The Things to Come

My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine.

To Thee all the follies of sin I resign

My gracious Redeemer, my Saviour art Thou

If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus ’tis now.

This classic, lovely hymn goes on to say that we love Him because He first loved us. And the longer I walk with him and see for myself all the follies committed under the sun against God and man, the more I realize we are incapable of loving as He does without His great power resting upon us.

And yet do we access and appropriate this kind of love, do we allow it’s miracle-working power to flow through us and affect those around us on a daily basis? If love hopes all things, and bears all things, and believes all things, and endures all things, are we living as though we believe this each and every day? Love never fails; but we do. Just think, if we were to make it our very life and breath, to live like this – if OUR love were to ‘never fail’, what kind of lives would we lead, and what kind of love legacy would we leave behind to affect others for all eternity? Yes, people have hurt us or even ruined our lives; yes, we wish to see them changed or chastened. But those who are angry and unforgiving need to not only see their own sin, but also be sure not to leave off understanding that the unconditional love God has for His children is every bit His nature, right alongside His justice. We dare not misrepresent God by saying He is angry with someone if indeed He is not. We dare not remake God in our own image, but rather as it says in Micah: “but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.” (Micah 6:8)

If there is someone you consider unloveable or unforgiveable, simply think of the kind of love that kept Christ on that cross to die for the unlovable, and then realize that that very kind of love is available to all of us to give away at any time, for any or NO reason. May this kind of love draw you to that cross “upon a hillside” this Easter season, even as we remember His requirements for righteousness that were fulfilled at Calvary. It is finished! Live it!

by David Brickner of Jews for Jesus

March 15, 2008

This Friday is a day of two gallows. It marks an unusual convergence of Good Friday and Purim. We know that Good Friday is a time to remember the crucifixion of our Messiah Jesus. Purim commemorates the rescue of the Jewish people from Haman’s murderous plot as recorded in the book of Esther. Rarely do these days converge on the exact same date but because of the differences between the Jewish calendar (lunar) and the Roman or Christian calendar (solar), this year presents us with a strange and thought provoking confluence.

Both historical events involve God and the gallows. I wanted to compare and contrast these two days and God’s work in history as recorded by sacred Scripture.

• Both events took place in the Middle East, one in Persia the other in Israel.
• Both were preceded by a hero’s triumphant procession through the streets of the city.
• Both gallows were made of wood. We know that Haman’s gallows stood 75 feet tall. We know that the Roman gallows, or cross, was made of two pieces of wood, the top piece weighing about 100 pounds.
• Death on a Persian gallows resulted from a broken neck or strangulation. Death on a Roman gallows resulted from suffocation or the trauma of blood loss.

In both the two historical events we are examining, the gallows were built to execute innocent Jews. In the Purim narrative, Haman plotted against Mordechai because of his (Haman’s) wounded pride. In the Gospel accounts, certain Jewish leaders plotted against Jesus because He exposed their hypocrisy.

• In both instances, those who plotted the death of the innocents sought to make weak rulers complicit in their plot: the Persian King Ahashueras and the Roman Governor Pilate.
• Executing Mordechai was part of Haman’s plot to destroy the Jewish people. Executing Jesus was part of the devil’s plot to destroy humanity.
• Haman’s plot was thwarted when he and his sons were hanged on the gallows in place of Mordechai.
• The devil’s plot was thwarted when the planned execution took place, and Jesus hung on the cross in the place of sinners.
• On Purim, God worked behind the scenes; there is no mention of His name in the book of Esther.
• On Good Friday, God’s work was evident through signs and wonders so that even a Roman centurion recognized Jesus as the Son of God.
• On Purim, the Jewish people were saved from destruction.
• On Good Friday, God brought salvation to the whole world, to all who would receive it.

No doubt other comparisons and contrasts may be drawn between Good Friday and Purim. Both days attest to the fact that God remains consistent throughout all of history. He never changes. Whether His activity is apparent to all or hidden from our sight we can be sure that our God is a God who saves. He desires to save those who call upon Him and He delights to do so in unexpected ways.

In the end, God will always overthrow the plots of the wicked and establish His justice and His righteousness on the earth. No matter how fierce the threat, no matter how high the gallows, no matter how bleak the circumstances or dark the hour, God’s salvation will always win out; His plan will never be thwarted and His victory is always sure.

