CHURCHES ARE BEING TAKEN OVER BY DEMONIC SPIRITS

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“Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons…” 1 Timothy 4:1

In this verse, where Paul refers to those who “shall depart from the faith,” he is not talking about ungodly individuals who stick their middle finger in God’s face, spit on the Bible, and hate the church. He is talking about believers who will depart from the church, from the truth of the Bible, from the preaching, from prayer, from fasting, and from deliverance and miracles. And the reason they will depart is shocking. They will give heed to seducing spirits. These are evil spirits, and these dark seducing spirits will eventually woo them into accepting “doctrines of devils.”

Doctrines of devils are false religions and other false teachings that dismiss the Bible: idol worship, the worship of man, the worship of objects, the worship of charms and amulets and crystals and horoscopes, etc.; and they will eventually defend every sort of perversion that goes against the Word of God. Church people will literally side with demons, occultism, and witchcraft. If you haven’t seen that come full circle in our time, then you’ve not been paying attention. In short, Paul says there will be demonic activity in the church during the last days that will destroy the church. The influence of demonic activity in the life of the American church is an absolute fact. Demons work to destroy the conscience of their host and have no conscience of their own. A demonic spirit is void of that emotional connection to God, so it causes people to live numb and dry and lukewarm and barren, and in this context, we begin to understand that a demon is nothing more than a person without a body who has taken hold of a human body.

As we see more and more demonic influence in our culture, we need to heed Paul’s warnings. The devil is going hard after the people of God, and no one is an exception. We must buckle up with the armour of God, stick close to His Word, and keep our eyes focused on Christ.

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:10-12

END TIMES PROPHESIED WARS & RUMOURS OF WARS

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World on alert as call for vengeance ignites fear of Armageddon

This headline appeared in THE AUSTRALIAN (newspaper) on Friday, October 20th, 2023.

How the tables of world opinion can turn. It has taken an enormity of an appalling nature in Gaza – the bombing of the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital. Hamas claims Israel is responsible for the bombing. Israel and US President Joe Biden claim it was a misfired rocket from Gaza Strip’s Islamic Jihad. The Israeli Defence Forces has produced footage it claims dispels a “global media campaign” from Hamas terrorists to inflame the ­region over the hospital tragedy. Muslims can lie to infidels. it is in the Koran so I know who I believe. Hamas is using its incompetence (a misfired rocket) to fuel rage among supporters of Palestine.

Quran 3:54, og Quran 8:30; “Allah is the most accomplished liar and deceiver.”

The hospital carnage and suffering have resulted in a tinder box of horror and rage, particularly in Muslim nations and among supporters of Palestinians. There are calls for a worldwide uprising, for vengeance, for retribution. Who could possibly benefit from letting loose a bloody and global maelstrom of death and destruction? One abhorrent truth is that there are those who do see it as in their interests to fan and release such an Armageddon.

HAMAS ATTACK ON ISRAEL

They weren’t hunting for Israelis, much less for soldiers; they were hunting for Jews. Their instructions were simple: kill as many as you can. Nor were the civilian casualties collateral damage: they were the objective. And maiming babies, butchering children, raping women, and defiling corpses wasn’t the work of a handful of sadists; they were a pervasive feature of the operation.

At least the Einsatzgruppen – the Nazi brigades who murdered nearly half a million Jews in a matter of months, forcing their victims to stand naked at the edge of mass graves before shooting them through the head – tried to hide their crimes, showing they had some inkling of breaching morality’s fundamental principles. Hamas’s killers did the opposite: they videoed their atrocities and posted them – to howls of joy that echoed from Gaza to Lakemba – on the internet.

Only one word can describe these people: evil. To use the term may seem as anachronistic as speaking of abomination, uncleanness or iniquity. Even the Oxford English Dictionary tells us “evil” has been “commonly superseded, in familiar speech, by “bad”. But exactly as we know good from bad, so we can differentiate evil from ordinary wickedness – and this was it.

