THE GOSPEL: If not from GOD from whom?

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Jesus on Cross

 

I believe we can boldly assert that no man of all the myriads that have ever lived – let him be as wise as Solomon, the very best as Job, could have possibly invented from his own “thoughts” the GOSPEL.

Paul says as much in Galatians 1:11 “For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel.”

It was absolutely impossible for such a plan of salvation ever to be devised by man’s thoughts. It is utterly at variance with those thoughts. It is infinitely to intricate in all its marvelous adaptations to all the involved problems that have to be met , so that no careless, thoughtless one could ever have conceived it. He would cease to be careless. But that eliminates most of us, for indeed aren’t most of us careless? But could a proud man, let him be ever so thoughtful and intelligent, have invented it? I don’t think so, for it humbles him to nothing , telling him that he is ungodly and without strength and only as in heart confessing this can he be saved. He would have to cease being proud in order to have conceived it, to have been its author.

There only remains the poor is spirit, the confessed sinner. Could such have invented the idea that the Creator of all, glorious in holiness, that so high, so Holy a One should  give up His dearest Treasure to bear the sins of one like himself, so conscious as he is of his unworthiness? Would it be likely a humble mind to invent such a plan? He would cease to be humble to have invented it. In fact how blasphemously proud would such a person be!

Then I would suggest, it is proved that since no man – careless or thoughtful, proud or humble, bad or good – could have conceived it, it must have been a divine revelation, the result of God’s thoughts and not man’s.

“For My thoughts are not as your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declared the Lord.”

 

Gathering in China to embrace JESUS and HIS KINGDOM

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In these last days God has prepared the Chinese Church through their faithfulness and humility under persecution to lead the Church in this part of our end time journey. The Chinese Church has acknowledged God’s call to take the Gospel to the Nations on the three silk roads back to Jerusalem (Back to Jerusalem, Called to Complete the Great Commission by Three Chinese Church Leaders published UK 2003). Their freedom from fear of death, their humility and complete abandonment to the will of God is allowing the Lord to speedily bring them into unity with one another and alignment with His headship.

In His wisdom, God has positioned the Chinese in the natural realm, geographically close to India and the Arab Nations and to have favour among the Arabs as well as respect among the Jews. So the Chinese are able to go where the Western Church cannot. They are able to stretch their arms wide to embrace not only the sons of Ishmael and the sons of Isaac, but also the Western Church, bringing the whole Body together into one family.

Hopefully this video will give you a glimpse of the passion the Chinese have for our Lord.

http://youtu.be/oxLv5rL2zLk

Extract from article by David Demian “The Road From Asia to Jerusalem”

Biblical Genealogies are Trustworthy Historical Records

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genealogy

 

1 Chronicles 1 and Luke 3 take these genealogies to be completely historical. So theistic evolutionists who would relegate these genealogies to mythical status have to reckon not only with the plain teaching of the chronogenealogies, but how the rest of Scripture treats them as well.

Adam to Noah

The first genealogies we find in Genesis (in chapters 5 and 11) are called ‘chronogenealogies’ because the age of the father at the birth of the son are given. This allows us to know with a very high degree of accuracy (within a year) how much time passed during each generation. It also lets us know there is no gap between the names.

Shem to Abram

The most noticeable element of the genealogy is the steady decrease in lifespans. The antediluvians all seemed to live very long lives. But after the Flood, each generation lives shorter and shorter lives, until many children die before their longer-lived parents, and even before grandparents and beyond. By the time of Abraham, lifespans were only about twice what we experience in the modern-day world.

These genealogies are actually indications that Genesis intends to be taken as history, and not myth, because the chronology claims to set each person in a specific place in history. Many of the people in the genealogies are not mentioned elsewhere in Scripture, so their only purpose seems to be to link one important character with another (linking Noah back to Adam, for example). By the time Moses wrote Genesis, most of these names would not be otherwise significant to the Hebrews.

Matthew’s genealogy

The purpose of Matthew’s genealogy was to trace the legal line of rightful heirs to the throne of David. This of course included biological descent, but also some ‘adoptive’ relationships where a man had no descendant, or whose descendants were disqualified. Matthew’s genealogy used obvious ‘telescoping’ where less important people were omitted.

Matthew claims that his choice of names is significant because of the number of generations listed “So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to Christ fourteen generations” (Matthew 1:17). The most plausible significance for this is because the numerical value of the letters in David’s name added up to 14. God is in total control of history. After all it is HIS story.

Luke’s genealogy

When we interpret the genealogies correctly, we see that they are trustworthy historical records.