People may place their confidence with those in authority, with the rulers, with the wealthy and the powerful. But “He who sits in the heavens shall laugh.” He does not leave the weak and downtrodden to the mercy of heartless men and women, or abandon poor souls to the adversary.

We who would heed the lessons of history should

“Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. . . . Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him” (Psalm 2:11-12).

Throughout history God invites us to make comparisons, to remember how He has acted in the past so that we may have faith and confidence in Him for the future. You may be staring at a bleak set of circumstances in your life right now, discouraged and doubting how it is all going to turn out.

These are dark days in many ways for the world in general and certainly for servants of the Lord. They may also be trying times for you with the economic and political uncertainties of the times. Still, the confluence of God’s work in history and His finished work in Jesus Christ can surely come together in your life to bring hope and salvation. When we understand how God so consistently weaves together the strands of history and our own lives to accomplish His purposes, we can gladly say with the apostle Paul that

“we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us” (2 Corinthians 1:8-10).

Hallelujah!

From A.W. Tozer:

Many tender-minded Christians fear to sin against love by daring to inquire into anything that comes wearing the cloak of Christianity and breathing the name of Jesus. They dare not examine the credentials of the latest prophet to hit their town lest they be guilty of rejecting something which may be of God… This is supposed to indicate a high degree of spirituality. But in sober fact it indicates no such thing. It may indeed be evidence of the absence of the Holy Spirit. Gullibility is not synonymous with spirituality. Faith is not a mental habit leading its possessor to open his mouth and swallow everything that has about it the color of the supernatural. Faith keeps its heart open to whatever is of God, and rejects everything that is not of God, however wonderful it may be.“Try the spirits” is a command of the Holy Spirit to the Church (1 John 4:1). We may sin as certainly by approving the spurious as by rejecting the genuine… To appraise things with a heart of love and then to act on the results is an obligation resting upon every Christian in the world

(Tozer On The Holy Spirit)

Weather forecasts. Election ‘projections’. Economic indicators. Terror threat levels.
Just a few of the ways that humans try and see into the future. Try to take on that which only God is able to do. But, we are masters of our universe! We are ruling and reigning over all we survey. Aren’t we?

Um, not so much.

The truth of the matter is this: As humans we are finite, and we cannot even see 1 minute into the future, let alone into eternity. We like to think we are so advanced and knowledgeable, powerful and wise; but the bible says that man’s wisdom is foolishness to God. But while Jesus in His mercy gives us a glimpse of eternity future based on our position in Him upon salvation, the fact is we cannot see ahead in life even one sorry minute. We are here on this earth for an appointed season either long or short, we don’t know which, during which time we are try to figure out how to live in this world, how to survive, and find our place both physically and spiritually. We are pulled daily by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, born into sin with an inability to help ourselves from the moment we are born. We are cursed to work the land and make it yield something useful, and after that we might get old and then depend on others at the end just as we did for the first part of our life. As Solomon said, ‘all is vanity’.

It’s not that we aren’t INTERESTED in our future; the occult and New Age revolve around forthtelling and prognosticating; astrology exists to provide a glimpse into the future; the news channels try to scare us all the time with what could happen in any given situation, TV commercials appeal to our fears and vanity; the weather channel is based solely on the premise of telling the future – and we wonder why people end up on medication because they have so much anxiety they can hardly function. Anxiety is simply the result of the mind telling itself over and over, ‘what if?’ What if I lose my job, what if my kids suffer harm; what if we can’t pay our bills, what if there is a war, what if I get a disease; and the list goes on and on. We know our limitations, alright, and we don’t care for it one bit and our stress levels are through the roof; we have many health issues today that bear this out.

But the truth is that worry is the opposite of faith, it is useless and contradicts a life of faith ; the only cure then is the life of trust. God is perfectly aware that we cannot see into the future and never will be able to, as it applies to day to day living. The Bible tells us, therefore, in Matthew 6:

25 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?
26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
28 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin;
29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’
32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
This last verse I will come back to because it intrigues me from a heavenly perspective. And it reminds me of another verse, a companion passage of sorts, James 4:13-16 –

“Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”;
14 whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.”
16 But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.”

