Izumo
In the last two weeks, Japan and India have unveiled new aircraft carriers that increase the arms race in Asia. Japan’s carrier is called a “destroyer,” but it is capable of launching war planes, and it’s name, Izumo, was the name of the heavy cruiser that kicked off the invasion of China in 1937 (“India’s New Carrier Joins the Big Asian Arms Race,” Business Insider, Aug. 12, 2013). India’s new carrier, the INS Vikrant (“Courageous”), is smaller than the U.S. super-carriers, but it is still a very large ship and has two runways. It is India’s first indigenous built carrier, joining a carrier built by the U.K., with a third planned to be commissioned by the end of 2013. China’s first aircraft carrier began maneuvers in 2012, with two more scheduled for completion by 2015-17. China is developing its own multipurpose fighter for its carrier fleet. Russia, England, Spain, Brazil, Thailand, and France each have one carrier in service, while Italy has two. America has 10 Nimitz-class nuclear super-carriers in operation. The United Nations has been unsuccessfully trying to disarm the nations since its inception. Inscribed on a wall across from the U.N. headquarters in New York City is part of Isaiah 2:4 -- “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” The first part of the verse -- “And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people” -- is omitted, but there will be no peace on earth until the Lord returns with the power to force the nations to do His will. Isaiah 2:1-4 describes the establishment of Christ’s global kingdom with its headquarters in Jerusalem. What the United Nations should be quoting is Joel 3, which describes the preparation for Armageddon: “Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O LORD. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about” (Joel 3:10-12). (Friday Church News Notes, August 16, 2013, www.wayoflife.org [email protected], 866-295-4143)
Kemp's Ridley sea turtle
Psalm 119:140-141 "Thy word is very pure: therefore thy servant loveth it. I am small and despised: yet do not I forget thy precepts." In man's way of thinking, a small animal – especially one that lives in the ocean – tends to be regarded as unimportant. However, in God's view, all living things are His creation, and not one is ever unimportant. A good example is the smallest of the sea turtles. While most mature sea turtles weigh hundreds of pounds, the Kemp's Ridley weighs only 60 to 100 pounds. So little has been known about Kemp's Ridley that it was not until 1947 that scientists knew that mature members of the species were found only on a beach on Mexico's coast. Because the eggs are prized by humans as well as by coastal creatures, the population of the Kemp's Ridley is down to less than a thousand egg-laying females. However, the Creator has given Kemp's Ridley some advantages over other sea creatures. The female can lay fertile eggs for several years after she has mated just once. The hole she digs for her nest is 18 inches deep, and she may lay as many as 135 eggs at one time. Although Kemp's Ridley was almost completely ignored and unknown to science, God has not treated Kemp's Ridley as unimportant, nor has He neglected to give this creature special gifts for its survival. Christians may be considered unimportant by the world's standards, but God does not consider even one Christian as unimportant. Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com Egypt army chief: New clashes won't be tolerated; 1st settlement in PSU-Sandusky case; States revisit mandatory sentences for juveniles; 'The Butler' serves box-office success at No. 1.
Anaheim Vineyard 2003 photo by David Cloud
A July 24 report by Vineyard Pastor Duke Taber announces that “Vineyard USA Returns to Roots.” He is referring to a return to the position of the late Vineyard leader John Wimber, a position that was called “The Third Wave” of the Holy Spirit (the first being Pentecostalism, the second, the charismatic movement). Wimber conducted “signs and wonders” conferences, teaching the error that effective evangelism requires the working of apostolic-style sign miracles (though he never did such miracles). In his healing seminar, Wimber made the following statement, “It’s evil when you hide behind doctrinal beliefs that curtail and control the work of the Spirit.” (Wimber, Healing Seminar Series, cited from Testing the Fruit of the Vineyard by John Goodwin). In a 1994 visit to the Anaheim Vineyard pastored by Wimber, Phillip Johnson was an eyewitness when one of the elders said to the crowd, “Don’t be alarmed by anything you see ... And above all, don’t try to rationally evaluate the things you will see. ... Subjecting the revival to doctrinal tests is the surest way to put out the fire” (“My Visit to the Anaheim Vineyard,” 1995). At the same meeting at the Anaheim Vineyard a female church staff member led in public prayer with these words: “We refuse to critique with our minds the work that You want to do in our hearts. We refuse to subject Your work to our little doctrinal tests.” This is the same philosophy that is encapsulated in the popular charismatic saying, “Don’t put God in a box.” If the “box” referred to is human tradition, that saying is true; but more often than not, the “box” refers even to the Bible. Such a mindset leaves one open to spiritual delusion. If the Holy Spirit operates contrary to the Scripture in any sense whatsoever, there is no way to discern between the true Spirit and the false. This subtle undermining of biblical authority is one reason why unscriptural things such as spirit slaying, spiritual drunkenness, “holy laughter,” and imperfect prophesying have been accepted in Vineyard churches. As evidence that the Vineyard is returning to its Wimber roots, Taber points to the participation