GOD INVARIABLY USES THE MEEK & HUMBLE TO ACHIEVE HIS PURPOSES

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On what was more than likely an ordinary day 500 years ago, Luther nailed his 95 theses, written in Latin, to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. He intended them to be read only by church theologians.

Without Luther’s permission, someone took the 95 theses and translated them into German and printed them. Luther’s ideas went viral, spreading like wildfire throughout the whole of Germany, causing a tremendous stir within the church and with the common people.

WHO WAS THE UNKNOWN PERSON WHO TRANSLATED AND DISTRIBUTED THE 95 THESES?

“Ordinary people didn’t know their Bible because they didn’t have Bibles,” says Dr. Kendall, an admirer of Luther’s and a student of Luther’s life and ministry. “The Roman Catholic Church did not want you to have Bibles. They just told you what the Bible said. Your faith [was] whatever the church believed. For Luther, it was deeper than that.”

In 1520, Luther stood trial before the German emperor, Frederick the Wise, and Cardinal Catejan, and was asked to recant his words. He didn’t, and while awaiting a possible execution, Luther was “kidnapped” by a group of friends, who took him to Wartburg, where he spent 10 months translating the Bible into the common German language.

“Martin Luther began to teach the Bible, and it really began to turn things upside down,” Dr. Kendall says. “People had never heard the Bible explained to them the way he did. They came in droves to hear him preach. And now, 500 years later, people have Bibles, but they don’t read them.”

Extract from article by Steve Strang in Charisma Magazine

NETANYAHU: TELL THE WORLD THE TRUTH

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Netanyahu, tell the world the truth, “He took it from them and gave it to us.”

“Every Jew, and in fact, every Christian and Muslim, knows that the Land of Israel was promised to the Children of Israel, the Jewish People, by G-d, forever. The same G-d they claim to worship. The British pro-Zionists who worked to convince her majesty’s government to issue the Balfour Declaration in 1917, believed in the Divine Promise to the Jews. So, why continue to perpetuate this lie called the “Peace Process”? The Palestinians might gain some temporary control over the land – like in Gaza – for G-d’s own reasons, but in the end, it will be taken from them anyway and returned to its rightful tenants, the Jewish People – I didn’t say owners, because G-d is the only true owner of everything.”

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It is true that a democratically elected government in Israel might choose, for political expediency, to transfer control over parts of the Jewish People’s homeland to others, like what happened in Gush Katif – Jewish Gaza; and that, in political terms, it might be seen as legitimate; but, in the Court of Final Justice, above, there never will be any spiritual legitimacy to the act. Anyone going against the will of G-d will ultimately have to account for their actions. Reward and punishment is a basic concept in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Heaven help those who try to take away the Divinely Promised Land from the Jewish People. Look what happened to Rabin, Sharon, Olmert, and countless others?

So, why lie to the Palestinians? Why make them believe they are right, that Israel “stole” their land? Why participate in a peace process? Why fool them into believing that Israel will give them land and a state?

Netanyahu is telling the world the truth. When Jesus returns, He will rule and reign in Jerusalem. For the first time, Israel will possess the whole land promised by God.

END TIMES SIGNS ARE NOW IN THE CHURCH

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Francis Chan speaking to pastors on the church in the end times as spelt out in 2 Timothy 3.

“But know this, that in the LAST DAYS perilous times will come … He then goes on to say that people in the church will be lovers of self …. having a form of godliness but denying its power… always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the TRUTH.

Timothy goes on to say it is only going to get worse. “But evil men and impostors. will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them. And that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

All Scripture is given for inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

TRUST AND OBEY FOR THERE’S NO OTHER WAY

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Deuteronomy should make us conscious of our responsibility for obedience.

Deuteronomy is a record of the words that Moses spoke to the people of Israel just prior to their entering the Promised Land. In fact, the first line of the books states, “These are the words,” giving Deuteronomy its Hebrew title Devarim – “Words.” The original adults who fled Egypt have all passed away, and a new generation has risen up. God is going to give them great victory against their enemies in Canaan, but many temptations are also going to face them. Moses gives the Israelite’s one last sermon to reiterate God’s instructions for them.