“Radical evil”, thought Immanuel Kant, is ultimately incomprehensible: to explain human action, he argued, is to appeal to good reasons; and there can never be good reasons for murdering babies, mutilating toddlers, and disfiguring the dead. However, even if we can’t make that evil intelligible, we can capture its essence: the denial of the victim’s humanity.

Thus, just as the Nazis believed Jews were less than human, so the Islamists, gripped in their death cult, refuse to acknowledge that Jews have the moral standing that would protect them from humiliation, degradation, or extermination. And just as it was absolutely impossible for the Allies to make peace with Hitler, so it is absolutely impossible to make peace with Hamas.

Hamas knew that Israel, as it grieved its dead, would be faced with a choiceless choice. And Hamas also knew it could maximize the scale of the tragedy by placing rocket launchers in schools, hiding its command centres in hospitals, and preventing Palestinians from fleeing to safety. Its goal, since it was founded in 1987, has never been to protect civilians; it has always used them as shields, compounding its crimes against humanity. Now, as Gaza yet again groans in seas of blood, the Palestinians losing their lives are Hamas’s victims every bit as surely as their Israeli counterparts.

Much of the Bible (God’s Word) is prophecy. It even reveals how God will end His story of His Cosmos. The principal battle that has been raging from the beginning is a spiritual battle and it is centered around the nation that God established for His purposes, ISRAEL. The most significant end-times prophecy was the re-establishment of Israel as a nation in 1948 and since that time Satan has been doing his utmost to destroy it. We are fast approaching the prophesied last seven years prior to Jesus’ return to rescue His nation at the battle of Armageddon.

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:12

“For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty… And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.” Revelation 16:14,16

IS GENESIS HISTORY, IS THE BIBLE GOD’S WORD, IS IT TRUE?

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If you have not viewed the film “Is Genesis History” then you need to as Dr. Del Hackett has done a thorough and convincing job of putting it together. He interviews leading Ph.D. scientists across all the relevant fields of science.

Is Genesis History? features over a dozen scientists and scholars explaining how the world intersects with the history recorded in Genesis.  From rock layers to fossils, from lions to stars, from the Bible to artifacts, this fascinating film will change the way you see the world. Evolution and random chance cannot explain its existence.

The film’s goal is to provide a convincing case for Creation in six normal days just 6000 years ago, a real Adam and Eve, an actual Fall that resulted in the entry of death into this world, God’s judgement of a Global Flood which caused the burial of billions of dead things (fossils) all over the world including fossil fuels, and the establishment of nations at the confusing of languages by God at the Tower of Babel.

Dr. Del Tackett, creator of The Truth Project, serves as your guide—hiking through canyons, climbing up mountains, and diving below the sea—in an exploration of two competing views … one compelling truth.

This is such an important issue in the world at this time when people who attend school in most Western civilizations are taught that this Cosmos came into existence through the Big Bang and evolution. God was not necessary and the Bible is just a book of fairy tales and myths. God warned us with many end-times prophecies in the Bible that this would be the case at the time of Jesus’ prophesied second coming to Earth. The following Scripture is one of them.

“Knowing this, first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these, the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.” 2 Peter 3:3-7

“Is Genesis History will strengthen confidence in Scripture, clarify understanding of the relationships of revelation, science, history, and faith, and enhance understanding of difficult questions all the while being both beautiful and entertaining.” – E. Calvin Beisner, PhD

Running Time 1 hour and 44 minutes

ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY: “There Is No Single Biological Standard” for Male and Female

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This is perhaps not a statement you would expect from two leading anthropological associations: “There is no single biological standard by which all humans can be reliably sorted into a binary male/female sex classification.”

There certainly is a “biological standard” for sex—even if you just have a skeleton! So why would this group of scientists make such an anti-scientific claim?

