Scriptures
All posts tagged Scriptures
‘If there was a worldwide flood, where is all the water?
The Flood mentioned in Genesis was a worldwide flood; it began with a special rain of “40 days and nights” and all of the “fountains of the great deep” opened up. The Flood continued for one year. During the first five months, the waters rose and covered all land surfaces. “Every hill under the whole heaven was covered.” God’s judgment upon sin was to totally destroy all life on land that had the “breath of life.” The floodwaters cleansed the earth.
Towards the end of the Flood, all current mountains of the earth rose up and the valleys sank low, resulting in the water rushing off the continents into the oceans. This explains why fossils of ocean creatures that once lived on the ocean floor can be found on the highest mountain peaks. Today this flood water fills the oceans of the world which cover about 70% of the globe. Many parts of the ocean are extremely deep. The deepest is the Marianas Trench, located in the Pacific Ocean. It is almost seven miles deep; compare this with Mt. Everest at about 5 ½ miles high. If the earth’s surface were completely leveled, as smooth as a ping pong ball, the oceans would cover the entire globe to a depth of about a mile and a half. Here is a satellite picture of the Pacific Ocean. Water everywhere! Where is the Flood water? The water from the Flood is still here; it is found in the earth’s oceans.’ An email from http://www.searchforthetruth.net/
QUESTION: ‘MAN & WOMAN: Is there a real definition of man and woman in a world that wants fluid gender?
Answer by John Mackay and Diane Eager
The easy bit is that the word “man” refers to an adult human male, and a “woman” is an adult female human. But can we actually give a testable, provable meaning to the traditional words “male” and “female”, or are they just roles allocated for convenience which can be abandoned as life evolves?
This is a battle being fought hardest in school classrooms to conquer the minds of the next generation. Consider the following actual events:
A woman teacher was caught up in a staff room debate about who could use the girls’ toilets and change rooms at her schools. A transgender supporter claimed ‘We can be whatever gender we choose and therefore we must be allowed to use whichever toilet suits our choice’. The frustrated lady teacher retorted: “Why don’t we just look between their legs – that should settle it!”
Second event – November – 2020! Two Christian parents spend several frustrating hours with a Government school principal and deputy. What’s the problem? Their daughter has reported to them that their school class has been ordered to call one boy she.
Mum and dad ask why the school is forcing their child to lie. ‘But that’s just your opinion’ retorts the deputy. ‘If the boy feels he’s a girl we have to accept that. It’s the law!’
But my wife and I are both scientists, state the parents. We can give you a testable definition of what a male or female is. All the creatures we work with have very observable features of male and female. The boy is the one with the testicles who makes sperm. And in every case they are provably different from the females who make ova and babies. And we humans are the same.
So why are you teaching my daughter to lie? And why are you lying about this yourselves? Did you intend to tell us as parents that you had ordered the class to call this boy a girl?
“No,” replied the increasingly embarrassed principal, while a very emphatic “NO!” was uttered by an obvious radical feminist deputy. Government policy is that we must accept whatever gender the students feel they are, and this student feels they are female no matter what your opinion is.
The result? Despite being long-term participants and active supporters on school councils, both parents advise the Principal that because you’re teaching our children to lie and you are lying about it, our children are out of here today – not this afternoon, but right now!
Of course, the school authorities are rightly concerned about what they should tell students’ parents, especially other Christian parents in the school.
How should we react when atheist governments and education are actually lying about gender and sex? How do we define boy or girl, male or female, man or woman? And can we go deeper than that and have a meaningful scientific and legally enforceable definition?
Male and Female
Let’s start with the obvious differences between what we traditionally call gender. Being male or female, whether infant or adult, is provably determined by a person’s chromosomes, and indicated by the resulting reproductive systems and naturally produced hormones. At different stages of a person’s life reproductive systems and related hormonally induced changes to body structures will go through maturation and degenerative processes, but an individual remains either male or female throughout his or her life, from conception, through childhood and adulthood, to death.
