News you won't see in controlled mainstream media.

Jesus Christ Our Creator ~~

"For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him." (Colossians 1:16)~

Before one can really know Jesus Christ as Savior or Lord, he must acknowledge Him as offended and rejected Creator, because He was our Creator first of all. This is such an important doctrine of the New Testament that it is remarkable how rarely it is emphasized in modern evangelicalism.

Creation by Jesus Christ is the doctrine with which John begins his great gospel of salvation: "In the beginning was the Word,...All things were made by him;...and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not" (John 1:1,3,10). It is the foundational message of the book of Hebrews:"God...hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds" (Hebrews 1:1-2).

The apostle Paul said that he had been called specifically to preach "the unsearchable riches of Christ; And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ" (Ephesians 3:8-9). When a person becomes a believer in Christ, receiving His very life by the new birth, he is said to be "renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him" (Colossians 3:10).

In the final book of the Bible, Jesus Christ is called the "Alpha...the beginning...the Almighty" (Revelation 1:8), as well as "the beginning of the creation of God" (3:14).

But of all the Biblical passages identifying Jesus Christ as CREATOR, the most definitive of all is our text for today. Everything in heaven and earth was created by Him, and for Him

"For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen" (Romans 11:36).
---
Institute for Creation Research -
Days of Praise/HMM

JESUS CHRIST, the same yesterday, and to day, and forever.
Hebrews 13:8

Christ Our Substitute ~

"So Christ was offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation." (Hebrews 9:28)-

There are two specific references in the New Testament to Christ "bearing" our sins as he died on the cross. In addition to our text above, the other is 1 Peter 2:24: "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree."

However, the same word (Greek, 'anaphero') is also used with a similar thrust in Hebrews 7:27, where it is translated "offer up"; "Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's: for this he did once, when he offered up; hemself."

When Christ died, He died as a substitutionary sacrifice, "offering up" our sins for judgment and punishment by a holy God, as He simultaneously "offered up" Himself as the One who would submit to that judgment and bear that punishment. He was 'able' to do this because He was both the infinite CREATOR and the one sinless man, who needed not to offer a sacrifice for His own sins. He was 'willing' to do this because He loved us and wanted to save us.

This doctrice of substitutionary sacrifice is central to the Gospel of salvation, and therefore precious to the saint. But its central importance likewise means that it is profoundly offensive to the natural man. Many acclaim Him as a great martyr or a great teacher, but deny either His deity or His humanity, and certainly deny the universal efficacy of His shed blood in substitutionary sacrifice for the sin of a lost world.

Nevertheless, he did bear the sins of "the many," and he did completely settle our account with God. In both Herews 7:27 and 9:28 (as cited above), the word "once" means, literally, "once for all." He did have to die once--but only once--as our sin-bearing substitute. Thus, when He comes again, it will be "without sin unto salvation."

----
ICR/HMM
JESUS IS LORD!

JESUS CHRIST OUR CREATOR

The Powers of God ~

"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty." (Revelation 1:8) --

~~IN these days of rampant humanism, blatant materialism, and effete religionism, the very concept of an all- powerful God who created, controls, and judges all things seems anachronistic, but God is still 'there' and is still the Almighty.

Three Greek words are translated "power" in Scripture-- exousia ("authority"), dunamis ("ability"), and Kratos (strength"). Each is attributed in unlimited extent to God the CREATOR as incarnate in Christ the Redeemer. "All power ['authority'] is given unto me in heaven and in earth" (Matthew 28:18). "For thine is the kingdom, and the power ['ability], and the glory, for ever" (Matthew 6:13. "That ye may know ...the exceeding greatness of his power ['ability'] to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power ['strength'], Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, Far above all principality, and power ['authority'], and might, and dominion" (Ephesians 1:18-21).

He is the "Almighty God" of Abraham (Genesis 17:1), "the everlasting God, the LORD, the CREATOR of the ends of the earth" (Isaiah 40:28). "Our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased" (Psalm 115:3).

God can do whatever He pleases, except anything contrary to His nature. He "cannot lie" (Titue 1:2), for He is "the truth" (John 14:6). His inspired word is inerrant--"the scripture of truth" (Daniel 10:21).

We can be certain that He did not "create" the world by evolution, for that would be contradicted both by His infallible Word and by His omnipotence. Being all-powerful, God would surely not create by such a cruel, inefficient process as evolution. ~
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Institute for CREATION -
Reasearch ~~/HMM

Who is Jesus Christ?

A Challenge to Christians~
By: Andrew A Snelling, PhD

<http://www.icr.org/article/3338/>

Blessings~

Truth Never Changes... ((( Smiles )))

To God be the Glory.
Life is far more complex then just being here by chance.
There is so much to observe in this world that relates to God's incredible design...
Intelligent Design and that all eyes are on a small plot of land written about in the scripture's from Ancient Bibilical times.
And more prophecy's yet to be fulfilled, so for many people there is no doubt.
This system of things this planet as it is of now is passing away..
Sick planet, Sick World, we are all incredibly sick too and many of us just don't know it of yet.
We don't see the sickness our own imperfections though we may noticed the imperfections of others more then our own..
but God see's all of our imperfections and that we are in need of a "Savior" in a dying polluted corrupted world.
There is no other way out.
The path is fixed and just going green will not fix this mess.
Humankind can not fix this mess though many believe we can.
It will be God's way or no way because humans solutions are Imperfect at best, Corrupt at worse.

Signature In The Cell..
DNA and the Evidence For Intelligent Design
Stephen C. Meyer

http://www.signatureinthecell.com/

http://www.signatureinthecell.com/quotes.php

Job 26:13
By His Spirit the heavens were beautiful; His hand pierced the fleeing snake.

To assemble them in war against God Almighty
Rev 20:9

"I turned you to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all who saw you...
You... shall be no more forever"
Ezekiel 28:18,19

And the world will be a much better place to live in too.
Right now it's a total mess but thats not the end of the story....

Thank God For That.

Bible Dictionary -

CREATION= The mighty act of God in which, by His Word alone, He brought into existence the universe and everything in it; Sometimes called 'ex nihilo' [Lat., "out of nothing"].

Also refers to 'all that was created'.
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Malachi 2:10a "Do we not all have one Father? Has not one God CREATED us?..."

Revelation 4:11 "Worthy are you, our Lord, and our God, to receive glory; for you CREATED all things; and because of Your will they existed, and were created."

---- --

--CREATION:
NT STYLE ~~

Ephesians 1:3-6
---
He chose us in Him
before the foundation
of the world.
---Ephesians 1:4 -
---
WHEN we think about the marvel of creation--how God spoke the universe into existence and formed the earth and everything in it--we think most often of Old Testament accounts. But it is encouraging to examine the New Testament to see how that part of the Bible refers to creation. Here is a look at some key passages:

"I will utter thinks kept secret from the foundation of the world" (Matt. 13:35). God reveals things to us that He had kept secret since before creation.

"Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world" (Matt. 25:34). Before the earth was created, God knew each of us--and our future.

"He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world" (Eph. 1:4). Before the work of creation even began, God was aware of each of His eventual children.

These New Testament verses comfort us with the truth that God's knowledge of us and His eternal mysteries about us point toward His special creation of mankind as described in Genesis. We can do nothing but bow in awe before One whose knowledge and creative ability are eternal and boundless.

CREATION: New Testament style---still another reason to give God praise
----
Each person is a unique expression
of God's loving design.

ODB/DB

--The Light of the Word

"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path." (Psalm 119:105)-

AS the sun provides physical light for the world, so Jesus Christ is spiritually "the light of the world" (John 8:12). However, we clearly can see His light only through the light holder, the lamp, as it were, of His written Word. The Word, therefore, is a lamp and, since it contains and reveals the light, is also a light in its own right. Without the Holy Scriptures, this world would lie in the deepest darkness, but "the entrance of thy words giveth light" (Psalm 119:130).

The Lord Jesus Chrirst is the living Word, and "without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not" (John 1:3-5). Although He "was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world" (John 1:9), when He Himself came into the world, those who were made by Him refused to receive Him. "Men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil" (John 3:19).

Just so, although the written Word has come into the world, the world does not receive it, either. The lamp and the light of the written Word have been in the world (in complete and final form) for 1,900 years, but men still reject and ridicule it, and the world still lies in darkness. Nevertheless, for those who receive it, there is wonderful light. "Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light" (John 12:35-36).

God's Word always brings light. His first spoken Word was: "Let there be light" (Genesis 1:3), and wherever He speaks, God sees the light, and it is good! --

ICR/HMM

--THE HOLY WAR ~

"The battle now being waged among the power centers of the world is essentially a strategic warfare guided by two entirely different belief systems. One seeks to control the affairs of men based on a naturalistc and humanistic worldview, and the other seeks to present a theistic and creationist worldview.

"What we believe will frame our reactions, our priorities, and our expectations." Henry M Morris III, D. Min. / ICR

Check it out:
<http://www.icr.org/article/5488/>

JESUS IS LORD!

The Holy War.. (((( Smiles )))

This is so true the longing so many have in this world.
I just had to share this.

God called the universe into existence for his glory.
Forming humankind from the dust of the earth was the pinnacle of creation.
God welcomed Adam and Eve into his beautiful world by breathing into them the breath of life.
Tragically, instead of running free within the fences, they rejected God by breaking down God's good boundaries.
Although thousands of years have passed since our first parents were driven out of Eden, there's still something within each of us that longs to get back to the garden.
It's as if we can taste that good fruit of the garden- but only a trace amount on the tips of our tongues.
We want more but it's always outside our reach.

Yes, the longing for something better then this to get back to the garden of fresh air, plentiful food, beautiful vegetation.
And be one with OUR GOD. The best Government & Ruler of all.
Fair and true and just.

"What we believe will frame our reactions, our priorities, and our expectations." Henry M Morris III, D. Min. / ICR

As you already know of course....
Humans are humans chimps are chimps and God created many spieces that have long ago died out on this planet but they are not human and they never will be human.
Just look at all the variety of the flowers and the trees on this planet and the muiltiude of stars in the sky.
God is a master designer a master creator can we limit God. No! But in the naturalistc and humanist worldview they do and can.

They don't see the splendor and gory in it all and try to simplify it but can they simplify the amazing cell.
There is so much amazing facts to behold in the design of this world and the heavens above. How could anybody try to simplify anything in this life?
We are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God thats why we need a savior. The world this planet needs to be saved.
In their world there is a perfect man somewhere that does not believe in God but should get to heaven on his or her good works, merits.
That is their line of thinking about fairness but they really don't know the Scriptures well because what good moral means for them is totally different then what it means to God as it doesn't exist.
We judge on outward apperances but God reads hearts intentions and motives, we don't.
So this hypothesis really doesn't exist.
And as the Ten Commandents show us our sins..
Who hasen't fallen short of that it shows us why we need a savior instead of the earthly idea of the moral perfect man that doesn't really exist in God's eyes at all.
We are all born into sin since the fall the scriptures state.

Yes.. Two entirely different belief systems.
That is so true.

He Shall Judge the World --

"Before the LORD: for he cometh, for he cometh to judge the earth: he shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with truth." (Psalm 96:13) -

~~Those men and women who reject or ignore the wonderful offer of salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ need somehow to realize the eternal consequences of their foolishness. Jesus Christ was not just a religious teacher in Israel two thousand years ago, but is the very God who created them, the Second Person of the triune God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). God the Father "created all things by Jesus Christ" (Ephesians 3:9), and therefore "hath committed all judgment unto the Son" (John 5:22).

And on what basis will He judge us? Our text tells us that "righteousness" and "truth" are the criteria. The problem is that "there is none righteous, no, not one" (Romans 3:10). "He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him" (1 John 2:4). However, the Lord Jesus was incarnate Truth and Righteousness, and God "hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him" (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Christ has made eternal salvation available freely to us. There is no other way. "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him" (John 3:36).

But how do we know that all this is not just a peculiar doctrine of one particular religion?

Here is how. God "hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead" (Acts 17:31).

By defeating death itself, Christ has vindicated His claim to be the Judge of all!---
ICR/HMM
JESUS IS LORD! JESUS IS CREATOR! JESUS IS JUDGE!
JESUS IS COMING BACK TO CLAIM HIS BRIDE, THE CHURCH! Are you ready?

Was Jesus Christ Really God?
By: Dr. Charles F Stanley/ In Touch Ministries

For centuries, seeking men and women have asked the same ageless question: "Who is Jesus?" We may say He is our Savior, and that is true. We may say He is Lord, and that is also accurate. We may say He is the pattern for our lives, and that is likewise compatible with Scripture.

But He is MORE than just our Savior, Lord, and Living Example.

Jesus Christ is God. That is the foundational truth we celebrate at Christmas: the incarnation-God becoming flesh in the person of Jesus Christ.

Because the Babe in the manger was God, human history was altered. Man's eternal destiny was affected. The CREATOR had taken on the form of His creation-man-in order to reconcile holy God and sinful man.

Born to a carpenter and his wife, Jesus of Nazareth was a divine lineage--the only begotten of the Father the Second Person of the Trinity.

John's intent in his magnificent introduction was to reveal that Jesus Christ is fully God, the exact and express image of the Father:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

"He was in the beginning with God.

"All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

"In Him was life, and the life was the light of men...

"And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:1-4,14). " -

John establishes the central truth that Jesus was God Who came to earth in human form--without sin--in order to die for the sins of mankind. -

Though human, He was without a sin nature; for He was conceived by God, not man.

As He taught and lived for thirty-three years, He revealed the Father, proclaimed His deity, and finished His redemptive work on Calvary's cross.

His resurrection attested to His absolute deity, giving man certain hope that his sins can be forgiven through faith in Him, thus receiving the gift of eternal life.

In coming to earth, Jesus chose to lay aside some of His divine privileges that were righfully His at the right hand of the Father. He chose to humble Himself to become man, subordinating Himself to the Father to accomplish the Father's amazing plan of salvation.

Jesus as man was fully human yet fully God. He retained all of His deity. Had He come in His full, radiant glory, He could not have been approached. [No man can look upon God and live.]

Jesus was God before He came to the earth. He was God on the cross. He was God in His resurrection. He remains forever God, and by the Father's decree, Christ will one day reign as Lord of lords and King of kings over all creation.

Jesus was deity cloaked in humanity--Spirit clothed in flesh.

When John calls Jesus "the Word," he is referring to the full, verbal, visible expression of God. Jesus is the tangible, visible manifestation of the invisible God.

Paul describes Jesus in this manner:
"And He ,Jesus, is the image of the invisible Good, the first-born of all creation.
"For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth.." (Colossians 1:15-16).

The divinely inspired writer of Hebrews says that Jesus "is the radiance of His (God's) glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.." (Heb. 1:3).

Jesus Christ was preexistent as God before time began.

It was Christ, the Son of God, Who walked in the blaze of fire with the three Hebrews. (Daniel 3:25)

It was Christ Who, along with the Father and the Holy Spirit, participated in the CREATION of the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:26)

In order for Jesus Christ to become sinless human flesh and live among men, He had to exist in eternity past. Only God exists in eternity past; and that is John's inspired logical thesis in his Gospel prologue.

Someone has said that Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord. Every word of Scripture and every event in Jesus' life affirms that He is Lord of all.

Jesus claimed to be God on many occasions:
"...I am the way, the truth and the life.."(John 14:6)

When Philip asked Jesus to show them the Father, Jesus responded: "...He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how do you say, 'Show us the Father'?

"In order that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the son does not honor the Father who sent Him" (John 5:22-23).

It is the 'deity' of Christ that men must ultimately accept or reject.

Our eternal destiny hinges upon our belief and acceptance of Jesus as the Son of God, the Savior of all who believe in Him.
His deity was clearly expressed not only in His pre-existence but also in His power.

It was through the divine power of His resurrection that He conquered death, removing its sting and giving us the hope of eternal life. It was through His divine power that He performed miracles of healing, even bringing dead men back from the grave.

In each instance Jesus was validating His perfect deity, provided us with evidence that His personhood was that of the Second Person of the Trinity, the Son of God.

He was the Light that came to expose the darkness of sin and evil. He was the life that came to overcome death.

Through Christ's divine power and authority, we can be born again by His Spirit.

That is why we cannot deny the deity of Christ and be saved.

Only God can save us, for only God can forgive us. Good works, self-effort, morality cannot transform a man from death to life. Only Jesus Christ can do that, and He does so because He is God, Who alone gives life to men:
"For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes" (John 5:21).

"And the witness is this, that God has give us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.

"He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life" (1 John 5:11-12).

The wonder of Christmas is God becoming flesh in person of Jesus Christ. It is the heart of the Gospel. If Jesus is not God, then we are without hope of eternal life and without help in this life. Jesus came to die on a cruel cross so that we might be reconciled to friendship with Father God through faith in Christ Jesus.
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Please study out these Scriptures from God's Holy Bible and ask Him to open your spiritual eyes, so that you too, can be born again and have eternal life with our Lord Jesus, Creator of all things, the first born of all creation, our Redeemer.

Jesus Christ Our Creator -
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WEBSTER'S NEW WORLD DICTIONARY / 2nd College Edition

Trinity = A union of the three divine persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or Holy Ghost) in one Godhead .
-------
Father, Son & Holy Spirit
By: Pastor Charles Stanley

The first chapter of John verse 1 says: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." As we go through that chapter we are drawn to the conclusion in verse 14 that "the Word" is Jesus. "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth." That "only begotten" is the Greek word "monogenes," which means the sole person that could be begotten.

If He was the Son of God the Father, then He is God the Son. It says in the third verse: "All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made." So, He is the God of creation; He is the beloved Son in whom the Father was well pleased. Scripture tells us in Philippians 2:7-8 that He "...took upon Him the form of a servant, and...became obedient unto death, even the death of a cross" so that you and I might have the way of salvation.

There are also other passages I want to give you. In John 14:9, Jesus tells us: "...he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." In John 10:30, Jesus says that "I and my Father are one." Read again through the remainder of John and look for passages of Scripture that identify Jesus and the Father as one and the same in eternal essence and yet different in their roles.

There is another verse of Scripture in First John 3:16 that makes further explanation, which I think will help a great deal. It says: "Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." He (God) laid down His life for us. How did He do that? The Son did that, and in First John 2:23 it says: "Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: [but] he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also." The Father is the eternal, self-existent, self-glorifying God and the Son is the same God. Jesus Christ is the Son of God and He is God the Son. He is the God-man and that is the reason why He could die for our sins and rise again the third day from the grave.
Now...