Well, because “There is no place for transphobia in anthropology.” It’s all political! Yes, concerns of “transphobia” when dealing with anthropological remains caused a panel discussion on the skeletal differences between males and females to be canceled (and the organizers assured everyone that better vetting would be done in the future to make sure sessions like this aren’t booked again!). Here’s why the session was canceled, according to Fox News:

“The session was rejected because it [was] framed in ways that do harm to vulnerable members of our community. It commits one of the cardinal sins of scholarship—it assumes the truth of the proposition that it sets out to prove, namely, that sex and gender are simplistically binary, and that this is a fact with meaningful implications for the discipline,” the AAA told FOX News Digital.

It further said that anthropologists should not strive to identify sex conclusively and that such determinations were merely an “estimation.”

“Around the world and throughout human history, there have always been people whose gender roles do not align neatly with their reproductive anatomy. There is no single biological standard by which all humans can be reliably sorted into a binary male/female sex classification,” the AAA continued.

One of the speakers who was scheduled to attend the conference claims that “the field has been nose-diving into an ‘off the rails’ agenda.” She says, so just as we are getting better and better at identifying what is male and what is a female and the skeletal record, we are getting more and more attacked for knowing how to do this. . . . 

Truth is not necessarily considered an objective goal and the victims’ narrative is more important than facts. Who tells the story is more important than the data, which we obviously know is not true.

This is madness and is just another one of the end times signs the Bible gives us to warn us about the persecution/tribulation that is coming on born-again believers who will not compromise with God’s Word on issues such as gay marriage, homosexuality, transgenderism, family, and any other of God’s commandments.

ISRAEL’S RETURN, JUDGEMENT & THE MILLENNIUM

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Jonathan Cahn preaches on the many end-times prophecies, starting with the rebirth of Israel and the great falling away in denominational institutional churches and ending with the coming Millennial reign of Jesus from a restructured/rebuilt Jerusalem.

Jonathan like many born-again leaders knows we are in the last days before Jesus returns and is preparing his congregation for what is ahead. My only concern is that he does not address the timing of The Rapture and the fact Christians need to prepare for the coming tribulation, even great tribulation. As Jesus and Paul told the disciples that they would see the Abomination of Desolation (Antichrist) (Matthew 24:15, Mark 13:14 and 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4) seated in the Temple declaring himself to be God. This takes place midway through the last seven years before Jesus returns to Earth with the Saints. The Rapture timing is at the end of the sixth year, the sixth seal, and the sixth church (church of Philadelphia).

SIXTH SEAL (Celestial signs that precede Jesus coming to rapture the Saints and signals the great day of God’s wrath has come): “When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?” Revelation 6:12-17

CHURCH OF PHILADELPHIA: “Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name… Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth.” Revelation 3:8,10

Moreover, the Church of Laodicea is the church that is left behind to face the wrath of God which hopefully leads to repentance and saving faith.

THE VOICE AND POLITICAL EQUALITY

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The following post is taken from an excellent article by Henry Ergas “Indigenous voice to parliament won’t cure moral tragedy of the present” in The Australian, October 16th, 2023.

Democracy has always had a compelling response to past political inequality: political equality. It does not make the last first; it makes them every bit as good as their fellow citizens. That is because democracy is an exercise in shaping a shared present and a better future, not in relitigating an unchangeable past. It heeds Thomas Hobbes’ observation, based on the successive invasions that had crashed on England’s shores, that “there is scarcely a commonwealth in the world whose beginnings can in conscience be justified”. Instead of imprisoning itself in the shadowy world of perpetual victims and perpetual perpetrators, it accepts Martin Luther King’s reminder that “we may all have come in different ships, but we’re in the same boat now”– with our duty being to decide together on its next destination.

There can consequently be no “dictatorship of the proletariat” in democracies: unlike Marxism, we do not pretend to cure past suffering by vesting those whose distant ancestors were wronged with political rights over others. Nor are there, in a liberal democracy, any special citizens who are constitutionally entitled to bellow, any more than there are half or quarter citizens whose voices the Constitution reduces to a whisper.