Luke’s genealogy looks a lot more complete, and was probably the biological genealogy of Mary, so we see Jesus’ biological ancestry from David, and from Adam. We would expect that Luke would want to give us a complete chain to link Jesus biologically with David. But from Adam to David, he uses the Old Testament sources which indicates his confidence in them as Jesus had total confidence in them – Mt 5:18.

Luke’s genealogy is unusual in that it starts with Jesus and goes back to Adam—all the other genealogies go from father to son. This allows it to end with, “the son of Adam, the son of God.” This means that the genealogy starts and ends with a “son of God”, and nicely makes the theological point that Jesus is linked to all of humanity via common descent from Adam.

Trustworthy historical records

When we look at the biblical genealogies, we have to appreciate the purpose behind each of them, and that helps us to interpret them correctly. And when we interpret them correctly, we see that they are trustworthy historical records.

Extracted from article by Lita Costner “Are There Gaps in the Biblical Genealogies” http://www.creation.com

Billy Graham on the Authority of Scripture

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Billy-Graham

Doubt can be a severe problem and was something that both Billy Graham and Charles Templeton faced.

In the late 1940’s, Billy and Charles attended a conference in California where a number of young theologians including Charles were expressing their doubts about the authority of the Bible. They were good friends, both budding evangelists, and they discussed those doubts.

“Suddenly, I wondered if the Bible could be trusted completely,” Billy said in his book “Billy Graham: God’s Ambassador.

Those same doubts eventually caused Charles Templeton to say goodbye to God. It was the 20th century, anti-creationist, scientific community claiming the earth was millions of years old (and later billions of years) that influenced Charles Templeton, who later wrote the book Farewell to God: My Reasons for Rejecting the Christian Faith. Sadly, Templeton was not able to distinguish the difference between the observations of scientists and their opinions (scientists with ulterior motives).

In contrast, Billy immediately began to study the subject intensively turning to the Scriptures themselves for guidance. “The Apostle Paul,” Billy said, “wrote to Timothy saying, ‘All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.’ Jesus himself said, ‘Heaven and earth shall pass away but my Word shall not pass away.’ I also thought of Christ’s own attitude, He loved the Scriptures, quoted from them constantly, and never once intimated that they might be false.”

Billy recalls the moment that changed him forever. “That night , I walked out in the moonlight, my heart heavy and burdened. I dropped to my knees and opened my Bible on a tree stump. If the issue was not settled soon, I knew I could not go on. ‘Oh God, I prayed, ‘there are many things in this book I do not understand. But God, I am going to accept this book as Your Word by faith. I’m going to allow my faith to go beyond my intellect and believe that this is Your inspired Word.’ From that moment on I have never doubted God’s Word. When I quote the Bible, I believe I am quoting the very Word of God and there’s power in it.

This all occurred one month before his very successful Los Angeles crusade which marked a decisive turning point in his ministry. The Los Angeles rally pushed him onto the national scene. A lifetime of ministry has followed and even in his 90’s Billy is still impacting the world for God.

The Bible is God’s Word from Genesis to Revelation and the Apostle John’s last words in the book of Revelation are warning enough to those that reject the authority of scripture.

“For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” Revelation 22: 18,19

Jesus will rule the Nations

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As we approach Christmas, this beautiful rendition by Pentatonix is a wonderful reminder of who JESUS is and what He has done and is still to do.

Jesus is coming again and when He does it is to rule and reign. Do you know him as your Lord and Saviour? Do you know His Father as your heavenly Father? Do you have the Holy Spirit within you as your comforter, counselor and teacher producing the fruit of the spirit in your life – love, joy, peace, faithfulness, gentleness, kindness, goodness, patience and self control. If you do, you are truly living eternal now.

May you know His love, peace and joy this Christmas.

Darwin’s destructive influence on the world.

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Apostate - The men

The fact that Christianity has lost an enormous amount of cultural influence in Europe, America and even Australia is without dispute. A recent book, Apostate – The Men who Destroyed the Christian West documents how and why the decline and fall of Western Christian civilization occurred.

Charles Darwin is of course the dominant person on the list of men who destroyed the Christian west.

Darwinian Evolution theories now dominate at least 99% of higher education in America, only 1% of all public and private universities maintain a God centered epistemology and metaphysics in the matter of origins. In 1850 (before Darwin and the Theory of Evolution) virtually all leading scientists and philosophers were Christian men. The world they inhabited was created by God. He had created wise laws that brought about the adaption of all organisms to one another and to their environment. The basic principles proposed by Darwin stand in total conflict with this worldview.