Now the Holy Spirit, or Holy Ghost as He is referred to in the King James translation, is the third part of the Trinity. I want you to go back, if you will, to Genesis chapter one. In the first chapter of the Bible and the second verse, listen to what he says about the work of the Spirit.

Genesis 1:2: "And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters." That's the Holy Spirit, we see Him in creation. Then, notice the twenty-sixth verse of Genesis chapter 1: "Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea...the birds of the sky...the cattle and over...the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Now, when He said, "Let Us make man in Our image" what did he mean? Well, He's certainly referring to God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. They are the Creator. (singular/tri-une)

Now, when He said, "Make man in our Own image" what did He mean? Eyes, ears, hands, feet? No. The image of God is the capacity to know, to feel and to have emotion. The image of God is a mind that is able to will and to make decisions. God is Spirit and is not limited to a physical body. The Holy Spirit is a Spirit not limited to a physical body. God who is Spirit came in flesh in the person of Jesus Christ to walk among men as the sinless Son of the living God to reveal to us the true nature of God.

You'll recall that Jesus said to the woman at the well, "God is a Spirit" (John 4:24). And the Holy Spirit is the person who now lives within us, not limited by a physical body. He, who is God, who is a person of the Trinity, is now living within us (believers). The Bible says that all of us who are saved by the grace of God are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. We have the Spirit of God indwelling us and that is what identifies us and separates us from the rest of the world. And you see, the Bible says that the Holy Spirit is God's seal of ownership and possession. The presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer is God's contract with us that we are forever His children. ~~

(to be continued)
Pastor Charles Stanley
JESUS IS LORD! JESUS IS CREATOR! JESUS IS KING! JESUS IS GOD!
[God the Son, God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit are one God in three different aspects in relationship to us. We have a picture here of something that is difficult to understand from the human standpoint, but we must accept it and believe it, because that is what the Word teaches.]-
HOLY BIBLE ~~

Jesus Christ our Creator/ One Person in the Triune God-

(being continued)

Now think about this! God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit; all equal. Different roles, but equal. And therefore if God the Father is omnipotent, God the Son is omnipotent, God the Holy Spirit is omnipotent. And who is it that indwells every single believer but the Holy Spirt of God who is omnipotent, all powerful and who has as His purpose to release His supernatural, divine energy through you and me; to live the Christian life and to serve Him in whatever capacity He calls us. So for believers, every single one of us is indwelt by the Holy Spirit of the living God. We accept this by faith, as the Holy Scriptures enlighten our undestanding.

Somebody says, "Now wait a minute now. For years you've talked about Christ being our life and Jesus Christ indwelling us. Now you tell us that the Holy Spirit is indwelling us." Right! Jesus Christ said, "I'm going away. If I do not go away the Comforter will not come. But if I go I will send Him. He'll be in you, with you and upon you."

He said, " I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you" (John 16:7 and John 14:16-17). And how did Jesus come back to them? He came to them just the same way He comes to us. We talk about receiving the Lord Jesus Christ: "But as many as received Him, to them gave He the power to become the sons of God." It is the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit with us who lives out through us the very life of Jesus Christ. Christ dwells with us in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. God the Father is in us in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

You cannot separate Father, Son, and Spirit when it comes to the unity. On the other hand, they each have a diffent role in God's great redemptive plan. And so, God the Father is seated at His throne in heaven. At His right hand is God the Son. On this earth to take the place of Jesus Christ who ascended, living in the life of every single believer is the person of the Holy Spirit in all of His deity, in all of of His unlimited Godhead, living through us. One of His primary purposes is to live through us the life of Jesus Christ, because He knows we can't live it on our own. And it's interesting that He said to the apostles, "You're not ready to preach, you're not ready to carry out the Great Commission until you be endued with power from on high" (Luke 24:49,par.).

So the promise of the Holy Spirit is the promise of a Person. It is a 'gift' from God. It is the gift of a person of the Trinity. It is the promise of the Father to every single believer. Every single one of us who know Jesus Christ as our Savior is indwelt by a person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit who has come to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

I encourage you to make the Trinity a matter of prayer, asking that God would illuminate these truths for you. May He "give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him...that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe" (Ephesians 1:17-19a, NAS).-
-----
Pastor Charles Stanley
Father, Son, & Holy Spirit
In Touch +

TRULY AWESOME!!! GOD OF THE AGES ~~~

This song written by, Travis Doucette -- and sung by, Charles Billingsly from TRBC, in Lynchburg, VA is a favorite, written about a year ago.

I hope and pray it comes through for you and it will bless your sox off! Listen to the words. AWESOME!

Thank you, Russ and Laura for allowing the Word of the Lord to go forth on your website. God bless you!




Be blessed. He is Creator, the invisible God, the first born of creation. AMEN!

Blessings, Abishag

INDESCRIBABLE
by: Chris Tomlin

Listen to the words. WOW!



Jesus is LORD! JESUS IS CREATOR!

INDESCRIBABLE !

Chris Tomlin
-----
From the highest of heights to the depths of the sea

Creation's revealing Your majesty.

From the color of Fall to the fragrance of Spring

Every creature unique in the song that it sings

All exclaiming --

Indescribable , uncontainable

You placed the stars in the sky and you know them by name.

You are amazing God

All powerful, untameable, awestruck we fall to our knees

as we humbly proclaim

You are amazing God.

Who has told every lightning bolt where it should go

Or seen heavenly storehouses laden with snow

Who imagined the sun and gives source to its light

Yet conceals it to bring us the coolness of night.

None can fathom...

Indescribable, Uncontainable

You placed the stars in the sky and you know them by name.

You are amazing God

All powerful, untameable, awestruck we fall to our knees as we
humbly proclaim

You are amazing God! (chorus/sing 3 times here)

Incomparable, unchangeable

You see the depths of my heart and you love me the same

You are amazing God

You are amazing God ~~

Is Jesus the Creator God?
By: Bodie Hodge, AiG

A Look at John 1:1-3 ~~~

Jesus is Creator ~~
From: Answers In Genesis

Keywords: Jesus Christ, Creator, God, created being, atone, sin, faith, deity,

Is this even an important question? Absolutely! If Jesus is not God, and therefore the Creator, then He is a created being. If Jesus is created, then how could He have been an adequate sacrifice to atone for sins committed against an infinite God? Jesus must have been God to adequately atone for our sins, which bring upon us unlimited guilt and cause us to deserve an eternal hell.

But does it really matter whether or not we believe that Jesus is God? Yes! If one places faith in a false Christ, one that is not described in Scripture, then can this false Christ save them? Truly, the identity of Christ is of utmost importance. And yet, in today’s culture there are people teaching that Jesus was a created being. They are leading people astray.

What sets biblical Christianity apart from cults and other world religions? It is the person of Jesus Christ—who He is. In Islam, Jesus was a messenger of God, but not the Son of God. In many cults, the deity of Jesus Christ is negated, and in many world religions and personal views, Jesus is just another wise teacher. But the Bible says that all things were created by Him and for Him:

For by Him [Jesus] all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him (Colossians 1:16).
Hebrews indicates that God calls Jesus, the Son, God:

But to the Son He says: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your Kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness more than Your companions” (Hebrews 1:8–9).

We should expect Satan, the adversary of God and the father of lies, to advance many variants of the person of Jesus Christ. Satan would want all the false views to succeed in some measure to lead people away from the true Jesus.

One may recall the temptations of Jesus by Satan in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1–11). The great deceiver even attempted to use Scripture to trick Jesus into sinning (Matthew 4:6). The tactic of the serpent in the garden was to deceive the woman by distorting the plain meaning of the Word of God (Genesis 3:1–6). Satan, through the serpent, quoted the words of God and abused their meaning. We must be aware of the devil’s devices (1 Corinthians 2:11).

If God was the Word, as John 1:1 is literally translated, then it is no problem for the Word to have created all things. As God, He created. How could the Word be with God and God be the Word at the same time? The doctrine of the Trinity (One God, three Persons) is the solution here. The Word was with God (the Father) and God (the Son) was the Word. This understanding, consistent with the rest of Scripture, eliminates any contradiction of multiple gods. There is only one God, revealed in a plurality of Persons.


Conclusion
The reality is that John 1:1–3 clearly reveals the deity of Jesus Christ, the Word, being the Creator God. As such it confirms many other passages in Scripture that teach that Christ is God. Early church fathers such as Ignatius, who was a disciple of John the Apostle, also recognized Jesus as God. The significance of this is a matter of salvation.

WHY IS THERE
COLOR?
Psalm 19:1-6
---
The heavens declare
the glory of God; and
the firmament shows
His handiwork.
---Psalm 19:1
~~~~
WHY do some trees turn into a collage of radiant maroon, red, orange, and yellow colors in the Fall? Trees are green in the summer because chlorophyll, a green pigment in the leaves, absorbs red and blue light from the sun. The light reflected from the leaves appears green to our eyes.

Chlorophyll is an unstable substance, and bright sunlight causes it to decompose rapidly. Therefore, plants must continuously synthesize and regenerate it. The shortening days and cool nights of Autumn, however, interfere with this process. As chlorophyll breaks down, the green colors of the leaves begin to fade.

Some trees change from green to bright yellow as the chlorophyll degrades. In others, the action of sugar in the leaves creates a red pigment, causing the leaves to turn maroon, purple, and bright red as the chlorophyll fades.

But why do we have color? It seems to serve no practical purpose--at least none that scientists can discern. And why are there photoreceptors in our eyes that enable us to see it?

I believe that God's goodness is the point of His CREATION. He is "good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works" (Ps. 145:9). He colored the world for our childlike delight. He's like that, you know.

God, the engineer of all creation,
Spoke the word, and beauty was begun,
Then He gave to us His great salvation
Through the sacrifice of His own Son. -
-------
God's glory shines through His creation.
ODB/DR

--Creation and the Virgin Birth
Institute for Creation Research/HMM PhD

*The problem of Inherited Physical defects

--The miracle was not Christ's birth but His conception

*The Necessity of Special Creation

*The Marvel of Inheritance and Pre-Natal Growth

*The body of Christ

The incarnation of Jesus Christ is such an important doctrine of the New Testatment that without it there can be no true Christianity.

"Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God; and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God."
(1 John 4:23)

Check it out:
<http://www.icr.org/article/creation-virgin-birth/>

--GOD'S PRESENCE
Colossians 1:9-14
---
Walk worthy
of the Lord.
--Colossians 1:10 -
---
What would we have to do to display the presence of God? People would have to live like Him!

Dynamics like hospitality, the loving acceptance of all kinds of people, a quickness to serve, a tangible love for one another that makes people feel safe and included regardless of color or class, and a patient tolerance of one another's weaknesses would all be a great way to start.

Paul said we should walk in a manner "worthy of the Lord" (Col. 1:10). And he also said that being worthy means that we will be humble, gentle, bearing with one another in love, eagerly maintaining the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Eph. 4:2-3).

Let's live in such a way that others will experience the presence of the God who lives in us--wherever we are!

The world gets a glimpse of God
When those who claim to be
The followers of Jesus Christ
Are living righteously.
---
Those who walk with Christ
bring the presence of God to everyone around them.
ODB/JS

Who Are the Good Shepherd's Sheep?

Hanukkah, sometimes called the Feast of Dedication or the Feast of Lights, is an eight-day celebraton to commemorate the rededication of the temple in 164 B.C. after it had been profaned by Antiochus IV Epiphanes three years earlier.

In A.D.32 Hanukkah began on December 18, and Jesus was in Jerusalem for the celebration. He was in the temple walking through the section known as Solomon's Colonnade, where following his resurrection believers met to proclaim him as the Messiah (Acts 3:11-4:4, 5:12). There the Jewish leaders surrounded him and asked, "How long are you going keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly" (John 10:24). It wasn't that they wanted to know whether he was the Messiah so that they could follow him; rather, they were trying to get him to make statements that they could use against him.

The reason that Jesus did not publicly claim to be the Messiah was that in first-century Palestine there were many popular political and military misconceptions about the Messiah with which Jesus did not want to identify. The popular conception of the Messiah was that he would be a conquering ruler, not a suffering servant whose kingdom would be neither political nor military.

Jesus replied that his words and deeds pointed to him as the Messiah. He said, "The proof is what I do in the name of my Father. But you don't believe because you are not part of my flock. My sheep recognize my voice; I know them, and they follow me" (vv.25-27). The implication is that the reverse is also true: those who are not part of his flock don't recognize his voice; Jesus doesn't know them, and they do not follow him.

Jesus went on to tell more of what he does for his sheep, saying, "I give them eternal life, and they will never perish" (v.28). There is therefore a group of individuals, here called "his sheep," of whom it can be said, "They will never perish."

However, the focus is not on the power of eternal life but on the power of Jesus. He continues, "No one will snatch them away from me, for my Father has given them to me, and he is more powerful than anyone else. So no one can take them from me" (vv.28-29). The security of Jesus' sheep lies with the Good Shepherd. As his sheep, we are not hanging on to him--he is hanging on to us. God the Father is more powerful than anyone in the universe, and so no one can steal his sheep.

Jesus' next words were blockbusters: "The Father and I are one" (v.30). Jesus does what the Father does and vice versa.
Hearing this, once again the Jewish leaders picked up stones to kill him. But Jesus asked them a simple question:

"At my Father's direction I have done many things to help the people. For which one of these good deeds are you killing me?"

They replied, "Not for any good work, but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, have made yourself God."

Jesus replied,"...Why do you call it blasphemy when the Holy One who was sent into the world by the Father says, "I am the Son of God'? Don't believe me unless I carry out my Father's work. But if I do his work, believe in what I have done, even if you don't believe me. Then you will realize that the Father is in me, and I am in the Father." -

Once again they tried to arrest him, but he got away and left them. (vv.32-39)

Why was he able to get away? Because His hour had not yet come.
---
Reflection ~~
Are you one of the Good Shepherd's sheep? You can tell by whether or not you recognize his voice and you follow him. If you are one of his sheep, he has given you eternal life, and you will never perish.

~~~~
The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. JOHN 10:11

--Christian History
By: E. Michael and Sharon Rusten

-Maker and Owner

"I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power and by my outstretched arm, and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me." (Jeremiah 27:5)
--
"The earth, the man and the beast" are the three entities which God is said to have "created" (Hebrew, bara--note Genesis 1:1, 21, 27) in the Genesis account of creation. However, they are also said in Genesis to have been "made" (Hebrew, asah--note Genesis 1:25-26; 2:4), and that is the emphasis in our text above. Of course both aspects were accomplished in the six days of creation week, after which God "rested from all his work which God created and made" (Genesis 2:3). This statement makes it abundantly plain that the present processes of nature do not "create" (call into existence out of nothing) or "make" (build up into more complex forms) anything, as our modern theistic evolutionists and evangelical uniformitarians allege. God has rested from both of these works, except in occasional miraculous intervention in the present laws and processes of "nature."

Now, because God did create and make all things, He also "owns" all things. "The earth is the LORD's, and the fulness thereof" (Psalm 24:1). "Every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills" (Psalm 50:10). "The LORD hath made all things for himself" (Proverbs 16:4).

Therefore, all that we possess--as individuals or as nations--has simply been entrusted to us as God's stewards, and "every one of us shall give account of himself to God" (Romans 14:12). Without a doubt this accounting will be of our handling of our goods, our minds, and our opportunities, among others. For "it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful" (1 Corinthians 4:2).

Let us be thankful--not covetous; and industrious--not slothful; in everything He has entrusted to us.

ICR/HMM

Did Jesus Teach Recent Creation? -

by Henry Morris, Ph.D./ICR

Most everyone has been taught all through their school years that the earth, life, animals, and man have all been developing from primordial beginnings over billions of years of natural evolution. Many have tried to "baptize" this process, so to speak, by calling it "theistic" evolution or "progressive" creation saying that God may have used evolution as His process of creation.

Because of this ubiquitous indoctrination, even many evangelical Christians have felt they must conform to this evolutionary worldview, especially in relation to the so-called "deep time" that is so essential to evolutionism. One respected leader of the "Intelligent Design" movement, for example, recently wrote to me that he would prefer to believe in a "young earth," but that science had proved that the earth was very old, so he had to go with science. Two other leaders of this I.D. movement told me personally on two separate occasions that they could not even afford to listen to my arguments for a young earth because they were afraid they would be convinced and that this would halt their opportunities to speak to college groups and others about Intelligent Design.

So I have written this brief article to show once again that the Lord Jesus Himself believes in recent creation and the young earth. Assuming that a Christian is a person who believes in the deity and inerrant authority of Christ, it would seem that this fact should be sufficient to convince him.

What I will do here, therefore, is to list three key reasons for concluding that our Lord Jesus Christ believed and taught literal recent creation of all things essentially instantaneously by the omnipotent command of God, who "spake, and it was done" (Psalm 33:9).

The Bible nowhere allows for long ages.
One can search the Scriptures (see my book Biblical Creationism for proof) from beginning to end without finding even a hint of evolution or long ages. To Jesus, every "jot or one tittle" of Scripture was divinely inspired (Matthew 5:18) and He warned us severely against adding any other words to it (Revelation 22:18). The Bible, therefore, would certainly not leave the vital doctrine of creation open to human speculation.

The Bible explicitly states how and when creation took place.
Although many evangelicals have long equivocated as to the meaning of the "days" of creation, this type of ad hoc handling of Scripture is never justified in the context, and Christ Himself would never have interpreted them as indefinite ages of some kind. Not only is "day" (Hebrew, yom) defined in this context the first time it is used (Genesis 1:5), but the writer conclusively restricted its interpretation to the literal meaning by numbering the days ("first day," "second day," etc.) and by indicating their boundaries ("evening and morning"), both of which restrictions elsewhere in the Old Testament limit the meaning to literal days. The question seems to be even more firmly settled when God wrote with His own finger that "in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the [seventh] day, and hallowed it" (Exodus 20:11), thereby basing our calendar's seven-day week on this primeval creation week. Jesus referred to this divine example when He said that "The sabbath was made for man" (Mark 2:27) to meet our weekly need of rest from work.

The Lord Jesus recognized that men and women existed right from the beginning.
The current opinion is that the cosmos evolved about 16 billion years ago, the earth about 4.6 billion, primitive life perhaps two billion, and human life about one million years ago. The Lord Jesus, on the other hand (who was there, having Himself created all things—note John 1:1-3), taught that men and women were made essentially at the same time as the cosmos itself, when He said that "from the beginning God . . . made them male and female" (Mark 10:6). "The beginning" obviously was a reference to Genesis 1:1, and Christ was specifically citing Genesis 1:26.

