29 October 2008


Church of the Web

More ministries fund Internet evangelism.


By Jody Veenker


In the cyber-savvy 1990s where the amount of available knowledge doubles every 100 days, Christian ministries and individuals are trying new evangelism techniques on the Internet to make an impact for Christ.

Peggie Bohanon, editor of the Internet for Christians Newsletter, shares her faith through a series of e-mails, postings, poems, and even homework help at her Muskegon, Michigan, site (www.peggiesplace.com).

Debbie Nelson of Schaumburg, Illinois, turned a graduate school project into a Web site (www.juliesplace.com) that helps bereaved kids. "I lost my sister when I was six, and I always thought there should be a way for kids to talk to other kids dealing with the same kind of tragedy," Nelson explains. "As I developed the Web site it only seemed natural to include my own testimony about the way Jesus comforted me and gave me hope."

David Bruce, pastor of a small evangelical church in Patterson, California, decided to use film reviews to get Web surfers thinking about biblical themes. His Hollywood Jesus site (www.hollywoodjesus.com) has been visited by almost 2 million viewers.

"We should use pop culture to attract the people ensnared in our culture," Bruce says. "I love our culture the way a missionary loves the culture of the people he feels called to minister to."

CHURCH WEBCASTS:

Harvest Crusade, an evangelistic ministry in Riverside, California, broadcasts live events on the Web and video messages explaining how visitors can know God. Around 45 people a week accept Christ through the Harvest site. In fact, Harvest Christian Fellowship has 1,100 weekly online attenders who receive the entire church service on live simultaneous audio and video services on the Internet (www.harvest.org).

"The variety and scope of the Internet expands witnessing opportunities wonderfully," says Sterling Huston, a Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) board director. Huston believes the Internet offers Christians a unique witnessing opportunity because it allows people to ask questions with anonymity from their own homes. But this kind of personal access has a price.

"What the Christian community needs to be challenged by is the fact that the Internet not only is growing dramatically, but it's changing dramatically and therefore demands a great deal of resources," Huston says.

Large evangelical organizations, such as Campus Crusade for Christ in Orlando and Coral Ridge Ministries in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, are now spending up to $200,000 a year to maintain sites with multiple points of entry and keywords that are attractive to non-Christian Web surfers.

"When people surf the Web they are looking for the latest and greatest," says John Carley, president of Trinet Internet Solutions, the company that oversees the Harvest Crusade site. "If you want to continue to draw people in, then you've got to keep up with the technology. Our goal is that the church would be the first to introduce new technologies, but that gets really expensive really fast."

Some evangelicals are concerned that technological effects are not the best way to share the gospel, in addition to the problem of costliness of such efforts. "It's fatal to attempt to out-entertain the world," says Doug Groothuis, author of The Soul in Cyberspace (Baker Books, 1997). "The gospel isn't about entertainment and it isn't easy. It's about genuine life change." Groothuis, who is a philosophy professor at Denver Seminary, says people must experience the gospel lived out in flesh, not through text on a computer screen.

MEETING TODAY'S NEEDS:

Other concerns raised about Internet evangelism revolve around the need for Christian community and the best ways to connect new converts to local churches. Harvest Crusade mails new believers a Bible and a growth packet, and the Minneapolis-based BGEA (www.theway.billygraham.org) sends a free subscription to Decision magazine.

"One of the primary needs of the Christian online community is for a network of responsible ministries worldwide who can supply discipleship after someone becomes a Christian," Huston says.

Despite the large financial commitment required and concerns about local support community, many ministries are investing time and energy in a Web presence. "The relevant church—if it's being relevant—must understand that in order to communicate with this generation, we have got to use this method of communication to get our point across," Huston says.


Originally published in Christianity Today, June 14, 1999.
Copyright © 1999 Christianity Today.
Click for reprint information.
June 14, 1999 Vol. 43, No. 7, Page 26

Navigating through the Minefield of Signs and Wonders


By Derek Prince


Based on a series of talks given by Derek Prince to his coworkers in Derek Prince Ministries in March 1996


LET US HONOR GOD'S HOLY SPIRIT

This is the first in a series of three messages. In this, number one, I will seek to analyze a problem that has arisen in many sections of the church in many parts of the world. In the next message, I will seek to analyze how the problem arose. And in the third message, I will consider ways to guard against that problem arising again. The title of this first message is "Let Us Honor God's Holy Spirit."

SIGNS AND WONDERS DO NOT DETERMINE TRUTH

There has been in recent years a worldwide explosion of signs and wonders. Some have been biblical and helpful. Others have been bizarre and unbiblical. Signs and wonders are not new. They are recorded in various passages of the Bible and in different periods of church history. However, the current explosion extends more widely than any particular church or denomination and has attracted widespread attention in both the religious and the secular media.

I want to make it plain that I have no personal prejudice or anxiety concerning unusual manifestations. In actual fact, I have in my own lifetime experienced quite a number of them. They do not frighten me. I am not negative about them.

As I recorded in my booklet Uproar in the Church, my own personal encounter with Jesus in World War II began in a very unconventional way. In the middle of the night, in a barrack room of the British Army, I spent more than an hour on my back on the floor, with my body first racked by convulsive sobs and then filled with a river of laughter which grew continually louder.

Next morning, I found myself a completely different person, changed not by any act of my will but by yielding to the supernatural power that had flowed through me. I then looked up various passages in the Bible that speak about laughter. To my surprise, I discovered that - for God's people - laughter is not primarily, as we imagine, a reaction to something comical, but rather an expression of triumph over our enemies.

In Psalm 2:4, David actually depicts God Himself as laughing:He who sits in the heavens shall laugh: The Lord shall hold them in derision.

Here, God's laughter is not a reaction to some comedy that is being enacted on earth. Rather, it is His response to the ridiculous human midgets who have the effrontery to oppose His purposes. It is His expression of triumph over all the forces of evil. Sometimes, God fills us with His own laughter that we may share in His triumph over those who are both His enemies and ours.

Later I pastored a fellowship in London that met on the top floor of a five-story building. One evening a lame man was miraculously healed and threw away his crutches. We all burst into spontaneous praise. At that moment the building began to tremble and shake with the power of God. The praise and shaking continued for about thirty minutes.

I realized that something similar was recorded of the early church in Acts 4:31: And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness. At that particular time, our fellowship was conducting several evangelistic meetings each week in the streets of London, and we certainly needed more than natural boldness.

But with regard to any kind of manifestation, there are two questions that I always want to ask.

Number one: Is it a manifestation of the Holy Spirit of God? Or is it a manifestation from some other source?

And number two (and this is related to it): Is the manifestation in question in harmony with Scripture?

In 2 Timothy 3:16, Paul says, All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. In other words, the Holy Spirit is the author of all Scripture, and He never says or does anything to contradict Himself. Every genuine manifestation of the Holy Spirit will, in some way. harmonize with Scripture.

NOW, I WANT TO BEGIN WITH SOME WARNINGS OF JESUS, PARTICULARLY RELATED TO THE END TIME PERIOD IN WHICH I BELIEVE WE ARE LIVING.

These are warnings against deception. They are found in Matthew chapter 24, verses 4, 5, 11 and 24. In other words, four times in 21 verses, Jesus specifically warns us against deception in this period of the close of the age.

The first thing Jesus said about the events leading up to His return, in Matthew 24:4: "Take heed that no one deceives you." Verse 5: "For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am the Messiah (Christ),' and will deceive many." Verse 11: "Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many." And then in verse 24: "For false messiahs (christs) and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect."

