WHAT IS GOD DOING IN YOU & YOUR CHURCH?

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Us Christians, we should be continually astounded by what God has done and is doing for us and those in the world around us. Consider just a few of his mind-boggling blessings:

  1. You have been forgiven. If you’re a Christian, you carry absolutely no guilt for your past sins. Like a criminal who was released from death row, you have been declared not guilty, and you no longer face punishment. When you wake up every morning, you should pinch yourself as you realise how merciful God was to pardon you!
  2. The Father has adopted you. Adoption is a foreign concept in many cultures. There is not even a word for adoption in some languages. Yet God loved you so much that He brought you into His family, called you His child and shared His eternal inheritance with you. Have you taken time to ponder what that means?
  3. You can read and treasure God’s Word. There are still many people today who do not have the Bible in their language. There are others who live in countries where Bibles are restricted. Do you realize how high a price was paid by previous generations so you could have the Bible now? Do you read it with a sense of grateful humility? Do you realise it prepares us for coming events? There are more prophecies about Jesus second coming, than there were of His first coming, and there were over sixty of those. The Pharisees and Sadducee’s did not get His first coming, what about the church and His second coming. Is the church asleep, as were the ten virgins in that parable, five had oil in their lamps but all were asleep at the time of their Lord’s coming? I believe we are in the “last days” and as we watch events unfold, particularly in the middle east, we can line them up with the O.T. and N.T prophecies. As the world descends into increasing darkness, just as the Bible prophesied, is your church preparing you for these events?
  4. You have continual access to God’s presence. In the days of the Old Covenant, people who worshipped the true God could only do it from a distance. They stood outside the door of the temple while priests made sacrifices for them. You should pinch yourself now! Because we live in the New Covenant era, every born-again Christian can approach the throne of God with confidence. We worship the Lord in “spirit and truth” as Jesus prophesied to the Samaritan woman at the well.
  5. The Holy Spirit lives in your Spirit. Before Jesus came, the Holy Spirit only “came upon” certain people—prophets, kings or special messengers and sometimes only for a specific purpose or season. But today, because of Jesus’ atonement, the Father sent the Holy Spirit to rebirth your Spirit (died at The Fall). The Holy Spirit now lives in you 24/7. He is your counsellor, your comforter and your teacher. He prays for you, refines you, refreshes you, empowers you and leads you deeper and deeper into God’s truth. He is the one that produces the nine fruits of the Spirit in your life: love, joy, peace, patience, faithfulness, goodness, gentleness, kindness and self-control. He is also the one that enables your use of the nine spiritual gifts: Wisdom, Knowledge, Faith, Healing, Miracles, Prophecy, Discerning of Spirits, Speaking in Tongues and Interpretation of Tongues. Shouldn’t you be in awe of a God who does that?
  6. You can enjoy God’s house and His people. Jesus said when we gather together, His presence is there. He dwells in His congregation. Yet many Christians have given up on the church because they got hurt, or because pastors weren’t perfect. But do you realise that the church is a miracle? It is the living body of Christ, and until He returns it will be the place where God accomplishes His purposes but find a church that stands on the authority of God’s Word. Don’t miss this profound blessing!
  7. You get to experience the Holy Spirit moving all around you. Ministries such as that of the Danish evangelist Sorben Sondergaard are experiencing Church as in the time of the “Book of Acts” where Holy Spirit healings and miracles are commonplace. The Holy Spirit is moving in profound ways today. Churches are growing rapidly in parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America, and many new churches are now being planted in the United States which stand on the authority of God’s Word. Instead of focusing on the negative trends you see in the media, you should stand in awe that we live in a day that ancient prophets longed to see.
  8. You are going to heaven. No matter what pain, sickness, disappointment or trial you face during your short time on Earth, you are going to step into an eternity where there is no darkness, no death and no tears. As Paul said, “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Phil. 1:21. When this life is over, you are going to live forever. It will take an eternity to comprehend a God who would treat us so mercifully.

Please take time to ponder God’s marvellous, mind-blowing love. Pinch yourself and be reminded that the truths we read in the Bible are not just words on a page or dry doctrinal concepts. They are living realities that should shake you to the core and produce the purest form of wide-eyed, awestruck worship.

Modified article by J Lee Grady former editor of Charisma Magazine.

 

TIME IS SHORT- MAKE EVERYDAY COUNT FOR ETERNITY

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Time is short; God has an incredible plan, about to unfold, that will lead to the glorious return of his Son as King of the Earth. He wants every one of his bond-servants to buy into his plan 100%. He wants us all to be involved, but it means total surrender to His will – ” not as I will, but as You will.” Matt 26:39

During a recent prayer time, Holy Spirit revealed to me a definite end time message:

The Pharisees and the Sadducee’s had over three hundred prophecies of My first coming and they didn’t get it. Accurate prophecies of My birth location, My life, My ministry, My death and My resurrection, but because they did not reveal the Messiah they wanted, one who would release them from oppressive Roman rule, they were dismissed.