by “notable” Pentecostal preachers Jack Hayford and Reinhard Bonnke in the 2013 Association of Vineyard Churches annual forum at the Anaheim Vineyard. Hayford is notable for his claim that God spoke to him and told him not to judge the Catholic Church and for his heresy that tongues speaking is a learning process that begins with “baby tongues,” and Bonnke is “notable” for his bogus healing crusades. (For more about John Wimber and the Vineyard Churches and their influence in the contemporary worship movement, see The Directory of Contemporary Worship Musicians, available as a free eBook from www.wayoflife.org.) (Friday Church News Notes, August 16, 2013, www.wayoflife.org [email protected], 866-295-4143) More street fighting in Cairo; Students return to school in Moore, Oklahoma; Cosmonauts prepare for new sky lab; The Obama family enjoy island outing. Day of Rage declared in Egypt; San Francisco Bay Bridge gets green light; Strong earthquake hits New Zealand; Elvis Presley's death remembered. The third annual Wild Goose Festival, attended by 2,000 people last week in North Carolina, was focused on unity through social action. Speakers included emergents (“progressives”) such as Phyllis Tickle, Brian McLaren, Philip Yancy, and Frank Schaeffer,. Speakers represented “Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant and Muslim.” In attendance were Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists, and others. Kingdom building (e.g., saving the planet, disarmament, eliminating poverty), the downplaying of the importance of doctrine, contemporary music, and contemplative prayer are four of the elements that are uniting progressives and evangelicals, liberals and “conservatives,” Catholics and Protestants, Christians and non-Christians, and thus creating the end-time one-world “church.” Eric Elnes, one of the Wild Goose speakers, said that “Christians from different denominations and cultural backgrounds begin to see that theology becomes less important than the relationships necessary for addressing social challenges” (“So Many Baptists at Wild Goose,” Associated Baptist Press, Aug. 9, 2013). Phyllis Tickle, one of the founders of Wild Goose, rejoices that evangelicals, charismatics, Protestants, and Catholics are merging. “Where the quadrants meet in the center there’s a vortex like a whirlpool and they are blending” (“The Future of the Emerging Church,” Leadership Magazine, Mar. 19, 2007). These people are not merely changing doctrines; they are changing Gods. This is evident by the popularity of The Shack, which presents God as a non-judgmental woman. Sarah Cunningham, another Wild Goose speaker this year, concluded her talk with a prayer to “the God of the evangelicals and the progressives and everyone in between.” But God is not the God in a redemption sense of those who deny or downplay the necessity of the blood atonement and the new birth, doubt the divine inspiration of Scripture, and corrupt the doctrines of the New Testament faith. These are spiritual high crimes that Phyllis Tickle, Brian McLaren, and many other Wild Goose participants are guilty of, as we have documented in the book What Is the Emerging Church? Tickle says that the doctrine of “sola scriptura” is outdated and must be left behind (The Great Emergence, pp. 47, 151). McLaren says the Bible is “not a look-it-up encyclopedia of moral truths” and he has “a strong conviction that the exclusive, hell-oriented gospel is not the way forward” (A Generous Orthodoxy, p. 190 and p. 120, f. 48). McLaren’s objective is not to preach the gospel to lost sinners before it is too late; his objective is “about changing this world” (Everything Must Change, p. 23). McLaren wrote a glowing recommendation of Alan Jones’ book Reimagining Christianity, in which Jones calls the gospel of the cross a vile doctrine, claims that there is no objective authority, and says that Hindus and Buddhists are God’s people. (Friday Church News Notes, August 16, 2013, www.wayoflife.org [email protected], 866-295-4143)
Close-up view of Narmer on the Narmer Palette
Exodus 17:14a "And the LORD said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua..." One of the mysteries of ancient Egypt is that it appears to have begun as a high civilization. The very first pharaoh of Egypt is known as Narmer, and his name simply means "Catfish." From what we can tell, King Catfish, who lived around five hundred years after the Great Flood, is helping to prove the truth of the Bible's history. It was long thought that writing had not yet been invented at the time of King Catfish, or even at the time of Moses, 400 years later. But recent discoveries of writing on both carved stone slabs and papyrus-like paper from the time of King Catfish have shown that even at this early date, writing had been around for a long time. Even more amazing has been the discovery, from Catfish's time, of a well-organized industrial complex that had many production facilities, each specializing in the production of certain types of fired clay pots. The ruins clearly show that this industrial complex shipped its product all over the ancient Egyptian empire. One thing is clear. Those who argue that Moses could not have written the early books of the Bible because they believe that writing had not at that time been invented have been clearly proven wrong by old King Catfish! Photo: Courtesy of Keith Schengili-Roberts. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com Egypt authorizes police to use deadly force; Obama cancels US-Egyptian military exercise; Flight recorders found in deadly UPS plane crash; Adorable new mammal species found 'in plain sight'. Egypt under state of emergency; Car bombs kill more than two dozen in Iraq; Fire threatens Utah homes; Wash. Police to hand out doritos at Hempfest.