The chromosomes that determine whether a person is male and female are named X and Y. A male has an X and a Y, usually written as XY, a female has two Xs, usually written as XX. These are inherited at conception and remain in every cell in the body, with one notable exception for each sex* (see below) for the rest of a person’s life.
Therefore, it doesn’t matter what manipulation is done to the body or mind after conception – a person is male or female throughout life. It doesn’t matter what bits they may get cut off or added on, or any alterations caused by the chosen addition of alternative sex hormones or by blocking their own hormones. In spite of efforts by transgender activists to drive a wedge between gender and sex, neither gender nor sex are determined by an individual’s choice, or by feelings, by externally administered drugs or hormones, or by social acceptance of someone’s choice.
*The only cells in the body that do not have the XY or XX chromosome identity are the reproductive cells, i.e. sperm in a male and ova (eggs) in a female. When these cells are formed the chromosomes are separated and each sex cell gets one of the sex chromosomes. Therefore, sperm will have either an X or a Y, ova will have one of two X’s. But such cells are still male or female, as only males can produce sperm and only females can produce ova?
Where Did Male and Female Come From?
Each human being is formed from the union of one sperm, carrying an X or a Y chromosome, and one ovum, carrying an X chromosome. An X carrying sperm will give rise to a female when its X combines with the X in the ovum. Y carrying sperm give rise to a male when it combines with the X in the ovum. This process can be traced back through the generations to the first human beings – Adam and Eve. Sex is not something you can evolve. It has to be right first time or you die out!
Adam was created male. Therefore, he had an X and a Y chromosome. Eve was created from tissue taken from Adam. All the components needed to make a woman were already in Adam. To make a female from male tissue God took out the Y chromosome and duplicated an X. From then on human beings have reproduced by the process described above.
Adam and Eve were created individually by God. Adam was made from “dust of the ground” i.e. raw materials, and Eve was made from tissue taken from Adam. They were not derived from any other living creature. Human beings are unique and separate creations, and therefore it is irrelevant if other living things, such as fish or plants, can change sex in certain circumstances.
So, theistic evolutionists take note: Those who want to believe in evolution but defend God’s word on men and women, and marriage, will find themselves on shaky ground. If evolution is true, human ancestry goes back to creatures with no distinct sexes and/or interchangeable sexes, and those who oppose God’s rules can claim that blurring the sexes is just part of the natural world, and Christians should not impose their views on it.
It is time to humbly accept that in the beginning God created humans male and female just like He said He did.’https://askjohnmackay.com/mand-woman-is-there-a-real-definition-of-man-and-woman-in-a-world-that-wants-fluid-gender/
Jeremiah 10:2
“Thus says the Lord: ‘Do not learn the way of the Gentiles; do not be dismayed at the signs of heaven, for the Gentiles are dismayed at them.’”
The world is a frightening place without God. This fear can be seen today in fears that modern people often confuse with science.
Several years ago stories of gloom and doom about a greenhouse heating of the earth were starting to fill the media. We at Creation Moments looked at the scientific basis for these claims. We wanted to know if the greenhouse warming of the earth was a true threat or just another fear of a godless people. We then published the conclusion that the thin and conflicting evidence for greenhouse warming most likely came from the heat island effect of growing cities around some of the temperature measuring sites.
Knowing the elegance with which God designed everything in creation, creationists suspected that God probably designed the earth with built-in thermostats that help keep it from warming up too much. When the Pacific Ocean warms more than normal, it sends increasing amounts of water vapor into the air. If heating continues, the water vapor will actually cause the heating to increase until vapor is forced higher into the atmosphere, creating icy cirrus clouds. These clouds reflect enough incoming sunlight to shut down the temperature increase and return things to normal.’https://creationmoments.com/sermons/greenhouse-thermostat-discovered-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=greenhouse-thermostat-discovered-2&mc_cid=869a80fb6b&mc_eid=00c1dcff3c
1Corinthians 16:2 Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come.
