that much of Qureshi’s conclusions against Islam come from the very sources that should support Islam, the Quran and the Hadiths.
If you are a Christian, you owe it to your community, whether they are Atheist, Muslim, Christian, or something else, to raise awareness of the truth about Islam. Whether it is examined from a doctrinal or a historical standpoint, Islam is clearly not a religion of peace.
I cannot overstate the thorough quality of writing and diplomatic yet direct stating of the truth that Qureshi brings to this difficult subject.
Answering Jihad is as interesting as it is informative, and in my opinion, it is also well written. I view this book with the highest regard and highly recommend it to you.
USS Philadelphia burning at the Battle of Tripoli Harbor during the First Barbary War in 1804
“All new news is just old news happening to new people. ”
~Malcolm Muggeridge~
Things certainly are getting sporty on the world scene. Islam is increasingly in the news to where you can’t escape from it.
And I have a friend who is ex-Muslim and a Doctor, so I already knew more than I wanted to know about Islam.
One thing that we should know is in our history. It was about the year 1800.
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams asked the Ambassador of Tripoli why they were attacking U.S. merchant ships and enslaving the sailors without provocation from the U.S.
Thomas Jefferson then wrote a letter to John Jay that read:
“The Ambassador answered us that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman [Muslim] who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.”
This is loosely based upon the Qur’an’s teaching from Surah 47:4 which reads,
“Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks; At length, when ye have thoroughly subdued them, bind a bond firmly (on them): thereafter (is the time for) either generosity or ransom: Until the war lays down its burdens. Thus (are ye commanded): but if it had been Allah’s Will, He could certainly have exacted retribution from them (Himself); but (He lets you fight) in order to test you, some with others. But those who are slain in the Way of Allah,- He will never let their deeds be lost.”
This cycle of violent and unprovoked oppression started with Muhammad and has been repeated throughout the 1300 plus year history of Islam, having at one time conquered and held 3 times as many square miles as the ancient Roman empire.
Islam is not a religion of peace. Even Shia and Sunni Muslims have been in conflict since Muhammad died. To be fully devoted to Islam means militant aggression against all infidels.
Moderate Islamic people flee devoted Islamic people and seek refuge in predominantly Christian countries, only to have the devoted eventually follow.
Islam demands Muslims fight to advance Islam until all the world submits. They believe this will end war even though Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims have been in conflict since Muhammad died 1300 years ago.
Other books on the Barbary Wars: American Independence in the Atlantic World, by Frank Lambert (2005);Jefferson’s War: America’s First War on Terror 1801–1805, by Joseph Wheelan (2003); To the Shores of Tripoli: The Birth of the U.S. Navy and Marines, by A. B. C. Whipple (1991, republished 2001); and Victory in Tripoli: How America’s War with the Barbary Pirates Established the U.S. Navy and Shaped a Nation, by Joshua E. London (2005). Most recently, Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present, the Israeli scholar Michael Oren.
Sorry Darwin.
There is no model in science for increasing information through natural selection. Darwin assumed there was.
Modern science proves natural selection loses information and results in degradation. Subtraction cannot result in addition.
You just can’t get 3.2 billion bits of genetic information code in every strand of human DNA that way.
But then if we see a red octagon shaped sign with STOP written on it, we would never assume it got there by random time plus matter plus chance. We would know an intelligent being put that information there.
We have God’s signature in our cells. We know it as DNA. Information with order. Words with meaning.
That is intelligence.
Of Jesus Christ, John’s Gospel says,
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
“He was in the beginning with God.”
“All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.” (John 1:1-3, NKJV, The Bible)
We don’t need the Bible or religion to sort out this madness.
Consider the following.
All Life is Sacred. LGBT beliefs are contrary to not just the Bible, old and new Testament,
but contrary to an enduring anthropological existence. Sex is Sacred. Such laws if approved, always lead to changes in public schools curriculum, starting at the elementary education level. Children will be conditioned to consider the gay lifestyle as an equally important alternative. Marriage is Sacred. But procreation, gender, and the family structure will not survive it. The Family is Sacred. Humanity is Sacred. All Life is Sacred. Sex is Sacred. Marriage is Sacred.
And if any of these is no longer held sacred by the collective whole of society,
mankind will vanish in one generation,…and the circle of life.
What is it like to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?
I’m not talking about merely knowing a lot facts about Jesus.
The point of this article is WHO Jesus is to Me, not merely what.
The HOW of Jesus is the Gospel story, but the WHO is the untold reward.
Greater than the gift is the love that gave the gift, but the Giver is greater still.
You can know Jesus, and He abides IN the hearts of all who put their trust in Him.
I will fail to tell all that Jesus is.
But I will make an attempt to share ,as best I can, just who Jesus is to me.
———————-
Jesus Christ is my best thought, my most cherished possession, He is God and man, Savior and Creator, and to know Him more is my greatest ambition.
Oh the height, depth, and breadth of all that Jesus is!