SO, JESUS WARNS US FOUR TIMES AGAINST DECEPTION. ANYBODY WHO SHRUGS OFF THAT WARNING OR TREATS IT LIGHTLY DOES SO AT THE RISK OF HIS OWN SOUL.

The greatest single danger in this end time is not sickness, nor poverty, nor persecution. It is deception. If anybody says, "It could never happen to me," it has already happened to that person, because that person is saying something could never happen that Jesus said would happen. That is a sufficient indication that such a person is deceived.

Next, I want to say something important about signs and wonders. They do not determine truth. It is very essential to understand that. Signs and wonders do not determine truth! Truth is already determined and established, and it is the Word of God. In John 17:17, Jesus is praying to the Father, and He says, "Your word is truth." And in Psalm 119:89, the psalmist said, Forever, O Lord, Your word is settled in heaven. Nothing that happens on earth can ever change the smallest little sign or letter of the Word of God. It is forever settled in heaven.

Now, the Bible speaks about signs and wonders. It says some things about them that are good, and some that are very frightening. I want to turn to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 and read a few verses there, beginning at verse 9.

The coming of the lawless one [that is the title of the Antichrist] is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

So, Paul says here there are such things as lying signs and wonders. There are true signs and there are lying signs. True signs attest the truth. Lying signs attest lies.

SATAN IS FULLY CAPABLE OF SUPERNATURAL SIGNS AND WONDERS.

Unfortunately, many in the Charismatic movement have the attitude that if something is supernatural, it must be from God. There is no scriptural basis for that assumption. Satan is perfectly capable of producing powerful signs and wonders to attest his lies, and the reason such people are deceived is because they did not receive the love of the truth. On such people God will send strong delusion.

That is one of the most frightening statements in the Bible. If God sends you strong delusion, you will be deluded. I think that is one of the most severe judgments of God recorded in Scripture, sending these people strong delusion. They will be condemned, these people, because they did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. Therefore, signs and wonders are not a guarantee that something is the truth.

There is only one sure way to know the truth. It is in the Word of God. Jesus said in John 8:32, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." There is no other way to be sure that we can escape deception in these days except that we know and apply the truth of God's Word, the Scripture.

In 1994, for the first time, I was brought into fairly direct contact with one of the groups where those manifestations were occurring. A group of leaders went to some of their meetings and returned all excited, saying they had experienced something wonderful and we all needed to experience it. They said, "Now, you don't test it. You don't try it out. You don't examine it. You just open up to it and receive it." That was the first time that I really began to be suspicious of some of these things, because such a statement is directly contrary to Scripture.

TEST ALL THINGS:

In I Thessalonians 5:21, Paul says to Christians, Test all things: hold fast what is good. So, if we do not test things, we are disobeying Scripture, and anybody who tells us not to test things is, himself, not in harmony with Scripture.

Our hearts cannot be relied upon to give us the truth. Proverbs 28:26 says, He who trusts in his own heart is a fool. So do not be a fool. Do not trust your own heart. Do not rely upon what your heart tells you, because it is not reliable. Again, in Jeremiah 17:9 the prophet says, The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

That word deceitful in the Hebrew is a very interesting word. In 1946, I was attending the Hebrew University in Jerusalem as a guest student studying the nature - or the law - of the Hebrew language. I was listening to the head professor in this field at that time talking about this verse: Jeremiah 17:9: The heart is deceitful above all things. He gave reasons which I cannot carry over from Hebrew to show that this form of the word deceitful is active, not passive. It does not mean that your heart is deceived. It means that your heart deceives you, so you cannot trust your own heart.

The professor gave a very vivid picture of what it means to find out the truth about your own heart. He said it is like someone peeling an onion. You peel off skin after skin, but you never know when you have reached the last skin - and all the time your eyes are watering. So that has remained with me now for 50 years - such a vivid, scriptural warning against relying on my own heart to tell me the truth. There is only one source of truth, and that is the Scripture.

MIXTURE PRODUCES CONFUSION AND DIVISION

Now, I would like to give briefly my summation of this whole phenomenon/movement/whatever-you-want-to-call-it, based partly on personal observation and partly on what I believe to be reliable reports. My summation is very simple: it is a mixture of spirits, both the Holy Spirit and unholy spirits. They are mixed together.

In Leviticus 19:19, God warns us against mixture. He is opposed to mixture. God says this, "You shall keep My statutes. You shall not let your livestock breed with another kind. You shall not sow your field with mixed seed. Nor shall a garment of mixed linen and wool come upon you."

So, God warns against three things: breeding mixed livestock, sowing with mixed seed and wearing a mixed garment.

We could say that sowing with mixed seed represents the message that we bring, when it is partly truth and partly error. Wearing a mixed garment would be like a lifestyle that is partly scriptural and partly of this world. And letting livestock breed with livestock of an incompatible kind would be equivalent to a Christian ministry or group aligning itself with a group or ministry that is non-Christian.

It is an interesting thing about such breeding; its product is always sterile. For instance, you can mate a horse with a donkey and the product is a mule. But a mule is always sterile; it cannot reproduce. I think that is one reason why there are so many "sterile" operations in Christendom - they are being bred with the wrong mate.

Now, I have observed this carefully, and I have had grievous experience of this condition of a mixture of spirits. I find that it is something which the Scripture warns us against. For instance, there is a character in the Bible, King Saul, who had a mixture of spirits. At one time, he prophesied in the Holy Spirit; at another time, he prophesied in a demon. His career is really a warning. He was a king who ruled for forty years. He was a successful military commander. He had a lot of successes. But mixture was his undoing, and his life closed with tragedy. On the last night of his life, he went to consult a witch, and the next day he committed suicide on the battlefield. Surely that offers no encouragement to any of us to cultivate any kind of spiritual mixture in our lives.

I have observed that the result of mixture is two things: first of all, confusion; and then division. For instance, we have this mixed message, part of which is true, part of which is false. People can respond in two ways. Some will see the good and focus on it, and therefore accept the bad. Some will focus on the bad, and therefore reject the good. In either case, it does not accomplish God's purposes.

Once upon a time I was a pastor, a long time ago, but I remember that the most difficult kind of people to deal with were people who were a mixture. I will give you a little imaginary example. We have Sister Jones in our congregation. One Sunday she gives a beautiful, prophetic message and everybody is uplifted, excited. But two Sundays later, she stands up and gives a revelation which she had in a dream. The further she goes with this revelation, the more confused and confusing it becomes. Eventually, as pastor, I have to say to her, "Sister Jones, I thank you, but I really don't believe that is from the Lord," and she sits down - but that is not the end.

After the meeting, Sister White comes to me and says, "Brother Prince, how could you talk to Sister Jones like that? Don't you remember that beautiful prophecy she gave two Sundays ago?" And when Sister White is gone, Brother Black comes to me, and he says, "If that's the kind of revelation she has, I won't listen to any more of her prophecies!"

So, you see what we have? Confusion, and out of confusion, division. I believe that is exactly what is happening in the church: confusion resulting in division. Certainly there is tremendous division! I believe confusion will always produce division.

The Bible gives us no liberty to tolerate the incursion of evil into the church. We are not to be passive; we are not to be neutral. Proverbs 8:13 says, The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. It is sinful to compromise with evil. It is sinful to be neutral toward evil. In John 10:10 Jesus spoke about the thief, the devil, who comes: to steal, to kill and to destroy. We always need to remember, whether it is in an individual life or in a congregation, the devil only comes with three objectives: to steal, to kill and to destroy.