On another occasion, speaking especially of Adam's son Abel, He referred to "the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world" (Luke 11:50-51), thereby acknowledging that Abel was the first prophet, martyred in the very first generation—not 4.6 billion years after the formation of the earth. Jesus also said that Satan, using Cain to slay Abel, "was a murderer from the beginning" (John 8:44).

Note also that the father of John the Baptist, prophesying when filled with the Holy Spirit, said that God's holy prophets had been predicting a coming Savior "since the world began" (Luke 1:70). Then the apostle Peter later preached that the second coming of Christ and the ultimate removal of the great Curse on the earth had even been events that "God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began" (Acts 3:21). The apostle Paul wrote that evidence of God as Creator should have been "clearly seen" (by men, of course) ever since "the creation of the world."

There can be no reasonable doubt that Jesus was what evolutionists today (both theistic and atheistic) would call a "young-earth creationist." It would seem that this should settle the question for all true Christians, who should certainly—on the authority of Christ Himself—completely reject the notion of geologic ages.

But they don't! For one thing, not all who consider themselves Christians really believe the Bible, especially its unpopular teachings. Unfortunately, many who think they are Bible-believing Christians have become adept at "wresting" the Scriptures (note II Peter 3:17), even the recorded words of Jesus and the apostles, to make them conform to the scientism of evolutionary speculation. As noted above, there is not the slightest suggestion of millions and billions of years anywhere in the Bible when it is taken simply to mean what it says. That is why we "young-earth creationists" have to keep on reemphasizing the pervasive Bible teaching of just thousands of years of earth and cosmic history.

But what are we supposed to do when the Bible disagrees with the majority of scientists on such matters?

We are to believe the Bible—that's what! When the teachings of men conflict with the Word of God, it would be wise to go with God. -- -

Furthermore, there are now thousands of scientists (fully credentialed with post-graduate degrees from accredited universities) who have become convinced believers in recent creation. No doubt we are still a minority, but it is a growing minority. There are several hundred such scientists in the Creation Research Society, not to mention those on our ICR faculty as well as those associated with numerous other creationist organizations around the world.

There is also a rapidly growing body of scientific data that not only shows the impossibility of macroevolution but also much that repudiates the so-called evidences of "billions of years." Creationist geologists have been developing an abundance of evidence of global catastrophism instead of uniformitarianism in earth history—thus confirming the Biblical record of the great Flood as the major explanation for the fossil-bearing rocks in the earth's crust, instead of having to invent imaginary long ages of evolution to account for them.

It is possible now even to amass a list of dozens of worldwide natural processes (e.g., accumulation of salt in the sea) which, even on uniformist assumptions, will yield ages much too brief for evolution. Thus, even without referring to the Bible at all, it is possible to make an impressive case for recent creation. One cannot determine the exact age of the earth by science, of course, and these various processes may yield various values, but all prove too small for evolutionism to be possible.

With the supposed exception of radiometric dating, that is. The decay of uranium into lead, rubidium into strontium, and a few other such processes can be made to show extremely long ages, so radioactive decay processes have been considered by evolutionists to be firm proof of the billions of years.

But Christians need to remember that such calculations, like all the others, are based on the arbitrary assumption of uniformitarianism, which not only is unprovable but contrary to the Bible. The apostle Peter calls it "willing ignorance" (note II Peter 3:3-6) when this assumption ignores the world-changing impact of special creation of all things in the beginning and the worldwide geologic impact of the global Deluge in the days of Noah.

Furthermore, the forthcoming publications of the ICR/CRS RATE Initiative will show strong scientific evidence that even these radioactive decay processes really provide convincing arguments that the earth is thousands of years old—not billions!

Therefore, we plead once again with our Christian theistic evolutionists, progressive creationists, gap creationists, and intelligent design minimalists to come back to the Bible for their view of the world and its history. We should most certainly believe the words of our Lord Jesus Christ on this vital subject. "And why call ye me, Lord, Lord," He might well say, "and [believe] not the things which I say?" (Luke 6:46).
---
*Dr. Henry Morris is Founder and President Emeritus of ICR.
_________________________
"However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me--the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace." Acts 20:24 +

Recent Creation Is a Vital Doctrine
by Henry Morris, Ph.D.

There is no aspect of creationism which is under greater attack by evolutionists than the Biblical doctrine of recent creation. The evolutionist, knowing the weakness of the scientific case for evolution, almost always directs his own argument not against creation per se, but against recent creation and its corollary, flood geology.

As a result, many people who consider themselves creationists have been intimidated against this Biblical concept. Instead, they try to cling to the 19th century evolutionary compromise now known as the "day/age theory" and "progressive creation. Some take refuge in the "gap theory," hoping they can ignore the problem by pigeon-holing the evolutionary ages of the geologists in an imaginary gap between the first two verses of Genesis. Both theories attempt to accommodate the geological ages, even though it is the geological ages which provide the main basis and framework for evolution. We "young-earth creationists" are an embarrassment to both the progressive creationists and the gap creationists and so they urge us to acknowledge that recent creation is merely an optional interpretation which is unimportant and expendable.

But this we cannot do. As a strictly scientific question, divorced from any Biblical or theological considerations (as presumably, in a public school textbook or in a scientific debate) the date of creation can and should be treated as a separate topic from the fact of creation. This does not make it expendable, however. It is an important and basic issue that deserves serious study in its own right, strictly in terms of the relevant scientific data. When the Biblical and theological data are also considered (as in a church or other Christian context), the doctrine of recent creation becomes critically significant, integrally interwoven with the doctrine of creation itself. Outlined below, very briefly, are a few of the reasons why the doctrine of recent creation is vitally Important to true Biblical Christianity.

Historical Reasons

"Progressive creationism" is not a modern interpretation developed to bring the Genesis record into harmony with modern science, but a very ancient concept devised to impose a theistic connotation upon the almost universal pagan evolutionary philosophies of antiquity. The primeval existence of the cosmos, with matter in some form present from eternity, was a dogma common to all ancient religions and philosophies, seeking as they were to function without an omnipotent, holy, eternal, personal, Creator God. Compromising monotheists, both in ancient Israel and in the early Christian church, repeatedly resorted to various allegorical interpretations of Scripture, involving some form of protracted creation, seeking to amalgamate creationist/redemptionist theology with pagan humanistic philosophy. Almost inevitably, however, such compromises ended in complete apostasy on the part of the compromisers.

In more modern times, Charles Darwin himself is a classic case in point. Starting out as a Biblical creationist, his decline began with the acceptance of Lyellian uniformitarianism, the geological ages and progressive creationism. He then soon became a full-fledged theistic evolutionist and eventually an atheist. The same steps were traveled by many other scientists of that period. In fact, science itself was originally (in the days of Newton and the other founders of modern science) committed to the strict Biblical chronology, then drifted into progressive creationism (after Cuvier, Lyell and others), then into a Darwinian theistic evolutionism, finally into total evolutionary naturalism.

The creationist revival of the first quarter of the 20th century was short-lived because it again tried to compromise with the day-age theory. This was Bryan's fatal mistake at the Scopes trial. The various early creationist organizations also failed to take a firm position on recent creationism and soon either died out (e.g., The Religion and Science Association, which lasted just two years, and the Creation-Deluge Society, which survived for six years), or became almost impotent (as in the case of the Evolution Protest Movement) or capitulated to theistic evolutionism (for example, the American Scientific Affiliation). Multitudes of churches, schools and other Christian organizations, have followed the same dead-end path of compromise during the past century. 1

Theological Reasons

Even if one does not accept the Bible as the inerrant Word of God, the concept of a personal, omnipotent, omniscient, loving God is fatally flawed by the old-earth dogma. The very reason for postulating an ancient cosmos is to escape from God—to push Him as far away in space and as far back in time as possible, hoping thereby eventually to escape His control altogether, letting Nature become "god."

Surely an omniscient God could devise a better process of creation than the random, wasteful, inefficient trial-and-error charade of the so-called geological ages, and certainly a loving merciful God would never be guilty of a creative process that would involve the suffering and death of multitudes of innocent animals, in the process of arriving at man millions of years later.

It should be obvious that the God of the Bible would create everything complete and good, right from the start. The wastefulness and randomness and cruelty which is now so evident in the world (both in the groaning creation of the present and in the fossilized world of the past) must represent an intrusion into His creation, not a mechanism for its accomplishment. God would never do a thing like that, except in judgment of sin!

Furthermore, if one must make a choice between a full-fledged theistic evolutionism and a compromising "progressive creationism," with its "day/age" theory of Genesis one would have to judge the latter worse than the former, theologically speaking. Both systems are equally objectionable in terms of their common commitment to the geological age system, with its supposed three-billion-year spectacle of random wastefulness and a suffering, dying world. However, progressive creationism compounds the offense by making God have to redirect and recharge everything at intervals. Theistic evolution at least postulates a God able to plan and energize the total "creation" process right at the start. Progressive creation postulates a world that has to be pumped up with new spurts of creative energy and guidance whenever the previous injection runs down or misdirects. Surely all those who really believe in the God of the Bible should see that any compromise with the geological-age system is theological chaos. Whether the compromise involves the day/age theory or the gap theory, the very concept of the geological ages implies divine confusion and cruelty, and the God of the Bible could not have been involved in such a thing as that at all.

Biblical Reasons -

As far as the Biblical record itself is concerned, there is not the slightest indication anywhere in Scripture that the earth endured long ages before the creation of Adam and Eve. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself said: "But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female" (Mark 1:6).

The crystal-clear statement of the Lord in the Ten Commandments completely precludes the day/age interpretation of the six days of creation:

"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work,: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it" (Exodus 20:8-11).
If God's six work days were not the same kind of days as the six days of man's work week, then God is not able to say what He means. The language could hardly be more clear and explicit. Note also its further confirmation later in the chapter:

"The sabbath is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested, and was refreshed. And He gave unto Moses, when He had made an end of communing with him upon Mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God" (Exodus 31:17, 18).

All Scripture is divinely inspired, but this portion was divinely inscribed!

Still further, the record of the six days of creation concludes with the statement by God that everything in His creation was "very good" at the end of the six days (Genesis 1:31). There is no way this could be harmonized with a worldwide fossil graveyard a mile deep all around the earth. The Bible makes it plain, in fact, that death never even entered the world until Adam sinned (Romans 5:12; I Corinthians 15:21) and brought God's curse on the ground. (Genesis 3:17; Romans 8:20-22).

Scientific Reasons

Those who insist on accommodating the geological ages, despite all the Biblical, theological and historical arguments against them, do so on the grounds that "science" requires it. "God would not deceive us," they say, "by making the earth look so old, if it were really young."

But it is really the other way around. If the earth were really old, God would not deceive us by saying so clearly and emphatically that He created it all in six days.

For that matter, the earth does not really look old anyway. Evolutionists have tried to make it look old by imposing the unscriptural and unscientific dogma of uniformitarianism on the geologic record of earth history as preserved in the rocks of the earth's crust. The fact is that geologists are today finally abandoning their outmoded 19th-century uniformitarianism, realizing that catastrophism provides the only realistic explanation for the great geological structures of the earth. Even though they are still unwilling to acknowledge the validity of flood geology as based on the Bible, they do recognize now that the earth's various geological features were each formed rapidly, in intense catastrophes of one kind or another. Furthermore there are many times more geological processes and systems2 that yield a young age for the earth than the handful of radiometric methods that can be forced (through an extreme application of uniformitarianism) to yield an old age. The continued insistence on an ancient earth is purely because of the philosophic necessity to justify evolution and the pantheistic religion of eternal matter.

If it were not for the continued apathetic and compromising attitude of Christian theologians and other intellectuals on this vital doctrine of recent creation, evolutionary humanism would long since have been exposed and defeated. The world will never take the Biblical doctrine of the divine control and imminent consummation of all things very seriously until we ourselves take the Biblical doctrine of the recent creation of all things seriously.

Neither in space nor in time is our great God of creation and consummation "very far from every one of us" (Acts 17:27).
---JESUS IS CREATOR! JESUS IS LORD! ---

Creation Was 24/6 and Recent
--
The language of Genesis chapters 1 and 2 are technically precise and linguistically clear. Any reader would understand that the author of those pages intended to convey a normal six-day creation, involving God’s supernatural intervention both to create (something from nothing) and to make and shape (something basic into something more complex).

Three days (Day 1, Day 5, and Day 6) involve creation. Three days (Day 2, Day 3, and Day 4) involve the organization, integration, and structuring of the material created on Day 1.

Life was created on Day 5, a life in which all animals and man share. A special image of God was created on Day 6 that only man has. The movement from “simple to complex” may appear to follow evolution’s theory, but the specific order (water > land > plants > stellar and planetary bodies > birds and fish > land animals > man) most emphatically does not.

The Hebrew word for day (yom) is used some 3,000 times in the Hebrew Bible, and is almost always used to mean an ordinary 24-hour day-night cycle. On the few occasions where it is used to mean an indeterminate period of time, it is always clear from the context that it means something other than a 24-hour day (day of trouble, day of the Lord, day of battle, etc). Whenever it is used with an ordinal (1, 2, 1st, 2nd, etc.), it always means a specific day, an ordinary24-hour day.

The language of Genesis 1 appears to have been crafted so that no reader would mistake the word use for anything other than an ordinary 24-hour day. The light portion is named “day,” and the dark portion is named “night.” Then the “evening and the morning” is Day 1, Day 2, etc. The linguistic formula is repeated for each of the six days, a strange emphasis if the words were to be taken as allegorical or analogous to something other than a day-night cycle.

When God wrote the Ten Commandments with His own finger (certainly the most emphatic action ever taken by God on behalf of His revealed Word), God specifically designated a seventh day to be a “Sabbath” day (rest day) in memory and in honor of the work-six-days, rest-one-day activity of God during the creation week (Exodus 20:11). In that context, spoken and written by God Himself, the creation week can mean only a regular week of seven days, one of which is set aside as holy.

Institute for CREATION Research/ HMM

I don't like any compromise, but I see a great distinction between those who deny the flood and those who don't. The former classify themselves outright as members of the scoffer class predicted to come in the last days.

Those who ascribe to smaller compromises don't do well, but it's a mistake on a far different scale. Usually it's a result not of personal research, but of accepting erroneous teaching, such as that found in the Schofield Reference Bible (which I've used myself, not as authority but as help.)

Anyhow, it's really good to see the antiquity of compromise addressed. New lies are few and far between.

CTD'S COMMENTS--
"I don't like any compromise, but I see a great distinction between those who deny the flood and those who don't. The former classify themselves outright as members of the scoffer class predicted to come in the last days.

Those who ascribe to smaller compromises don't do well, but it's a mistake on a far different scale. Usually it's a result not of personal research, but of accepting erroneous teaching, such as that found in the Schofield Reference Bible (which I've used myself, not as authority but as help.)"...
-----------
Thank you, CTD. I have known of few people that read and are advocates of the Scofield Study Bible. I was unaware of it's teaching until you made this post. Thank you for enlightening me. I have read some information on ICR regarding this, 'Gap Theory'.

I have deleted MOST of it's contents, yet what's remaining here seems relevant to explanation. Thank you.
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What is the Purpose of the Gap Theory?

The gap theory was developed mainly for the purpose of accommodating the great ages demanded by evolutionary geologists. This idea was first popularized by a Scottish theologian, Thomas Chalmers, early in the 19th century. In this country, the famous Scofield Study Bible made it an almost universally accepted teaching among fundamentalists.

The Scofield Bible notes on Genesis I include the following:

The first act refers to the dateless past, and gives scope for all the geologic ages. . . . The face of the earth bears everywhere the marks of such a catastrophe. There are not wanting intimations which connect it with a previous testing and fall of angels. . . . Relegate fossils to the primitive creation, and no conflict of science with the Genesis cosmogony remains.

However, serious conflicts do remain. In fact, there are few, if any, professionally trained geologists and astronomers (to my knowledge there are none) who accept the gap theory. The promoters of this theory have mostly been Bible teachers who hoped they could place these great ages in a gap between the first two verses of Genesis, and thus not have to deal with them at all.

With the modem revival of scientific Biblical creationism, many of these teachers have abandoned the gap theory in favor of strict creationism. Most advocates of the gap idea were men of strong Biblical faith, and when they were shown its Biblical fallacies, plus its scientific inadequacies, they were quite willing to reject the evolutionary ages scheme altogether.

Many of us had naively assumed that the gap theory was moribund, and so had concentrated most of our critiques on the other compromise theories (day-age theory, framework theory, etc.). But it now appears that the gap theory is still being advocated by a number of evangelical theologians.

For example, the Nelson Study Bible, published this year (1997), in its footnotes on Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, says:
--
Here it means that God renewed what was in a chaotic state. God changed chaos into cosmos, disorder into order, emptiness into fullness. . . . The two words, without form and void, express one concept—chaos. The earth had been reduced to this state—it was not the way God had first created it.

The editors and contributors to this volume—43 in all—include many well-known evangelical leaders. Yet they feel they must allow for the geological ages, and so they opt for what amounts to the old gap theory again with its pre-Adamic cataclysm. The notes in this study Bible do allow a worldwide Flood, but there are no relevant comments on the effects of sin and the curse on the animal kingdom, and no mention of the billions of fossils now preserved in the earth's sedimentary rock beds.

Is the Gap Theory Scientific?
The reason why geologists will not accept the gap theory is that it contradicts their assumption that the past is continuous with the present. There is no room in their naturalistic approach to science for a global cataclysm that would destroy all life and then require a new creation of plants, animals, and people such as the gap theory proposes.

Any cataclysm that would leave the earth "without form and void" (or "a shapeless chaotic mass" as The Living Bible expresses it), with "darkness on the face of the deep" everywhere, would require a worldwide nuclear or volcanic explosion that would effectively disintegrate the whole crust of the earth. All pre-cataclysm mountains would be blown into the sea and billions of tons of rocks and dust blown into the atmosphere, leaving the earth covered with "the deep" everywhere and "darkness" covering the deep everywhere.

Such a cataclysm would disintegrate any previously deposited sedimentary deposits with their fossils and thus obliterate all evidence of any previous "geological ages." Thus the gap theory, which is supposed to accommodate the geological ages, requires a cataclysm which would destroy all evidence for the geological ages.


Is it Theologically Sound?

The gap theory is also unsound theologically. The God of Creation is an omnipotent and omniscient God, and is also a God of grace, mercy, and love. The very concept of the geological ages, on the other hand, implies a wasteful and cruel "god," and therefore probably no god at all.