Holgate Glacier, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska
Psalm 148:4-5 "Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the LORD: for he commanded, and they were created." Life depends on what chemists call one of the most complex substances in the universe. This stuff refuses to act like other materials – and because it does, we are alive. This odd material flows when it is solid, and its solid state is less dense than its liquid state. It can become a gas directly from a solid. Based on the expected behavior of matter, it should boil and freeze at much higher temperatures than it does. In addition, this substance conducts electricity in a very unusual manner – the usual method would not support life. This mystery substance is ordinary water. If it didn't float when it became a solid, most of the life in every lake in a cold climate would be wiped out every winter. Water's unusual method for conducting electricity makes the processes of life possible within your cells. And water's strange behavior as ice under high pressure causes glaciers to flow down hill. While many glaciers move at a rate of only one or two feet per day, one glacier was once clocked at 250 feet per day! Every substance that God has created was made with special abilities and features to make life possible. This is yet another testimony that our Creator God's attentions are focused upon us. Photo: Courtesy of Beeblebrox. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com Egypt: 149 killed in clashes across nation; Prison for former Ill. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.; Cargo plane crash kills 2 crew members; Utah fire destroys 13 homes. Egyptian forces clear out pro-Morsi camps; Fire spreads in Utah; La. Gunman and one hostage killed; NJ special US senate race set. “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us” (Psa. 103:12). This is an infinite measure. If you travel east across the globe you never come to a point where you are going west. East and west never meet (whereas north and south do meet at the poles). This is how great God’s mercy is. This is how completely He forgives our sins when we put our trust in Jesus Christ for once-for-all salvation and when we confess our sins for daily fellowship. Since Satan is the accuser of the brethren (Rev. 12:10), let’s send him on an errand to find our sin that is forgiven in Christ. Let him find the place where east and west meet, and when he does that he will find my forgiven sin. (Friday Church News Notes, August 9, 2013, www.wayoflife.org [email protected], 866-295-4143)
Couch's Spadefoot toad
Isaiah 43:20 "The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen." Few deserts are more inhospitable than the Sonoran Desert of North America. Life is so hard there that even the Couch's Spadefoot toad must lie dormant for 11 out of 12 months. Normally, the Spadefoot has only one month out of twelve to carry out the normal business of life. The Spadefoot has an internal clock that tells it when the violent desert rainstorms are near and when to begin to near the surface of the ground. The toads, extremely sensitive to ground vibrations, can hear the pounding rains miles away. The distant rains bring the toads out of the sand so that as soon as pools have formed, the male toads are in them, calling for the females. Mating and egg-laying are completed by morning, and dawn finds the toads safely protected from the sun's heat beneath the sand. But the desert pools reach 100 degrees and will not last long before they dry up, killing the eggs. Under ideal conditions it takes only nine days for the eggs to hatch. However, even in a good year, the young toads have only a few weeks at most to eat the food necessary to keep them alive for the next eleven months until the next rain. Our Creator God not only creates life which can survive under the most extreme circumstances, but He is also the source of eternal life. Photo: Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com US Airways, American to fight Justice Department; Israel releasing Palestinian prisoners; No witnesses saw fatal fall from Braves stadium; Coke to tout Nutrasweet safety. Bloomberg promises stop-and-frisk appeal; Brazilian protesters, police clash; Man falls to death from MLB stadium; Taiwan reintroduces mother, baby panda. “A Christian chaplain in the military is being officially censored for engaging in free speech, and anti-Christian activists are demanding he be punished. Lt. Col. Kenneth Reyes is a Christian chaplain currently serving in the U.S. Air Force. He is stationed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska. As an ordained clergyman whose duties are to provide religious instruction and spiritual counseling, he has a page on the base’s website called ‘Chaplain’s Corner.’ Reyes recently wrote an essay entitled, ‘No Atheists in Foxholes: Chaplains Gave All in World War II.’ This common saying is attributed to a Catholic priest in World War II, made famous when President Dwight D. Eisenhower said during a 1954 speech: ‘I am delighted that our veterans are sponsoring a movement to increase our awareness of God in our daily lives. In battle, they learned a great truth that there are no atheists in the foxholes.’ As reported by Fox News’s Todd Starnes, when Reyes referenced this famous line in his essay, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) contacted the base commander, Col. Brian Duffy, demanding he take action on Reyes’s ‘anti-secular diatribe.’ ... They accuse him of violating military regulations. My legal research on this issue uncovered no regulation prohibiting Reyes’s speech, which looks like expression protected by the free speech and religious freedom provisions of the First Amendment. Military leaders did not respond to Fox’s inquiries asking the Air Force to identify any such rules. Nonetheless, only five hours after MRFF’s complaint, the essay was removed from the website. Duffy has profusely apologized in MRFF for not stopping this religious leader from sharing religious thoughts. But this response--which again appears to be a violation of Reyes’s First Amendment rights—is insufficient for MRFF. They said, “Faith based hate, is hate all the same,” and, “Lt. Col. Reyes must be appropriately punished.” (Emphasis added). ... MRFF is activist Mikey Weinstein’s organization. He called observant Christians ‘fundamentalist monsters’ seeking to impose a ‘reign of theocratic terror,’ and he described sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ as an act of ‘spiritual rape’ that makes believers ‘enemies of the Constitution’ who are committing an act of ‘sedition and treason’ against this nation.” (Breitbart.com, July 24, 2013)
English molecular biologist Francis Crick
Acts 17:25 "Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things..." As modern science has learned more about molecular biology, it has also learned that life could not have arisen on Earth from non-life. This fact is so clear that even many evolutionists now admit this truth and are now looking to space for an answer to their problem. Dr. Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the structure of the DNA molecule, calls the origin of life "almost a miracle." He believes that although life could not have developed on Earth, maybe it could have developed somewhere else. His theory – called "directed panspermia" – says that life could have been seeded on Earth by beings who developed elsewhere in the universe. But this is not really an answer. It simply places the origin of life beyond man's reach for inquiry. The important point is this – many evolutionists are now admitting that life could not have started here on Earth without the action of some intelligent agent, unknown to science. This is exactly what the Bible teaches, for it clearly says that life was created through the Word of God. The source of life, and all creation, is found in that creating Word, made flesh for our salvation. This is a much higher answer than saying that little green men from outer space made us. Read the details for yourself in the first chapter of John's gospel. Photo: Published in a Public Library of Science journal. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic license. Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com James "Whitey" Bulger convicted; Egypt halts plans to disperse sit-ins; Kidnapped girl reunited with her father; Fish in Baltimore going vegan. Florida sinkhole swallows vacation villa; Horseback riders foil kidnapping; Holder proposes legal system changes; Protests in Egypt. Bill Maher, comedian and political commentator, claimed recently that the Bible is filled with indefensible things, stating that “the God in the Old Testament is a psychotic mass murderer” (“Real Time with Bill Maher,” July 26, 2013). Those are the sentiments of a law breaker. An unrepentant rapist or thief or even a red-light runner doesn't like the law and doesn't think law enforcers are fair. I once sat on a jury to judge a man who was charged with drunk driving. When we convicted him, he considered us to be unjust and unreasonable. The God of the Bible (Jesus said that He and Jehovah God are one) is the most compassionate Being in the universe. He is love and He is the source of all love. But He is also a God of law and order. He is holy and just. He is a Judge as well as a Saviour. As the Creator, He owns man and has the right to tell man how to live. He gave the first man Adam only one law, and Adam broke that law and suffered the punishment of death. God could have left things like that, but He Himself came into this world in the form of His Son and took our just punishment upon Himself. Jesus, the Son of God, died for His enemies, and as He was