I can remember many times I have been speaking with a person who needed deliverance from an evil spirit, and I have said to that person, "Remember, the devil has three reasons for being in your life: to steal, to kill and to destroy. You need to take a stand against him, not be neutral - you must drive him out." What is true of an individual is true of a congregation. It is true for the body of Christ, worldwide.

Some of these unusual manifestations have been compared with unusual manifestations that accompanied the ministry of John Wesley, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards and Charles Finney. Undoubtedly there were unusual manifestations in the ministries of those four men, and I have studied some of them myself, but I think the differences are greater than the similarities with the present situation. Let me point out to you three differences:

FIRST OF ALL, ALL THOSE MEN MAJORED ON THE STRONG PREACHING OF GOD'S WORD.

They hardly did anything until they had preached the Word of God, or apart from the preaching of the Word of God. Finney, himself, commented somewhere about his ministry, "I usually spoke an hour or two." I do not know how many contemporary Christians in the West would listen to a two-hour sermon, but Finney gave the Word in its purity and in its power.

SECOND DIFFERENCE: ALL THOSE MEN MADE A STRONG CALL FOR REPENTANCE.

That was their primary demand on the people to whom they ministered. Some people call what we are seeing today "a refreshing," but in Acts 3:19 Peter says that refreshing must be preceded by repentance. Any refreshing that bypasses repentance is not scriptural.

The third difference is that in the ministry of those men, there is no record as far as I know that any of them laid hands on people. I am not saying that it is unscriptural to lay hands on people, but there is a difference. There is a situation in which people receive directly for themselves from the preached Word and another situation in which people have hands laid on them by others.

If I could take a simple example. It is like rain. If you are out in the open and the rain falls upon you, you have received your rain direct from heaven. But, on the other hand, if rain is caught and stored in some kind of a cistern, then you are not receiving that rain direct from heaven. You have to take into account the cistern and the pipes through which you receive the rain.

This is very vivid for me, because my first wife, Lydia, and I lived in Kenya for five years in a house where our water came from rain caught on the roof and channeled into concrete cisterns. Although the water came from heaven, we quickly learned by experience that if it stayed for any length of time in the cistern, worms developed in it and, consequently, we always had to boil our drinking water. There was nothing wrong with the rain as it came down, but something happened in the channel through which the rain came to us, and it was no longer pure. I think this can be true of laying on of hands. It is a channel which is not always pure.

Recently some ministers have moved from actually laying on hands to some other action of the hands - such as waving or pointing. However, this does not change the fact that something is being transmitted through the hands. Otherwise, there is no reason to use the hands at all. The important question still remains: Are those hands pure channels through which only the Holy Spirit can flow?

For instance, Ruth and I were in a meeting fairly recently where ministers deeply involved in the current move were speaking. We were sitting about two rows behind a woman who was having a terrible experience. She was like somebody continually trying to burp or trying to vomit, and she just went on and on and on. Eventually, I said to Ruth, "I think we ought to try to help her."

So, although it was not a meeting for which we were responsible, we went over quietly and started to talk to her. We discovered very quickly that she was speaking in a tongue, but for both of us it was evident that it was a false tongue; it was not a Holy Spirit tongue. We challenged her to confess that Jesus is Lord, and she was not willing or able to say that. So I conclude that she had a false spirit.

Later on, the people who were with her came over and talked to us and asked us what they should do about it. I asked them, "How did it happen?" And they said, "Well, she went to a church that's involved in this move and somebody laid hands on her and this is the way she has been since then. But," they said, "she's convinced it's from God. We can't help her." That is just an example of "rain" that came through a "cistern" that was not pure.

Also, in the present move, there is a great deal of emphasis on love. I agree that love is the greatest thing. But the trouble is that people are not always clear about the nature of love as it is described in the New Testament. First of all, love in us is expressed by obedience to the Lord. Any kind of love that does not result in obedience is unscriptural love.

In John 14:15, Jesus said to His disciples, "If you love Me, keep My commandments," or, in a perhaps better text, "You will keep My commandments." In other words, what is the evidence that you love Him? The evidence is keeping His commandments. Then in verse 21a. Jesus says, "He who has My commandments and keeps them. it is he who loves Me." And in 1 John 5:3, it says, For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. Therefore, any kind of love that does not result in obedience to the will of God revealed in His Word is not scriptural love. It is a counterfeit, a substitute for the real thing.

Then, we need to consider the way that God expresses His love toward us. True, God is our Father, and He loves us. But as a Father, if necessary, He is prepared to discipline us. In the messages to the seven churches depicted in Revelation, I would say that Laodicea is probably the one that corresponds most closely to the contemporary church in the West. And to that church the Lord said, "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent" (Rev. 3:19).

So, God's love is not sloppy. It is not sentimental. It is right down-to-earth. If we are straying from His ways and if we are disobedient, His love is expressed in rebuking us and chastening us, and He commands us to repent. Once again we have the problem of trying to get what God promises, but bypassing the basic condition of repentance.

THE IDENTITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

In all of this that we are speaking about, this worldwide phenomenon, I believe there is one, central, underlying issue, which is often obscured. In fact, very seldom do we come really to grips with this issue.This issue is the identity of the Holy Spirit. How do we recognize the Holy Spirit? How do we know what the Holy Spirit is like? And how do we distinguish the Holy Spirit from other spirits?

I read a statement recently by some New-Ager in which she said about the "New Age," "When the holy spirit comes, then the New Age will be here." Of course I am sure most of you would understand that when she talks about the holy spirit, she is not talking about the same Holy Spirit that the Bible speaks about. This is one of various indications that there is a counterfeit holy spirit.

It is nothing new for Satan to produce a religious counterfeit. Since the time of Jesus, history records a whole series of counterfeit messiahs who have risen among the Jewish people. All of them had a following. Some like Sabbetai Zvi, had a widespread and enduring influence. The latest of them died in 1994.

Another religious counterfeit is the being titled the "blessed virgin Mary." With all the claims that have been made for her and all the titles that have been ascribed to her, she bears no resemblance to the humble Jewish maiden who became the mother of Jesus, and later of His brothers and sisters. Yet over the centuries this counterfeit has claimed the devotion of millions of sincere Christians.

We need to be on our guard, therefore, that we do not entertain a counterfeit "holy spirit." I want to suggest to you three ways to identify the Holy Spirit, to recognize who the Holy Spirit is.

The first way I refer to in my little booklet Uproar in the Church, which I wrote about two years ago. I will just quote a few paragraphs:

Another danger that threatens those who minister in the supernatural realm is the temptation to use spiritual gifts to manipulate or exploit or dominate people. At one period in my ministry I found myself casting spirits of witchcraft out of church-going people. Eventually, I asked the Lord to show me the true nature of witchcraft.

I believe the Lord gave me the following definition: Witchcraft is the attempt to control people and get them to do what you want by the use of any spirit that is not the Holy Spirit.

After I had digested this, the Lord added: And if anyone has a spirit that he can use, it is not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God, and no one uses God. That is very important. The Holy Spirit is God, and no one uses God.

Then I went on to say, Today I tremble inwardly when I see or hear of a person who claims that he has spiritual gifts which he is free to use just as he pleases. It is surely no accident that some of those who have made such claims have ended in serious doctrinal error.

