skip to main |
skip to sidebar
"by Babu G. Ranganathan"
Former Apollo 14 astronaut, Dr. Edgar Mitchell, has recently made it public knowledge that aliens exist and that NASA officials have had contact with them. Dr. Mitchell says that there has been a sixty-year cover-up by our government of the existence and reality of aliens.
No doubt, all this will be used to support evolution and discredit the Bible. The fact remains, however, that science has shown that only micro-evolution (variations within a biological kind such as varieties of dogs, cats, horses, cows, etc.) is possible but not macro-evolution (variation across biological kinds or from simpler kinds to more complex ones). The reader is encouraged to read the author's Internet articles, "Natural Limits of Evolution" and "How Forensic Science Refutes Atheism." Mathematical probability alone has shown that it is not rational, logical, nor scientific to believe that life originated by chance.
Alien beings cannot wait millions of years to evolve complex and necessary organs for survival anymore than species on earth. Imagine species waiting millions of years for the biochemistry, tissues, organs, biological structures and systems necessary for "survival" to evolve.
Then, how do we explain aliens if they are for real? The Bible teaches that Satan and his demons (the fallen angels) can take on take all sorts of shapes and perform all sorts of miracles in order to deceive mankind. In fact, some who have been claimed to be abducted by aliens say that these aliens have told them things that undermine the truth of the Christian Scriptures and the Person and work of Jesus Christ.
This is not say that God cannot create life on other planets, but the point being made here is that the supposed alien contacts popularly mentioned are not actual alien beings at all but, instead, may be the work of dark supernatural forces.
Another possibility for the UFO's is that they are products of humans from long ago. There is substantial archaeological evidence of ancient humans having advanced technology and civilizations.
The Christian Gospel is unique, unlike any other religious teaching. That in itself is powerful evidence of its true and divine origin. The Christian Scriptures teach that man can never earn his salvation and that salvation is only by the grace (undeserved act) of God through faith in Jesus Christ, God's eternal and only begotten Son Who paid for our sins on the Cross through His suffering and death and Who rose bodily from the grave after three days.
Just as a co-signer to a loan takes the legal responsibility of paying for the loan should the borrower of the loan be unable to pay, Jesus Christ, because He was both divine and human and sinless, was able to take the responsibility to pay mankind's moral and spiritual debt to God. Through His suffering, shed blood on the Cross, and death He paid for our sins by taking the punishment for our sins upon Himself that we may be freely forgiven through faith in Him.
All other religions, no matter how different they may be from each other, teach basically the same thing, that man can save himself through his own good deeds. The Christian Gospel, however, teaches that man is completely fallen and can never be good enough to earn salvation, indeed cannot even be spiritually good at all in God's eyes apart from Christ. For God only sees what is done for His glory as being good. God is not being egotistical. By the very nature of things, truth demands that God be the reason and motive for our deeds and the object of our life and worship. God Himself would be sinning if He demanded anything less that Himself as the reason and motive behind our life and deeds!
Although good deeds cannot save us, once a person is saved in Christ he can and will begin to perform good deeds out of true love for God and his fellow man because of the Holy Spirit of God in his life Who has changed him. Good deeds do not produce salvation but salvation will produce good deeds.
The Christian is not perfect in this life or fully saved yet in this life. A Christian, in this life, will not always do good deeds because he still possess a sin nature, but, at least, the Christian will have a new heart and will always perform some, if not many, good deeds that are truly and spiritually good from God's point of view, the only view that counts!
The Christian Gospel is an offense to the natural thinking of man. Unfortunately, sometimes we Christians unnecessarily add to this offense by the way we share the Gospel and/or by some erroneous doctrine that we attach to it.
The uniqueness of the Christian Gospel shows that it could not have originated from fallen man or aliens. To Christ be all the victory!
"For by grace are ye saved through faith and that not of yourselves: It is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).
"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).
