This year I will be sharing brief excerpts from the articles, sermons, and books I am currently reading. My posts will not follow a regular schedule but will be published as I find well-written thoughts that should be of interest to maturing Christian readers. Whenever possible, I encourage you to go to the source and read the complete work of the author.
Here we see through a glass that is dark and cloudy, but there we will see face to face. There, what “eye has not seen nor ear heard” will be fully revealed to us. There, paradoxes will be unraveled, mysteries made clear, obscure texts enlightened, confusing and questionable verses will be revealed as being amazingly simple and true. The least of all souls in heaven knows more of God than the greatest saint on the earth. The greatest saint on the earth may have it said of him, “Nevertheless he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” Not even our greatest preachers understand as much of theology as the lambs in the flock of glory. Not even the greatest masterminds of the earth understand one-millionth part of the mighty meanings which have been discovered by souls liberated from these bodies made from clay.
Yes, “To die is gain.” Take away, take away that hearse, remove the covering of black, adorn it in white with bright shiny decorations. There, take away the music of the death march, rather lend me the trumpet and the drum. O hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah; why do we cry as the saints go to heaven? They are not dead, they have simply gone to heaven before us. Stop, stop that crying, hold back your tears, clap your hands, clap your hands.
“They are supremely blessed,
Are done with care and sin and woe,
And with their Savior they rest.”
What! weep! weep! for heads that are crowned with crowns of heaven? Weep, weep for hands that hold the harps of gold? What, weep for eyes that see the Redeemer? What, weep for hearts that are washed from sin, and are throbbing with eternal bliss? What, weep for men and women that are in the Savior’s arms? No; weep for yourselves, that you are here. Weep that the mandate has not come which commands you to die. Weep that you must remain. But not for them.
I see them turning back on you with loving wonder, and they exclaim, “Why do you weep? What, weep for poverty that is clothed in riches? What, weep for sickness, that has inherited eternal health? What, weep for shame, that is glorified; and weep for sinful mortality, that has become immaculate? Oh, do not weep, but rejoice. If you knew what it was that I have said to you, and where I have gone, you would rejoice with a joy that no one could take from you.”
The United Nations climate change conference in Poland received a surprise from 650 leading scientists who laugh at the idea of man-made global warming. Many of these scientists have called it a lie, a hoax and part of a new religion. Around 250 former members of the U.N.’s own Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have joined in this dissent during the last year. WorldNetDaily reports:
In fact, the total number of scientists represented in the report is 12 times the number of U.N. scientists who authored the official IPCC 2007 report.
Here are some choice excerpts from the report:
“I am a skeptic. . . . Global warming has become a new religion.” (Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever)
“Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly. . . . As a scientist I remain skeptical.” (Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology and formerly of NASA who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called “among the most pre-eminent scientists of the last 100 years”)
Warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the history. . . . When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.” (U.N. IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning Ph.D. environmental physical chemist)
The report also includes new peer-reviewed scientific studies and analyses refuting man-made warming fears and climate developments that contradict the theory. . . .
“Jesus Christ has in the clearest manner inculcated those duties which are productive of the highest moral felicity and consistent with all the innocent enjoyments, to which we are impelled by the dictates of nature. Religion, when fairly considered in its genuine simplicity and uncorrupted state, is the source of endless rapture and delight.” (US Congressman, Diplomat, Judge, Author of America’s First Legal Text)
You must watch this video. It is a stroke of genius. It sets forth the current banking crisis clearly. Watch it and you now know the nature of the problem. Gary North writes:
“To say that we are in uncharted waters does not begin to get across the idea of the magnitude of our current situation. The world is in a canoe, floating down a river that has never been explored. Most of the passengers are trying to listen to the tour guide. But there is a noise that interferes. It is the sound of a waterfall ahead. The noise is getting louder.”