Why? Because – SUFFICIENT FOR THE DAY IS ITS OWN TROUBLE.

Those are strong words if we would presume to have any future days at all, and it is humbling at that. God knows we cannot see the future, he made us that way, and expects us to be mindful of such things. Psalm 90:12 says, “Teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”

There is a common thread of instruction that I am convinced if we take it to heart we will find it a lot easier to handle those ‘little did we know’s”. You know that saying, ‘take it one day at a time’? Well, that’s Biblical. The Lord is telling us that we need to measure our lives in 24 hour increments, and nothing greater than that, and that this is part of becoming wise; not that we cannot plan for the future and be good stewards with what we are given; there is nothing wrong with that. But when we do, it should be equally a part of our thinking that it may or may not happen, and the wise person says, ‘that’s OK, it’s up to the Lord to decide’, let His will be done. We need to be yielding our lives every day to His ability to see down the road. That is just being wise.

In light of these instructions, in light of our inability to see what’s ahead of us even for the rest of today, it’s still all good, and I want to now encourage you, and help lift you out of these human dilemmas by God’s grace because what we cannot do, when we are helpless to lift our own hands, He is more than able to do for us, and in fact DID for us in that while we were helpless sinners, He died for us.

If you get nothing more out of this short exhortation than to be reminded that you only need to live one 24-hour section at a time, and thereby increase your dependence on the Lord and have less anxiety in your life, I would say we have accomplished a lot. But there is a deeper dimension to all this. Continue Reading »

Comment: I watched the news both last night and this AM and found nothing on this.

If a Jew had commited this atrocity on a mosque, it would be 24/7 coverage for days on end.

What blatant spin and double standard. Sickening…….Mary

Eight killed at Jerusalem school

Eight people have been killed and nine wounded by a Palestinian gunman who infiltrated a Jewish seminary in West Jerusalem, Israeli officials say. Witnesses said the gunman went into the library at the Mercaz Harav seminary in the city’s Kiryat Moshe quarter and opened fire.

The assailant, who Israeli police said was a resident of East Jerusalem, was shot dead by an Israeli army officer.

The attack is the worst of its kind in Israel for a number of years.

The White House has led international condemnation but the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas called the attack “heroic” while not claiming responsibility.

However, the 15-strong UN Security Council failed to agree on a resolution condemning the attack because of reservations from temporary member Libya, which sought to link it to Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip.

A previously unknown group called the “Jalil Freedom Battalions – the Martyrs of Imad Mughniyeh and Gaza” claims to have carried it out, according to Lebanese Hezbollah media.

The fact that the school is at the heart of the settler movement in the occupied West Bank may have been the reason why it was targeted, BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen reports.

Many of its students are on special courses that combine religious study with service in combat units in the Israeli army, he notes.

There will be an Israeli response to this attack, our Middle East editor adds – the question is how severe it will be.

‘Horrific’

The gunman entered the library at the Mercaz Harav seminary on Thursday evening, where about 80 students were gathered, and fired an AK-47 rifle for several minutes, witnesses say.

One of the students, Yitzhak Dadon, reportedly shot the gunman twice before he was finally killed by an off-duty Israeli army officer, who had gone to the school after hearing gunfire.

“I shot him twice in the head,” he told the Reuters news agency.

“He started to sway and then someone else with a rifle fired at him, and he died.”

Another man told the BBC that there had been “terrible scenes” inside the building afterwards.

“When we got in… we saw young, 15-, 16-year-old guys lying on the floor with their Bibles in their hands – all dead…” he said.

Jerusalem police commander Aharon Franco confirmed there had been only one gunman and said he had hidden his weapon in a cardboard box.

Imad Mughniyeh, a senior Hezbollah leader and military commander, was killed in a car bomb in Damascus on 12 February.

‘Aimed at the heart’

An Israeli foreign ministry spokesman said that “terrorists [were] trying to destroy the chances of peace” but peace talks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas would continue.

Mr Abbas condemned the attack in a statement saying he “condemns all attacks that target civilians, whether they are Palestinian or Israeli”.

US President George W Bush condemned the attack “in the strongest possible terms” and UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband said news of the killings was “shocking”.

