U.S.-China trade in Christian 'worship'

Visiting family in Dayton, Ohio, I attended the "contemporary service" at my brother's United Methodist Church this morning. Since my last visit jumbo projector screens have been installed. Today they were used for everything from song lyrics to announcements and promotions of volunteer church opportunities such as Tornado Relief Saturdays and summer tutoring of children. A video played in the middle of the sermon showed Christian individuals talking on the topic of love.

Just the other day I caught this headline on the website The Federalist: "Why Churches Should Ditch the Projector Screens and Bring Back Hymnals." The article reads, "Hymnals are a wonderful legacy of Western Christianity. They’ve been housed in pew racks in church sanctuaries for centuries. Since they first appeared in the United States during the 1830s, hymnals have been indispensable for worship—objects of treasure both in the sanctuary and in households.

"In my denomination, many received engraved hymnals as confirmation presents. Churchgoers used to proudly carry their own hymnals to church. Nobody’s doing that anymore. In fact, more and more worshipers aren’t even looking at hymnals in church. Instead, their gaze is fixed to the front wall and a screen attached to it."

*****

Compare that bit of internet news to this one from author Michael Snyder: 

"Instead of sending missionaries to China, perhaps they should be sending missionaries to us.  Despite horrific persecution, the underground church in China is absolutely thriving, and it is estimated that there are now more than 100 million Christians in that communist nation.

"During one recent ministry trip, one Christian minister came away completely humbled by the dedication of Chinese believers…

'You sat on a wooden floor for three days. In my country, if people have to sit for more than 40 minutes they leave. You sat here for not only three days on a hard wooden floor, in my country if it’s not padded pews and air conditioning, people will not come back.

'In my country, we have an average of two Bibles per family. We don’t read any of them. You hardly have any Bibles and you memorize them from pieces of paper.'

'I will not pray that you become like us, but I will pray that we become just like you,' he concluded."

*****

Watching my church over the internet this morning, the subject was on how idols represent gods. 

"People think through that object they can reach into the spirit world but that's what mysticism is about," explains Jordan. "That's why people use aids to worship. The Bible calls them idols. They develop this thing where, 'I'm going to take this object and get close to God.'  You've experienced that.

"I was talking to a lady recently about her soul and she said, 'Well, I've begun to go back to church. I went to a funeral and I had forgotten how powerful the Mass affected me.' That's the vain, religious system."

(new article tomorrow)

Written on the canvas of Paul's heart

Question: “Why are the words of Christ according to the Gospel records any more the words of the Lord Jesus than those recorded in Paul’s epistles?”

So asks Bible scholar C.R. Stam in his 1963 classic The Controversy. He answers, “Christ Himself left no writings behind. Does not Paul say again and again that his teachings are the words of Christ?"

Stam continues, “Our opponents’ quotation of I Timothy 6:3-5 to prove that we should put greater emphasis on the words of the Lord Jesus than on the words of Paul act as a boomerang for this passage is but another proof that the words of Paul were the words of the Lord Jesus. Referring to his own instructions to Timothy, the apostle says:

“ ‘If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; He is proud, knowing nothing . . . ’

Stam laments, “. . . So deep is the antipathy of some religious leaders toward the Pauline message and those who proclaim it that they will simply lie low each time their falsehoods are exposed and await an opportunity to strike again. This is Satan’s strategy, for it is easier to believe a lie one has heard a thousand times than to believe a truth he has never heard before.”

*****

In II Corinthians, Paul is put in the position of having to defend himself when the Believers in Corinth conclude he’s an illegitimate fraud. He argues in II Corinthians 3:2, "Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men."

“The people are saying, ‘Prove it, prove it, prove it,’ and Paul says, ‘You’re it! You’re the letter of authenticity!’ ” explains Preacher Alex Kurz. “Verse 3:3 says, ‘Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.’

“Paul is the canvas but who is the author of this particular letter? Jesus Christ, as the Author, has written something upon the canvas of Paul’s heart, which demonstrates the Corinthians are literally the letter of authenticity!

“Do you know when you write a letter, the author actually bears the character of the writer? Do you understand why Paul says Christ is the one who is manifestly declaring something? When Jesus Christ uses Paul’s heart, Christ is inscribing His own character upon the canvas of Paul’s heart.

“You know what Paul’s saying? ‘You read my life and my ministry and you will see the reflection of the character of Jesus Christ. You will see born upon my life the very thinking that Jesus Christ has toward you. That’s the letter of authenticity.’

“The issue isn’t the outward appearance. The issue is what Paul is doing and putting up with and sacrificing for a group of ungrateful Believers. The stamp of Christ’s hand, the finger prints of Christ’s ministry, the proof that Jesus Christ is working in Paul’s ministry is stamped on Paul’s heart.

*****

“God wrote on tablets, walls, in the ground--but did you know God also writes in the heart? There is a fascinating parallel in Jeremiah 17:1: ‘The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is graven upon the table of their heart, and upon the horns of your altars.’

“What does it mean for God to inscribe? The point of a diamond can cut glass, but do you know what a pen of iron does? This is a description of God permanently inscribing and engraving the sins of a nation on their heart.