He is the only way , the only truth, the meaning and purpose of life, and the only hope for eternity.
He is the author of the language of the information of life we call DNA, and the undesigned-Designer, eternal and ever-existing, who orchestrated the fine-tuned Big Bang so that our universe could sustain life.
He is the wonder in nature and science, each reflecting His infinite beauty, order, and intelligibility.
His courage to face a grievous death and torture was driven by a boundless love for everyone. He endured rejection so we could be accepted.
He has borne our shame and by His stripes we are healed.
He died so we could live.
He defeated death for us and rose from the grave victorious.
He hears our most distant thoughts and our most earnest prayers.
He longs for us to know and love Him with all our heart, mind, and strength and all that is in us.
Christ’s love is stronger than sin and death, and mightier than any bonds known to ensnare the hearts and minds of mankind.
Only Christ’s Spirit and love can evoke love so strong in the hearts of sinners that it burns away all other passions.
Jesus is hope when all else is hopeless. He is love when all around us is hate. He is the reason to live when faith in all else is gone.
Nothing can drive Him away from any who truly trust Him. He will never leave us or forsake us.
No desire, temptation, or affection can compare to knowing Christ; and anyone who truly knows Him would never choose to leave His presence – for nothing else compares to knowing Jesus Christ who is God and who is Love.
Though I walk through the Valley Of The Shadow Of Death I will fear no evil, for He is with me.
He so loved us that He came down from His glorious throne and became one of us. He left majesty to live in humility.
He humbly worked as one of us with the same hands that formed the universe,
all to save us, even before we knew Him.
He is all powerful, yet for the joy before Him, He endured death on a cross for those who loved Him and those who hated Him.
After three days He opened the tomb they laid Him in and rose from death. Even now He opens His arms to beckon to all who labor and are heavy laden to give us life and rest.
My heart is bound and accountable to Christ’s heart who gave His blood to cleanse my soul of sin.
Duty as motivation is not worthy of comparison to the intimate resolve to love Christ. Christ’s love, when realized, goes beyond motivation, discipline, and dedication.
Christ’s love is limitless and the one who knows such love is confident in trials and courageous in tribulation.
The human mind may seek in vain to grasp the full scope of God’s love, but we should continually endeavor to do so.
Jesus Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, and everything in between.
His promises are sure and are anchored in His great love, which He publicly demonstrated on the cross for you and me.
And, believe me, when I say this; words can’t even begin to express to others this inexpressible love Christ is in the hearts of those who know Him.
Jesus is the Most Sacred Flame, the Light of the World, inextinguishable and inexhaustible, burning in the hearts of all who trust Him as Savior.
The totality of who Jesus is to all who know Him cannot be fully expressed because He transcends measure, time, and space.
The Definition of Insanity is to do the same thing over and over again while expecting a different outcome.
This concept can be true for scientific theory also, adding a multitude of repetitions to a scientifically flawed theory will not eventually make that theory true.
This was Darwin’s missing link in his science, when he made an unfounded assumption that short term adaptation of species eventually amounted to differentiation of entirely new species over millennia. The fossil record says no. Our fine-tuned and information rich DNA says no. In regards to biological origin, we now know the difference between the adaptation of a species and the creation of entirely different species.
If Darwin had known the science that we know now he never would have concluded that adaptation amounted to entirely different groups of species, even by adding millions and millions of years. Repeating bad science over and over again, even millions of times, and expecting a different outcome is Insanity.
This is also true for the Origin of the Universe. From the first 3 seconds of creation at the Big Bang to all the conditions that must be precisely as they are to support life on Earth, most scientists agree we live in a truly remarkable and finely tuned existence.
Steven Hawking claims he can explain why our universe is so finely tuned in so many ways. He calls his, “Theory of Everything “, M Theory.
M Theory is what Hawking calls a Multiverse. In Hawking’s Multiverse, an infinite number of universes are created by gravity, matter, and the laws of the universe. Hawking assumes that infinite repetitions repeated over and over again, we will eventually have a finely-tuned universe, and solar system, and planet with precisely all the conditions needed to sustain life as we know it. Repeating flawed theory over and over again, even to infinity, and expecting a different outcome is insanity.
Sir Roger Penrose is an equally qualified mathematician of physics who worked with Hawking and shared the 1988 Wolf Prize with Hawking for their work on understanding the universe. When asked what he thought about Hawking’s Multiverse Theory, Sir Penrose is reported as saying, “M Theory is far from testable”, “it isn’t even science.” And other notable scientists agree with Penrose.
But what M Theory may be is insanity. It certainly fits the definition of Insanity better than it fits the definition of science, which is that it must be testable and observable.
I am a Christian and believe God is the most plausible answer to everything.
The science of the fine-tuning of the Origin of the Cosmos above, and the fine-tuning of the information-richness contained within our DNA within each of us reaffirms my belief that, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.”