Indeed, the very idea of differential citizenship is a contradiction in terms, as democratic citizenship has, at least since Aristotle, always meant “the right to the full privileges and burdens of governing the city”, with “every secondary distinction – such as wealth or poverty, beauty or ugliness, wisdom or folly – erased”.

That is not only the essence of equal rights; it is also integral to liberal democracy’s capacity to absorb its inherent tensions.

No system of government creates greater room for diversity, yet it requires enough unity to keep differences within bounds. It wants us to be strongly committed to our goals and values; yet also to accept those the democratic process determines, even when they conflict with our own. It relies on what the ancients called “civic friendship” – the fellow feeling that makes us willing to help each other out – despite giving rise to enduring, passionately felt conflicts.

Political equality is a crucial part of the glue that makes those contradictions tolerable, assuring this round’s losers they will have a fair chance next time around. In contrast, if there are super-citizens on one side, who are guaranteed a privileged voice in the competition for costly benefits, and mere denizens – who believe they are always footing the bill – on the other, “civic friendship” metastasizes into Trump-like fury.

That is why it is impossible to assess the voice without asking what sort of society it entails. The answer is straightforward: it entails a return to ascriptive rights; that is, to political distinctions based on descent.

Ascriptive rights were at the heart of pre-modern societies. In ancient Siam, every person received “dignity marks” – ranging from five for a slave to 100,000 for the heir apparent – by virtue of birth; to know a person’s marks was to know precisely how loud their voice would sound in public affairs.

Liberal democracy was revolutionary because it swept ascription away, recognizing every citizen’s equal dignity, regardless of parentage. But if the Yes camp prevails, we will have marks again, with only those who are born into the right category benefiting from a constitutionally enshrined right to be consulted. And to make things worse, the voice founds that distinction on race.

Unpalatable as that is, it might have been acceptable if it genuinely opened the path to reconciliation. But instead of making race less salient, the voice will elevate it into a constitutional divide, reinforcing the impression that Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians are fundamentally distinct, biologically separated, permanently opposing camps. It should, in a liberal democracy, be no small thing for the Constitution to effectively require the authorities to register individuals’ race so as to determine their eligibility for public office; to believe that will build bridges, rather than raise walls, is frankly astonishing.

Moreover, the voice’s very design erodes the incentives for the compromise and moderation needed to advance mutual understanding. Thus, the Indigenous professional and managerial class who are likely to dominate it will capture all the benefits of ever-escalating demands without bearing any of their costs; and the louder they shout, the harder they will be to ignore.

At least its predecessors, when they did the cause of reconciliation more harm than good, could be abolished; the voice can’t. As a result, the most probable outcome, should the Yes camp prevail, is that we will move further along the divisive path that, since the goal of integration was abandoned, has inflicted such dreadful harm.

Describing that path as “different but not separate”, as the voice’s prominent supporters have, is mere cant: it disguises the reality it purports to illuminate.

The fact is that the Indigenous elite is neither separate nor different: it has all the accouterments of its non-Indigenous counterparts, with the self-righteousness of victimhood to boot. But those whose lives have been blighted by the policies that the elite has promoted are both different and separate: separated from the rest of us by poverty, ill health, violence, and early death.

We, as a nation, are responsible for that tragedy – it occurred under our watch, it is a sin of this generation, not of those who came before. And correcting it by ending the separatist policies that have caused it is our foremost moral responsibility.

That is the sole benefit this ill-conceived referendum has wrought. It has forced into the open the question that should have been asked long ago: Are we one country or two? With that question now starkly posed, it won’t be buried again.

BEING OUT OF TOUCH WITH ETERNAL REALITIES

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What Makes Someone a Fool?

In Christ’s story of the rich fool, a man decides to hoard his fortune and then “take life easy; eat, drink and be merry” (see Luke 12:13-21). The word translated “fool” literally means “unthinking one.” Mindless. Senseless. The rich fool was out of touch with eternal realities. Despite death’s inevitability, he failed to prepare for it—and failed to remember that he would give an account to God.