For those not familiar with the Bible, the above quotations are from chapters and verses of two
Tags: full moon in sagittariu the great books serie the pagans mc dungeons dragons animal wicca sabbats lith elf-dedication ritual watch blackwater valley exorcism
By Msgr. Charles Pope
The Gospel from Monday the second week of Advent is the gospel of the paralyzed man who is lowered through the roof. It is presented to us in Advent because, among the many prophecies about the Messiah, would be that the lame would walk. But the Gospel also helps us to focus on Jesus' central mission for us, and it is very provocatively expressed in this Gospel.
THE GOSPEL PASSAGE CONTAINS A RATHER PECULIAR AND SOMEWHAT AWKWARD MOMENT. Jesus looks at a paralyzed man and says to him, "As for you, your sins are forgiven" (Lk 5:20). What a strange thing to say to a paralyzed man.
THE PHARISEES AND SCRIBES OF COURSE ARE ALL WORKED UP FOR OTHER REASONS, but their reason is not ours, we know that Jesus has the authority to forgive sins. Let us stay focused on the strange thing to say to a paralyzed man, "your sins are forgiven you."
ONE OF US MODERN FOLK MIGHT BE TEMPTED TO TAP JESUS ON THE SHOULDER AND SAY, "Ah excuse me, Lord, this man is paralyzed, his problem is paralysis, that's what he needs healing for."
OF COURSE JESUS IS NOT BLIND OR UNINTELLIGENT, knows this. But looking at a paralyzed man he does not see the paralysis as his most serious problem. The man has a far more serious problem, his sin.
NOW MOST OF US, WHO LIVE IN THE WORLD, HAVE THE WORLDS PRIORITIES, and we do not think like this. The Lord sees something more serious than paralysis, and we think, "What can be more serious than paralysis?!"But not as man sees, does God see. For God, the most serious problem we have is our sin. But again, we don't think like this, and even being told we should think like this, we still don't think like this.
FOR MOST OF US, INFLUENCED BY THE FLESH, ARE FAR MORE DEVASTATED BY THE LOSS OF OUR PHYSICAL HEALTH, OR THE LOSS OF MONEY, or the loss of a job, or some large worldly asset, than we are by the fact that we have sin. Threaten our physical health and well-being, or one of our larger physical assets, and we're on our knees begging God for help. Yet most human beings have far less concern for their spiritual well-being. More often than not we are not nearly so devastated by sin that can deprive us of eternal life, as we are devastated by the loss of our health or some worldly thing.
EVEN MANY OF US WHO HAVE SOME SENSE OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE STRUGGLE WITH THIS OBTUSENESS, and misplaced sense of priorities. Even in our so-called spiritual life, our prayers are often dominated by concerns that God will fix our health, improve or finances, get us a job, etc. It is not wrong to pray for these things, and we should. But honestly how often do we pray to be freed of our sins, do we really and earnestly pray to grow in holiness and to be prepared to see God face-to-face? Sometimes it almost sounds as if we are asking God to make this world more comfortable and we'll just stay here forever. This attitude is an affront to the truer Gifts God is offering.
AND SO IT IS THAT JESUS, LOOKING AT A PARALYZED MAN, SAYS TO HIM, "YOUR SINS ARE FORGIVEN". In so doing he addresses the man's most serious problem first. Only secondarily does he speak to the man's paralysis, which he almost seems to have overlooked in comparison to the issue of sin.
We have much to learn hear about how God sees, and what really are the most crucial issues in our life.
Joseph and Mary were told to call the child "Jesus," for he would save his people from their sins. Of this fact Pope Benedict speaks in his latest book, Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives:
..."Joseph is entrusted with a further task: "Mary will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21)... On the one hand, a lofty theological task is assigned to the child, for only God can forgive sins. So this child is immediately associated with God, directly linked with God's holy and saving power. On the other hand, though, this definition of the Messiah's mission could appear disappointing. The prevailing expectations of salvation were primarily focused upon Israel's concrete sufferings-on the reestablishment of the kingdom of David, on Israel's freedom and independence, and naturally that included material prosperity for this largely impoverished people. The promise of forgiveness of sins seems both too little and too much: too much, because it trespasses upon God's exclusive sphere; too little, because there seems to be no thought of Israel's concrete suffering or its true need for salvation".