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1: 1-3, 14 NKJV)
“Follow Jesus, my brethren, and not the church, for our Lord has never said to his disciples, “Follow your brethren,” but he has said “Follow me.” He has not said, “Abide by the denominational confession,” but he has said, “Abide in me.” Nothing must come in between our souls and our Lord.” ~C.H.Spurgeon~ The Prince of Preachers
Darwin didn’t know in 1838 what we know now after decades of scientific research.
The missing link on which Darwin’s theory depends, never existed.
Darwin’s theory has evolved into an epic fail.
Darwin’s”science” can’t pass the test of scientific method.
Darwin’s theory of “Differences of Kind” does not stand up to it’s own test of ,”Observable Evidence”.
Darwin’s theory unravels with the introduction of “millions of years” thus again failing the “Observable Evidence” test.
Darwin’s “finches” show only adaptation, not what Darwin theorized to be “Differences of Kind”.
Neither biology or the fossil record show any proof in the form of “Observable Evidence” of “Differences of Kind” or transitional links in kinds among the 14 species of living things.
As time goes on, the evolution of scientific sophistication and accumulation of scientific evidence only confirms what we were told in the beginning.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Gen 1:1 NKJV)
The empirical question we can ask ourselves is this ; “Do I really want to know the truth?”
But do we know ourselves?
Are we aware that the integrity of the mind can be easily compromised by that which the heart refuses to believe?
The answer to these questions can free us from self imposed restrictions to living life to the fullest now and can lead us to full assurance for all our tomorrows.
The intellect is most often subject to that which we desire to be true and false.
That is the prejudice of the heart. We often consider something to be true or false based on more than intelligence.
So there must be a component in making the case for truth that appeals to our inner hunger for more than that which is tangible.
The message must contain resonance with our longings and then corresponding claims that cohere with reason.
Is it any wonder then that God initiates a relationship with us through an act of love?
He paid for our sins on the cross because He loves us.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. “ (John 3 :16)
His act of love is directed towards our hearts.
” With the heart man believes and is saved, by the mouth confession is made unto salvation. ” (Romans 10 :10)
When we come to truth we come to a relationship with Jesus, who says to us; “I am the way the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by Me.”
True Christianity is a relationship that satisfies the deepest longings of the heart and the biggest questions of man’s intelligence.
When we believe and ask Christ to save us, we ultimately come to a person and a relationship with the personage of Jesus Christ.
Do you want to know the Truth ? He is truth, and He is waiting for you.
“We love Him because He first loved us.”
(1John 4:19 NKJV)
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
(John 3:16 NKJV)
The real Jesus Christ draws people to Himself and is continually intriguing.
The personage and love of Jesus is unlimited in width and length and depth and height. Jesus is multi – dimensionally infinite.
“that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Eph 3:17-19 NKJV)
Why are so many people not drawn to church ?
Have so many of our churches become so shallow and uninteresting?
Perhaps we have adopted the world’s shallow 2 dimensional philosophy of the heart and mind. A mind devoid of a transformed heart is shallow by comparison with the renewed heart and mind.
To truly know Christ is to experience love that transcends that which the mind is even able to comprehend.
If the church can reflect Jesus Christ and God’s love to the world, people will be drawn to worship Christ as they were drawn to Him during His earthly ministry.
The transformed mind and heart will come to know Christ and His unlimited personage, divine personality, and infinite love.
Then we will be able to introduce Jesus to others.
To know Him and experience Him we must be rooted and grounded in love with Him through faith in Him.
“For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” (Rom 10:10 NKJV)
And then we must continually be, “grounded in love, “”that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” This is the path to transformation and then to ongoing discipleship.
Father God please help us know the width and length and depth and height of Jesus and His love so we can better share Him with everyone.
Did you know there was a war in Heaven?
It’s true, and some of the details of this incredible event are revealed to us in the Bible and have lasting implications for mankind.
“And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven,”
“Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death”.
“Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.”
(Rev 12:7-12 NKJV)
Lucifer was said to be the angel who reflected God’s glory. He wanted to be God and tried to overthrow God. One third of the angels followed him in this revolt. It is recorded in the Bible in Isaiah 14.
“How you are fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer, son of the morning!
How you are cut down to the ground,
You who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation
On the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’ Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol,
To the lowest depths of the Pit. “Those who see you will gaze at you,
And consider you, saying:
‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble,
Who shook kingdoms, Who made the world as a wilderness
And destroyed its cities,
Who did not open the house of his prisoners?’
(Is 14:12-17 NKJV)
The implications for mankind from this event have lead to the fall of mankind from relationship with God and the change from an innocent nature in mankind to a moral consciousness of right and wrong.
That also means we have become responsible for our actions, impure, and unable to know our Holy perfect God in our current state.
This happened in the Garden of Eden when the disobedience of first man and woman occurred after Satan tempted the woman saying, “You will be like God,”, the same prideful ambition Satan succumbed to.