The children were not held responsible for the cowardice of their parents. They were assured possession of the land while the parents were sent back to the desert. The author of Hebrews later points to the wilderness strewn with the corpses of that faithless generation as a grim reminder.

There are consequences for lacking confidence in God’s power.

God provided for the Israelites. He did huge miracles on their behalf. He wanted to bring them into the Land, but He had to let the faithless parents die in the desert. He could not pollute the land with unbelievers right from the beginning.

When we fail to appreciate the power and love of God, it’s like we’re poking a finger in His eye.

That’s disturbing stuff. We get enamoured with grace, but we fail to realise some of these implications. God loves us completely, and He has tremendous patience with us. That’s why it is such an incredible insult to suggest He doesn’t love us. He gave us everything. He gave us His Son. All eternity is ours because of God’s self-sacrifice. How can we be so cruel and foolish to think for a moment He doesn’t love us or that He can’t be trusted?

Trusting God is loving God. If we trust Him, though, that also means we trust Him enough to obey Him. Real trust says, “I know Your way is best.” 

We are saved through the blood of Jesus, not by our works. However, in His seven letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2-3, Jesus repeatedly offers rewards to the “overcomer.” Overcoming is incredibly important. The fruit of our lives is at stake. The lives of other people are at stake. Our rewards in Heaven are at stake. Moses was saved, but he didn’t get to enter the Promised Land he’d worked so hard to reach.

Let’s get to the end of our lives and be able to say, “I fought the good fight. I finished the race.”

PREPARE FOR THE “END TIMES” EVENTS TO COME

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“Why do the nations rage…? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against His anointed, saying, ‘Let us tear off their bonds and cast away their ropes from us” (Psalm 2:1-3).

David describes a time when many rulers would see God’s Word in a negative light, as though it were bonds enslaving them and as cords binding them to His morality, godly ways and truth. They would see the demands of God’s Word as hindering “human potential” in sexual expression along with many other life choices.

This prophecy is being fulfilled now and it is time to speak up and to refuse to remain silent. In this hour, as the cultural wars intensify, the voice of aggressive secularists is getting much louder and bolder. At the same time, many in the church are retreating into fearful silence. To some, it seems as if the church will be overrun by the angry voices of the liberal left. However, I assure you that the Lord’s purposes will surely succeed. He is raising up those who will speak up with clarity and courage because of their fierce love for Jesus and the truth (John 14:21, 2 Thess. 2:10).

Where is all this going? Some ask if things will get better or worse. The truth is, both light and darkness will increase at the same time. Before Jesus returns, godliness and sin alike will reach their greatest heights in history:

“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For the darkness shall cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples; but the Lord shall rise upon you, and His glory shall be seen upon you” (Isaiah 60:1-2).

The greatest outpouring of the Holy Spirit in history is yet to come, in conjunction with a deluge of deep darkness assaulting the nations.

The Lord is raising up courageous messengers who will fearlessly proclaim Jesus as the only way of salvation, the authority of His Word and the supremacy of His glorious leadership.

Where do you stand? Where does your church stand? What is God calling you to do in this hour? It is time to make important decisions, to align yourselves with like minded brothers and sisters in Christ. The persecuted church invariably looks like the church described in the Book of Acts.

Compiled using article by Mike Bickle, The Lord is Raising Up Courageous Messengers in Charisma Magazine

BROAD COALITION OF EVANGELICALS RELEASE A TIMELY STATEMENT ON HUMAN SEXUALITY

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A broad coalition of Christian leaders, including J. I. Packer and Francis Chan, have released a statement articulating God’s design for human identity as male and female. 

Dr. Richard Land (shown here), president of Southern Evangelical Seminary and Christian Post executive editor is one of the Nashville Statement’s initial signatories. He said, “The answer to the question ‘What and who is a human being?’ is the mega-ethical issue of our time. It impacts everything,” He noted that if the meaning of the human person cannot be defined in Scripture, the very Gospel is at stake.

“This statement is an attempt to equip the Church to address this issue from a biblical, Christian perspective,” Land said, “to provide a catechism for churches, for Bible study groups, for Sunday schools, families, college students, to equip themselves to understand what the Bible says about these issues and to do so in a positive way.”

