Deuteronomy 14:22 “You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year. 23 And before the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose, to make his name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. 24 And if the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe, when the Lord your God blesses you, because the place is too far from you, which the Lord your God chooses, to set his name there, 25 then you shall turn it into money and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place that the Lord…
Hello, If anyone out there in the Christian blogosphere would like to read an article on X topic, (where X is a variable that represents your suggested topic.) write a comment on this post with your request. Who knows, maybe I’ll know something about it or it will cause me to learn something new. Either way it is a win win.
I have a problem. I love Bibles. I love to read them and collect them. I love to find features that are different and interesting. I love to find Bibles made from high quality materials. I love a few versions and am not too fond of the rest. The reason I say this is a problem is because shopping for the Bibles online can take away time from reading the Bibles I already have.
Don’t get me wrong, I read the Bible and I give Bibles away, I am just weary of the time I spend researching, shopping, and comparing, one to the other. Who would have thought that Bibles could become an idol? I know right? Well it is possible and it does happen. I’ve managed, by the grace of God to check my problem however, I know others are struggling with the same problem whether they will admit it or not.
Brothers and sisters there is hope. You also can check your habit. Just admit that you are in sin and humbly ask God to forgive you. Repent from your sin and give some Bibles away. You will see the joy on the face of the person getting a high quality unique Bible for free. Another cool thing to do is to make notes, underline, and highlight in a Bible with a specific person in mind. I am doing one for each one of my kids. You can also do that with a specific theme in mind, like the sovereignty of God. When you get done, give it to someone. I have friends overseas that are poor and would love a high quality Bible. It would become a cherished possession to them. High quality Bibles can hold up longer and provide more years of service. Sure they are bit more money, but buying one that lasts five years is about the same cost as buying one every year for five years. Spread the love and the word, make it personal! Love God and His word, but don’t esteem the media so much that it becomes an idol. God bless you and get in the word!
Here’s our first meme to examine. Let’s think through the message and implication of that message.
In this meme we have what appears to be an Eskimo fishing while speaking to an unseen Christian priest/missionary. The Eskimo asks whether those who are ignorant of God’s righteous character and our moral rebellion against him would, in light of that very ignorance, be held accountable. The priest/missionary replies “No, not if you did not know.” The Eskimo’s response is the key to understanding the single point of the meme, “Then why did you tell me?” According to the rationale of the meme’s creator, Christians appear to hold to 3 contradictory beliefs: a) Those who reject the message of sin and the forgiveness provided by the cross-work of Jesus are eternally damned (i.e. go to hell), b) it is the Christian’s job to tell as many people as possible the message of sin and…
Faith doesn’t compel God to act on our behalf the way prosperity/health/wealth false teachers say it does. Our words are NOT containers of power. Our prayers do not make God do things for us, no not even when we add, “In Jesus name.” to the end. Faith is the belief that God will do what He has said. Faith is the belief that He is who He says He is. Here is a section of scripture that is always violently twisted by the false teachers. I want you to notice something. The centurion didn’t make Jesus heal his servant. He came asking humbly for his servant to be healed. Jesus, being God decreed that it is so, and it was. The servant was healed because Jesus did it in accordance to His own will. He wanted to heal the servant. He demonstrated the love, mercy, and sovereignty of God in this healing. The lesson is to come to Jesus humbly and ask, believing that He is God and if it is “HIS” will it will be done. Then when He says it is so, we demonstrate great faith by believing Him. Do you want to hear Him tell you things? Read the Bible. Don’t wait for a, “word” or, “a still small voice.” Open your Bible and study it. Read His words and believe them. Live your life as if you do believe them. That is great faith.
Matthew 8:5-13 NASB And when Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, imploring Him, (6) and saying, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented.” (7) Jesus *said to him, “I will come and heal him.” (8) But the centurion said, “Lord, I am not worthy for You to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed. (9) “For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it.” (10) Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled and said to those who were following, “Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel. (11) “I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; (12) but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (13) And Jesus said to the centurion, “Go; it shall be done for you as you have believed.” And the servant was healed that very moment.
There are two types of faith. One type of faith is willingness to believe in something, which isn’t proved, or a hope in something that may be. Then there is a saving faith, which is granted by God to those who He has elected, and predestined.