And to bolster these claims we also know that the oldest book of the Bible, the book of Job, also portrays Satan as our accuser as he is referenced here, “the accuser of our brethren”, and the unseen reason for many of mankind’s sorrows and trials.
Satan appears to be desperately appealing to every possible scenario to prove that he has been unjustly judged by God as he awaits his sentence to be carried out.
But we have an advocate with Father God who is Jesus Christ His Son. He came from God to be one of us. He alone lived a perfect sinless life. He willfully died a cruel death to pay for our sins. He rose from the dead to defeat death and offer life to all who believe.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believes on him is not condemned: but he that believes not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
(John 3:16-18 KJV)
Jesus said;
“In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. ” (John 16:33)
Trust Him as your Savior today.
Rest in Him for all your tomorrows.
My wife and I were sitting in the office of a marriage counselor as he gave us an, “interview”.
We had hit the proverbial bump in the road and had just agreed to seek counseling after two months of separation.
I asked the counselor what purpose an interview with him would serve towards the reconciliation of our marriage.
He told me the purpose of the interview was to determine if the two of us sincerely wanted to know the truth about our relationship with one another, and how to mend it, and whether or not he was willing to be our marriage counselor.
I was shocked.
He continued to tell us how most people don’t really want to know the truth in regard to what is wrong with their marriage.
“I estimate about 90 percent of the people who come to me for help don’t really want to know the truth about what’s wrong and how to fix it,” he said.
That was twenty years ago and I still remember the feeling of shock I had at the thought that most of us, more often than not, are reluctant to know the truth even when our very lives depend on it.
Yes, it has been tough at times. But we’re still married after 37 years.
And we owe a great debt of gratitude to a counselor who dared to be painfully honest with us even though we could have easily been offended and walked out of the office that day.
We have learned a great lesson;
The truth is often hard to take, but is always best for us.
We should always follow the truth no matter where it leads us.
C. S. Lewis reflected on his conversion to Christianity in a similar way in his book, “Surprised by Joy”.
“You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.”
~C.S.Lewis~
Consider what Jesus said in regards to the truth ;
“And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
(John 8:32 NKJV)
“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
(John 14:6 NKJV)
The truth is that we all need Jesus as Savior before this life ends, reluctant as we may be to accept that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
The following comment is from a reader in Bavaria.
“I really saw that your site IS completely Christ-centered. Hats off! Such a thing is rarely to find.
“Every sermon should ultimately be about Jesus.” Tim Keller
This is absolutely true. I appreciate Tim Keller as well and I’d like to say that the Gospel Coalition “triumvirate” 😉 – often represented by Tim Keller, Don Carson, AND John Piper – consists of three Christ-centered preachers and teachers. They are all different, yet they complement each other perfectly.
Indeed, I loved reading this post. The only thing that makes me somehow sad is the fact that I do not know with whom I am talking here [OK OK, from your “About” I know that you are a man 🙂 ]. I abstained from saying, “Hello Christ Centered Teaching” since it sounds a bit strange in my ears. Do you not agree? Just flipping through Scripture, reading for example the introduction of Romans, a man introduces himself by writing,
“Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.” Rom 1:1)
You, too, are a faithful (!) servant of Him who has called you by your name, didn’t He? He chose you and you are precious in His eyes. God, your Father in Heaven, knew your name before you were born and He loves like His only son Jesus. Just imagine all the prophets of the Old Testament had not been given any names or we could only read gospel 1, gospel 2, gospel 3, gospel 4, and anonymous letters.
“You, too, my dear brother, have a prophetic voice which must be heard!”
I assume you may wonder why I insist on it that much. Who am I to do so? Honestly, the Lord urged me… Also, it grieved me a lot to read about your painful loss when you were only eleven years old. In fact, it was the same for my hubby Paul who was born in Chicago/Illinois. When he was about 9 years old [“about” because he can’t remember it], he was forced to return to Germany with his mother and his younger brother because their father had died in the 1970’s. Just in case they would have stayed in the USA, their mother as a German – unlike their American sons – would have had difficulties with retaining custody.
Well, that’s it for now, my brother in Christ.
Every blessing to you, your sister Susanne from Bavaria 🙂”
I appreciate each and every comment I recieve.
But this comment really has me thinking.
Some of you already know that I occasionally post expanded views of the works of Tim Keller, Viktor Frankl, and others.
Tim Keller did a sermon series titled,”Public Faith”, in which he states that we live in a culture that encourages us to be open about everything except our religious beliefs.
We are told that it is good to say what we believe about sexual preferences and everything else, but we are told to keep our views about religion, particularly Christian religious views, to ourselves.
And Viktor Frankl, the Austrian Phyciastrist who survived Auschwitz, who wrote one of the New York Times top ten most influential books of all time, “Man’s Search for Meaning”, would have published it anonymously if not for the urging of a close friend.
Frankl later realized that many more opportunities arose for him to help others because he published his book with his real name.
In contrast, I risk very little by being anonymous and my humility is not pumped up so much as to make me tempted to forget my first love, namely Jesus Christ.
