Mar 5, 2011 at 19:25 o\clock

Exposition of John 15

James White

One of the most disturbing tendencies of modern believers is the ease with which they can be shaken by the mere appearance of what looks like an argument against their position. Rather than examining the arguments of unbelievers in the context of the calm assurance that comes from a thorough knowledge of the faith, many today have drunk deeply at the well of modernism, and secretly believe that “no one can really know” the truth in the realm of “religious topics.” A recent series of e-mail articles/arguments by one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Martin Smart, illustrates this problem with great clarity. Mr. Smart, like most Internet apologists for the Watchtower, fills his posts with citations from recognized, scholarly sources. This alone is enough to shut down the critical thinking skills of many post-modern Christians, for the idea is, “Well, if it cites scholarship, it must be right.” The great possibility that 1) scholarly sources can be misused, or 2) you can cite scholarship to prove points that are utterly irrelevant to the actual debate, does not seem to present itself to the thinking of many today.

Recently Mr. Smart began promoting his understanding of John 15:2 as decisively refuting the Reformed understanding of salvation. This is not, in itself, unusual, as Arminians have been using John 15 to deny the perfection of Christ’s work of salvation for generations. But it is the way he has gone about it that provides us with a useful example of why we must think clearly about apologetic issues and arguments.

We first present a basic, brief, but hopefully helpful discussion and exegesis of the passage, focusing upon the essential elements of Jesus’ words. Then we will provide links to Mr. Smart’s messages.

(John 15:1-8) "I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. [2] "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. [3] "You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. [4] "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. [5] "I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. [6] "If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. [7] "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. [8] "My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.

The most important element of any meaningful exegesis comes from recognizing the context and purpose of the passage. Ignoring context is the chief reason for errors of interpretation. Making lists, as Mr. Smart did, of a phrase and then assuming the phrase is not impacted by its context is a good example of this kind of error.

John 15 comes in the heart of Jesus’ ministry to the Apostles on the night of His betrayal. It likewise is sandwiched in the middle of an extensive dialogue that, importantly, discusses the role of the Spirit in the Christian life. Jesus is preparing the disciples for the crucifixion, resurrection, and His ascension into heaven, and the coming period of the Spirit’s work amongst them.

In these particular verses the Lord uses a common means of illustration: horticulture. It is obvious this was one of His favorite means of communicating great truths, as his audience would surely be able to relate personally to the application. There are many parallels, as we shall note, between Jesus words to His disciples here in John 15 and the parable of the soils (Mark 4:2-20) and other Synoptic passages (Mark 11:12-14, 19-21). The same points Jesus made there to the crowds are made in this passage to His disciples in an even more intimate and vital context.

Finally, it should be noted that Jesus intended His words to bring joy to the heart of the disciples. He said, “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.” The intention of the passage is to bring joy to the disciples, especially in light of the events they were about to witness, the sorrow they were about to bear.

John 15:1-8 breaks naturally into two sections: 1-3, the introduction of the analogy to be used, that of the Vine, the Vinedresser, and the Branches, and 4-8, the discussion of abiding in Christ and bearing fruit. With these things in mind, let us look closely at Jesus’ words.

Point First: The Vine, the Vinedresser, the Work of the Vinedresser

Verse 1:

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.”
The first words from the Lord’s mouth remind us of the prevalence of the “I am” sayings in the Gospel of John. I am the light, I am the bread of life, and here, I am the true vine. John 15 flows naturally with the rest of the gospel, repeating in a fresh way themes struck throughout.

Next, the Lord claims to be the true vine. There have always been false Messiahs and pretenders. But there is only one true vine, one true source of spiritual life and nourishment.

The allegory of a vine and a vineyard was not unknown. Isaiah recorded just such an illustration seven centuries before:

1 Let me sing now for my well-beloved A song of my beloved concerning His vineyard. My well-beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill.

2 He dug it all around, removed its stones, And planted it with the choicest vine. And He built a tower in the middle of it And also hewed out a wine vat in it; Then He expected it to produce good grapes, But it produced only worthless ones.

3 "And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, Judge between Me and My vineyard.

4 "What more was there to do for My vineyard that I have not done in it? Why, when I expected it to produce good grapes did it produce worthless ones?

5 "So now let Me tell you what I am going to do to My vineyard: I will remove its hedge and it will be consumed; I will break down its wall and it will become trampled ground.

6 "I will lay it waste; It will not be pruned or hoed, But briars and thorns will come up. I will also charge the clouds to rain no rain on it."

7 For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel And the men of Judah His delightful plant. Thus He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; For righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress.

The next issue, often overlooked (except by those who spend a lot of time speaking to Oneness Pentecostals!) is the clear distinction of the Father and the Son here, both as to identity and function. The Son is the Vine to whom the disciples are joined in vital union. The Father is the Vinedresser, the one who lovingly cares for the branches and assures growth and purity. There is no room for modalistic confusion here!

The vinedresser, in the ancient context, was responsible for the care of the vine, always seeking to produce maximum fruitfulness. This involved the examination of the branches, pruning, cleaning, etc. The duties of the vinedresser are laid out in the next verse.

Verse 2:

“Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.”

This verse describes the standard work of the vinedresser, in this case, the Father. What is described would be known to anyone who had ever stopped for even a moment to observe the worker in the vineyard. The vinedresser engages in his work so as to increase the productivity of the vine. Without the vinedresser, the vine would become wild, and its productivity would decrease greatly. There is a purpose in the work of the vinedresser that is paramount.

The Vinedresser attends to only one vine, the true vine. Because of this singularity and particularity, the only branches to which the Vinedresser’s attention is turned are those related to this one vine. The Vinedresser does not tend to many vines, but just one.

The Vinedresser engages in two activities here. First, fruitless branches are removed. Fruitful branches are pruned or cleansed, and that for a purpose: more fruit-bearing. Both actions, in reality, promote more fruit-bearing, as a fruitless branch is, by definition, worthless and useless. Some have suggested that “take away” may simply mean “to lift up,” so that it may have more opportunity to bear fruit. But this is not the meaning of the text. The issue is the work of the Vinedresser, and the Vinedresser removes “deadwood” from the vine for the betterment of the vine and branches. Throughout Jesus’ parables a branch or plant or tree that is without fruit is abnormal, defective, and does not indicate spiritual life. Note, for example:

(Mark 11:12-14, 19-21) On the next day, when they had left Bethany, He became hungry. [13] Seeing at a distance a fig tree in leaf, He went to see if perhaps He would find anything on it; and when He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. [14] He said to it, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again!" And His disciples were listening....When evening came, they would go out of the city. [20] As they were passing by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots up. [21] Being reminded, Peter said^ to Him, "Rabbi, look, the fig tree which You cursed has withered."

(Mark 4:2-20) And He was teaching them many things in parables, and was saying to them in His teaching, [3] "Listen to this! Behold, the sower went out to sow; [4] as he was sowing, some seed fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate it up. [5] "Other seed fell on the rocky ground where it did not have much soil; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of soil. [6] "And after the sun had risen, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. [7] "Other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. [8] "Other seeds fell into the good soil, and as they grew up and increased, they yielded a crop and produced thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold." [9] And He was saying, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." [10] As soon as He was alone, His followers, along with the twelve, began asking Him about the parables. [11] And He was saying to them, "To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but those who are outside get everything in parables, [12] so that WHILE SEEING, THEY MAY SEE AND NOT PERCEIVE, AND WHILE HEARING, THEY MAY HEAR AND NOT UNDERSTAND, OTHERWISE THEY MIGHT RETURN AND BE FORGIVEN." [13] And He said^ to them, "Do you not understand this parable? How will you understand all the parables? [14] "The sower sows the word. [15] "These are the ones who are beside the road where the word is sown; and when they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them. [16] "In a similar way these are the ones on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy; [17] and they have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary; then, when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they fall away. [18] "And others are the ones on whom seed was sown among the thorns; these are the ones who have heard the word, [19] but the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. [20] "And those are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good soil; and they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold."

In both parables, the plants that appeared to have life but had no fruit are consistently shown to be false, and those represented by these plants, to be false professors. The parable quoted above explains to the apostles why they saw so many who would follow for a while, but then would fall away. These were the seeds that fell upon ground that would not produce living plants that produce fruit. The fact that the Lord Jesus utilized this kind of imagery cannot be ignored in interpreting John 15.

There is a very important play on words in verses 2 and 3 that cannot be brought into English with clarity. In verse 2 the unfruitful branches are ai[rei; the fruitful branches are kaqaivrei; that is “pruned” with the root meaning of “cleansed,” and then in verse 3 Jesus says to the disciples that they are already kaqaroiv because of the word He has spoken to them. We will see that this is a vital element of the interpretation, giving us a key interpretational element.

Verse 3:

(John 15:3) "You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.”

At this point Jesus steps out of the language of a parable for just a moment, using the play on words just noted above. He specifically applies the parable to the disciples, and in doing so, makes it clear that he is addressing only those who are truly disciples indeed, those who are “clean,” i.e., the fruitful branches the Vinedresser prunes to make more fruitful. “You” is plural. “Clean” means “pure” as in “blessed are the pure in heart” (Matthew 5:8). This is the same term Jesus used earlier in John 13:10-11. Here, though, he says not all of them are “clean” because Judas was still present. Judas was an unfruitful branch...lots of leaves, no fruit. He was “taken away” by the Father. Obviously, the “son of perdition” was a pretender, not a true disciple. It follows, then, that all the fruitful branches are “clean,” and only the fruitful branches are “clean.” That means only fruitful branches are Christians, for the means of the cleansing is the speaking of the Word, which is the very means of regeneration and salvation (John 17:17). “because of the word which I have spoken to you.” The means of the cleansing of the apostles was the preaching of the Word of God by the Lord Jesus. Paul spoke of the same concept in Ephesians 5:26, where, speaking of the Church, he wrote, “so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word.” Jesus therefore identifies the Apostles as clean, fruitful branches, but they are so because of what Jesus has done for them, not because of what they have done in and of themselves. The “word” which the Lord Jesus spoke to them was not His own, but was the Father’s (John 12:49, 14:10). Hence, the Father has, through the Word, “pruned” these branches, making them fruitful. In the same way, the Father has “taken away” the unfruitful branch, Judas.

So at this point we can already see in the words of the Lord Jesus that the issue of the fruitless branches has been decided: they are not Christians at all, for they were never “cleaned” by the Word. They are false professors, surface-level disciples, the shallow or rocky or thorny soil of Mark chapter four.

Point Second: Abiding in Christ, Bearing Fruit

Verse 4:

(John 15:4) "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.”

“Abide” is in the imperative mode. It is a command, not a suggestion. Yet, the verb would be carried into the second half of the clause, “and I in you.” How can the normal meaning of the imperative follow here? Is this a command to do something?

Daniel Wallace notes the use of the Aorist Imperative, Constative (Wallace, pp. 720-721). This use of the aorist imperative emphasizes the importance, urgency, and priority of the command, which is a general precept. Hence, the sense is, “It is vital and fundamental that you abide in Me and I in you, for apart from me, you can do nothing.” Jesus is not saying, “I command you to exercise your greatest effort to abide in me, and if you don’t, you’re dead meat.” We are in Christ Jesus only because of the work of God in placing us in Him (1 Cor 1:30).

The branch’s ability to do what it is designed to do (bear fruit) is completely and totally contingent upon another, that being the vine. The life-giving sap flows from the vine to the branch, resulting in the creation of fruit. In the same way, the believer who bears fruit never does so on “his own,” but only as grace flows from Christ into his or her life.

To be able to “do” anything as a Christian requires intimate union with Christ. True fruit--not just foliage without fruit--comes only from the life that is in close intimate union with Christ. Only as God’s grace produces fruit do we truly glorify God.

Verse 5:

(John 15:5) “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”

Verse five summarizes the preceding verses and makes the clear application. He is the Vine, we the branches. A promise is given here that determines the categories in which verse 6 must be read. Jesus specifically asserts that the person in whom He abides, and who abides in Him, bears much fruit. This is the positive assertion: if you are in Christ, fruit is the inevitable result. Hence, unfruitfulness indicates not being in Christ in the first place, unless this promise is null and void!

The negative aspect is found in the last clause: apart from Christ, there is no fruit. Nothing. We can do nothing apart from Him. Obviously, therefore, any work that is done to the glory of God is done through the grace and power of Christ. We can take no credit, no glory, for it is all done in Him, through Him, and for Him.

Verse 6:

(John 15:6) "If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.

If there is no vital union with Christ (which is what abiding means, note the absence of the term in verse 2) there is no spiritual life. The term translated “dries up” is the exact same term found in the parable of the soils in Mark 4:5-6:

(Mark 4:5-6) “Other seed fell on the rocky ground where it did not have much soil; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of soil. [6] And after the sun had risen, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away.”

In the parable in Mark this term is used by the Lord of the growth found in the “rocky soil.” Jesus’ own interpretation of His words is, “and they have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary; then, when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they fall away.” Hence, the Lord indicates two things about these people: they have no “root” and they do not “abide in the vine.” These, therefore, have not been “pruned” by the Father, they bear no fruit, and are hence those described by John in 1 John 2:19:

(1 John 2:19) They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.

The doom of the false professors, while not in any way supporting the idea that salvation is contingent upon what we do rather than upon what Christ has done, is not by this consideration lessened in the slightest. It is vital that we examine ourselves and not ever engage in haughty pride, but in humility of mind serve the Lord Christ.

Verse 7:

(John 15:7) “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”

This is a conditional sentence, with the conditions being expressed in the first two clauses. The first condition is abiding in Christ, the second having His words abiding in us as well.

It is not insignificant that Jesus here introduces the element of doctrine, subsumed under the term “words.” He speaks of the indwelling of God’s truth within our hearts. These very words are the means of our cleansing, as seen in verse 3, and they are “spirit and life.”

