It is time to study these events as they are unfolding before us in our present times.
I challenge you to choose to let these events remind you that they are signals of Christ’s soon return.
This brief time of suffering is preceding a time of Heaven on Earth that lasts 1,000 years known as the Millennium.
We who know and trust Jesus as our Savior will rule and reign with Him.
I believe the first of what is known as the “Four Horseman of the Apocalypse” has already begun. Vladimir Putin and Russia , the rider on a White Horse who is given a Bow and is bent on conquest.
The next in far worse, the rider on a red horse to whom is given a large sword with which he takes peace from the Earth so that men kill each other. This must be China.
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 an new Heaven and a new Earth.
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 , the Four Horsemen , a great earthquake , the sealing of Gods Jewish servants , the Rapture and then the judgement of the Great Tribulation , hail and fire mixed with blood rain down of the earth, very likely a super volcanoe such as is under Antarctica, an Asteroid Strike , World War, The Fall of Babylon( America?) the Thousand Year Reign of Christ on Earth, The Battle of Armageddon, The Great Judgement Seat of Christ , the end of time and sorrow as Eternity in Heaven with God begins.
When Muslims flee Muslims to predominantly Christian countries for refuge, the claim that Islam is a Peaceful Religion dies a thousand deaths for every “good”Muslim that bad Muslims chase away.
The world is watching millions of refugees flee Islam, each refugee is a testament to the terror of Islam.
It is frustrating.
Well meaning and good people actually defending Islam unknowingly contribute to Muslim suffering .
We debate if Islam is a peaceful religion, when in fact it is both extremes.
This one thing will always reveal it as evil in the end. “No other God but Allah and no other religion but Islam” is the single most important objective in Islam, and this objective is drummed into Muslims through daily calls to prayer five times a day and broadcast from Mosques even in America. Islam demands no seperation of church and state. It is antithetical to democracy and freedom of speech. Islam beliefs call for jihad until the whole world is subdued for Allah. Only through thoughtful study of the Quran ,Hadiths, and the history of Muhammad and Islam that we can see Islam for what it really is.
Good Muslims flee bad Muslims and come to other countries, but bad Muslims eventually follow.
Good Muslims need to throw off the shackles of Islam for a completely peaceful religion, Christianity.
The most frustrating thing about talking to others about Islam, is that Islamic scriptures and commentaries are so violent and revolting to the civilized mind that quoting them sounds like lies to whoever hears you quote them. “No way is that true!” I repeatedly hear this from people who blindly defend Islam.
Yes. We dare not imagine an evil so unnatural, it inevitably engenders disbelief and denial. I get that. Why would anyone create a religion of violence and hate? But see it for what it really is. The World Trade Center fell as thousands of innocent people died and millions watched in disbelief, all of which was the result of a cult of hate.
Dear Muslim refugees. In the spirit of Christian love, I compel you to become Christian and flee from Islam, and be reconciled to God through faith in Christ. You have been lied to by your teachers.
God is a Father to all of mankind, and Jesus Christ is God Incarnate.
Your window of opportunity of freedom to choose your religion will not linger long if Islam follows you here. The Mosques and Imams will follow, and the daily prayers will drum once again from daybreak to sunset, and you and your loved ones will be lost. Now is the hour, today is the day.
Come to God through belief and acceptance of Jesus Christ, God incarnate. Only perfection can dwell with God. Only God is perfect. Only God could pay our sin debt on the cross.
“I am the way the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me.”
14″But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ.”
15″But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart.“
16″Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.”
17“Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”
(2 Corinthians 3:14-17, The Bible )
Dear Muslim,
leave Islam, come to Jesus Christ, for God came as Jesus Christ for you.
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.
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.
This book is the logical follow up to Nabeel Qureshi’s “Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus “, a New York Times best seller.
I was so impressed with Qureshi’s first book that I’ve re-read it four times.
Readers will vicariously witness what it is like for a devout Muslim and loving son to struggle with the conflict between western critical examination of truth, and Muslim unquestioning obedience to authority.
You will follow this quest for truth through the heart and mind of a top student and scholar, a trained and accomplished debater, as he pursues his Doctorate of Medicine degree.
Qureshi has a brilliant mind, a heart for God, and a love for mankind.
That is why I’m thrilled to recommend Nabeel Qureshi’s latest book that goes on sale today, “Answering Jihad “.
You can trust Nabeel’s heart and mind as a former devoted Muslim who is now fully devoted to Jesus Christ and the Biblical truth of Christianity.
Qureshi does not give a filtered version of Islam. This was a major concern I had when I first read the subject title.
I have a friend who is a former Muslim and already knew the shocking truths about Islam, Muhammad, and the Quran that most Muslims are not aware of.
As a Christian, I’ve found the foundational truths of my faith strengthened substantially by reading and studying Qureshi’s books.
Anyone who is concerned about civil liberty, freedom, civil safety and security, should buy and read this book.
I give it my highest rating for credibility and resource on a highly volatile subject concerning all the world.