Eliminating God from science enabled Godlessness to prevail everywhere, in classrooms, media, entertainment and politics. Charles Darwin’s naturalistic materialism has so changed the Western metaphysics that the average person hardly senses God’s providential interaction with the world, let alone His existence. The Southern Baptist denomination reports 88% of children raised in Christian families leave the church as soon as they leave home (p. 254)

Swanson concludes: “the impact that Charles Darwin has had on the lives of hundreds of millions of Christian families is overwhelming. It is an undeniable fact that the Christian faith was far stronger 150 years ago in Europe and America. Now their 21st century grandchildren are pagans, atheists, homosexuals, witches and atheist scientists. The sheer number that will be in hell because of Charles Darwin’s commitment to ‘murder God’ is too much – and too tortuous to fathom.” (p. 142).

The other men Swanson says played a role in the decline of Christianity, Hitler, Karl Marx, John Dewey, Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, , Friedrich Nietzsche were all powerfully influenced by Charles Darwin.

As stated in my last post, sadly leaders of the largest Church denominations have unwittingly accepted Evolution as fact and distorted Scripture to fit, with disastrous consequences. Fortunately, God has raised up organisations such as Creation Ministries to equip His Church with powerful resources such as the recent “Evolution’s Achilles’Heels” to counter this threat. Check out this valuable resource on http://www.creation.com.

 

Reflections on The Gathering

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Gathering in Jerusalem

As mentioned in the previous report it is difficult to describe what God is doing with these Gatherings. They started in Canada with God raising up Watchmen for the Nations to gather a remnant from that nation to unite in John 17 unity to fulfill His purposes.

When Watchmen for the Nations began to prophesy that God was going to use Canada to bring healing to other nations particularly Israel, it seemed impossible, but then transformation began  with constant prayer being offered up in the nation’s capital.

The liberal government was replaced by the Conservative Party with Stephen Harper, a committed Christian as their new Prime Minister. A group from ICCC Canada also played an important role in bringing repentance and unity between the indigenous people’s – First Nations and the Inuits.

Stephen Harper initiated the nation to repent of turning away almost 1,000 Jews on the MS St Louis in 1939 and recently vowed to stand with the nation of Israel during their current trials.

Watchmen for the Nations next call was to China and the first Gathering took place in 2010 with 3,000 in attendance in Hong Kong, 6,000 attended in 2011, 12,000+ in 2102 and 24,000 in 2013. Through the “Kingdom Come” DVD’s and CD’s (www.asiagathering.hk), you can experience the journey of the 2012 Gathering. God has led believers from more than twenty nations to affirm the leadership role He has called the Chinese to play in His end time purposes on earth.

Chinese Christians believe God put them through over 40 years of persecution under Mao to prepare them for a final three Silk Roads evangelism effort back to Jerusalem. These evangelists  go as Jesus sent his disciples just one pair of shoes. The passion Chinese Christians exhibited at The Gathering in Jerusalem put me to shame.

The Gathering in Japan in July was another watershed event with 3,000 in attendance. The Japanese Christians believe that God sent many Christians from other nations to break open the demonic stronghold over Japan. They saw themselves as the lame man who was lowered down in front of Jesus after they had broken open the roof of the house. The timing of the Gathering – 70 years after the end of World War 2 was also considered significant. The Japanese Christians now believe that God has finally released them to take part in the final evangelism effort being launched by the Chinese. A friend of mine reported that a breakthrough was achieved on the second night with the praise and worship reaching new heights.

Where will the next Gathering take place? I can now confirm that the next Gathering will be in Kobe Japan in 2015 to follow up the one in July of this year. I am still praying that God will bless Australia with one.

A GOOD GOD & A WORLD OF DEATH & SUFFERING?

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lambs

One of the most common questions asked of Christians is some version of: “If God is so loving, why are there bad things in the world?” The implication being that if God created this world in the state it is in, He can’t be ‘very good’ Himself. This is sometimes used as a reason to reject belief in God.

If God created everything in 6 days when exactly were ‘bad things’ created?

The first thing we need to understand is that God wasn’t surprised by the Fall of Adam. God is all knowing and so knew that a punishment would have to be meted out following Adam’s (and his offspring’s) rebellion.

According to Scripture, at the time of the Fall the environment changed and there were changes in the physical construction of some things as well. For example thorns appeared where there were none before. Some might ask ‘Doesn’t that mean God must have created new genetic information for these things at that time where there was none before?’ Not necessarily, because ‘hidden’ genetic information can lie dormant within living things and be activated under certain environmental conditions.

