“You shall rise before the grey haired and honour the presence of an old man, and fear your God; I am the Lord.” Leviticus 19:32 Today’s child-centered parenting all too often fails to teach children respect. Seldom do we see: Respect for God, His Word and His Worship; Respect for people made in the image of God; Respect for other people’s property; Respect for God’s Creation. Ultimately lack of respect comes from lack of love for God and for our neighbour. Today in so many ways we see cruel disrespect for elderly parents who are frequently abandoned in old age homes and neglected. One of my first ministries was preaching in Old Age Homes. Many complained to me how they “never” had visits from their children. “Listen to your father who begot you, and do not despise your mother when she is old.” Proverbs 23:22
0 Comments
Creation Ordinance It is God's Creation ordinance that man begins his week by submitting to God and humbly listening to His Word. Before the Fall of Adam and Eve into sin, mankind was to start his week with a Sabbath rest and worship. Fall After the Fall, God commanded man to end his week with a Sabbath. The Paradise rest which God provided, and which was symbolised in the Sabbath, was forfeited by man's disobedience. This first day Sabbath would only be restored by the Second Adam's future obedience. Redemption In Christ the first day Sabbath is restored to its position at Creation and man can once again rest in God's finished work of Recreation and Redemption before he embarks on a week of obedience and service to the Lord.
A printable tract version is available here.
"He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village, where He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty. Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family or a home. He didn't go to college. He never visited a big city. He never travelled two hundred miles from the place where He was born. He did none of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself. He was only thirty-three when the tide of public opinion turned against Him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was turned over to His enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While He was dying, His executioners gambled for His garments, the only property He had on earth. When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend. Nineteen centuries have come and gone, and today He is the central figure of the human race. All the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not effected the life of man on this earth as much as that One Solitary Life." Although some are hailing the Gospel of Judas as: “The greatest archeological find in the last 60 years,”it is no Gospel, it could not have been written by Judas, and is far too removed, both in timing and geography, to tell us anything concerning Jesus Christ and the birth of Christianity in Israel in the First Century. As Judas committed suicide even before the Resurrection of Christ, he not only had no time to write any gospel, but wouldn’t have been around to testify as to anything concerning the Day of Pentecost and the development of the Christian church. Christian scholars have known about “The Gospel of Judas” since it first surfaced, late in the 2nd Century and the early church rejected it as both a forgery and as heresy.
Unique Identity
The betrayal, arrest, trial and execution of Jesus of Nazareth, was unique. It was not His actions that were in question, but His identity. The charge laid against Christ by the Jewish Sanhedrin was blasphemy. The testimony on which He was convicted was concerned with His identity as the Messiah. The interrogation by the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate and the inscription and proclamation placed on His Cross at the execution, dealt with the identity of Christ as the Messiah, the Son of God, the King of kings and Lord of lords. The Illegal Trial The trial of Jesus of Nazareth was completely illegal. At every point it broke the laws of Israel as well as the laws of Rome. It was illegal to conduct a trial at night. It was also against the law to conduct a summary trial without any warning, or opportunity, for the accused to prepare a defense or seek positive character witnesses. At any trial the accused was to be granted an opportunity to prepare a defense and heralds were to be sent out into the area requiring anyone who knew anything positive about the accused to come forward and testify. There was no opportunity granted for appeal. There was no delay between the arrest and trial, between the trial and verdict, between the verdict and sentencing and between the sentencing and execution. Within less than a 24-hour period, Jesus was arrested, tried, condemned, sentenced to death and executed. This blatantly violated all due process of law. The New African magazine (August – September 2004) recently published the results of their poll. The choices of the readers who participated in this New African survey are quite incredible. Robert Mugabe, the brutal dictator of Zimbabwe was voted the third greatest African of all time! Winnie Mandela, despite her convictions for kidnapping, child abuse and theft from the poor, was voted the "most popular woman in Africa!" The editors of the New African observed that although they requested nominations for “the greatest Africans of all time”, over 95% of the nominations were from the post-independent era. They asked the question: “Have people forgotten Africa's history?” Volume 2 1993 Over and above the billions in grants, gifts and assorted aid, Africa owes Western creditors over $300 Billion. The Continent’s debt burden amounts to 90% of its total Gross National Products. Excluding the Arab nations of North Africa, the debt of sub-Saharan Africa is over 110% of its collective GNP. Barely being able to pay half the interest on the debts, Africa spends four times more on debt servicing than on the provision of health care to its population of 600 million people. - Africa Debt Crisis - UN DPI 1993 “the borrower is servant to the lender” Proverbs 22:7 “Better a little with righteousness than much gain with injustice.” Proverbs 16:8 Volume 4 1994 Africa presents the greatest challenges and opportunities for missionary service in the world today. The most intensive human suffering, the largest number of wars, the worst famines, the most severe persecutions, the sharpest confrontations between Christianity and Islam, communism and witchcraft, the greatest openness and hunger for the Gospel and the most promising potential for Biblical Reformation and revival - all of these aspects are concentrated in this vast and fascinating continent. “Open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.” John 4:35 In 1980 there were 20 countries in Africa which were “closed” for the proclamation of the Gospel and where Christians were persecuted. Now only 9 remain. There are many new - previously undreamed of - opportunities for evangelism in Mozambique, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Togo. One previously socialist country - Zambia - is currently undergoing a Christian Reformation. According to World Council of Churches official, Wesley Ariarajah: Mission work has become unnecessary for “We must not take God somewhere — He is everywhere already.” All claims of uniqueness, he added are harmful in a world of religious pluralism. The 7th General Assembly of the World Council of Churches took place in Canberra, Australia, from 7 — 20th February 1991 with characteristic pagan ritual. The opening procession to the large worship tent on the campus of the Australian National University were made to symbolically pass through the fire. The smoke made by burning gum leaves was described by the Ecumenical Press Service as “a traditional cleansing process for Aborigines in Australia” and was thought to signify “the cleansing and refining fire of the Holy Spirit.” An Aboriginal runner carried a traditional “message stick” ahead of the WCC officials to ask the assembled Aboriginal elders permission to enter the land. Once the permission was ritually granted the WCC officials proceeded through the smoke. Volume 4 1989 Imagine the heartache of bringing food to the starving, only to see them die in front of your eyes because the vitamin-enriched milk was too late. Then try and appreciate the outrage we feel when we see Soviet bloc ships exporting food out of Mozambique in return for the T54 tanks, MI-24 Hind attack helicopters and other military hardware imported into this starving country. Try and understand our shock as we witness the abuse of foreign aid and relief aid in these needy countries. Corruption, intrigue, the deliberate creation of famine, the manipulation of famine, the combination of scorched earth policies to starve out local resistance to the communist government, and forced relocations by starvation, cynically abusing the relief aid as a weapon in the civil war. Then imagine our disgust as Western journalists, relief agencies and clergy men ignore this cold-blooded exercise in manufacturing poverty, starvation and death. Not only do most of them ignore it, many rush to praise, support and fund the Marxist dictatorship which is responsible for over one million deaths — in a country which used to export food. Worse than that, they fuel the corruption, rewarding tyranny for having starving people in their tropical country. |
.
Categories
|
Archives
Articles Sorted by Date
November 2023
October 2023
September 2023
October 2021
April 2021
June 2020
May 2020
April 2020
March 2020
February 2020
October 2019
August 2019
June 2019
February 2019
August 2017
January 2017
November 2016
March 2016
January 2016
June 2012
May 2012
November 2010
August 2004
August 1993
June 1993
June 1991
August 1989
June 1989