The believer who does not feast upon the words of Christ has no basis upon which to claim the promise of this verse. What we “wish” for will be conditioned upon our continuously abiding in Christ, and upon the impact His word has in changing our hearts, our minds, and our priorities. John the Apostle, who recorded for us these words in John 15, provides us with his understanding of them when he writes in 1 John 5:14, “This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” We know the will of Christ by abiding in Him and having His word abiding in us.

But the promise then is, if we are abiding in Him, and His word abides in us, He shall grant the desires of our hearts! This is not a blank check with which we force God to do this or that. Instead, it is a promise that God will fulfill His work within us. That is, if we ask, “God, make me holy” He will do just that. If we pray “God, make me like Christ,” and that is our desire, He will do it. To even consider the idea that this means we can say, “God, give me more of the things of the world so I can be happier” is to completely miss the context in which these words were spoken.

Verse 8:

(John 15:8) "My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.”

Here we learn how to glorify the Father: bear much fruit. It is often the prayer of Christians to live in such a manner as to glorify God. Here we are given direct teaching as to how to do this. Bearing fruit is the means of proving or displaying discipleship. There is no meaningful way of demonstrating the reality of discipleship outside of our manner of life. This is exactly the point of James in James 2:14-24: the demonstration of said faith by consistent actions.

“Who are the disciples of Christ?” They are those who bear the fruit of righteousness to the glory of the Father. Obviously, then, we observe again the fact that fruitless branches are not, by definition, disciples. This is why they are taken away.

Summary of Exegesis:

So what can we say regarding the teaching of the Lord Jesus in John 15? And specifically, why should any Bible-believing person reject the idea that the words of the Lord, especially regarding fruitless, rejected, and burnt branches, lead us to believe that salvation is anything less than the perfect, infallible work of a Perfect, Infallible Savior (John 6:37-39)?

The words of the Lord Jesus do not lead us to believe the branches which are taken away (v. 2) and burned (v. 6) are disciples. In fact, one cannot maintain such an interpretation in light of the following considerations:

1) Christ differentiates between those who are “clean” by the Word which is spoken to them and the branches that are taken away: there is no such thing as a true disciple who is not cleansed by the Word;

2) The Lord limits the realm of true discipleship to those who abide in Him. The branches taken away in v. 2 and burned in v. 6 do not abide in Christ and hence are not disciples;

3) Jesus gives no indication that there is a major exception to verse 5, where there are those who abide in Him and yet do not bear fruit (reinforcing the distinction inherent in the entirety of the passage);

4) the Lord defines fruit bearing as the only evidence of discipleship (v. 8). Since the branches that are taken away and burned bore no fruit, it follows inevitably that they are not, by Jesus’ own definition, disciples;

5) Jesus spoke these words not to cause His disciples sorrow but to give them joy (15:11). The centrality of the Father and Son in bringing out the fruitfulness of the Vine brings joy; interpreting these words so as to refer to true disciples losing their salvation does not;

6) the focus upon Christ as the source of all spiritual life picks up the same theme found in John 6 (as the Bread of Life). It is completely backwards to take a passage that presents the work of the Father in glorifying Himself in bringing forth fruit in Christ’s people and see it as a passage teaching the opposite, that is, the Father’s failure to bring forth fruit and hence lose one-time true believers.

http://vintage.aomin.org/John15.html

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Dec 1, 2010 at 04:27 o\clock

God & mathematics

by: dondegr0

God is A Mathematician

By Keith Newman.

The authenticity of the Holy Bible has been attacked at regular intervals by atheists and theologians alike but none have explained away the mathematical seal beneath its surface.

It would seem the divine hand has moved to prevent counterfeiting in the pages of the Bible in a similar manner to the line that runs through paper money. Bible numerics appears to be God's watermark of authenticity.

Vital research on this numeric seal was completed by a native of the world's most reknowned atheistic nation, Russia. Ivan Panin was born in Russia on December 12, 1855. As a young man he was an active nihilist and participated in plots against the Czar and his government. He was a mathematical genius who died a Harvard scholar and a citizen of the United States in 1942.

Panin was exiled from Russia. And after spending a number of years studying in Germany, he went to the United States where he became an outstanding lecturer on literary criticism.

Panin was known as a firm agnostic - so well known that when he discarded his agnosticism and accepted the Christian faith, the newspapers carried headlines telling of his conversion.

It was in 1890 that Panin made the discovery of the mathematical structure underlining the vocabulary of the Greek New Testament. He was casually reading the first verse of the gospel of John in the Greek: "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with the God and the Word was God...".

Panin was curious as to why the Greek word for "the"' preceded the word "God"' in one case and not the other. In examining the text he became aware of a number relationship. This was the first of the discoveries that led to his conversion and uncovered the extensive numeric code.

Panin found his proof in the oldest and most accurate manuscripts - the Received Hebrew Text and the Westcott and Hort Text.

In the original languages of the Bible, mostly Hebrew and Greek, there are no separate symbols for numbers, letters of the alphabet are also used to indicate numbers.

The numeric value of a word is the sum total of all its letters. It was curiosity that first caused Panin to begin toying with the numbers behind the texts. Sequences and patterns began to emerge. These created such a stirring in the heart of the Russian that he dedicated 50 years of his life to painstakingly comb the pages of the Bible.

This complex system of numbering visibly and invisibly saturates every book of the scriptures emphasizing certain passages and illustrating deeper or further meaning in types and shadows. The 66 books of the Bible 39 in the Old and 27 in the New were written by 33 different people.

Those authors were scattered throughout various countries of the world and from widely different backgrounds. Many of them had little or no schooling. The whole Bible was written over a period of 1500 years with a 400 year silence apart from the Apocrypha between the two testaments. Despite the handicaps the biblical books are found to be a harmonious record, each in accord with the other.

Panin says the laws of probability are exceeded into the billions when we try and rationalize the authorship of the Bible as the work of man. He once said: "If human logic is worth anything at all we are simply driven to the conclusion that if my facts I have presented are true, man could never have done this.

"We must assume that a Power higher than man guided the writers in such a way, whether they knew it or not, they did it and the Great God inspired them to do it''.

The Bible itself states clearly that it is the literal God-breathed'' living word of the Creator. The words "Thus saith the Lord"' and "God said"' occur more than 2500 times throughout scripture.

In 2 Timothy 3:16 it states "All scripture is given by inspiration of God". Then in 2 Peter 9:20-21 it plainly states: "No prophecy of the scriptures is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost".

Let's take the number seven as an illustration of the way the patterns work. Seven is the most prolific of the mathematical series which binds scripture together. The very first verse of the Bible "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Gen 1:1), contains over 30 different combinations of seven.

This verse has seven Hebrew words having a total of 28 letters 4 x 7. The numeric value of the three nouns "God", "heaven" and "earth" totals 777. Any number in triplicate expresses complete, ultimate or total meaning.

Also tightly sealed up with sevens are the genealogy of Jesus, the account of the virgin birth and the resurrection. Seven occurs as a number 187 times in the Bible (41 x 7), the phrase "seven-fold" occurs seven times and "seventy" occurs 56 times (7 x 8).

In the Book of Revelation seven positively shines out: there are seven golden candlesticks, seven letters to seven churches, a book sealed with seven seals, seven angels standing before the Lord with seven trumpets, seven thunders and seven last plagues. In fact there are over 50 occurrences of the number seven in Revelation alone.

There are 21 Old Testament writers whose names appear in the Bible (3 x 7). The numeric value of their names is divisible by seven. Of these 21, seven are named in the New Testament: Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Hosea and Joel. The numeric values of these names is 1554 (222 x 7). David's name is found 1134 times (162 x 7).

God's seal also pervades creation as though it were woven into the very fabric of nature.

The Bible has declared man's years to be three score and ten (70). The development of the human embryo is in exact periods of sevens or 28 days (4 x 7). Medical science tells us the human body is renewed cell for cell every seven years.

We're told the pulse beats slower every seven days as if it were in accord with the seventh day of rest proclaimed in the Genesis creation week. And God formed man of the dust of the ground (Gen 2:7); science confirms the human body is made of the same 14 elements (2 x 7) found in your average handful of dust.

The light of the sun is made up of seven distinct colours as shown in the rainbow. In music there are seven distinct notes which climax in a chord or octave at the beginning of a new seven.

In almost all animals the incubation or pregnancy period is divisible by seven. Seven is often referred to as "God's seal" or the number of spiritual perfection.

Eight is the number of new life or "resurrection". It is the personal number of Jesus. When we add together the letter values of the name Jesus in the Greek we get 888. Jesus was called The Christ, the numeric value of this title is 1480 (185 x 8). He was Savior which has the value 1408 (2 x 8 x 88).

Jesus is also Lord which again is a multiple of eight being 800 (100 x 8). Messiah has the numeric value 656 (82 x8). Jesus also called himself the Son of man. The term occurs 88 times and is valued at 2960 (370 x 8).

Jesus said "I am the truth": the numeric value of "the truth" is 64 (8 x 8). The last book in the Bible is the Revelation of Jesus Christ which has exactly 888 Greek words. Eight persons were saved in the Ark at the great Noahic flood. God made a covenant with Abraham that every male Jewish child was to be circumcised on the eighth day of his life.

There are eight individual cases of resurrection spoken of in the Bible apart from Jesus. Three occur in the Old Testament, three in the gospels and two in Acts. It was on the eighth day or the first day of the new week that Jesus rose from the dead. The Holy Spirit also came down from heaven on the eighth day.

Nine is finality or completion. The first example of its use is that infinitely sealed first verse of the Bible: "In the beginning God'' which in Hebrew is: Brayshith Elohim which has the numeric value of 999. The very next statement "created the heaven" is also sealed with 999.

The number nine is endowed with a peculiar quality, it is finality in itself. Not only is it the final single number, but if you multiply it by any other number, the addition of the resulting figures will always revert back to nine (2 x 9 = 18 / 1 + 8 = 9 etc).

There are nine basic gifts available to the Christian believer through the power of God's Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:8-10). There are nine basic fruits which should be evident in the life of the believer (Gal 5:22-23). The words "my wrath" have the numeric value 999. The word Amen or verily is valued at 99 and occurs 99 times.

The work on the cross was completed at the ninth hour when Jesus said "It is finished". The shedding of his blood was final. It saw an end to the old system of animal sacrifice to atone for sin. The word "blood" in this sense occurs 99 times.

Great superstition has always surrounded the number 13 as being unlucky or dark. Perhaps there is good reason. One of the most convincing proofs of the origins of this number can be found by unravelling all the names by which Satan is known. Drakon or dragon has a value of 975 (13 x 75) and it occurs 13 times. Peirazon or tempter has a value of 1053 (13 x 81). Belial which is personification of evil has a value of 78 (13 x 6).

Anthropoktonos or "murderer" has a value of 1820 (13 x 40). Ophis or "serpent" is 780 (13 x 60). The phrase used by the Holy Spirit Ho kaloumenos diablos kai ho Satanas or "called the Devil and Satan" is valued 2197 (13 x 13 x 13).

This article is in truth an oversimplification of the work of Panin and others who followed in his footsteps. Panin's work initially involved some 40,000 pages of material on which he had written millions of small neat calculations. It involved volumes.

He often laboured up to 18 hours a day exploring the vast numeric structure. By and large it was a thankless task. Panin said "When I first made the discovery I was of course, taken off my feet - I was in the same condition as our friend Archimedes who when he solved a great mathematical problem while in the bath, rushed in to the street naked, crying 'I have found it'. I thought people would be delighted to embrace the new discovery, but I found human nature is always the same. So I quietly withdrew and did my work all by myself".

Although it would appear that his work has been largely lost from popular reading today Panin did accomplish several outstanding works. He published Structure in the Bible the Numeric Greek New Testament and the Numeric English New Testament.

The works of Ivan Panin have been put before the experts many times. Panin once challenged nine noted rationalists and Bible critics through the medium of the New York Sun newspaper November 9, 1899. He dared them to publicly refute or give explanation for a few of his presented facts. Four made lame excuses. The rest were silent.

Panin issued a challenge throughout leading newspapers of the world asking for a natural explanation or rebuttal of the facts. Not a single person accepted. He died at Aldershot, Ontario Canada on October 30th, 1942, aged 87.

http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/panin2.htm

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Nov 11, 2010 at 20:51 o\clock

More of Christ !

by: dondegr0

More of Christ! More of Christ!

by James Smith, 1860

What is it my soul, which causes this uneasiness, this dissatisfaction, this deep inward yearning after something which you have not, or do not at present enjoy? I am not at rest. I am not rejoicing in God. I am not singing from the heights of Zion. Yet, I have no slavish fears, I have no gloomy doubts of my saving interest in Christ, I have no actual dread of death or the judgment. But I feel a desire to climb higher, to know more, and to enjoy the power of religion within — as I have not of late. It seems to me that all my needs lead me to Christ, and all my desires go out toward Christ. I want — well, what do I want?

I want to feel more of my NEED of Christ. I have imagined at times, that I could not have a deeper sense of my need of Christ, and of all that Christ is, and has — than I have already experienced. But I am persuaded now that I may, and that only in proportion as I daily feel my need of Christ — shall I desire to know him, trust in him, and enjoy him. I know theoretically, that I need Christ in every office which he sustains, in every relationship which he fills, and in every character which he has assumed. I need him not only to rescue me from death — but to feed me, clothe me, teach me, keep me, guide me, and comfort me. I need him to do all for me, and all within me — which either God, or my circumstances require. O to feel more of my need of Jesus, that I may not be happy one moment — but only as I look to him, lean on him, and receive from him!