2Corinthians 9:7 Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.
The following article concerns Willow Creek inviting Robert Morris from Gateway Church, Dallas, Texas to preach. The controversy is that some believe Morris preaches a prosperity Gospel. Willow Creek’s Tim Stevens however ‘…said Willow is spreading the word about God’s miraculous provision — not a prosperity gospel.’
Nevertheless, Robert Morris and his church are connected with Pentecostal preacher Jack Hayford https://www.tku.edu/about-tku/gateway-church/ and most prosperity preachers are within the Pentecostal movement.
Amos 3:3 asks ‘Can two walk together, except they be agreed?‘ Now Robert Morris and Pentecostal Jack Hayford seem to have a very close relationship as ‘Dr. Hayford serves as an apostolic elder of Gateway Church’. Hayford is associated with the Foursquare Pentecostal Church which encourages the speaking in tongues https://www.wayoflife.org/reports/beware_of_jack_hayford.html. Willow Creek must not have a problem with this either.
So, ‘Facing persistently lower giving, Willow Creek Community Church last Sunday invited Pastor Robert Morris, who some allege is a prosperity preacher, to deliver a guest sermon on tithing. The sermon contained a singular promise: Tithe for a year, and if you’re not satisfied, you’ll get your money back.
“Thousands and thousands” had seen their lives changed after starting to give 10% of their income regularly, Morris said. “I’ve done this with our church. I’ve told our church on multiple occasions, I’ve said to them, if you’ll try it for one year, if you are not fully satisfied at the end of that year, I’ll give you your money back. In 22 years of church no one’s ever asked for money (back).”
Morris is pastor of Gateway Church, once the largest congregation of the Association of Related Churches (ARC) in the United States. (It’s no longer listed in the ARC’s church finder.) He also is one of disgraced pastor Mark Driscoll’s staunchest supporters.
Morris was the first to replatform Driscoll after the Mars Hill debacle in 2014. And just last summer, Morris had Driscoll speak at an ARC preaching seminar at Gateway Church.
When asked about Morris’ money-back guarantee, Willow Creek Executive Pastor Tim Stevens said Willow is spreading the word about God’s miraculous provision — not a prosperity gospel.
Stevens confirmed that Willow Creek’s average weekly giving so far this year is 20% below the church’s already reduced budget. This year’s giving budget is about half the church’s revenue in 2019, when investigators said sexual misconduct allegations against Willow Creek’s founder Bill Hybels were credible. But he said giving so far this year is on par with last year’s weekly giving average.
Stevens told The Roys Report that the church budgets the same amount of revenue for every week—about $614,000 across seven campuses. However, he noted, “the reality is that a larger percentage of our giving happens at the end of the year.”
Critics, however, say that though Morris has a softer sell, he still preaches the same health and wealth gospel of prominent prosperity preachers like Kenneth Hagin. “Hagin had no problem telling you that God wanted him to be rich,” write Paul and Susan Dunk of KW Redeemer Church in Breslau, Ontario. “But Morris softens it and prefers blessed.”
They add that Morris’ teaching on tithing is more like “pagan votive offerings” than the voluntary giving encouraged in the New Testament. “If you needed health, wealth, crops, love, wisdom etc . . . you would go to the temple and give money to the corresponding gods of those blessings,” the Dunks write.
Theology professor and Pastor David Schrock likewise called Morris’s beliefs about material blessing a “misreading of Scripture” in a critical review of Morris’s book “The Blessed Life.”
“Instead of grounding God’s character and promises in the new covenant of Christ, Morris makes God a self-styled miracle-worker who promises supernatural power,” Schrock wrote.
Morris preached Sunday on “The Principle of First” as part of Willow Creek’s five-part sermon series “More Than Money.” The series coincides with a major giving campaign underway now at Willow Creek.