“For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.” Romans 14:10-12

The rich fool stored up treasures for himself on Earth as if he were the center of the universe and as if this world was where he’d live forever. The man was a fool to imagine his silver, gold, crops, land, and barns were actually his. He was a fool to ignore God’s claims on him and his possessions:

A wise person will regularly ask, “Lord, what do you want me to do with all you have put in my hands?” God’s Word tells us exactly how to prepare now for the afterlife. Though our culture and even some of our Christian friends may encourage us to do so, we don’t have to live like fools!

In the world’s eyes, the rich fool was a great success. Today he would be admired, and he might even be placed on a church or ministry board. But in the end, all his success counted for nothing.

Had the rich fool acknowledged God as his Creator and Redeemer, and as the ultimate owner of everything he possessed, he would have been rich toward God and stored up treasures in Heaven. Instead, he stored up for himself treasures on Earth and was suddenly and eternally parted from them at death.

The most troubling aspect of this parable is that if we met this man, most of us would commend him for his foresight. Notice he isn’t called the rich sinner, but the rich fool.

If you have been raised to believe in the Big Bang and evolution then death is then end of life period. There is no life after death.

Materialists Are Self-Destructive Keepers

Christian Smith and Hilary Davidson observed this about those who fail to live generous lives:

By holding onto what we possess, we diminish its long-term value to us. In protecting only ourselves against future uncertainties and misfortunes, we become more anxious about uncertainties and vulnerable to future misfortunes. In short, by failing to care well for others, we actually do not properly take care of ourselves.

Christ-followers are self-enriching givers. Why? Because giving inevitably enlarges our hearts, lives, and capacity for joy.

Don’t misunderstand. The true good life doesn’t say no to wealth or pleasures. Rather, it says yes to greater and lasting wealth and pleasures that are found when we cheerfully part with God’s money and possessions for others’ good and God’s glory.

God graciously gives us money and possessions to meet real needs, both our own needs and the needs of others. He wants us to enjoy life, but He doesn’t entrust excess to us so we can indulge excessive wants. Money and possessions are not life-giving. They are utterly incapable of imparting to us the identity, purpose, significance, and security we crave.

I recently heard someone talk about the rampant unhappiness, disease, and disillusionment he and his friends experienced while, he said, they were “living the good life.” Though I put that phrase in quotation marks, this person didn’t use air quotes or note the irony that what he called the “good life” was in fact devastatingly bad. In his case, the “good life” included drugs and sexual immorality, which led to the loss of his wife and children, and ultimately left him utterly empty.

Even when this so-called good life brought times of enjoyment, it was only “the fleeting pleasures of sin” (Hebrews 11:25). Such pleasures don’t even last in this world, and they certainly won’t outlive this life. The rich man in Christ’s story learned the hard way that his prosperity was short-lived. It came to a dramatic and eternal end at his death, when God proclaimed, “You fool!”

Our Source of Life

To understand what constitutes the good life, we need to understand what life really is, where it comes from, and where it’s going.

God is the eternal source of life. He gave human beings “the breath of life” (Genesis 2:7), and He designed the first people to experience communion with Himself, the living God. In the presence of Eden’s tree of life (Genesis 2:9), He walked with Adam and Eve as they enjoyed a life-giving and delightful relationship (Genesis 3:8). God warned them, though, that if they ate of the fruit of one particular tree, this beautiful life would tragically end in death (Genesis 2:17).

They disobeyed, and as promised, sin brought death. While Adam and Eve’s physical death came gradually, the end of their life-giving spiritual relationship with God was immediate. The Holy Spirit departed their spirit.

Ever since, people have lived in a state of spiritual death, with dying bodies, decaying relationships, and failed dreams. Death is the new normal. But that’s not the end of the story. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus’ sacrifice conquers sin and death on our behalf.