“Verse 13 says, ‘O LORD, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters.’

“In John 8 we cannot say with absolute certainty what the Lord Jesus is writing on the ground, but if we look at the context in chapter 7, we know what the Lord Jesus is trying to do. He’s constantly looking for faith in His messiahship. In Jeremiah 17, this might be the clue that could shed light on what Jesus Christ is writing on the ground.”

*****

Stam writes, “Those who would join with the Modernists in following the earthly Jesus should listen to the inspired apostle when he says: ‘Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more.’ (II Corinthians 5:16)

“It is the message of the exalted Lord through Paul himself to which he refers when he says: ‘Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord (Colossians 3:16).' "

(new article tomorrow)

Chicago Bible heritage old as history itself

I Corinthians 11:1 is a verse of scripture Pastor Richard Jordan’s convinced most preachers don’t know is in their Bible. Paul writes, “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.”

“There’s not a hard word in that verse; it’s not hard to understand but it’s obviously hard to believe,” he reasons. “Paul is one of only three people in the Bible who said, ‘Follow me.’

“Moses was one because God made him the law-giver to Israel. Jesus told the nation, ‘What Moses commanded you, go do that.’ Jesus Christ is Jehovah God the Son who stood on Mt. Sinai and gave Moses the law.

“Jesus, when He came to earth as God in human flesh, as ‘a minister of the circumcision to confirm the promises,’ said, ‘Follow me and I’ll make you fishers of men.’ The idea came out of Jeremiah and is talking about rescuing the Believing Remnant of Israel during the tribulation.

“If you’re going to follow Jesus Christ today, you have to follow Him the way He wants to be followed today, and He’s not being followed today as He was with Moses. The way you follow Him today is not as you did in His earthly ministry, either. The way you follow Him today is through the heavenly ministry He gave the Apostle Paul. It’s this new information that ‘in previous ages was not made known.’

*****

“When someone says to you that dispensational Bible study is new, you say, ‘No, it’s as old as Paul. It’s as old as Jesus. It’s as old as Moses.’

“The fact is it’s the divinely prescribed method of Bible study and it’s the only way to understand God’s Word. If nobody in history you ever know believed in it, it would still be God’s way to do it.

“A noun generally gets its meaning from its verb form, so the Bible word ‘dispensation’ means ‘to dispense, to give out.’ Another word for the same idea is ‘administration,’ used by Paul in I Corinthians 12: ‘There are many administrations but the same Lord.’

“A dispensation is not a time period; it’s what’s given for man’s obedience during a particular time. The issue is what He gave for man to know and to obey and to follow. Here’s this truth given to Paul and that issue of, ‘Have you heard it or not?’ is the key.

“People say what we teach started with John Nelson Darby and that kind of thing, but that’s nonsense. I like to quote a guy from the Protestant Reformation era who, when asked, ‘Where was your faith before Martin Luther?’ answered, ‘The same place your face is before you wash it; behind the dirt.’

“So, there’s just common-sense ways to understand things that don’t require . . . when people require you to be able to show them your history in history you know those are people who don’t really care about that Book sitting in front of you.

“Historic theology is where you study the development of history and the development of theology through history. The problem with this is it requires you to know everything there is to know about everything anybody’s ever thought, written or done in history for you to tell me everything that people knew in history. You understand how impossible that is, right? What about the stuff you didn’t find?

“People who calls themselves a historical theologian, a scholar, pretend to make you think they’ve already studied everything there is to study and know exactly when something started. When somebody tells you a particular thing began to be taught at such and such a point by this certain guy, just run up the flag because that assumes they know everything prior to that and they don’t.

*****

“When you study the history of dispensationalism what you’re studying is the history of Bible study. In the mid-1800s, the zenith point out of the Protestant Reformation for understanding and learning the Bible, there was what was called the Bible Prophecy Conference Movement in  America. The Scofield Reference Bible was published then.

“If you know the department store in Chicago, Carson Pirie Scott, Mr. John Pirie was a Bible Believer who helped finance the publishing of the Scofield Bible. In fact, it was his idea. He took Scofield aside and said, ‘I will raise the money to finance you getting the thing done.’

“So these were great days in the late 1800s, early 1900s, of people who studied the Scripture. Our understanding of Mid-Acts dispensationalism, Paul’s distinctive ministry, comes out of that study.

“If you look at Ephesians 3 in a Scofield the last thing the note at the bottom of the page says is that ‘in Paul’s writings alone are found the walk, the doctrine, the duty and destiny of the church.’ They knew Paul was our apostle and that’s where our doctrine comes from.

“I can draw a diagram on the chalkboard and go through all the names where you go from Darby and others like William Newell, H.A. Ironside, Donald Barnhouse. You go into the late 1800s and there’s James Coates, Fritz Ridenour, Howard Grant. They were the predecessors teaching a great host of people. J.C. O’Hair, who is more or less our ancestor, worked with those people (O’Hair’s North Shore Church on the North Side of Chicago is the church I’m pastoring now in its current incarnation).