Through various scenes of life, God has sustained me. May He ever be my unfailing friend; may His love cherish my soul; may my heart with gratitude acknowledge His goodness; and may my desires be to Him and to the remembrance of His name….May we then turn our eyes to the bright objects above, and may God give us strength to travel the upward road. May the Divine Redeemer conduct us to that seat of bliss which He himself has prepared for His friends; at the approach of which every sorrow shall vanish from the human heart and endless scenes of glory open upon the enraptured eye. There our love to God and each other will grow stronger, and our pleasures never be dampened by the fear of future separation. How indifferent will it then be to us whether we obtained felicity by travailing the thorny or the agreeable paths of life – whether we arrived at our rest by passing through the envied and unfragrant road of greatness or sustained hardship and unmerited reproach in our journey. God’s Providence and support through the perilous perplexing labyrinths of human life will then forever excite our astonishment and love. May a happiness be granted to those I most tenderly love, which shall continue and increase through an endless existence. Your cares and burdens must be many and great, but put your trust in that God Who has hitherto supported you and me; He will not fail to take care of those who put their trust in Him….It is most evident that this land is under the protection of the Almighty, and that we shall be saved not by our wisdom nor by our might, but by the Lord of Host Who is wonderful in counsel and Almighty in all His operations. (Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Governor of Connecticut)
To a sinner, the light of truth is more blistering than a desert sun on mid-day (John 3:19). He shuns to walk where it is shining, and when exposed to it, will spare no expense to get relief. Satan is always at his elbow, ready to help him find a way to hide from its penetrating rays. Does he hear the truth in a powerful sermon? Satan will sit alongside him in the pew and whisper nonsense to distract him. He may ask his plans for dinner, or what is on the schedule for tomorrow. And if the sermon gets too hot, the devil will dull his senses and get him to doze until the service is over. Suppose a man’s conscience strains toward the truth. Satan may then send him to hear a cold preacher, whose senseless prattle will tickle his fancy rather than prick his conscience. Oh, he may preach from the word of God, but he does it gingerly.
That preacher is too cowardly to use the Sword of the Spirit in all its might and power, lest he offend some member of the congregation. Many who dare to handle the truth and even admire it when encased in a scabbard would faint on the spot to see it drawn and bared.
Both sin and darkness cause distress. What could the Egyptians do under the plague of darkness but sit still and hope it would pass? A man under the state of sin is under the same plague. He can do nothing profitable until God lifts the darkness from his soul. The epitaph of every impenitent sinner could fitly read: “Hear lies one who never did one hour’s work for God”.
And if he can do God no service while kept in darkness, neither can he help himself. Pity the man whose darkness hides the disservice he does to his own soul! He is like one who stands helplessly in a dark cellar, supposing himself trapped and doomed to die. But if a candle were lit, he would find the door within easy reach. Christ is the candle that lights the way out of man’s darkness. (The Christian in Complete Armour)
American founding father and Second President John Adams viewed atheism in culture, and especially in government, as something to fear. He wrote,
“Is there a possibility, that the government of nations may fall into the hands of men, who teach the most disconsolate of all creeds, that men are but fire-flies, and that this all is without a father? Is this the way, to make man, as man, an object of respect? Or is it, to make murder itself, as indifferent as shooting a plover, and the extermination of the Rohilla nation, as innocent, as the swallowing of mites, on a morsel of cheese?”
Atheists today argue that religion is the root of all evil, and that science and reason dissipate the delusions that drive men to acts of terror. Our founder, however, argues that science and reason, when they train their scopes upon human nature, tell us exactly the opposite. . . .
“Of the many influences that have shaped the United States into a distinctive nation and people, none may be said to be more fundamental and enduring than the Bible.”
“Let us contemplate our forefathers, and posterity, and resolve to maintain the rights bequeathed to us from the former, for the sake of the latter. The necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude and perseverance. Let us remember that ‘if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom.’ It is a very serious consideration … that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event.”
Numerical growth can take place for wrong reasons. For example, during Jesus’ ministry, much of the crowd that followed him was more interested in his miracles than in his message (John 6:26). In fact, the wrong measure of success can be outright deadly – lulling churches into thinking that they are doing well when in fact they are not.