“And if we truly love people, we are going to tell them the truth,” he emphasised, “and telling the truth to people is often hard. Telling the truth to segregationists about race was not easy. But they were trapped in racism. It stultified their souls and they were accountable to God for it and it was our responsibility as Christians to tell them the truth: God is no respecter of persons.”

When one engages sexuality issues, Land said, one must deal with the doctrine of creation, and specifically God’s creation of human beings. Although marred and twisted by the Fall, human beings are the only part of His created order that are imprinted with the divine image, he added, and that divine image cannot be separated from His plan for marriage and human sexuality.

Such a statement is needed, they say, in order to resist the spirit of the age and for the church to maintain its counter-cultural witness in a world that seems “bent on ruin.”

The document contains a preamble and 14 articles responding to the current realities in the Western world regarding the many messages swirling in society and even in some churches about sexuality, particularly homosexuality and transgenderism, which have come to the fore in both politics and church life in recent years.

“Evangelical Christians at the dawn of the twenty-first century find themselves living in a period of historic transition. As Western culture has become increasingly post-Christian, it has embarked upon a massive revision of what it means to be a human being. By and large the spirit of our age no longer discerns or delights in the beauty of God’s design for human life,” the statement’s preamble reads.

Important articles in the Nashville Statement say:

Article 4

WE AFFIRM that divinely ordained differences between male and female reflect God’s original creation design and are meant for human good and human flourishing.

Article 7

WE AFFIRM that self-conception as male or female should be defined by God’s holy purposes in creation and redemption as revealed in Scripture.

WE DENY that adopting a homosexual or transgender self-conception is consistent with God’s holy purposes in creation and redemption.

The authors of the Nashville Statement assert in Article 10 that matters pertaining to sexuality, including homosexual practice and transgenderism is an not an area where faithful Christians can “agree to disagree,” but that this is central to the Gospel message.

Katie McCoy, assistant professor of theology in women’s studies at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Forth Worth, Texas, commented to CP, “The gender issues facing women today hit at the core of our being. McCoy, who is also the editor of BiblicalWoman.com, is among the Nashville Statement’s initial signatories.

When asked what she wants the Nashville Statement to accomplish in the Kingdom of God and how it marks this present moment in church history, McCoy said she hopes it brings boldness to everyone to proclaim the timeless truths of Scripture.

“[Theological] orthodoxy will be increasingly unaccepted and unacceptable but with a statement like this comes the reminder that we are not as alone [as we think], that the truth is never quite on the fringes,” McCoy said.

“And God’s people will remain faithful to God’s Word no matter how unpopular it is, no matter how culturally unacceptable it is.”

The statement’s initial signatories include a multi-generational and racially diverse array of men and women leaders in the body of Christ from a variety of denominations. Over 100 prominent theologians, Bible scholars, church pastors and ministry leaders, seminary presidents, college professors, Christian public policy thinkers, and writers have all already signed on. Baptists, Anglicans, Pentecostals, Presbyterians, nondenominational evangelicals, and almost every other historic Orthodox Protestant tradition are represented among those signatures and additional signers continue to be added.

 

 

EARLY CHURCH DEALT WITH SIN AS GOD COMMANDED

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A sobering article by John Burton on sin in the church and how God commands us to deal with it: He has been developing and leading ministries for over 20 years and is a sought-after teacher, prophetic messenger and revivalist. He has authored nine books, has appeared on Christian television and radio. Check out johnburton.net

People are leading ministries and churches and yet the Bible instructs us not to even eat with them. It’s time for a house cleaning.

Facebook is a great, if unscientific, medium for discussions about culture and Scripture (and kittens, food, vacations and so forth). I’ve participated in many such discussions online, and I constantly find myself shaking my head when supposedly solid, Spirit-filled Christians flat out reject clear, simple truths found in the Bible. We have declined into a church that all too often employs human reasoning in favour of Biblical principles.

As an example, when is the last time you heard a pastor teach on the issue of divorce? At best they may suggest it’s negative and painful while fully ignoring what God himself has to say about it.