“The Independent Fundamental Churches of America, which was founded in 1930 and is still in existence, represented a bunch of fundamentalist groups fighting the Fundamentalist-Modernism controversy; the modernism of the World Council and the National Council of Churches. (according to a website, "These churches banded together to forcefully stand for the major doctrines of the Bible in opposition to the apostasy of that time.")

“It started at the Cicero Bible Church (founded 1892), Billy McCarrell’s ministry on Laramie Avenue in Cicero, Ill. The next year it met at North Shore Church. J.C. O’Hair was in the founding group. The next year it met at Grand Rapids at Dr. M.R. DeHaan’s church. O’Hair spoke at the dedication of their church.”

(new article tomorrow)

Comparing favorite 'promise verses'

In an article entitled, "America's favorite verse must be read in context," Russell Moore, a top leader of the Southern Baptist Convention, writes, " 'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'

"These words are the John 3:16 of American cultural Christianity. Watch how often they show up on the Bible verse plaques sold in Bible Belt mall kiosks or posted on Facebook walls, even on tattoos. Whether as home decor or on social media posts, I see this passage claimed fervently by people I know haven’t been in a church service since the first Bush administration.

"Naturally, this love for Jeremiah 29:11 has often led more theologically oriented Christians to lament its out-of-context use. So much so that a young Christian recently asked me, 'Does Jeremiah 29:11 apply to me, or not?' ”

*****
It's interesting that nobody manufactures framed calligraphy, etc., out of the King James Bible's Jeremiah 29:11: [11] For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

The next two verses in the KJV read, [12] Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you.
[13] And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

*****

A verse etched on a hanging ceramic plaque from my childhood home was Proverbs 3:6: "In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths."

I think a good companion verse to that is Proverbs 16:3: [3] Commit thy works unto the LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established.

Referring to Psalm 37:4-5 ([4] Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. [5] Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.), Preacher Richard Jordan explains:

“How do you trust in the Lord; commit your way to the Lord? First, you’ve got to know the Lord and know His mind. How are you going to trust Him if you don’t know Him? How can you trust Him if you don’t know what to trust Him about?

“Verse 4 says to ‘delight thyself in the Lord.’ That means you need to know some things about the Lord to be delighted about.

"People make all this stuff up; they say they talk to the Lord and He talks to them. They make a God in their own mind and delight in their own God.

“James 4:3 says, ‘They ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.’ That’s what religion does! Religion is just designed to satisfy the lust of your flesh and it will create a god who will do that for you.

“By the way, the way you do what’s in Psalm 37, and this is a tremendous psalm, is in verse 1: ‘Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.’

*****

“Jesus says, ‘If you abide in me, focus on who I am and value me more than anything else, and let your mind be controlled by my Word, you know what will happen? You’ll have the knowledge to ask the right things that ought to be accomplished.’

“By the way, do you remember the old adage about prayer? A-S-K. ‘Ask, seek, knock.’  If you go back and read Matthew 7:7 (‘Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you’), the people Jesus Christ’s talking to in the context are fruitful believers. That’s on the Sermon on the Mount.

“John 15:8 says, ‘Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.’ When you are bearing fruit, the way you bear fruit is you abide in Him, you draw your resources from Him and you have your thinking regulated by His Word. If you do that, you’re going to bear fruit; the outward expression of that inner life.

“Jesus Christ says in John 15:4, ‘Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.’

“In verse 7, He says it a little differently: ‘If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.’

“To abide in something is to stay there. Constantly. You don’t leave. This is home. You’re going to dwell there. You’re going to be there not just occasionally, not sporadically, not fitfully, but this is where your heart’s going to be OCCUPIED.

“ ‘And if my word abides in you.’ There’s those two issues here. ‘Your heart’s going to be occupied with me, keep your eyes on me, look to Jesus the Author and finisher of our faith,’ it says in Hebrews, 'but also have your life regulated by the Scripture.'

“They’re to be focused on who Christ is and what He’s provided for them. They’re to take their stand and just rest in who God’s made them and the provisions God’s going to equip them with in Jesus Christ, and then let their thinking and their actions be regulated by what His word has to say."

Jeremiah 'writes,' Baruch 'copies'

"Most of the scribes who wrote down sacred Scripture remain largely unknown; not so Baruch," says Reader's Digest encyclopedia  The Bible Through the Ages (1996). "The man to whom the prophet Jeremiah dictated his powerful oracles is very much a part of  the story told in the Book of Jeremiah. Baruch was well-educated and came from a prominent scribal family in Jerusalem. He could have had a prosperous career (his brother was a minister in the royal court) but he chose instead to follow Jeremiah, who prophesied that Judah would be destroyed if the people did not return to the ways of the covenant."

Nobody much pays attention to this when studying it, but one of the greatest chapters in the Bible about the process of inspiration is in Jeremiah 36. Jerry is having a problem. He’s not getting very good reception.

Verse 2 says, "Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel, and against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spake unto thee, from the days of Josiah, even unto this day."