I want to KNOW more of Christ. O how little do I really know of Christ! I have thought of him, spoken of him, and wrote about him — but how little I really know of him. I want to know more of the person of Christ, more of the grace of Christ, and more of the work of Christ. I want to know more of Christ for me, and more of Christ within me. I want to know more of the words of Christ, and more of the heart of Christ. I want to know Jesus as God's Christ — and as my Christ. I want so to know Christ, as never to doubt his love, question his veracity, or to fear his coming. Yes, so to know him — as to devote myself wholly to him, and be ready at any time to depart and be with him!

I want more AFFECTION for Christ. Yes, I want to love Jesus — and to feel that I love him. I want to love him — and to prove by my conversation, conduct, and spirit — that I do so love him. There ought to be no doubt on my own mind on this point — but I should be ready to say, "I love him — because he first loved me." There ought to be no cause or occasion for any who know me, to question whether I love him. O no, his love should so influence my conduct, and his love should so season my conversation — that all about me may feel sure, that if I love anyone, I love Jesus. O that the Holy Spirit would shed abroad the love of Christ in my heart more and more — that my love to him may be as strong as death!

I want to realize more sensibly my UNION with Christ. Christ is the head of the church, and all the true members of that church are in union with him. I cannot but believe that I am one with Christ. I often feel as if I could not live without Christ. But I want daily and hourly to live under the impression — that Christ and my soul are one. That I am a member of his body, of his flesh and of his bones. What privilege can exceed this — to be united to Christ! Then, because he lives — I shall live also. Then he will use his influence for me, spend his wealth upon me, and desire to have me with him to behold his glory. O Jesus, dwell more sensibly in my heart, and let me dwell more sensibly in you!

I want more COMMUNION with Christ. Communion flows from union — and proves its vitality. No union to Christ — no communion with Christ. And if there is no communion with Christ — then there is no evidence of union to Christ. The branch being one with the vine — receives its life, sap, and nourishment from the vine. Just so, we being one with Christ — receive our spiritual life, holiness, and happiness from Christ. The member lives, grows, and is strong — because it is in union with the head. Just so, the believer lives, grows, and is strong — because he is in union with Christ, the head. In proportion as we realize our union with Christ, will be the sweetness and constancy of our communion with Christ. And in proportion to the sweetness and constancy of our communion with Christ — will be the assurance of our union to Christ. O for more sweet, sanctifying, and soul-ennobling communion with Jesus!

I want more ASSIMILATION to Christ. What I see in Christ I admire, and I admire all that I see in Christ. But admiration is not enough. I want to be like Jesus, just like him — altogether like him. The more I am with him, and the more I see of him — the more I sigh, cry, and long to be like him! I think one may live at such a distance from Christ, and have so little to do with Christ — that he may not be very anxious or desirous to be like him. But I am sure that we cannot be much in his company, or be led by the Holy Spirit, to see much of his moral and spiritual beauty — but we shall desire to be fully like him. At times, this seems to be the one thing needful with me, the one thing that I desire of the Lord — that I may be like Jesus. But it is not always so, it is not sufficiently so — therefore I cannot but wish for more assimilation to Christ.

I want to be fully POSSESSED of Christ. Not only to be like him — but to be with him — not only with him in grace — but with him in glory! I am sure that I shall never be perfectly satisfied — until I have Christ always with me — until I am always with him in his Father's home and kingdom. This is promised me, I must believe the promise, and wait for its fulfillment. Soon it will be true in my experience, "Absent from the body — present with the Lord." I shall "depart and be with Christ — which is far better" than being here, distant from him, and so often sighing for the enjoyment of him! Then I shall possess Christ! Then I shall be fully satisfied with the presence of Christ.

O Lord, let me have a deeper sense of my saving interest in Christ now, let me enjoy more of him while on earth — and then I know that I shall be satisfied when I awake up in his glorious likeness!

Now it seems to me that these things go together, or naturally follow each other:

In proportion as I feel my need of Christ — I shall desire to know Christ — to know him fully, to know him experimentally.

In proportion as I know Christ — shall I desire to set my affections on Christ, and to love him with an unquenchable love.

Just in proportion to my love to him — will be my desire to realize close and vital union to him.

In proportion as I realize my union to Christ — shall I want to have and enjoy communion with Christ.

In proportion as I enjoy communion with Christ — shall I long for assimilation to Christ.

And as I long for assimilation to Christ — shall I desire fully to possess him, and to be forever with him!

Reader, do you know anything about these things? I have written these lines out of my own heart, and they express the feelings and desires of my soul.

If I know anything — I do know in a degree my need of Christ.

If I desire anything — I do desire to know Christ.

If I wish to love at all — I wish to love Christ supremely.

If I prize anything — I prize union to Christ.

If I desire anything — I desire communion with Christ.

If I aspire to anything — I aspire to be like Christ.

If I am persuaded that I shall be satisfied with anything — I am persuaded that I shall be satisfied with the presence and possession of Christ.

All my religion finds its center in Christ!

My whole creed begins, goes on, and ends with Christ!

I value doctrines — but I set more value on Christ!

I prize ordinances — but I think more highly of Christ!

With me it is — Christ first, Christ middle, Christ last!

Reader, is it so with you?

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Oct 16, 2010 at 18:37 o\clock

Jonathan Edwards' Resolutions

by: dondegr0

Jonathan Edwards' Resolutions
A list of the resolutions that Edwards read once every week to keep his mind on his duty before God.

The Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards

The New Year is upon us, or, it may just be that it took you a very long time to make it to this web page. In either case, when contemplating the New Year, we should make a resolution against New Year Resolutions, and, instead, strive for reformation of life. That is why Jonathan Edwards read his resolutions once every week. His Resolutions are listed below in full.

In an effort to be helped spiritually by Edward's idea in inscribing his resolutions and then reading them each week, I also made a list of my own Maxims, which may also be of help to you - even if they simply spark you to make a list of your own. Some are very similar to Edwards, some are exactly the same, and some are completely different. In any case, enjoy these Resolutions and Maxims in your daily walk.

Resolutions 1 through 21 were written by in one sitting in New Haven in 1722.

The Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards (1722-1723)

Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God's help, I do humbly entreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ's sake.

Remember to read over these Resolutions once a week.

1. Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God's glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriad's of ages hence. Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many and how great soever.

2. Resolved, to be continually endeavoring to find out some new invention and contrivance to promote the aforementioned things.

3. Resolved, if ever I shall fall and grow dull, so as to neglect to keep any part of these Resolutions, to repent of all I can remember, when I come to myself again.

4. Resolved, never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God; nor be, nor suffer it, if I can avoid it.

5. Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.

6. Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live.

7. Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.

8. Resolved, to act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God.

9. Resolved, to think much on all occasions of my own dying, and of the common circumstances which attend death.

10. Resolved, when I feel pain, to think of the pains of martyrdom, and of hell.

11. Resolved, when I think of any theorem in divinity to be solved, immediately to do what I can towards solving it, if circumstances don't hinder.

12. Resolved, if I take delight in it as a gratification of pride, or vanity, or on any such account, immediately to throw it by.

13. Resolved, to be endeavoring to find out fit objects of charity and liberality.

14. Resolved, never to do anything out of revenge.

15. Resolved, never to suffer the least motions of anger to irrational beings.

16. Resolved, never to speak evil of anyone, so that it shall tend to his dishonor, more or less, upon no account except for some real good.

17. Resolved, that I will live so as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.

18. Resolved, to live so at all times, as I think is best in my devout frames, and when I have clearest notions of things of the gospel, and another world.

19. Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if I expected it would not be above an hour, before I should hear the last trump.

20. Resolved, to maintain the strictest temperance in eating and drinking.

21. Resolved, never to do anything, which if I should see in another, I should count a just occasion to despise him for, or to think any way the more meanly of him.

22. Resolved, to endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness, in the other world, as I possibly can, with all the power; might, vigor, and vehemence, yea violence, I am capable of, or can bring myself to exert, in any way that can be thought of.

23. Resolved, frequently to take some deliberate action, which seems most unlikely to be done, for the glory of God, and trace it back to the original intention, designs and ends of it; and if I find it not to be for God's glory, to repute it as a breach of the 4th Resolution.

24. Resolved, whenever I do any conspicuously evil action, to trace it back, till I come to the original cause; and then both carefully endeavor to do so no more, and to fight and pray with all my might against the original of it.

25. Resolved, to examine carefully, and constantly, what that one thing in me is, which causes me in the least to doubt of the love of God; and to direct all my forces against it.

26. Resolved, to cast away such things, as I find do abate my assurance.

27. Resolved, never willfully to omit anything, except the omission be for the glory of God; and frequently to examine my omissions.

28. Resolved, to study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.

29. Resolved, never to count that a prayer, nor to let that pass as a prayer, nor that as a petition of a prayer, which is so made, that I cannot hope that God will answer it; nor that as a confession, which I cannot hope God will accept.

30. Resolved, to strive to my utmost every week to be brought higher in religion, and to a higher exercise of grace, than I was the week before.

31. Resolved, never to say anything at all against anybody, but when it is

perfectly agreeable to the highest degree of Christian honor, and of love to mankind, agreeable to the lowest humility, and sense of my own faults and failings, and agreeable to the golden rule; often, when I have said anything against anyone, to bring it to, and try it strictly by the test of this Resolution.

32. Resolved, to be strictly and firmly faithful to my trust, that that in Prov. 20:6, "A faithful man who can find?" may not be partly fulfilled in me.

33. Resolved, always to do what I can towards making, maintaining, establishing and preserving peace, when it can be without over-balancing detriment in other respects. Dec.26, 1722.

34. Resolved, in narration's never to speak anything but the pure and simple verity.

35. Resolved, whenever I so much question whether I have done my duty, as that my quiet and calm is thereby disturbed, to set it down, and also how the question was resolved. Dec. 18, 1722.

36. Resolved, never to speak evil of any, except I have some particular good call for it. Dec. 19, 1722.

37. Resolved, to inquire every night, as I am going to bed, wherein I have been negligent, what sin I have committed, and wherein I have denied myself: also at the end of every week, month and year. Dec.22 and 26, 1722.

38. Resolved, never to speak anything that is ridiculous, sportive, or matter of laughter on the Lord's day. Sabbath evening, Dec. 23, 1722.

39. Resolved, never to do anything that I so much question the lawfulness of, as that I intend, at the same time, to consider and examine afterwards, whether it be lawful or no; except I as much question the lawfulness of the omission.

40. Resolved, to inquire every night, before I go to bed, whether I have acted in the best way I possibly could, with respect to eating and drinking. Jan. 7, 1723.

41. Resolved, to ask myself at the end of every day, week, month and year, wherein I could possibly in any respect have done better. Jan. 11, 1723.

42. Resolved, frequently to renew the dedication of myself to God, which was made at my baptism; which I solemnly renewed, when I was received into the communion of the church; and which I have solemnly re-made this twelfth day of January, 1722-23.

43. Resolved, never henceforward, till I die, to act as if I were any way my own, but entirely and altogether God's, agreeable to what is to be found in Saturday, January 12. Jan.12, 1723.

44- Resolved, that no other end but religion, shall have any influence at all on any of my actions; and that no action shall be, in the least circumstance, any otherwise than the religious end will carry it. Jan.12, 1723.

45. Resolved, never to allow any pleasure or grief, joy or sorrow, nor any affection at all, nor any degree of affection, nor any circumstance relating to it, but what helps religion. Jan.12 and 13.1723.

46. Resolved, never to allow the least measure of any fretting uneasiness at my father or mother. Resolved to suffer no effects of it, so much as in the least alteration of speech, or motion of my eve: and to be especially careful of it, with respect to any of our family.

47. Resolved, to endeavor to my utmost to deny whatever is not most agreeable to a good, and universally sweet and benevolent, quiet, peaceable, contented, easy, compassionate, generous, humble, meek, modest, submissive, obliging, diligent and industrious, charitable, even, patient, moderate, forgiving, sincere temper; and to do at all times what such a temper would lead me to. Examine strictly every week, whether I have done so. Sabbath morning. May 5,1723.

48. Resolved, constantly, with the utmost niceness and diligence, and the strictest scrutiny, to be looking into the state of my soul, that I may know whether I have truly an interest in Christ or no; that when I come to die, I may not have any negligence respecting this to repent of. May 26, 1723.

49. Resolved, that this never shall be, if I can help it.

50. Resolved, I will act so as I think I shall judge would have been best, and most prudent, when I come into the future world. July 5, 1723.

51. Resolved, that I will act so, in every respect, as I think I shall wish I had done, if I should at last be damned. July 8, 1723.

52. I frequently hear persons in old age say how they would live, if they were to live their lives over again: Resolved, that I will live just so as I can think I shall wish I had done, supposing I live to old age. July 8, 1723.

53. Resolved, to improve every opportunity, when I am in the best and happiest frame of mind, to cast and venture my soul on the Lord Jesus Christ, to trust and confide in him, and consecrate myself wholly to him; that from this I may have assurance of my safety, knowing that I confide in my Redeemer. July 8, 1723.

54. Whenever I hear anything spoken in conversation of any person, if I think it would be praiseworthy in me, Resolved to endeavor to imitate it. July 8, 1723.

55. Resolved, to endeavor to my utmost to act as I can think I should do, if I had already seen the happiness of heaven, and hell torments. July 8, 1723.

56. Resolved, never to give over, nor in the least to slacken my fight with my corruptions, however unsuccessful I may be.

57. Resolved, when I fear misfortunes and adversities, to examine whether ~ have done my duty, and resolve to do it; and let it be just as providence orders it, I will as far as I can, be concerned about nothing but my duty and my sin. June 9, and July 13 1723.

58. Resolved, not only to refrain from an air of dislike, fretfulness, and anger in conversation, but to exhibit an air of love, cheerfulness and benignity. May27, and July 13, 1723.

59. Resolved, when I am most conscious of provocations to ill nature and anger, that I will strive most to feel and act good-naturedly; yea, at such times, to manifest good nature, though I think that in other respects it would be disadvantageous, and so as would be imprudent at other times. May 12, July ii, and July 13.