Right in the middle of Luke 16, we see the following: “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and whoever marries her who is divorced by her husband commits adultery.” Luke 16:18

We have a bunch of people in our churches today who are living in adultery because they divorced and remarried without validation. We need a mass movement of repentance for wrongful divorce and remarriage. After getting remarried, there can be redemption and forgiveness, but that is a process that must be completed. Divorce rates in the church should be near zero. I say “near zero” because there are legitimate and approved reasons to initiate a divorce. There are times when it’s fully appropriate to get remarried as well. God is in the restoration business, but we must submit to his process and follow his protocol.

The point on divorce was simply one example as I begin this article on discipline in the church. We have to agree that Scripture rules. We must stop minimizing it, modifying it, ignoring it or rewriting it.

Before you attempt to crucify me for being cruel and unfeeling regarding divorce or the other issues I’ll address in this article, I want to challenge you. First, my heart is broken over sin in the camp. Second, why do you presume you have the right to dismiss clear directives in Scripture? You don’t. Neither do I. I believe it’s an act of love and humility to trust God’s wisdom as we deal directly with sin in the church. God has given us a measure of stewardship over his holy church, and we are failing, especially in regard to holiness.

It’s Time to Clean House

Take a moment and let the following verse sink in:

I wrote to you in my letter not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I did not mean the sexually immoral people of this world, or the covetous and extortioners, or the idolaters, since you would then need to go out of the world. But I have written to you not to keep company with any man who is called a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner. Do not even eat with such a person.

For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside?  But God judges those who are outside. Therefore “put away from among yourselves that wicked person” 1 Cor. 5:9-13

Sin in the camp is defiling the house.

The above passage reveals that God judges the unsaved, the lost, those in the world. It also reveals that we have been mandated to judge those within the church. This, friend, rarely happens and that is a key reason revival is not near.

Please remember, we don’t have the right to exercise mercy that’s not endorsed by the Word of God. We don’t have the freedom to let someone off the hook when God demands we deal with their situation.

You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion does not come from Him who calls you. A little yeast leavens the whole batch.

One immoral person in a church can compromise the entire congregation.

Love Them Out the Door

It’s time to express love, with tears in our eyes, by inviting people to leave our churches. Multiplied thousands of professing Christians must be shown the door—and fast.

If they profess Christ and are guilty of sin, we cannot even eat with them. This is severe, and it is necessary. It’s also literal.

Are there any people attending church today who are greedy? We can’t go grab coffee with them. Is anybody involved in porn? Do they get intoxicated? Do they have idols in their lives? Are they abusive? We must deal directly with them for the sake of their souls and those of everybody in the church! Why? Check out a verse that’s strangely similar to what we read in 1 Corinthians 5 (it takes it to a whole other level):

“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.” 1 Cor. 6:9-10

While so many are welcoming these offenders into church services and functions every week, God has determined they will not be welcomed into heaven. We are celebrating the people God is rejecting. We are confirming those God is calling out.

Allow me to make this point very clear: If anyone who names the name of Christ is guilty of these sins, they must immediately repent while bearing fruit or they must be removed from fellowship. Period.

Yes, most youth groups will be wiped out. Elders in the church will have to go. Many pastors will have to relinquish their positions. Churches will decline significantly in number as they lose those guilty of sin and their sympathizers!

What will be left? A holy, remnant church that can finally move in power, unity and purity.

Turn Them Over to Satan

Sexual sin is especially destructive. If anybody tells you all sin is the same, don’t believe them. It’s not true. For example, one type of sin cannot be forgiven. Other sins are not unto death. Sexual sin is one that demands a more severe response. Again, the response is rooted in love, not revenge. It’s to protect the church and to awaken the offender.

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles, that a man has his father’s wife. But you are arrogant. Instead you should have mourned, so that he who has done this deed might be removed from among you. For indeed, though absent in body but present in spirit, I have already, as if I were present, judged him who has done this deed, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. When you are assembled, along with my spirit, in the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, deliver him to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord Jesus.

“Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch? Therefore purge out the old yeast, that you may be a new batch, since you are unleavened. For even Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us.” 1 Cor. 5:1-7

The world has the right to accuse Christians of hypocrisy. When sin happens, it’s swept under the rug. It’s ignored. It’s certainly not dealt with. It’s rarely judged.

The instruction is clear and cannot be modified. The one who is guilty must be turned over to Satan. They must be excommunicated. They are a danger to themselves and to the church.

Restoration

The purpose of discipline is twofold:

  1. The restoration of the person: God, in his wisdom, knows just what it will take to give people the greatest chance of restoration. Biblical discipline is a part of that process.
  2. The protection of the body: A little leaven leavens the whole lump. We must insist on a holy church for the sake of the innocent and unsuspecting:

“Deliver [this man] to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord Jesus.” 1 Cor. 5:5

“For whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and scourges every son whom he receives.” Heb. 12:6

“For they indeed disciplined us for a short time according to their own judgement, but He does so for our profit, that we may partake of His holiness.” Heb. 12:10

When restoration works, the Bible tells us that we will win our brother. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out the way we’d prefer, but it’s imperative that we try as Scripture demands:

“Now if  your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, then take with you one or two others, that by the testimony of two or three witnesses every word may be established. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” Matt. 18:15-17

Keep in mind that severe church discipline must follow earlier attempts at restoration.

“Now we exhort you, brothers, warn those who are unruly, comfort the faint-hearted, support the weak, and be patient toward everyone. 1 Thess. 5:14

The first step isn’t removing them from fellowship. It’s calling them higher, exhorting them to live righteously and patiently yet invasively, uncomfortably, demand they respond to the correction of the Lord. Walk the walk with them until their rebellion or repeated failures would cause you to violate the Word to maintain fellowship with them. That time comes sooner than we typically presume.

God Demands That His Church Be Holy

John L. Dagg said this: “When discipline leaves a church, Christ goes with it.”

Ichabod is posted above the doorposts as the presence of God vacates a once holy church that’s inundated with immorality.

The question is simple: Do you want God to remain, or the unrepentant offender? You can’t have both.

DID HUMANS EVOLVE FROM APES?

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Humans did not evolve from chimps, gorillas, or orangutans. However, according to Darwinian evolution, humans are related to modern apes in that we shared a common ancestor.

This informative article by Dr Don Batten and Warren Nunn of Creation Ministries will equip you to explode this commonly held notion.

ape-man

Artists’ impressions of Homo erectus have most often depicted some really primitive, subhuman ‘ape-man’. However, the evidence that these were people (that should even share our species name) is mounting. So artists’ renditions are gradually shifting toward a much more obviously human appearance, as here.

Since Charles Darwin first proposed the basis for such ideas in the 19th century when he wrote On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, molecules-to-man evolution has increasingly been taught as fact. Later, he fleshed out the idea of human evolution from a common ancestor with apes in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex.

The concept that humans and apes share a common ancestor contrasts with what we read in the Bible, because on the sixth day God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” (Genesis 1:26) Further, in verse 27: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” In Genesis chapter 2 it gives us more details, including that God made Adam from ‘dust’ and fashioned Eve, the first woman, from part of his side.

The two contrasting explanations for our existence—and for apes—have obvious philosophical/faith starting points because neither side can go back in time and observe how everything came into being. Both sides can only examine what we have in the present and draw conclusions from that.

Biblical creationists accept the Bible as an eyewitness account of that—for us—unobservable beginning. Thus, we can expect that by examining anything from germs to giraffes, that the data will best fit the presupposition of a perfectly created life-form that now exists in a world that is imperfect because of the Fall (Genesis 3). Therefore, we can expect (predict) that all life-forms now are not as genetically ‘perfect’ as their first parents.

So, ‘Did humans evolve from apes’ is really part of the bigger question, ‘Did humans and apes, and everything else, evolve?’

The answer is no, nothing ‘evolved’ in the sense that Darwin proposed through naturalistic, unguided processes. Instead, God created everything (including Adam and Eve) in six, 24-hour days and it was very good, as we are told in Genesis 1:31.