Tyson likes to use Cosmos to advance Evolutionist propaganda. He also deletes most of my tweets.
Contrary to his opinion and that of many others, our best and latest science proves,
“In the beginning God”…
—————–
“If the universe had not been made with the most exacting precision we could never have come into existence. It is my view that these circumstances indicate the universe was created for man to live in.” –Robert Jastrow, agnostic astronomer, author of God and the Astronomers, former head of Goddard Space Center at NASA
“An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.” –Francis Crick, biochemist and spiritual skeptic, shared the Nobel Prize for discovering the molecular structure of DNA
“There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all….It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature’s numbers to make the universe….The impression of design is overwhelming.” – Paul Davies, an internationally known British astrophysicist and author
“When you realize that the laws of nature must be incredibly finely tuned to produce the universe we see, that conspires to plant the idea that the universe did not just happen, but that there must be a purpose behind it.” –John Polkinghorne, a leading Quantum Physicist
“It was my science that drove me to the conclusion that the world is much more complicated than can be explained by science, it is only through the supernatural that I can understand the mystery of existence.” – Allan Sandage, astrophysicist and discoverer of Quasar stars
“Many have a feeling that somehow intelligence must have been involved in the laws of the universe….I strongly sense the presence and actions of a creative being far beyond myself and yet always personal and close by.” –Charles Townes, Nobel Prize-winning physicist
“There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all….It seems as though somebody has fine tuned nature’s numbers to make the Universe….The impression of design is overwhelming.” –Paul Davies
“A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.” –Fred Hoyle
“Discoveries of the last half of the 20th century have brought the scientific community to the realization that our universe and our planet in the universe are so remarkably unique that it is almost impossible to imagine how this could have happened accidentally, causing many agnostic scientists to concede that indeed some intelligent creative force may be required to account for it.” –Dr. Walter Bradley, Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A & M University
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)
“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.”
“He did not conquer in spite of the dark mystery of evil. He conquered through it.”
~James Stewart~
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“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.”
” 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.”
“WHAT ANSWER FOR THE WICKED HUMAN HEART, PART 1 OF 2”
In this audio, the speaker reveals how he is often invited to speak with some of the world’s richest and most influential people.
On one occasion, the speaker was invited to go on a private yacht owned by a very wealthy man who had recently come to Christ through attending an event.
Before the speaking event, this man told the speaker that he only came to fulfill a promise to his own wife that he would be there.
Ravi then told the man that having fulfilled his promise to be there, he could leave at any time while he is speaking if he chooses, and that would be okay.
Instead, the man accepted Christ as his Savior at the event.
This man then invited many of his own friends, and the speaker, to a private yacht cruise along the coast of Sicily.(perhaps in hope they would find new life in Christ as well).
This audio tells of a man on that cruise who also became a Christian when he finally understood true love and relationships all have conditions for them to exist.
“Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” (John 8:12)
Imagine a painter throwing away half of his or her color palette.
Or imagine a black and white photograph without white, only shades of dark gray.
Whether the subject is painting,photography,theater, or literature, all the above involve using contrasts to make images or tell stories.
Painters use colors ranging from light to dark.
Photographers use bright sunlight to dark shadows.
Theater and literature use contrasts in good and evil, peace and conflict, justice and injustice, love and hatred,truth and falsehood.
Now imagine a World that no longer accepts or believes in Absolute Truth, where the contrasts between right and wrong are no longer clear, and men stumble in the darkness because they cannot see.
Written in 1984 ,Francis Schaeffer’s last book “Marking the Watershed” reads like a prophetic foretelling of what our future would look like if we fail to put Christ first in our hearts. In fact, it reads like a prequel to Ravi Zacharias‘s 2013 open letter to America.
Schaeffer uses a watershed as an illustration. A Watershed is a place where snow would accumulate in the mountain peaks, and is it melts, the water would separate go in opposite directions and eventually end thousands of miles apart. Schaeffer saw this beginning to happen to Christianity in regards to Biblical infallibility among evangelical Christian leaders as early as the early 1970’s.
My summary-Christianity ,in the past, has influenced the moral consensus for political debate, art, and books and movies in the United States of America, and the World. Now we are the minority, and so is our ability to influence culture.
As I’ve said before ,the will of the people is good so long as the people are good .</strong
These following excerpts,though almost thirty years old, resonate with current relevance.
“the Bible’s absolutes provide a consensus within which freedom can operate. But once the Christian consensus has been removed, as it has been today, then the very freedoms which have come out of the Reformation become a destructive force leading to chaos in society.” Francis Schaeffer
“The primary emphasis of biblical Christianity is the teaching that the infinite-personal God is the final reality, the Creator of all else, and that an individual can come openly to the holy God upon the basis of the finished work of Christ and that alone. Nothing needs to be added to Christ’s finished work, and nothing can be added to Christ’s finished work. But at the same time where Christianity provides the consensus, as it did in the Reformation countries (and did in the United States up to a relatively few years ago), Christianity also brings with it many secondary blessings. One of these has been titanic freedoms, yet without those freedoms leading to chaos, because the Bible’s absolutes provide a consensus within which freedom can operate. But once the Christian consensus has been removed, as it has been today, then the very freedoms which have come out of the Reformation become a destructive force leading to chaos in society. This is why we see the breakdown of morality everywhere in our society today — the complete devaluation of human life, a total moral relativism, and a thoroughgoing hedonism.”