“God’s saying, ‘Go get you a book, roll it out, and write down all the words,’ " explains Preacher Richard Jordan. "That term ‘word’ occurs 17 times in this chapter. What he’s writing down here is not just a bunch of thoughts; it’s some words. Where did Jerry get the words from? God spoke them to him. What’s inspiration? How’d the Scripture come? Given by God speaking some w-o-r-d-s. So Jeremiah starts writing them down.

“Verse 4 says, ‘Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah: and Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the LORD, which he had spoken unto him, upon a roll of a book.’

“Notice the Words of God came from the mouth of Jeremiah and Baruch writes them down. Did you know Jeremiah didn’t write the book that’s got his name on it? Who wrote the book? Baruch was the scribe.

“Did you ever read in Romans 16:22 where he says Tertius wrote this book? It says, ‘I Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in the Lord.’ You say, ‘I thought Paul wrote it?’ Well, God through Jeremiah spoke the words; it’s given by inspiration and then it’s written down by Baruch.

“The words are the issue; not the process. The words put on the page are the issue. How they got there is inspiration. God spoke them and they wrote them down. Now they are recorded. Theologians get so bound up with how did the words get there and was it mechanical. They got there pretty simple.

“Read Jeremiah 36. God spoke them, the dude wrote them down. Inspiration has to do with God’s breath. He speaks and then they’re written down; they’re given by inspiration. Go to verse 11: ‘When Michaiah the son of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, had heard out of the book all the words of the LORD.’  

They got a book and it’s got all the words of the Lord in it. The issue now is going to be the book because the book is going to preserve the words that they can take around.

“You see the king down in this chapter cutting the pages out with a pen knife and throwing them in the fire because the issue is the words on the page. What’s in the words on the page? The breath of God. Can you get the idea why the word of God is powerful? Why it can work in you is because it’s literally the breath of God and it’s the physical, tangible form in which you get that spiritual reality that is God’s Word.

“That’s why Jesus said in John 6:63, ‘The words I speak unto you are spirit and life.’

“Verse 18 says, ‘Then Baruch answered them, He pronounced all these words unto me with his mouth, and I wrote them with ink in the book.’

“Any questions?! That’s pretty easy! One of the most fascinating things is what happens next. The king takes the thing, cuts it with a penknife, and ‘cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the roll was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth.’ He’s saying, ‘Look, here’s what you do with God’s Word; I don’t believe it,’ and burns it up.

“That guy had an original manuscript! Just like Moses did when he came down off the mountain. Mo had one that was written with the very FINGER of Almighty God! You know what he did with it? He broke them. You know what God did? He re-wrote them.

“Verse 32 says, ‘Then took Jeremiah another roll, and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah; who wrote therein from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the book which Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire: and there were added besides unto them many like words.’

“He didn’t just reproduce it; he put more in it than was in the original! Did you ever hear anybody complain, ‘Well, when you read a quote in the New Testament it’s never like a quote in the Old Testament. It’s always got different things in it; can’t be the Word of God. Now which one’s right?

“I read in Acts 15 when he quotes Amos 9 but what it says in Acts 15 isn’t back there in Amos 9. The passage says, [14] Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name.
[15] And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written.’

“So which one is God’s Word? Both. You know why? They’re both given by inspiration. Which one of those rolls that Baruch wrote out were the Word of God? Both. Were they exactly the same? No. God’s Word was still growing at that time.

“You can learn a lot about theological arguments by reading your Bible. Weird stuff in this Book. My point to you is the Word of God is where the power of God is.

*****

“Go to Matthew 22:31. I’ve told people for years this is the verse that kept me from becoming a neo-orthodox; a modernist. The verse says, ‘But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God . . .’

“That means that what they were reading was the inspired Word; it was the Word of God given by inspiration, spoken by God. It also means it was the preserved inspired Word of God because they didn’t have original manuscripts. All this original manuscript stuff . . .  listen, in the bible original manuscripts didn’t have the kind of status they have in evangelical theology.

“You don’t find God’s Word by trying to find the original manuscripts. These guys had God’s Word preserved and you know what? The words they were reading weren’t exactly like the ones Moses wrote because there had been 1,500 years of language development. You ever thought about that?

“And yet Jesus said, ‘What you’re reading is what God said.’ And if God had lived in the 1^st Century where Jesus was, that’s the way He would have said exactly what He said to Moses back there. That’s some book you got there, folks.

“I Thessalonians 2:13 says, ‘For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.’

“So when you believe over here, God’s Word goes into you and begins to work IN YOU. But when we say God’s Word is in you, we don’t mean that you eat that paper and ink right there.

“We mean His breath that He put in this, you take that breath out of here and He puts in you! It requires the conscious positive choice of faith, but that conscious positive choice of faith can become far more natural than you let it become. It doesn’t have to be the kind of thing where you go walk into the wall and get a bloody nose."

Whole ball of wax banking on the Book

"With Adam's fall we sinned all," began many a primer from the 18th Century (the opening page of the 1727 New England primer starts with A for Adam and B for the Bible).