Sadly, the church has far more prophecies of my imminent second coming, and at best, they are ignoring them. My church is asleep. When was the last time your pastor delivered a sermon on Jesus second coming and that current events particularly those in the middle east and moral decay in the west would indicate we are in the last days – The Day of The Lord.

The Book of Revelation is the book of the Bible that best explains God’s plan to bring about the return of Jesus. Being of a category of biblical literature called “apocalyptic literature,” much like the book of Ezekiel or Daniel, Revelation features visions of strange coloured horses, dragons, thrones in heaven, scenes in the starry sky, etc. God has placed them in Revelation as a message to us. What do they all mean? In Nelson Walters timely, just released book, Revelation Deciphered, you are going to visit and make sense of these things.

revelation-deciphered

Revelation contains references to hundreds of Old and New Testament passages. These references decipher the meaning behind Revelation’s cryptic prophecies. If you have ever wondered what Revelation is all about, the answers were always there in Genesis, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Joel, Job, Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah, Zephaniah, Micah, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, etc. Understanding Revelation in this new, fresh, biblical way organises all of biblical prophecy into one coherent whole. Revelation Deciphered shows how these puzzle pieces fit together. Nelson Walter’s method provides answers to questions whose solutions have lain concealed for centuries:

Is there a “Pattern of Seven Events” woven throughout all of scripture that identifies and explains each year of the upcoming time period our culture calls “the Tribulation?”

Does this “Pattern of Seven Events” help reveal the timing of the Rapture with precision?

Are the “Letters to the Seven Churches” in Revelation prophetic and not just historic letters or Church Ages? Do these unique prophesies provide the Church with detailed instructions on how to overcome the trials that lie ahead?

Does scripture predict a major Mideast war prior to the “Tribulation” that will launch the career of the Antichrist? Where does scripture predict he will arise?

What are the Four Horsemen and the Beast; and how are they related to the rise of Islam?

Most importantly of all, how should Christians apply what they’ve learned from Revelation to live victoriously in the days ahead?

You will be amazed and blessed by the new insights uncovered in Revelation Deciphered. This is unlike anything you have read before.

JESUS ON THE AGE OF THE EARTH

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Jesus believed in a young world, but leading theistic evolutionists say He is wrong. article by Dr Carl Wieland, Creation Ministries.

The standard secular timeline, from an alleged ‘big bang’ some 15 billion years ago to now, is accepted by most people in the evangelical Christian world, even though many would deny evolution. Some would even say that to dispute billions of years is to place an unnecessary stumbling block in the way of any scientifically-minded potential converts.

This is in contrast to the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Creator made flesh, as several of the biblical  authors, which makes it plain that this is wrong—people were there from the beginning of creation. But in the evolutionary timeline, people have only been around for one or two million years—this puts them toward the end of the timeline. This means that He is most definitely claiming that the world cannot be billions of years old.

For example, dealing with the doctrine of marriage, Jesus says in Mark 10:6 (bold emphases added):

“But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female.”

In Luke 11:50–51, Jesus also says: “That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zacharias … ”. And in Romans 1:20, the Apostle Paul says of God: “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”.

Jesus, speaking around 4,000 years after creation, was correct to say that Day 6, when humans were created, was effectively ‘the beginning of creation’ as seen from thousands of years later.
Paul is plainly saying that people have been able to perceive these attributes of God in His creation ever since the creation of the world. Not ever since people were created.

Comparing the appearance of people on the timelines below, which are both to scale, is instructive. Jesus, speaking around 4,000 years after creation, was correct to say that Day 6, when humans were created, was effectively ‘the beginning of creation’ as seen from thousands of years later. By contrast, a creation fifteen billion years ago on the secular timescale would put humans at the end of the time scale. It shows clearly how the acceptance of the secular timeline starkly contrasts with the statements of Jesus.

Today, the vast majority of Christians in not only secular academia, but also theological institutions, Bible colleges, etc. believe—and many teach—that the secular ‘billions of years’ is fact. When one tries to find out how they deal with these repeated references, responses vary. But the ‘explaining away’ that takes place (whenever the problem is not simply ignored) invariably makes it plain that the authority being deferred to is not the Word of God, but rather current secular opinion.

Jesus and the age of the earth

The most striking (and sad) example of this switch in authority source I know of comes from a personal experience. In Melbourne, Australia, many years ago, I had arranged to sit down over a hot drink with a distinguished university professor, a Christian who was well-known for his active opposition to a straightforward view of Genesis. At that time, he was actually the head of a grouping of Christian academics which had been openly set up to provide opposition to the inroads our ministry was making. Over the years, this group has unfortunately been very effective in persuading most Christian training institutions that compromising on biblical creation in favour of secular thinking (evolution, long ages) is the only ‘respectable’ position. This professor himself, in addition to his secular science qualifications, was well regarded in the theological arena as well as being very biblically literate. He had at that time already been a frequent guest lecturer at several leading Australian evangelical training institutions.

During our courteous exchange, I asked him about the above comments by Jesus in relation to the age of the world. I asked, “Isn’t it clear that Jesus taught and believed that the world was young?”