“Without a strong commitment to God’s absolutes, the early church could never have remained faithful in the face of the constant Roman harassment and persecution. And our situation today is remarkably similar as our own legal, moral, and social structure is based on an increasingly anti-Christian, secularist consensus.”
The New Neo-Orthodoxy
There is only one way to describe those who no longer hold to a full view of Scripture. Although many of these would like to retain the evangelical name for themselves, the only accurate way to describe this view is that it is a form of neo-orthodox existential theology. The heart of neo-orthodox existential theology is that the Bible gives us a quarry out of which to have religious experience, but that the Bible contains mistakes where it touches that which is verifiable — namely history and science. But unhappily we must say that in some circles this concept now has come into some of that which is called evangelicalism. In short, in these circles the neo-orthodox existential theology is being taught under the name of evangelicalism.
Martin Luther said, “If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at the moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved and to be steady on all the battle front besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.” (1)
“For the existentialist it is an illusion to think that we can know anything truly, that there is such a thing as certain objective truth or moral absolutes. All we have is subjective experience, with no final basis for right or wrong or truth or beauty. This existential world view dominates philosophy, and much of art and the general culture such as the novel, poetry, and the cinema.”
The EU has already given over a lot of land to Islam without a single shot being fired. They occupy, use gangs to harass, put up signs declaring Sharia law, and then throw stones at first responders, so that even law enforcement agencies won’t go there. Sweden just started allowing public prayers to go out morning,noon, and night. Can’t happen here? All they need is persistent patience and time. And more presidents like O. Did you know the head of our CIA is Muslim? I’ve studied Islam. The Koran does not separate the powers of church and state. The Koran insists they be combined and that the supreme law be Sharia law, the law of Islam.
The idea of Islam being a peaceful religion should have been clearly disproven to everyone by know.
What can we do?
Laws may help, for sure, but what about the example I talked about above? Islam took over an entire district of the third largest city in Belgium. Could Dearborn be taken over the same way?
Here’s my answer. Know what you believe.
Muslims know what they believe and that they believe is that people must submit to Allah, it is forced religion enforced by Sharia law. In fact the word “Islam” means “Submit”.
Here’s what I believe.
Christianity today in America is confused and no longer provides a consensus of integrity whereby it can effectively influence a free society to be responsible with the very freedoms it once crafted and that we have long enjoyed.
The truth is that for decades now, Christianity has been a poor reflection of the love of God while also attempting to influence society to embrace it’s moral standard.
Someone said, “Rules without relationship breeds resentment.”
True Christianity isn’t a set of rules though Christianity has rules, the heart of being a Christian is being able to say, Jesus Christ died for me and I trust His sacrifice for my sin, He is my savior.
Then if its genuine, Christ puts His Spirit in us and begins to influence our hearts only God can do from the inside out.
And He promises never to leave us or forsake us.
No other religion on earth has a relationship like this, where a God became man, lived humbly and sinless with us and then died for us to take away sin, then offers it as a gift of love by faith.
Islam offers no assurance of salvation besides dying for Allah.
Christianity does offer assurance of salvation, but God as Christ died for us.
Someone said that radical Islam is not the greatest threat in the world. Mediocre Christianity is the greatest threat in the world.
Last word. If you don’t like what you see in Christians, look at Christ in the Bible. You’ll find nothing wrong with Him. My motto is,Don’t follow Christians, follow Christ.
“To the distinguished Character of Patriot, it should be our highest Glory to add the more distinguished Character of Christian.”
~George Washington~
(May 2, 1778, at Valley Forge)
“The blessed Religion revealed in the word of God will remain an eternal and awful monument to prove that the best Institutions may be abused by human depravity; and that they may even, in some instances be made subservient to the vilest of purposes.”
~George Washington~
Moral Principal is no longer a mutually forgone conclusion, and no longer frames healthy debate to the degree that our politicians can agree on anything enough to affectively govern.
Without a clear definition of right and wrong there is no basis for healthy reasoning.
Right and wrong look more like shades of gray instead of black and white.
Instead of civil discourse, power struggles, gridlock, and underhanded dealings rife with slander have become the means of politics of our once great nation.
Hollywood no longer has a clear definition of right and wrong and therefore finds it difficult to effectively tell a good story. Every artist knows contrast gives definition, be it photography,paintings,storytelling, and movie making.
And the church, not the Bride of Christ whom God alone can confirm, but the small ,”c”, institutions church in America, have turned many away through not proclaiming Christ above all else. And moralism drives those seeking genuine compassion away, and likely never to return.