It is important to see that there is a difference between the Holy Spirit Himself, as a Person, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In Romans 11:29, Paul tells us that the gifts ... of God are irrevocable. In other words, once God has given us a gift, He never takes it back. We are free to use it, not to use it, or to misuse it. But even if we misuse it, God does not take it back. Otherwise it would not be a genuine gift, it would only be a conditional loan. It is a fact that people do misuse gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Paul provides a clear example in I Corinthians 13:1: Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become as sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. Obviously the Holy Spirit Himself does not become a clanging cymbal. But the gift of speaking in tongues - when misused - can become an empty, discordant noise. Unfortunately this often happens in Pentecostal and Charismatic circles.

I believe it is possible to misuse other spiritual gifts - such as a word of knowledge or a gift of healing. This can happen when a person uses a spiritual gift to achieve a result or promote a movement which is not in harmony with the will of God. One obvious misuse would be for personal gain.

In such a situation, our safeguard is to be able to recognize the Holy Spirit as a Person and to distinguish between Him and His gifts. This, then, is the first and most important fact about the Holy Spirit: HE IS GOD. And we need to relate to Him and treat Him always as God.

The second fact about the Holy Spirit is that He is the servant of God the Father and God the Son. This is an exciting revelation because it gives such a high value to servanthood. Many people today despise the idea of being a servant. They feel it is demeaning and undignified to be a servant. But I think it is wonderful that servanthood did not begin on earth. It began in eternity and it began in God. God the Holy Spirit is the Servant of the Father and the Son. This does not demean Him or make Him less than God.

But it is a fact that we have to recognize about Him, which directs His activities and the things He does.In John 16:13-14 Jesus gives us a glimpse of the Holy Spirit's ministry and activity:

"However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth: for He will not speak on His own authority [literally: from Himself] but whatever He hears He will speak: and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you."

So we see: the Holy Spirit does not speak from Himself; He has no message of His own. Isn't that remarkable? He only reports to us what He is hearing from the Father and the Son. Secondly, His aim is not to glorify Himself, nor to attract attention to Himself, but always He glorifies and focuses attention on Jesus. That is the second important way to identify the Holy Spirit.

Now, I want you to listen to this carefully, because it is revolutionary. Any spirit that focuses on the Holy Spirit and glorifies the Holy Spirit is not the Holy Spirit. It is contrary to His whole nature and purpose. Once you have grasped that, it will open your eyes to many things which are going on in the church that are otherwise difficult to understand.

For example, we have a very beautiful chorus that we sing about the Father, the Son and the Spirit.

The first verse says to the Father, "Glorify Thy name in all the earth." The second verse says to Jesus the Son, "Glorify Thy name in all the earth." The third verse says to the Spirit, "Glorify Thy name in all the earth." I love to sing the first two verses, but I decline to sing the third verse, because I do not believe it is scriptural. The Holy Spirit never does glorify His own name. His purpose is to glorify the One who sent Him.


Let me make another statement which may surprise you. I have not found in the Scripture anywhere an example of a prayer addressed to the Holy Spirit. So far as I can understand, no one in the Scripture ever prayed to the Holy Spirit. You probably would do well to check that for yourself, but I have looked carefully and have not found one example.

You might ask, "Why so?" And I would give you this answer: It is a question of heavenly "protocol." There is so little respect nowadays for protocol on earth that we sometimes do not realize that there is protocol in heaven. It is protocol relating to a master-servant relationship. In such a relationship, when you are dealing with a servant, you do not speak to the servant, but to the master. You ask the master to tell his servant what to do. It is wrong to directly address a servant when his master is available for you to speak to.

I believe that is heaven's protocol. When you recognize the relationship of the Holy Spirit to God the Father and God the Son, you understand that we never give orders to the Holy Spirit. When we want the Holy Spirit to do something, we address our request to the Father or to the Son.

When I was looking through this, I found a passage in Ezekiel chapter 37 which I thought, at first, was an exception. It is part of Ezekiel's well-known vision of the valley full of dry bones with no life in them.

First of all, he prophesied and the bones came together, but they were still lifeless corpses. Then, in verses 9 and 10:

Also He said to me, "Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, 'Thus says the Lord GOD: "Come from the four winds, 0 breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live."'" So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army.

So, I thought that the "breath" is really a picture of the wind - or the Holy Spirit - and so Ezekiel was praying to the wind. But he was not praying. He was prophesying. And it did not come from himself. He merely passed on to the wind a command that he had received from God Himself. Therefore, as far as I have been able to discover, there is not a single example anywhere in the Scripture of praying to the Holy Spirit.

Now, I am not seeking to make a big issue out of that. On the other hand, I think it is very important as we try to discern the nature and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. You would say to me, "Well, doesn't God hear our prayer when we pray to the Holy Spirit?" I think He does. But we are not praying in full accord with heaven's protocol. If we really want to please the Lord and show respect for Him, we will show respect for His protocol.

The third important fact about the Holy Spirit is what is indicated in His name: He is Holy. This is His primary title: the Holy Spirit. In Hebrew it is the Spirit of Holiness. He has many other titles: for instance, the Spirit of Grace, the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit of Power, and so on, But they are all subsidiary. His name and His primary title is the Holy Spirit.

Anything that is unholy does not proceed from the Holy Spirit. The Scripture also speaks of the beauty of holiness. There is a beauty in holiness when it proceeds from the Holy Spirit. It is not necessarily external. It may be internal beauty. For instance, in I Peter 3:4, Peter speaks about the hidden person of the heart, and he speaks about the adornment of a meek and quiet spirit, which in the sight of God is of great price. This is not external beauty. It is internal beauty, which comes from the Holy Spirit.I want to say, however, with the utmost emphasis:

ANYTHING UNHOLY OR UGLY DOES NOT PROCEED FROM THE HOLY SPIRIT.

I will give you a list of 12 adjectives, all of which I believe cannot be applied to the Holy Spirit or to anything that is the product of the Holy Spirit. As I go through the list, I suggest you check mentally and see if you agree with me. Here, then, are words that would never apply to the Holy Spirit:

self-exalting
self-assertive
degrading
flippant
rude
sham
vulgar
indecent
insensitive
stupid
silly
degraded

I have in my heart, if God wills and I live, to write a book at some time of which I have already chosen the title. The title is this: Holiness Is Not Optional. Only God knows whether I will ever succeed in writing the book, but I want to say, in any case, that the title states the exact truth. In the Christian life, holiness is not optional.

Many Christians seem to think about holiness as if it is like something added to a car, such as fancy leather upholstery instead of the normal kind of plastic. But that is not true. Holiness is an essential part of salvation. In Hebrews 12:14 the writer says, Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no man will see the Lord. What salvation do we have that does not bring us to see the Lord? But without holiness, no one will see the Lord.

We have in our contemporary Western Christianity a very incomplete picture of salvation. "If I get saved and born again, and then I want to go on and be holy. I can do it - but it is an option." I want to tell you that your salvation depends on your being holy. And holiness comes only from the Holy Spirit.

There are many features of purported moves of the Holy Spirit that I could pick out and hold up as examples of things that are not holy. But I will only deal with one, and that is: animal behavior in human beings attributed to the Holy Spirit. There are many such examples, some I have witnessed and some have been reported.

First of all, there is no passage in Scripture that I know of where the Holy Spirit causes any human being to behave like an animal. There is the example of Balaam, but that is a strong contrast. God caused Balaam's donkey to speak like a man - but He never caused Balaam to bray like a donkey!

There was one man whom God caused to behave like an animal: Nebuchadnezzar.He was driven from men and ate grass like oxen; his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair had grown like eagles' feathers and his nails like birds' claws.(Daniel 4:33)

But that was God's judgment, not His blessing! Revelation 4:6-8 depicts four living creatures that surround the throne of God. Three are there as representatives of the "animal" kingdom: a lion, a calf and an eagle. But none of them make noises that express their "animal" nature. All of them alike proclaim the holiness of God in pure and beautiful speech.