A stunning response

I expected him to do as other Christian evolutionists have done—to try to find ways to torture the text to escape these obvious implications. Instead, he said that he totally agreed that Jesus believed in a recent creation of all things.

Somewhat taken by surprise, I said, “Well, how do you deal with that, then?” (He would of course have assumed, correctly, that I knew of the long-age position of this prominent organisation of theistic evolutionists.) His answer simply stunned me, to put it mildly. He said: “Jesus didn’t know as much science as we do today.”

His words burned themselves indelibly on my memory, while the recollection of my response has faded somewhat. But I recall saying something about Jesus being the Creator, God made flesh; He was there at creation, He does not lie, that sort of thing. To which his reply was once again unforgettable:

“Ah, but that’s where it gets very complex—it has to do with the theology of the Incarnation, where Jesus deliberately laid aside many of the things that had to do with His pre-incarnate divinity.”

Our conversation was nearing the end of its allotted period in any case, but I recall being so stunned by this that it took me till well afterwards to fully process the implications.

What it all means:

Firstly, and very importantly, the professor’s comments were a clear admission that the words of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, as recorded in the Bible, confirm that He believed that things were recently created.

Remember that this professor was at the time the most prominent of all the professing evangelical academics that were being enthusiastically welcomed into Bible colleges and seminaries—to tell them why it was OK to believe in evolution and long ages. He obviously saw it as hopeless to try to claim other than what the Lord is clearly saying in this Bible text. And this is despite many attempts by others to ‘explain away’ this huge stumbling block for long-agers.

His way of being able to hold onto his theistic evolutionary view was to claim that Jesus was not lying, it was just that He was poorly informed. This was because when He as God the Son became flesh, laying aside aspects of His divinity included divesting Himself of all knowledge about what really happened when He had created all things.

If I had had the presence of mind, an appropriate response might have been to ask something like the following:

“OK, let’s assume for the sake of the argument that firstly, creation was by evolution, over millions of years of death and suffering—and that Jesus did perform some sort of lobotomy on Himself, so that He could no longer recall what really took place. So He just understood Genesis in the most natural straightforward way, not realising what the real truth was. What you’re claiming in that case amounts to this: That God the Father, knowing the real truth, permitted not just the Apostles, but His beloved Son, while on Earth, to believe and teach things that were utter falsehoods. Furthermore, it means that the Father permitted these false teachings to appear—repeatedly—in His revealed Word. With the result that for some 2,000 years, the vast majority of Christians were seriously misled about such things as not just the time and manner of creation, but gospel-crucial matters such as the origin of sin, and of death and suffering.”

[Added by author Nov 2014: The Lord Jesus repeatedly made it clear that His words and actions were on the Father’s authority, in all respects. Some examples are firstly John 8:28: So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me”. And John 12:49–50: “For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me.”]

If even Jesus’ words in Scripture can’t be trusted on some issues, how are we supposed to trust anything in the Bible at all?
One thing is very clear from all this. Namely, that the erroneous belief that ‘science’ insists that evolution and long ages are ‘fact’ is the most serious challenge to biblical authority, and thus to the faith in general, that Christendom has ever faced. If even Jesus’ words in Scripture can’t be trusted on some issues, how are we supposed to trust anything in the Bible at all? See also the box about the ‘kenotic heresy’.

Other leading theistic evolutionists have similarly made plain their belief that Jesus was mistaken. For example, on the American theistic evolutionary site BioLogos, led by Francis Collins, there appeared the following:

“If Jesus as a finite human being erred from time to time, there is no reason at all to suppose that Moses, Paul, John wrote Scripture without error. Rather, we are wise to assume that the biblical authors expressed themselves as human beings writing from the perspectives of their own finite, broken horizons.”

This is all the more serious because Jesus and the apostles used the history they taught to back up the theology that they taught. The Resurrection (1 Corinthians 15), marriage (Mark 10:1–12), atonement (Romans 5:12–21), and Heaven (Revelation 21–22:5) are only a few of the areas in which compromising Christians are theologically crippled, because they don’t have the same strong stand on Genesis that Jesus and the apostles did when they taught about these areas.

What a tragedy that so many Christian leaders have been bluffed and intimidated into assuming that secular interpretations of the evidence should dictate their understanding of God’s Word. And right at a point in history when there are more scientific reasons than ever to confirm the utter rationality of trusting the Bible, not evolutionary conclusions.

NEW ARCHAEOLOGY DISCOVERY CONFIRMS BIBLE’S ACCOUNT OF JESUS MINISTRY

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Second Temple-era synagogue unearthed in northern Israel

Jesus archaeological discovery

The recently discovered ruins of a first century synagogue in Israel confirm historic accounts of Jesus’ life found in the New Testament.

Located near Mount Tabor in the Nahal Tavor Nature Reserve in the lower Galilee at a site called Tel Rechesh, the synagogue ruins date back to the time of the Second Temple period, which ended in AD 79 when the Romans attacked Jerusalem.

Motti Aviam, a senior researcher at the Kinneret Institute for Galilean Archaeology at the Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee, explained in a statement the significance of the Tel Rechesh excavation find.