"In some American households and schools the Bible was used to teach children how to read, but its stories formed the basis of early schoolbooks as well," informs Reader Digest's The Bible Through the Ages textbook from 1996. "Similarly, when girls went to school in the 18th and 19th centuries, they often practiced needlework by cross-stitching prayers or verses from Scripture and used scenes from the Old and New Testaments as the subjects of their silk-embroidered or watercolor pictures. The finished pictures were hung up at home by proud parents . . .

"The Bible and its themes, in fact, figured in family life in a variety of ways. Children marched animals two by two onto Noah's Ark toys or played with other Scripture playthings, known as Sunday toys. Adults graced their dining tables with pitchers and sugar bowls decorated with molded images of the Apostles or Bible scenes, such as Rebecca at the well. Colorful pottery figures of Old Testament scenes decorated mantels. Reading the Bible together was an evening pastime in many households, and the Bible itself was often used as a repository of family records . . .

"On weekday nights or after Sunday services, slaves often gathered at one of the cabins or at a safe place out-of-doors to conduct their own services. Then they could hear preaching from one of their own, perhaps a slave who had managed to obtain some rudiments of literacy and religious education.

"They mastered the Bible orally, as had the early Christians, and derived special relevance to their own situation from its lessons and tales. They identified particularly with the plight of the Israelites in Exodus and saw Moses as their great biblical hero . . . The slaves translated the tales and lessons they learned from the Bible into music--spirituals that remain among the most beautiful and enduring portions of America's cultural heritage. Indeed, these songs, which both instruct and inspire, embody a folk consciousness that has powerfully informed the African American awareness of tradition...

"During the Civil War the American Tract Society distributed 24-page Bible selections to the Union troops. Meanwhile, the South suffered such acute Bible shortages that a black market in Bibles sprang up, and Confederate guards paid their prisoners as much as $15 for a copy. The Confederate States Bible Society succeeded in slipping English Bibles past the Union blockade, providing much needed spiritual solace to their side of the war...

"The New York Asylum for the Blind printed a New Testament with raised letters in 1836, a full 17 years before the development of braille. Other specialized Bibles included the Soldier's Pocket Bible, distributed by local Bible societies to American troops as they marched south to fight in the Mexican War."

*****

"Listen, when you sit and read that Book, that’s like God Almighty sitting across the table from you talking to you," reminds my pastor Richard Jordan. "Don't ever forget that when you read it! Now, if you won’t forget that, you’ll fall in love with that Book in a way you never did before. And it will consume you. It will pull and tug at you and you won’t ever want to get too far away from it."

Extensive research shows strong links between growing up with books and reading aloud and later language development and school success.

“Books contain a more diverse set of words than child-directed speech,” says Jessica Montag, an assistant research psychologist at the University of California, Riverside. “This would suggest that children who are being read to by caregivers are hearing vocabulary words that kids who are not being read to are probably not hearing.

"So reading picture books with young children may mean that they hear more words, while at the same time, their brains practice creating the images associated with those words — and with the more complex sentences and rhymes that make up even simple stories.

"Children whose parents reported more reading at home and more books in the home showed significantly greater activation of brain areas in a region of the left hemisphere called the parietal-temporal-occipital association cortex."

*****

"This brain area is a watershed region, all about multi-sensory integration, integrating sound and then visual stimulation," according to Dr. John S. Hutton, a clinical research fellow at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.

"This region of the brain is known to be very active when older children read to themselves, but it also lights up when younger children are hearing stories. What was especially novel was that children who were exposed to more books and home-reading showed significantly more activity in the areas of the brain that process visual association, even though the child was in the scanner just listening to a story and could not see any pictures.

“When kids are hearing stories, they’re imagining in their mind’s eye when they hear the story. For example, ‘The frog jumped over the log.’ I’ve seen a frog before, I’ve seen a log before, what does that look like?'

"The different levels of brain activation suggest that children who have more practice in developing those visual images, as they look at picture books and listen to stories, may develop skills that will help them make images and stories out of words later on."

(new article tomorrow)

Curiosity for the journey

I was reading the Dummies book, "Women in the Bible for Dummies," and came across this: "There is much speculation about the actual identity of the Queen of Sheba, because she is never mentioned by her proper name. In fact, she's probably the most famous unnamed woman in the Bible. Some scholars speculate that she may have actually been Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt, Queen Makeda of Ethiopia, or Queen Balkis of Abyssinia. . .

"We meet the Queen of Sheba as a brave woman who travels 1,200 miles by camel caravan to see the famous King Solomon the Wise. Although the rulers send ambassadors and emissaries to visit the king of Israel, the Queen of Sheba insists on visiting him herself. This is no mere state visit, though. She comes seeking wisdom and Solomon has by this time been identified as the world's wisest man. The Queen of Sheba is indeed a true philosopher (from the Greek, philo sophia, meaning lover of wisdom)."

Jesus says in Matthew 12:42.[42] The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.

*****

II Chronicles 9:9 says, [9] And she gave the king an hundred and twenty talents of gold, and of spices great abundance, and precious stones: neither was there any such spice as the queen of Sheba gave king Solomon.

