GodsView : Count Your Blessings!: Sometimes when you don’t feel like praying, or you’re consumed with needing to speak to the Lord but can’t gather the words, try that old...
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Count Your Blessings!
It’s amazing how you can get carried away from worries and woes and self concern when you start naming out loud what you’re thankful for. Right away your focus shifts from your needs to the Father’s graciousness and love. Try this:
LOOK UP . . . thank You, Lord . . .
- for Your sovereign control over our circumstances
- for Your holy character in spite of our sinfulness
- for Your Word that gives us direction
- for Your grace that removes our guilt
- for our wonderful country
- for close family ties
- for an opportunity to help others
- for a place to live, clothes to wear, food to eat
- for eyes that see the beauty of Your creation
- for minds that are curious, creative, and competent
- for memories of pleasures and recent accomplishments
- for broken dreams and lingering afflictions that humble us
- for a sense of humor that brings healing and hope
If you can’t pray, make a personalized list of blessings.
Sunday, September 7, 2014
GodsView : It Will Happen!
GodsView : It Will Happen!: 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will com...
It Will Happen!
In Matthew 24, Jesus gave us some clear connecting points between Daniel 9 and the Book of Revelation. If we are going to be diligent about Bible reading, we are going to have to learn how to read prophetic passages. God is very clear that a prophet speaking for Him must be exactly right or he should be killed! (see Deuteronomy 18:20-21) This means the “prophets” featured in the supermarket papers wouldn’t last long!
Some of the things that happen through church history to make the fulfillment of prophesy apparent to the people of God are what are called “touchdown fulfillments.” Not the ultimate fulfillment, but an intermediate fulfillment. Take, for example, the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14, “A virgin shall conceive and bear a son.” There was a fulfillment of that in Isaiah’s day; and then ultimately in Christ.
The prophesy of Joel 2 mentioned in Acts 2 about young men dreaming dreams and old men seeing visions. That was fulfilled in Joel’s day and again in the birth of the Church, and there will be an ultimate fulfillment of that prophecy in the time ahead.
So it is with the Matthew 24 passage and the “abomination of desolation” that Jesus mentioned. Interesting, in 175 B.C., Antiochus the IV, a Syrian king, took the name Theos Epiphanes which means God Manifested. He marched through the Holy Land, down to Egypt. But because he was turned back (in 170 B.C.), he had such anger that he took it out on the Nation of Israel. He went into the Holy of Holies in the Temple and offered a pig on the altar there. And then he forced Jewish people to eat that meat and to bow down to him.
Now Theos Epiphanes had a bit of an ego problem, right? “Just call me God Manifested.” Eighty thousand Jews refused to bow down to him and they were all murdered in the streets of Jerusalem. Daniel’s prophecy was fulfilled and will be fulfilled again in the end.
Biblical prophecy is not a fantasy movie script. These are realities. And God has given us times in history to see a touchdown fulfillment of it. So we’re like, “That could totally happen. I can see that happening. It has happened — It will happen!” Like that. The ultimate fulfillment of the abomination of desolation is yet future, as Matthew points out when he notes, “let the reader understand.” Let’s anticipate God’s promises every day!
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
GodsView : The Film Industry's Celebration of Gays and the Wa...
GodsView : The Film Industry's Celebration of Gays and the Wa...: Once again, true to form, the film industry is celebrating the two latest gay and lesbian flicks, both featuring torrid affairs between a...
The Film Industry's Celebration of Gays and the War on the Age of Consent!
In France, there was such enthusiasm for a pornographic lesbian film that the top award at the Cannes Film Festival was given to both the director and the two leading actresses. Blue Is the Warmest Colour won the best film prize, nominated by a jury led by none other than Steven Spielberg and Nicole Kidman.
The movie, which features scenes that leave nothing to the imagination, tells the story of a 15-year-old girl who falls in love with an older woman. But not to worry—the age of consent in France is already 15.
