Christianity Today

The Church of Jesus Christ is in a state of frightening decline today. There are a disturbing array of teachers, teaching everything from Universal Salvation all the way to and including the Basic Precepts to Salvation and the concept of following God, no matter what. I count myself as fortunate because My pastor teaches straight from the Bible, the whole Bible.

I find that in the world of Christendom today, that I am regarded as a strange worm. I completely believe in and live by accountability. I never post a message on the web that my pastor, a couple of Missionaries and some members of my church do not also receive in their email. Accountability is a vital tool for the prevention of future Jim Jones' and David Koresh's from growing out of the Fundamental Church.

The term fundamental has been so skewed by the media today that it is often viewed as reason for terror today, when nothing could be further from the truth in the Christian World. We work for our LORD for no other purpose than to keep folks from eternal suffering. The problem is that for a person to ascend into Heaven and thus avoid Hell, they must know the truth... all of it.

And after we have heard the truth, some of it hard for the world to hear we must decide that, no matter what, we will follow God. This is the single most obvious stumbling block in the world today. We do not get to customize Christianity to suit our tastes. It is very popular today to say that the death penalty is wrong because Jesus fulfilled the Law ad there-by abolished it but that is not true. Jesus said in Matthew 17 through 18 that not a single stroke of the pen would pass until all of the Law and the prophets had been fulfilled. The intent of the Law was to teach men what sin is and thereby produce men that would seek to live a Holy Life. That has not been the result as of this time and the prophecy of the Prophets is still being fulfilled.

So, are we under the Law? Absolutely not! So, we can ignore the Law? Absolutely not! The Law is the perfect illustration in words of God. And I believe the part that shocks so many people is that we are living in the Kingdom of God. I do not live my life preparing for the day I will live in the Kingdom. The day I turned from my sins (repentance) and made Jesus my Savior, my nae was written in The Book of Life, placing me in the Kingdom. I have not always succeeded but my goal from that day forward was to sin no more and there-by live for God and not for myself.

Jesus made it simple for us to obey the Law when He broke it all down into two commandments. (Matt. 22:36) But people do not understand simple! The death penalty is one good example of folks willfully disobeying God and thinking themselves more righteous for it. In Genesis 9:6 God sets a principal that because of His perfect immutability is never changed, we are to keep our land pure by executing certain people after they have performed certain sins against God. God, being a gracious God, will accept them into Heaven if they repent of their sin but that repentance must occur before they are put to death, other wise they will go to Hell.

Many argue that we have no right to put people to death and I will agree. However we have the responsibility to obey God and God has commanded that we keep our land clean of certain sins by use of the death penalty.

Obeying God

Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,

Lev 18:2 "Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, 'I am the LORD your God.

Lev 18:3 'You shall not do what is done in the land of Egypt where you lived, nor are you to do what is done in the land of Canaan where I am bringing you; you shall not walk in their statutes.

Lev 18:4 'You are to perform My judgments and keep My statutes, to live in accord with them; I am the LORD your God.

Lev 18:5 'So you shall keep My statutes and My judgments, by which a man may live if he does them; I am the LORD.

Joh 14:15 "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. (NASB)

In the first chapter of John we are taught that Jesus is God in the flesh of a man. In Chapter 14, verse 15 we learn that we are to demonstrate our love for Him in the same manor that we proved our love for our fathers when we were children, through obedience.

People today like to call themselves New Testament Christians and almost take your head off your shoulders if you mention the Law of the Pentateuch. Just the same in Lev. 18:4 we see that God, before His fleshly incarnation, called for the same obedience in the Old Testament as He did in the New.

Num_23:19-20; 1Sa_15:29; Job_23:13; Psa_33:11; Psa_119:89-91; Pro_19:21; Ecc_3:14; Ecc_7:13; Isa_31:2; Isa_40:28; Isa_59:1; Hos_13:14; Mal_3:6; Rom_11:29; Heb_6:17-18; Jam_1:17.

The above verses from both testaments demonstrate and to the Christian prove the Immutability of God. It is a popular lie today that the New Testament, the best commentary ever written on the Bible (the Old Testament) has superseded the Old Testament. That is not true.

