You are Serving the Lord Christ.

Tomorrow I am preaching the final message in a series that dealt with the points of our (Edgewood Baptist Church's) statement of faith. When I began this series, I thought that I would be able to wrap it up in a few weeks. I was planning on combining several of the points from the statement into single messages. I actually thought it might be a tad bit boring if I wasn't careful... and I really just wanted to use these points as a sort of filler until I started to exposit through the next book of the Bible. ... boy was I off ...

With each point of our statement, our confession of faith, I have found it to be a struggle to condense that point to just one week. It has been exciting. It has been enlightening. There are several things that I have learned, that I genuinely didn't know or didn't believe before I began this study. Well, tomorrow is not different.

We will be dealing with the final point, which is the reality of the return of Christ Jesus to this world. It is dealing with end times... last things. Over the past week, as I have studied this point, examining the relevant passages of scripture, I am genuinely being motivated to continue in the work of the ministry. As I have looked at how Jesus (and the Apostles) talk about the End, when we will see Him, it has been an encouragement to keep at it, because quite frankly... He is going to reward us.

Consider John Frame's words:

Four Views of the End Times - Book Review

Four Views of the End Times is a rather short book.  It is meant to be a quick overview of the four predominant Biblical views of the End Times.  These four views center on the Biblical understanding of the Millenium and other apocalyptic prophecies normally found in the final book of the New Testament, the book of Revelation. These four views are Dispensational Premillennialism, Historic Premillennialism, Amillennialism, and Postmillennialism.

I know that the majority of people that I am acquainted with would be slightly surprised that there is more than one Christian view of the End Times. The view that is most popular today, in American culture is the view called, Dispensational Premillennialism. Most think that real Christian scholars are in agreement over this view, but they just don't know the timing of when these things will come to pass. End Times discussions that I overhear or are involved in tend to focus on this pervading thought that the rapture is going to happen any day now, and we can be assured of this because of the current events in the Middle East.

This book does an excellent job of describing the other three views and giving the facts regarding these views.  We learn the different time periods when different views were most popular. We also learn of different influential Christians who have held these different views throughout the ages.  Finally we learn much of the Biblical perspective on each of these views.

It is a short enough read that one could make it through the entire book in less than an hour, but you will still walk away from this book with a better understanding of our exploration of this fascinating topic.

If you are looking for a way to get a better grasp on the different views of the End Times, then I would highly suggest this book.

I can't help but think...

Earthquakes
January 12, 2010 - 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti
February 27, 2010 - 8.8 magnitude earthquake near Maule, Chile
April 4, 2010 - 7.2 magnitude earthquake in California/Mexico
April 13, 2010 - 6.9 magnitude earthquake in China
and more

Matthew 24:7 "For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places." (ESV)

I know that nobody wants to jump the gun, but you can't help but think... 

(list of famines)

(list of on-going conflicts)

Look it up...

I heard about something on the radio last night, but just couldn't believe it. So, this morning, first thing, I did a little google search, and sure enough, there it was.

It seems that the Oxford Junior Dictionary has dropped several words from the dictionary.  

I am not going to attempt to repeat the entire article I read, the writer at the Christian Post did a great job of summarizing the story (go figure, a professional writer).  Instead, I will give you a taste, and then point you in the direction of the full article.

Some of the words that were dropped:

"bishop," "chapel," "disciple," "minister," "sin," and "devil"

Some of the words that were added:

"blog," "biodegradable," "MP3 player," "democratic," and "celebrity"

As much as I like to blog, should it really replace "disciple"?!?

Here is another little clip from the article:

The decision by OUP to discontinue particular words is a form of "verbal engineering," Erin Manning recently wrote on Beliefnet’s conservative Crunchy Con blog.

Manning cited Catholic moral theologian William Smith as saying, "All social engineering is preceded by verbal engineering."

"Deciding to drop a word that has already fallen out of use, become obsolete, from a dictionary is not a political act," said Manning on Monday, "but removing words still in everyday use just because you've decided they ought not be important in the vocabulary of a modern child most decidedly is."

Here is the full article, in case you were wanting to read the rest.  I do feel a little nervous about talking about it.  I wonder if big brother is watching.  I make a promise to all of my readers (all two of you) that I will refuse to adopt the newspeak on this blog as long as I can hold out!

shift

I have seen these slide shows before, but this one is the best one I've seen.




[ht: Rodney Olsen]

The End of the World as we Know it.

I heard this quote on the radio on the way home yesterday. I thought it was pretty good, so I decided to pass it along to you.

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802)
3rd president of US (1743 - 1826)

I have never been a doom-sayer. Usually when people start talking about doom and gloom I respond with "Oh. It could get a lot worse..." and then I drop it.

But I have to say, the way things are going, I have come to believe that I will see the end of America as we know it. We are just a hairsbreadth away from a very different society than we used to be. In fact, if you look at any area of our current culture: the educational system, our economy, the media, our entertainment, etc., you will see trends. The elimination of God, the declining of morals, the increase of federal government, the people's increasing desire to have the government (or someone in the government) to save us all. I find it disconcerting (not necessarily frightening...)

I would like to resurrect a previous quote from Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee:

A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.
The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
From Bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage.

Did you catch that phrase? "From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury..." If that doesn't fit our current state, I don't know what does. We have moved from apathy to dependence. It just leaves me with a couple of questions: How much longer do we have? Can it be turned around? Should it be turned around?