I consider these men to be a few of my most admired and most Christ Centered Teachers.
So what do you think?
Would my name help the cause of Christ, or only serve to hurt it ?
Please prayerfully consider these things with me and share your thoughts in this forum with me.
“And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.”
I personally enjoy the study of Biblical end times prophecy.
The book of Revelation is the only book that states that the reader WILL be blessed in reading it.
But I’m also aware that the subject engenders fear in many.
If that wasn’t bad enough, most would agree that the Biblical prophecies and visions are hard to understand.
Nobody wants to live in fear of those days as they approach or as they unfold.
That is why I am eager to share this most remarkable truth.
If you only understand and believe one thing from the book of Revelation,make it this truth from chapter 12 and verse 11 that one thing. I also believe that if you miss this one truth, even if you understand everything else this book is about, you miss everything.
The book of Revelation from the Bible is the End Times, Last Days book that tells the prophecy about all the events leading up to the Battle of Armageddon and Christ’s Return, the millennium, and the Great White Throne of Judgment.
What is the secret clearly revealed to us?
It comes in three closely related aspects, the central of which is belief in Jesus Christ as savior.
First – “They overcame him,(satan),by the Blood of The Lamb”…
Those who have asked Christ and believed have Christ IN them.
Jesus said,”Greater is he who is IN you than he,(satan),that is in the world.”
The gospel of John 3:16 reads,”For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
Jesus is “The Lamb of God”,who died to pay for our sins, who rose in victory from the grave, and gives eternal life to all who ask by faith. He will hear your prayer today.
Second- “and by the word of their testimony”,…
Those who have trusted Jesus Christ as savior refuse to deny Him, no matter what happens.
Jesus said,“Also I say to you, whoever confesses Me before men, him the Son of Man also will confess before the angels of God. But he who denies Me before men will be denied before the angels of God.”(Luke 12:8,9)
For love,Jesus suffered openly for us to save us. We can honor Him as servants who are not above our Master.
Thirdly- “they did not love their lives to the death.”
The only way I see anyone having enough courage to remain unmoved from our testimony for Jesus in the face us death, is to love Jesus more than life itself.This is what He did for us on the cross.
King David said of God, “Your loving-kindness is better than life.”
Here’s the coolest thing about Revelation 12:11,… Since it is a prophecy it hasn’t happened yet.
Since it hasn’t happened yet, we can choose whether or not WE are the ones it prophesies about.
Remember,we can overcome by the Blood of The lamb.
It’s our choice.
Just ask Him to save you, and you have the most important thing to face anything that life could throw at you. And nothing or nobody will ever be able to take eternal life or Christ from you.
The Crucifixion (1622) by Simon Vouet; Church of Jesus, Genoa
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Look no further than the Gospels of Jesus Christ in the Bible for proof of His existence. Mankind could not have conceived the embodiment of such extremes in the leader of a man made religion.
Only Christianity has a founder who embodies the full spectrum of what it means to be human and does so in Holy perfection.
James Stewart said it well.
“He was the meekest and lowliest of all the sons of men, yet he spoke of coming on the clouds of heaven with the glory of God.
He was so austere that evil spirits and demons cried out in terror at his coming, yet he was so genial and winsome and approachable that the children loved to play with him, and the little ones nestled in his arms.
His presence at the innocent gaiety of a village wedding was like the presence of sunshine.
No one was half so compassionate to sinners, yet no one ever spoke such red hot scorching words about sin.
A bruised reed he would not break, his whole life was love, yet on one occasion he demanded of the Pharisees how they ever expected to escape the damnation of hell.
He was a dreamer of dreams and a seer of visions, yet for sheer stark realism He has all of our stark realists soundly beaten.
He was a servant of all, washing the disciples feet, yet masterfully He strode into the temple, and the hucksters and moneychangers fell over one another to get away from the mad rush and the fire they saw blazing in His eyes.
He saved others, yet at the last Himself He did not save. There is nothing in history like the union of contrasts which confronts us in the gospels. The mystery of Jesus is the mystery of divine personality.”
Compare this digital rendering of Human DNA with the stained glass window below it. DNA is magnificently ordered. Information with order is proof of intelligent origin.
The book of Genesis in the Bible records that God spoke all things into existence. God spoke and it was. DNA is an echo of what God said.
The question of origin is one of the biggest questions in life.
The answer to the source of life, our origin, could help answer the other big questions of, meaning, morality, and destiny.
The problem is that ideas and theories formed before the discovery of DNA.
And the facts about DNA unfolded little by little over decades, almost completely without being noticed for the deepest meaning of DNA.
Darwin formed his theory of Evolution long before DNA was even discovered, and even longer before we would discover the complexity of DNA.
DNA is not a complexity that is born out of randomness, but it is a complexity that is highly sophisticated and ordered.
In fact, the complexity of DNA transcends the realm of science and ushers us into the realm of the miraculous. Scientists agree despite themselves.