"The spices and gums used in the Jewish worship were found in the desert of Arabia and in the mountains of Palestine," writes Cora MacIlravey in her 1916 Bible commentary. "With much labor were they gathered in far regions; and through many dangers did the merchantman bring them home. It was a long, arduous, dangerous undertaking, but there was great wealth in even one cargo of those spices and powders . . .

"Not only is she traveling home in this wonderful Chariot, but He has given her a commission to fulfill upon the journey. As He is, so is she in the world. As He brought home to His Father mountains of spices and fragrance, so has He appointed her to bring home a precious cargo of spices and incense, of perfumes, which, as a merchantman in a far country, she must gather in the wilderness of this world . . .

"The most precious and inspiring feature of this wilderness journey, is that it is only in the desert the costly spices and gums are found.

"The pure gums do not come forth from the tree until it is pierced; so it is with the saints of God, only as they are pierced and bruised, are the precious attributes of Jesus Christ manifested to the glory of God, and to the edification of those about them.

"As the spices are not found in the fertile plains, neither are the graces and fruit of the Spirit perfected in the smooth places, but in the rough places.We are to count it all joy that, while here in the wilderness, we can suffer for Christ's sake."

(new article tomorrow)

Prayer in perilous times

Paul begins I Timothy 2 with, “I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;

[2] For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.”

“He adds the kings and all that are in authority because of that divine institution of human government,” explains Preacher Richard Jordan. “The amount of sound doctrine resident in the populace of a nation determines the direction or the course of that nation. Listen, doing what this verse says does more for your country than what you do at the ballot box.

“Prayers for all ‘that,’ meaning purpose and intent, we may lead quiet and peaceable lives. He’s not saying this so the world and our community is quiet and peaceable, but so we as Believers in the world can lead a quiet and peaceable life.

“He’s not talking about how as you pray correctly, and pray enough, you won’t have any storms or difficulties and it'll just be smooth-sailing through life.

*****

“II Timothy 3 starts, ‘This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.’ Paul says, ‘You know what, we’re going to be living in perilous times.’ The reason they’re perilous is ‘for men shall be lovers of themselves’ and all the things he lists in verses 2-5. Those things produce perilous times.

“We got a song in the book that goes, ‘Am I a soldier of the Cross? Are there no foes for me to face?' Paul says I’m to be a soldier so there must be an enemy.

“II Corinthians 11:23 says, [23] Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. [24] Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.
[25] Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep;

“Does that sound like a peaceful, gentle little life? Verse 26 says, [26] In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;
[27] In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.

“Notice he uses that one word ‘peril’ eight times in that one verse. That’s what perilous times he’s talking about. He’s not talking about times when your neighbor says something nasty to you. He’s talking about real trouble.

“You can pray all you want to and you’re not going to get out of that. In fact, the more you pray and live godly in Christ Jesus the more of that you’re going to find.

*****

"II Timothy is the last book Paul wrote but it’s not the last book in his epistles. He puts Titus after II Timothy because it deals with, ‘Okay, now that you’re living in complete apostasy, here’s how to function in that age.’

“Philemon is sort of a little capstone that says, ‘Taking everything I’ve taught you about grace at this point, let me show you how to operate in the assembly; the effectual communication of your faith.’

“Anytime God puts in a one-chapter book in the Bible that book is powerful because generally it’s overlooked.

“He writes, [4] I thank my God, making mention of thee always in my prayers,
[5] Hearing of thy love and faith, which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus, and toward all saints;
[6] That the communication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus.

“Paul says in I Timothy 1:18-19, [18] This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare;
[19] Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck:

“That’s how serious it is not to follow Paul’s pattern in the work of the ministry. That’s what happens to you when you don’t. If you’re going to leave grace and go back to the law, you have to leave Paul and go back to Peter and Moses. That’s the only way you can do it.

“So when you’re in I Timothy, this is one of the places people’s prayer life goes wrong and they run back in Israel’s program and try to get God to remove all the problems and send an angel and kill all their enemies and all that stuff.

“That isn’t who we are and if you don’t understand where we are in the dispensation of grace and what God’s doing today, you’re never going to have a quiet and peaceable life. Paul’s talking about your inner-man attitude.

“Whatever the circumstances you’re in, rather than going to pieces and being destroyed by them, you can have a quiet and peaceable life in those circumstances. You can have a quiet, peaceable inner man. You can be at peace and not tossed to and fro when in turmoil. How do you do that? That’s what prayer does.

“Prayer takes the instructions in God’s Word, and you talk to God about how to apply those instructions to your circumstances, and it begins to work and produces the peace of God, a quietness in your inner man.”

(new article tomorrow)

'Yes I Cain' bloodline alive unto end

On the CIA’s website you can read a PDF of the whole book by Fritz Springmeier on the "13 Bloodlines of Cain the Illuminati Serpent Seed."

“What happens with Cain in Genesis goes all the way through your Bible to the end; nobody forgets about it,” says Preacher Richard Jordan. “There’s a very interesting expression in Jude 11. The verse says, [11] Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core.

“This is a book written for the last days of Israel’s program. When you get over into the Tribulation period right before the Second Coming of Christ, they’re still talking about Cain.