“This is the first synagogue discovered in the rural part of the Galilee and it confirms historical information we have about the New Testament, which says that Jesus preached at synagogues in Galilean villages,” explained Aviam, as reported by JNS.

Haaretz noted that while there have been seven other synagogues from the Second Temple period discovered before, the one at Tel Rechesh is the first to be found in a rural instead of urban setting.

“Inscriptions and historical sources show that the synagogues of the period were used for meetings, Torah readings and study, rather than worship. They had neither Torah ark nor regular prayer services,” reported Haaretz.

“One source mentioning synagogues is the New Testament, which states that Jesus ‘went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues.'”

In an interview with YNet News, Aviam explained why the findings at the Tel Rechesh site “makes the place very important for Christians.”

“During the same period Jesus was still a Jew who observed Jewish rituals and requirements and like many rabbis, he delivered sermons in synagogues. Christianity which developed after his (sic) placed an emphasis on his sermons at synagogues in the Galilee.”

Aviam added that he hoped “that when the work is completed the place will constitute a tourist attraction for Jews and Christians alike.”

This is not the first major find in Israel this year connected to the times of Jesus. In March it was reported that several artefacts from the first century Near East were located in an orphanage in Jerusalem.

As Jesus Himself claimed the Bible is inerrant. It is God’s Word to us, it can be trusted from Genesis to Revelation.

 

IN THE LAST DAYS; FALSE TEACHERS WILL ABOUND

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The details of who God is, what He has done in the past, what He will do in the future, His plan of salvation, His character etc. is only revealed in the Bible. So without a trustworthy source of revelation, we can’t know whether we are trusting in the true God, or a figment of our imagination.

Peter Enns’ latest book “The Sin of Certainty” reads like the average atheist attempting to discredit the Bible, all the while assuring you that he’s a Christian trying to illuminate you on how to build your faith. It’s basically a re-hash of similar concepts we’ve seen before in his previous writings and reiterates that while the Bible doesn’t contain the truth, you can still believe and trust in God (whoever that might be) which of course is nonsense.

the-sin-of-certainty

The subtitle of Enns’ book is ‘Why God desires our trust more than our ‘correct’ beliefs’. He opines throughout on what he believes is the church’s (and the majority of Christians’) unhealthy emphasis on having correct beliefs and champions ‘deep trust’ in God instead.

Unfortunately almost the entire book highlights all of the contradictions, errors and wrong thinking that Enns says the Bible contains which caused him and many others to doubt its validity as real history!

  1. The theory of evolution (which proved the creation account was wrong).3
  2. Archaeology (showing the Bible’s creation story was co-opted from other ancient writings).4
  3. Textual criticism (showing Moses didn’t write the Pentateuch [the JEPD hypothesis]).5
  4. Bible contradictions (such as the Bible’s support/criticism of slavery).6

All of his arguments are rather simplistic and have been answered numerous times by various Christian apologists. A search on Creation.com for example reveals plenty of articles soundly dealing with each of them and it is surprising to find someone who declares himself a believer buying into such weak arguments against his professed faith.

For example in the chapter ‘Slavery: Whose side is God on?’ he accuses the Bible of teaching contrary doctrines (an all too common attack by naive atheists) where he says;

“On the one hand, slavery in the Bible was a given, and slaves were the property of the owner, just as in every other ancient society.”7

“On the other hand, some saw the exodus story as proof that God is in the business of liberating slaves.”8

Unfortunately almost the entire book highlights all of the contradictions, errors and wrong thinking that Enns says the Bible contains which caused him and many others to doubt its validity as real history!

But of course the story of the exodus isn’t the reason we know the Bible doesn’t condone slavery, it is because God’s word strictly forbids it!

“Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.” (Exodus 21:16)

Man-stealing, man-selling and man-holding is slavery. These are all acts done to people against their will. But there is a big difference between this and indentured servitude (which is what Enns describes as slavery) defined in the Bible.

Indentured servitude in the Old Testament was a wilful arrangement (by both parties) where someone could enter into a binding work contract with someone else to survive in a situation where they probably wouldn’t have in a far less civilised era before government welfare programs existed.

However, Enns quotes Exodus 21:20-21 and equates it to slavery such as the African American slave trade (where Africans rounded up Africans and sold them to American slave owners) when he says;

“I wonder whether African slaves ever felt like God had painted a number on their backs.”

But this is completely out of context. How could a seminary educated individual and Bible teacher like Enns not know this?

Creation

In his chapter on evolution Enns admits what Genesis plainly says.

“The problem for biblically centred Christians is that the Bible, right in the very beginning, tells us clearly that God created all life forms with a simple “Let there be … ” No common descent, natural selection, or billions of years required. So if Darwin was right, the Bible was wrong.”2

Now Enns is a committed theistic evolutionist and hence this isn’t a ‘problem’ for him. Which reveals he isn’t a ‘biblically centred Christian’. And he believes Darwin was right, which means he believes the Bible is wrong!