“They are an arrow aimed at the heart of the peace process so recently revived,” Mr Miliband added.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also criticised the “deliberate killing and injuring of civilians” in what he called a “savage attack”.

Hamas praise

In the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, gunmen fired into the air after news broke about the attack.

A loudspeaker in Gaza City reportedly broadcast the message: “This is God’s vengeance”

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the group “blesses the heroic operation in Jerusalem” calling it as a “natural reaction” to Israeli attacks.

Last week, Israeli forces launched a raid into northern Gaza in which more than 120 Palestinians – including many civilians – were killed.

Shortly after the Jerusalem shooting, the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad said four of its fighters had been killed in an Israeli air strike in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis.

Israel says the recent military offensive has been designed to stamp out frequent rocket fire by Palestinian militants.

Rocket attacks have hit deeper into southern Israel, reaching Ashkelon, the closest large city to the Gaza Strip.

BETWEEN THE LINES
Exclusive: Joseph Farah dissects Tony Campolo’s Big Government ‘utopian diatribe’

By Joseph Farah

I know this because I just read a new book by the self-proclaimed “godfather” of the movement – Tony Campolo. Yeah, you remember him as Bill Clinton’s spiritual guru.

The book is a manifesto of sorts called “Red Letter Christians.” Red Letter Christians are those, we learn in Campolo’s book, who heed the words spoken by Jesus and recorded in the New Testament – sometimes in red letters.

I’ll summarize the book for you: Christians have been paying enough attention to issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, homosexual indoctrination in schools, etc. But, says Campolo, they need to start paying attention to what the Bible teaches to do about poverty, the environment, global warming and social injustice. And, in response, we have to empower government through political activism to shoulder our biblical responsibilities.

It’s a stunning treatise – breathtaking in either its naiveté or self-indulgent and willful corruption of clear biblical principles.

I’ve debated Campolo. We’ve exchanged heated correspondence. But this book stands Scripture on its head substituting collective responsibility for personal accountability to God. It presupposes that government is actually good at solving problems. It suggests we need to usher in the kingdom of God on Earth through the power of Big Government.

Let me give you a rundown on what Red Letter Christians believe:

• Capital punishment is wrong, despite the clear, unequivocal biblical commandments to take life for life.
• Most Christians are too war-like and are guilty of “not loving our enemies.”
• Universal health care should be provided by government.
• Poverty should be eliminated by the U.S. government, not just in the U.S., but throughout the world.
• The minimum wage should be significantly increased.
• The U.S. should sign the Kyoto Protocol as a step toward solving the phantom crisis of global warming.
• The U.S. should pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan and address the real problem of terrorism by creating a Palestinian state and addressing the root cause – poverty.
• We should make condoms available throughout the Third World to fight AIDS.
• We should address the same-sex marriage issue by getting government out of the marriage business altogether, leaving it to churches and other religious institutions to decide who should be married and who shouldn’t. (No mention of children in this chapter and the ramifications such unions might have on them.)
• We should promote tougher gun laws.
• We should spend more on government schools.
• Christians should be offering sanctuary to all illegal aliens.
• The U.S. should cut the military budget and expand wealth-redistribution programs.
• Interestingly, according to Campolo, there is no litmus test for Red Letter Christians on the issue of abortion – some are for it, others against it. (It’s a big tent on this issue alone.)

All this, by the way, from someone who describes himself earlier in life as “the kind of political conservative Rush Limbaugh would have loved.” How did Campolo get this way?

This sentence summarizes the answer pretty well: “The significant changes in my thinking began to occur during the ’60s and ’70s, when I moved from the pastorate to academia.” Bingo!

Only the most superficial scriptural references – red or black – are provided to justify Campolo’s predictably leeward stands.

At one point, Campolo makes the statement that “you can only understand the rest of the Bible when you read it from the perspective provided by Christ.” Given that Jesus is, as most Christians believe, the living Word, the God who spoke all of the Bible into the hearts and minds of those who faithfully transcribed its 66 books, this is somewhat disturbing. In other words, Christ’s perspective pervades the entire Bible – not just the red letters. Further, there is nothing in the red letters that is at odds with the rest of the Bible. There is no contradiction between the red letters and the black letters.