The supposed geologic ages are identified in terms of the fossils found in the earth's sedimentary rocks, and there are multiplied billions of them there. But fossils speak of death—even violent death. The preservation of dead animals requires rapid burial if they are to last very long. There are many regions, for example, where there are millions of fossil fish preserved in the rocks. There are dinosaur fossil beds on every continent, as well as great beds of fossil marine invertebrates practically everywhere. These may indeed speak of cataclysmic death and burial, but not a cataclysm operating slowly over billions of years, as the geological ages imply.

If the gap theory were valid, it would mean that God had instituted an ages-long system of suffering and death over the world, before there were ever any men and women to place in dominion over that world, and then suddenly destroy it in a violent cataclysm. Why would an omnipotent, merciful God do such a wasteful and cruel thing as that?

They cannot blame Satan, either. According to the gap theory, Satan's fall took place at the end of the geological ages, followed by the great pre-Adamic cataclysm on the earth. Thus the geological ages, with their eons of cruelty and waste, took place even before Satan's sin. God Himself would be solely responsible for the whole debacle, if it really happened.

But is the Gap Theory Biblical?

If the Bible actually teaches the gap theory' however, then there might be some reason to try to accommodate it in our theology. But the Bible does not teach it! If there really had been billions of years of animals suffering and dying before Genesis 1:2, why would God say nothing about it? The best they can offer in support of such a notion are some out-of-context quotes from Isaiah and Jeremiah, along with an ad hoc translation of Genesis 1:1,2.

At present, however, "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together" (Romans 8:22) because of the great curse pronounced by God on man's dominion (Genesis 3:17-19), as a result of sin.

This groaning creation has indeed experienced one global cataclysm—one not inferred from vague hints in out-of-context quotes, but rather one described in great detail in Genesis 6-9 and referred to often and unambiguously in later passages—namely, the worldwide Flood in the days of Noah. Most of the vast fossil graveyards in the earth's crust can best be explained as one of the results of the Flood.

This awesome spectacle of destruction and death was not part of God's "very good" creation. There was no death in the world until sin was in the world (Romans 5:12; I Corinthians 15:21; etc.). In fact, death itself is "the wages of sin" (Romans 6:23). Our future deliverance from sin and death has been purchased by the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ, who is "the propitiation for our sins and ... also for the sins of the whole world" (John 2:2).

But if "death reigned" not "from Adam to Moses," as the Bible says (Romans 5:14), but had already reigned for billions of years before Adam, then death is not the wages of sin but instead was part of God's creative purpose. How then could the death of Christ put away sin? The gap theory thus undermines the very gospel of our salvation, as well as the holy character of God.

The fact is that no such gap exists between the first two verses of Genesis at all. The second verse merely describes the initial aspect of the creation as "without form and void"—that is, with neither structure nor inhabitants. The rest of the chapter tells how God produced a marvelous structure for His created universe, with multitudes of plant and animal inhabitants for the earth, all to be under the dominion of its human inhabitants created in the image of God. It was only then that God pronounced the creation "finished" (Genesis 2:1).

It is time for those who believe the Bible and in the goodness and wisdom of God to abandon the gap theory once and for all (as well as the day-age theory, which is even worse) and simply believe what God has said. The gap theory has no scientific merit, requires a very forced Biblical exegesis, and leads to a God-dishonoring theology. It does not work, either Biblically or scientifically.

* Dr. Henry Morris is Founder and President Emeritus of ICR.

Direct Access
by Henry Morris, Ph.D.

"For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (I Timothy 2:5). -

This is one of the key verses of Scripture for several reasons. In the first place, in the midst of a pantheistic and polytheistic society governed by the kings and rulers for whom Paul had just exhorted believers to pray, it was important to reemphasize that there was only one Creator God--the One to whom even kings must give account and the only One to whom we can rightfully pray.

Secondly, Christ Jesus, who was Himself "God . . . manifest in the flesh" and then "received up into glory" (I Timothy 3:16), was nevertheless still "the man Christ Jesus." He is still a man, even though His human body has been resurrected and glorified. Therefore He can, indeed, "be touched with the feeling of our infirmities;" and we can "come boldly" to His "throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews 4:15-16).

Then, because He is both omnipotent God and perfect Man, "in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin" (v.15). He is uniquely able to serve as the one and only "mediator between God and man." Furthermore, as the only God-Man, fully and eternally both God and man, He is the only one through whom we can reach God's throne in prayer. "I am the way, the truth, and the life," He said, "no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" (John 14:6).

No one else--man or woman, saint or priest, angel or demon--has direct access to God, for the Son is the one mediator between God and man. We can come to God however for "We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous" (I John 2:1). "Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them" (Hebrews 7:25).
--
ICR/HMM
JESUS IS LORD!

Creation's Message
Genesis 1; Colossians 1:15-20

"How many are your works, O Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures...
May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works." (Psalm 104:24, 31)~
--
From the beginning of time God has communicated through creation. Just look at what it shouts to us about Him: the planets in perfect alignment; the earth, perfectly fitted and tilted on its axis; the sun, not too far and not too close; the natural cycle of water; predictable seasons and profuse variety of plant life; the animal world in its complexity of balance and form.

What message does such a magnificent creation give about its Creator? That He is perfection in every way--in knowledge, skill, care, and character. Not once has spring followed summer or the earth tipped off its axis. Creation came from God's perfect knowledge and skill and is sustained through His perfect care..

Scripture also tells us that God's Son was intimately involved in our creation, that "by Him all things were created," and that "He is before all things and in him all things hold together" (Colossians 1:16-17).

The same Jesus who came to earth as a tiny baby was with the Father in the creation of this world, and of you. Let's delight in the wonder of that throughout this Christmas season.~
---
We think of Jesus being born in Bethlehem, but He is the "Firstborn over all creation"--the very One who created and for whom creation was made.

Haven Today ~

--Approach to God
Leviticus 10:1-3, Hebrews 12:28-29

"...For our 'God is a consuming fire.'"
(Hebrews 12:29)-

Our Leviticus reading today tells an admittedly haunting story. Two men with apparently good intentions offer "unauthorized" or "strange" fire to the Lord that is "contrary to his command" and pay for it with their own lives. If nothing else, this story teaches us that God takes worship seriously because His own reputation is at stake (see v.3).

But we ought not to let this story leave us trembling with dread before the Lord. Instead, let it challenge our belief that we may approach God on our terms. Let it drive us to approach God where He has come to meet us: in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Approaching God on our own, dressed in our own merits and good works, will only be met with His consuming fire. Yet Jesus, being sinless in every way, endured the fire that our sins deserved and paved an eternal and sure way of entrance into God's presence for all who trust in Him.

He is the way and the truth and the life, the very means of coming to the Father. So let us approach the Father with boldness in the name of the Son, JESUS THE CHRIST!
---
How might this story also impact how we worship?
Haven Today ~

--As Isaiah
-Predicted ~
---
I, the Lord, have
called You...to bring
out...those who sit
in darkness from the
prison house.
---Isaiah 42:6-7
~~~
AS Isaiah predicted, God showed how low He was willing to go to bring us to Himself. By adopting the form of a lowly servant, our Creator lived and died to disarm our wrongs. Even now He is coaxing us from the cover of our spiritual darkness (Isa. 42:7) to call us friends (John 15:15).

How can we still be afraid to trust Him?

Lord, thank You that You stepped out of heaven
and came down to this earth, that You clothed Yourself
in human flesh. We're grateful that we can now draw
near to You, even though we're sinful. -Amen.
---
The high and holy One
became the meek and lowly One.

ODB/MDH

Jesus' Birth in Bethlehem - Sermon 1
By John MacArthur

I would invite you to turn with us to the Word of God, Luke, the gospel of Luke and chapter 2. We've finally arrived at this familiar and wonderful chapter that describes the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. Surely this chapter is the most widely-known chapter in the Bible because it tells the story of Christmas. This chapter, this story, of course, has been the source of songs and carols and cards and celebrations and gifts and books and dramas and pageants since it occurred, very familiar story. And yet I think we're going to be seeing it in some profound and rich and perhaps unfamiliar ways as we come to grips with its great truth.

Two thousand years ago the creator of the universe, the eternal God, entered human society as a baby. The creator of the universe put on humanity. The Lord of heaven came to live on earth. On a night like every other night in Israel with no fanfare, no celebration by anybody, a child was born. It was a night like any other night but it wasn't a child like any other child. This child was the Lord Jesus Christ, God and man fused together in indivisible oneness. This birth was so monumental that it became the high point of history, the peak, the apex. All history before this birth is B.C., Before Christ. All history since is A.D., Anno Domini, Latin for "the year of our Lord."

The birth of God in human form then is the most important moment in all of history. Let me read to you the first seven verses of chapter 2, which in plain and simple and clear language describe this great event.

-- "Now it came about in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all were proceeding to register for the census everyone to his own city, and Joseph also went up from Galilee from or out of the city of Nazareth to Judea, the city of David, which is called Bethlehem because he was of the house and family of David in order to register, along with Mary who was engaged to him and was with child. And it came about that while they were there the days were completed for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and she wrapped Him in cloths and laid Him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn."

Very familiar words. Behind these simple, straightforward, unembellished words of narrative offered with delicacy and reserve, unmistakable meaning and significance there is the profoundest event in the history of the world. But as I said, the story of Jesus is generally familiar to anybody who knows anything about Christianity and many people who know very little about Christianity. Sadly the worldwide celebration of the birth of Christ, which is called Christmas, has become so cluttered and so confused with paganism and personal indulgences as to obscure the simple clear reality of the birth of God in human form. In fact, it's pretty refreshing to be able to preach a Christmas message in June because you, at this particular point, are not cluttered with the other kind of Christmas clutter. The world celebrates the birth of Jesus in December for all the wrong reasons for the expression of self-indulgence, materialism, partying, social events of all kinds. But largely misses the point, as we know. The real significance of the birth of God in human form is overlooked, treated trivially, overshadowed by everything else that's going on.

And I suppose it's a fair question to say...how can you take such a simple story as we've just read in seven verses and come up with such a complicated celebration? How do you get from the account of Luke and the account of Matthew, how do you get from those accounts to what we have today?

Well, I'll give you a little bit of history, you might find it interesting. About the middle of the fourth century right at the time of the establishing of the great world empire of Rome under Constantine, the Bishop of Jerusalem wrote to the Bishop of Rome and he asked him to determine the actual date of Christ's birth. Well, no one knows the actual date of Christ's birth, the fact of the matter is we don't even know for sure the actual year of His birth. But the Bishop of Rome sent word back to the Bishop of Jerusalem that it occurred on December 25. By the end of the fourth century that had been accepted by the church, was really put into church fiat, or church law, it became the regularly accepted day to celebrate the birth of Christ.

----
To Be Continued...

(excerpts from Pastor John MacArthur's Message on 'Jesus'Birth in Bethlehem')--

For the moment...back to the text...for the moment in Luke's history the curtain has fallen on the story of John. The curtain fell on the story of John momentarily in verse 80 at the end of chapter 1. Speaking of John who was just born, just circumcised, the child continued to grow to become strong in spirit, he grew physically, he grew spiritually, he lived in the deserts or the wilderness, the Judean wilderness in the south of the land of Israel. He lived there until the day of his public appearance to Israel. His public appearance to Israel will be taken up in the third chapter of Luke. We'll meet John the Baptist again as he was known in the third chapter of Luke. But we don't know anything about what happened from the eighth day when he was circumcised and his father Zacharias gave the great song of praise that ends the chapter, we don't know anything about his life from the eighth day of his circumcision until he began his ministry. All the rest is contained in one verse. All we know is he grew physically, he grew spiritually, he lived in the wilderness, that's all we know. But all that time we know God was preparing him to be the forerunner of Messiah, to proclaim Jesus as Lord and Messiah.

So the curtain falls at the end of chapter 1 on John and we don't meet him again until he's an adult. The curtain rises in chapter 2 with the birth of Jesus. We've already gone through the birth of John. We've already heard the annunciation of the angel Gabriel to Mary. She told him that...he told her, I should say, that she was going to have a child, that the child would be born to her as a virgin and that that child would be the Son of the Most High, the Son of David and He would reign on the throne of David forever and ever. His Kingdom would have no end. She asked, chapter 1 verses 31 to 35, "How is that going to be since I'm a virgin?" And the angel Gabriel told her that the Holy Spirit, the Most High God, the Holy Spirit would come upon her, overshadow her and that would be placed in her womb which was actually a miraculous creation of God so that she would become pregnant without a man. She then is a virgin and she is ready to bring forth the Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of God as we come to chapter 2. And the curtain rises on the birth of Jesus Christ.

Now Luke does a wonderful thing here, simple, straightforward, unembellished language...that's important, it's uncluttered, it's marvelous and it's clear. And as clear as it is and as simple as the language is, what's going on here is profound and far-reaching. Now everybody in Israel knew some things about Messiah. Everybody in Israel knew the Messiah would come and be King, that He would come and He would be in the line of David and He would reign on the throne in Jerusalem and He would establish the glorious kingdom for Israel. They knew that He would come with a rod of iron, the psalmist has said as I read in Psalm 2 this morning, they knew some things about Messiah. And one thing that was absolutely explicit about Messiah was recorded by the prophet Micah, in the little book of Micah, chapter 5 verse 2, the prophet Micah said, "The Messiah would be born in a village called Bethlehem," originally in Genesis 35 called Ephratah(?) but came to be known as Bethlehem which means "house of bread." The Jews all knew that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem...at least that's what the Old Testament said.

Well Luke in writing this passage never quotes Micah. He doesn't refer to Micah. But he shows us how God orchestrated the birth of Messiah in Bethlehem in explicit fulfillment of that prophecy in what really was an amazing work of God. Because if things had just gone on normally, Jesus never would have been born in Bethlehem. He had to be by word of the prophet and the veracity of the Word of the Bible was at stake, but God did some mighty working to make it happen and exactly and precisely on time. Joseph and Mary were only in Bethlehem for a matter of days. It had to be exactly the days when that child was born. Luke makes us understand this without ever quoting Micah because he knows his readers know that passage. He gives us here some profound insight into the fulfillment of Micah 5:2 that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. -

Now as we come to these seven verses, and I'm only going to give you the first of it, he gives us three settings here. He gives us a world setting. He gives us a national setting with Israel. And he gives us a personal setting. And all three of these are very important in identifying the nature of Messiah, in identifying the fulfillment of prophecy and identifying His role to the world. He is to be the Savior of the world and it's important to understand the setting in the world when He comes. He is coming as the Messiah to Israel, it's important to understand the prophetic scriptures that relate it to Israel. And He is coming as the Savior of every individual who puts their trust in Him and it's therefore important to understand something of the personal circumstances of Joseph and Mary. So we're going to see the setting for the birth of Christ.

The whole story of the birth of Christ is in verse 7, the first part, "She gave birth." That's all it says...that's all it says, "She gave birth." Unembellished. But what is coming together at that moment involves the world, the nation and Joseph and Mary personally. It's wonderful to see the Savior who came to save the world and how He in His own birth is literally involving the world. He came as the fulfillment of Jewish scriptures and it shows here how He fits in to the Jewish anticipation because of the Old Testament prophecies. He comes to redeem individuals who for the most part are common and humble, like Joseph and Mary. We see that in the personal setting. So the world setting, the national setting, the personal setting.

Sadly I have to say and it's common knowledge, the world has largely rejected Him. The nation Israel has largely rejected Him. And among the lowly and the humble and the needy, few have believed in Him and been saved. That continues to be true.
---
To be Continued~

(Pastor John MacArthur is a renowned Bible Teacher By: Radio and television/ and Pastor of a Church.)

CONTINUED~~

A little more on 'Jesus' Birth in Bethlehem'. It's already been clarified that Jesus is God, come down to earth to save the people (you and I) from our sins, so that we would not be condemned to Hell.

John MacArthur continues:
This would have been an overcrowded situation, I already told you the Romans would have probably taken up most of the spots, as well as some Jewish officials. And then the people coming back to their hometown to register, the place became very, very crowded. The rooms were all taken. Again it was probably, as I said, public shelter. They wound up, this little couple, just staying with the animals outside the appropriate quarters.

Now if you were in that condition you probably had to carry your own bedding. If there was no place for you in the guest room, they might have provided some, you know, rough place to lie on a straw mattress and maybe a straw pillow or a blanket. But if you were on the outside, you had to have your own blanket and your own pillow. And if you had no blanket, you'd wind up wrapping yourself in your own robe and trying to find a place out of the wind cause it could be very cold. You would be down there probably on the ground floor where the animals were kept in the middle, pack animals, camels, donkeys. Here you would find your rest for the night. For days, we don't know how many days, Joseph and Mary were huddled in that kind of a place. We don't know when they registered or if they had to wait a long time to get to the head of the line to register. We don't know whether they had already registered and Joseph didn't want to take her back because he knew she was going to give birth at any day. They were going to wait there until the birth came. It may well have been that they even knew the prophet Micah had said Bethlehem and they wanted to be sure they stayed there. None of those details are given for us. The downstairs guest rooms, the upstairs loft, whatever kind of facility it was to house these people was full and they were bedded down with the animals.

So there probably wasn't any kind of inn keeper who shut them out. It was just the nature of the situation. The tradition, as I said, goes back to about the second century that this all happened in a cave, or that there was a cave nearby. This caused Helena, the mother of Constantine to build a church on top of some cave that was presumed to be the site. If you go to Bethlehem today you will go to a church, you'll go into that church and it's a horrible place, frankly, it's an awful place full of smells and bells and hanging stuff and clutter and you wander down into this hole and they'll be a star in a hole and that's supposed to be the cave. That is not, of course, known by us. It's the traditional site that the church you see there today is not the one built by the mother of Constantine, it's the one built by Justinian. But the glitter and the trappings of that thing certainly wouldn't be anything like the stench and the smell and the odor and the crowd and all that was going on in the place where Joseph and Mary were.

When Jesus came into the world then He came in the most comfortless conditions...smelly, filthy...this is the wonder of grace though, isn't it? And this is part of the story that when God came down He came all the way down. He thought His equality with God not something to be held on to but He gave it up and humbled Himself and He humbled Himself all the way down...not just to a stinking stable but to become a substitute for stinking sinners and bear the stench of our guilt in His own body. He came down to the poor and the lowly and the humble and the base and the wicked. He came down to the common people to bring His glorious salvation. It was fitting, in a sense, then that He was born in a stinking, smelly stable because what was smelled far worse to the nostrils of God than the odor of animals is the odor of sinners. He sent the Savior all the way down into the lives of the lowly and the whole picture of that scene is a metaphor for the stench of sin which Jesus bore in His own body.

His little cloths wrapped and His little body must have collected the smell. It would have been the smell of animals, the stench of animals, the smell of fires burning there to keep people warm, the smell of the humanity that milled around in that place, the filthiest place imaginable. Unthinkable entrance for the...into the world for God's Son...sweat and pain and blood and coldness and manure and straw and odors...but He came all the way down to the stench of sin to bear in His own body our sins on the cross. And this was a picture and metaphor of the condescension of God. He came all the way down, all the way down...all the way down to the smell of a stable, all the way down to the smell of a sinner like you and like me. They had no room for Him then, they still don't have any room for Him.

- The writer John says He was in the world, the world was made by Him, the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, His own received Him not. But He came for sinners. He came all the way down to bear in His own body the wretched, wicked sin that belongs to us. The smelly stable was simply a metaphor for sin and its wretchedness. What a picture.

So we come from the world's setting to the national setting and the fulfillment of a Hebrew prophet's statement that He would be born in Bethlehem...all the way down to the circumstances of His birth which speak of His lowliness. He controls, does God, the great kings of the world. He fulfills the prophecies of Scripture and He comes all the way to the lowly sinner. Sovereign God, God of Scripture, God of the humble sinner coming all the way down.

Well, it was in some ways a sad moment because of the obscurity of it all. But that didn't last. At that same time some angels began to tell what was going on to some shepherds, and we'll look at that next time.

Father, thank You for this wonderful, wonderful portion of Your great Word. We grieve that as the centuries have passed, the Savior has been treated pretty much in the same way. But we're also glad, Lord, that He came all the way down, all the way down to the wretched, smell of a stable and even farther...far farther down to the wretched smell of a sinner. He came into the world, He came to the lowly and the humble and the base and the wicked, the vile to take our place on the cross and bear Your judgment on our sins. O what a wondrous scene it is. You control the great movements of history, You control the fulfillment of prophecy. You brought Your Son all the way down to touch the lives of wicked sinners. Thank You for this grace, this condescension, this salvation. Amen.
----
Yes, Lord Jesus, God in human flesh, Creator of this Universe, THANK YOU! for coming to show us the way to salvation, found only in You.
We bless You, Lord. Amen

[You can go online and log into "John MacArthur/ 'Jesus' Birth in Bethlehem", to read more on this topic]

You Are God Alone ~
By: Phillips, Craig, Dean

Please listen to the words. They will speak to your inner spirit, and bring Life, the Way, and the Truth!

Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."
-
~~~~~~~~~
You are not a God created by human hands

You are not a God dependant on any mortal man.