60. Resolved, whenever my feelings begin to appear in the least out of order, when I am conscious of the least uneasiness within, or the least irregularity without, I will then subject myself to the strictest examination. July 4, and 13, 1723.

61. Resolved, that I will not give way to that listlessness which I find unbends and relaxes my mind from being fully and fixedly set on religion, whatever excuse I may have for it-that what my listlessness inclines me to do, is best to be done, etc. May 21, and July 13, 1723.

62. Resolved, never to do anything but duty; and then according to Eph. 6:6-8, do it willingly and cheerfully as unto the Lord, and not to man; "knowing that whatever good thing any man doth, the same shall he receive of the Lord." June 25 and July 13, 1723.

63. On the supposition, that there never was to be but one individual in the world, at any one time, who was properly a complete Christian, in all respects of a right stamp, having Christianity always shining in its true luster, and appearing excellent and lovely, from whatever part and under whatever character viewed: Resolved, to act just as I would do, if I strove with all my might to be that one, who should live in my time. Jan.14' and July '3' 1723.

64. Resolved, when I find those "groanings which cannot be uttered" (Rom. 8:26), of which the Apostle speaks, and those "breakings of soul for the longing it hath," of which the Psalmist speaks, Psalm 119:20, that I will promote them to the utmost of my power, and that I will not be wear', of earnestly endeavoring to vent my desires, nor of the repetitions of such earnestness. July 23, and August 10, 1723.

65. Resolved, very much to exercise myself in this all my life long, viz. with the greatest openness I am capable of, to declare my ways to God, and lay open my soul to him: all my sins, temptations, difficulties, sorrows, fears, hopes, desires, and every thing, and every circumstance; according to Dr. Manton's 27th Sermon on Psalm 119. July 26, and Aug.10 1723.

66. Resolved, that I will endeavor always to keep a benign aspect, and air of acting and speaking in all places, and in all companies, except it should so happen that duty requires otherwise.

67. Resolved, after afflictions, to inquire, what I am the better for them, what good I have got by them, and what I might have got by them.

68. Resolved, to confess frankly to myself all that which I find in myself, either infirmity or sin; and, if it be what concerns religion, also to confess the whole case to God, and implore needed help. July 23, and August 10, 1723.

69. Resolved, always to do that, which I shall wish I had done when I see others do it. Aug. 11, 1723.

70. Let there be something of benevolence, in all that I speak.

Aug. 17, 1723

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Oct 9, 2010 at 15:46 o\clock

Accuracy of Bible prophecy

by: dondegr0

Accuracy Of Prophecy

Perhaps the most compelling of evidences demonstrating that the Bible is the word of God is its unswerving ability to accurately predict future events, often in minute details. Specific prophesies are conspicuously absent from the 26 other religious books that claim to be scripture, including the Muslim's Koran, the Book of Mormon, the Hindu Vedas, and Buddhist writings¹. This in itself should be a major eye-opener to the honest skeptic. God through the prophet Isaiah once challenged the pagan idolaters of that time to "tell us what the future holds, so we may know that you are gods (Isaiah 41:23, NIV)."

The Jewish Nation

Perhaps the greatest and most obvious testimony to the accuracy of Biblical prophecy is provided by the people and nation of Israel. The Jews went without a homeland for 1900 years, just as God had promised numerous times in the Old Testament², as a reluctant judgment on His rebellious chosen people. Moses warned Israel that if they corrupted themselves, then "the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other (Deut 28:64, KJV)". Remarkably, this century God restored the Jews to their ancient homeland, fulfilling many other specific Old Testament prophesies³.

It is inconceivable to me how the honest skeptic could deny God's handiwork in the history of the people of Israel. Throughout history the "wandering Jew" has been hated and despised, yet despite the unbelievable persecution they endured, the Jews somehow managed to maintain their identity such that when God's timeclock warranted they were able to re-group as a nation in their ancient homeland. Indeed, history is replete with once great nations which were eventually overrun and defeated, but whose people were over time absorbed into the culture of the conquering nation. The fact that this did not happen to the Jews is nothing short of miraculous. There are American Jews, German Jews, Russian Jews, etc.; have you ever heard of a German Babalonian, or an American Philistine? The plight of this small percentage of humanity is certainly unique and unprecedented in the annals of world history.

Finally, who can deny the volatility of the Middle East, with Israel as the boiling point, and the worldwide focus of attention she receives. Bear this in mind when reading the following Bible passage, written almost 2500 years ago, and also consider that this was written at a time when Jerusalem was in complete ruins:

Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it... For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle (Zech 12:2-3, Zech 14:2-3, KJV)."

As noted author Dave Hunt so aptly put it:

The fulfillment of hundreds of specific prophecies in the ancient and modern history of the Jewish people is God's great sign to mankind--a sign that no one can mistake or deny...Jewish history stands as a universal visible monument to God's existence⁴.

Predicted Fate of Numerous Cities and Nations

What if I were to give you the following predictions:

1.   Saddam Hussein will destroy all but the island portion of New York City
2.   Many nations will fight against New York City
3.   New York City will be made a bare rock; flat like the top of a rock
4.   Fishermen will spread their nets over the heap that was once New York City
5.   The debris from the buildings in New York City will be thrown in the water
6.   New York City will never be re-built
7.   New York City's glory will never be restored
8.   I will be laughed at and mocked, and disregarded as a lunatic

I'm sure the last one is about the only one I would get right! I would certainly have earned my rightful place in the heap of ridicule. What is amazing though is that the prophet Ezekiel made these same predictions (except for 8, of course), with Nebuchadnezzar replacing Saddam Hussein and Tyre replacing New York City, and his prophecy was fulfilled to the last detail!

At the time Ezekiel made this prophecy (Ezekiel 26), Tyre was a powerful city holding a stature much like that of New York City today. Three years after the prophecy Nebuchadnezzar indeed laid siege to the city. The inhabitants all but abandoned the city and moved off-shore to a nearby island, where they fortified themselves and remained a powerful city for several hundred more years. During this time it must have seemed that Ezekiel's prophecy was not wholly correct, but then came Alexander the Great, who eventually built a causeway to the island using debris from the old mainland city of Tyre! More conquerors were to follow. It wasn't until the 12th century A.D. before the final prophetic chapter was closed on the once great city of Tyre. Its fitting that a secular historian would eventually write the following:

...[Tyre] never regained the place she had previously held in the world. The larger part of the site of the once great city is now bare as the top of a rock - a place where the fishermen that still frequent the spot spread their nets to dry⁵.

Let's see how well the previous description of present-day Tyre matches what the Bible had to say:

"And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers: I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock. It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD: and it shall become a spoil to the nations (Ezek 26:4-5, KJV)."

The Tyre prophecy is but one of about 1500 Old Testament prophesies of minute detail relating to cities or nations that have already been fulfilled. Anyone can verify the numerous fulfilled prophesies of such cities as Sidon, Edom, Samaria, and nations such as Egypt, Babylon, and Rome.

Speaking of Egypt, there is another prophecy also recorded in Ezekiel that I would like to share with you: "and there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt (Ezek 30:13, KJV)." Twenty-five hundred years have passed since this prophecy, and during this period of time not one of its numerous ruling princes were Egyptian! This would be similar to my predicting that their would never again be an American elected President of the United States!

Messianic Prophesies

Dr. D. James Kennedy wrote of an encounter he had with a Jewish man who said he did not believe in Christ. Dr. Kennedy responded that he was sorry to hear that, and added "...Since He is the Messiah of the Jewish people who was promised in the Old Testament, you have rejected your own Messiah." He then went on to share with the Jewish man a few verses of scripture:

"All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads: 'He trusts in the LORD; let the LORD rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him (Ps 22:7-8, NIV)"
"But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed (Isa 53:5, NIV)"
"Even my close friend, whom I trusted, he who shared my bread, has lifted up his heel against me (Ps 41:9, NIV)."
"They have pierced my hands and my feet (Ps 22:16, NIV)."
"Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors (Isa 53:12, NIV)."
"They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son (Zech 12:10, NIV)."

When Dr. Kennedy finished reading these scriptures to the Jewish man, he asked him to whom these verses were referring to. The man responded that "Obviously they are talking about Jesus... So what?". Dr. Kennedy then pointed out that all the verses he had just read to him were from the Old Testament! The man was stunned and demanded to see the passages with his own eyes⁶.

The Old Testament contains 333 prophesies regarding the Messiah, most of which were fulfilled by the first coming of Jesus Christ. Even the most liberal critics acknowledge that these prophesies were written at least 400 years before Christ. Mathematicians have easily shown that the odds of all these prophesies being fulfilled by chance in one man is greater than the number of atoms in the universe many times over.

New Age "Prophets"

Some critics will point to the "success" of non-biblical "prophets" such as Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce, and Jeane Dixon, to name a few. A careful and subjective check of their methods, however, reveals that their predictions were really no better than you or I or the local fortune-teller could make. Take Jeane Dixon, for example. The prediction that made her famous, regarding the assassination of JFK, was really not that amazing after all. She predicted that "the Democratic contender will win, but he will be assassinated or die in office, though not necessarily in the first term". Considering the history of past presidents, and the fact that she allowed 8 years for the event to occur, her chance of success was 7 to 3! She also prophesied that WWIII would begin in 1954, Nixon would defeat Kennedy (contradicting her earlier prediction!), and Jacqueline Kennedy would not marry Aristotle Onasis (she married him the next day!). This is but a handful of her false prophesies.

These "prophets" were also frequently so vague in the predictions they made that you could mold them into about any historical event you wanted. Its amazing to read about the events that Nostradamus supposedly prophesied about, then compare the details of the event with what Nostradamus actually wrote. You're left asking, how in the heck did they draw those conclusions?! Note that these "experts" on Nostradamus's work were only able to make their claims after the supposedly predicted event had passed. This complete lack of a priori analysis, coupled with the incredibly vague nature of the Nostradamus "prophesies", should be more than enough reason for the honest inquirer to dismiss any claims of prophetic success put forth by Nostradamus's advocates⁷. In contrast, most of the Biblical prophesies are specific and detailed, with quite a few interpreted a priori⁸.

To the Christian the afore-mentioned individuals are easily exposed as false prophets based on the Biblical tests for a prophet. The Bible forbids the use of occult artifacts, which all were guilty of, and more importantly,

"If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him. (Deut 18:22, NIV)"

Summary

The Bible contains over 2000 prophesies that have been fulfilled, many with very specific details. One must ask himself why he would remain skeptical in light of this incontrovertible evidence. It would seem that if someone was honestly seeking the truth, it would certainly be a worthwhile effort to to at least investigate a handful of these prophesies. Psalm 22 would be a good start - it contains several prophesies describing Christ's crucifixion, a method of execution that wasn't invented until several centuries after King David wrote about it. A Bible and an encyclopedia is all one would need to verify the prophetic accuracy of Psalm 22.

"Therefore I told you these things long ago; before they happened I announced them to you so that you could not say, 'My idols did them; my wooden image and metal god ordained them (Isaiah 48:5, NIV)."

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Sep 25, 2010 at 15:48 o\clock

God's Sovereignty

by: dondegr0

Fate, accident, chance--or SOVEREIGNTY?

(John MacDuff, "The Thoughts of God")

"I form the light--and create darkness; I make peace--and create evil! I the LORD do all these things!" Isaiah 45:7

What a sad world this would be--were it governed by Fate! Were its blended lights and shadows, its joys and sorrows--the result of capricious accident--or blind and wayward chance! How blessed to think that each separate occurrence which befalls me--is the fulfillment of God's own immutable purpose!

Is it the material world? It is He . . .
who "forms the light--and creates darkness;"
who appoints the sun and moon for their seasons;
who gives to the sea its decree;
who watches the sparrow in its fall;
who tends the lily in the field; and
who paints the tiniest flower that blossoms in the meadow.

Is it the moral world? All events are predetermined and prearranged by Him! "I make peace--and create evil!" Both prosperity and adversity are His appointment. The Lord who of old prepared Jonah's shade-plant, also prepared the worm! He gives--and He takes away. He molds every tear! He "puts them into His bottle." He knows them all, counts them all, treasures them all. Not one of them falls unbidden--unnoted.

"The lot is cast into the lap--but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord." Over every occurrence in nature and in providence, He writes, "I the Lord do all these things!" True, His thoughts are often mysterious, and His ways are past finding out. We are led at times, amid the bewildering mazes of His providential dealings, to exclaim, "O Lord, how great are Your works, and Your thoughts are very deep!" Be it ours to defer our verdict--until their full development.

We cannot envision the thoughts and intents of the architect or engineer in the first clearing of the ground for the foundation of some gigantic structure. The uninitiated eye can discover nothing but piles of unshapely rubbish--a chaos of confusion. But gradually, as week by week passes--we see his thoughts molding themselves into visible and substantial shapes of order and beauty. And when the edifice at last stands before us complete, we discern that all which was mystery and confusion at first--was a necessary part and portion of the undertaking.

So is it, at present, regarding the mysterious dealings of God. Often, in vain, do we try to comprehend the purposes of the Almighty Architect, amid the dust and debris of the earthly foundations. Let us wait patiently, until we gaze on the finished structure of eternity.

Oh, blessed assurance--that the loom of our life is in the hands of the Great Designer--that it is He who is interweaving the threads of our existence: the light--and the dark, the acknowledged good--and the apparent evil. The chain of what is erroneously called "destiny," is in His keeping. He knows its every connecting link--He has forged each one on His own anvil!

Man's purposes have failed, and are ever liable to fail--his brightest anticipations may be thwarted; his best-laid schemes may be frustrated.