John’s Gospel tells us that God created the world through Jesus, bringing life and light to His creation (John 1:1-5). He raised Lazarus from the dead to display His power to make dead people alive again (John 11:42-44). Then He, too, rose from the grave, ensuring the ultimate death of sin and the defeat of death itself. His resurrection gives us life (Romans 4:25). His coming back to life is the basis of God’s moving us from death to life (1 Corinthians 15:17).

Jesus calls Himself life in these four passages: the bread of life (John 6:48), the light of life (John 8:12), the resurrection and the life (John 11:25), the way, and the truth, and the life (John 14:6)

There’s no way to overestimate the importance of life in John’s Gospel. John tells readers his Gospel was written: “that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31, NIV).

Jesus is not just a signpost or a compass to life; He is life. He’s not merely a map leading to water or an X that marks the spot where treasure is buried. Rather, He is the wellspring. He is the treasure.

The living God says, “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19). He offers us true life and, with it, blessing. But He warns us against sin and the curse that always comes with it. Just as He did in the Garden, God offers us the quality of life that comes from obeying Him. God says, “Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments, and live” (Proverbs 4:4).

The Good Life Is Available to Everyone Who Knows Jesus

After establishing a restaurant chain, two banks, a ranch, a farm, and real estate ventures, Jerry Caven says the real fun started when his career was coming to an end:

At age 59 I was headed into retirement, looking for a nice lake home. Then God changed our plans and led Muriel and me to put our money and time overseas. It’s been exciting. Before, we gave token amounts, now we put substantial money into missions. Our hearts are in another country now. We visit and minister there often.

The Cavens say, “After seeing the way poor Christians in other countries trust him, we’ve asked God if he wants us to give away all of ‘our’ money. He hasn’t led us to do that yet. But we’ve meant it when we asked.”

When we live the good life, people quickly notice. The Cavens added this story: “A non-Christian couple saw us giving, and saw how much it excited and changed us. Then they started giving too, even before knowing Christ. They saw the joy and they wanted in on it!”

The simplest statement made in Scripture about the life that Jesus brings His people is perhaps also the most profound: “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).

The giving life is not about obligation or guilt or drudgery or merely surviving. It’s about life in abundance.

Adapted from Randy Alcorn’s book Giving Is the Good Life.

WHAT ARE GOD’S REQUIREMENTS FOR ANSWERED PRAYER?

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This is the answer I got from ChatGPT.

The concept of God’s requirements for answered prayer varies among different religious traditions and interpretations. While it is important to note that beliefs and teachings may differ, I can provide you with a general understanding based on common religious perspectives.

  1. Faith and Trust: Many religious traditions emphasize the importance of having faith and trust in God when praying. Believers are encouraged to approach God with sincerity, confidence, and a genuine belief that their prayers will be heard and answered.
  2. Alignment with God’s Will: It is often believed that prayers are more likely to be answered when they align with God’s will or divine plan. This means that praying for things that are in accordance with God’s teachings, values, and purposes may have a higher chance of being granted.
  3. Righteousness and Moral Living: Some religious traditions teach that living a righteous and moral life increases the likelihood of prayers being answered. It is believed that being in a state of harmony with God’s commandments and living according to ethical principles can positively influence the outcome of one’s prayers.
  4. Persistence and Patience: Persistence and patience are often regarded as virtues when it comes to prayer. It is believed that consistent and persevering prayer, coupled with patience and trust in God’s timing, can enhance the chances of prayers being answered.
  5. Forgiveness and Compassion: Many religious teachings emphasize the importance of forgiveness and compassion. It is often suggested that harboring resentment or holding grudges can hinder the effectiveness of prayer. Being forgiving, compassionate, and demonstrating love towards others is seen as favorable when approaching God in prayer.
  6. Humility: Approaching God with humility is another common requirement for answered prayer. Acknowledging one’s dependence on God, recognizing one’s limitations, and expressing gratitude can create an environment conducive to receiving answers to prayer.
  7. Relationship and Personal Connection: Building a personal relationship with the divine is often considered crucial in prayer. Nurturing an ongoing connection with God through regular communication, worship, and spiritual practices can deepen one’s relationship and potentially increase the likelihood of prayers being answered.