This would mean that God knowingly put contradictions in His word (or else the Bible isn’t actually inspired although Enns doesn’t comment on this directly). But proclaiming known contradictions amounts to lying (which is likely why Enns has a chapter blasphemously titled ‘God is a liar’9).

Perhaps Enns forgot Numbers 23:19 where Scripture makes something clear- “God is not a man, that He should lie, or a son of man, that He should change His mind.”

(But of course that could just be one of those parts of the Bible you don’t have to take as plainly written in Enns’ way of thinking.)

For Enns the truth of the Bible isn’t what’s important, it’s ‘trust’ in God. Of course the word ‘trust’ is defined as; ‘firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something’. So Enns shoots himself in the foot in his basic premise. How are Christians supposed to trust in God if His revelation to His people is un-trustworthy?

Fuzzy logic

Enns’ approach is much like the ‘fuzzy’ emergent church musings of Rob Bell and Brian McLaren (both of whom also believe in evolution as fact). Because of their ‘non-absolutist’ writing style careful analysis is required to prevent being drawn into their nonsensical way of thinking. For example Enns says;

“This book is about thinking differently about faith, a faith that is not so much defined as by what we believe but in whom we trust. In fact, in this book I argue that we have misunderstood faith as a what word rather than a who word—as primarily beliefs about rather than primarily as trust in.” (Page 22)

“Trust works regardless of where our thinking happens to be at the moment. But when correct thinking is central to faith, we transmit onto God our own distorted mental image of God, with all its baggage, hang-ups and deep fears.” (Page 23)

This may sound rather deep and enlightening until you break it down. According to Enns, faith is a ‘who’ word. OK, so who am I to trust? Well, God. But who God is can only be determined by special revelation.

General revelation is sufficient for anyone to know that God exists (because of the creation as per Romans 1:20), but the details of who God is, what He has done in the past, what He will do in the future, His plan of salvation, His character etc. is only revealed in the Bible. So without a trustworthy source of revelation I could not know whether I was trusting in the true God or a figment of my imagination (see below).

Incredibly, Enns spends an inordinate amount of time quoting Scripture authoritatively and telling you what he thinks it means to convince you that you can’t take it as plainly written (authoritatively) which is self-defeating.

So Enns is wrong in saying focusing on ‘correct thinking’ leads to creating God into our own ‘distorted mental image’, it is rather focusing on wrong thinking (by definition) that does so!

What kind of God does Enns believe in?

Enns says he used to be orthodox in his thinking. What caused him to view God differently? A Disney movie on a plane trip!

Enns says he used to be orthodox in his thinking. What caused him to view God differently? A Disney movie on a plane trip!

“A fifty-two second exchange in a movie … And the next thing I know, my view of God flies away as if sucked out the window due to a loss of cabin pressure.”10

Recounting watching Disney’s Bridge to Terabithia he describes an exchange between two young girls discussing the Bible. Leslie (a non-Christian) announces “I seriously do not think God goes around damning people to hell. He’s too busy running all this … ”

Enns describes how this dialogue caused him to be “ … nostril deep in a faith crisis … ”

“How was I to know that the company that gave us Mickey Mouse, Goofy, and Son of Flubber would venture deep into a religious debate? I was just minding my own business at thirty thousand feet over the Midwest and was caught off guard. Me—a professional Christian, a seminary professor paid to think right thoughts about God and to tell others about them. But after a long trip, my orthodoxy shield was resting at my side. I was unarmed, and Leslie’s words hit their mark. In a flash and without words, I thought quietly to myself, I think Leslie’s right.

The idea that the Creator of heaven and Earth, with all their beauty, wonder, and mystery, was at the same time a supersized Bible thumping preacher, obsessed with whether our thoughts were all in place and ready to condemn us to eternity to hell if they weren’t, made no sense—even though that was my operating (though unexamined) assumption as long as I could remember.”

Now the idea that a seminary trained Christian Professor’s belief in God was devastated by a fictional children’s character making such a simplistic ‘objection’ is bad enough. But the fact that the view he had of God was of a ‘supersized Bible thumping preacher’ should set alarm bells ringing for believers as to whether Enns has ever known who God is.

In fact Enns reveals that he believes in a god that he wants to believe in (rather than the God revealed in Scripture):

“ … Leslie’s God was the one I, deep down, wanted to believe in.”11

And ultimately he admits he’s thought this way for a long time;

“ … judging by an old journal I stumbled on from my early twenties, these themes have been my home base for over thirty years.”12

Certain that certainty is sin

“All this to say that a faith in a living God that is preoccupied with certainty is sin, for it compromises the gospel—personally, locally, and globally.”13

But how does Enns know this (he seems preoccupied with repeating it throughout his book and sounds quite certain about it)? He cannot point to a specific Scripture to back it up, and even if he tried to use words from the Bible to verify his claim he has already stated that the words in the Bible are not ultimately trustworthy. So Enns is just relying on his own mind to determine truth. He has become the god he follows.

Enns is excellent at posing questions that supposedly ‘expose’ contradictions in the text in order to dismiss the plain reading of Scripture as valid. But like most modern theological de-constructionists, he never then gives you a replacement interpretive methodology that should be applied except for his opinion.