Life is often a retrospect of crushed hopes--the bright rainbow-hues of morning, passing in its afternoon into damp mist and drizzling rain. "Many are the thoughts in a man's heart," (knowing no fulfillment nor fruition) "but the counsel of the Lord--that shall stand." "From eternity to eternity I am God. No one can oppose what I do. No one can reverse My actions!"

"Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns!" Revelation 19:6

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Sep 13, 2010 at 00:41 o\clock

God is our Treasure

by: dondegr0

The man who has God for his treasure has all things in One. Having the Source of all things, he has in One all satisfaction, all pleasure, all delight. Whatever he may lose he has actually lost nothing, for he now has it all in One, and he has it purely, legitimately and forever. -- A.W. Tozer

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Sep 5, 2010 at 02:36 o\clock

Our enemy & flattery

by: dondegr0

This flattering enemy!

(Thomas Watson, "The Christian's Charter")

"Don't you know that friendship with the world is
hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a
friend of the world becomes an enemy of God."
James 4:4

The world is a deadly enemy.

This enemy courts us.

It smiles—that it may deceive.

It kills—by embracing!

The world's music enchants us.

It has a golden apple in one hand
—and a dagger in the other hand!

Riches are but golden dust, which will sooner choke
us, than satisfy us. Riches are called thick clay, which
will sooner break our back, than lighten our heart.

Marcia gave poison in sweet wine, to the emperor
Commodus. Such an aromatic cup does the world
present us with—that we may drink and die.

The ivy, while it clasps about the oak, sucks away
the heart of it; such are the world's embraces.

Judas-like, whom the world kisses—it betrays.

The world is a silken halter.

The world is a golden fetter.

Some have been drowned in the sweet waters of
pleasure! Others have been choked in silver mines!

Oh arm, arm against this flattering enemy!

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Sep 1, 2010 at 15:43 o\clock

Preaching Christ !

by: dondegr0

Paul was . . .

...an extraordinary man,

called to an extraordinary office, and

being sent to perform an extraordinary work

--he chose an extraordinary subject.

He knew history,

he was acquainted with philosophy, and

he was well versed in tradition.

There were . . .

few subjects that he could not handle,

few themes that he could not discuss,

few congregations that he could not interest.

But he made the conversion of sinners the object of his life--and he chose Christ crucified to be the subject of his ministry!

No matter where he went--he took his subject with him.

No matter whom he addressed--he directed their attention to this point.

He knew what man required--and what man preferred; but it made no matter to him. As he wrote to the Corinthians, so he always acted, "Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified--a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God!" 1 Corinthians 1:22-24

Paul's subject then, was Christ Crucified!

Paul CHOSE this subject--and he had good reasons for doing so!

First, it is a most comprehensive subject,

for it is the center where . . .

time and eternity,

God and man,

sin and holiness,

life and death--meet!

It is the theater where God . . .

displays His perfections,

unfolds His purposes,

maintains His rights,

confounds His foes, and

secures His glory!

It is the instrument by which . . .

death is destroyed,

sin is conquered,

rebels are reconciled,

saints are sanctified, and

heaven is opened!

It is an object which . . .

confounds reason,

astonishes angels,

attracts sinners,

imparts holiness, and

furnishes matter for endless praise!

Second, it is the most honored subject.

It tunes the harps of heaven.

It fills the sweetest songs on earth.

It is that by which the Holy Spirit works . . .

in the conversion of sinners,

in the consolation of saints,

in the sanctification of believers, and

in the establishment of the church of God.

By the preaching of Christ crucified . . .

the oracles of the heathen were silenced,

the altars of the heathen were cast down, and

the temples of the heathen were transformed into houses of prayer.

By the preaching of the cross . . .

society is elevated,

nations are honored, and

millions are snatched from Hell!

Third, it is a subject that is intensely hated!

Devils hate it, and try to prevent its publication.

Erroneous men hate it, and try to substitute something of their own for it.

And just in proportion as men are influenced by the prince of darkness, or yield to the pride of their own fallen natures--will they hate the doctrine of the cross!

But all Christians love it,

all the ministers of Christ glory in it,

all poor perishing sinners need it!

The more we know of God's nature and government--the more we see of man's natural state and condition.

And the more we feel of our own weakness and depravity--the more shall we prize and value the doctrine of the cross!

Christ, and Him crucified shall be . . .

the subject of my ministry,

the theme of my songs,

the joy of my heart, and

the foundation of my everlasting hope!

O my soul, look to Jesus--as crucified for your sins!

Think of Jesus--as dying in your stead!

Speak of Jesus--as full of grace and love!

Christians! WHAT do we preach?

We are ALL preachers--and we preach daily!

But do we preach Christ?

Do we speak of Him with our tongues?

Do we write of Him with our pens?

Do we honor Him with our lives?

Is Christ and His glory--the grand end and aim of our life?

WHY do we preach Christ?

Is it out of love to Him?

Is it that we may do good to souls?

Is it that we may please God?

Christ crucified should be preached by every Christian.

Christ crucified should be preached in all companies.

Christ crucified should be preached every day.

Beloved,

if we would save souls from death,

if we would rescue sinners from eternal misery,

if we would make believers happy,

if we would cover Satan with shame,

if we would deprive death of its sting, and

if we would make the road to glory plain--

we must preach Christ crucified;

we must exercise faith in Christ crucified;

and we must daily meditate on Christ crucified!

May Christ and His cross be all my theme!

May Christ and His cross be all my hope!

May Christ and His cross be all my joy!

Cross of Jesus! Jesus crucified!

To you would I look in life--and all its troubles!

To you would I look in death--and all its pangs!

To you would I look in glory--when filled with all its joys!

"God forbid, that I should glory, except in the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ!"
(James Smith, "Rills from the Rock of Ages", 1860)

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Jun 21, 2010 at 21:34 o\clock

Consequences of design and decision

by: dondegr0

Biblical Principle: You will have the government that you deserve. If you work for and elect righteous representatives, you will have righteous government. If you fail to uphold Biblical Principles, fail to work for and elect righteous representatives, you will have unrighteous government.

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.” 2 Ti. 4:3-4

“But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be also false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.” 2 Peter 2:1

The Greek root of the word “heresy” is a verb meaning “to select” or “to take up.” As used by Peter it means to choose or select for personal choice, reason or purpose. Peter tells us that there will be people, teachers, that have their own agendas, therefore, they will teach, [that is “secretly introduce,”] “destructive heresies” [or “destructive choices.”]

This is why Secular Humanists: people who are evolutionists, atheists, agnostics, socialists, communist elitists, progressives, statists and liberals (all those who are anti-God, anti-Christ, anti-Bible, anti-Christian) teach that everyone must choose for themselves concerning moral and ethical decisions. These people want to have their “personal heresies,” “their personal choices.”

Secular Humanists want to do whatever they want, whenever they want and to have no consequences for their actions. They want to answer to no higher authority than themselves. They choose to believe by faith that there are no absolutes, no laws, no rules, no roles, no standards of conduct and no purpose. They are content to believe that when they die they will simply cease to exist and will not suffer for their actions during their lives.

What happens when we use an object for a purpose other than the one for which it was intended? It will damage or destroy that object.

How many of us have needed to use a hammer, but there wasn’t one present, so we picked up something else to use as a hammer? Perhaps we picked up a large heavy wrench. We may use the wrench as a hammer, but it will damage the wrench in the process.

This is a perfect example of a destructive heresy. If we choose to use a wrench as a hammer, we have made a choice to use it for a purpose for which it was never intended to be used.

People intrinsically understand that when objects are not used according to their purpose, it is called abuse. Abuse leads to damage, destruction and a loss of value for that object.

If a wrench is broken because it was used as a hammer, will it ever be able to be used again as a wrench? Perhaps it may be repaired, rehabilitated or regenerated; but this will require the input from a greater intelligence using time, effort and resources. The wrench cannot repair itself.

The reason that we see decay and degeneration in human beings and human society is for the same reason. It comes from the abuse of human beings, that is to say, when they are used for purposes for which they were not intended to be used.

If people do not want to be used to fulfill their general purpose, which is to glorify God and have fellowship with Him; if they do not want to be a holy person reflecting the image of their Creator; they are abusing themselves, or they are allowing other persons to abuse them. Either way, they will be damaged or destroyed through that action. They will also hurt their family, their church, their business, their fellow employees, their school, their community and their nation.

Let us look at another example. We may use a large screwdriver as a crowbar. The bigger and stronger the screwdriver, the more successful it may be when used as a crowbar. The screwdriver, however, was not created to be a crowbar, and abusing it by using it as a crowbar will eventually break the screwdriver. The reason that it will break is because a choice was made to use it for a purpose it was not intended to be used for.

When someone uses a large strong screwdriver as a crowbar they will feel the stress as the screwdriver is used for a purpose other than for what it was created. Anyone with normal sensibilities who uses a screwdriver in an abusive way will feel concern and remorse. When the screwdriver breaks they will know that it was a direct consequence of their choice. In the end they may repent for having broken the screwdriver, but it will not change the fact the screwdriver is broken.

As a result of breaking the screwdriver one of three things will happen. You will throw away the broken screwdriver and get a new one to use as a crowbar. You will throw away the broken screwdriver and get a crowbar. You will stop using screwdrivers as crowbars.

All of this is a direct consequence of knowingly violating the purpose for which the screwdriver was created. You will have learned that there is a price to pay when purpose is neglected or ignored. The consequence of neglecting or ignoring purpose is that things get broken.

The exact same thing may be said for human beings when evolutionists teach that human beings are highly evolved apes. People were made for a purpose. They may not know what that purpose is, but that does not change the truth of this statement.

No matter what people are taught, no matter what choices people make, no matter what “destructive heresies” [that is “destructive choices”] they accept, heresies are destructive. The acceptance of heresies makes people break. In 2 Peter 2:2, Peter continues: “And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be maligned; ...”

We could paraphrase what Peter says as, “Even though these people are sneaky crafty liars, they will get many people to follow them.”

Tens of thousands of people have enjoyed the fruitless study of the supposed evolution of human beings from apes. They have then deceived countless millions into neglecting the real purpose people were created.

Eventually these people bring the truth into disrepute and finally people actually become desensitized to the truth.

The truth is not in them!

Consider what is happening in most of our government run school classrooms today. Administrators and teachers are indoctrinating children in an evolutionary worldview and most of those in the classroom are nodding their heads in mental assent. How many people who believe otherwise are standing up and defending their position? There are few, if any, because they have become embarrassed to tell the truth. They have become embarrassed to defend their faith and knowledge.

In our society we have everything at stake. We are living in an age when many people are following the shameful ways of those who have introduced destructive heresies. We have people without knowledge criticizing and condemning those who do try to tell the truth.

A screwdriver that has been extensively used, but not abused, could be said to be “holy.” The word “holy” means: “kept or regarded as inviolate from ordinary use - set aside for a purpose (usually religious), consecrated, sacred.” God is Holy because He was “set aside” for His purpose. He wishes that we would do the same thing with our lives.

A screwdriver that is “holy” is going to last a long time. Its purpose, value and function will be preserved.

“Holy” people are worth more to God, to one another and to themselves. If people would not abuse themselves they would live “holy” lives.

In 2 Peter 2:3, Peter goes on to say: “. . . and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.”

False teachers will “exploit” people with stories that they have made up for their own purposes. They are not interested in the welfare of their students. They are interested in their own agendas. There is an incredible sense of power that they feel when they profess to tell people where they came from. People will then look up to these false teachers for the meaning and value in their lives.

If you can tell a person where they came from; why they are here; where they are going; and how they should behave while they are here: then you will have total power over them.

Understanding your origin, where you came from, will ultimately determine where you derive your value and purpose. When someone is trying to exploit you, trying to feed you his story of your purpose; and that story is contrary to what your Creator has said your purpose is, then you lose!

God has a purpose for people and He is jealous for His people. He says in Isaiah 46: 10-11:

”Declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, ‘My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure;’ Calling a bird of prey from the East, the man of My purpose from a far country. Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass, I have planned it, surely I will do it.” [Emphasis added]

God has an unchanging nature. God set out in creation to make man as an expression of Himself, as a vessel of His glory; His purpose has not changed and will not change.

“He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things upon the earth. In Him, also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.” (Ephesians 1:9-12)

One test to know if you are fulfilling His purpose for you is that He is praised because of you!

The parts of us that are durable and lasting, the parts of us that conform to His image, those are the things that will last. The most lasting thing about us is His purpose for us. That will last. It will have no end.

When people complain about God, they are complaining because God is not doing things their way. They have bought into a destructive heresy about whom and what they are. They have not cooperated with God’s purpose for them. They see God as an antagonist. People were not designed for abuse and the glory of men. People were designed for the glory of God.

Christians are not only headed individually for a fulfillment of their purpose, they are headed for a fulfillment of their purpose together. Jesus prayed that the Body of Christ would be one. God’s purpose from the beginning was a unified mankind for the praise of His glory.

“. . . in order that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 3:10)

Our purpose is not merely for our own satisfaction, nor merely to strengthen our families, our schools, our churches, our communities, our nation; our purpose is to amaze the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms with the wisdom of God for giving us 1) the purpose that He did, 2) the ability to fulfill that purpose and 3) the power to complete that purpose.

The eternal question must come down to this. Are you living your life so as to show the wisdom of God in choosing you? You have a God given purpose. Are you fulfilling it?

In order to fulfill God’s purposes and to bring glory to Him, we must, inasmuch as it is humanly possible, express the same attitudes, attributes, emotions and characteristics as our Creator God. Our baseline must be this: if your opinion does not line up with God’s opinion, then your opinion is wrong!

For this Bible Lab, we are going to concentrate primarily on one specific attribute of God. God is a Capitalist. Throughout the Bible, God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) teaches that the way in which we are to live our lives is as a Capitalist. From establishing the work week as six days to labor in the natural realm and one day of labor in the supernatural realm; to stating that His Word shall not return void; God’s Kingdom is based on the philosophical construct of Capitalism.