Quantitative growth can be deceptive. It may be no more than the mushrooming of a mechanically induced, psychological or social movement, a numerical count, an agglomeration of individuals or groups, an increase of a body without the development of muscle and vital organs. . . . In many ways the expansion of Christendom has come at the expense of the purity of the gospel and true Christian order and life. The church has become infested with pagan beliefs and practices, and is syncretistic in theology. . . . Large segments have become Christo-pagan.
Sadly, by watering-down the message and using unbiblical methods, [these churches] may be doing more harm than good – filling their auditoriums with vast crowds of lost people who think they’re spiritually okay.
Having investigated both its evangelistic message and its evangelistic model, the sad conclusion is that the gospel according to Hybels and Warren falls far short of the biblical paradigm. Influenced more by pragmatic business principles than by prescribed biblical precepts, it is little wonder that seeker-driven churches are both numerically vast and spiritually shallow. Christ, of course, promised that He would build His church (Matt. 16:18). However, it is obvious that the building must be according to His plan. Attempting to build the church by human means only competes with the work of Christ.
Instead of always looking for new ways to do ministry, pastors and evangelists should content themselves with studying and applying the biblical principles for evangelism – being ever mindful of their God-given calling. God has already given His church the instructions they need. When they invent their own instructions, the end result is guaranteed to fall short of His standards. (The Gospel According to Hybels & Warren)
The religious sanitation of history textbooks is beginning to pay off for atheists. “A group of atheists filed a lawsuit . . . seeking to remove part of a state anti-terrorism law that requires Kentucky’s Office of Homeland Security to acknowledge it can’t keep the state safe without God’s help.” These atheists are hoping that a majority of Kentuckians are ignorant of their state’s religious history as well as the history of similar national proclamations acknowledging God’s providence. A plaque has been posted at the Kentucky Emergency Operations Center in Frankfort that includes the following from Psalm 127:1: “Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.” The first part of this Psalm was used by Benjamin Franklin at the Constitutional Convention to remind the delegates that “Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain who build it.” Of course, atheists object to such language, and they “pray” that there are only a few people who know enough history to counter their spurious arguments. . . .
“Here, then, is the real problem of our negligence. We fail in our duty to study God’s Word not so much because it is difficult to understand, not so much because it is dull and boring, but because it is work. Our problem is not a lack of intelligence or a lack of passion. Our problem is that we are lazy.”
[T]he religion which has introduced civil liberty is the
Noah Webster
religion of Christ and His apostles… This is genuine Christianity and to this we owe our free constitutions of government.
The moral principles and precepts found in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws. (Revolutionary Soldier, Judge, Legislator, Educator)
Here we see through a glass that is dark and cloudy, but there we will see face to face. There, what “eye has not seen nor ear heard” will be fully revealed to us. There, paradoxes will be unraveled, mysteries made clear, obscure texts enlightened, confusing and questionable verses will be revealed as being amazingly simple and true. The least of all souls in heaven knows more of God than the greatest saint on the earth. The greatest saint on the earth may have it said of him, “Nevertheless he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” Not even our greatest preachers understand as much of theology as the lambs in the flock of glory. Not even the greatest masterminds of the earth understand one-millionth part of the mighty meanings which have been discovered by souls liberated from these bodies made from clay.
from 650 leading scientists who laugh at the idea of man-made global warming. Many of these scientists have called it a lie, a hoax and part of a new religion. Around 250 former members of the U.N.’s own Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have joined in this dissent during the last year. WorldNetDaily reports:
You must watch this video. It is a stroke of genius. It sets forth the current banking crisis clearly. Watch it and you now know the nature of the problem. Gary North writes:
From: The Desk of William Gurnall
“Of the many influences that have shaped the United States into a distinctive nation and people, none may be said to be more fundamental and enduring than the Bible.”
From: The Desk of Nathan Busenitz . . .
Quoting Gary Demar:
Samuel at Gilgal 