Half way through the book one feels like Mowgli from the Jungle book, all wrapped up in the ever tightening coils of the serpent Kaa mesmerised by the hypnotising drone of “Trust in me, just in meeeee!”

This is likely to leave any reader that adopts his ideas to logically conclude that there is no universal way to understand Scripture and that whatever you decide to think or feel about the text is OK.

A wolf in sheep’s clothing

2 Peter 2:1 says “ … there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.”

It’s hard not to think of Enns in this way. If I were (still) an atheist and I wanted a resource to try and steer someone away from the Christian faith in a ‘friendly’ way I don’t think I could find a better means to do so than give them a copy of his book.

Remember Peter Enn’s is the Professor of Biblical Studies at Eastern University Philadelphia which is ranked in the top tier of USA North Regional Universities in 2015. Sadly many of them are facing an eternity in hell from this man’s false teaching.

Book review by Calvin Smith of Creation Ministries

EVIL IS A SPIRITUAL BATTLE

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Evil is a spiritual battle, well before it is a physical one.

FRANCE-ATTACK-NICE

An unidentified gunman barrelled the truck two kilometres through a crowd that had been enjoying a fireworks display for France’s national day before being shot dead by police.

The physical cannot even test, let alone defeat the spiritual. The natural is toothless when faced by the supernatural. This earth, this visible universe is not all there is. Reality is not measured by the five senses. Reality lives eternally beyond any mere man’s perceptions. Human imagination can not account for all it is unable to see, try as it might. History is heading somewhere. God is in control and He has revealed in His Word, the end-time scenario.

Mankind’s skills are as impotent to prevent evil as legislation is incompetent.

The Fight against Evil (Ephesians 6:10 CEV)

Finally, let the mighty strength of the Lord make you strong. 11 Put on all the armour that God gives, so you can defend yourself against the devil’s tricks. 12 We are not fighting against humans. We are fighting against forces and authorities and against rulers of darkness and powers in the spiritual world. 13 So put on all the armour that God gives. Then when that evil day[a] comes, you will be able to defend yourself. And when the battle is over, you will still be standing firm.

Be ready! Let the truth be like a belt around your waist, and let God’s justice protect you like armour. 15 Your desire to tell the good news about peace should be like shoes on your feet. 16 Let your faith be like a shield, and you will be able to stop all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Let God’s saving power be like a helmet, and for a sword use God’s message that comes from the Spirit.

Never stop praying, especially for others. Always pray by the power of the Spirit. Stay alert and keep praying for God’s people.

Article from Soul Snacks

2500 year old Judah soldiers handwriting discovery confirms Gods word is true

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Israeli archaeologist Prof. Ehud Netzer displays the shard from a 2,000-year-old amphora bearing the name of “Herod the Great, King of Judea” July 9. The unique ceramic shard, found during a recent archaeological dig on the ancient desert fortress of Masada, came from a large amphora used for shipping Italian wine to the king who ruled the holy land at the time of Jesus’ birth.

2500 years old pottery
The discovery in question refers to findings posted in April by Israel’s Tel Aviv University, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which demonstrates that it was not only the elites who could read.

“We’re dealing with really low-level soldiers in a remote place who can write,” said Israel Finkelstein, an archaeologist and biblical scholar at Tel Aviv University. “So there must have been some sort of educational system in Judah at that time.”

Finkelstein suggested that what this discovery means is that people in the kingdom had the capacity to write and put together parts of the Old Testament even earlier than it was believed.

“There’s a heated discussion regarding the timing of the composition of a critical mass of biblical texts, but to answer this, one must ask a broader question: What were the literacy rates in Judah at the end of the First Temple period? And what were the literacy rates later on?” the researcher elaborated.

The Bible states in Genesis 5:1, that Adam, the first man in the Bible, had the ability to speak and write.

The Israelites were commanded to write the commands of the Lord on their door posts and bind them on their hands and foreheads (Deuteronomy 6:4–9, 11:18–20), if they could not read or write, what would be the point of these commands?

Most conservative biblical scholars who start with God’s Word believe the Old Testament record that the books were written by the persons associated with them or those who claim to have written them. They also accept that these books were written during the time period they claim to have been written in (e.g., the prophet Isaiah during the reigns of the pre-exilic kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah). If these books were not written until decades or even centuries after the events happened, the historicity, accuracy, and infallibility of the texts are called into question since they claim to have been written much earlier.

The pottery shards discovery in Judah, supports the accuracy of God’s Word, because it shows that Israelites were more literate than many scholars believe.

“If history has taught anything, it’s that eventually research and science will confirm Scripture. We have an imperfect and incomplete understanding of history and science, but God’s Word was ultimately written by the God who was there and who never lies (Titus 1:2),” the article added.