The word “profit” is all too often simply thought of as referring to money. The word “profit,” however, is far more reaching. “Profit” actually is better understood as meaning to “derive a benefit from,” to “make a positive or advantageous gain,” a “return on an investment,” an “increase in net value or worth.” Profit is really a beneficial return for an effort made. Profit is a return for effort.

God always expects to receive a return for effort! See Matt. 25:14-30 and Luke 19:11-27

The words “politics” and “economics” have interesting etymologies. These words go back to the ancient Greek and Roman languages.

Aristotle’s ta politika “affairs of state,” was the name of his book on governing and governments. The word in Latin is politicus meaning “of citizens or the state, civil, civic;” and, in Greek the word is politikos meaning “of citizens or the state,” from polites “citizen,” from polis “city.”

Fisher Ames (1758–1808) wrote: “Politicks is the science of good sense, applied to public affairs, and, as those are forever changing, what is wisdom today would be folly and perhaps, ruin tomorrow. Politicks is not a science so properly as a business. It cannot have fixed principles, from which a wise man would never swerve, unless the inconstancy of men’s view of interest and the capriciousness of the tempers could be fixed.” [Emphasis added]

The word “economics” derives from the Latin oeconomia; and, from the Greek oikonomia “household management,” from oikonomos “manager, steward,” from oikos “house.” The sense of “manage the resources of a country” (short for political economy) was first mentioned in 1651. In 1835 “economic” meant “related to the science of economics,” while in 1780 “economical” retained the sense “characterized by thrift.”

Finally, Noah Webster, in his great 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language, defined these words as:

“Economic/Economy

1. Primarily, the management, regulation and government of a family or the concerns of a household.

2. The management of pecuniary [money] concerns or the expenditure of money.

3. A frugal and judicious use of money; that management which expends money to advantage, and incurs no waste; frugality in the necessary expenditure of money. ... Economy includes also a prudent management of all the means by which property is saved or accumulated; a judicious application of time, labor, and of the instruments of labor.” [Emphasis added]

“Politics

The science of government; that part of ethics which consists in the regulation and government of a nation or state, for the preservation of its safety, peace and prosperity; comprehending the defense of its existence and rights against foreign control or conquest, the augmentation of its strength and resources, and the protection of its citizens in their rights, with the preservation and improvement of their morals. Politics, as a science or an art, is a subject of vast extent and importance.” [Emphasis added]

The Roman Empire no longer exists because of a combination of many factors:

Public Health: There were many public health and environmental problems including lead poisoning.

Political Corruption: The Senate became extremely corrupt causing political instability.

Unemployment: The use of slave labor undermined the citizen farmer and this filled the cities with unemployed people. Rome created a large welfare system including government run health care.

Inflation: The flow of wealth into the economy decreased, money was devalued and prices rose.

Urban decay: Most Romans lived in small apartment houses covering an entire block.

Inferior Technology: Their scientific achievements were limited almost entirely to engineering and organization of public works.

Military Spending: Frustrated Romans lost their desire to defend the Empire. By A.D. 300 the majority of those in the army were barbarian soldiers. Rome depended on its empire for resources. They took a defensive stance adopting a ‘security’ tactic. It was inevitable that Rome was eventually crushed by foreign invasion.

Decline in Morals and Values: Most important, the morals and values that had kept the Roman culture and legions together were not maintained. Crimes of violence made the streets unsafe. During the Pax Romana there were 32,000 prostitutes in Rome. The most popular amusement was watching the bloody and lethal gladiatorial combats in the Coliseum.

The question that must be addressed is: “Are the United States, and other “Western Civilizations” rooted in Christian beliefs and mores, falling rapidly into the same situation as once mighty Rome; and, if so, why?”

NO ONE IS MORE CRUEL THAN A LIBERAL: COMMUNISM VERSUS CREATION AND CHRISTIANITY

The acceptance of naturalistic, mechanistic, humanistic evolution is the foundational belief and driving force behind Modern Social Liberalism. Modern Social Liberalism is drastically different from the concept of Classical Liberalism.

Classical Liberalism is based on the economic theory of laissez-faire, the free market, the gold standard, the strict constructionist view of the Constitution, the freedom of the governed from government interference, the importance of individual freedom, and, most importantly, established Christian religion. Under these conditions, God’s Laws are the absolute foundation of human activities.

When people exercise Christian internal self-government, they do not need an outside un-Godly government to tell them what the laws are that they are to live by; they do not need an external government to tell them what is the right and wrong thing to do. They will, in general, do what is right because they believe that they answer to a Higher Authority, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, the God of the Bible. They understand His laws, rules, roles, standards of conduct and purpose; and, they behave accordingly.

Modern Social Liberalism is a refutation of Classical Liberalism. It rests on the view that unrestrained capitalism is a hindrance to true freedom. It is also referred to as new liberalism, modern liberalism and left-liberalism. It includes the ideas that government should intervene in the economy to provide full employment and that government determines what are and are not “human rights.” Social liberal ideas and political parties tend to be considered centrist or center-left.

In Contending Liberalisms in World Politics: Ideology and Power (2001), James L. Richardson stated that there were three main divisions within the general category of liberalism.

The first division is elitism versus democracy.

The second division is economic: looking at whether freedom is best served by free markets or by government regulated markets.

The third division addresses the question of whether liberal principles should be extended to the disadvantaged.

Social Liberalism is based on supposed “human rights” and not upon God-given laws. Social Liberalism is founded upon the acceptance of biological macro-evolution.

Evolution is the taproot of every evil in every culture, in every society and throughout all of human experience since the Garden of Eden.

The original deception of Adam and Eve by Satan occurred when he asked them: “Hath God said?” (Genesis 3:1)

Satan got Adam and Eve to challenge God’s veracity. Satan manipulated them into considering whether or not God really meant what He said? Satan got them to believe that you cannot trust Him; that He is just holding out on you; that He knows that if you knew what He knew, you would be just like Him, equal to Him. Satan deceived Adam and Eve into believing that they could be just like God. (Genesis 3:5)

When Adam and Eve accepted this deception into their minds, they determined that they had a “right” to decide whether or not God was telling them the truth. It was not true; they did not have a “right” to decide whether God was telling the truth or not. The creature has no right to say that their Creator would deal falsely with them in any way. God cannot lie; He told them the truth; and, He told them not to listen to anyone else. (Genesis 3:11)

Once Adam and Eve decided that they had a “right” to decide for themselves what laws to follow, they decided not to follow God’s Laws, and they initiated human autonomy - meaning “law unto self.” Rather than live under God’s Laws, they decided to invent their own laws, rules, roles, standards of conduct and purpose. Philosophically, this is the start of the acceptance of every form of evolutionism.

What are the consequences of accepting any form of evolutionism? The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 1:26-32:

“For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.”

According to Paul’s list, we may summarize that those who accept the various evolutionary theories as the cause for their existence and deny that a Law Giver exists become: homosexual men, lesbian women, utterly unrighteous, evil, murderers (including abortion, euthanasia, children shooting other children in schools), disobedient to parents and teachers, numbed and dumbed down by an inferior education system, and finally end up seeing themselves as nothing more than thinking animals.

The obvious question becomes: “As we teach the various theories of evolution in our schools and universities, generation after generation, what do you see more and more of in our society?”

The obvious answer is: “All of the above.”

Paul’s list in Romans One speaks of the character, attributes and emotions of those who deny the Creator, the Law Giver; however, his list does not include the outcome, the results, that we see in our “Modern Times.” The concepts of Classical Liberalism and Modern Social Liberalism were unknown in the Apostle Paul’s time.

A partial list of the social woes produced by the character, attributes and emotions of those who accept evolutionary theories are:

Marxism, Communism, Socialism, Statism, Fascism, Centralized Government, Nazism, Fabianism, Leninism, Maoism, collectivism, totalitarianism, absolutism, authoritarianism, autocracy, bureaucracy, despotism, one-party system, party government, racism, regimentation, coercion, reign of terror, tyranny and dictatorship.

This partial list, and it is only a partial list, is promulgated by today’s Communist Elitists. Communist Elitists are the cruelest people in the World.

A list of current [2009] Communist Elitists would include Al Gore, Barak Hussein Obama and all his appointed “Czars” (United States), Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev (Russia), “Lula” Luiz Inácio da Silva (Brazil), Hugo Chavez (Venezuela), Manuel Zelaya (Honduras), Manuel Ortega (Nicaragua), Evo Morales (Bolivia), Alvaro Uribe (Columbia), the Castro brothers (Cuba). There are many other minor players in less well known countries around the world.

Some great Communist Elitists of the last century were men like: Mao Zedong (China), Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Leonid Brezhnev, Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin (Russia), Ho Chi Minh (Viet Nam), Pol Pot (Cambodia) and Kaysone Phomvihane (Laos).

Communist Elitists believe that only the “government” should determine how resources are used; they believe that individual people cannot be trusted to use resources wisely. Communist Elitists enforce Marxist ideals upon others so that they may control what others do and think. They believe in REALLY BIG government and high taxes. They are egalitarians who pull all others down to the lowest common denominator. For them “equal” means that all others are “equal” in poverty. They destroy individual achievement, incentive, self value and self worth; and, they demoralize, dumb down and enslave. They enforce the mediocre and the bland. They subjugate their countries’ population to living lives of quiet desperation.

Why do Communist Elitists believe what they believe?

In order to understand why Communist Elitists believe what they believe; and, in order to understand why they do what they do; you should read a summary of their founding document, their “constitution,” the Manifesto of the Communist Party, also referred to as The Communist Manifesto. It was first published in Germany on February 21, 1848. It was authored by Karl Heinrich Marx (Moses Mordecai Marx Levi) with some help from Friedrich Engels.

The total document is about 17,000 words, is at times rambling and at other times the wording seems to be in a coded language. This can make it difficult to know what is actually being talked about. It was written in four sections.

In the first section of the Manifesto, Marx outlines his revisionist view of history and his concepts of the struggle between the Bourgeois and Proletarians. Marx used a somewhat incorrect definition of the word Bourgeois and used it to describe anything associated with capitalists, including manufacturers, merchants and small business owners. Marx used the term Proletariat to refer to a class of wage laborers who, having no means of production of their own, were reduced to selling their labor power in order to live.

Marx thought that the Bourgeois exploited the Proletariat; and that eventually the Proletariat would overthrow the Bourgeois and establish a classless society.

In the second section, Marx tried to deal with the specifics on the differences between the current Proletariat and true Communists; it is an interesting attempt at a distinction between the two. Basically, Marx wrote that “socialism’ referred to a society ruled by workers, while he thought that “communism” referred to a classless society. Lenin would later state that Communism was simply Socialism in a hurry.

Marx wrote that there were ten conditions that were necessary for the transition from Capitalism to Communism. The Guttenburg Project provides us with a good summary of the ten conditions:

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

In the third section, Marx defended the Manifesto as the only legitimate expression of true Communism as opposed to various other documents in existence at that time. He dismissed all the others as merely advocating “reformism” and thought that they all failed to recognize the preeminent role of the working class.

Finally, in the fourth section, entitled “Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Existing Opposition Parties,” Marx reviews briefly the state of the communist revolutions developing in other countries.

Workers of the world, Unite!” [Emphasis added]

But, as the Bible says: “That which has been is that which will be, and that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun.” Ec. 1:9 (NAS95)

Marx plagiarized a distant cousin of Presidents Teddy and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Clinton Roosevelt. In 1841, Clinton Roosevelt published a booklet entitled Science Of Government Founded On Natural Law (Dean & Trevett, NY). This booklet contained an almost identical list of ten conditions that were necessary for the transition from Capitalism to Communism as that contained in the Manifesto. Teddy Roosevelt’s Progressivism and “Square Deal,” as well as FDR’s “New Deal” were based on the communist philosophy of their distant relative.

But, the story does not end there. Clinton Roosevelt had plagiarized the earlier work of Johann Adam Weishaupt who was a German philosopher and founder of the Order of Illuminati. A further regression would simply go back in time until we got to the originator of all anti-God ideas – Ha’Satan.

Satan originated the concept of biological macroevolution in the Garden of Eden in order to counter the idea of a Creator and deceive Adam and Eve. The taproot of Communism is the belief in and acceptance of evolutionism. Therefore, one may just as well say that Satan originated the concept of Communism in the Garden of Eden.

Why are Communists/Modern Social Liberals the most cruel people in the world?

Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Vladimir Lenin were militant atheists. Each specialized in a particular field of Bolshevik communism. Marx dealt with social and economic issues. Engels dealt primarily with natural science. Lenin dealt with revolutionary technique. Yet they were totally united in their acceptance of Darwinian evolution.

Engels was absolutely devoted to the “facts” of materialistic evolution. As he wrote in SOCIALISM: UTOPIAN AND SCIENTIFIC, 1880, p. 21.

“... nowadays, in our evolutionary conception of the universe, there is absolutely no room for either a Creator or a Ruler; and to talk of a Supreme Being shut out from the whole existing world, implies a contradiction in terms, and, as it seems to me, a gratuitous insult to the feelings of religious people.”

He went on to write: “the last vestige of a creator external to the world is obliterated,” and “nothing is final, absolute, sacred.”

Workers of the world, Unite!” [Emphasis added]

But, as the Bible says: “That which has been is that which will be, and that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun.” Ec. 1:9 (NAS95)

Why are Communists/Modern Social Liberals the most cruel people in the world?

Engels was absolutely devoted to the “facts” of materialistic evolution. As he wrote in SOCIALISM: UTOPIAN AND SCIENTIFIC, 1880, p. 21.

He went on to write: “the last vestige of a creator external to the world is obliterated,” and “nothing is final, absolute, sacred.”

Marx assured everyone that “man is the highest being for man,” and that “atheism is humanism mediated by the abolition of religion.”