If you want to view a true reflection of what Christianity should be, look at the life of Jesus in the Bible.
You will find nothing wrong with Him.
“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
(Matthew 11:28-30)
“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
English: John Calvin Deutsch: Maße: 41 x 29,5 cm, Johannes Calvin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.” ~Jesus Christ speaking to the Pharisees~ John 5:39
Christ is due the supreme preeminence in everything befitting His supreme nature over everything.
This is what it means to be Christ Centered. To emphasize Christ Alone. Jesus is the center of our spiritual universe.
It is up to today’s reformers to have the courage to influence a more Christ-like Church as the reformers of 500 years ago.
But we will only become more Christ-like if we hear and are told about Christ.
He is Immanuel, meaning ,God with us. (Matthew 1:23)
The Five Solus came from the early reformers in response to doctrinal errors that had crept into the Catholic faith.
That is not the best way to define your doctrinal distinctions because you are limited to the perceived errors you are responding to and will likely miss something.
The early church fathers and reformers missed the need to state with absolute certainty that,”in all things Christ might have the preeminence.”
Did the reformers assume that everyone would know Christ was supreme and it need not be said?
I think a close examination of the Five Solas support that theory because they come close to making that statement.
But as they say,”good enough never is.”
The fact is that mankind is prone to selfish pride that wars against our humble Savior’s rightful place in our hearts.
Christ is our religion, it’s all about Him, yet many, maybe most sermons I hear fall short of giving Christ supreme preeminence .
A popular radio preacher, Dr.D.J. can preach about Grace for 20 minutes on the radio without mentioning Christ more than once or twice.
Does D.J. take it for granted we all know Christ brought Grace to mankind?
Or a ministry who primarily focuses on family instead of Christ will talk about relationship issues without mentioning Christ.
Do they imply Christ is not the answer to all that ails mankind?
Do they just assume we all know that only Jesus can fix all that is wrong with society?
Practical advice should be part of the answer, but in Christianity, it should never be the preeminent answer.
Jesus saves, Jesus transforms and Jesus makes all things new.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”
Sola Scriptura – Scripture Alone Sola Christus – Christ Alone Sola Gratia – Grace Alone Sola Fide – Faith Alone Sola Deo Gloria – The Glory of God Alone
Each of the Five existing Solas depend on Christ. Jesus is the Lliving Word of God, the Way, the Truth and the Life. He is the Living Scriptura. Christ is the one mediator between God and man, the Sola Christos. Christ’s death and resurrection made God’s Grace available to mankind. Jesus is the Sola Gratia. Christ said, “believe in Him whom God has sent.” Christ is the Sole Fide, in whom we place our Faith Alone. Jesus is our bridge to Sola Deo Gloria, Christ is also our one mediator between God and man as we approach the Father in worship, thanksgiving, and praise. Without Christ, we could not know the Father.
“Unwarranted confidence in human ability is a product of fallen human nature … God’s grace in Christ is not merely necessary but is the sole efficient cause of salvation. We confess that human beings are born spiritually dead and are incapable even of cooperating with regenerating grace. We reaffirm that in salvation we are rescued from God’s wrath by his grace alone. It is the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit that brings us to Christ by releasing us from our bondage to sin and raising us from spiritual death to spiritual life. We deny that salvation is in any sense a human work. Human methods, techniques or strategies by themselves cannot accomplish this transformation. Faith is not produced by our unregenerated human nature.” – Cambridge Declaration
Christ must take the place of preeminence in all that is Christian.
Our doctrine must relate to Christ and be founded in Christ who is the Author and Finisher of our faith.
“looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”(Hebrews 12:2)
Our problems must find their solutions in Christ, and in knowing Him, and becoming like Him as we grow.
“And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.” (Colossians 1:18)
To give preeminence is to place supreme emphasis upon.
The Five Solus deal primarily with redemption and the Biblical basis and authority concerning redemption.
The reformers came very close to making a complete distinction of Christ in this regard, but we cannot afford to assume people know the critical importance of giving Christ preeminence in all things.
We must emphasize Christ as completely as we are called to love Him completely.
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 9,700 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 16 years to get that many views.
“Study the art of science and the science of art.”
“Especially, learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else”
~Leonardo da Vinci~
This quote by da Vinci reveals the primary guiding principles of one of the great minds of art and science.
As a Christian, I can see how da Vinci had discovered that all things were connected.
Connection implies a common origin.
Scripture states that ALL things came from Christ.
In Christ all things find origin and connection.
Colossians 1:17 “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 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. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”
(Colossians 1:15-20)
This big wheel of life centers on Christ. He is the one of whom all things begin and end and are held together.
Christ is the Center by which all things are connected.
The Gospel story begins with the fall of mankind into sin and death and being cast from God’s presence, and God personally coming down to us to rescue us.
The whole idea of God becoming a man in order ,”to seek and to save that which was lost,” has long been a main sticking point for many.