“Cain sets a way, a path in Genesis and it’s the way of man’s rebellion against God to do it himself, his way. Isaiah 53:6 says, [6] All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Proverbs 14:12 says, ‘There’s a way that seems right to a man.’ Jesus said ‘broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat.’

*****

“Genesis 4-6 represent what Jesus Christ calls ‘the days of Noah.’ They encompass more than just the 120 years that Noah was involved. It starts in Genesis 4 with the Fall and Cain and Abel. What culminates at the Flood starts in the days of Cain.

“When Eve says, ‘I have gotten a man from the Lord,’ this is a happy occasion for Adam and Eve. This is their first kids. There’s something very special in what she’s saying there; the seed line is what she’s interested in, going back to God’s promise in Genesis 3:15.

"After the Fall, God makes some statements. She thinks, ‘Here’s the promised seed; this is the one I’ve been expecting.’ She’s not expecting it in 5,000 years or 500 years. She has a child, boom, ‘This is the one we’re looking for!’

"Eve knows she’s the mother of all living and that 'the seed of the woman' will bruise the head of the serpent. She knows there’s going to be a battle between two seed lines.

*****

“It was obvious from the very start that Abel wasn’t the premiere member of the family. Shepherds are kind of isolated away, they’re not important, they’re not the show boats in the family. Abel was that guy. Cain was a tiller of the ground. Do you remember what Adam did for a living?

“Genesis 2:15 says, [15] And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.’ Adam’s job was to be a farmer and dress the Garden and keep it up. By the way, the name Cain means ‘to acquire, to possess.’ The name Abel means vanity. 

"When you get the No.1 son and he’s ‘Woo-hoo, the one we’re going to get the promise through,’ and then you have another son and you say, ‘Well, that’s nice, but he’s not really important,’ which one of those boys do you think Eve and Adam put most of their attention into?

“Cain went into the family business. His daddy spent a lot of time with him; trained him, worked with him, nurtured him. He was the prize of the family.

“Sometime people think Adam and Eve . . . the old Calvinist argument is they couldn’t possibly have been saved because they plunged all mankind into sin, but they were obviously people of faith. Eve was a woman of faith. She believed the promise God gave her. She had good reason to believe it was Cain because God didn’t tell her when it would be and so forth.

“There’s a lot of things they don’t understand. Obviously by the end of the chapter she’s seen that she was wrong, but at this point she doesn’t know that yet.

*****

“Notice these two boys have grown into men. A ‘process of time’ means time has transpired. Cain and Abel know God exists, that He’s created everything. They know about the Fall and that sin has consequences. They know there’s an enemy out there they need to avoid. They also know there’s a ‘covering’ issue.

“Genesis 3:7 says, [7] And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.’

"They made coverings out of the work of their hands, out of the fruit of the ground. Did that covering work? No. Verse 21 says, [21] Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.’ God sheds the blood of an animal and takes the skin off of it to provide a covering.

“Cain and Abel know the covering their mom and dad made out of their own hands off of the fruit of the trees in the Garden didn’t work. But there’s one where God shed blood and made a covering out of a sacrifice that did work. These guys knew when, where and what in terms of bringing the sacrifice.

"It was to be brought to the door. What door? Genesis 3:23 says, [23] Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.’ He put a cherubim at the access there.

“Cain prepared for this great day where he’s going to meet God. You know, you get in your mind it’s more than just a little Sunday school idea; this is something BIG going on here.

"These two boys are being prepared to go meet the Lord God of the Garden. They’ve heard about Him; mom and dad have talked about Him and now they’re going to meet Him. They desire to be in presence of the Lord and have Him praise them.

“You see in verse 4 where it says ‘God had respect unto Abel’s offering.’ That’s what Cain wanted. In Leviticus when He talks about it He uses the word ‘accepted.’ The problem is Cain established his own way to get God’s praise.”

(new article tomorrow)

Today's generation: 'We've got perversonality'

Jesus Christ spoke of a generation that would put the crown of thorns on His head, nailing Him to the Cross, and another generation that would put a crown on the head of the Antichrist and receive him with open arms.

“Jesus Christ speaks of a ‘wicked generation’ and He speaks of a ‘perverse generation,’ " explains Connecticut You Tube Preacher Rodney Beaulieu. "'When referring to the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the religionists of His day, Jesus Christ refers to them as a wicked generation. Matthew 16:4 says, ‘A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. And he left them, and departed.’

“When referring to the generation that would crown the Antichrist, He called them a ‘perverse generation.’ He says in Luke 9:41: ‘And Jesus answering said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you, and suffer you? Bring thy son hither.’

“Their attitude about the coming Antichrist and his political reign will be greatly received by the generation that has been deceived and brainwashed into believing the lies that are perpetrated by the government and by false religion.

“Verse 5 says, ‘And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.’

“Oh, they’ll LOVE that. That’s what Paul says in II Timothy about the last days: ‘Perilous times shall come.’ What will they be like? They’ll be speaking blasphemies. This man is in perfect keeping with their character and with their attitude and with their mouth.

“The second beast is the religious authority and he holds religious power over the world. Look at Revelation 13: 11-14.