Lenin declared in Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, 1908, p. 298, that: “beyond the ‘physical,’ beyond the external world ... there can be nothing.” “God is primarily a complex of ideas which result from the overwhelming oppression of man through external nature and class slavery.”

Why do Communist Elitists believe what they believe?

Lenin wrote in Ueber die Religion, Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1965:

P. 20:

“Marxism is materialism. As such it stands … unsparingly and hostilely opposed to religion. …” Marxism is “unqualifiedly atheistic and decidedly hostile to every religion …”

P. 24:

“We must fight religion, that is the ABC of the whole of materialism, and consequently also of Marxism.”

p. 48:

“… every religious idea, every idea of every god, even every flirtation with a god, is an unspeakable abomination, … is the most dangerous abomination, the most repulsive ‘infection.’” [Emphasis added]

Marx wrote in his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844:

“… communism begins where atheism begins …” “… atheism is at the outset still far from being communism … a being … is only his own master when he owes his existence to himself … [and] … socialist man … has the evident and irrefutable proof of his self-creation, of his own origins.” [Emphasis added]

Communists/Modern Social Liberals are the cruelest people in the world because, first and foremost, they eliminate the role of the Creator God of the Bible from the lives of people.

Marx further remarked in Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844:

“… society is the accomplished union of man with Nature, the veritable resurrection of Nature, the realized naturalism of man and the realized humanism of Nature … the essence of man and of Nature, man as a natural being and Nature as a human reality. …”

Marxism ultimately degenerates into a glorification and deification of man. In parallelism to Islam, for Marxists, Communists, Socialists, Statists, Fascists, Leninists, Maoists, collectivists and their ilk: “There is no god but Mankind, and Karl Marx is his Prophet.”

Liberals convince a national population that human beings are the highest form of life in the universe; and, therefore, man is the measure of himself. Liberals are convinced in their position that man is capable of making himself better. In their view, the only way to forcibly make man better, to forcibly “evolve” human kind “forward” and “upward,” is to eliminate the weak (the nonconformist) and the defective (physical, mental and genetic).

Marx’s admiration of Darwin was based upon finding in Darwinism the supposed basis in nature for his own economic ideas. Marx saw Darwin’s concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest as the foundation for his own concepts of the struggle between classes of people. Hitler would do the same thing in his book entitled, Mein Kampf, “My Struggle.”

In 1877, Charles Darwin’s ideas would become incorporated into the group of ideologies called “Social Darwinism.” Social Darwinism is a social adaptation of his supposed discoveries about how animals, plants and human beings came into existence through totally naturalistic and mechanistic means.

The general concept predates Darwin as recorded in the writings of Rev. Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834), An essay on the Principle of Population; or, a view of its past and present effects on human happiness; with an enquiry into our prospects respecting the future removal or mitigation of the evils which it occasions, 1803.

Social Darwinism would find its greatest promoter in the writings of Charles Darwin’s cousin, Sir Francis Galton (1822 - 1911). In 1883, Galton formulated the concept of “Eugenics,” the practice of selective breeding applied to humans, with the aim of improving the species. In 1921, eugenics was described as, “Eugenics is the self-direction of human evolution.”

Eugenics was widely popular in Europe and America during the late 1800’s through the 1940’s. Hitler was a strong believer in eugenics. The last great defender of eugenics was probably the American historian Richard Hofstadter in 1944.

Other concepts would be developed and justified by Darwin’s evolutionary theories. These would include the total acceptance of abortion, euthanasia, situation ethics; the total acceptance of homosexuality, lesbianism, racism; and, the total crushing of individual liberty, individual self worth, individual self value.

Liberals devalue human beings to nothing more than thinking animals. This teaching appeals to the base, sinful, Adamic nature of all human beings. This teaching is totally contradictory to the Christian Biblical Worldview.

Why are Communists/Modern Social Liberals the most cruel people in the world?

Marxists, and all liberal thinkers, base their concept of the origin of knowledge upon their acceptance of naturalistic evolution. The Liberals start their thinking process with a belief in realism and empiricism. They then move on to rationalism, striving toward idealism, or at least a form of existentialistic pragmatism. Finally, they attempt to wrap this all up in an infinitely elastic dialectic (the Socratic method of discovering truth through questioning and debate, altered and developed by his Greek successors, and still a model of overwhelming importance in philosophy).

In order to achieve their goals, Communist Elitists destroy all individual incentive to work hard, to achieve and to accomplish those things that are self-rewarding to human beings. They destroy the spiritual element of human nature. They destroy the power of God in human experience. They destroy Judeo-Christian capitalism and enforce secular humanistic communism. In doing so, they destroy the human soul and spirit. In order to accomplish their goals, they are fully able to destroy any human body, as well.

Consider the issue of health care in society. In Christian society, any human life has infinite eternal value and worth. Christians take great care to preserve life, even to the point of heroic preservation or extension of it. This is only the logical extension of the Commandment to honor your father and mother and God’s admonition to protect innocent life.

Liberalism, and its foundation of Darwinism, is a religion of death. Liberals delegate the value of a human life to that which is only useful to the State. Liberals support concepts like; abortion, euthanasia, drug abuse and homosexual marriage, because these reduce the burden of health care on the State. Liberals want to determine when and if a person will be born. They want to decide when a human life will end. The deciding factor is economic based upon their secular religion. In their view, a human life is only useful as long as it is productive to the State.

In the Soviet Union (and still true today in Russia) doctors were some of the lowest paid people in the population. Why? Simple! In the communist mind-set the value of income to the worker was based upon the production of usable goods by the worker, by the laborer. According to communist thought processes, doctors, unlike agricultural workers or factory workers, did not produce any tangible goods. Therefore, doctors add little value to the society.

In his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Program, Marx described a society based upon “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need (or needs).” The Soviet Union never claimed to have reached this point of Marxism. In truth, the Soviets claimed only to have achieved: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his work.” In truth, they never achieved the Marxist ideal.

Why are Communists/Modern Social Liberals the most cruel people in the world?

Liberals do not believe that individuals should determine how natural resources are to be used. They believe that only the State can determine how natural resources are to be used. In order to accomplish this goal, Liberals strongly promote frauds like “Global Warming” and “Prevention of Climate Change” in order to convince entire populations into accepting a much lower standard of living, a much lower level of personal economic status.

In order to accomplish this, Liberals promote higher taxes on fuels, sequestering of fuels and false supposedly “environmentally friendly” programs. These tactics are cruel beyond belief. Judeo-Christian Capitalism requires us, as good stewards, to use the natural resources that God has given us. Capitalism requires ample and relatively free access to various sources of fuel. National economies flourish when fuel is abundant and the cost reasonable. Economies are hindered, thwarted and even thrown into chaos when fuel is scarce and prices are arbitrarily high.

Carbon dioxide is not a major “greenhouse gas.” The Liberal attempt to prevent the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is counterproductive to any society. First, it means a reduction in material production, reducing the standard of living for everyone. Second, it reduces the very necessary ingredient that plants use to make food and trees use to make lumber. By reducing carbon dioxide emissions, Liberals demonstrate their hidden agenda, their hatred of people.

You have to hate people, or you would not want to intentionally do things to them that hurt them.

Why are Communists/Modern Social Liberals the most cruel people in the world?

In direct contradiction to what they say, Social Liberals are racists. Social Liberals have always been racists. Charles Darwin and Thomas Henry Huxley were adamantly outspoken about their beliefs in human racism. They believed that there were superior and inferior people. They believed that white-colored people were superior to black-colored people. When people are “educated” (indoctrinated to believe) in school that evolution is true; that there are superior and inferior human beings; then they are willing to accept that they are inferior and that someone else must take care of them. This in turn enslaves them and forces them to live in substandard conditions.

Liberals promote Modern Day Slavery. Modern day slavery occurs when Liberals (such as Barack Hussein Obama, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Charlie Rangel, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi) legally buy votes from their constituents with promises of more “free” government money in exchange for voting for them. This was a strategy used by the Roman Senate two thousand years ago and its usefulness is not lost on modern Liberals. The Roman Senate started and then expanded a welfare system which eventually helped to destroy the Roman Empire from within.

The money is not “free,” it is confiscated from other tax payers. This is what “income redistribution” is all about. It is a legal way to look like Robin Hood, but in actuality it is done in order to achieve communism. Once communism is achieved, the welfare recipients become slaves of the State.

Communist Elitists (Liberals and Evolutionists) want to have total control of people’s lives.

When does the ultimate control by one human being over another human being occur? It occurs when one human being can tell the other 1) where they came from, 2) why they are here, 3) how should they behave while they are here, and 4) where they are going. These four statements provide the ultimate power of one person or group of people over other people’s lives. Evolutionists tell people that they came from a random chance accumulation of dust; that they only have value to the State; that they are nothing but thinking animals; and, that they will simply cease to exist at their death. Therefore, according to Liberals there are no consequences, no absolutes, no laws, no rules, no roles, no standard of conduct and no purpose to life.

Liberals, with their religion based in evolutionism, hate people.

The Club of Rome is a globalist (One World Government) think tank located in Switzerland. The Club promotes a Far-Left agenda including Environmental Terrorism and a One World Government. Prominent Full Members included the former Prime Minister of Canada, Pierre Elliott Trudeau; and, current Honorary Members such as the former General Secretary of the USSR, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev. In 1991, The Club published the book, The First Global Revolution, written by Alexander King and Bertrand Schneider. On pages 70 and 75 they wrote:

“It would seem that men and women need a common motivation, namely a common adversary, to organize and act together. In the vacuum such motivations seemed to have ceased to exist - or have yet to be found.…” [Emphasis added]

“The need for enemies seems to be a common historical factor … Bring the divided nation together to face an outside enemy, either a real one or else one invented for the purpose…” [Emphasis added]

“Democracy will be made to seem responsible for the lagging economy, the scarcity and uncertainties. The very concept of democracy could then be brought into question and allow for the seizure of power by extremists of one brand or the other…” [Emphasis added]

“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. The real enemy then is humanity itself.” [Emphasis added]

A representative sample of similar quotes will suffice to prove the point that in truth Communists/Modern Social Liberals/Evolutionists hate people:

Maurice Strong is founder and first Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme, and onetime Executive Officer for Reform in the Office of the Secretary General of the United Nations. Today he lives in the People’s Republic of China, and is President of the Council of the United Nations’ University for Peace, UPEACE.

“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” [Emphasis added]

Maurice Strong, The Environmentalists’ Little Green Book

“Current life-styles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class - involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing - are not sustainable.”

Maurice Strong, 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro

Dr. Paul R. Ehrlich, biologist and educator, is the Bing Professor of Population Studies in the Department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University and President of Stanford’s Center for Conservation Biology. He is a well-known Far-Left radical environmentalist.

“A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.” [Emphasis added]

Paul Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich, Population, Resources, Environment (W.H. Freeman, San Francisco, 1970, 323)

“Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.” [Emphasis added]

Paul Ehrlich, “An Ecologist’s Perspective on Nuclear Power,” May/June 1978 Federation of American Scientists Public Issue Report

“A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells; the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people. Treating only the symptoms of cancer may make the victim more comfortable at first, but eventually he dies - often horribly. A similar fate awaits a world with a population explosion if only the symptoms are treated. We must shift our efforts from treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will demand many apparent brutal and heartless decisions. The pain may be intense. But the disease is so far advanced that only with radical surgery does the patient have a chance to survive.”

Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb, 1968

“The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We can’t let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the US. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are. And it is important to the rest of the world to make sure that they don’t suffer economically by virtue of our stopping them.” [Emphasis added]

Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund, The Environmentalists’ Little Green Book, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, April 2000.

David Foreman is cofounder of Earth First! and he served on the Sierra Club’s board of directors From 1995 to 1997.

“We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place for capitalists and their projects. We must reclaim the roads and plowed land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to wilderness millions of acres of presently settled land.” [Emphasis added]

David Foreman, cofounder of Earth First!, as quoted in “This Land is OUR Land”. Tim Findley, Range Magazine, Fall 2003, page 36.

“The optimum [human] population of Earth is zero.” [Emphasis added]

David Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!, as quoted in Resource Roundup, November 2003, page 8.

“We advocate biodiversity for biodiversity’s sake. It may take our extinction to set things straight.” [Emphasis added]

David Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!, as quoted in Resource Roundup, June 2002, page 13.

“[M]y three main goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness with its full complement of species returning throughout the world.” [Emphasis added]

David Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!, as quoted in Set Up and Sold Out, Holly Swanson, 1995, page 171.

“If you haven’t given voluntary human extinction much thought before, the idea of a world with no people in it may seem strange. But, if you give it a chance, I think you might agree that the extinction of Homo sapiens would mean survival for millions, if not billions, of Earth-dwelling species. . . . Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental.” [Emphasis added]

David Foreman, founder of Earth First! Wild Earth magazine, Summer 1991, page 72.

“Our insatiable drive to rummage deep beneath the surface of the earth is a willful expansion of our dysfunctional civilization into Nature.”

Al Gore, Earth in the Balance

“Humans on the Earth behave in some ways like a pathogenic micro-organism, or like the cells of a tumor or neoplasm.” [Emphasis added]

Sir James Lovelock, Healing Gaia: Practical Medicine for the Planet, 1991, p.153.

“Just as the human body uses a fever to fight off an infection, Gaia is raising Her temperature to expel a harmful parasite – humans. Unless humans renounce their destructive ways and rejoin the diverse community of living beings in Gaia’s loving embrace then Gaia will be forced to act in order to secure Her supreme reign;” and, “the human population will be reduced to a few breeding pairs by the end of this century. [Emphasis added]

Sir James Lovelock, The Revenge of Gaia: Earth’s Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity, 2006.

“By the end of this century [20th Century] climate change will reduce the human population to a few breeding pairs surviving near the Arctic.” [Emphasis added]

Sir James Lovelock, The Revenge of Gaia: Earth’s Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity, 2006.