Because we can trust the Bible as real history, we know that

(a) all life was created about 6,000 years ago,
(b) there was a global Flood of judgment on the world, which only eight humans and a limited number of creatures survived, and that
(c) all air-breathing land animals are descendants of those that walked off Noah’s Ark about 4,500 years ago.

The DNA evidence

Chimpanzees are said to be the closest relatives of humans. There is an oft-repeated claim that human-chimp DNA is 98% (or more) similar. This figure was based on rather primitive comparisons published in 1975. These early reports were popularized by evolutionists, but this was long before even the initial drafts of the human and chimp genome that were announced in 2001 and 2005, respectively. As explained in Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels, and other places, with our modern understanding of genetics, we now know that “98%” is simply not the case.1 Even with genes that are similar between chimps and humans, the similarity is closer to 80%. If we consider the genes that chimps have that humans don’t and vice versa, the similarity drops to 70% or even less. However, the 98% myth persists.

An objective analysis of the claimed ape-men fossils shows that there is loads of wishful thinking involved.

Not enough time!

For the sake of the argument, let’s assume that the human and chimp genomes derived from a common genome in the six or seven million years since evolutionists say that humans and chimps split from the common ancestor. Then there is a need to account for 35,000,000 single-letter (base-pair) differences that had to arise and become fixed in the two genomes (i.e. the original letter in that location was replaced completely from the line to humans or the line to chimps); tens of millions of chromosomal rearrangements also had to occur, spread, and fix; as well as tens of millions of base-pair (‘letter’) insertions and deletions. (See Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels chapter 2 for more details). In short, there is simply insufficient time for evolutionists to account for the differences between chimp and human DNA, even with highly unrealistic assumptions in favour of it happening.2

Evolutionary time is measured in generations, not years. In six million years, there would only have been a few hundred thousand generations since chimps and humans were supposedly the same species. How then can there be enough time for so many brand-new genes to arise and be integrated? Each generation would have to select and retain an unbelievably huge number of mutations. This problem has come to be known as Haldane’s Dilemma. Despite claims to the contrary, Haldane’s Dilemma has never been solved. Modern knowledge of the genetic differences between chimps and humans shows that the problem is far greater for evolutionists than even Haldane imagined.3

Adam and Eve?

Studies of mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited from your mother, show that all humans had a single female ancestor.4 Likewise, studies of the Y-chromosome, which is only inherited from your father (to son!), show that all humans had a single male ancestor.5 Of course the evolutionary time scales attached to these individuals don’t match the Bible, but recalculations based on measurements of mutation rates in today’s world show that the biblical time frame is consistent with the data.

The world-wide genetic evidence in humans is consistent with the Bible’s history, that we are all descendants of Noah’s family, beginning some 4,500 years ago.6

Genetic decay

The number of mutations added to the human genome each generation is now known to be so high that it is inevitable that the human genome is deteriorating. This points back to a created perfection in the recent past.7 The same problem applies to all other complex creatures. This is another serious problem for the evolutionary idea that mutations and natural selection created humans and chimps from a common ancestor 6–7 million years ago. As the Russian geneticist, Alexey Kondrashov, remarked, “Why aren’t we dead 100 times over?” (he was assuming the evolutionary time frame).8

Fossils?

Are there really ‘ape-men’? An objective analysis of the claimed ape-men fossils shows that there is much wishful thinking involved, which is driven by the desire to ‘prove evolution’, or to justify the funding from National Geographic (e.g.), given to find ‘ape-men’.

There are a range of Homo species, including Neandertals. These are all descendants of Noah’s family. One exception is Homo habilis (‘handy man’), which prominent evolutionary anthropologists acknowledge is a ‘mixed taxon’, meaning that the fossil bones came from both apes and humans (hence it not surprisingly looks like an ‘ape-man’).

Other than that, objective numerical analysis shows that Australopithecus (‘southern ape’), supposedly the ancestors of humans (Homo spp.), are just types of apes that are not intermediate between chimps and humans.

That is, based on the fossils, there is no coherent story of human evolution from a common ancestor with apes, which is not surprising, considering the genetic evidence that shows they never existed.9

Conclusion

By reading the associated links to this article and books such as Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels, or by searching creation.com, you can learn more about this subject and when next someone asks you about any human-ape connection, you too will be able to gently suggest that they perhaps should take a closer look at the evidence.