POPE BENEDICT THEN CITES THIS SAME STORY OF THE PARALYTIC AND SAYS, Jesus responded [to the presence of the paralyzed man] in a way that was quite contrary to the expectation of the bearers and the sick man himself, saying: "My son, your sins are forgiven" (Mark 2:5). This was the last thing anyone was expecting this was the last thing they were concerned about."...
THE POPE CONCLUDES: "Man is a relational being. And if his first, fundamental relationship is disturbed-his relationship with God-then nothing else can be truly in order. This is where the priority lies in Jesus' message and ministry: before all else he wants to point man toward the essence of his malady".
Yes, God sees things rather differently than we do. There is much to consider the fact that Jesus says paralyzed man "your sins are forgiven you".
Link:
* A Strange Thing Jesus Said to a Paralyzed Man - Another Insight from Pope Benedict's New Book
Tags: fruit juice fruit and vegetable diet back magic david koenig alex sanders i free black magic chants nude disappearing hanky magician stripper magician
The following is Part I of a series I will be writing and posting here. This follows the line of thought in this earlier post.
I. Grace: A definition
: Charis: Gift, gratuity.
Too often the definition of "grace" is limited to mean the unmerited favor of God to fallen man in terms of his mercy on sinners, and in classic Reformed Theology (following earlier writers in the western Monastic tradition) this has led to a sharp distinction between the Covenant of Creation and the Covenant of Grace. To a certain degree this distinction is useful, and has led to a necessary aspect of teaching such as we find in John Murray's short book The Covenant of Grace.1 Nonetheless, as my brother David Bentley Hart wrote in his first book, The Beauty of the Infinite,2 we need to see the entire act of creation and the giving of life itself as a gratuity. Nothing in creation is necessary; that is to say, God who has no need of anything, created and gave life as a gift, not to meet any need or desire of his own. "God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshiped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things," said St. Paul on Mars Hill.3
So, with all the value we receive by drawing a line between the Covenants of Creation and of Grace in the western tradition, it is necessary, if only to see God himself in the light of the revelation of Holy Scripture, to remember that is was an act of when God formed man from the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. This was unnecessary, for God needs nothing. It was unmerited, for Adam was given life and as yet deserved nothing. It was favor, gratuity or grace, a gift freely given.
And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. 4
The first sacrament is given before the Fall. God himself does the work. Making use of Matter, that Matter being the very rib of the man to divide Man into two sexes; and making use of the words of Adam which constituted a Form which expressed Intention, it is God who makes them into one flesh. This too is a gift () added to a state of life 5 in which (even now after the Fall and Christ's Redemption) God's creative act continues both to propagate the race of Man, and for believers becomes a means to add yet more grace whereby the husband and wife aid one another to salvation and sanctification. It is significant that of the Seven Mysteries () or Sacraments, Matrimony is established before the Fall; and even more so that it signifies Christ and the Church as somehow a reality independent (in limited human terms) of the Fall, and therefore existing in the plan of God before (so to speak) the emergency that occasioned our redemption from sin and death.6 "This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the Church," writes Paul about the deeper truth signified by marriage.7
Before he was a sinner, Adam was a husband; and the first time we see a sacrament in Scripture it is while man is yet in his innocence. As the Solemnization of Matrimony declares in the English Book of Common Prayer: "Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony; which is an honourable estate, instituted of God in the time of man's innocency, signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his Church." The three elements of a sacrament are present, and so is the feature that, along with Form, Matter and Intention, constitute a Sacrament (even this sacrament of a state of the life, rather than of the Gospel), namely God's promised and, therefore, predictable working. For Jesus taught that marriage is God's own work, and nothing less: "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."8
We must conclude that grace is the very life of all creation, for none of the things in the created order are necessary for God to be whole, complete and without need; rather, it is we who need to be alive, and we exist soley due to his gift, his gratuity, of life. We must conclude that even before the Fall, sacramental grace is revealed to have been in operation, and that this sacramental grace signifies both the Incarnation and the election of the Church in a glorious mystery of Divine love, and does so before the emergency occasioned by the Fall of Man into sin and death.