“This series aims to help people understand that money is not a financial issue, it’s a discipleship issue and a matter of the heart,” the series summary reads in part.
Morris’s money-back promise was mentioned only in an unlisted video recording of the 9 a.m. service. It’s absent from the sermon video published on Willow Creek’s website, which was apparently drawn from the “full service” recording of the 11:15 a.m. service.
In the 9 a.m. service, Willow Creek Pastor Dave Dummitt made the same promise as he held up a commitment card for the church’s current giving initiative.
Dummitt encouraged congregants to consider pledging to be “Christ-first givers”— the third of four giving options the church is asking congregants to commit to. Then he told the audience he’d “go ahead and be bold and say, if you do this for the year, and you are not fully satisfied, we’ll give the money back.”
“I like that challenge. It’s good,” Dummitt added.
Stevens said Dummitt had offered something similar at his previous church, but his decision to challenge Willow Creek came spontaneously. Leadership decided the idea “needed some time to bake” so it wasn’t mentioned in the later service, Stevens said. However, the challenge is being developed now and could be formally announced as soon as this weekend.
Stevens denied that the money-back challenge constituted a “prosperity gospel” message.
“Any time that my wife and I have stretched in our giving, God has out-given us in return,” Stevens wrote in an email to The Roys Report. The old car lasted longer, he offered as an example, or the tax return was big enough to cover a surprise bill.
“God meets a need in some miraculous way that we didn’t see coming,” Stevens continued. “I think that was the intent of what our guest preacher was communicating, and what Dave was affirming. Willow does not, and never has, held a position that says God will make you rich if you commit your finances to the church.”
When asked about Morris’ longstanding support of Driscoll, Stevens wrote that Willow Creek tries “to shy away from ‘guilt by association’” when inviting guest speakers.
In addition to repeatedly platforming Driscoll, Morris was formerly an overseer at Driscoll’s new church, The Trinity Church. A spokesman for Morris previously told The Roys Report that Morris remains available if Driscoll’s church needs counsel.
Last August, Driscoll was featured alongside Morris as a speaker at a preaching seminar Gateway and Morris hosted.
Stevens pointed out Willow Creek has recently invited other speakers. Some of them could be considered controversial.
“In the last year we’ve had John Maxwell, Derwin Grey, Gene Appel, (Immanuel Acho), and others,” Stevens wrote. “Having them, and others, on our platform does not mean we endorse 100% of their theology, associations, or partnerships, but rather that we believe they can help us encourage our people to love God, love people, and change the world through teaching a specific topic on a given weekend.”’https://julieroys.com/giving-push-willow-creek-robert-morris-offer-tithe-refund/?mc_cid=80c8070c03&mc_eid=b13d34ad49
This is what Paul the church planter wrote in 2Corinthians 6:1-10 We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain. 2 (For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.) 3 Giving no offence in any thing, that the ministry be not blamed: 4 But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses,
5 In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings; 6 By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, 7 By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, 8 By honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true; 9 As unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; 10 As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.
This is what is happening in today’s church planting efforts. ‘The Association of Related Churches, or ARC, is arguably the biggest church planting organization in North America. It’s also one of the most embattled . . . with scandals involving ARC pastors hitting the news with shocking regularity. In this episode of The Roys Report podcast, former ARC pastor Jeff Thompson explains why. In 2012, Jeff says he was enamored with ARC’s model of “launching large”—of starting a church with a big capital investment, top-notch worship team, and professional marketing. But when that effort flopped, Jeff began to question the biblical basis of ARC’s methods. He says the movement glorifies success as measured in attendance and budgets—but it minimizes sin, especially among its pastors. Pastor Jeff Thompson shares much more in this extremely important and timely podcast.’
‘Recorded at home just before leaving to preach Revival in a nearby city. This Verse really is a “key” to getting an understanding of the Book of Amos. Watch the Lesson if you possibly can.’
Jude 1:7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
Romans 1:24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: 25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: 27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
whatyareckon 