“You have the dragon and the two beasts and these are often referred to as the ‘unholy trinity.’ The first beast is the Antichrist. He’s not called that in Revelation; he is called that in I John. The second beast, the one that did the miracles, has a name. He’s called the false prophet.

“Now I want to show you these three working together. Revelation 16:13 says, ‘And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.’

*****

"The emphasis I want to make is not on the unholy trinity but on the GENERATION that is there and their RESPONSE to the unholy trinity. John writes that ‘all the world wondered after the beast.

[4] And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?

“They’re going to be WORSHIPPING! If he was here right now, this whole generation would be worshipping him! Not the Baby Boomers! See, THIS generation!

“Verse 8 says, ‘And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.’

“Verses 12-14 says, ‘And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
[13] And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,
[14] And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.’

“Who are these people? Where did they come from? They’re the generation that will be on earth after the catching away of the Body of Christ. They’re the generation that’s going into the tribulation period to worship the Antichrist and you see the formation of it TODAY! I mean, you actually SEE it with your eyes!

*****

“The Book of Proverbs looks into the future--into the tribulation going into the millennium--but the Book of Revelation looks at the tribulation from right smack-dab in the middle of it, and I want you to notice what it says about these people who will be there.

“Proverbs just explained what they’re like. Revelation is going to tell you what they’ll DO! There’s progression in the Word of God. I want you to see these people in action.

“In Revelation 13 we’re introduced to two beasts. The first one receives his power from Satan, from the dragon. The first beast is the head of the political empire.

“The dragon is that old serpent called the devil. In case you missed that, John also calls him Satan. You’re not going to miss this! What does he do? It says ‘Satan, which deceiveth the WHOLE world.’

“This one is cast out of heaven into the earth and that’s why the last half of the tribulation is worse than the first half, because Satan himself is cast out. That’s why the last half is ‘hell on wheels.’

“You remember that TV commercial a long time ago where the kid pulls out of his driveway on the sidewalk and he’s got his Hot Wheels? Well, this is Hell on Wheels here. This is Satan.

“And because he’s been cast out of the heavens, where the Body of Christ now occupies, he’s been evicted, and notice it says in Rev. 12:12, ‘Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them.’

“ ‘Therefore rejoice, ye heavens.’ That would be us! We’re going to rejoice because we’ve been raptured and kicked Satan out. That’s the only place the Body of Christ is found in the Book of the Revelation.

“Satan’s been the prince and power of the air for thousands of years but now the Body of Christ is happy. Now what about those down here?

“The last part of Revelation 12:12 says, ‘Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.’

“Revelation 13:2 says, ‘And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.’

“That power and that seat and that great authority are political authority. He holds political sway over the entire world. And notice how the people respond. Rev. 13:3 says, ‘And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.’

“ ‘All the world wondered after the beast.’ Verse 4 says, ‘And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?’ "

(new article tomorrow--promise)

It's a generational thing

While anybody can trace their family roots these days, Paul warns in I Timothy 1:4, “Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies.”

Of this verse, Bible scholar C.R. Stam once explained, “In Paul’s day genealogies were very important, even among Believers. One’s family relationships meant a great deal. If you were a second cousin to Christ or even a third cousin to Peter you ‘had it made.’ You might be crude, or stupid, or even wicked, but all this was overlooked: you were closely related to Christ Himself, or to the Apostle Peter, and all were ready to give you audience.”

Jordan says, “When you make the choice to honor the Lord with your body, your life in Him is going to be lived so that He is manifested in your body as the one who IS your life. Not money, not possessions. Not fame, not status.

"Ecclesiastes says one generation comes and passes away, the next generation comes and passes away. If you go back two or three generations, you don’t even know who your ancestors are. How many of you know who your great-grandparents were? You can go on Ancestry.com and look it up, but you still don’t know who they were.”

*****

Proverbs 30:11 says “there is a generation that curseth their father, and doth not bless their mother.”

When Jesus Christ said, "This generation shall not pass until all be fulfilled," He said of the generation He was talking about, “O generation of vipers who hath warned thee to flee from the wrath to come?”

Jordan explains, “When He talks about a generation, He’s not talking about a period of time somebody lives. We talk about the Baby Boomers and the Millennials. He’s not talking about that. He’s saying, ‘You were generated; you were created by snakes.’ Who is the viper? Satan.

“In other words, ‘You’re the offspring; your father is the devil.’ The generation is talking about the SOURCE where something comes from and in that Last Day, look at Proverbs 31:1: ‘The words of king Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother taught him.’

“You see, the Book of Proverbs is not just a book of history. It’s a book written for the prophetic program specifically to give the Little Flock in Israel, in the Last Days, some wisdom to stand against the lie program; to stand against the ‘strange woman who rides the beast.’

“There’s a generation that will be there and they love, ‘Give me! Give me!’ Here’s one of the characteristics of that apostate generation in Proverbs 30:14: ‘There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men.’

“In Matthew 23:13 is just one illustration of how this stuff fits: ‘But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.’

“Those hypocrites are the ones to whom Jesus said, ‘You are of your father the devil.’ ”

(new article tomorrow)