Here in America, HBO aired the original movie Behind the Candelabra, hailed as “a moving and beautifully made film that traces the clandestine half-decade romance between Vegas showman and pianist Liberace and his much, much younger live-in boyfriend Scott Thorson.”
The film, which features Michael Douglas as Liberace and Matt Damon as Thorson, was reportedly deemed “too gay” to be successful by other studios, hence its airing on HBO. (In today’s gay-happy media culture, saying that the film was considered “too gay” is saying a lot.) Thorson became Liberace’s live-in lover when he was just 17.
The extreme praise for these two movies is reminiscent of the media frenzy over Brokeback Mountain, the first mainstream movie with gay sex scenes. It “won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and was honored with Best Picture and Best Director accolades from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, Golden Globe Awards, Producers Guild of America, Critics Choice Awards, and Independent Spirit Awards among many other organizations and festivals.” It was also “nominated for eight Academy Awards, the most nominations at the 78th Academy Awards, where it won three.” The same year, Capote, about Truman Capote, and Transamerica, about a woman undergoing a sex-change, were also honored with awards.
Isn’t it fascinating that all these LGBT films are so incredibly good—or could there be a little bias in the movie industry?
Back to the real world. While these movies were airing, a national campaign was gaining steam on behalf of Kaitlyn Hunt, aged 18, who was charged with committing statutory rape and molestation on her 14-year-old girlfriend.
Why the national outrage over this case? Aren’t 18-year-old boys regularly charged with statutory rape for having sex with their younger girlfriends? Why aren’t we hearing about national protests on behalf of these young men?
It’s simple. They were charged with heterosexual offenses, while Kaitlyn Hunt’s case involved lesbian sex—and so it can only be “hate” that is driving the prosecution against her.
Robby C., commenting on my article “Immorality Is Trending,” wrote, “So being gay is immoral? An 18-year-old and 14-year-old being in love is immoral? What's wrong with you people. Love is love. Leave the poor girl alone and stop being bigots and hateful.”
Kaitlyn’s father, Steven, has launched a petition calling on the assistant state attorney to “stop the prosecution of an 18 year old girl in a same-sex relationship,” which begs the question: Why bring up the fact that it’s a same-sex relationship?
The petition also claims that “Kailtyn’s girlfriend’s parents are pressing charges because they are against the same-sex relationship, even though their daughter has stated that this is a consensual relationship.” How utterly hateful of them!
Kaitlyn’s mother claims "the parents of the 14-year-old who pressed charges are ‘out to destroy my daughter [because] they feel like my daughter "made" their daughter gay,’ and these ‘bigoted, religious’ parents ‘see being gay as a sin and wrong, and they blame my daughter.’” (How dare these parents not give full approval to their 14-year-old’s lesbian affair!)
As for the laws in question, one signer of the petition had this to say: “If this is an event you feel strongly about, and would like to see the decay of these archaic laws striking down children for being children then please take a few seconds out of your day to sign the petition to aid Kate Hunt in her search for justice.” As the Facebook page cries out, “Stop the Hate, Free Kate.”
Lost in most news reporting is that the younger girl’s parents, Jim and Laurie Smith (he’s white, she’s black), told WPEC-TV reporter Jana Eschbach that they "had twice asked Hunt to leave their daughter alone, and only went to police after a January incident in which their daughter ran away and spent the night at Hunt’s house.” And they made clear that they would have done the same had their daughter taken off with an 18-year-old boy.
But why should we believe them? After all, they must be hateful bigots. The talking points say so.
Interestingly, the 1972 gay rights platform called for the “repeal of all laws governing the age of sexual consent,” while in 2010, British gay activist Peter Tatchell argued that “the best way to protect our children from sexual abuse is paradoxically to give them more sexual freedom." Furthermore, "Age of consent laws vary from state to state in the U.S., with the majority being 16 and some ranging as high as 18, but Tatchell says they should all be lowered to 14.”
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