 

GOD IS JUDGING NATIONS TODAY AS ACCURATELY PROPHESIED IN THE BIBLE

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The Bible accurately prophesied events which we see unfolding today as the nations turn away from Christian morality which came from the Bible. The rejection of the Bible’s authority and God as creator (evolution) means the Bible’s morality is being rejected as well. Morals are being redefined in ways that would have been unthinkable even a generation ago. The Bible clearly calls homosexual behaviour an abomination. And just a generation or two ago most people would have agreed. The prophet Isaiah warned:

“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight.” Isaiah 5:21

And the New Testament says:

“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but have itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. 2 Timothy 4:3-4

Gay Marriage

This booklet is both biblically and scientifically sound, it displays genuine compassion while at the same time not shirking from the truth; e.g. “because homosexuals can clearly love each other and since anything labelled ‘love’ is believed to be good, because their sin is then brought under the umbrella of ‘love’, then their sinful behaviour also becomes good.  For Christians, we should steer clear of a ‘pro-marriage’ stance based upon mere tradition (often politically charged). We need to stand on the principles of scripture that define what God intends for marriage.

Christians who have an uncompromising stance on the Bible’s authority , which follows from a conviction  that its big picture of history is true from the beginning, can be a powerful force, particularly if they can provide evidence to support the Bible’s history as real.

What is KEY is “What does the Bible say about marriage? What does the Bible say about homosexuality and other sexual sins?

“And you shall not lie sexually with your neighbour’s wife and so make yourself unclean with her…… You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. And you shall not lie with any animal…. it is perversion.” Leviticus 18:20-23

In the New Testament, Romans 1 argues that homosexual behaviour among both men and women is the result of suppressing the knowledge of God the Creator (the one who makes the rules for His creation).

“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonouring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonourable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passions for one another, men committing shameless acts with men receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.” Romans 1:24-27

Jesus was crystal clear on the issue: “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’.” Matthew 19:1-12 and Mark 10: 1-12

Nations have now embraced the homosexual lifestyle and gay marriage. It is now illegal in the USA for medical professionals or therapists to engage in reparative therapy that seeks to rehabilitate teen homosexuals back into a heterosexual lifestyle.

The White House was lit up in rainbow colours within hours of the Supreme Court declaring same sex marriage legal in all States. The rainbow is God’s covenant so what does this say about Obama?

Gods-Promise-Rainbow-03

The Bible shows God is sovereign and he has judged nations and its leaders down through history. He judged Sodom & Gomorrah and He will judge those nations that embrace this lifestyle. Look at what is unfolding in some of these nations – “Terrifying Bush fires prompt the evacuation of an entire Canadian City” News.com.au

Australians have an important decision before them at the coming election. Labour promises to bring in gay marriage and in fact, you cannot belong to the Labour Party after 2017 if you don’t support gay marriage. The Liberals pledge to hold a plebiscite on the issue as soon after the election as can be done.

AGE OF THE EARTH

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There is a great article in the latest issue of Creation magazine Vol 38 No 1 2016, entitled The Z Factor. It is about how a university geology lecturer’s last obstacle to believing a literal Genesis – “What about coal?”- was overturned in an instant.

hammer and rocks

He understood, the above picture revealed that the evolutionary millions-of-years ‘swamp forest’ story telling about coals origins cannot explain the Z-shaped and forked coal seams that are in abundance. They can only have formed through the action of rushing water.

For this Christian geology lecturer, this one picture was sufficient for him to realise Noah’s Flood was the causal factor in coal formation all over the world. “That’s it! That’s it! Noah’s Flood explains coal, the fossil bearing rocks. I believe everything now – the whole Bible. The universe is only 6,000 years old. What a wonderful day this is.”

It is important to realise that Z shaped and forked shaped coal seams are not the only features in coal deposits that defy evolution’s long age “swamp forest” storytelling. Others, include trees penetrating vertically through multiple layers of coal seams with their roots broken off, huge coal seams stacked on top of one another with a regular repeating sequence of rock layers in between, and the fact that coal seams contain much vegetation (like pine trees) that doesn’t grow in swamps!

Near-vertical coalified, fossilized tree stump sitting on the Lower Pilot Seam within the ‘Permian’ coal measures near Swansea, New South Wales, Australia.

For this geologist, evolutionary indoctrination about coal needing millions of years to form in forested swamps had been his final obstacle to believing the whole Bible. Do you believe the Bible, from its Creation account to its revelation of a new heaven and a new earth after the White Throne judgement of all mankind?  If evolution is a stumbling block for you, then can I suggest you get the video, Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels by 9 PhD scientists – available on http://www.creation.com.

 

Compelling Historical Evidence for the Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ

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Here is some compelling evidence of Christ's birth.

  1. Documented by a physician & world-class historian.

The virgin birth of Jesus Christ was documented by a physician and world-class historian who interviewed eyewitnesses, probably including Mary herself, for his account of this world-changing event. Luke gives the most detailed account of the Nativity and mentions Mary 12 times, more than any other biblical writer.

The accuracy of Luke as a historian was confirmed by the famous historian, A.N. Sherwin-White, who carefully examined his references in Luke/Acts to 32 countries, 54 cities, and nine islands, finding not a single mistake. Sir William Ramsay, who spent years in Asia Minor following and examining Luke’s account of Paul’s travels, wrote in The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament, “You may press the words of Luke in a degree beyond any other historian’s and they stand the keenest scrutiny and the hardest treatment.”