The whole sickening, neo-Marxian, materialistic, utopian diatribe left me wondering what work might be left for Jesus when He returns. I even e-mailed Campolo’s publisher with that question and a few others. I’m still awaiting a response that is unlikely to come before the Millennium.

Maybe you can ask Campolo when, inevitably, he or some other so-called Red Letter Christian comes to speak in your church – spreading, not the good news of sacrifice, repentance, forgiveness of sin, personal accountability, spiritual renewal and rebirth, but the bad old news of collectivism, faith in government and moral relativism.

BETWEEN THE LINES
Exclusive: Joseph Farah hails Ben Stein film probing evolutionary dogma

By Joseph Farah

There’s a movie coming out in April, but I can’t wait to tell you about it.

It’s called “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.”

Imagine what Michael Moore might produce if we forcibly administered sodium pentothal. That would be “Expelled.”

It’s a documentary in which my old friend and colleague Ben Stein takes on the role of Michael Moore, aided in his point of view by the truth serum, trying to get to the bottom of our origins, about whether there is any hint of design in our universe and our world.

This is exposé-tainment at its best.

“Expelled” covers the following key questions:

• Were we designed or are we simply products of random chance, mutations and evolution occurring without any plan over billions of years?
• Is the debate over origins settled?
• How should science deal with what appears to be evidence of design?
• What should be taught to children and college students about our origins?
• Is there any room for dissent from the evolutionary point of view?
• Is it appropriate for eminent scientists who depart from strict evolutionary dogma to be fired and blacklisted, as is occurring in academia today?
• Should government schools and other institutions be engaged in promoting the secular, materialistic worldview to the total exclusion of differing points of view?
• Is science so advanced and so certain that it should be exempt from the societal norms of open dialogue and free debate?
• Why is it simply inconceivable and unacceptable for some evolutionists to consider the possibility – no matter how remote – that our world might actually have a Creator?

These topics may not, at first glance, offer an opportunity for uproarious entertainment. But, somehow they do exactly that in Ben Stein’s “Expelled.”

Stein doesn’t just ask the obvious questions of the scientists who are dogmatic about evolution. He probes. He digs. He pierces. He penetrates. He is relentless.

The responses are amazing – even if you think you know what to expect.

It turns out some of the most hardened, doctrinaire anti-design zealots in the scientific establishment – people like Richard Dawkins, author of “The God Delusion” and, coincidentally, the de facto leader of the worldwide atheist movement – aren’t really opposed to the notion of design at all. They just can’t accept God as the designer.

You will hear some of the world’s most celebrated evolutionists admit design is possible – just not by the hand of God.

They will attribute the possibility of design to visitors from other planets and even to crystals. The two things they cannot tolerate are consideration of God’s role and any of their colleagues deviating from their own ideas about origins.

It’s not so much the architects of evolution are opposed to religion. It’s that they have formed their own religion – absent the God of Christianity and Judaism.

As Ben Stein explains it: “Big Science in this area of biology has lost its way. Scientists are supposed to be allowed to follow the evidence wherever it may lead, no matter what the implications are. Freedom of inquiry has been greatly compromised, and this is not only anti-American, it’s anti-science. It’s anti-the whole concept of learning.”

You need to be on the lookout for “Expelled.” It will get a healthy rollout in theaters beginning April 18. But you don’t want to miss it. This is a movie you will want to see more than once. This is a movie for the whole family. This is a movie to tell your friends about.

It won’t end the debate about evolution. But it may give us a chance to revive the debate.

The London Telegraph reports on a new Muslim evangelist who has a whole different take on Allah. Apparently the Muslims that flew into the World Trade Center had the wrong one. Apparently the Saracens who sliced and chopped their way through Europe and the Middle East with Allah’s sword in the year 732 had it all wrong as well. Evidently, the Muslims who have committed 10,663 reported acts of terrorism since 9-11 also had it wrong. For a real look at the Allah of love, visit the Religion of Peace website that documents the atrocities done in Allah’s name. This new Muslim evangelist may be useful to ignorant Western tolerance shills like Tony Campolo and Jim Wallis, but he is living in different world than the rest of us are. Just ask the victims of 9-11 or the 10, 663 terror attacks since.

www.sliceoflaodicea.com

Ingrid Schlueter