“The big threat to the planet is people: there are too many, doing too well economically and burning too much oil.” [Emphasis added]

Sir James Lovelock, BBC Interview, 2002

“The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.” [Emphasis added]

Club of Rome, Mankind at the Turning Point, 1974

“The Earth has cancer and the cancer is Man.” [Emphasis added]

Club of Rome, Mankind at the Turning Point, 1974

“… the resultant ideal sustainable population is hence more than 500 million but less than one billion.”

Club of Rome, publication entitled “Goals for Mankind”

“My own doubts came when DDT was introduced. In Guyana, within two years, it had almost eliminated malaria. So my chief quarrel with DDT, in hindsight, is that it has greatly added to the population problem.” [Emphasis added]

Alexander King, founder of the Club of Rome

“Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs.” [Emphasis added]

John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

“A reasonable estimate for an industrialized world society at the present North American material standard of living would be 1 billion. At the more frugal European standard of living, 2 to 3 billion would be possible.”

United Nations, Global Biodiversity Assessment

“Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license. All potential parents should be required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing.” [Emphasis added]

David Brower, first Executive Director of the Sierra Club

“Mankind is the most dangerous, destructive, selfish and unethical animal on the earth.”

Emphasis added]

Michael Fox, vice-president of The Humane Society

“A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.” [Emphasis added]

Ted Turner, founder of CNN and major UN donor

“It’s terrible to have to say this. World population must be stabilized, and to do that we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. This is so horrible to contemplate that we shouldn’t even say it. But the general situation in which we are involved is lamentable.” [Emphasis added]

Jacques-Yves Cousteau, environmentalist and documentary maker, in the UNESCO Courier.

“It is cosmically unlikely that the developed world will choose to end its orgy of fossil-energy consumption, and the Third World its suicidal consumption of landscape. Until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.” [Emphasis added]

David M. Graber, research biologist for the US National Park Service

“If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.”

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh as quoted in Trashing the Planet, Dixy Lee Ray with Lou Guzzo, 1990, page 169.

Cannibalism is a “radical but realistic solution to the problem of overpopulation.”

Lyall Watson, The Financial Times, 15 July 1995

“If you ask me, it’d be a little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we would do with it. We ought to be looking for energy sources that are adequate for our needs, but that won’t give us the excesses of concentrated energy with which we could do mischief to the earth or to each other.”

Amory Lovins in The Mother Earth - Plowboy Interview, Nov/Dec 1977, p. 22

Liberalism becomes to its own religion.

The following are excerpts from the book Earth in the Balance; Ecology and the Human Spirit by Al Gore. In asserting his pantheistic beliefs Gore stated:

“… we feel increasingly distant from our roots in the earth ... civilization itself has been on a journey we feel increasingly distant from our roots from its foundations in the world of nature to an evermore contrived, controlled and manufactured world of our initiative and sometimes arrogant design. ... At some point during this journey we lost our feeling of connectedness to the rest of nature. ... We dare now to wonder: Are we so unique and powerful as to be essentially separate from the earth?” (p. 1)

Gore clearly identifies himself with pantheism. He replaces the God of Christianity as the source of all life with a “Mother God” (Mother Earth, Mother Nature, the goddess Gaia). He says that she “has been seriously ‘wounded’ by the expansion of human civilization, and now there must come a universal atonement for these many millennia of grief on ‘her’ part …”

To Gore Christianity is the source of every evil. It seems obvious to him that a better understanding of a religious heritage is one that supposedly precedes Christianity.

“The richness and diversity of our religious tradition throughout history is a spiritual resource long ignored by people of faith, who are often afraid to open their minds to teachings first offered outside their own system of belief. But the emergence of a civilization in which knowledge moves freely and almost instantaneously through the world has ... spurred a renewed investigation of the wisdom distilled by all faiths. This panreligious perspective may prove especially important where our global civilization’s responsibility for the earth is concerned.” (pp. 258-259) [Emphasis added]

In Al Gore’s evolutionary view of religion he turns to pagan Eastern religions for his justification that man exists for nature rather than the Christian Biblical Worldview that nature exists for man. In doing so, Gore commended Baha’ism, Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism. As would be expected, he endorsed the New Age teachings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the excommunicated Catholic Jesuit priest who said: “The fate of mankind, as well as of religion, depends upon the emergence of a new faith in the future.”

Gore then wrote, “Armed with such a faith, we might find it possible to resanctify the earth, identify it as God’s creation, and accept our responsibility to protect and defend it.” (p. 263) He then called for a new spiritual relationship between man and the earth based upon worshipping nature and the goddess Gaia.

“The spiritual sense of our place in nature predates Native American cultures; increasingly it can be traced to the origins of human civilization. A growing number of anthropologists and archaeomythologists, such as Marija Gimbutas and Riane Esler argue that the prevailing ideology of belief in prehistoric Europe and much of the world was based on the worship of a single earth goddess, who was assumed to be the fount of all life and who radiated harmony among all living things. Much of the evidence for the existence of this primitive religion comes from the many thousands of artifacts uncovered in ceremonial sites. These sites are so widespread that they seem to confirm the notion that a goddess religion was ubiquitous through much of the world until the antecedents of today’s religions, most of which still have a distinctly masculine orientation ... swept out of India and the Near East, almost obliterating belief in the goddess. The last vestige of organized goddess worship was eliminated by Christianity as late as the fifteenth century in Lithuania.” (p. 260) [Emphasis added]

Gore advocates a pure Pantheistic paganism. His view is a direct contradiction of Christian Scripture. The Bible clearly states that the earth was created for man, not man for the earth. The Bible says that man was originally given dominion over the earth. The Bible says man lost his dominion role as a direct result of sin. Jesus won that dominion back through His work on Cross.

Gore clearly makes a distinction between neo-pagan pantheism and a Christian Biblical Worldview in his book:

“We are not used to seeing God in the world because we assume from the scientific and philosophical rules that govern us, that the physical world is made up of inanimate matter whirling in accordance to mathematical laws and bearing no relation to life, much less ourselves. Why does it feel faintly heretical to a Christian to suppose that God is in us as human beings? Why do our children believe that the Kingdom of God is up, somewhere in the ethereal reaches of space, far removed from this planet? By experiencing nature in its fullest ... our own and that of all creation ... with our senses and with our spiritual imagination, we can glimpse, ‘bright shining as the sun,’ an infinite image of God.” (p. 264)

Gore is not talking about the indwelling of the Christian believer by the Holy Spirit, instead he is promoting pantheism. Gore is denying God’s transcendence. In doing so, he called for bigger government, various environmental taxes, a redistribution of wealth between countries, giving massive amounts of money to third world countries. He called for the shutting down of America’s industrial system because he saw it as a threat to the environment. He even wanted the “rescue of the environment” to be “the central organizing principle for civilization.” He continued, “We are close to a time when all of humankind will envision a global agenda that encompasses a kind of Global Marshall Plan to address the causes of poverty and suffering and environmental destruction all over the earth.” (p. 269)

Al Gore made it clear that in his religion a Draconian government replaced the God of the Bible: “Adopting a central organizing principle ... means embarking on an all-out effort to use every policy and program, every law and institution ... to halt the destruction of the environment.” (p. 274) His solution for any of the world’s problems is to use a central government in an assault on Western civilization, based in Christianity and Biblically based capitalism.

These are additional quotes to further prove that Liberalism leads to its own religion.

“The earth is literally our mother, not only because we depend on her for nurture and shelter but even more because the human species has been shaped by her in the womb of evolution. ... Our salvation depends upon our ability to create a religion of nature”

René Dubos, A God Within: A Positive Approach to Man’s Future as Part of the Natural World, (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1972), 38, 41.

“More science and more technology are not going to get us out of our present ecological crisis until we find a new religion, or rethink our old one...”

Lynn White Jr., The Environmental Handbook, p. 24.

“No new set of basic values has been accepted in our society to displace those of Christianity. Hence we shall continue to have a worsening ecologic crisis until we reject the Christian axiom that nature has no reason for existence save to serve man” [Emphasis added]

Lynn White Jr., The Environmental Handbook, p. 25.

The official “mission” of the Church of All Worlds, the largest of the pagan movements in the U.S., involves mobilizing the force of Gaia or Gaea. The mission is “to evolve a network of information, mythology and experience that provides a context and stimulus for reawakening Gaea, and reuniting her children through tribal community dedicated to responsible stewardship and evolving consciousness”

Green Egg, Journal of the Church of All Worlds, Vol. 29, No. 119, May/June 1997.

“It is the responsibility of each human being today to choose between the force of darkness and the force of light. We must therefore transform our attitudes, and adopt a renewed respect for the superior laws of DIVINE NATURE.” [Emphasis added]

Maurice Strong, former Secretary General of UNEP, opening speech of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit

“Still more important is the implication that the evolution of Homo sapiens, with his technological inventiveness and his increasingly subtle communications network, has vastly increased Gaia’s range of perception. She is now through us awake and aware of herself. She has seen the reflection of her fair face through the eyes of astronauts and the television cameras of orbiting spacecraft.”

“Our sensations of wonder and pleasure, our capacity for conscious thought and speculation, our restless curiosity and drive are hers to share. This new interrelationship of Gaia with man is by no means fully established; we are not yet a truly collective species, corralled and tamed as an integral part of the biosphere, as we are as individual creatures. It may be that the destiny of mankind is to become tamed, so that the fierce, destructive, and greedy forces of tribalism and nationalism are fused into a compulsive urge to belong to the commonwealth of all creatures which constitutes Gaia.” [Emphasis added]

Sir James Lovelock, Gaia: A New Look At Life

“What if Mary is another name for Gaia? Then her capacity for virgin birth is no miracle . . . it is a role of Gaia since life began . . . She is of this Universe and, conceivably, a part of God. On Earth, she is the source of life everlasting and is alive now; she gave birth to humankind and we are part of her.” [Emphasis added]

Sir James Lovelock, Ages of Gaia

“Nature is my god. To me, nature is sacred; trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals.”

Mikhail Gorbachev, Green Cross International:

“Every child in America entering school at the age of five is insane because he comes to school with certain allegiances toward our Founding Fathers, toward his parents, toward our elected officials, toward a belief in a supernatural being, and toward the sovereignty of this nation as a separate entity. It’s up to you, teachers, to make all of these sick children well by creating the international child of the future.”

Chester Pierce, Harvard University, to a 1973 Education Seminar in Denver, as quoted in Dennis L. Cuddy, “A Chronology of Education: With Quotable Quotes,” The Florida Forum, Special ed., May 1993, p. 19.

Liberalism invents its own legal system.

The laws, ordinances and precepts of God make possible a free, healthy and distinctively capitalistic society. God gives us an eternal moral code, a standard by which we may live our lives in a peaceful, prosperous and secure state. Without God’s law we do not have protection against tyranny and anarchy. Without God’s law we will continue to see an increase in every social ill: pornography, racism, abortion, euthanasia and school violence.

The acceptance of Darwinian theories has caused many lawyers, judges and legislators to become legal positivists. Legal positivism declares that laws are to be passed and interpreted to achieve social engineering goals. Legal positivism works in direct opposition to natural law (God’s law) because law becomes separated from ethics, morals and justice. Legal positivism causes even the most basic laws to become flexible, thereby losing their predictability - there is no more right and wrong.

Ultimately, after the acceptance of legal positivism, judges come to believe that written constitutions are to be interpreted as “living documents” and they drop the doctrine of original intent. Such a progressive view of the law leads to the “rule of law under God” being replaced by the “rule of law under Man.”

Modern Social Liberals/Communist Elitists/Fascists/Darwinists of every ilk invent their own legal system. Karl Marx, and all atheists in general, reject the God of Creation. Therefore, they reject the doctrine of sin and Man’s Adamic sinful nature. They are convinced that the evolution of human nature will lead to its absolute perfection.

Marx believed that laws were the product of the will of the ruling class. Therefore, Marx wanted to displace the supposed law of the ruling class with his own ideal of a secular utopia. The result of this idea has been that every communistic government has enforced the equality of wealth by the use of gross power to achieve the equality of poverty.

There are those who criticize Christianity for the flaws of individual Christians in wrongfully murdering people, i.e., during the Crusades. However, the death toll attributable to liberalism is much worse. The by-product of Marxism in the 20thCentury was the murder of over 100 million people. These wholesale murders were a direct result of a naturalistic worldview in which Man and not God set the laws of what is right and wrong; where Man made and enforced his own legal system.

As University of Maryland political scientist Dr. Vladimir Tismaneanu wrote:

“Communism in its Leninist version (and, one must recognize, this has been the only successful application of the original dogma) was from the very outset inimical to the values of individual rights and human freedom. In spite of its overblown rhetoric about emancipation from oppression and necessity, the leap into the kingdom of freedom announced by the founding fathers [of Communism] turned out to be actually an experiment in ideologically driven unbound social engineering. The very idea of an independent judiciary was rejected as ‘rotten liberalism’. The [Communist] party defined what was legal and what was not: as in Hitler’s Germany, where the heinous 1936 Nuremberg trials were a legal fiction dictated by Nazi racial obsessions, Bolshevism from the very outset subordinated justice to party interests. For Lenin, dictatorship of the proletariat was rule by force and unrestricted by any law. The class enemy had to be weeded out, destroyed, smashed without any sign of mercy.” [Emphasis added]

Communism and the human condition: reflections on the Black Book of Communism, Human Rights Review, Jan-Mar 2001, p. 126.

Liberalism affects many other issues of human activity: agriculture, environmental concerns, education, illegal immigration, government run health care, gun control, expansion of the welfare state, limiting access to energy, etc.

Our conclusion, regardless of the discipline involved:

NO ONE IS MORE CRUEL THAN A LIBERAL!

http://www.creationworldview.org/articles_view.asp?id=101

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