It is important to understand that there is an order in God's creation. Man was created in the image and likeness of God to exercise authority over the animal kingdom (see Genesis 1:26). Man is, in fact, the highest order of the creation described in the opening chapters of Genesis. This has a bearing on the way the Holy Spirit blesses us. He uplifts those whom He blesses. He will at times cause an animal to act in some ways like a human being.But He will never degrade a human being by causing him to act like an animal.

I have a certain amount of experience in this area because I have encountered animal spirits many times in Africa. I recall one particular deliverance service that I held in Zambia with about 7,000 Africans present. When I had finished the teaching and began to command the evil spirits to manifest themselves and come out of the people, there were all sorts of animal spirits that were let loose. By "animal spirits" I mean evil, demonic spirits that enter human beings and cause them to behave like animals. The first thing that happened was that a man with a "lion spirit" tried to charge me. But someone tripped him up and he did not reach me.

You need to know that the reason these Africans in this part of Africa have so many animal spirits is because many of them are hunters of animals. They have this superstition that in order to hunt an animal successfully, you have to get the spirit of the animal in you. So a man tends to have the spirit of the animal which he seeks to hunt. For instance, the man who is hunting a lion, will get a lion spirit.

There are many others. We dealt with spirits of wild boars that caused people to burrow in the earth with their noses like a wild boar rooting for something. Then there were many snake spirits. These were mainly in women, and when they were manifested, the women were flat on their bellies slithering around like snakes. All these I actually witnessed myself.

There was one other spirit that I did not witness, but heard about from the missionary couple who organized the meeting. Later I met the lady concerned. She was a very sweet Christian lady - a school teacher - but her husband was an elephant hunter. When she came to the missionary couple for deliverance, they commanded the elephant spirit to come out. Immediately she dropped on her hands and knees, crawled out through an open door, put her forehead up against a small tree, and began to try to push it down. Wasn't that remarkable?

Perhaps some well-meaning Western Christian might have said, "Our sister is pushing a tree down for Jesus," but that was not the explanation. The elephant spirit in her was causing her to do what elephants regularly do, which is push down trees with their foreheads. As soon as she was delivered from that spirit, she no longer had any urge to push trees down with her forehead.

In the West, we sometimes tend to speak about the people in Africa as unsophisticated and to consider ourselves more sophisticated. However, I think in this realm of animal spirits it is we, in the West, who are unsophisticated and the Africans who are sophisticated. They have lived for generations with such spirits, but until the gospel came, with the power of the name of Jesus and the Word of God, they had no way to deal with them. Thank God that many of them now know how to deal with them!

Another example of which various reports have been given is people behaving like dogs. I am a dog lover, but I think dogs should be kept in their rightful place. I do not believe that the Holy Spirit ever causes anybody to bark or to run around like a dog.

Where such manifestations of animal spirits have occurred, there are certain steps that we need to take. We cannot tolerate or encourage such manifestations. Nor can we merely sweep all this under the carpet and go on as if nothing had happened.

In Matthew 12:33, Jesus instructs us:

"Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit."

Wherever there is bad fruit, it comes from a bad tree. It is not enough to get rid of the bad fruit. We must also cut down the bad tree that produced it. If we fail to do this, the bad tree will go on producing more bad fruit.Undoubtedly the tree that produces animal behavior of this kind is some form of occult or pagan practice. For instance, there are frequent manifestations of animal behavior in some parts of Africa and India.

To cut down the tree requires that the leaders responsible identify the problem, confess it as sin and repent of it. Nowhere in the Bible is there any ground to suppose that God will forgive sins that we are not willing to confess.

Somebody has said, "The confession must be as wide as the transgression." If leaders have tolerated these things in the presence of their people, then in the presence of their people they need to confess it as a sin and cancel it. Otherwise, if the bad tree is not cut down, it will go on producing bad fruit.In closing, I want to give a little "parable" of my own construction, which is about my relationship with my wife. In this parable my wife represents the Holy Spirit and I represent God.


Now please understand, this is a very simple little parable and I am fully aware that the Holy Spirit is not the wife of God. But with those cautions, let me relate the parable.

A friend comes to me and says, "I saw you and your wife together on the platform the other evening and she looked so beautiful, so fresh, so full of the Holy Spirit."

So I say, "Thank you. That's really how she is." Then, a little later, the same man comes to me and says, "You know, yesterday I saw your wife in a bar with a man drinking." And I say, "That was not my wife! My wife is a pure and godly woman. She does not go to bars and she does not drink with strangers. My wife was right here with me all day yesterday. Don't speak that way about my wife!"

But a little later, he comes to me and says, "You know, I saw your wife yesterday sunbathing topless on the beach." Then I get really angry. I say to him, "My wife was nowhere near the beach yesterday, and she would never expose herself like that! If you want to remain my friend, you've got to come to the place where you don't identify that loose, immoral woman as my wife, because that's an insult to her and to me, If you want to remain my friend, you've got to change the way you speak about my wife."

The application, of course, is this: if you want to remain a friend of God, you cannot afford to identify His Holy Spirit as something that is loose or immoral or ugly or unholy, because that angers God intensely.

Now we come to one final Scripture, which is in Matthew 12:31-32. Jesus says:

"Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come."

That is a very solemn and frightening warning. We are warned by Jesus Himself to be very, very careful how we speak about the Holy Spirit, how we represent the Holy Spirit. Jesus uses the word blasphemy, and I decided to look it up in my big Greek lexicon. The primary meaning of to blaspheme is given in the lexicon as this: to speak lightly or amiss of sacred things. So when you speak lightly or amiss concerning the Holy Spirit, or misrepresent the character of the Holy Spirit, by definition you are close to blaspheming.

If you have ever done that, or been prone to do it, or been associated with those who do it, I want to offer you some sincere advice: You need to repent. You need to settle that matter once and for all with God and never again be guilty of misrepresenting God's Holy Spirit. For the Holy Spirit is holy and He is God.



Food Won't Defile


Then Jesus left the people and went into the house. The followers asked Jesus about this story. Jesus said, "You still have trouble understanding? Surely you know that nothing that enters a person from the outside can make him wrong. Food does not go into a person's mind. Food goes into the stomach. Then that food goes out of the body." (When Jesus said this, he meant that there is no food that is wrong for people to eat.)
-- Mark 7:17-19 (ERV)


KEY THOUGHT:

Once again, Jesus wants his closest followers to know that the issues of genuine faith focus on our heart-driven actions and not on the cosmetic ones. Luke and Mark add the powerful commentary about making all food clean -- a truth that took some time to sink in among Jesus'early followers. The declaration is radical, not just because he declared all food clean, but because he wanted us to look at our hearts instead of having a perfunctory religious check off list of good deeds that never demanded anything of our hearts.


TODAY'S PRAYER:

O God, please make my deeds helpful and genuine and my heart pure. I want to love you, and I want to love others, in deeds and truth as well as in words and speech. In Jesus' name. Amen.


Source: What Jesus Did! http://www.heartlight.org

Time with God - What Quiet Time Is All About


By Andy Toh


QT Is Not About Studying The Bible

Do not take Quiet Time as a time for studying the Bible, but rather as a time of drinking from the river of God. This involves coming to Him, meeting Him, speaking with Him, waiting on Him, resting in Him, and listening to Him (this is not exhaustive).