You are not a God in need of anything we can give.

By your plans that's just the way it is! --

YOU ARE GOD ALONE FROM BEFORE TIME BEGAN!



Unchangeable, unshakeable, unstoppable that's what you are--You are God alone!

He is with you right NOW! Reach out to Him, Call on the name of the Lord and be saved! He's coming soon.

-The Variety
of Creation ~

Job 12:7-13
---
In [God's] hand is the
life of every living
thing. --Job 12:10 -
~~~~~
Have you ever stopped to consider the amazing features God placed in the animals He created? Job did, and one of the most interesting he wrote about is the ostrich. Despite its apparent lack of good sense and its eccentric parenting skills, its offspring survive (39:13-16). And despite its membership in the bird family, it can't fly--but can outrun a horse (v.18).

Another remarkable creature is the bombardier beetle. This African insect shoots two common materials, hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinone, from twin storage tanks in its back. Apart, these substances are harmless; together, they blind the beetle's predators. A special nozzle inside the beetle mixes the chemicals, enabling it to bombard its foe at amazing speeds! And the little guy can rotate his "cannon" to fire in any direction.

How is it that a rather dull-witted ostrich survives despite a seeming inability to care for its young while the bombardier beetle needs a sophisticated chemical reaction to ensure its continued presence on earth? It's because God's creative abilities know no boundaries. "He commanded and they were created," the psalmist tells us (148:5). From the ostrich to the beetle, God's creative work is clear for all to see.

"Praise the name of the LORD!" (148:13) ~

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful;
The Lord God made them all.
----
The design of creation points to the Master Designer-GOD!

ODB/DE

--Message of Light
Genesis 8:20-9:17

"He was with God in the beginning. ...In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it." (John 1:2,4-5)-

After the flood the world was washed clean. Promising to never destroy living things like this again, God sealed His promise with a sign. God's first creation was light. With it He pushed away darkness and brought the promise of physical nourishment and life to an empty world. At the end of the flood, God took that same light and wondrously split it into its parts, giving us the gift of His rainbow and the second promise of life.

But sin affected more than the physical world. The spiritual was also infected, and a flood could not wash it clean, nor could the sun give it life. Another Light was needed--the same Light that shone in the beginning before the sun, moon, and stars were put in their places. And that light was Jesus.

"A star will come out of Jacob," God told us back in Numbers 24:17. God hung His brightest star right over the place where His Son, the Light of the world, would lay in meekness in a cattle stall. While you and I look up to see rainbows and stars, God looks down and sees His Son, remembering His promise of eternal life.
---
Only Jesus could push away the darkness and destruction of sin. Only the Light of the world could give the gift of life eternal.

Haven Ministries ~

The Firstborn Of Every Creature
by Henry Morris, Ph.D.

“Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature” (Colossians 1:15).
--
A widespread cultic heresy based on this verse claims that Jesus Christ was not eternal, but merely the first being created—perhaps an angel—before becoming a man. Note, however, that the verse does not say He was the “first created of every creature,” but the “first born of every creature,” and there is a big difference. In fact, the very next verse says that “by Him were all things created” (v.16). He was never created, for He Himself is the Creator. “All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3).

He is “born” of God, not “made,” the “only begotten Son” of God (John 3:16). “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him” (John 1:18). The eternal Father is omnipresent, and therefore invisible, inaudible, inaccessible to the physical senses. The eternally existing Son is the “image” of the invisible Father, the One who declares, reveals, embodies His essence. Although He is always “in the bosom of the Father,” yet He is eternally also “the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person” (Hebrews 1:3). He is the eternal, living Word, which was “in the beginning with God” (John 1:2), and which “was God” (John 1:1).

Thus the phrase, “firstborn of every creature” in our text, can be translated literally as “begotten before all creation.” The eternal inter-relationship of the Persons of the Godhead is beyond human comprehension in its fullness, and the terms, “Son” and “begotten” are the best human language can do to describe it.

Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, is the only begotten, eternally generated, Son of the Father, forever shining forth as the image of the otherwise invisible God.
--
ICR/HMM

--THE ONLY WAY
-TO GOD

THE SUPREMACY OF CHRIST ~
---

-William Randolph Hearst, the famed newspaper owner who died in 1951, invested a fortune in collecting great works of art. One day he read about some valuable pieces and decided he wanted to purchase them, so he sent his agent off to track them down. It was several months before the agent returned and reported to Hearst. He had found the works Hearst wanted, but it would not be possible to purchase them--they were already sitting in Hearst's own warehouse! He had purchased them years before.

Many Christians are like William Randolph Hearst. They're desperately searching for and longing to possess what already belongs to them. Something has persuaded them that Jesus Christ isn't quite enough to meet all their spiritual needs, so they're looking for something more: more of the Holy Spirit, more power, some kind of special experience, the higher life, the deeper life, signs, wonders, a second blessing, a third blessing. In short, they're looking for more of God.

The Christians in the Book of Colossians are in that category. Someone has influenced them to look for something more of God than they already have in Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul urges them not to fall for it. It's not that Paul does not want the Colossians to have more of God. Paul knows that Christ is the treasure house where God has hidden all His wisdom and knowledge. He knows that Christ is supreme.

In Colossians 1:15-20, Paul writes: "The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorites; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross."

If Christians don't realize this truth, then nobody who is not a Christian will know it either. It is only when we are persuaded that everything of God is to be found in Christ that we can be confident in telling others that Jesus is the only way to God. And it is the only way we'll continue to grow as Christians.

So the first thing we must recognize about the supremacy of Christ is that only He can reveal God to us.

There are two statements in Colossians 1:15-20 that put Christ above everyone and everything else: "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation" (verse 15). And "God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him" (verse 19). It is hard to get across how great a view this is of Jesus. It means we cannot think too highly of Him. There is nothing of God to be known which is not in Jesus; He is fully God. If you met Jesus, you would meet God. If you know Jesus, you know God. All God's fullness dwells in Him. He is utterly supreme.

Today, some are trying to look behind Jesus to find God. They're looking for something more ancient, more fundamental, older than Christianity. The New Agers say something like this: "We have a faith that is older than the creed of Christ because it is rooted in the Earth and the universe." Christianity is portrayed as the new kid on the block. But they just have not squared with who Jesus really is. Mind you, few of us really have. Colossians 1:16 says: "For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible...He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." If that's who Christ is, how can you get behind Him? He's not the new kid on the block: He is the Great I AM who designed the block.

The real Jesus doesn't just take His place in history; He is its beginning and its end. "All things were created by him and for him." How can you get beyond this Jesus? He's waiting there at the end of history to inherit it all.

The second thing we need to realize about the supremacy of Christ is that only He can reconcile us to God. That is, only Christ can make peace between God and us. The Bible teaches that there's a gulf separating God and us. There's an intellectual gulf so that we cannot know God unless He makes Himself known to us. And there's a moral gulf, in that we don't even want to know God because He threatens the evil behavior that we participate in. Jesus is the bridge of both these gulfs. He bridges the intellectual gulf by revealing God to us, and He bridges the moral gulf by reconciling us to God. Colossians 1:19 says, "For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross."

People who were at enmity with God are now reconciled through the cross, and one day all things will be put back in their divinely created and determined order. The universe will once again be under its rightful head. How will this happen? Through His blood, which has been shed on the cross.

It only took a moment for man to reject God, and then everything fell apart. We fell out with God, we fell out with each other, and we fell out with the world we live in. It's impossible for us to put things back together. God had to do it and it took the blood of Christ, shed on the cross. Only Christ can do it because only Christ bridges the gulf for us. In His death He has taken the punishment we deserve from God.

Without justice, there can be no real peace. And justice is served when our sin is punished in Christ and peace is made between God an us. I expect there will be some suprprises in Heaven. We may be surprised about who is there. But there will be no surprises about how they got there. Beause each one will say the same; through the blood Jesus shed on the cross, reconciled by Christ's physical body.

Many give the advice on religion, 'do not put all your eggs in one basket. It would be far too risky to stake everything on a single faith or creed or religion. What if you're wrong?'

There's one big problem with that way of thinking. God has put all His eggs in one basket. He has put all His fullness in Christ. Only Chist can reveal God to us. We have much more of God to learn, but He has no more to give than He has already given us in Christ. So, if you want more of God--and this is a good thing to want--then go to Christ.

Furthermore, if you do not yet know God personally, then go to the cross of Christ, for only Christ can reconcile us to God. He is utterly supreme in revealing God to us and He is uttlerly supreme in reconciling us to God.

SOWING THE SEEDS--
The ONLY Way TO GOD
By: Rico Tice and Bill Conard
This article was taken from the 'Decision' magazine/ Jan 2011-BGEA.

The Living And The Written Word
By: John D. Morris, Ph.D.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).
--

The Holy Scriptures and the person of our Lord Jesus Christ are so inseparably bound together, that whatever calls into question the integrity and authority of one, correspondingly affects the other. Let us not be guilty of saying that the written Word and the incarnate Word are in all aspects the same, but the Bible clearly reveals Christ as “the Word . . . made flesh, (who) dwelt among us” (John 1:14). “And His name is called The Word of God” (Revelation 19:13).

In carefully worded arguments, Christ, time and again, called attention to the fact that the teachings of the Old Testament Scriptures were actually teaching about Him. “Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. . . . For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?” (John 5:39,46,47). “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead” (Luke 16:31).

Therefore, those who diligently search the Scriptures find in them sufficient testimony to Christ, and where there is faith in the witness of Scripture, there will be faith in Christ and His words. But if men reject the testimony of Scripture, they will not even be convinced by His miraculous resurrection from the dead.

Christ claimed that all of Scripture pointed to Him. On the road to Emmaus, He taught that all three popular divisions of the Old Testament traced one progressive Messianic revelation. To understand the New Testament, we must know the Old, for both tell the same story, each amplifying the other. They are forever inseparable.
--
ICR/ JDM

Creation Evangelism
By: Henry Morris, Ph.D.

--
Creation evangelism is the ministry of using scientific Biblical creationism as a help in winning people to Christ. To the best of my knowledge, the term was first used by Walter Lang almost 35 years ago. Lang, who had been a pastor in the Missouri Synod Lutherans, founded the Bible Science Association in 1963 and soon was convinced God could use creationism as a means of leading people to faith in the Bible as God's Word and the Lord Jesus Christ as Creator and Savior.

He was right about this. The Biblical record of creation is not only historically and scientifically accurate, but it is also the foundation of all the saving doctrines of the Bible. In recent decades, many have come to accept Christ because (at least partially) of the scientific and Biblical evidences for creation.

Note especially that the marvelous truths of the person and work of Jesus Christ are based upon His finished work of creation.

For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth. . . . And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist. . . . And, having made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself . . . (Colossians 1:16,17,20).-

This wonderful passage summarizes the past, present, and future work of Christ—creation, conservation, and consummation of all things. And the foundation of His saving and reconciling work is His work of creation.

Similarly, the foundation of the gospel of Christ is also His creation and our worship of Him as Creator. The final (of over 100) Biblical use of the word "gospel" is as follows:

And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth. . . . Saying with a loud voice . . . worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters (Revelation 14:6,7).
This is a key component of the gospel of God's saving grace in Christ, for it was, and will be "everlasting." Paul warned against even any angel that would preach some other gospel than he was preaching (Galatians 1:8). In fact, he indicated that Christ's past, present, and future work, as discussed above (Colossians 1:16-20), is incorporated in the truth and hope of the gospel (Colossians 1:5,23).

The fact that creation is the foundation of true and effective evangelism is also indicated by the Apostle John, who affirmed that his wonderful book was "written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His name" (John 20:31).

That being John's motive and purpose in writing, it is very significant that he began by stressing the fact of creation by Jesus Christ!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made. . . . He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. . . . And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us . . . (John 1:1,3,10,14).

Thereafter, John's record of Christ's person and work is structured around His seven great "I am" assertions of deity ("I am the light of the world," etc.) and His seven great miracles of creation (creating new eyes for a man born blind, etc.).

There should be no doubt that Jesus is the Creator, the eternal Son of God, and that this very fact made it possible for Him also to become our Redeemer and Savior.

Therefore, creation is absolutely basic in true evangelism, not secondary or even irrelevant, as many seem to think. In fact, belief in creation by the Word of God is the very first item in a saving, justifying, living faith (one should read carefully Hebrews 10:38-11:3 in this connection).

This does not necessarily mean that a born-again Christian cannot believe that Christ used evolutionary processes in creating things. But he should be willing to deal honestly with the fact that any such "evolutionary creation" is completely contrary to the Bible. Jesus Christ Himself believed in the recent creation of all things (note Mark 10:6, for example). He even inscribed the fact of the literal, six-day creation on a table of stone in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:8,11; 31:18).

Assuming, then, that scientific Biblical creationism is a valid component of true evangelism, we can note the example of the early Christians, Paul in particular, as they went out to preach the gospel in obedience to Christ's great commission. Paul and his companions normally would go first to the Jewish synagogue in any new city, and there would preach Christ from the Scriptures.

The best example is in Acts 17 when Paul came to Thessalonica, in Greece.

And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures, Opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you is Christ (Acts 17:2,3).

Note that he did not have to convince the Jews that the Scriptures were inspired and true and authoritative, for they already believed that. Neither did he have to talk about the creation of the world by God, for they already believed that, too.

But he did use what we might call apologetics, or Christian evidences, stressing fulfilled prophecy in Christ, along with His death and resurrection as prophecies that had been wonderfully fulfilled, confirming that He was indeed the promised Messiah.

He next went to Berea, where he did the same, and the Bereans "received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so" (Acts 17:11).

Then Paul went to Athens, the great cultural and intellectual center of the world at that time. There he encountered the Epicurean and Stoic "philosophers" (Acts 17:18). These men were all evolutionists—the Epicureans, atheists, and the stoics pantheists. They did not believe the Scriptures, and they certainly did not believe in the special creation of all things by an omnipotent God.

Paul, therefore, began with creation, using as a point of reference their awareness of an "unknown god" among their many nature gods and goddesses, whose shrines abounded in Athens.

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; . . . He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; That they should seek the Lord. . . . For in Him we live, and move, and have our being (Acts 17:24-28).-
Paul recognized that laying the creation foundation was necessary first of all, but the foundation is never the whole structure. Thus he then went on to preach Christ and the resurrection.

(God) hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead (Acts 17:31).
Space precludes citing his whole message and, for that matter, the account given by Luke in Acts 17 no doubt is itself a summary of a more detailed exposition, but the essential point is that, when Paul dealt with those who believed the Bible, he began with the Scriptures, but when dealing with pagan unbelievers, he began with the fact of primeval special creation.

Another example is Paul's challenge to the pagan idolaters at Lystra.

We . . . preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein: Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless He left not Himself without witness, in that He did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness (Acts 14:15-17).
That Paul often preached against idol worship (which is tantamount to pantheistic evolution) and, therefore, for creation is indicated also by the charges lodged against him at Ephesus, namely that "almost throughout all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much people, saying that they be no gods, which are made with hands" (Acts 19:26).

- Thus, if we would follow the evangelistic example of the early Christians, we would preach from the Scriptures to those who already believe in the Bible and creation, urging them to accept Christ as revealed therein. To those who do not so believe, however, we need first of all to show them the truth of creation (as opposed to the false nature of all forms of evolutionism), and then proceed to the fact of Christ's substitutionary death and resurrection, as revealed in the inerrant written Word of God.

* Dr. Morris is Founder and President Emeritus of ICR.

The Ultimate Proof of Christianity (The Resurrection of Jesus)
By: Henry Morris, Ph.D.
--JESUS IS ALIVE TODAY!
-
Today, there are multitudes of religions, cults, and philosophies competing for the hearts and minds of men and women, all over the world. One of these—atheistic communism—seemed, for a while, to be so powerful and persuasive that many feared it would conquer the world. A religion which also is seriously attempting to do that right now is Islam. Islam is structured around the baleful teachings of a false god called Allah, and there are many other such teachings. Evolutionary humanism is also growing rapidly. But how can we know which "religion" is the true religion? Or are they all just different paths to the same goal?

The apostle Paul had the answer to that question. Speaking to the philosophers in Athens, he said: "Ye men of Athens. . . . in all things ye are too superstitious" (Acts 17:22). Just having some form of religion is nothing; even atheists have a form of "religion." "God that made the world and all things therein . . . is Lord of heaven and earth. . . . He hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead" (Acts 17:24,31).

That is how we can know which is true! The only one who could ever defeat death and give eternal life is the One who pronounced the curse of death on His sinning human creation in the first place.

And that would be the Lord Jesus Christ! In the greatest event since the creation itself, God became incarnate in His only begotten Son. By a miraculous conception, sinless life, many miracles of creation, volitional death, and bodily resurrection, He uniquely provided redemption and salvation to all who trust and follow Him.

The proof of that, above all proofs, is His amazing resurrection. The Roman Caesars are all dead, Mohammed is dead, Karl Marx is dead, Buddha is dead—name these false religionists one by one. They eventually die—and stay dead!

But Jesus died and then conquered death. He spoke again to and through the beloved disciple John to all men when He says: "Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death" (Revelation 1:17-18). --

It was John who was the first to believe, when he entered the empty tomb and saw the collapsed grave clothes on the shelf where the body had lain, "and he saw, and believed" (John 20:8). Soon the other disciples also saw the risen Jesus Himself. Paul, writing years later, after seeing Christ on the way to Damascus, and perhaps also after some research on his own, tells about some of these appearances: ". . . He was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: After that, He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; . . . After that, He was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all He was seen of me also . . ." (I Corinthians 15:5-8).