But the story of a parent of a child who was,”lost”, into the sex trade in Argentina gives validation to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The love this parent shows is not unlike the love that God our father has for all of us.
Her name is Susana Trimarco.
Her daughter was taken from her.
She so loved her daughter, Marita, that she would do anything to rescue her. She disguised herself as one of them and went where they are. She rescued many, sadly her daughter is not among the hundreds she has rescued. She has started a campaign that has changed the face of Argentina and sex trafficking in the world, an army of people rising up to set the captives free.
Today, thousands have been set free.Still her daughter is not among them.
In her quest to find her daughter I am reminded of a loving God who became one of us in order to save us.
“The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” —which means, “God with us.” (Matthew 1:23)
Sex trafficking is a worldwide problem.
(It is likely that there is no country on Earth that has felt impact this crime.)
So it is with our relationship to God. We are all born lost. We are all in need of saving.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but everlasting life.” John 3:16
Madam, I pray to God in the name of Jesus Christ his Son, that your love is rewarded by the rescue of your daughter who you so love,…in Jesus name. Amen
BUENOS AIRES, Dec 12 2012 (IPS) – The courtroom broke out in angry shouts and cries when judges in Argentina unexpectedly acquitted 13 defendants accused of kidnapping a young woman and forcing her into prostitution in 2002.
The high-profile trial for the kidnapping of María de los Ángeles “Marita” Verón, who is still missing, ended late Tuesday after a four-hour delay by the three-judge panel in the courtroom in the northwest province of Tucumán.
The judges said there was no evidence that the seven men and six women kidnapped Verón.
Susana Trimarco, Verón’s mother, said she would try to get the three judges impeached, and accused them of receiving bribes. “We aren’t going to stop until these crooks are dismissed from their posts,” she said after the verdict was read out.
Trimarco later told a local TV station about a conversation she had after the trial with President Cristina Fernández, who gave her a human rights award on Sunday Nov. 9. “Cristina was shouting; she couldn’t believe it,” the activist said.
“The scenario is all too common, Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney Shea Rhodes told the City Council on Tuesday in describing how “modern-day slavery” ensnares women and children into forced labor and commercial sex.”
“The sex-trafficking of U.S. children is America’s dirty, little secret.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, human trafficking is the second fastest growing criminal industry — just behind drug trafficking.Approximately half of all victims are children.
The National Human Trafficking Resource Center estimates it’s a $32 billion industry, with about 50% of this revenue coming from industrialized countries. This surpasses the sale of illegal arms.”
What Kind of Tone Is Appropriate in Christian Discussion?
Christians are to be gentle ,kind, lovingly compassionate, meek and humble, like Christ. That much is obvious, though not always common.
But what about some of the examples of situations where Christ was angry, or when the Apostle Paul burned with indignation?
I think it depends on the situation. Christians are suffering from a stifling and un-Biblical monotonic response to the issues we face today.
We believe one tone should apply to everything, yet Indignation is also Biblical.
Keep in mind that silence was only used by Christ during the trial for crucifixion, when He willfully gave up His life for you and I. He said nothing in His own defense.
There are many shades of Christian communication, and all are Christ like. For instance,… are you trying to encourage? For the most part ,be gentle.
Are you exhorting and spurring others on? Be hopeful and thankful.
Or are you defending the most precious life-giving Gospel,the Blood of Jesus, and Grace of God from the self-righteousness of moralistic legalists who always demand our own works be tacked on to Christ’s work? (Legalism)
Now that’s a different story. Take the Apostle Paul for instance.
II Corinthians 11:29 Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn with indignation? (NKJV)
Christians today need to find their voices! Rightly dividing the word of God means 2 Corinthians 11:29 is in the mix.
Our insight as to when to speak up and which tone to use may make the difference as to whether we speak up at all.
Unlike the message we are all getting from our Post-modern world today, God never meant us to keep silent, He said ,”Go and Preach the Gospel.”
A lot of essential Biblical examples stand out in regard to what tone is right and when we should use them.
Too many issues demand our voices!
A great example is this video that went viral and caused an uproar with some of the so-called,”pillars” in modern Christendom.
In the video,Jefferson Bethke Kicks the proverbial Snot Out of Legalism!
But he has a much more subtle tone than Jesus does in Luke 11:44 !
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like graves which are not seen, and the men who walk over them are not aware of them.”
Or Jesus in Matthew 23:13
“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.”
In fact, Bethke is well below the tone Jesus used to beat down the self-righteous Pharisees of His day!
And Bethke is also doing the Church a service just like the Apostle Paul in the book of Galatians!
Only Bethke is milder than Paul too! Like in Gal.1:6
“If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!”
In fact,Paul was far more direct as he beat down the legalists, and he even,”withstood Peter to his face.” This is the big ,long earful that Peter heard from Paul in front of Barnabas and many others. Galatians 2:11- 21
“When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. 12 Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. 13 The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.