In The Morning

Call it your special "Happy Hour" with God or "Hanging Out" time with God if you want, even though it takes place in the wee hours of the morning. Some have found that time helpful, it is a time before family and work responsibilities set in, which may distract the uninterrupted time with God you intended to have. And because there isn’t much to clutter the mind at the start of the day, you can focus on the Lord and His voice more sensitively too.

Taking a walk in the refreshing cool of the day, listening to the wonderful sounds around you, and observing the delicate design of God’s creation will truly stir your heart in amazement. This can only lead you to praise and worship.

Praise And Thanksgiving

The discipline and experience of starting with praise and worship, slowly leading to asking God to open your heart to Him, have proved helpful for many. You can do this by:

1. Beginning with the reading of a psalm, a Scripture passage, or a time of praise in songs (all with the focus of declaring who He is and what He has done).

2. Praying for an open mind and heart to His voice. This means not letting our agenda rule the time we have with God.

3. Inviting the Holy Spirit, asking Him to lead you and being conscious of Him during your QT.

Waiting And Keeping Watch

Besides taking time to refl ect and examine your life before God (according to His standard), and confessing any shortcomings, waiting and keeping watch is another great challenge.

This is because we are so used to the fast-paced, busy and on-the- move lifestyle that we fi nd it so diffi cult to keep still at times. Yet we must if we are to benefit from our time with God (Psalm 46). Pray for protection against distraction by fixing your mind on Him. Know that you are meeting the King of kings. Give Him your undivided attention.

Do Not Rush

Take time to ponder over and upon the Word of God. Do not rush. Note again that Quiet Time is not a contest of how much you know about the Word; but drinking from the Word of life.
Meditate on the Scriptures in bite sizes, not in big chunks, so that you can digest it better, remember it better, and apply it better.


Journal Your Impressions

As you discover new insights through the revelation of God, reflect them in the light of what God seeks to say to you and through you. What are your thoughts? What are His thoughts? What are you going to do about it?

Write them all down in a journal. These are impressions the Lord has given you during this moment. You can also write down what you are feeling at this point. Penning them down reinforces what we have learnt and discovered, helping us to remember and apply what He wants us to do so that we can grow into the fullness of His image and purpose.

Be sure to go over them from time to time so that you will appropriately respond to them as the Holy Spirit leads you.


Source: The Beacon - March/April 2005, Vol 32, No 2

Eric Clapton, in the Presence of the Lord

The bluesman has been haunted by God through his early years, his born-again period, and his recovery.

John Powell posted 4/09/2008 08:00AM


If testimony and evidence mean anything, Eric Clapton is in a good place. In February, he earned his 19th Grammy (for The Road to Escondido) and reunited with Blind Faith bandmate Steve Winwood for three widely acclaimed concerts at Madison Square Garden. The North Korean government invited Clapton to become the first rock musician to play the last bastion of true Communism; he has yet to decide whether to accept the invitation. In 2007, Clapton completed a 133-date world tour, hosted the second Crossroads Guitar Festival to raise money for his substance abuse center in Antigua, and hit The New York Times bestseller list with Clapton: The Autobiography. He's been happily married to Melia McEnery Clapton for six years, and they have three little girls who think the world of their daddy, without a thought for his troubled past.

This all seems pretty sedate for the man whose work with a Gibson Les Paul led counterculture enthusiasts to declare on subway walls that "Clapton is God," the man "adopted" by Muddy Waters and commissioned to carry on the legacy of the blues. But his road has seldom been smooth. From the age of 9 when he learned that he was born out of wedlock to his "auntie" and an unknown Canadian soldier, he struggled to find a safe place. Feelings of isolation and insecurity haunted him throughout life, drawing him to the gritty alienation of the blues. But there is a spiritual side of Clapton that was scarcely known. It almost always influenced what he thought and did, and the kind of music he wrote and played.

Clapton never set himself up as a model of Christian faith, and admits as much. He grew up in rural Surrey attending a local congregation of the Church of England, and in his autobiography, wrote that he "grew up with a strong curiosity about spiritual matters, but my searching took me away from church and community worship to the internal journey." The foundation of his minimalist faith is reflected in the favorite hymn of his youth, "Jesus Bids Us Shine":

Jesus bids us shine with a clear, pure light,
Like a little candle burning in the night;
In this world of darkness, we must shine,
You in your small corner, and I in mine.

That implicit recognition that we serve God individually — in our own "small corner" — made sense in a working-class neighborhood where Clapton found little spiritual encouragement.

By 1969 he was drawn to the genuine warmth of Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett, who opened for Blind Faith on their 1969 tour.


Delaney's "persona of a Southern Baptist preacher, delivering a fire and brimstone message … could have been off-putting," observed Clapton, "if it wasn't for the fact that when he sang, he was … absolutely inspiring." One night, Bramlett challenged Clapton to start singing: "God has given you this gift, and if you don't use it he will take it away." Clapton, always unsure of himself, followed his advice.

Just days later, two Christians came to Clapton's dressing room after a show, probably drawn by the performance of "Presence of the Lord," the showstopper on the Blind Faith tour. To young believers, the song seemed like a tentative response to 1 Samuel 6:20 — "Who can stand in the presence of the Lord, this Holy God?":

I have finally found a place to live
Just like I never could before
And I know I don't have much to give
But soon I'll open any door.
Everybody knows the secret,
Everybody knows the score.
I have finally found a place to live
In the presence of the Lord.

The two Christians asked Clapton to pray with them. As they knelt, he saw "a blinding light" and sensed God's presence. His testimony was open and honest; he told "everyone" he was "a born-again Christian." But the nature of his faith was tinged with a kind of superstition that would remain suspect in light of any systematic theology.

As Clapton's legend grew, so too did his destructive behaviors. Within a year of his conversion he became addicted to heroin, kicked it, but moved on to alcohol, sexual promiscuity, and a string of failed relationships. "Bad choices were my specialty," he said. In 1987 he hit the bottom. Failing through a month of rehab, he fell to his knees and finally "surrendered" to God, dedicating his sobriety to his newborn son, Conor. Four years later, when Conor died in a fall from the window of a 53rd floor of a Park Avenue apartment, Clapton admitted, "There was a moment when I did lose faith." Still, he found the strength to present a session to his Alcoholics Anonymous meeting on "handing your will over to the care of God." Afterward, a woman confessed that he had taken away her "last excuse" for drinking, a confirmation to Clapton that "staying sober and helping others to achieve sobriety" is "the single most important proposition" in his life.

In his autobiography, Clapton elaborates on the beginnings of his prayer life — that 1987 rock-bottom moment at the rehab treatment center.

"I was in complete despair," Clapton wrote. "In the privacy of my room, I begged for help. I had no notion who I thought I was talking to, I just knew that I had come to the end of my tether … and, getting down on my knees, I surrendered. Within a few days I realized that … I had found a place to turn to, a place I'd always known was there but never really wanted, or needed, to believe in. From that day until this, I have never failed to pray in the morning, on my knees, asking for help, and at night, to express gratitude for my life and, most of all, for my sobriety. I choose to kneel because I feel I need to humble myself when I pray, and with my ego, this is the most I can do. If you are asking why I do all this, I will tell you … because it works, as simple as that."


John Powell is associate professor of history at Oklahoma Baptist University.



Copyright © 2008 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Worship in the Microsoft Age
By Patrick D. Odum


"Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, ... God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth" (John 4:23-24 NIV).