Sir Francis Crick for instance, who took credit for discovering the incredibly ordered appearance of the Double Helix form of DNA,
believed aliens must have brought DNA to Earth.
But in time we would learn that even Crick’s theory of alien supreme beings sending life on our planet only moves the question of a intelligent engineer / creator back one step without answering the question at all.
We are left to then ask, who was the supreme being who engineered and created the aliens ?
Later Crick would partially concede by calling the presence of life as we know it, Almost a miracle.
The issue here is that the universe is not old enough for random chance to assemble our level of complexity, and the same is then true for all life in the universe, such as alien life forms.
Mathematicians cannot find evidence to support Darwin’s theory of Evolution. On the contrary. When they calculated the odds of time plus matter plus chance arriving at complex human protein formation, they discovered the odds of Darwin’s theory are,”beyond ridiculous”. Even with 13 billion years since the Big Bang, our human proteins could not have formed by chance.
But we have understood far more about human proteins than we understand about our DNA language, which appears far more complex than proteins. Yes, DNA is a language. Remember that God spoke all things into existence?
One recent discovery, for example, is that geneticists recently found another layer of DNA that was previously “hidden” , it works in harmony with the previously known DNA.
And before that, scientists discovered that DNA that was labeled as unnecessary or “junk DNA” , is in fact absolutely necessary and serves functions we could not have previously envisioned.
It took years to map Human DNA, but mapping DNA is not understanding DNA. Scientists who know DNA best say that understanding the DNA language will keep them busy for the next 100 years.
Even if the universe was several times older than 13 billion years, the complexity of DNA could not have formed by random chance.
To put it in contrast, we are told that the universe has 10 to the 85th power total atoms. That’s the number ten followed by 85 zeros. A big number for sure.
Now picture a number 471 times bigger than that. That is the odds that life came into being by Darwinian random chance. It really is beyond ridiculous. That is 10 to the 40,000th power against Darwinian theory.
Even if the the presence of carbon in the universe halved that number, as some proposed, it would still be beyond ridiculous to believe Darwin.
Each strand of DNA contains 3.1 Billion bits of highly ordered information. The recently discovered additional layer of hidden DNA will no doubt increase that number above the 3.1 Billion bits of information. Our universe is 13 billion years old. You don’t have to be a mathematical genius to see evolutionary random chance simply could not have the time to assemble our DNA.
Even Hawking can’t understand the complexity of why the universe goes to,“all the bother of existing”.
Apparently Hawking discovered that in the properties of the laws of physics, the big bang had to be precise withing 1 Quintillionth of a second or the universe would have immediately re-collapsed on itself.
This was only one of some 31 contingent events that all had to happen with such exact properties and in precise correlation to each of the other that it would take more faith to believe the Big Bang happened by mere random chance than it would to believe the Big Bang was carefully orchestrated by God.
Hawking confidently stated that the universe didn’t need God?
Why does the scientific society cling to old scientific theories that have been proven false by newer scientific fact ?
That question is an even tougher one to answer.
What we now know about DNA means that it takes more faith to believe in evolution than to believe that God is our Creator.
As time goes on and scientific gains are made in all areas of proven scientific fact, all facts increasingly support the miraculous and Biblical account of God as Author and Creator.
Science really is discovering how God did it.
God spoke, and it was, and at the core of life DNA echoes what God said. Information with order equals intelligence. The all knowing intelligence of God.
Consider this. God made us for a relationship with Him. And God has gone to even greater lengths to make a way for us back to Him.
As it is written in God’s word about Jesus in the Bible.
“giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.
He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.”
(Colossians 1:12-16)
Why can’t more sermons be this Christ Centered ?
How often do our songs contain Christ Centered richness, but our sermons barely mention, let alone celebrate, the One who loved us with His own life?
Simply Crown Him The King of Life.
Crown him with many crowns,
the Lamb upon his throne,
Hark! how the heavenly anthem drowns
all music but its own.
Awake, my soul, and sing
of him who died for thee,
and hail him as thy matchless King
through all eternity.
Crown him the Lord of life,
who triumphed o’er the grave,
and rose victorious in the strife
for those he came to save.
His glories now we sing,
who died, and rose on high,
who died, eternal life to bring,
and lives that death may die.
Crown him the Lord of peace,
whose power a scepter sways
from pole to pole, that wars may cease,
and all be prayer and praise.
His reign shall know no end,
and round his pierced feet
fair flowers of paradise extend
their fragrance ever sweet.
Crown him the Lord of love;
behold his hands and side,
those wounds, yet visible above,
in beauty glorified.
All hail, Redeemer, hail!
For thou hast died for me;
thy praise and glory shall not fail
throughout eternity.
“Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image,”
(Genesis 1, The Bible)
Oxford scientists have discovered humans are unique from all species of living things.
The researchers identified two areas of the human brain that are both physically and functionality unique to humans.