For example up to the 1920’s, scientists used to classify grasshoppers as a separate species to locusts. However, researchers have since determined that they are actually the same creature. Under certain (laboratory reproducible) circumstances they exhibit a sort of Jekyll/Hyde transformation that is truly startling!

Behavioural differences happen immediately at the transformation, with physical changes appearing in subsequent generations. The difference in behaviour (grasshoppers are solitary, locusts swarm), and morphology (locusts have smaller legs, wings and bodies but have a 30% larger brain than grasshoppers) is significant and changes neural, muscular and exo-skeletal expression. And the transformation from grasshopper to locust can also be reversed back again. Yet the DNA of the two creatures is identical.7

This ability for DNA to express different programming from the same source code under different environmental conditions is actually fairly common. The epigenetic code, a set of switches that turn genes on and off (e.g. in response to environmental stimuli) is a main contributor to this ability of the ‘finished product’ to vary despite the same DNA ‘instructions. This is known as ‘phenotypic plasticity’.

Not only is the discovery of latent genetic information an incredible challenge for evolution to account for, and a tremendous evidence of design (because it exhibits all of the characteristics of foresight and pre-planning in the genomes of creatures around the world), but it also helps answer the supposedly unanswerable question of how ‘bad things’ appeared after the Fall if God’s creation was completely finished by the end of the sixth day of creation.

God’s word is true

Foreknowing the Fall of man,9 God created the features of a post-Fall world in latent form within His very good world. They only became activated when God cursed the creation as punishment for Adam’s transgression. And the entire creation groans because of that Curse and is evidence that something is desperately wrong with this world. If God had not caused our physical environment to change at the time of the Fall, we would be lost without Him, bound for Hell but still in a virtual paradise. How would we know there was anything wrong and that we were in need of our Saviour

extract from article “The good, the bad and the ugly ….” by Calvin Smith on http://www.creation.com

 

EXCITING DOCUMENTARY – EVOLUTION’S ACHILLES HEEL

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EAH-premiere-banner

This 96-minute documentary interviews 15 Ph.D. scientists about the greatest weaknesses of modern evolutionary theory. The public generally only hears one side of the origins debate, but with stunning animations and dramatic footage, Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels presents a powerful ‘warts and all’ critique of textbook evolutionary orthodoxy. You’ll also discover just how much this debate impacts your view of yourself and the world around you.

“Never before have this many scientists been brought together for a project of this type. … Visually stunning 3D animations and dramatic footage help to show how the theory’s supposed strengths are, in fact, its fatal flaws—Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels.”
CFDb (Christian Film Database)

“If we could award Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels more than five Doves, our best rating, we would! … the fifteen experts in this film blow open the door for God’s foot, the Grand Designer, to walk in boldly.”
The Dove Foundation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEkJezGRJPc

You need to get the video when it becomes available in November from http://www.creation.com

HIGHEST COURTS ABANDON GOD’S LAWS

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antonin_scalia-photograph1John Dyson Heydon

 

1.Supreme Court Judge Antonin Scalia  2.Retired High Court Judge John Dyson Heydon

In the USA the powerful global Humanist activist network has successfully used leftist-liberal “judicial activism” to impose atheistic secularism under the deception, secularism is religiously neutral. In fact secularism is in reality the imposition of the atheist world view.

Humanists are not only intent on eradicating theism and all things Christian from all State and public institutions, but from the public domain, to the point where wearing crosses in the workplace and street preaching is now under attack in the UK.

The most extreme form of atheism is being imposed on both public and private school science classes in the guise of philosophical naturalism and scientism – NOT science.

There are few dissenting voices left but one of the few conservative Supreme High Court justices is Antonin Scalia. He has openly expressed concern at the “judicial activism” being engaged in by unelected leftist liberal USA Supreme Court justices to overturn acts of elected branches of government and the long standing Judeo-Christian history and heritage of the nation.

Here in Australia recently retired High Court judge John Dyson Heydon AC, in the recent High Court school Chaplains, Williams vs The Commonwealth decision has openly expressed concern about the High Court “judicial activism”. He has spoken out against judges who “assume a law making role” and how ‘judicial activism’ results in the death of the rule of law in Australia.

Thus it is ATHEISM that is being imposed on Nations by leftist-liberal majority Supreme and High Court justices. The Bible calls these people fools as they suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Sadly they influence millions consigning them to God’s white throne judgment and an eternity in Hell.