The concept is pushed forward by the idea that the Jewish believer had to obey the Law to be saved and that is simply not true. No man, from the time of Abraham, forward has ever been saved by anything but the unmerited grace of God. In the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, the rich man went to Hell, a.k.a. Sheol, and Lazarus went to Paradise, not Heaven, to await the Death of Jesus on the cross as did all the pre-Christ saints

My point is, of course, that these fanciful ideas of refusing to support the Death Penalty, as called for by God/Jesus in the Old Testament is disobedience to God. Folks are, generally, horrified that I support the Death Penalty in any case and they, without fail, assail me with the penalty of stoning for the disobedience of children.

Many, who followed Jesus, abandoned Him because of His difficult doctrines, they are still abandoning Him today. They only go to Church where they will not be required to deal with the whole truth. The prophetic scriptures have warned us of this event when they speak of the ear tickling preachers. (2Tim. 4:3)

There are very few sermons being preached today on Hell Fire and Brimstone. Folks don't want to hear that so the preachers preach sermons that tickle the ears, sad.

Computer Problems?

As usual, I am pushing Linux Operating systems. The new version of Ubuntu LTS (Long Term Support) version 10.04 or Lucid Lynx has just been released. As soon as it was released I upgraded and was extremely pleased with the improvements. The developers at Canonical have taken aim at the business sector with this release. As always there is 24 hour a day free support for the Home User and there is Commercial Support for business to tap into for the free operating system that puts windows to shame.

The operating system has a Windows feel and the learning curve for transiting is almost flat. Any person that can operate a Windows Computer can operate an Ubuntu computer. I purchased a new hard-drive and did a fresh install, leaving my other two operating systems in place, just in case. Where Windows always claims the install will be done in about 39 minutes, the new Ubuntu install took just under 30 minutes and that included automatically detecting my hardware, downloading the drivers for it and installing and configuring all of them, automatically. I did the restart and without any “tours” or other hassles I clicked Firefox and went on the net.

Now you're thinking, yeah but now he had to install his office apps and all the other junk, nope, not true! Ubuntu installs with a complete, MS Office, compatible office suite, free of charge. Better still the equivalent of Power Point and of Publisher come with the system install. You can view Power Point presentations and you can build them with this office suite.

But there is better news yet! Puppy Linux 5.0 a.k.a. Lucid Puppy is released and available for download. It is also free, of course but it is for that tired old machine that you have retired because of speed. I did the test install on a VirtualBox hard-drive set up to test for use on a Compaq Armada built in the late '90s with a Pentium One processor with a maxed out memory of 80 meg of RAM and a two gig hdd. The install used about five hundred Megs. Of the two gig. Hdd I set up for it. It boots in the VirtualBox in about 36 seconds from turning the machine on so I'm expecting about a minute of boot time on the Compaq Armada Laptop. This Operating System comes with the standard Calculator, MS Office compatible Word Processor and many other apps, free.

So, if your unit is dying a slow death, revive it because the Lucid Puppy is based on the Lucid Lynx Ubuntu release and is just as easy to install and operate. Like Ubuntu it automatically detected and set up my hardware and immediately went on the Internet, Well... immediately after it automatically installed My choice of browsers after I clicked the Internet Icon on the darn good looking desk-top.

So once more I beseech you, brethren, don't operate operating systems that are supposed to be purchased to use, both of these systems are point and click, just like Windows and as an added bonus, the last time a Linux Computer was attacked by a virus, worm or trojan was in '96. It sure takes the required maintenance for Windows driven computers out of the equation. Computer manufactures think enough of Ubuntu that folks like Dell are selling and supporting Ubuntu Computers with their names on them.

God, Indecisive?

God, Indecisive?

Jonah 3:9 Who knows whether God will not turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, so that we might not perish?”

The scripture above is most often misunderstood along with a number of other scriptures from Exodus and the rest of the Bible where God seems to change His mind when in fact nothing could be farther from the truth. I have seen Atheist, Jew and Christian alike be dumbfounded when I state that the Bible is one context from Gen. 1:1 through the very last Amen of the Book of the Revelation.