There were other occasions. Luke says that "He shewed Himself alive after His passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days" (Acts 1:3). Finally, after giving them His last command, to be His witnesses "unto the uttermost part of the earth. . . . while they beheld, He was taken up . . . into heaven" (Acts 1:8,9,11), where He "sat on the right hand of God" (Mark 16:19).
--
From this point on, ". . . with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all" (Acts 4:33). The authorities vainly tried to stop them, even executing some, but they all simply rejoiced "that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name" (Acts 5:41).

This amazing change in the disciples who not long before "all forsook Him, and fled" (Mark 14:50), became another impregnable evidence for His resurrection. The disciples and many other believers had actually seen and touched and eaten with Him so they knew He was alive, and their testimony had converted many. Most convincing of all, perhaps, was the fact of the empty tomb and the complete inability of the authorities to locate the supposedly dead body. They had tried everything else to stop the preaching of His resurrection, whereas simply displaying His body would have been enough. But this they could not do—Jesus was alive and at the right hand of God in heaven!

Many skeptics in both ancient and modern times have tried to disprove the resurrection, but all have failed. Without the resurrection of Jesus, there would never have been a Christian religion, but its absolute truth has been forever vindicated by His resurrection!

The power of this message is seen in the growth of the early church, in spite of brutal opposition. When ordered to desist, "Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. . . . And we are His witnesses of these things; . . ." (Acts 5:29-32). The result was that "the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly" (Acts 6:7).

Even in Athens, the intellectual center of the world, Paul "preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection" (Acts 17:18). Called before King Herod Agrippa, Paul again preached simply that the prophecies were being fulfilled "That Christ should suffer, and that He should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should shew light unto the people, and to the Gentiles" (Acts 26:23).

In fact, in the book of Acts alone, there are at least 25 passages mentioning specifically the glorious message of the resurrection. There are more than 30 such passages in the epistles, even though all the people in the churches to whom the epistles were written already believed it and needed no further convincing. For example, in the first chapter of Paul's key letter to the Romans, Paul stressed that Christ had been "declared to be the Son of God with power, . . . by the resurrection from the dead" (Romans 1:4). Then he noted that the testimony of a new believer's baptism was his identity with the risen Christ. "For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of infallible proof His resurrection" (Romans 6:5). The vital necessity of individual belief in His resurrection is also pointed out by Paul. "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Romans 10:9).

To the Corinthians, Paul stressed that the substitutionary death and bodily resurrection of Christ were the very center of His saving gospel. "For I delivered unto you first of all . . . that Christ died for our sins . . . And that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day. . . ." (I Corinthians 15:3-4).

The wonderful 15th chapter of I Corinthians deals in depth with the implications of the resurrection. ". . . if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. . . . But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept" (I Corinthians 15:17-20).

Then, most appropriately, he ties Christ's defeat of death back into His pronouncement of death when the first man brought sin into the world. "For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive" (I Corinthians 15:21-22)—thus affirming not only the primeval curse on Adam's dominion, but also its ultimate deliverance in Christ. "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" (I Corinthians 15:26).

Faith in Christ's resurrection is not only a premise in one's salvation, as noted in Romans 10:9 quoted earlier, but also in our own future resurrection when Christ returns. Jesus had promised His disciples that "because I live, ye shall live also" (John 14:19), and this promise was confirmed and made more explicit by Paul under divine inspiration. "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, . . . . For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, . . . and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord" (I Thessalonians 4:14-17).

The apostle Peter says that God "hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, To an inheritance . . . reserved in heaven for you, Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time" (I Peter 1:3-5).

What a glorious future thus awaits all who have true faith in His historical resurrection and His immutable promise of our own coming resurrection! Like Paul, our consuming desire should be to "know Him, and the power of His resurrection," even though that means first "being made conformable unto His death" (Philippians 3:10).

Why should anyone—how could anyone—spurn such divine love and reject the salvation purchased so dearly by Christ and offered so freely to us? The evidence for its truth and validity is overwhelming.

Christians sometimes sing: "I know He lives—He lives within my heart." That also may be a sort of evidence, especially when that testimony is multiplied in the hearts of multitudes of other believers. But the solid, historical evidence of His bodily resurrection after dying for our sins is itself absolute and impregnable.

Unique in all history, it really happened, so we can in full confidence entrust our very souls to Him. -

Created And Made
By: Henry Morris, Ph.D.

"These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens" (Genesis 2:4).
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There are two accounts of creation in Genesis, with the above text marking the dividing point. In the first (Genesis 1:1-2:4), the name used for the Creator is "God" (Hebrew, Elohim), and its termination is the summarizing "signature," as it were: "These are the generations (Hebrew, toledoth) of the heavens and the earth when they were created."

The second account (Genesis 2:4-5:1) normally uses the name "Lord God." (Jehovah Elohim) in chapters 2 and 3 (except where the serpent and Eve used Elohim when she was being tempted) and then simply "Lord" (Hebrew, Jehovah) in chapter 4. This second creation account ends with Adam's signature: "This is the book of the generations [i.e., toledoth] of Adam."

Critics claim that the two accounts are contradictory. Actually they are complementary, the second merely giving more details of the events of the fifth and sixth days of creation week. The Lord Jesus (who was there as the Creator!) used them both quoting from each (Matthew 19:4-6), at the same time in the same context.

Note also that "create" (Hebrew, bara) is used seven times in Genesis 1, never in Genesis 2-4. In that second account, "made" and "formed" (Hebrew, asah, yatsar) are the words used. Genesis 2:3 stresses the fact that "create" and "make" are different, when it tells us that God rested "from all His work which God created and made."

Evidently the verb "create," which always has the Creator as its subject, refers to His work in calling entities into existence; "make" refers to systems constructed (by either God or men) out of previously created entities.
-
The heavens and the earth were both "created" and "made" (see our text).

ICR/HMM

Jesus the Bible Teacher

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"And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures." (Luke 24:44-45)

On the day of His resurrection, the Lord Jesus had given a wonderful session of Bible teaching to two of His followers on the road to Emmaus. "Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself" (Luke 24:27). Later that same evening, Jesus appeared to the eleven apostles and the other disciples, probably in the upper room, and gave a similar study to all of them together, as summarized in our text above.

We can learn much from our Master Teacher concerning how we also should teach the Bible, for it was He, through "the Spirit of Christ" (1 Peter 1:11), who in effect wrote the Bible in the first place.

Note in both cases, for example, that the whole Bible speaks of Christ in prophecy, or type, or in other ways. Note also that He began with the writings of Moses, which means first of all the account of creation and primeval history which is the foundation of all the rest.

It is evident, too, that He regarded "all the scriptures" to be of divine authority, which "must be fulfilled," either at His first coming or His second coming. He believed implicitly in plenary inspiration of the Bible, as well as the miracle of fulfilled prophecy.

Finally, even in the case of these closest followers, it was essential that the Holy Spirit "open . . . their understanding" if they were really to "understand the scriptures."

All who would hope to be teachers of the Word today should teach as Jesus taught, for He is our teacher.
--
ICR/HMM

Creation And The Constellations
By: Henry Morris, Ph.D.

“Which alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea. Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south” (Job 9:8,9).

The Book of Job is the oldest book in the Bible. It is not surprising, therefore, that it contains a number of references to creation and the flood, for these great events were still relatively fresh in the thinking of Job and his contemporaries. The first of these creation references in Job is our text above, and it is remarkable that it centers especially on the stars and their constellations. Still another constellation is mentioned in Job 26:13: “By His Spirit He hath garnished the heavens; His hand hath formed the crooked serpent.” Finally: “Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? Or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons? Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? Canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?” (Job 38:31–33). The term “Mazzaroth” actually means the twelve constellations of the Zodiac.

Thus God not only created the stars but arranged them in star groupings that could be used for “signs, and for seasons” (Genesis 1:14). Since God does nothing without a holy purpose, we can be sure that these sidereal signs were not to be used as astrological signs. God’s word, in fact, forbids the practice of astrology (e.g., Isaiah 47:12–14).

- The constellations must all in some way have testified of the coming Savior. “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (II Corinthians 4:6).

Before the Scriptures were given, the testimony of God’s primeval promises had somehow been written indelibly in the heavens, for those in Earth’s earliest ages who had eyes and hearts to see.

ICR/ HMM

Jesus Christ: Our Next Door Savior
By: Max Lucado


“There’s something wrong with this picture.”

Remember those handouts in elementary school? The teacher would pass out drawings with the question at the bottom, “What’s wrong with this picture?” We’d look closely for something that didn’t fit. A barnyard scene with a piano near the water trough. A classroom with a pirate seated on the back row. An astronaut on the moon with a pay phone in the back-ground. We’d ponder the picture and point to the piano or pirate or pay phone and say, “This doesn’t fit.” Something is out of place. Something is absurd. Pianos don’t go in barnyards. Pirates don’t sit in classrooms. Pay phones aren’t found on the moon and God doesn’t nurse from Mary’s breast or sleep in Peter’s boat.

But according to the Bible he did both! He did God things and man things. He is all God and all man. “For in Christ there is all of God in a human body.” (Col. 2:9 LB) Jesus was not a God-like man, nor a man-like God. He was God-man. And because he was, we are left with these scratch-your-head, double-blink, what’s-wrong-with-this-picture moments:

Mary changing God’s diaper.

A 12-year-old Jesus stumping religious scholars.

Ex-lepers hugging kids. The formerly blind taking art classes.

Wine where there was water. The crippled sponsoring the town dance. A sack lunch satisfying five thousand tummies. And, most of all, a grave: guarded by soldiers, sealed by a rock, yet vacated by a three-day dead man. John has a word for such moments: “Glory.” “The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son….” (Jn. 1:14)

Beginning with Jesus in pre-birth continuing on to Jesus at his promised return.... We’ll pause along the way at the “glory moments.” Those occasions where Jesus’ humanity and divinity converge, those conjunctions of diverse sources where the majestic intertwines with the mundane and we are left open-mouthed.

In fact, God being our helper, open mouths will be the first-fruit of such a quest. If his claims are true, He is the single most important person who has ever lived. No one comes close. He is not at the head of the parade; he is the parade. He’s not the main event; he’s the only event. He’s not the MVP; he is the entire league. And — this is important — he does not just answer prayers, he is reason for faith. The reward of Christianity is Christ.

Nothing compares to “...the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Ph. 3:8)

The reward of seeing the Grand Canyon is not the T-shirt or the glass bubble with the snowflakes that fall when you shake it. The reward of the Grand Canyon is the Grand Canyon. The wide-eyed realization that you are a part of something ancient, splendid, and powerful. Something greater than you.

The reward of Christianity is Christ. Not money in the bank or a car in the garage or a healthy body or a better self image. Those are likely, yet secondary and tertiary fruits. But the first fruit, the cache, the treasure of faith is Him. Fellowship with Him. Walking with Him. Pondering Him. Exploring Him. The heart-stopping realization that in Him you are a part of something that is ancient, endless, unstoppable, and unfathomable. And that He, who can dig the Grand Canyon with his pinkie, knows you and thinks you’re worth dying for. Christ is the reward of Christianity. Why else would Paul make Him his supreme desire? “I want to know Christ…” (Ph. 3:10) Our goal is the same. We ponder Christ to stir our awe.

We also study the incarnation to balance our faith. The title of the series may trouble you. Jesus: Our Next Door Savior is, for some, unsettling. Some are bugged by the “next door” part. To think that Jesus could be as human as the fellow you see changing his oil on Saturday morning? Some don’t like that. Others don’t mind the humanity; it’s the divinity they resist. Call him prophet, a teacher, a revolutionary, but a Savior? Don’t go that far.But we must. We must let him be all God and all man. All God so he can save you. All man so he can understand you. Dismiss either expression and you have to take issue with many passages of Scripture. “He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature.” (Heb. 1:3) Jesus said, “Truly, truly I say unto you before Abraham was born, I am.” (Jn 8:58) Paul urged Timothy to “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to my gospel” (I Tim. 2:8) See the confluence? “descendant of David” (next door) and “risen from the dead. (Savior).

Jesus: accessible enough to live next door. Mighty enough to be our Savior.

Such words can be said about no other person. He resists any effort to be lumped with Buddha, Mohammed or Moses. He cannot claim what he claimed and be regarded as a good man or great prophet. He is either divine or deluded, God or godless. Any attempt to categorize him in between is inaccurate.

My prayer is that we will KNOW and believe this statement, “I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
--
Excerpted from: Next Door Savior

Whom They Pierced
February 25, 2011

"And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn." (Zechariah 12:10)
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For centuries now, Jewish scholars have pondered the meaning and interpretation of this verse, and as one might imagine, there have been many varied interpretations. Since they cannot allow admission that they themselves pierced Jehovah, some have applied it to the nation of Israel with its persecutions in mind. But to resolve the issue, the question must be answered: Who is this "whom" who has been pierced?

Interestingly enough, the Hebrew word translated "whom" is simply the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet, aleph and tau, elsewhere denoting completeness and transcendency. Next, consider the fact that the primary name for God in Scripture, Jehovah, conveys a similar thought, although difficult to translate. Evidently the name Jehovah communicates, among other things, the all-encompassing and ever self-existing nature of God.

These two thoughts come together when our text for the day is quoted in Revelation 1:7-8: "Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty."

It is as if Jehovah Himself is asking the question: "Do you doubt whom it is you pierced? I am the Aleph Tau, the Alpha Omega, Jehovah the Almighty, the beginning and the ending of all things.
--- -I AM --JESUS

Institute for Creation Research
JDM

--One God
By: Henry Morris, Ph.D.

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD” (Deuteronomy 6:4).

This great verse has been recited countless times by Israelites down through the centuries, setting forth their distinctive belief in one great Creator God. The Jews had retained their original belief in creation, handed down from Noah, while the other nations had all allowed their original monotheistic creationism to degenerate into a wide variety of religions, all basically equivalent to the polytheistic evolutionism of the early Sumerians at Babel.

But along with its strong assertion of monotheism, there is also a very real suggestion that this declaration, with its thrice-named subject, is also setting forth the Triune God. The name, “LORD,” of course, is Yahweh, or Jehovah, the self-existing One who reveals Himself, while “God” is Elohim, the powerful Creator/Ruler. “Jehovah our Elohim is one Jehovah” is the proclamation. A number of respected Jewish commentators have acknowledged that the verse spoke of a “unified oneness,” rather than an “absolute oneness.” The revered book called the Zohar, for example, even said that the first mention was of the Father; the second one the Messiah; and the third, the Holy Spirit.

The key word “one” (Hebrew, achad) is often used to denote unity in diversity. For example, when Eve was united to Adam in marriage, they were said to be “one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). Similarly, on the third day of creation, the waters were “gathered together unto one place,” yet this gathering together was called “Seas” (i.e., more than one sea; Genesis 1:9,10).

Thus, Israel’s great declaration should really be understood as saying in effect: “The eternally omnipresent Father, also Creator and Sustainer of all things, is our unified self-revealing Lord.”
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ICR/HMM

When God Became Man
By: Henry Morris, Ph.D.

"In the beginning was the Word, . . .
and the Word was God . . . . All things were made by Him; . . .
And the Word was made flesh (John 1:1,3,14). -

We can never understand the doctrine of the incarnation, whereby God the Creator became man the creature, for it is beyond the limits of finite comprehension. But we can believe it, and rejoice in it!

In fact, we must believe it, for "every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God" (I John 4:3). "If ye believe not that I am He," said the Lord Jesus, "ye shall die in your sins" (John 8:24).

We not only must believe, but we can believe, for He has proved Himself to be God incarnate by "many infallible proofs" (Acts 1:3), especially by His bodily resurrection after dying for our sins. Thereby has God "given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead" (Acts 17:31). Only the Creator of life could defeat death. Buddha is dead and Mohammed is dead, and so are Confucius and Plato and all the great men who ever lived, but the "Word made flesh" who was "put to death in the flesh" (I Peter 3:18) has been raised from the dead and is "alive for evermore" (Revelation 1:18). "Wherefore He is also able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him" (Hebrews 7:25).

How Could the Creator Become Man?

Since "by Him [that is by Christ, the Word of God] were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth" (Colossians 1:16), He must have created the very body in which He would dwell when He "was made flesh." This body, however, could not be a body produced by the normal process of human reproduction, for it must be a body unmarred either by inherent sin spiritually or by inherited genetic defects physically or mentally.

It would necessarily have to be a perfect body, a body like that of the first man He had created long ago in the beautiful garden of Eden. He would, in fact, come to be called "the last Adam" (I Corinthians 15:45), since there would never be another man created as that "first Adam" had been.

There would be one important difference, however. The first Adam was created and made as a full-grown man, but the second must be "in all things . . . made like unto His brethren" (Hebrews 2:17). From conception to death, He must be "in all points . . . like as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15). In particular, His blood must be "precious blood . . . as of a lamb without blemish and without spot" (I Peter 1:19), for that blood must be "offered . . . without spot to God" (Hebrews 9:14).

Thus the body of the second Adam must be formed directly by God and placed in a virgin's womb. This had been the very first promise made after the first Adam brought sin and death into the world. Speaking of "the woman, and . . . her seed," God said that He "shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel" (Genesis 3:15). This prophecy was addressed to Satan, whose lie had elicited Eve's sin. This wonderful body would not grow from a man's seed, as in every other human birth, nor would it grow from a woman's egg, for in either case a sin-carrying and mutation-carrying embryo would necessarily result. It must instead be a seed specially formed by the Creator Himself, then planted in the virgin's womb, where it forthwith would become His "tabernacle" for thirty-three years as He lived on His planet Earth among those He had come to save.

"Lo, I come," He would later promise through David (Psalm 40:7). Through Isaiah He said: "(The) virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son," and that babe would also be "the mighty God, the everlasting Father" (Isaiah 7:14; 9:6). Still later, another great prophet could anticipate that "The LORD hath created a new thing in the earth, a woman shall compass a man" (Jeremiah 31:22).

Note that the "new thing" in the chosen woman must be "created." When the time came the angel assured young Mary that "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35).