PLEASE SPEAK THE TRUTH ABOUT HOMOSEXUALITY, PLAINLY AND WITH LOVE

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A MESSAGE FOR ALL CHRISTIAN LEADERS: Let us stop dancing around the greatest spiritual and moral challenge of this generation, and let us do the right thing, regardless of cost or consequence. We owe it to God. We owe it our kids and grand-kids. And we owe it to those who identify as LGBT, says Dr Michael Brown host of the nationally syndicated Line of Fire radio program

Let us stop dancing around the greatest spiritual and moral challenge of this generation, and let us do the right thing, regardless of cost or consequence. We owe it to God. We owe it our kids and grandkids. And we owe it to those who identify as LGBT.

At this critical time in history, we’ve got no business dancing around these life-and-death issues, issues which affect people we love. We’ve got no business playing games with words, trying to be so subtle that no one understand us, working so hard not to offend that we fail to warn and save. We’ve got no business being unclear when God’s Word is so clear, and we’ve got no business calling ourselves representatives of Jesus when our hearts don’t flow with His love.

Just consider what’s happening in our society today.

Drag queens are reading stories to our two-year-old children in libraries.

Kindergarteners are learning about being trans.

Middle-schoolers are encouraged to come out as gay without their parents knowing. College students have to share their PGPs (Preferred Gender Pronouns) at the start of each semester (as in, “I’m Shannon, and my preferred gender pronouns are ze and zir.”).

Business colleagues have lost their livelihoods because they could not in good conscience participate in a same-sex “wedding.”

And we’re afraid to be direct and clear because we don’t want to offend someone? How is that strategy working?

In Ontario, if your child identifies as transgender and you don’t affirm and support them, they can report you to their school, which can report you to the government, and your child can be taken from you to be raised by others. This is now the law in Ontario!

Yet we’re afraid that if we speak up we’ll lose some tithing members? What kind of compromise is this? Are we mercenaries or are we men and women of God?

Things have gotten to the point where boys and men are competing against girls and women, smashing records and winning competitions because they identify as females. But we don’t want to rock the boat just in case one of our friends or family members is transgender.

How about speaking the truth in love – with tears, with compassion, and with care, but without compromise? True compassion is not silent. True compassion warns.

There’s a reason some of us have been sounding the alarm for years, despite the vilification that comes our way and despite the doors of ministry that shut in our face. We’ve seen where this was going and we’ve known that the price to pay for silence is much greater than the price to pay for obedience. Do we still not see the handwriting on the wall?

Our society is now celebrating menstruating “men” and glorifying pregnant “dads”who plan to breastfeed their kids, yet we don’t want to rock the boat. My friend, the boat is ready to capsize!

One California college is dealing with a credible threat of violence from a 46-year-old male student who identifies as a woman and is upset because there are no urinals in the women’s restrooms. As a local website reports, “She also noted how walking around on Southwestern’s campus in a bra or panties for three days has opened her eyes to having the brain of a woman…but having male anatomy.”

This is sickness and madness, yet rather than raise our voices like a trumpet and teach clearly about gender and sexuality and marriage, we retreat behind our safe sermons and soft words. In the process, we hurt people far more than we help them.

I was speaking at a conference last year when the conference organizer stated that a famous American pastor now supported same-sex “marriage.” Because I had this pastor’s contact information, I texted him, asking him how he would respond. He replied, “I don’t support this. Please ask him to correct it.”

I was glad he responded like this, but that only begged the question. Why was there any confusion to start? Why did the conference organizer, himself a careful theologian, get this pastor’s position so wrong?

Some of you are loud and clear when speaking about these issues in private but warm and fuzzy when speaking about them in public. To what purpose? To help whom?

I fully understand that most of us these days have loved ones who identify as LGBT, and we care for them deeply. As expressed very powerfully in a blog post by Rebecca K. Reynolds, “There’s a huge difference between speaking of gay people categorically and speaking of your gay friend, Christine, who was brutally abused by her uncle for two decades and now feels nauseated every time she smells a man. It might be possible for me to walk with an evangelical swagger and act like an expert when postulating about the first category, but the second is a real person whose story brings me to my knees.”