God is the one that has inspired the whole of scripture. Word pictures of God always break down at some point because there is nothing like God to compare Him to but the best illustration I know of for the writing of the scriptures is a CEO and His Secretary. When the CEO dictates a letter it is not he that writes or types the document and yet it carries his autograph. In similar and yet different manor God gave the message of the Bible to the writers.

There are three attributes, known in some circles as the three omni's of God. He is omnipresent, omnipotent and He is omniscient. The last is the attribute I'll be dealing with here. Pro. 15:3 & 11 and many more verses in the scriptures give us instance of God's ability to know everything. Now add to this Jer. 1:5 5 Before I formed you in the belly I knew you, and before you came forth out of the womb I sanctified you, and you can see my premise, "God foreknew everything that has ever happened. This premise is, of course, backed up with every fulfilled prophecy in the Bible.

There is another element to build where I'm going with this, that is the immutability of God. 1Sam. 15:29 Also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent; for he is not a man, that he should repent. This, again, is but bone of many verses that show us God does not change His mind. This just leaves a lot of folks stewing in pickle juice when in fact the matter is quite simple, if you ead your Bible through a few times and then prayerfully meditate on what you have read.

The scriptures of the Bible are Goad's word for man to learn from. From the very beginning God has been teaching mankind about Himself and He continues instructing us today. In Jer. 1:5 we see that God knows what is to be before it occurs. When the Israelites sinned and God threatened to kill them He already knew that Moses would seek to give his life in their place but Moses did not know that he would. When Jonah ran from the LORD, God was not surprised. God was teaching Moses to shepard people and Jonah to obey Him.

God is perfect and there is no fault to be found in Him. In 1John 1:5 we see this point stated by God of Himself. God knows what He is going to do and He chooses, often, to do it through His Bond Servants, you and I. First He must bring us to the point that we are willing servants because as a people, we are stiff-necked.

My request is what God has charged you to do already, "Study to show yourselves approved.” (2Tim. 2:15)

Wisdom

Wisdom

Proverbs
1 My son, if you will receive my words,
And store up my commandments within you;
2 So as to turn your ear to wisdom,
And apply your heart to understanding;
3 Yes, if you call out for discernment,
And lift up your voice for understanding;
4 If you seek her as silver,
And search for her as for hidden treasures:
5 Then you will understand the fear of Yahweh,
And find the knowledge of God.
6 For Yahweh gives wisdom.
Out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.

Folks today believe themselves to be wise and do not seek after wisdom. There are of course two basic kinds of wisdom, Worldly and the Wisdom of God. The world's wisdom appears to be useful and sometimes is but when viewed in the light of God's wisdom it is always found lacking.

The currant wisdom of the world proclaims that there is no need of a God, we control our own destiny. That is an interesting perspective that is worthy of inspection. Until recently, all of, science proclaimed that the Universe was previously compressed into a single lump and that it exploded, creating the universe and the planet we live on.

Without going any further into this scenario, it has problems to be overcome. First, of course, is where did the lump come from? Next we must determine what caused it to explode? A simple, but not incorrect view would be, “Who lit the fuse?” What was the detonator and where did it come from? And then there is the question, for those of us that are familiar with explosions, “What happened to smooth of all those jagged edges, making the planets, suns and stars spherical?”

There are thousands of other questions for which no answers can be found, causing many in the scientific endeavor to abandon ship on this theory that is still taught as a fact in our schools. These folks appear to be trying to postulate a new theory to examine. The one “theory” that is never to be examined is the one that is true.

Of course it is not a theory at all but is instead the truth. God created all that we see and all that we know. The Christian proves, to his or her satisfaction, the truth of this statement w3hen they believe and begin to grow strong in the faith. The world titles this as circular logic but the title is false. i.e. When I first believed the Holy spirit of God indwelt me with His presence and has been opening and teaching me the Wisdom of God ever since.

This is a condition the world can never understand because they refuse to believe the truth and believe a lie instead.

Comments?