14 When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?
15 “We who are Jews by birth and not ‘Gentile sinners’ 16 know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.
17 “If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! 18 If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker. 19 For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
Paul got in Peter’s face in front of everybody, to defend the blood of Jesus as the ONLY means to be saved!
So don’t let them make you back pedal Jefferson Bethke. Take heart!
You aren’t bashing the Church. On the contrary!
If a person loves Jesus and His Bride the Church, then he will defend the ONLY means to establish the Church.
The pure, true Gospel established by the washing and regeneration of the pure, perfect blood of Jesus Christ on the cross is the ONLY way the Church can ever exist.
Your statement is right in line with guys who have made all the difference when it counted, like Paul, and Luther, and countless others.
Map showing the relative proportion of Christianity (red) and Islam (green) in each country. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The essence of any religion is the fundamental truths it is founded upon.
That would comprise a religion’s Fundamentalism.
A “Fundamentalist”,is one who attempts to strictly adhere to a religion’s fundamentals.
The word fundamental can mean something good or bad, depending on a religion’s core truths.
The Supreme Doctrines of Christianity and Islam are polar opposites.
“Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:34-40)
“Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.” Romans 12:21
God wants us to love Him, and has provided the ultimate reason to desire to love Him by loving and giving His one and only Son, Jesus Christ as a sacrifice, the just for the unjust, on the cross. God WINS our love and trust.
“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.”(John 3:16)
In contrast to that, Islam means,”Submit to Allah”, and force is the means Allah’s word, the Koran, imposes.
Free will is forcefully denied by this fundamental belief of Islam.
(Read the following quotes from the Koran)
Qur’an:8:39 “Fight them [who do not believe] until all opposition ends and all submit to Allah.”
Ishaq:324“He said, ‘Fight them so that there is no more rebellion, and religion, all of it, is for Allah only. Allah must have no rivals.'”
Qur’an:8:65 “O Prophet, urge the faithful to fight. If there are twenty among you with determination they will vanquish two hundred; if there are a hundred then they will slaughter a thousand unbelievers, for the infidels are a people devoid of understanding.”
Qur’an:9:5 “Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war.”
Qur’an:9:29 “Fight those who do not believe until they all surrender, paying the protective tax in submission.”
Qur’an:47:4 “When you clash with the unbelieving Infidels in
battle (fighting Jihad in Allah’s Cause), smite their necks until you overpower them, killing and wounding many of them. At length, when you have thoroughly subdued them, bind them firmly, making (them)captives. Thereafter either generosity or ransom (them based upon what benefits Islam) until the war lays down its burdens. Thus are you commanded by Allah to continue carrying out Jihad against the unbelieving infidels until they submit to Islam.”
Free World listen!! It is clear! Democracy was born out of Christinity’s “Unalienable rights” and the belief that “all men are CREATED equal”.
Allah demands we all SUBMIT to him. Or die.
Islam is fundamentally tyrannical.
God’s desire is for us is to LOVE Him, and He personally came down to us to die for our sins and defeat death for us.
What more could He do ?
“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.” (John 3:16)
God did this to set is free from sin and death. Christianity is fundamentally liberaiting.
“If the Son of Man sets you free you shall be Free indeed.”
Different core beliefs, different fundamentals, different fundamentalists.
Additional verses and links
Qur’an Sura 4:34, “Men have authority over women because [Allah] has made the one superior to the other… Good women are obedient… As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them. Then if they obey you, take no further action against them…”
Cruising the blogosphere or Twitter can be very revealing.
It seems you can always find a comment or article by someone expressing concern for an apparent lack of focus on works and holiness on the part of Christians. They almost always quote James 2:17.
“Even so faith, if it has not works, is dead, being alone.”(James 2:17)
And then you have another group who only wants to quote about love.
“If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”(1 Corinthians 13:3)
Both are true. The Answer is in closing the theological loop of the Faith and Works Debate.
Faith without Works is dead.
Works without Love is Nothing.
The only question is; “How do we find this LOVE we need so our works will amount to something instead of nothing?”
This is how,…
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus. He is God in flesh and He came here just to save us and make us His own.
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus and His cross. Jesus was born to die there. He took our sins on Himself. He was perfect and Holy. Christ alone was worthy to pay our debt.
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus and His resurrection from the dead. He conquered death so He alone could give life to all who come to Him in faith, believing Christ died for them and accepting Him as Lord and Savior.
“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the JOY set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2)
The Virgin Birth – Christianity Has a Divine Founder Who Is Fully God and Fully Man- Jesus Christ.
Whose Son Is the Christ?
(From The Bible) Matthew 22:40-46
” While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?”
“The son of David,” they replied.
He said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’? For he says,
‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.”
If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?” No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions.”
Simply put….
God didn’t make another God. Jesus is God as fully man and fully God.
The Holy Spirit of God made life happen in the virgin, Mary’s womb.
God can do anything as big as He wants.
Even if His ways are bigger than our minds can grasp.