It’s important to note that these requirements for answered prayer may vary based on different religious beliefs and individual interpretations. Understanding the specific teachings and doctrines of your own faith tradition will provide a more precise understanding of the requirements for answered prayer within that particular context.

User

I then qualified my question as follows: I should have said the Christian’s God of the Bible. What does He require?

Answer from Chat GPT

In Christian belief, there are several principles and conditions often emphasized for effective prayer and receiving answers from God. Here are some key requirements as outlined in the Bible:

  1. Faith: Faith is a central element in Christian prayer. Jesus, in the Gospels, often emphasized the importance of faith when approaching God in prayer. For example, in Mark 11:24 (ESV), Jesus says, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”
  2. Alignment with God’s Will: It’s important to pray in accordance with God’s will. This concept is stated in 1 John 5:14 (ESV): “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.”
  3. Repentance and Forgiveness: Jesus taught the importance of forgiveness and repentance in prayer. In the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13), Jesus includes the line “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” This implies a connection between receiving forgiveness and extending it to others.
  4. Persistence: Jesus encouraged persistence in prayer. In Luke 18:1-8, he told the parable of the persistent widow to illustrate the importance of not giving up in prayer.
  5. Righteousness and Obedience: Living a righteous and obedient life is important for effective prayer. In 1 John 3:22 (ESV), it says, “and whatever we ask we receive from him because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.”
  6. Asking in Jesus’ Name: Jesus taught his disciples to pray in his name. This is mentioned in passages like John 14:13-14 (ESV): “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.”
  7. Thanksgiving and Gratitude: Gratitude is important in Christian prayer. Philippians 4:6 (ESV) advises, “Do not be anxious about anything,
  8. Trusting in God’s Timing: Trusting that God knows the best timing for answering prayers is crucial. This is highlighted in passages like Ecclesiastes 3:1 (ESV), “For everything, there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven.”
  9. Love and Compassion: Demonstrating love and compassion towards others is linked to effective prayer. In Matthew 5:23-24 (ESV), Jesus instructs, “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First, be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”
  10. Fasting and Prayer: Fasting is sometimes recommended as a means to intensify one’s prayer life. Jesus spoke about this in Matthew 6:16-18 (ESV), though it’s important to note that it should be done with sincerity and not for show.
  11. These principles are based on Christian teachings as outlined in the Bible, but interpretations may vary among different Christian denominations and individual believers. It’s always advisable to consult with a trusted spiritual leader or source within your specific Christian tradition for personalized guidance.

I was amazed at the speed of the response and the accuracy of the information. It was immediate, as soon as I had finished submitting the question the response came.

The Book of Daniel is largely end-times prophecies, note what Daniel was told about the time of the end; “knowledge shall increase“.

“But you Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.” Daniel 12:4

We are living in the prophesied end times: artificial intelligence and robotics are just two of the end times signs. It is not the technology that is the problem, God provided that and our ability to use it. It is what we do with it, that is the problem. Digital currency is the next step governments will take to restrict our freedom and it is just one more step to the prophesied end times, Mark of the Beast.

“Also, it (Antichrist) causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name.” Revelation 13:16-17

SHARING THE TRUTH WITH A SKEPTIC

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It can be discouraging to share the truth with a skeptic only to have them ignore it. It doesn’t seem to matter how much—or how good—our evidence is. Some people just do not want to believe as they do not want to give up control of their lives. They want to be the God of their world just as Satan did. So, do they need more evidence?

No, decidedly not. You see, it’s not a matter of the evidence. It’s a spirit/heart problem. The people of Jesus’ day saw him heal people—and even raise the dead! And yet many refused to believe. When Jesus’ body disappeared from the tomb, instead of believing, the religious leaders made up a story to explain away the evidence.

Yes, it’s a spirit/heart problem!