Then, "when He cometh into the world, He saith, . . . a body hast thou prepared me" (Hebrews 10:5). Most significantly, He used the same word "prepared" (Greek, katartizo), which the writer of Hebrews also then would use when he testified that "the worlds were framed by the Word of God" (Hebrews 11:3), recognizing that the same living Word who had framed the worlds had also framed His own human body! And in that tiny cell in Mary's womb resided all the information not only for His own growth into manhood, but also for the creation, preservation, and redemption of the whole creation. It was His by right of creation and soon would be doubly His by right of redemption.

When Did the Creator Become Man?

It has become customary in much of the world to observe the Creator's incarnation on December 25, which is assumed to be the date of the birth of Jesus. However, various other dates have been observed by different groups or promoted by various writers—dates in January or March or October, for example. The early church apparently never observed Christmas at all, and the date of December 25 only began to be identified as Jesus' birthday in about the fourth century. In fact, many believe that Christmas celebrations are essentially a continuation of the old Roman Saturnalia or other pagan practices centering around the winter solstice, during the year's longest nights.

The fact is that no one really knows the date of His birth, so no one should be dogmatic on this subject. Nevertheless, there is one particularly intriguing possibility: On the night Christ was born, shepherds were in the field watching their sheep (Luke 2:8). Although it is barely possible that this could be in late December, it seems far more likely that it would be sometime in the early fall.

If so, the birth of Jesus also would have been in the fall, and it is significant that there was an ancient Christian feast called Michaelmas, observed on September 29 by many early Christians, especially in England and western Europe. The name later also was appropriated to identify a period during the fall when certain courts were in session.

In any case, the name "Michaelmas" meant "Michael sent," just as "Christmas" means "Christ sent." It is very probable that Michael was the "angel of the Lord" (Luke 2:9) who was sent from heaven to announce the birth of Jesus to the shepherds. The feast of Michaelmas thus may well have originated to commemorate this coming of Michael and the angels to welcome Jesus at His human birth.
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This date would be just several days before the great Feast of Tabernacles, which the pre-exilic Israelites observed each fall in gratitude for the annual harvest, with each family dwelling for a time in a tent, or "tabernacle." When John wrote that "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:14), he did not use the usual Greek word for "dwell." Instead, he said, literally, that the Word (that is, the Creator) "tabernacled" among us for a time. It was as though He had come into the world at just the appropriate time for the joyful Feast of Tabernacles, as Michael and the angels sang of "good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people" (Luke 2:10).

As glorious as the birth of Christ may have seemed, however, this was not His incarnation. He had already been "made in the likeness of men" (Philippians 2:7) nine months earlier, when He created a body for Himself and took up His residence in Mary's womb. That was the time when "the Word was made flesh!"

And so it may be beautifully significant that the real "Christmas" (i.e., "Christ sent"), when the Christ was sent from His throne in heaven to enter a "tabernacle" of flesh, would have been nine months earlier than "Michaelmas," when Michael and the angels were sent to announce His birth. But that brings us back to December 25 again! The actual number of days between the two dates is 278, which is the ideal period of human gestation.

Whether or not these inferences are correct (and remember no one really knows when Christ was born), they at least yield a greater appreciation of His miraculous conception. How appropriate it would be for Him to enter the world right at the season of darkest and longest night, for He would come as "the light of the world" (John 8:12) to bring "life and immortality to light through the gospel" (II Timothy 1:10). Then, at "Christmas" time, we can remember with deep thanksgiving (not with Saturnalian revelry and pagan greed) the amazing Christmas gift of God Himself, when "God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him" (I John 4:9).

Why Did the Creator Become Man?
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No question that begins with "Why?" can be answered scientifically. Such questions can be answered only theologically, and that means they can only be truly answered from the written Word of God. And this greatest of all questions has the most wonderful of all answers!

"For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved" (John 3:17).

"When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law" (Galatians 4:4,5).

"This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" (I Timothy 1:15).

But that is not all, of course. His first coming, followed by His sacrificial death, bodily resurrection, and glorious ascension, is a prophetic promise of His second coming.

At His first coming, He "tabernacled" among us for a little while; at His second coming, there will be "a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: For the former things are passed away" (Revelation 21:3,4). "And there shall be no night there; . . . for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever" (Revelation 22:5).

How infinitely sad it is that so many today reject or ignore such a gracious, loving, holy, powerful Creator/Redeemer. Not only do they miss all the true meaning and blessing of Christmas now, but, unless they respond to Him in repentance and faith, they will be everlastingly separated from Him in the glorious eternal ages to come.

* Dr. Henry M. Morris (1918-2006) was Founder and President Emeritus of ICR.

Jesus Messiah / By: Chris Tomlin

----He became sin, who knew no sin.
Love so amazing!

--The Uttermost Parts of the Earth--

"Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." (Psalm 2:8)
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This colorful and comprehensive phrase, usually translated "ends of the earth," occurs no less than thirty times in the Old Testament and five in the New. The verse in our text is God's promise to His Son, Jesus the Christ- (v. 7), and it appears again and again. For example: "He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth" (72:8). "Now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth" (Micah 5:4); "All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord" (Psalm 22:27).

This divine Son, whose future dominion will extend to the uttermost parts of the earth, is also the Creator of the ends of the earth. "Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered the wind in his fists? who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth? what is his name, and what is his son's name, if thou canst tell?" (Proverbs 30:4).

He who both created and will ultimately regain all the ends of the earth will also be their judge. "The LORD shall judge the ends of the earth; and he shall give strength unto his king, and exalt the horn of his anointed" (literally, Messiah; 1 Samuel 2:10).

For the present, however, He is still "despised and rejected of men" (Isaiah 53:3), both as Creator and as coming King by all the nations of the world. Nevertheless He has provided "salvation unto the ends of the earth" for all who will receive Him (Acts 13:47), and He has both commanded and prophesied that His followers must be "witnesses unto me . . . unto the uttermost part of the earth" (Acts 1:8).

The great message we carry from Him is: "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth" (Isaiah 45:22).
ICR/ HMM

Identifying Neandertal Man
By: Brian Thomas, M.S.

Bones were discovered in a cave in Germany’s Neander Valley in the middle 1800s. Since then, many more “Neandertal” remains have been uncovered. The story has been told that they wore no clothes, had a very primitive culture, and hunted animals with clubs as they evolved from an ape-like to a man-like creature. But is this an accurate picture?

Theistic evolutionists and progressive creationists believe that Neandertal and similar “cavemen” lived in a time long before Adam and Eve. One progressive creationist said, “Based on both skeletal and genetic comparisons, it can be conclusively said that the Neanderthal are not related to humans nor are they an ancestor to humans.”
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Biblical creationists, however, have long taught that Neandertals were fully human descendants of Noah who lived alongside other men during the post-Flood Ice Age. Which perspective most easily accommodates the scientific evidence?

Neandertals are usually depicted primarily as hunters, but “a new study shows they cooked and ate veggies.” Fossilized Neandertal teeth from Belgium and Iraq had grain starch on them. Amanda Henry, lead author of the study, told CNN, “Neanderthals are often portrayed as very backwards or primitive….Now we are beginning to understand that they had some quite advanced technologies and behaviors.”

An earlier report described “Stone Age” grinding tools along with hundreds of starch grains in various stages of processing, from a variety of plants. Evidence from the field seems consistent with the idea that mankind, including those who sheltered in caves, has always enjoyed a varied diet.

So, “cavemen” did not simply hunt for meat. But did they have a simplistic culture?

Evidence of advanced communication and construction skills continues to challenge primitive portrayals of earlier peoples. One study found Stone Age carvings in a South African cave. The “270 fragments of intentionally marked ostrich eggshell” containers were made by people with “social, cultural, and cognitive underpinnings that overlap with those of modern people.” Nearby people make and decorate eggshell carriers in the same manner to this day.

Some of the very earliest human artifacts are knives from Africa, made by heating stone to make it easier to flake into blades. A group of scientists reverse-engineered the difficult heating process, concluding, “These people were extremely smart.” Though Neandertals were not found in association with the knives, both overlapped in time.

Bones cut by a stone knife have been dated to a time before mankind had supposedly evolved to make tools. Ancient humans even performed surgery, complete with antiseptics and anesthesia! They made colorful jewelry out of seashells, prompting Discovery News to state, “Even Neanderthals knew how to accessorize.”

And the first completed Neandertal genome “showed us things completely unexpected by evolutionary theory. First, Neandertal was fully human. Second, he is related to people living in Eurasia today. Third, Neandertals interbred with modern humans.” This matches skeletal remains that were part modern, part Neandertal, found in Iberia.

Each “caveman” discovery lines up with God’s record on the matter. Of course Neandertals ate grains and made jewelry and complicated tools—they were fully human beings recently created in the image of God.

ICR/BT

--Revelation Song / Phillips, Craig, and Dean

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Worthy is the Lamb who was slain.

Holy Holy is He !
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With all creation I sing, "Praise to the King of kings!

--What The Creator Requires
--By: John D. Morris, Ph.D.

“And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul?” (Deuteronomy 10:12).
--
In the final weeks before his death, Moses gathered the people of Israel together for a final look back at God’s miraculous provision for the nation and a restatement of the Law. He repeated the Ten Commandments, and reminded them of their supernatural origin (chapter 5). He charged them to remember the Law and to pass it on to their children, for God, Himself, had entrusted it to them (chapter 6). He insisted that they utterly destroy the enemies of God in the land, for their holy and special status as the people of God would be in jeopardy if they didn’t (chapter 7). The longest section of the speech consisted of a command to remember their unique history: how God had supernaturally intervened for them on so many occasions (vs. 8:1–10:11).

Finally, Moses brought them to a time of commitment, charging them, in our text, to fear, obey, love, and serve the “LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul.” Even the commandments were “for their good” (v.13); they were not merely petty or malicious. In fact, throughout the lengthy lecture, Moses had several times adjured the people to love their LORD with their entire being (see vs. 6:5; 7:9; 10:20; 11:1,13,22).

And why not? “Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the LORD’s thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is” (10:14). The God who placed His sovereign mark on Israel (v.15) deserved their total devotion, obedience, and service.

Does not the Creator God, who has done so much more for us than He did even for Israel, deserve our total devotion, obedience, and service[b]?[/b]--
--
ICR/JDM

When Messiah Came
By: Henry Morris, Ph.D.

"Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times" (Daniel 9:25).
--
This remarkable prophecy, given through the angel Gabriel to Daniel the prophet, actually predicted the date of the coming of Christ nearly 500 years in advance. From the announcement to the coming of "Messiah the Prince," there would be 69 "weeks" (literally "sevens," meaning in this context "seven-year periods"). That is, Messiah would come as the Prince 483 years after the commandment was given to rebuild Jerusalem. There is some uncertainty about the exact date of the decree, as well as the exact length of these prophetic years, but in each calculation the termination date is at least near, or in some, exactly the time when Christ entered Jerusalem to be acknowledged as its promised King.

However, Gabriel's prophecy went on to say: "And after [the] threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off" (Daniel 9:26). That is, although He would come as promised, instead of being gladly crowned as King, He would be slain. Since the 483-year period terminated long ago, it is clear that Messiah must already have come, and then been put to death at that time.

The terms of this remarkable prophecy have been precisely fulfilled in Jesus Christ alone, and no one coming later could have done so. It is no wonder that He wept over Jerusalem, pronouncing her coming judgment, "because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation" (Luke 19:44).

We, like He, should weep and pray for Israel. Yet, in God's omniscient planning, "through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles" (Romans 11:11), and in this we can rejoice.

ICR/HMM

--All Things

“By Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.”
Colossians 1:16 NASB

What a phenomenal list! Heavens and earth. Visible and invisible. Thrones, dominions, rulers and authorities. No thing, place, or person omitted. The scale on the sea urchin. The hair on the elephant hide.

The hurricane that wrecks the coast, the rain that nourishes the desert, the infant’s first heartbeat, the elderly person’s final breath -– all can be traced back to the hand of Christ, the firstborn of creation.
--- + ---

By: Max Lucado

-The Word Became Flesh
Hebrews 1:1-12

"In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son..." (Hebrews 1:1-2a).-

The inspired Word of God has given us all that can be written about Jesus, yet we still find it difficult to convey in words some aspects of the essence of our divine Creator. That is why God's way of revealing Himself to us--beyond the prophets or visions or miracles--was through a Person. The very Word of God has come to us in a Person, Jesus Christ. Through Jesus' birth, life and death for us, we can know the "radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being" (v.3).

Though we may struggle to express ourselves at times, God's greatest expression of love to us is spoken boldly and plainly through His Son. ~
--
When words fall short, rejoice in the knowledge that "The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us" (John 1:14).

--Haven Today

God Caused Time, Space, and Matter
-
The cause of the universe is God. Our Creator is outside of the physical creation he made. Time is not eternal, but created.

To ask what happened in time before time was created is to create a false paradox without meaning. There was no "before" before the triune universe of time, space and matter was created.

--ICR
----
-Evidence For God ~

While absolute proof of the existence of God cannot be realized by any human being, the great weight of evidence, when rationally evaluated, clearly balances the scales heavily in favor of God. We can demonstrate "beyond a reasonable doubt" that "He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him" (Hebrews 11:6).-

-Nature Reveals God's Presence
By: ICR

God's presence can be detected even in the most commonplace substances, like water. All of us have physical bodies that are mostly water! God provides the water for life. Our planet is close enough to the sun to provide the liquid water that is necessary for life. But if it were just a little farther away, all that water would become ice!

While water itself is a very small molecule (just a three-atom unit of hydrogen and oxygen) it is a primary ingredient of our planet. God's design of how water's specific molecules behave (and the impact water has on our entire planet) is an example of God's creative design and custodial presence, even on the smallest and largest scales.
-
Water expands when it freezes, unlike most other substances. Ice and snow take up more volume than the same amount of liquid water. This makes water denser as a liquid than when frozen, so ice floats.

If ice did not float on the surface of the water, the floors of oceans and lakes would be covered with glaciers of ice that would never melt. Surface ice also helps regulate the climate by reflecting energy.

As a liquid, water’s temperature range is perfect for cycling water from the oceans to the land. Water requires a lot of energy to evaporate into a vapor and it releases this energy when it condenses back into liquid. This balances temperatures in the earth’s climate, as well as inside living cells. If less energy were required for evaporation, then streams, rivers, and lakes would evaporate away quickly.

Beautiful clouds and sunsets inspire praise for the Creator who forms them. Because God's creative presence is shown in even commonplace yet needful things, we are blessed by the huge quantities of water that flow through our biosphere.~~

--
Earth Was Created in a Wonderful Location

Our Sun Is Perfectly Located Within Our Galaxy

The spiral-shaped galaxy in which the earth is located is called the Milky Way. The spiraling arms and center of this galaxy contain many stars set close together, giving off its characteristic brightness.

Other galaxies—older, smaller, elliptical, and irregular—are missing the proper amounts of elements necessary to maintain the right balance of stars and planets required to support life.

Some stars explode into supernovas, causing deadly radiation to flow through nearby stars and planets.

The center and arms of galaxies are flooded with high amounts of radiation. Most stars are located in places with too much harmful energy for life.

Our solar system is located about two-thirds of the way out toward the edge of the Milky Way, where we are least likely to suffer collisions with other stars. Most of the stars in our galaxy are in the larger spiral arms or in the center. Because there are few stars near us, there is a low amount of radiation surrounding our solar system and we can observe the rest of the universe and our own galaxy much better.

Our Planet is Perfectly Located Within Our Solar System

Our solar system also contains thousands of asteroids and meteoroids. These sometime collide with planets. Jupiter keeps large rocks from hitting earth by attracting them with its strong gravity.

The earth's huge moon also protects us from many of rocks that cross our planet's path. The craters across the moon's surface demonstrate the frequency something has collided with the moon instead of earth. The moon's South Pole—Aitken basin—is the largest known crater in our solar system. It is eight miles deep and 1500 miles across. The earth's moon is unusually large.

In addition, our huge moon is a stabilizing anchor for our planet. Our moon prevents our planet from tilting too far from the attraction of the sun or Jupiter.

We are protected because of the way our solar system was created.

---ICR-
--Depending on God isn't weakness; it is acknowledging His strength.

-Christ the King -
By: Henry Morris, Ph.D.

"Which in His times He shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords" (I Timothy 6:15).
--
Of the many descriptive titles of the Lord Jesus Christ, perhaps the most significant is that of King, because this speaks of His universal dominion. The day is coming when "every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth" (Philippians 2:10). First of all, since He created all things, He is the King of Creation. "For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In His hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is His also. The sea is His, and He made it: and His hands formed the dry land" (Psalm 95:3-5).

In a special sense, of course, He is the King of the Jews. "He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of His kingdom there shall be no end" (Luke 1:33).

He is also our King of redemption, having set us free from the kingdom of the wicked one. He "hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son: In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins" (Colossians 1:13-14).

There is a day coming in which all the kings of the earth shall unite against Him. - "These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for He is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with Him are called, and chosen, and faithful" (Revelation 17:14). "And out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it He should smite the nations: and He shall rule them with a rod of iron. . . .

And He hath on His vesture and on His thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS" (Revelation 19:15-16). Until then, let us serve Him as King, and submit to Him as Lord.

ICR/HMM
---JESUS IS LORD! -JESUS IS KING!-- JESUS IS CREATOR!

-Who Cares About Creation Anyway?
-By: John D. Morris, Ph.D.

In the minds of many, creation thinking is marginalized to a "fundamentalist" few. But let's look again.

Listed below are quotes from several great men who cared much about creation. In their writings they not only supported creation, but extended our knowledge of creation. They used creation to teach truth, glorify the Creator, and confront wrong thinking. (This list contains, by the way, some of my favorite creation Scriptures. It could be extended considerably.)
------
Moses: "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God" (Psalm 90:2).

