What Does The Scripture Say?

Here’s an article I wrote up called “The Sufficiency of God and His Word”. Click HERE to view the article. May the Lord bless you and keep you as you stand steadfast in Christ. Thanks for stopping by. Please leave a comment if you have any thoughts.

This is one of my favorite testimonies. I had this on VHS years ago, then let someone borrow it and never got it back. I’ve missed it for years, until I found it on Google Video. This is a powerful 16 minute testimony. Many of the families in our church watched this on Reformation Day after we had a cookout over a bonfire and threw the Roman Catholic ‘papal bull’ into the fire just like Martin Luther did generations ago.

Click HERE to watch it. He has a ton of other longer videos online as well. If you’re interested, visit www.BereanBeacon.org

This is a great testimony from a Christian woman who lived in Lebanon before and during the Islamic takeover. Watching this will give you a good sense of the real Islam. It is not a ‘religion of peace’.
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To watch the full version in one piece click here. Brigitte Gabriel Video

We had a wonderful time with the church again today. It is such a blessing to have sweet fellowship with believers who love the Lord with all their hearts and seek to do what is pleasing to Him. We are currently in Romans 14 and we had a great teaching time from Pastor Holt. Afterwards we discussed the issues more in depth for a few hours and had a great time wrestling with the application of Scripture.

There were a number of helpful thoughts. One was that we need to be careful about going beyond the Scripture. In other words, calling something a sin that the Bible does not or not calling sin what the Bible declares is sin. I think the main admonition of our text is that we accept one another because God has accepted each of us. We are not to judge/condemn one another because God is the judge, not us.

In our fellowship time we talked a lot about smoking, drinking and different foods. I do not believe that it is inherently sin to smoke a cigarette or drink alcohol. In light of the message and passage we looked at, my main thought is that those who do consider those things to be sinful are still my brethren and I fully accept them and not for the purpose of passing judgment on their opinions. Those who drink and smoke in their liberty as Christians I also do not judge (i.e. regard with contempt). Personally I do not smoke nor drink, but again do not believe it to be inherently evil. There may come a certain time or situation where I would do one or the other for the glory of God (i.e. to not be a stumbling block to a brother).

For example if I were a missionary to a remote tribal village in a third world country and they had many customs of which I was willing to be a part of (because they were not sinful, they were simply tribal traditions) in order to reach the people for Christ. Suppose one of those was that as the leaders of the tribe sat around the fire discussing the direction for the tribe, they passed a pipe around of tobacco. If I were to deny the request to take a puff, it could totally turn them off to me or my message. Since I believe that the Bible does not make smoking an inherently sinful action, I could with a clean conscience take a puff.

To be clear if the same tribe swapped wives, I could not take part in that no matter how much it would offend them because I believe the Scripture makes it clear that is inherently sinful. Anyways, just some thoughts. Hope it helps. Feel free to leave comments. May the Lord be glorified in our thoughts and lives as we seek to please Him in all things.

I had a good conversation with a friend tonight. We talked about Christians teaching in the temples of secular humanism. Not as full time teachers, but as special speakers, say Creation speakers. Dr. Tommy Mitchell (AiG’s newest full time speaker) recently spoke in a government school on the topic of creation. He did the full message just as he would have in any church, i.e. he talked about the God of the Bible, that He created in six literal days, etc. God sovereignly opened the door for that lecture and has sustained the principal and all who were involved in getting the message out.

Ironically, another talk had been scheduled (for a different speaker) some time later in a government indoctrination center but this one was under the auspices of being only a science lecture. In other words, the creation speaker was not to mention God, Jesus or the Bible. It turns out that there was a great furor over the lecture simply because the speaker was a literal six day creationist (even though the speaker would not give glory to God or lift up the name of Jesus in his talk). Eventually the lecture never happened.

Isn’t it interesting to see the sovereignty of God at work. When we give Him the honor and credit that He’s due, He happened to open up the school to the lecture. But when we compromise the message of the Bible or water it down, He happened to close the door. It just goes to show that Christians should not be pragmatic about what might or might not be effective. We should simply strive to be obedient to His call to teach in the name of Jesus and allow Him to deal with the consequences. If Dr. Tommy Mitchell were to never be allowed to speak again in that public school where he gave God the glory, that would be fine. Tommy did his duty, he gave credit to God and did not leave Him out.

I think lots of folks think that simply leaving God out of a situation makes that situation ‘neutral’. But it does not. To not give God the glory and credit He deserves, is dishonoring to God. Notice in the following passage what Herod’s sin worthy of death was: simply not giving God the glory (what many call neutrality).

Acts 12:21-3 On an appointed day Herod, having put on his royal apparel, took his seat on the rostrum and began delivering an address to them. The people kept crying out, “The voice of a god and not of a man!” And immediately an angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and died.