Humans alone have physical portions of our brain designated to diserning good and evil.
Discribed as ,”Shaped like small stems of broccoli”, these areas are active when people are asked questions that challenge disernment between good and evil.
The significance of the fact that humans alone have the ability to judge good and evil has literally rocked the scientific and philosophical worlds.
But knowing the difference between good and evil does not mean that we can always choose to do good.
And that is where the issue of responsibility for our actions come becomes Biblical. That is what shows why only a Messiah, Jesus Christ, was necessary. Only Jesus could choose to do good and only the perfect and sinless One could pay for our sin.
The fact that we are physically different a major way confirms our Biblical description and need, and gives even more credence to the Jesus of the Bible.
Humans alone are designed to sense differences between good and evil, sin and righteousness.
We have the capacity to recognize Holiness even though we incapable of perfection ourselves.
Evolutionary theorists can no longer use animal behavior as a model for justification of human behavior and human cultural trends or sexual behavior.
Chimpanzees, Apes and Bonobo monkeys don’t have these uniquely human portions of the brain, nore do and other species of animal or mammal.
“And you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis in The Bible)
This new discovery supports the Biblical account of creation of the world and all that is in it.
Mankind was created by God and unique from all other species of creation to uniquely reflect the image of the Creator.
This new finding supports a non-evolutionary, Biblical account of creation, not primordial soup theory, or evolution at in any way.
The implications of a physical character of the human brain that is constructed to relate to a being who is the source of all that is good, holy, and righteous, is confirmation that humanity is unique in recognizing God for who and what He is. This is at the core of the truth most important to humanity.
The most important thing to humanity is to know we were created by God and for a relationship with God. And that sin separated us from God, but Christ died in our place to pay for our sin, and offers redemption to all who will only choose to receive Him as Lord and Savior.
“Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image,
according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”
(Gen 1:26-27 NKJV)
“For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.”
(Heb 4:2 NKJV)
18 inches is approximately the distance between the human heart and head.
It has been described as the longest distance we will ever travel.
And in the twenty first century western humanity is suffering from a pandemic of decapitation between our hearts and heads.
That is why this verse was very important to understanding the supremacy of faith in relation to how we grasp God’s truths from the Bible.
I remember how this scripture impacted me when I first realized that I was accustomed to filtering truth from error by intellect alone!
But God lives above this realm we live in. He created the natural realm with all it entails,but He is not subject to the laws of nature, for God is Supernatural.
Even our minds stumble at the thought of the miraculous.
But what is miraculous to us is quite simple to God.
Indeed, it is pure intellectual contempt and out right denial to even judge the possibility of the existence of an all powerful God by the laws of the natural realm that a true God could transcend in the first place.
God’s truths transcend the laws of logic and reason, just as God’s limitless power transcends the laws of physics ,nature and science in general.
All our science, truth, and natural laws coincide with God’s and even point back to Him as the single source of everything, but even science has repeatedly hit it’s head against the undeniable fact of the miraculous in all disciplines of nature from DNA to the Cosmos.
Our greatest science has only yielded greater questions that repeatedly defy scientific explanations and can only be explained by a transcendent miraculous being, the same being known for eons as God,Yahweh, Jehovah.
In light of the possibility of existence of a miraculous being, miracles make perfect sense.
Why has this verse been changed in so many new translations when it’s truth is so vitally important and needed?
The ESV, NIV 2011, and many others have caved to evolutionary science influences and a general Christlessness that has permeated western Christianity.
This can only attributed to the continued downward slide of western Christianity into the prophetic apostasy of the last days before Christ’s return.
But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
(2Tim 3:1-4 NKJV)
Christ Centered Teaching hopes to serve as a reminder to both this teacher and all seekers of truth that Christ alone is the source of all truth, the way to live.
Jesus is the life everlasting, and the only way to an eternal destiny of all we ever sought and hoped for.
Jesus Christ is the Divine God, Creator, Saviour, and Lover of Lost Souls who died for them, was buried and in three days He rose in victory over death. He gives eternal life to all who believe by faith and ask Him to come into their hearts.
Christ fills those hearts to overflowing.
Simply ask and by FAITH receive the gift of eternal life from the all knowing , all powerful, miraculous Lover of our souls.
Christ is more than words can describe, but I will continue to try to give readers a glimpse of who He is, but the one absolutely essential ingredient in knowing Jesus Christ is faith.
Without faith we cannot know Him or hope to know God.
With faith, we become family of God.
“He did not conquer in spite of the dark mystery of evil. He conquered through it.”
~James Stewart~
———————————
“It is a glorious phrase of the New Testament, that ‘he led captivity captive.’
The very triumphs of His foes, it means, he used for their defeat. He compelled their dark achievements to sub-serve his end, not theirs.
They nailed him to the tree, not knowing that by that very act they were bringing the world to his feet.
They gave him a cross, not guessing that he would make it a throne.
They flung him outside the gates to die, not knowing that in that very moment they were lifting up all the gates of the universe, to let the King of Glory come in.