The first type you might have had in a person. For instance, perhaps they told you that they would do something for you, and you believe that they will. Then you act on that faith in hopes that they will fulfill their promise to you. Some people have that type of faith in God, in a general sense. They believe there is a God, and they hope He is merciful. They might even believe He is merciful. They might even believe they are saved. Have you talked with someone who has many heretical beliefs, bad fruit, and still insists that they are a Christian? I’m sure you probably have. This person doesn’t have the second type of faith.
The second type of faith is the saving kind. It isn’t something we can come to without God. It must be granted to the person by God. You can want to believe, but without God granting it, you could never have it. Have you ever been talking with someone, sharing the gospel with them, and had them say, “Wow! That really sounds like a great gift, I just can’t believe in a God that would_______.” They can understand the gospel intellectually, they might even like it as a philosophy, but they just can’t believe it.
The second type of faith, when God grants it to a person, allows them to believe in Him rightly. It allows them to believe in the work of Jesus on the cross. Without it the cross is just another mythology. The true believer has the faith to do things that doesn’t make sense to the world. We have the faith to put into practice the doctrines of the Bible. God fulfills His promises and makes effectual that which He has willed. The believer will produce fruit in keeping with the spirit of salvation. The believer will persevere until the end. The believer will operate with the presupposition that the Bible is true. The believer will love Jesus. The believer will love others. You get the idea. They don’t do the things they do because they want to believe, they do them because they actually believe. This is a gift from God. It is coupled with true repentance when a person is justified by Christ.
It is God’s planet and He will destroy it when He wants.
Climate change was called, “global warming” back before everything started to freeze up again. When I was a kid in the 80’s we were taught that we were headed into another ice age, because of the hole in the ozone layer. Fear mongering is a tool of the enemy. The only good fear is the healthy fear of the Lord, because the Bible calls it the beginning of wisdom.
For many of us with a Christian worldview we don’t fear climate change. We know that God will destroy the planet according to His word like it says in Revelation. For those of you who don’t read your Bibles enough I didn’t make a typo when I wrote, “Revelation.” There is no, “s” on the end of that book title. If you don’t believe me, get your Bibles out and check, I’ll wait right here. OK now that is settled let’s move on. If the Bible is true then we don’t have to be fearful. God has sovereignly ordained the end of our home planet. He will destroy it. Here read this, Revelation 21:1-2 “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.”
Now our secular friends on the other hand have much to be afraid of including their own shadows and wet noodles. We need to understand that what is going on is the result of original sin. The curse of the fall puts us in a world destined to die away. We are not causing the temperature to change. God is causing it. Even if we were the mechanism of climate change, ultimately it would be the Sovereign of all things ordaining it to happen. After God had destroyed the Earth the first time with water He told this to Noah, ““While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, And cold and heat, And summer and winter, And day and night Shall not cease.” Genesis 8:22”
Many people have made the environment into an idol. It’s pretty darn arrogant and egotistical to think that we are going to destroy what God made. We might have the means, but what right do we have to try it? These people are being used by other more powerful people who seek to capitalize on climate change. Carbon offset credits will be a new global currency that will be used to cause worldwide oppression under the guise of creating a homeostasis in the qualities of living across the globe. People who aren’t developed or educated will receive credits to remain that way. While wealthy, industrialized nations will pay the guilt away.
They will use the useful idiots as Lenin called them, to sway the secular minded masses into voting for oppression. They will vote our rights away. The enemy will win without firing a shot. This is all because of Biblical ignorance. If people ultimately knew what the Bible said, they wouldn’t fall prey to these schemes, but hey! That is exactly why the left has orchestrated Biblical ignorance and this false separation of Church and state. When the populace is a slave to sin they will be mastered by masters of sinning. We need to be mastered by the Master of righteousness.
Climate change is just another tactic being used by the enemy to gain control over us. Oppression often comes gift-wrapped and it is just as often warmly received. We just need to look further back in the past than our own childhoods. Trust God for your salvation, life, and future, whatever He has in store for you, even if it is martyrdom. Unlike Joel Osteen we know our best life isn’t now. So until next time, speak in truth, be the salt and light, in a bland dreary world.
To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.