I wouldn't go to a theologian for advice on, say, managing a computer network. For the same reasons, I don't necessarily take at face value anything a computer guru would say about religion. I wouldn't necessarily dismiss it, though, and that's why I've been thinking for the last couple of days about a quote attributed to Bill Gates, one of the founders of Microsoft and the "information age." I'm not sure of the context, or why he was commenting on religion in the first place,but he said something pretty interesting: "Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning."

Hmmm.

I have no idea whether or not Bill Gates goes to church. For all I know, right after he said that, he said something along the lines of, "But I go anyway because I think it's important for other reasons." But, that short quotation actually started me thinking in a couple of different directions, and, if you'll indulge me, maybe I'll think it through here.

Actually, my first thought was, "Well, I don't think your software is very efficient either, so I guess we're even." But I guess that's for another kind of article. So let's go with my second thought.

I had to agree with him.

To an extent, anyway. Religion, as it is defined as going to church on Sunday mornings, isn't very efficient. There are a lot of other things that could be accomplished on a Sunday morning, and if you tell me you've never even thought of a few, then you'll fib about other things, too. You could read the paper and have a nice, quiet morning with your spouse and kids. Go to the zoo. Finish up that yard work that's been on your to-do list since last spring. You could catch up on some reading, finish your homework, or go into the office for a couple of hours.

You could serve breakfast to the homeless. You could volunteer at a hospital. Help your neighbor out with that project he's been working on. While we're at it, let's dream big. You could start up your presidential campaign. You could discover a cure for cancer. You could solve the problems of world hunger and poverty. (You might need two Sunday mornings for that ....)

So yes, I have to agree: multiply all the people who attend church on Sundays with all that they could be doing instead, and there's a lot that's potentially not getting done while people sit in pews. Instead, they're putting their lives on hold for an hour or two in order to sing songs, read an old book, listen (?) to a (boring) sermon, and have a bit of cracker and a sip of wine or grape juice.

But maybe that's the point of what we refer to as "going to church." It's inefficient, in terms of allocation of time resources. There are a lot of other things we could be doing, even need to be doing. And yet we carve out a chunk of time we don't have to do things that seem irrelevant to the things that the world considers really important and valuable.

Marva Dawn, in one of her books, calls worship "A Royal Waste of Time." She says that's why we do it: "it takes us out of time and into the eternal purposes of God's kingdom." I think I agree, at least to the extent that I understand what she's saying. Worship with the church is important precisely because it requires us to push everything we're striving to accomplish into the background of our lives and invite what God wants of us into the foreground. Sure, we can worship alone, anytime, anywhere -- but do we? And when we do, isn't it usually kind of hurried and rushed and squeezed in between appointments, or while we're on the way to do something else, or just before we crash into bed, exhausted by the day's efforts?

So maybe it's not our job to set people straight.

Worship with the church also forces us to remember that we're not alone in our faith. Sometimes it's easier to believe that we are, because recognizing that we have companions and compatriots in our walk with Jesus entangles us in their lives. It pushes us to take responsibility for each other, pray for each other, care for each other, challenge each other -- love each other. That can be daunting and frightening, and I suspect that's what a lot of people who don't care for church really object to. They rightly recognize that church calls them to intimacy, commitment, and responsibility.

So while "religion" may not be efficient from the world's perspective, I think that's its valuable. It removes myself and my own agenda from center stage and forces me to give God's agenda -- that I love him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and that I love my neighbor as myself -- the central place in my life that it deserves. If meeting with the church for worship wasn't a regular part of my life, I don't know where the impulse for living out God's purposes in my life would come from. I don't know where my heart's compass would be calibrated so that it points reliably toward home. If I didn't meet with the church for worship, I'm not sure I would ever be able to remember that human ingenuity, effort, and accomplishment make rather poor gods.

Gate's words also cause me to wonder how "religion" has become synonymous with "Sunday morning" for so many people. While a lot happens, at least in the Christian "religion," on Sunday morning, what happens then is supposed to have to do with Monday through Saturday, too. Maybe part of the reason that people outside the church -- often good people -- tend to think of religion as irrelevant or a waste oftime is that they think it's only about what we do for an hour or two on a Sunday morning. Maybe they think it's disconnected from what they term "real life." I wonder where they might have gotten that idea?

Oh, right. From church people, most likely.

So maybe it's not our job as Christians to set people like Bill Gates straight about how important it is to express our faith through worship in church. Maybe it's more our job to set ourselves straight -- to bring our lives as seen on Monday through Saturday in line with what we say we believe on Sunday. Maybe, as the people around us see evidence of our transformed hearts in our words, actions, priorities, and values, they'll be less quick to dismiss the church and organized "religion" as irrelevant. But, if what we confess on Sundays has little to do with the rest of our lives, can anyone be blamed for thinking that there are more important things to do with a Sunday morning?

The time has come, Jesus told us, when worship has less to do with holy places outside of ourselves and more to do with the holy places we make for God in our hearts and minds -- in our "spirits." Then God, who is Spirit himself, can take up residence in the only tabernacle he ever really cared much about: us. Make room for him this morning as you worship. And be sure to leave him that room for him in your life when you leave.

You never know who might be paying attention.


(c) 2008 Patrick D. Odum <p.d.odum@gmail.com>.

Gambling Opponents Say Moral Argument No Longer a Trump

As casinos and lotteries spread, two-thirds of Americans join in.

Greg Trotter, Religion News Service posted 3/18/2008 09:49AM


The moral opposition to gambling might be gasping its last breaths.

As more and more states turn to casinos and gambling to fill shrinking budget coffers, the voices of the religious opposition are struggling to convince people that it is morally wrong.

It's an uphill fight: A recent study by Ellison Research showed that 70 percent of Americans do not consider gambling to be a sin.

"It's not acceptable in today's society to present arguments based solely on religion or morals," said I. Nelson Rose, who teaches gambling law at the Whittier Law School in California.

Thirty years ago, gamblers had to try their luck with scratch-off tickets or at casinos in Atlantic City or Las Vegas. Today, only two states — Utah and Hawaii — do not have some form of legalized gambling, according to the American Gaming Association. The other 48 have anteed up for tribal casinos, commercial casinos, racetracks, jai alai or lotteries.

Forty-three states have lotteries, mostly marketed as voluntary taxes for education, and 12 states now have commercial casinos.

Gambling contributes around 5 percent to state budgets — double what it was five years ago, said the Rev. Richard McGowan, a Boston College professor and author of The Gambling Debate, published in January.

In some states, it contributes much more, McGowan said — 11 percent in Louisiana and 18 percent in South Dakota. Experts say the gambling industry is growing and shows no signs of stopping any time soon.

"The church's opposition to gambling has not been widely effective," said the Rev. Tom Grey, spokesman for the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, "because (the church is) not relevant in an irreverent age."

Grey, who fought gambling for years from the pulpit as a United Methodist pastor, said the moral argument that gambling is a sin is too easily swept aside as impeding the personal freedom of others.

As a result, Grey's anti-gambling coalition avoids explicit mentions of religion, and presents more economically grounded arguments that center around addiction, bankruptcy and crime, Grey said.

"There's a cost when people lose — they chase the loss," Grey said. "It's the government's dirty little secret. The house always wins."

Some states, such as Kansas, Maryland, Kentucky and Massachusetts, are in various stages of trying to expand the gambling options they already have.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, both Democrats, recently proposed bills to open commercial casinos, citing jobs and more money for economic development, education and other state programs as the payoffs.

"Legislators and governors have hard decisions to make," said Frank Fahrenkopf, executive director of the American Gaming Association, which represents commercial casinos. "And gaming is capital-intensive and produces jobs."