As we started our Saturday cleaning, we noticed stains, crayon marks, etc. all over the house. But you know what, I’d rather have a real home with crayon marks and maintain real heartfelt, intimate relationships within the home. Of course, you don’t have to choose between cleanliness and heartfelt relationships, but if I’m going to err, it will be to err on keeping intimacy within our family.

We can strive to be picture perfect on the outside for others, or even for the Lord, yet inwardly be neglecting the weightier provisions of the Christian life. The priority for my home is life in Christ, yet without neglecting cleanliness.

Matt 23:23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others”

May the name of the Lord be magnified in this home even today!

Today was a real blessing. I had opportunity to represent AiG in a booth that we had at a local high school. It was a career fair and we were there to introduce AiG as a ministry and tell students about our experience, education, etc. We also gave away free “Answers” books and other literature. But the best part was talking with the kids and sharing the gospel with them. Praise the Lord that many kids were very interested in the Bible, creation, Jesus, etc. It was a tremendous feeling that here we were in the temple of secular humanism giving the gospel to these kids, tearing down strongholds and false thoughts. Praise the Lord! Please pray for the 20 or so kids who I personally interacted with, not to mention the other five AiG staff who were there talking with students also. Pray that God would use His word to convict these young ones of sin, righteousness and judgment. Thanks.

Click on the ‘play’ button below to hear a short report from me to my daughter Grace! She’s the sweetest little big girl!

At a Wednesday night church meeting, as we visited a local church, one of its members came up to us and introduced himself. We talked for a few moments and I mentioned that I lived in Colorado Springs before, working for James Dobson. I mentioned to him that it was too bad what happened with Ted Haggard. I said it was a shame. He agreed and added “There but by the grace of God go I. I mean really, there but by the grace of God go I.”

I was startled and immediately ashamed of myself. Somehow I blurted out, “Yeah. That’s true.” But inwardly I was extremely convicted. I realized that throughout all my thoughts on the situation with Ted Haggard, that phrase was not one of them. It is one of my favorite phrases (though it not be found in the Bible) as I like to use it to keep myself humble. So to realize through this stranger that I did not even think that truth, let alone tell myself it, was very convicting.

May the Lord forgive me for my pride and self-righteousness. Friends reading this, please pray for me, that I would walk humbly before our Lord. Thanks.

P.S. I don’t want to excuse my sin at all, but simply want to add that I feel it may be that I have allowed the media to form (or at least taint) my thoughts on the situation. Brethren, we need to beware of letting man taint our views, we ought to always humbly filter news through the lens of the Scriptures.

Last Wednesday, I had a good conversation with a friend about euthanasia and ‘quality of life’ arguments. Praise the Lord that my friend was challenged in his thinking to base all our decisions and conclusions on Scripture, not merely what we may feel is right or pragmatics.

One thought that he had was that witholding medicine or technology from an elderly person who had a high percentage of dying within days would be acceptable, but witholding similar drugs/technology from a younger person in good health was not acceptable. The problem was that he had not biblical basis for making that distinction.

In my view, which I try as much as possible to base on Bible principles, precepts and examples is that we should try to save life and extend life as much as possible because God is the One who gives and takes away life. In other words, we ought to do all that we can to save and extend someone’s life whether they are 50 or 99 years old. One big reason is because we don’t KNOW whether someone will die in a few days. God is sovereign and able to work miracles of healing. We ought to be basing our decisions on biblical principles and not pragmatic percentages. Someone may have a 99% likelihood of dying within a week whether we treat them or not, but that should not mean that we withold life saving/extending drugs/technology because we don’t KNOW for sure that they will die ‘anyway’, only God knows.

An analogy that came to my mind later is that of abortion. Christians abhor killing babies because God abhors it. Whether the baby is in the first trimester or last trimester makes no difference, because life starts at the point of conception. Once life is there, we ought not to take it away. In the same way, withholding drugs/technology from someone whether they are 40 or 99 years old is wrong because life is still there. We may think that the 99 year old only has weeks to live based on historical data and percentages of his condition, but we cannot know that, only God does. Therefore we should always seek to save and extend life as much as is possible.

Pray for me and my friend, that we would have continued biblical discussions on this topic as well as others.

Thanks.

A couple of Sundays ago, after meeting with the church, some of the children and a few adults went to “the park” (really a government indoctrination center aka ‘public school’) to play. After a few minutes, a man came up with his two daughters (5 and 7). We struck up a conversation and it turned out his children went to this school. He asked about all of our children and we told him we all homeschooled, from 5 years old to high school. He was very interested in why and so we told him it was to train them up in the Lord. He then told us he was a religious man as well, a muslim, and that he agreed with our strong convictions that parents are held responsible for their children.

Please pray for his soul. Pray that God would use the truths presented to convict him of sin, righteousness and judgment.