Did you know that our spirit was originally designed to be the lamp of the Lord? It was always meant to contain the Holy Spirit so that man could commune with God as Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden.

“The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all his innermost parts.” Proverbs 20:27

When Adam and Eve rebelled against God the Holy Spirit departed their spirit. It was no longer the lamp of the Lord. A lamp requires oil to function and the oil (Holy Spirit) was no longer available to them.

When we repent and accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour then our Heavenly Father sends the Holy Spirit to indwell our spirit so that it can function again as the lamp of the Lord. He produces the fruit of the Spirit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, faithfulness, gentleness, goodness, kindness, and self-control. He is also the one who provides the gifts of the Spirit for ministry (1 Corinthians 12).

So what’s the answer for sharing with the skeptic? Pray, keep sharing truth, and trust God to send the Holy Spirit to convict them of their sin of rebellion against God.

From a biblical perspective, all true wisdom and understanding is found in Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1:30) as God, Creator, and Savior (John 1:1–4).

“The true light (Jesus), which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God (by the Holy Spirit).” John 1:9-13

You can choose to place your trust in the changing opinions of man or believe the unchanging, infallible words of God. God’s understanding is eternal (Isaiah 40:28) and fixed (Hebrews 13:8), which is why we must let Scripture be our final authority in all matters of life. Only then does life and science make sense!

It amazes me how the atheist does not consider the invalidity of his own position. The atheist calls for real science and knowledge, but he denies the God who makes it possible to even do scientific research because He promised to maintain the universe in a uniform way (Genesis 8:22). In a world with no God where everything came about from nothing by chance, how could we observe and repeat experiments consistently from day to day?

How does knowledge, which is immaterial, exist in an atheistic, strictly material world? Love, knowledge, self-awareness, and other abstract or immaterial concepts do not make sense in an atheistic worldview where only the material exists. Besides, if God does not exist and there are no absolutes and no ultimate answers for the meaning of life, then why do science at all?

Scripture addresses man’s biggest problem, which is that he is a sinner who has rebelled against God and needs a Saviour. Check out the Bible to see that it is indeed an operation manual for our lives, starting with the need for every person to repent of their sins and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, His death on the Cross for our sins, and His Resurrection from the dead. This is the first step to real understanding and true knowledge (Proverbs 1:7, 9:10).

From the first two chapters in Genesis and throughout the rest of Scripture, only the Bible lays down an accurate framework for correctly understanding the origin, structure, and laws that govern the universe. The Answers in Genesis (http://www.answersingenesis.org) and Creation Ministries (http://www.creation.com) websites contain literally hundreds of articles demonstrating operational science is consistent with the Bible.

“CHRIST THE KING” PLATFORM OF PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE

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Taylor Marshall, a traditionalist Catholic podcast host, announced his presidential campaign in a Facebook video. He is running in support of an unapologetic socially conservative agenda, which he billed as a “Christ the King” platform. 

“I think we need a candidate who comes out and says abortion should be illegal, no-fault divorce should be illegal, contraception should be illegal,” he said. “We need a Christian culture in America. We don’t need secularism. We don’t need a strict separation of church and state. We need a candidate who’s going to say that. No one on the Republican GOP ticket’s ever going to say that. So I’m going to run and I’m going to say all those things and we’ll see what happens.”

Sadly, we know that America is way past accepting Jesus as King. However, we do know that Jesus will be King of this World. Biblical prophecy gives us the end of the story for God’s world. Jesus will rule the nations of the world after He returns to earth with the glorified Saints to save Israel at the battle of Armageddon.

“The sixth angel poured out his bowl (Wrath of God) on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, to prepare the way for the kings from the east. And I saw, coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs. For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty... And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.” Revelation 16:12-14, 16

“And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him who was sitting on the horse and against his army. And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had done the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur. And the rest were slain by the sword that came from the mouth of him who was sitting on the horse, and all the birds were gorged with their flesh.” Revelation 19:19-21

“Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also, I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.” Revelation 20:4-6