In a 2007 Gallup survey, 63 percent of Americans had no moral qualms about gambling. Earlier this year, Gallup found that 65 percent of Americans participated in some form of gambling, 46 percent played the lottery and 24 percent had been to a casino.

"Problem gamblers" — those who become addicted, go broke, or turn to criminal activity — only make up 1 percent of those who gamble, Fahrenkopf said.

Still, Fahrenkopf noted, gambling is not "a panacea," pointing to Detroit as an example of a gambling city that has struggled to turn around. The problem there was a lack of viable businesses around the casinos, he said.

Many states that are expanding gambling are just trying to keep up with their neighbors.
Kansas recently enacted legislation to become the first state to have state-owned casinos. The state Lottery Commission is considering developers to build and operate four state-run casinos — in part to keep money from flowing to casinos in neighboring Oklahoma and Missouri.

The Kansas casinos are projected to rake in $200 million a year in revenue, said Sally Lunsford, spokeswoman for the Kansas commission.

About 2 percent of the take will go to developing programs for problem gambling, she said.

Money, she said, has to come from somewhere. "There's not a whole heck of a lot of people who are raising their hands, saying, `Please, raise my taxes!'" she said.

Still, whether or not her voice is being heard, Barbara Knickelbein is not stopping her fight against gambling, even though her organization, No Casinos Maryland, changed its name from Religious Communities United in Opposition to Casino-Style Gambling, as it was known when it launched in 1995.

A voter referendum that would put 15,000 slot machines at various racetracks and other locations will be on the Maryland ballot in November. The projected $600 million that the slots would produce would be unsteady, and an unfair tax on the poor, Knickelbein said.

The organization focuses its opposition on morality or economics, depending on the audience, she said, but religious groups have a stake in the outcome.

"It's the churches who are going to have to pick up the pieces," she said, "when families are torn apart by gambling."



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Money: A Blibical Point of View


The problem with money is that it makes you do things you don't want to do.
WALL STREET, THE MOVIE

A faithful man will be richly blessed ...
PROVERBS 28:20


... Whether rich or poor, everyone needs money. The more money we have the more we need. Solomon said, "As goods increase, so do those who consume them" (Ecclesiastes 5:11). More money only brings more responsibilities.The poor sometimes have an advantage over the rich -- they still cling to the illusion that money will make them happy. Why do well-meaning Christians have such a wide diversity of opinions about how to handle their money?

Three Perspectives of Prosperity

The Bible is chock-full of teachings about money and possessions. Most of us, however, only have a partial grasp, or perspective, of God's money principles.

[There is] a range of theological perspectives which are commonplace today.They are represented on a continuum, because an endless number of perspectives can be discovered if you talk to enough people. Everyone, it seems, has their own unique opinion -- many of which can be backed up by specific verses from the Bible.

The three prevailing perspectives are poverty theology, stewardship theology and prosperity theology. This latter one is sometimes championed as the prosperity gospel.

Difficulties arise because a case can be built for each of these three perspectives. The problem, however, is that God intended only one theology -- not a menu of options to choose from, depending on individual tastes and preferences. How do different perspectives arise?

Most of us decide what we want to do, and then look for evidence to support the decision we have already made. That isn't very objective! We can call it "cherrypicking" the Bible -- looking for verses we like and ignoring verses we would rather not be there.

We also kid, trick, and fool ourselves when we "wink" at Scripture. In other words, we see and we understand, but our powerful self-will persuades us to simply ignore the truth.

To arrive at God's perspective, a man must be willing to look at the whole counsel of God -- the whole Bible -- and be willing to set aside his preconceived ideas ...

Poverty Theology

The disciple of poverty theology is disgusted with worldliness, best symbolized by man's obsession with money. He believes possessions are a curse and has rejected materialism in any and every form. A strong bias toward helping the poor exists, but he has few, if any, resources to actually help with a solution. A few guilty Christians with wealth may also fall into this category, especially if they inherited their money ...

Prosperity Theology

The disciple of prosperity theology believes you have not because you ask not. They often have learned about tithing and have experienced the material blessings available by following the tithing principle. Because of their success with tithing, a preoccupation with money develops.

The prosperity disciple soon begins to explain the lacking of others not experiencing God's financial blessings as a lack of faith. The other dimensions of a relationship with God become, somehow, less significant. Someone who is not doing well financially is looked upon as not "reaching out and claiming their blessings." No room is allowed for God to call some people to be poor. Many disciples of prosperity theology live consumptive lifestyles.

Stewardship Theology

Stewards believe God owns and controls everything. Possessions are a privilege and not a right; the steward gives up his rights. He reads Scripturre to say possessions are a trust given in varying proportions, depending upon the innate, God-given abilities he has and his faithfulness and obedience to follow biblical principles. The steward believes prosperity results from faithfully administering his talents, as given by God in His sole discretion.

His preoccupation is not with accumulating wealth or renouncing it, but with being wise in the conduct of his affairs. His goal is to be like the man described in Psalm 112: "Good will come to him who is generous and lends freely, who conducts his affairs with justice ... He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor ..." (Psalm 112:5,9).

Which one is the right choice? From the three descriptions we have just fashioned, you can see why confusion is possible. Depending on your upbringing, the influences upon your life, and how you want to interpret the Bible, any of these three perspectives could seem unquestionably logical to you. But does that mean all three are correct? No, God has only one perspective, and it is the perspective of a steward. Closer examination reveals the perspectives of poverty and prosperity theology are rife with flaws.

Leaks in the Dike

The prosperity gospel doesn't hold water because it claims you can give to get. The theory is that you can create a binding transaction on God in which He is obligated to bless you. This view disregards your motives, whether or not you are living in sin, and God's plan for your life.

... Poverty theology is equally full of holes. The person who thinks you must be poor to be humble is mistaken. He doesn't understand God's mandate to be industrious and to make full use of his abilities, in whatever proportion they have been given. Since he has never had money, or didn't have to earn it, he is categorically suspicious of anyone who has attained financial success. He believes true Christians should sell their possessions and give the proceeds to the poor ...

The Best of All Three

Stewardship theology weaves the virtues of prosperity and poverty theology together with the balance of God's Word about money and possessions. In other words, much of poverty and prosperity theology is sound; it is in the making of a total point of view where error comes into play. Stewardship theology would be impotent if it did not include the beautiful promise of God's blessings and the admonitions to care for the poor.

We could list hundreds of Scripture to illustrate stewardship theology but, in the end, all we would possess is a long list of rules and regulations. Being a steward is more of an attitude, a way of looking at life as a caretaker. It is an approach to our faith -- it's looking out not only for our own interests but also for the interests of others.

The shortcomings of poverty and prosperity theology are that they do not go far enough. When you host a dinner party, the preparations and cleanup are as important as enjoying your friends and the meal. You must include both work and reward.

Poverty theology exaggerates the role of sacrificial work, while prosperity gospel overemphasizes the pursuit of financial rewards. The steward leads a balanced life, enjoying God's abundance while always serving others in love ...

... Have you been trying to serve both God and money? Have you been cherrypicking or winking at what the Bible says about money? Ask God to forgive you for living by your own ideas, and ask Him to lead you to a proper prespective of money. Ask Him to increase your biblical IQ on money. When you become a faithful steward, God will guide you into an abundant life, and that's the gospel truth.


"Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like" (James 1:22-24).


Excerpted from: "The Man in the Mirror: Solving the 24 Problems Men Face" by Patrick Morley, Zondervan Publishing House www.answers4men.com