David: "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth His handywork" (Psalm 19:1).

"By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth" (Psalm 33:6).

Solomon: "The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath He established the heavens" (Proverbs 3:19).

Isaiah: "Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of His understanding" (Isaiah 40:28).

"Even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; Yea, I have made him" (Isaiah 43:7).

Jeremiah: "Ah Lord God! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee" (Jeremiah 32:17).

Nehemiah: "Thou, even thou, art Lord alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee" (Nehemiah 9:6).

John: - "All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made" (John 1:3).

Paul: "For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him: And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist" (Colossians 1:16-17).

"For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse" (Romans 1:20).

Peter: "For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished" (II Peter 3:5-6).

Four and Twenty Elders: "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created" (Revelation 4:11).
--- -
Angel: "Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come: and worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters" (Revelation 14:7).

* Dr. Morris is President of ICR.
--

ENJOY GOD'S
PRESENCE ~

Taste and see that
the LORD is good...
Those who seek the
LORD shall not lack
any good thing.
--Psalm 34:8,10 --
--
When we read, "Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good" (Ps. 34:8), we can be sure that God wants us to "savor" His presence. He allows us to gain intimate and satisfying knowledge of Him. And when we meditate on His Word, we will draw out a deeper underastanding of who He is (Ezel. 3:1-3). As we taste His goodness and love, He will reveal the distinctive flavor of His creativity, sovereignty, holiness, and faithfulness.

Our Father must look on with enjoyment as we learn how to enjoy and savor Him.

Oh, taste the goodness of the Lord
And savor all that He has done;
Draw close and give your praise to Him--
The holy, sovereign, faithful One.
---
Our greatest privilege is to enjoy God's presence.

ODB/CHK
-- http://youtu.be/lpLqAUJcUbo / ENJOY!
Indescribable, uncontainable, you placed the stars in the sky and you know them by name. You are amazing God!

-The Living Word

"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." (John 1:14)-

This is the great verse of the Incarnation, declaring to us that the Creator of all things, the eternal Word of God (John 1:1-3) actually became a man, being "made flesh" (text). Since this verse and the following verses unequivocally refer to "Jesus Christ" (v. 17), there is no legitimate escape (though many have tried) from the great truth that the man called Jesus of Nazareth was the great God and Creator, as well as perfect man and redeeming Savior. Furthermore, He has assumed human flesh forever, while still remaining fully God. He is Immanuel, "God with us" (Matthew 1:23).


He is not part man and part God, or sometimes man and sometimes God, but is now the God-man, fully and eternally true God and perfect man--man as God created and intended man to be. See also Philippians 2:5-8 and 1 John 4:2-3.

When He first became man, He "dwelt among us" for a while. The word "dwelt," however, is actually the Greek word for "tabernacled." As in the tabernacle (or "tent") prepared by Moses (Exodus 40:33) in the wilderness, the glory of God in Christ dwelled on earth for a time in a "body" prepared by God (Hebrews 10:5). We also "beheld his glory," says His beloved disciple, John. The Greek word for "tabernacle" (skene) is a cognate word to shakan (the Hebrew word for "dwell"), both being related to what has come to be known as the shekinah glory cloud that filled the ancient tabernacle (Exodus 40:34).

Eventually, when the Holy City descends out of heaven to the new earth, then "the tabernacle of God" will forever be "with men," and He will "dwell with them" and "be their God" eternally (Revelation 21:3). Thus God's "Living Word" is now and always our living Lord! --
ICR/HMM

-Christ the Son of God
-By: Henry Morris, Ph.D.

"And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead" (Romans 1:4). -

The opening verses of Paul's epistle to the Romans stressed that the gospel of Christ was actually the fulfillment of that "Which He had promised afore by His prophets in the holy scriptures" (v.2). This promise was centered in God's eternal Son who had promised to redeem the world from sin and death.

To do this, He must become a man, "made of the seed of David according to the flesh" (v.3), yet He also must be sinless in both nature and practice before He could become God's perfect sacrifice for sin. He must be perfect man--man as God intended man to be. He must be a "second Adam," created without sin, yet He must not fail as did the first Adam, being "in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15).

He must, therefore, be miraculously conceived. "A body hast thou prepared me" (Hebrews 10:5)--a perfect body unblemished either by inherited mutations or by a sin-nature genetically inherited from his parents. Then, for nine months, His body would grow, finally to be born of the virgin and to live a life "holy, harmless, undefiled" until that perfect, sinless man could be made "one sacrifice for sins for ever" (Hebrews 7:26; 10:12).

But how would the world ever know that all of this was really true? How could lost sinners be assured that their Creator had now become their Redeemer?

By His resurrection from the dead--that's how! He has been "declared to be the Son of God with power . . . by the resurrection from the dead" (text). Jesus Christ is "that man whom He hath ordained;" and of this we can be sure, because "He hath raised Him from the dead" (Acts 17:31).

ICR/HMM

-The Living Savior
By: Henry Morris, Ph.D.

"That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Romans 10:9).
---
There is a popular Christian song whose chorus ends with these words: "You ask me how I know He lives; He lives within my heart." This may sound spiritual, but this is not how we know He lives! We are saved because of the objective fact that He died for our sins and then rose bodily from the tomb, triumphant over sin, death, the curse, and Satan, alive in His glorified body, for evermore. It is this which we must believe in our hearts and confess with our lips. For Him to rise bodily from the grave means that He is nothing less than God, the very Creator Himself. It is only because of who He is that He could do what He did, and this is what we must believe in our hearts.

There are people who believe that Buddha lives in their hearts, or the spirit of "the gods" indwells their hearts, or even that "the Christ" is in their hearts, but "the heart is deceitful above all things" (Jeremiah 17:9). We can believe many things, and feel many things that are not so. We know Jesus Christ is a living Savior, not because we feel His presence in our hearts, but because He rose from the grave on the third day and "shewed Himself alive after His passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days" (Acts 1:3). The gospel of our salvation does not rest on our feelings, nor on someone's teachings, but on the objective, proven, certain facts of history. Jesus Christ is alive, whether anyone feels Him living in their hearts or not, and He is at this moment bodily in heaven, at the right hand of the Father (e.g., Romans 8:34).

"Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them" (Hebrews 7:25).

ICR/ HMM

-Impact of the Empty Tomb
-By: Henry Morris, Ph.D.
--
There are “many infallible proofs” of the bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, but the testimony of the empty tomb is the most conclusive of all. Jesus had been buried, with the tomb sealed and guarded by a watch of Roman soldiers. Yet on the third day of His burial, on the morning of the first day of the week, the body was no longer there, and the empty tomb still stands today as an unanswerable proof that the Lord Jesus rose from the dead.

There are other proofs, of course. The ten or more recorded appearances of the resurrected Christ to His disciples, the amazing change of demeanor of the disciples from that of fearful hideaways to fearless evangelists, the worldwide spread of the Christian faith as founded on the resurrection, and so on. But the impact of the empty tomb was the foundation and bulwark of all the rest. As we consider its impact on the world, and on us today, it is instructively fascinating to consider first its impact on those who first encountered it.

Impact on the Soldiers

A watch (possibly a “quaternion” of four Roman soldiers—compare Acts 12:4) had been designated by the Roman Governor Pilate to guard the tomb after Jesus’ body had been buried there by Nicodemus and Joseph. The account is in Matthew 27:62-66.

Now the next day, that followed the day of the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate, Saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again. Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first. Pilate said unto them, Ye have a watch: go your way, make it as sure as ye can. So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch.

The “great stone” had already been “rolled...to the door of the sepulchre” by Joseph when he and Nicodemus buried Jesus (Matthew 27:60), but now the soldiers (as directed by the chief priests) sealed it in place with the official Roman seal, which could only be broken on penalty of death. Then they took their guard positions for the rest of the three-day period. Probably they took turns at sleeping, one sleeping while three remained awake on guard. Certainly none of the hiding disciples (or anyone else) would have dared to try to invade the tomb for any reason.

The soldiers had probably been selected from that “whole band of soldiers” (Matthew 27:27) that had stripped Jesus in Pilate’s hall and scourged Him and mocked Him and then taken Him out to crucify Him. They had watched Him suffer and die, but then they had also experienced the great darkness and the great earthquake (Matthew 27:45, 51), and had heard their centurion cry out: “Truly this man was the Son of God” (Mark 15:39).

They had no reason to fear the disciples, but they must have had some concern about what God might do to them, if indeed Jesus was the Son of God, as their centurion had cried. In any case, they certainly would not be lethargic and careless about their assignment, or about to fall asleep while on duty.

They were hardly prepared for what did happen!

And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. (Matthew 28:2-4)

As soon as they recovered and were able to move, they scattered from the site, rightly deciding that the mighty angel was more to be feared than the priests or even Pilate.

But what to do next? They realized that the happening at the tomb would soon become known, including their flight, and they realized Pilate might well have them put to death for leaving their post.

Their best hope would be the priests, who seemed to have some kind of influence with the governor, and perhaps would be able to understand their plight. Therefore, some of them (what happened to the others is not recorded) headed for the temple, to tell Caiaphas and the others that the tomb was empty, though it was not because of the disciples, who were still somewhere in hiding.

Behold, some of the watch came into the city, and shewed unto the chief priests all the things that were done. And when they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers, Saying, Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept. And if this come to the governor’s ears, we will persuade him, and secure you. So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day. (Matthew 28:11-15)

Under other circumstances, the soldiers would have been afraid to say they all four had been sleeping on duty. But they were also greedy, and the “hush-money” convinced them. They were in mortal danger anyway, and they realized that Pilate might be amenable to bribery too, and they really had no other choice. Roman officials were indeed known to take bribes to render desired decisions (note the reputation of the governor Felix as implied in Acts 24:26).

The idea that the disciples had stolen the body while the soldiers slept circulated for a while, but it was so unreasonable that it could not survive very long. In the first place, if the soldiers really were all asleep (which is practically inconceivable), they could not have known what happened. Secondly, the work of moving the stone, stripping the grave clothes off the body, and carrying the body away would surely have awakened at least some of the soldiers.

Finally, the disciples could never have persisted in preaching a lie about resurrection when it began to cost them all their possessions and finally their lives to do so. Thus, the story circulated by the soldiers was basically unbelievable and could not convince people very long.

But it served the immediate purpose, presumably, of sparing the soldiers’ lives for the time being. They did know that the tomb was empty, however, and we can at least wonder whether some of them also might have eventually come to believe that Jesus was really the Son of God, and to seek His forgiveness and salvation.-

(We will observe (Celebrate), Easter Sunday, April 24th!)
--Resurrection Day!

The Lamb of God~
READ/ Matthew 26:47-27:56

Jesus is called by a variety of names--Messiah, Lord, Christ, Rabbi, Teacher--but the one that is probably the most unfamiliar to the modern world is the Lamb of God. Since most of us do not have a Jewish background, we have a limited understanding of this title. But the Israelites of that day understood the significance of this name.
Lambs were for sacrifice.

God has always dealth with sin through the blood of sacrifices. When Adam and Even sinned, an animal was slain to cover the nakedness and shame of two individuals (Gen. 3:21). On the first Passover, each household covered their doorway with sacrificial blood (Ex. 12:1-7). Later, a goat was slaughtered for the atonement of the entire nation (Lev. 16:15). Now in John 1:29, we see the ultimate sacrifice --the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world.

Usually a person's most impressive achievements are completed while he or she is alive, but think about what Jesus accomplished through His death. Just as innocent animals had died in place of the guilty, so Christ gave His perfect life for sinful mankind. He assumed full responsibility for all sins and took the punishment that we deserved. As He hung on the cross, the judgment and wrath of God was poured out on Him instead of on us.
---
Since we are limited by our human minds and senses, we cannot fully understand all that the Lamb of God endured to bring us salvation. But we know enough to realize that we owe Him our lives. He took our place on the cross; let's give Him first place in our hearts.-

--In Touch
He's Alive!
<http://youtu.be/NyPBVwOCYmM>

-Christ Is Risen
-By: Henry Morris, Ph.D.

"But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept" (I Corinthians 15:20).
---
When the women, very early on that morning after the Sabbath rest, came to the sepulcher in Joseph's new garden, where they had seen Joseph and Nicodemus bury their Lord Jesus, they were greeted by angels with an amazing announcement. "Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for He is risen, as He said" (Matthew 28:5-6).

"He is risen; He is not here." These wonderful words were also recorded by Mark (Mark 16:6) and by Luke, (Luke 24:6). John, who wrote his own account many years later after the story had been widely circulated, told instead how Mary Magdalene had seen Jesus Himself standing outside the tomb, calling her by name. (John 20:14-16).

The apostle Paul later wrote to the Corinthian church, stressing in detail the "many infallible proofs" (Acts 1:3) that Christ is risen indeed. There were apparently some who, even at that time, were doubting whether the dead would ever live again, so Paul reminded them: "But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is not Christ risen. And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain" (I Corinthians 15:13-14).

But it is not in vain! It can be shown that the bodily resurrection of Christ is a proven fact, as certain as any other fact in ancient history. "Now is Christ risen from the dead." And then our text also says that He is merely "the first fruits" in the great resurrection promised for all who accept Christ as Savior. He Himself promised: "Because I live, ye shall live also" (John 14:19).

Christ is risen indeed! And God indeed "hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (I Peter 1:3).

ICR/HMM

-Son of the Living God ~ -

"And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." (Matthew 16:16)

This ringing affirmation of faith came from Peter as spokesman, but undoubtedly was shared by all the disciples, since Jesus had asked the question "Whom say ye that I am?" of them all. Actually, they had probably all been disciples of John the Baptist, who had directed them to Jesus, and so had heard John's testimony concerning Christ's identity. John had said that Jesus was indeed "the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father" (John 1:18).

Yet, as they had been following Him, they had heard Him speak of Himself far more often as "the Son of man." Over thirty times, in the gospel of Matthew alone, He identified Himself as Son of man, not once as the Son of God. Nevertheless, He accepted Peter's statement as absolutely true, saying that the Father had so revealed it.

In fact it is essential that one must believe it to be saved. Jesus did say: "But he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God" (John 3:18).

Yet He seems to want us to know Him especially as the Son of man, perhaps so that we will never forget that He, though God, is also man just like us. And as man, He was "in all points (tested) like as we are, yet without sin" so He can "be touched with the feeling of our infirmities," and we now can "come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews 4:15-16).

John was enabled to see Christ once again, long after His return to heaven. Although He was now in His resurrection body, John still saw Him as "one like unto the Son of man" (Revelation 1:13).

Although He is indeed the Son of the living God, He is also our "man in the glory"[b]![/b]

ICR/HMM

-The Message of the Old Testament
-By: John D. Morris, Ph.D.

"Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else" (Isaiah 45:22).-

Ever since sin entered into God's created world, His message to all people of all ages has been the same. At the time of the curse, God prophesied that there soon would be a coming Redeemer--the Seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent, although the Redeemer Himself would be made to suffer in order to do away with the effects of sin (Genesis 3:15). "For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul" (Leviticus 17:11).

God repeatedly warned the people of His hatred of sin and wickedness (see for example Psalm 5:4-6; Proverbs 6:16-19), but He recognized that humankind was totally incapable of measuring up to His standard of perfection. That great statement of righteous requirements, the Ten Commandments, demonstrated the utter impossibility of complete compliance (Exodus 20; Psalm 14; etc.) Conversely, God repeatedly extended His invitation to be rescued from sin and its effects and its necessary judgment by confidence in His plan for mankind. In our text, we see that "all the ends of the earth" have the opportunity to be "saved." "Surely, shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness and strength: even to Him shall men come" (Isaiah 45:24).

This plan of God focuses on the promised Redeemer who would come to buy back humanity from its enslavement to sin. "A virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel" (Isaiah 7:14). "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: . . . and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:5-6).
ICR/JDM

-The Name Of The Lord -
-By: Henry Morris, Ph.D.

“And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and He said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you” (Exodus 3:14).

This unique name of God was given to stress the truth that He is timeless. The name “LORD” (Hebrew YHWH = Yahweh, or Jehovah) is essentially the same, conveying the truth that He is the eternal, self-existing one.

The Lord Jesus Christ appropriated this divine name to Himself when He told the Jews: “Before Abraham was [i.e., ‘was born’], I am” (John 8:58). Correctly assuming that this statement was nothing less than a direct claim to identity with God, the Jews immediately (but unsuccessfully) attempted to stone Him to death as a blasphemer.

As the I Am, the Lord Jesus Christ is, indeed, everything, and He has revealed Himself to us under many beautiful symbols. It is well known that there are seven great “I am’s” in the gospel of John, each of which is rich with spiritual depth of meaning. They can be listed as follows:

“I am the bread of life . . . the living bread” (John 6:35,51)

“I am the light of the world . . . the light of life” (John 8:12).

“I am the door of the sheep” (John 10:7).

“I am the good shepherd, . . . [who] giveth His life for the sheep” (John 10:11).

“I am the resurrection, and the life” (John ] 1:25).

“I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).

“I am the true vine” (John 15:1).

It is well known that this magnificent self-assertion of the Lord permeates the whole Bible, from its first use in Genesis 15:1, “I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward,” to its final occurrence in Revelation 22:16, “I am . . . the bright and morning star.”

And all these beautiful figures help us to pray more fervently “that God may be all in all” (I Corinthians 15:28).
--
ICR/HMM

-KNOWING
GOD's WILL~

Ephesians 5:17-21
---
...that you may
prove what is that
good and acceptable
and perfect will of
God. --Romans 12:2 -
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A young man facing the future and unsure of what the next year would bring, concluded, "Nobody knows what God's will is." Is he right? Does a lack of certainty about the future translate into not knowing God's will?

The concept of knowing God's will is often limited to discerning what specific situation we will be in at some future time. Although seeking God's specific leading is part of it, another aspect that is just as vital is to follow the clearly defined elements of God's will each and every day.

For instance, it is God's will for us to be good citizens as a challenge to those opposed to Christ (1 Peter 2:15), to give God thanks no matter what (1 Thess. 5:18), avoiding immorality (1 Thess. 4:3), to live under the Holy Spirit's control (Eph. 5:18), to sing to Him (v.19), and to submit to other believers (v.21).

As we submit to God in these and other areas, we are more likely to live in what Romans 12:2 calls God's "good and acceptable and perfect will." Living with God's smile of approval leads to His guidance for the future.

As we seek to know God's will for the future, we must also act on what we already know now.
---
Love and obey the Lord every day,
and He will unfold your future.

ODB/DB