Grace is everything to the created order, including beasts, Man and angels.
"1. Murray, John The Covenant of Grace, The Tyndale Press: London in 1954
2. Hart, David Bentley, The Beauty of the Infinite, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, Grand Rapids/ Cambridge, 2003
3. Acts 17:24,25
4. Gen. 3:22-24
5. "...partly are states of life allowed in the Scriptures..." Art. XXV
6. This gives further evidence to the theory of Duns Scotus, which I summarize this way: Man was made for the Incarnation, independent (again, speaking within human limitations of expression) of the emergency occasioned by the Fall.
7. Eph 5:32
8. Mark 10:9
Credit: http://wizard-notes.blogspot.com
Since Valentine's Day will be at the very end of this week I thought a post about the heart might be appropriate. So here goes: We've all heard little clich'e quotes about the heart such as: "My heart is breaking"; "Follow your heart"; and "He has a hard heart." Our hearts "rejoice" when there's good news and they "break" when there's bad news.
I used to think that I was unique in having the "heart problems" that I have...not physically but spiritually. I thought I must have more trouble than anyone else around me in having the right attitudes toward things and people or keeping my temper in check or all the other "besetting sins" that I have.
I really had trouble getting close to other Christian ladies because I thought that when they got to know me they wouldn't want to be my friend anymore. Then one day a dear friend of mine told me something that forever has changed the way I think about the heart. Several years before, her Pastor's wife had told her that ALL us women are alike...
(I'm sure this goes for all men also!)...that we all have the same weaknesses, the same selfishness, the same envy, the same disobedient spirit as the next woman. The Bible backs this up in a verse in Jeremiah 17:9 which says, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
Because our hearts are wicked we need to heed the advice given in Proverbs 4:23 "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life." We may look at each other at times and only see the good...that's when we're on our best behavior. At other times we may see only the bad in each other.
The Bible says in I Samuel 16:7 "for the LORD seeth not as man seeth: for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart." I sometimes may be able to fool you and you may sometimes fool me, but we can never fool God. If we are behaving well today, it's only because of the grace of God and His Spirit that is dwelling in us as believers.
Usually, when our heart is right then our outward actions will be right too. "("For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he." Proverbs 23:7)
On the other side of the coin, isn't it wonderful to know that our God is always perfect, never having any negative attributes to grieve us with. When we occasionally see a fellow Christian fall by the wayside into sin, let's don't let that keep us from serving God ourselves.
The devil will use the failures of others to try and make us give up too. It's such a comfort to know we don't have to depend on other Christians for our security. There's a wonderful verse in II Thessalonians 3:3 that says "But the Lord is faithful..."He can never disappoint us or be a bad example to us.
One of my favorite songs is called "He is Faithful". The lady who wrote it is the wife of the pastor of the well-known Brooklyn Tabernacle in New York City. She wrote this song during a time when their teenaged daughter had rebelled against the Lord, against the convictions of their family, and had left their home.
Sometimes we only see the glitter and the glamour in a person's life and not the personal heartaches and tears. There are probably more Christian homes than we will ever know of that go through personal tragedies of one kind or another. But it's good to know our God knows all about it.
There are many functions of the heart but maybe these two top the list.
First is the part our heart plays in our personal salvation. The Bible says in Romans 10:10, "For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." We can never be the person God has planned for us to be until we have believed in our hearts that Jesus is the Christ and we become a new creature in Him.
After we do that, then we can do the most important thing our heart can do for God. Mark 12:30 tells us what that is: "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment." As human beings we cannot always measure up to what God expects of us but we should always keep trying to love Him more and more.
If we truly want to do this, then God will give us a "heart to know Him". (Jeremiah 24:7 "And I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.")" I want to be more aware of the condition of my own heart so that I will be able to serve the Lord better.
In these times of uncertainty we need to focus on loving God with all our heart and then everything else in other areas of our lives will fall into place. (Philippians 4:7 "And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."
Marilyn from Walking in Truth
Credit: http://masonsofheaven.blogspot.com
