Posts filed under ‘eternity’
Predators in Pulpits?
Throughout the book of Romans, Paul traces humanity’s problem and outlines God’s solution in no uncertain terms. The entire book of Romans is truly a masterpiece of doctrine and authority and Paul painstakingly draws conclusions that are inescapable. Yet today, we have pastors/leaders who draw other conclusions. They don’t wish to offend. They refuse to talk about sin the way Paul talks about sin. They won’t lower themselves because it will make people in the congregation feel bad about themselves. What good is that? Certainly, if left there, no good at all. Why is there such disdain today for the way Paul has explained things? Because people don’t want to hear it.
Zechariah’s Message and Warning Also Applies to Christians
Zechariah insisted that the Israelites follow God with a pure heart, an undivided heart. This would require quickly admitting when they failed. We need to do the same thing. We need to acknowledge our failures before God, not to dwell on them. Not to beat ourselves over the head with them. We must admit and confess them so that we can regain fellowship with God once again. Christians who do not do this may think they are in fellowship with God, but they are not. They are in fellowship with themselves only. This can happen to any Christian! It’s happened to me and it’s likely happened to you.
Ark Encounter
First the good things. The gospel was presented throughout. Clearly, extremely talented artists had been hired to create murals and life-size story boards that presented stories in graphic novel format about certain individuals and situations. Usually one character stands out calling the others to God in Christ for salvation. Unless someone ignores everything at the Ark Encounter, it is impossible to leave without reading the gospel leading to salvation. Nicely done. Very impressive as this type of presentation relates well to adults as well as children. Even though younger children wouldn’t be able to read, they would still be drawn to the artwork and ask parents and older siblings to explain, as we heard many doing while we were there.
God in My Everything?
The more we begin to rely on our emotions and how we feel about something, the less likely we are going to look to God’s Word as the final and absolute authority for life and practice as Christians. This appears to be what Ken Shigematsu (and too many others to count), is doing. His books attempt to draw people away from the truth of the cross and Scripture into the arena of “feelz” using monastic rituals to get us there. He wants us to embrace the type of rituals that many ancient orders used for the express purpose of getting closer to God. Yet, these things are not in Scripture so we should be very concerned.
Reading Through the Bible
It is important to look at your Bible reading time each day as an opportunity to learn more about our God, Creator, and Savior. Don’t use this time to “study” the Bible. Use it to read it, to get the flow of how the Bible moves. If you come to a passage that confuses you, this is where good commentaries come in. You want to get either good, quality “devotional” commentaries or the more “academic” commentaries. The former will often apply passages to our lives for us, connecting them with the truth of the biblical text. The latter is written by scholars who delve often quite deeply into the original languages. This is good, but it might actually slow you down quite a bit. My suggestion for those starting out is to reach for the devotional commentaries written by people like Warren Wiersbe, J. Vernon McGee and even John MacArthur. I have a library full of academic commentaries as well as devotional ones. They both help when I’m actually involved in studying certain books of the Bible. Dr. Thomas Constable is another great author whose commentaries, while delving into the original languages, provides good insight and background on the Bible.
Trump Has Picked SCOTUS Kennedy Replacement
Evil people exist and always will. In fact, I also find it fascinating that the very last war this earth will experience occurs at the end of the Millennial Kingdom over which Jesus Himself will physically rule (Revelation 20-22). People will experience perfect peace and perfect just rule by Jesus for 1,000 years. During this time, Satan will be locked up in the bottomless pit and at the end of the 1,000 years, he will be released for a time. During this short time, he will capture the hearts of many people who will deliberately choose to follow him in his rebellion against Jesus. It won’t end well for Satan or those who follow him and they will all be dealt with very quickly and permanently.
A Crooked and Perverse Generation
But if we consider the tone and character of society today, it is easy to adopt a deep sense of helplessness over it. Lies from those who live to obfuscate everything President Trump attempts to accomplish is the norm. Hate, harassment, bullying of conservatives is also becoming the norm and the mainstream (or Mockingbird) media (MSM) support these things without question. Goodness, it’s almost as though they receive their talking points at 4:00am each morning.
Deception in the Church
Deception in the Church is a book that many will gain insight from reading. The warning against movements like NAR cannot be shouted loud enough. The dangers to the visible church are everywhere and NAR is simply one among many, though it has been gaining quite a bit of ground since the very early part of the 1900’s. This is testament to the fact of just how hard Satan works and how much leeway God gives Satan to pull the wool over people’s eyes.
Wisdom Calls in the Streets
Fear – understanding the awesome power that is God – creates a right frame of mind and allows us to gain knowledge. Knowledge is an understanding about the world in which we live. But wisdom is different from knowledge. Wisdom is the application of knowledge to many different situations and circumstances. A person can be very knowledgeable and still be an idiot in many things. Wisdom, on the other hand, takes actual knowledge and rightly applies it to any and all situations.
The Church Becoming a Circus, Part 1
This has all been playing out in many institutions throughout the USA and the world for decades. Institutions that were once considered bastions of conservative thought have steadily moved toward the Left. Many have been watching the SBC over the past few decades and noting the tremendous changes that have been taking place there largely due to the leadership of people like Russell Moore, head of SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission. One has to wonder why such a commission is actually needed when the results of that commission seem to be moving the entire SBC denomination away from its biblical foundation?
StudyGrowKnow 