Ayn Rand,Author of Atlas Shrugged, First Appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, 1967
Part 1 of 2
Part 2 of 2
Part 1 -This is the same interview from a different source in case the first one has been removed again-
Part 2 – This is the same interview from a different source in case the first one has been removed again-
“Mankind suffers from two excesses: to exclude reason, and to live by nothing but reason.” ~ Blaise Pascal~ Faith owns the comprehension of things eternal.
Reason owns the comprehension of things temporal.
The eternal transcends the temporal.
Carson did an incredible job interviewing Rand. Although the video is 26 minutes long, the basis for her beliefs and philosophy are revealed in the first few minutes.
He starts right off by asking her,“What are the basic principles of your definition of objectivity and of your philosophy you believe in ?”
Her answer said it all, “The basic principle of objectivism is that man must be guided exclusively by reason.”
This glaring hole in her philosophy exposes her atheism,which she openly professed to believe.
We all have the right and freedom to choose our own path and destiny, but to deny the laws that govern the means of arriving at our desired destination belong to our creator, whom she openly denies to exist.
“The just shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:17)
The laws of reason and nature do not dictate the actions or ability of the Creator.
Rather, God dictates the laws that apply to us, and He lives beyond those limitations.
To believe in God’s unlimited abilities is to have faith, which transcends reason.
The seeds of postmodernism can be found in her belief that we should arrive at the same moral truth purely by reason.
Time has proven Rand is wrong.
She believed that altruism and self interest were in opposition to each other and that society must choose one or the other.
Yet she even conceded to Carson that philosophy had many definitions for morality and what is ethical.
Rand believed in capitalism. What she failed to see was that capitalism only works so long as democracy is sustained.
Democracy is dependent on freedom, and freedom requires personal responsibility.
Personal responsibility requires a moral standard. Jesus is that standard, and His sacrifice is our model.
A moral standard is sameness.
This is where Ayn Rand has been proven wrong.
The predominate philosophy today is postmodernism, the belief that,”what you believe is okay for you and what I believe is okay for me.”
Postmodernism does not fulfill Rand’s vision of a single standard for morals and ethics.
Having come from an extreme socialist country, Russia, she clearly disavowed forced altruism,which is what socialism is.
But Rand however did not disavow Communism’s atheism. For had she embraced Christianity, she would have seen in Christ, the inspiration for self sacrifice that most of our founding fathers saw and followed.
Jesus Christ is the supreme symbol of moral standard many signers of our Declaration of Independence followed when they willfully gave their lives and possessions for a higher ideal.
Ayn Rand’s philosophy is anti-socialistic, which would appeal to fiscal conservatives who do not have a well developed religious philosophy.
The problem is that Ayn Rand’s philosophy is also fatally anti-democratic.
Selfishness leads to greed, which is not only morally wrong, it is killing our politics, banking system, government and people.
And when self becomes the god of a nation, democracy fails.
John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (NIV Bible)
Proverbs 19:17 “He who has pity on the poor lends to the Lord,
And He will pay back what he has given.”
“Mankind suffers from two excesses: to exclude reason, and to live by nothing but reason.” ~ Blaise Pascal~
Based on Tim Keller’s book ,”Counterfeit Gods”, this may be Jefferson Bethke’s best work yet.
They say ,”Counterfeit God’s”,may be Tim Keller’s best work yet.
And the two combined make for a powerful video with a strong Christian message.
We all worship something. We are hope based creatures, and all place our hope or happiness in something or someone.
But even the best of us will let you down.
But Jesus never will.
If we pin our hopes or happiness on it, that is a clue it is a counterfeit god.
If we can’t give it up, we don’t own it, it owns us, and is a counterfeit god.
Counterfeit Gods take many forms like jobs, money, possessions, duty,style,sex,drugs, pleasure,ease,companionship, power, accomplishment,even religion.
None of these things would die for us.
None of these things give ultimate hope.
But Jesus did die for us.
All other things, if you serve them, will take everything from you.
He is the only God who gave everything for you.
Why not give everything to the only true God who will never betray you?
“Look unto me, and be you saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. I have sworn by myself, the word has gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.”(Isaiah 45:22 45:23)
To behold God is to behold Perfectly complete beauty.
To behold God is at once to be amazed in rapture and awe. All of nature’s glory combined can’t come close to the glory of the one Creator.
We will see God. Everyone will behold His glory and splendor, and will desire nothing more than to bask in His presence forever. We will kneel before Him and His perfect majesty.
I personally believe that even the unquenchable torments of the fires of Hell will not compare with the eternal torment of having witnessed God in all His splendor, and not being able to partake in His eternal presence, but being eternally cast from Him whom we were created to adore.
The Book of Life will be opened, and all who’s name are not written in it will be cast into the Lake of Fire. But I can’t help but believe that the thing that will be even worse than Hell’s fire will be the experience God’s presence and then being torn away from Him and His perfect love,perfect beauty and glory forever.