  1. Affirmed by modern archaeology.

Luke’s status as a world-class historian, accurate in even the smallest details, was brought to light by modern archaeology. For example, Sir William Ramsay, considered one of the greatest archaeologists of all time, originally thought he would scientifically discredit Luke’s accounts by visiting and examining the places mentioned in his Gospel and Acts.

Ramsay was a student of the sceptical, German higher criticism of the 19th century and was taught that the New Testament was an unreliable religious treatise written in the mid-second century by individuals far removed from the events described. But after years of retracing Luke’s account of Paul’s travels and doing archaeological digs along the way, Ramsay completely reversed his view of the Bible and first-century history.

Ramsay became convinced that Acts was written in the first century by the traditional author, and he acquired a very high regard for Luke as a historian. He wrote, “Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy, he is possessed of the true historic sense; in short, this author should be placed along with the greatest of historians.”

William F. Albright, archaeologist and late professor of Semitic languages at John Hopkins University, is considered by many to be the greatest of archaeologists. Like Ramsay, he began as an agnostic, sceptical of the Bible as a reliable book of history. But, like Ramsay, his views were also completely changed by doing the hard work of an archaeologist in the field.

Albright discovered that not only was Luke reliable, but that the entire Bible was a reliable source of history. According to The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Albright wrote, “Discovery after discovery has established the accuracy of innumerable details, and brought increased recognition to the Bible as a source of history.”

   3.  An agnostic professor of mythology is convinced. 

C S Lewis was the agnostic professor of Renaissance literature at Oxford University, a prolific author and a recognized expert of mythological texts. He too had bought into the idea that the Bible was not a book of reliable history and that the New Testament was filled with all sorts of mythical stories, created by individuals far removed from the events described.

But through the influence of his childhood and friends who challenged his atheism, Lewis began to read the Bible. He was astounded at what he encountered in the Gospels, for it was obviously a different genre from the ancient mythologies with which he was so familiar. His surprised response was, “This is not myth!” Lewis went on to become a dedicated follower of Christ and perhaps the most significant Christian apologist of the 20th century.

  1. Predicted centuries in advance by OT prophets.

Genesis 3:15 said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.”

These words were spoken by God to the serpent after the fall of our first parents. The “seed of the woman” in this passage is an allusion to a future descendant of Eve who will defeat the serpent and reverse the curse brought on by his deception.

The Bible normally speaks of the seed of men, but in this case it is the “seed of the woman.” This is a prophecy that clearly anticipates the future virgin birth of Christ—a birth in which the seed of a man is not involved. The beloved Methodist theologian, Adam Clarke, wrote in The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testaments with a Commentary and Critical Notes, “The seed of the woman is to come by the woman, and her alone without the concurrence of man.”

According to this prophecy, the “seed of the woman” will receive a temporary wound from Satan—”you will bruise His heel”—but the “seed of woman” shall inflict on Satan a final and mortal wound—”He will bruise your head.” This Messianic promise was fulfilled through the virgin birth of Jesus and through His death and resurrection.

Isaiah 7:14 said, “Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: The virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”

The Hebrew word translated “virgin” in this passage is almah and refers to a young woman of marriageable age, but would usually include the idea of virginity, since that was expected of a young Jewish woman being married for the first time.

That “virgin” is an accurate English translation is confirmed by the Septuagint, which uses the Greek word parthinos to translate almah. Parthinos specifically means a young woman who has never had sex with a man. Parthinos is the word used by both Matthew and Luke in their description of Mary, affirming that she was a young woman who had never had sex with a man when Jesus was born.

Further evidence that this Son born of a virgin is a Messianic prophecy referring to Jesus is indicated by Isaiah’s statement that he shall be called Immanuel, which means “God with us.” This is a clear statement concerning the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, and reminds us of the words of Gabriel to Mary that the Son she will bear “will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest” (Luke 1:32).

  1. Believed universally by the earliest Christians.

That the virgin birth was universally believed by the earliest Christians is verified by “The Apostle’s Creed,” an early confession of faith that dates from the second century and was used throughout the church. By including the virgin birth in their creedal statement, these early believers made clear that they considered it an essential doctrine of the Faith. The Creed reads in part:

“I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth; And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord: Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary” (emphasis added).

This belief in the virgin birth was confirmed by the Nicene Creed of A.D. 325 and has continued to be the belief of Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant Christians.

Note the words of the 18th century hymn, “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” written by Charles Wesley, an Oxford graduate and Anglican minister, and with his brother John, the leader of the great Methodist revival. Because of the references to the virgin birth, this hymn became a popular carol sung at Christmas:

“Christ by highest heaven adored/Christ the everlasting Lord! /Late in time behold Him come/Offspring of a Virgin’s womb! /Veiled in flesh the Godhead see/Hail the incarnate Deity! /Pleased as man with man to dwell/Jesus, our Emanuel/Hark the herald angels sing/Glory to the newborn king!”

Extract from article by Dr. Eddie L. Hyatt. He is an author, historian and biblical scholar.