They thought to root out his doctrines, not understanding that they were implanting imperishably in the hearts of men the very name they intended to destroy.
They thought they had defeated God with His back the wall, pinned and helpless and defeated: they did not know that it was God Himself who had tracked them down.
He did not conquer in spite of the dark mystery of evil. He conquered through it.”
“In a statement about Jesus Christ, Napoleon while he was exiled on the rock of St. Helena he called Count Montholon to his side and asked him,”
“Can you tell me who Jesus Christ was?” Upon the Count declining to respond Napoleon countered.”
“Well then, I will tell you. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and I myself have founded great empires; but upon what did these creations of our genius depend?”
“Upon force.”
“Jesus alone founded His empire upon love, and to this very day millions will die for Him.”
“I think I understand something of human nature; and I tell you, all these were men, and I am a man: none else is like Him; Jesus Christ was more than a man. I have inspired multitudes with such an enthusiastic devotion that they would have died for me but to do this it was necessary that I should be visibly present with the electric influence of my looks, my words, of my voice. When I saw men and spoke to them, I lighted up the flame of self-devotion in their hearts. Christ alone has succeeded in so raising the mind of man toward the unseen, that it becomes insensible to the barriers of time and space. Across a chasm of eighteen hundred years, Jesus Christ makes a demand which is beyond all others difficult to satisfy; He asks for that which a philosopher may often seek in vain at the hands of his friends, or a father of his children, or a bride of her spouse, or a man of his brother. He asks for the human heart; He will have it entirely to Himself. He demands it unconditionally; and forthwith His demand is granted. Wonderful! In defiance of time and space, the soul of man, with all its powers and faculties, becomes an annexation to the empire of Christ. All who sincerely believe in Him, experience that remarkable, supernatural love toward Him. This phenomenon is unaccountable; it is altogether beyond the scope of man’s creative powers. Time, the great destroyer, is powerless to extinguish this sacred flame; time can neither exhaust its strength nor put a limit to its range. This is it, which strikes me most; I have often thought of it. This it is which proves to me quite convincingly the Divinity of Jesus Christ.”
~Napoleon Bonaparte~
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Witness the power and reality of a man who knows Christ to such a degree that he became God’s prophet to the nations of the world.
Millions have come to know Christ through the ministry of the Reverend Billy Graham.
Watch this video and see how God has used and is still using Billy Graham as His instrument to bring life through Jesus Christ to a lost and dying world.
” For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16
” Our western civilization, like all others before it, must some time or other decompose and disappear. The world’s way of regarding intimations that this is happening is to engage equally in idiot hopes and idiot despair. On the one hand, some new policy or discovery is confidently expected to put everything to rights: a new fuel, a new drug, détente, world government, a common market, North Sea oil, revolution or counter-revolution. On the other hand, some disaster is as confidently expected to prove our undoing: Capitalism will break down, communism take over, or vice versa; fuel will run out, atomic wastes will kill us all, plutonium will lay us low, overpopulation will suffocate us.In Christian terms, such hopes and fears are equally beside the point. As Christians we know that here we have no continuing city, that crowns roll in the dust, and that every earthly kingdom must some time founder. As Christians, too, we acknowledge a King men did not crown and cannot destroy, just as we are citizens of a city men did not build and cannot destroy. It was in these terms that the apostle Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome and in Corinth, living as they did in a society as depraved and dissolute as ours—under a ruler, the emperor Nero, who makes even some of our rulers seem positively enlightened—with the games, which, like television, specialized in spectacles of violence and eroticism: “Be steadfast, unmoveable,” he exhorted them, “always abounding in God’s work and concerning yourselves with the things that are not seen; for the things that are seen are temporal, and the things that are not seen are eternal.” It was in the breakdown of Rome that Christendom was born, and now in the breakdown of Christendom there are the same requirements and the same possibilities to eschew the fantasy of a disintegrating world and seek the reality of what is not seen and is eternal—the reality of Christ. In this reality we see our only hope, our only prospect in a darkening world.”
“Beloved, because Jesus is the sum of the gospel he must be our constant theme.
“God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
“I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified.”
So spake men of old, and so say we.
When we have done preaching Christ we had better have done preaching; when you have done teaching in your classes Jesus Christ himself, give up Sunday school work, for nothing else is worthy of your pains.
Put out the sun, and light is gone, life is gone, all is gone.
When Jesus is pushed into the background or left out of a minister’s teaching, the darkness is darkness that might be felt, and the people escape from it into gospel light as soon as they can.
A sermon without Jesus in it is savourless, and worthless to God’s tried saints, and they soon seek other food.
The more of Christ in our testimony the more of light and life and power to save.”
To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, 6 and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen. Revelation 1:5,6
Do Everything in love.
We love because he first loved us.
1Corinthians 16:14 , 1John 4:19
November 12, 2023
Christ Centered Teaching
Christ Centered Teaching 