In the near future, gay marriage will be a reality across the U.S. It seems that we have become the moral minority. The younger, more liberal crowd and even moderates are on board with it. Even some professing evangelicals are approving gay marriage. I don’t understand it, but it is going to happen. I have resigned myself to it as a certainty.
We’ve been told that all they want is the same rights that we have to be married. Marriage isn’t a right to be conveyed upon a people by a government. Marriage predates any human government or authority. As such, governments can only recognize what God has already ordained. In this post-Christian world of secular morals, government no longer looks to the moral authority of God, who transcends their authority. No, they look to the secular majority for their doctrine. The majority wants gay marriage to be a reality. We can’t stop it from happening. The secularists and the government will take marriage and define it how they will. That does not mean that the marriage is one of Godly ordination.
The question we need to ask now is, “What’s next?” What will they want from us? I am certain they will want the, “right” to be married in a Christian Church, by a Pastor. Now ask yourselves, “Why would a couple who don’t believe in the authoritative word of God or God Himself, want to be joined in a covenant between Him and a man and a woman? Why would they want to do this in a Church that is dedicated to God? Why would they want a minister of His word to perform the ceremony?” It doesn’t make any sense to us because our minds are being renewed by the reading of His word. We are not worldly thinkers anymore. Our moral authority is external to us. God is our Lord and master, not the sinful world system that enslaves the minds of the unregenerate.
We can’t expect them to change their minds and be reasonable. They are deceived by their very own sinful natures. It is this fact that drives them to pervert every good thing from God. They will keep doing this because they are His enemies. Because we love the Lord and are His children, the world will hate us for His namesake. This is just one step on the path to full open persecution of Christians in America. The next step will be to punish Churches that won’t perform the ceremony for them. Then it will be to arrest anyone who preaches from the Bible about Hell, sin, and mankind’s wretched state. It will be a, “hate-speech” violation to call a person a sinner and to suggest that God is anything other than love. Try it now. Try preaching the justice of God and His sovereignty. Try preaching that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Preach that all are destined for eternal torment in Hell lest they repent and put their faith in the exclusivity of the saving grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This is the utmost offense, that there is only one way to the Father and that is through Jesus.
If you don’t believe it will happen, then you will be surprised when oppression, in a velvet glove comes to quietly crush you in the night. Then later the gloves will be off and open persecution will come. We will see the type of persecution that happened during the communist revolution in Poland. We will see the persecution that happens to our brothers and sisters in Christ that is happening now all over the world. When it hits home it will be too late. It will be too late for us to be salt and light. There will be nobody to listen to us except to delight in our cries.
For those of you who are secular and reading this… remember. Remember what I have said this day. When it happens while you are young or much older, remember and intervene. Let it be a testimony to you. Let the screams of the tortured bounce around in your head until you see the truth of it. Then, repent and ask God to forgive you for being so very wrong. Repent and put your faith in Him to forgive you for going along with it. He is merciful and trustworthy to forgive a humbled, penitent heart. You can know peace between you and your creator through His finished work on the cross. Jesus has paid the debt that your sin has accrued. He provides righteousness for you upon your regeneration and justification. May God bless you with salvific repentance and faith.
Homosexual hypocrites and their supporters are no different than the people they hate.
All the so called poor persecuted sure are putting out some hateful, bigoted, intolerant, rants against Butch Otter. Haters be hatin’ funny, as long as they are doing the name calling it’s ok, but say anything against their personal brand of sin and they get all bent. Guess what kids, we are all sinners and it is NOT ok. We need to repent and put our faith in Christ. Sexual sin is just as bad when a straight person does it. That doesn’t make it right. Just because it is something you can’t change about yourself doesn’t make it right. God changes us. We don’t do it by force of will. If you don’t get that I guess that is your answer as to why. If you could understand repentance and faith you would. I was born a sinner. We all are. Your pet sin needs to be repented of regardless of what it is, whether it is adultery, fornication, porn, lying, hatred, or any other sin your wicked little heart can think of. There is no such thing as a God ordained gay marriage. The government and the people can do what they want. If they vote it in, fine. Just stop hating on us poor breeders for voting our consciences that are in keeping with our worldview. Here is just one example http://www.boiseweekly.com/CityDesk/archives/2014/05/17/boise-state-public-radio-idaho-brewery-announces-little-bitch-otter-beer
Snyder's Soapbox 