That is a perspective we must carry in our hearts, and when people ask me about me about reaching out to the LGBT community, the first thing I tell them is to ask God for a supernatural baptism of love for them. Love reflects the heart of God. Love reflects the life and death of our Savior. Love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:7).

But love doesn’t compromise. If it did, it would no longer be love. That’s why Reynolds could also write, “Do I think sex outside of marriage is wrong? Absolutely. Do I believe in the sanctity of male-female marriage? Yes.

“Do I also sometimes kneel beside my bed and weep for my abused friends by name–friends who seek relief in ways that don’t align with God’s word? Yes. I do.”

Oh, that all of us would have such hearts!

And that brings me to the last reason why we must speak the truth in love to our congregations and followers.

If we don’t lovingly warn that gay couple in our church about the wrongness of their relationship, we have their blood on our hands.

If we don’t tell that lesbian-identified teenager that God did not make her gay, offering her real hope in Jesus, we are contributing to her demise.

If we don’t urge that husband not to leave his wife and have sex-change surgery, telling him we’ll get in the trenches and stand with him for his marriage, he can point to us on judgment day: “They never told me it was wrong!”

So, I’m pleading with you as a fellow-leader and fellow-elder and fellow-servant. Let us stop dancing around the greatest spiritual and moral challenge of this generation, and let us do the right thing, regardless of cost or consequence. We owe it to God. We owe it our kids and grandkids. And we owe it to those who identify as LGBT.

Just this week I received an email from a woman named Nadia who used to be “married” to another woman. She wrote, “Hi Dr. Brown! First I want to thank you for having the courage to speak the truth in love on various unpopular topics, especially marriage and sexuality. Your teaching helped me find freedom in my own life.”

Let us help others find freedom as well, the freedom that comes by knowing the truth (see John 8:31-32).

So from the depth of my heart, in the strongest way I know, I urge you once more: Please join me in speaking the truth in love. The Father will be glad as you do.

Dr. Michael Brown (www.askdrbrown.org) is the host of the nationally syndicated Line of Fire radio program. His latest book is Saving a Sick America: A Prescription for Moral and Cultural Transformation. Connect with him on Facebook or Twitter.

 

PERSECUTION IS COMING FOR THOSE WHO STAND ON THE WORD OF GOD

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In 1 Peter 4:12-13, the apostle Peter says, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though some strange thing happened to you. But rejoice insofar as you share in Christ’s sufferings, so that you may rejoice and be glad also in the revelation of His glory.”

The same Peter who wrote these words once rebuked Christ for declaring His intention to go to the cross (see Matthew 16:21-23). Peter once found suffering abhorrent, but now he tells us we should rejoice. Peter had grown in his understanding of the role of suffering in the Christian life. He had seen that the suffering of the cross was not the end—but only the way to the resurrection.

The persecution of the church is not new. In fact, history proves again and again that Christianity flourishes best under persecution. How then are we as Christians to respond to persecution?

On February 12, 2015, 21 Egyptian Christians were beheaded on the coast of the Mediterranean at the hands of ISIS fighters. Just before they beheaded each man, they offered him his life—if only he would deny Christ. But these brave men loved Jesus more than their own lives.

In this age of tolerance, we must love those who persecute us—but never surrender the truth. We must invite all people to come to the one who loves them and died for their sin. We must “implore [them] in Christ’s stead: Be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20). Above all, we must resist the temptation of being ashamed of the Gospel.

In the midst of suffering, God makes us some incredible promises:

  • “If you are reproached because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you” (1 Peter 4:14).
  • “In the world you will have tribulation. But be of good cheer. I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
  • “Our light affliction, which lasts but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17).

There is an indescribable blessing that can only be received through suffering for Christ. When you trust in Him, even amid persecution or difficult circumstances, you will experience His presence with you in a unique and powerful way. And as you walk with the Lord in obedience, He promises that He will never leave you or forsake you—in the fiery furnace, the lion’s den, or even in your workplace.

This article originally appeared on Leading The Way.