John 1:12 “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:”
What does it mean to be Christ Centered?
It means to give all the focus of all your faculties to Christ.
All your heart.
All your mind.
All your strength.
All because He so fully ,and completely loved us with all He is.
Even to suffer and die for us.
“Ha hisszük, hogy a názáreti Jézus valóban Isten egyszülött Fia, és hogy ebbe a világba jött, és meghalt a Golgotán a mi bűneinkért, és feltámadott, hogy megigazítson bennünket, s hogy új életet adjon, és hogy felkészítsen bennünket a mennyre – ha valóban hisszük ezeket, akkor mindezekből az a szükségszerű következtetés jön, hogy Jézusnak akkor igenis teljes joga van az egész életünkhöz, bármely korlátozások nélkül!”
“If we believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the only begotten Son of God and that He came into this world and went to the cross of Calvary and died for our sins and rose again in order to justify us and to give us life anew and prepare us for heaven – if you really believe that, there is only one inevitable deduction, namely that He is entitled…
English: A male House Sparrow in Victoria, Australia in March 2008 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This stood out in Spurgeon’s commentary on the first part of Psalm 102:
Can you relate?
“He who has felt himself to be so weak and inconsiderable as to have no more power over his times than a sparrow over a city, has also, when bowed down with despondency concerning the evils of the age, sat himself down in utter wretchedness to lament the ills which he could not heal. Christians of an earnest, watchful kind often find themselves among those who have no sympathy with them; even in the church they look in vain for kindred spirits; then do they persevere in their prayers and labours, but feel themselves to be as lonely as the poor bird which looks from the ridge of the roof, and meets with no friendly greeting from any of its kind,”
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Psalm 102:1-7
A prayer of an afflicted man. When he is faint and pours out his lament before the Lord.
1 “Hear my prayer, O Lord; let my cry for help come to you. 2 Do not hide your face from me when I am in distress. Turn your ear to me; when I call, answer me quickly.
3 For my days vanish like smoke; my bones burn like glowing embers. 4 My heart is blighted and withered like grass; I forget to eat my food. 5 Because of my loud groaning
I am reduced to skin and bones. 6 I am like a desert owl,
like an owl among the ruins. 7 I lie awake; I have become
like a bird alone on a roof.”
“Verse 5. By reason of the voice of my groaning my bones cleave to my skin. He became emaciated with sorrow. He had groaned himself down to a living skeleton, and so in his bodily appearance was the more like the smoke-dried, withered, burnt-up things to which he had previously compared himself.”
“It will be a very long time before the distresses of the church of God make some Christians shrivel into anatomies, but this good man was so moved with sympathy for Zion’s ills that he was wasted down to skin and bone.”
“Verse 6. I am like a pelican of the wilderness, a mournful and even hideous object, the very image of desolation. I am like an owl of the desert; loving solitude, moping among ruins, hooting discordantly. The Psalmist likens himself to two birds which were commonly used as emblems of gloom and wretchedness; on other occasions he had been as the eagle, but the griefs of his people had pulled him down, the brightness was gone from his eye, and the beauty from his person; he seemed to himself to be as a melancholy bird sitting among the fallen palaces and prostrate temples of his native land. Should not we also lament when the ways of Zion mourn and her strength languishes?”
“Were there more of this holy sorrow we should soon see the Lord returning to build up his church. It is ill for men to be playing the peacock with worldly pride when the ills of the times should make them as mournful as the pelican; and it is a terrible thing to see men flocking like vultures to devour the prey of a decaying church, when they ought rather to be lamenting among her ruins like the owl.”
“Verse 7. I watch, and am like a sparrow alone upon the house-top: I keep a solitary vigil as the lone sentry of my nation; my fellows are too selfish, too careless to care for the beloved land, and so like a bird which sits alone on the housetop, I keep up a sad watch over my country. The Psalmist compared himself to a bird,—a bird when it has lost its mate or its young, or is for some other reason made to mope alone in a solitary place. Probably he did not refer to the cheerful sparrow of our own land, but if he did, the illustration would not be out-of-place, for the sparrow is happy in company, and if it were alone, the sole one of its species in the neighbourhood, there can be little doubt that it would become very miserable, and sit and pine away.”
“He who has felt himself to be so weak and inconsiderable as to have no more power over his times than a sparrow over a city, has also, when bowed down with despondency concerning the evils of the age, sat himself down in utter wretchedness to lament the ills which he could not heal. Christians of an earnest, watchful kind often find themselves among those who have no sympathy with them; even in the church they look in vain for kindred spirits; then do they persevere in their prayers and labours, but feel themselves to be as lonely as the poor bird which looks from the ridge of the roof, and meets with no friendly greeting from any of its kind.”
Heavenly Father,
Turn our hearts toward you in Christ.
Break our hearts with what breaks yours.
Open our eyes to Jesus and everything we are and have in Him!
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
August 10, 2022
Christ Centered Teaching
Christ Centered Teaching 