suffering unjustly on the cross He prayed, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Are those the words of a “psychotic mass murderer”? In the Old Testament, God waited 400 years before destroying the Canaanites (Genesis 15:13-16). Those nations could have repented like Nineveh did and God, in His grace, would have forgiven them (Jonah 3:5-10). When the destruction came it was an act of justice. Just like the rapist or child murderer who suffers the vengeance of man’s law, the Canaanites destroyed themselves by their brazen rebellion to God’s moral laws, which are written in man’s very conscience (Romans 2:14-15). They brought God’s judgment upon themselves by their idolatry, fornication, bestiality, incest, and other high crimes against a holy God (Leviticus 18:1-3, 19-25). They even burned their children to death (Deuteronomy 12:31). It is not morally wrong for a holy, law-giving God to punish those who willfully, flagrantly, and unrepentantly break His laws. When Maher and his liberal friends support the killing of unborn children in the womb, that is fine, but when God punishes lawbreakers, He is a monster in their eyes. What hypocrisy! I’m glad to say that God doesn't answer to Bill Maher or any other man. (Friday Church News Notes, August 9, 2013, www.wayoflife.org [email protected], 866-295-4143) Psalm 104:24a "O LORD, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all..." The exotic Venus flytrap is an insect-catching plant and a wonder of God's engineering. For example, these meat-eating plants usually live in mineral-poor soils, but by catching their own lunch, they actually provide their own fertilizer. Up until now, scientists have not fully understood what causes the trap of the flytrap to close so rapidly on its victim. They knew that when an insect trips the little trigger hairs inside the trap, those hairs send an electric impulse to the cells on the outside of the trap. Now it has been learned that this impulse almost instantly causes the outer cells of the trap to secrete acid. The acid breaks down the cell walls and they expand at high speed, causing the trap to close. The more the insect fights the trap, the more tightly it closes. Six to twelve hours later, after lunch is digested, the trap receives chemical signals from inside - the carnivorous plant's version of a burp – and opens to await the next meal. The Venus flytrap is a glowing example of what Scripture is talking about when it says that the works of the Lord are manifold – that He has made so much variety and so many ways of providing for living things. Truly, the Lord's imagination and creativity are a wonder to behold! Photo: Courtesy of Picasa 2.0. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license. Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com Egypt police to besiege sit-ins within 24 hours; Snowden's father gets visa to visit son in Russia; Teen found safe in Idaho, alleged abductor killed; Obama tees off Vineyard vacation at golf course. In July Russia conducted the largest military maneuvers since the days of the Soviet Union, “in a massive show of the nation’s resurgent military might” (“Russia Holds Biggest,” CNSNews, July 16, 2013). The maneuver involved 160,000 troops, 5,000 tanks, dozens of ships, and 130 combat aircraft. At a time when Russia is in resurgence and its president is a black-belt warrior who understands military might, America is led by a man who doesn't seem to have a clue, a man under whose regime the nation’s most important secrets have been lost and its military weakened to a frightful degree. While Russia’s elite soldiers train in secret, America’s brag and blab, writing books and making movies about their exploits. This is God’s judgment on a once-great nation because of the apostasy and worldliness of her churches and the wickedness, selfishness, foolishness, and nearsightedness of a majority of her citizens. But no matter what happens in the near future, we know the last chapter. Russia is the great Gog and Magog power that will invade Israel in the last days only to meet her Waterloo (Ezekiel 38-39). As we have stated in our new book The Future According to the Bible, there are at least seven reasons to believe that Gog and Magog refers to Russia: The genealogy, the name, the location, the size of the army, the alliance (e.g., Persia, Ethiopia, Libya, Gomer), the equipment, and the power’s hatred of Israel. Russia has a long history of antisemitism, stemming back to ancient times. The Israel Insider, June 30, 2005, stated: “It seems that just as antisemitism was at the very core of the old Russia; it is at the very core of the new Russia.” Russia has been arming Israel’s Muslim enemies since the early 1950's. (Friday Church News Notes, August 9, 2013, www.wayoflife.org [email protected], 866-295-4143) |
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