By Frank Schoenbach, Director
February 10, 2013
Today, over four hundred Christian pastors, willingly following the leadership of an avowed atheiest college professor, will be proclaiming from their pulpits that the false doctrines of Darwinism and macro-evolution are compatible with Christianity. Pray for them, remembering what Paul wrote:
22 Professing to be wise, they became fools
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; 17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
5 Every word of God is tested; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. 6 Do not add to His words Or He will reprove you, and you will be proved a liar. (Proverbs 30:5-6)
By Frank Schoenbach, Director
February 9, 2013
For the purposes of this article, only inerrancy of Scripture of the five fundamentals will be discussed. The attacks on inerrancy, beginning in Genesis 1, brought doubt to the Creation account, which led to doubt on Biblical inspiration, doctrine and authority of not only Scripture but of God Himself.
After the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species, many theologians came to accepting evolution as truth. This thinking came into once very conservative seminaries as evolutionist thinking and more liberal seminary professors inched their way into these halls of theological training.
After holding several heresy trials involving liberal seminary professors, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in 1910 approved what are known as the Five Fundamentals.[1] The document stated “that the following doctrines were essential and necessary to the Presbyterian system.”[2] The five approved were:
Needless to say, a war broke out between the fundamentalists and the liberals. This led to the famous sermon by Harry Emerson Fosdick in 1922 titled “Shall The Fundamentalists Win?”[4] Then, after the Scopes Trial of 1925, where Clarence Darrow made William Jennings Bryan, one of the stars of fundamentalism in his day, look like a complete idiot, the fundamentalist were defeated, but not down completely.
After the fundamentalist resurgence in the late 1970s, liberals were driven out of denominations such as the Southern Baptist Convention. One of the casualties was one Dr. C. Welton Gaddy. Gaddy. Gaddy’s reaction, according to an article in the Charleston City Paper (no year is given as to when the article was written, only the date of April 14) “What happened that day in 1981 was part of the fundamentalist takeover of the SBC as they led the nation’s largest Protestant denomination to secede from mainstream American Christianity. Through the 1970s and ’80s, fundamentalists conducted an almost Stalinesque purge of moderates from positions of authority in the convention, its churches and seminaries.”[5] Obviously, Gaddy was not a happy camper.
Gaddy would go on to organize something called “Faith Shared, “which was an event on June 26, 2011 that took place in about sixty churches in the United States[6]. This event brought in Muslim leaders who read from the koran and spoke on how islam really is a religion of peace.
This is the type of liberal thought that brought atheist college professor Michael Zimmerman and Christian (liberal) pastors together with the introduction of the Clergy Letter Project in 2006 and its annual event “Evolution Weekend.”[7] This event will be held over the coming weekend, February 8-10 and will feature sermons and other activities on the “truths” of Darwinism and evolution.
How then does evolution undermine Scripture? Let us look at each of the Five Fundamentals to discover the damage done by the acceptance of evolution by various liberal Christian denominations.
The inerrancy of Scripture
Definition: Inerrancy means that when all facts are known, the Scriptures in their original autographs and properly interpreted will be shown to be wholly true in everything they affirm, whether it has to do with doctrine or morality or with the social, physical or life sciences.[8]
At stake here when considering inerrancy is not only that idea, but that the authors of the Bible wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and that the Bible is the ultimate authority on all things. The best place to begin placing doubt is at the very beginning, the foundation of which everything following depends.
In the late 1700s, geology was becoming a part of science. The strata of geological layers were discovered and the theory was made that these strata needed a long period of time, possibly millions of years. This caused some to question the Genesis account of the Creation. How could these geological formations, the ages of which far exceeded the generally accepted belief that the Earth was barely 6,000 years old?
Christians began to accept the long ages needed for the geological record. Enter Thomas Chalmers, a Presbyterian pastor. In 1814, Chalmers proposed the Gap Theory which places a long period of time between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 in order to account for the geological record.[9] He was well enough known and popular that many other pastors accepted the theory.
Even some of the great pastors and preachers of the second half of the nineteenth century came to accept the Gap Theory. One of these was Charles Spurgeon. Consider these two quotes by Spurgeon:
I will not venture upon any dogmatic theory of geology, but there seems to be every
probability that this world has been fitted up and destroyed, refitted and then
destroyed again, many times before the last arranging of it for the habitation of men.
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth;” then came a long interval,
and at length, at the appointed time, during seven days, the Lord prepared the earth
for the human race.[10]
We have the story of the fitting up of the world, during the seven days, for the
habitation of man; but we have not the history of the creation of the earth before that
time. To prepare for the seven days’ rapid furnishing of the earth for man, millions of
years may have elapsed.[11]
After Darwin published his book, more clergy, seminary professors and lay people came to accept evolution as true. As evolution became popular, not to mention the very liberal German theologians with their writings, Genesis 1 became a target. Dinosaur bones were being discovered for the first time. They had to be accounted for in an even longer time span than the geological discoveries had been given. Never mind that fossils of alleged extinct hominids, i.e. human ancestors, had not been discovered. Evolution was now in vogue and Genesis became an even bigger target for the liberals in the church and the atheists outside the church.
To his credit, Spurgeon did not buy into evolution as he did the absurdity of the Gap Theory. He did make several comments about evolution:
In the early part of the twentieth century, two fundamentalist Christian laymen organized a group of Christian clergy and professors to write on the fundamentals of faith. Edited by R. A. Torrey, The Fundamentals, a “set of twelve books, each containing about 125 pages of articles written by dozens of prominent orthodox scholars from America, Canada and Great Britain.”[13] Over 300,000 copies of the first nine volumes were sent to Protestant clergy, professors, etc in the English speaking world.[14]
Of the ninety chapters, at least six are directly concerned with Genesis, Darwinism and evolution. Two were written by James Orr of the United Free Church College in Glasgow, Scotland: The Early Narratives of Genesis and Science and Christian Faith; Dyson Hague of Wycliffe College in Toronto, Canada: The Doctrinal Value of the First Chapters of Genesis; Henry H. Beach of Grand Junction, Colorado: The Decadence of Darwinism; one by George Frederick Wright of Oberlin College: The Passing of Evolution; and one by an anonymous person written under “An Occupant of the Pew,” titled Evolutionism in the Pulpit.[15]
These men saw the threat from Darwinism and evolution. Both already being accepted by seminary professors and their students, who in turn would go to the churches and preach that Genesis is nothing but a myth, or symbolic or metaphoric. Consider quotes from the articles in The Fundamentals:
Here now are some quotes from these articles:
Beach: The teaching of Darwinism, as an approved science, to the children and youth, of the schools of the world is the most deplorable feature of the whole wretched propaganda.[16]
Orr: In conclusion, it is clear that the narratives of Creation, the Fall, the Flood, are not myths, but narratives enshrining the knowledge or memory of real transactions. The creation of the world was certainly not a myth, but a fact, and the representation of the stages of creation dealt likewise in facts.[17]
Hague: The Book of Genesis is the seed in which the plant of God’s Word is enfolded. It is the starting point of God’s gradually-unfolded plan of the ages. Genesis is the plinth of the Divine revelation. It is the root of the tree of the inspired Scriptures. It is the source of the stream of the holy writings of the Bible. If the base of the pillar is removed, the pillar falls. If the root of the tree is cut out, the tree will wither and die. If the fountain head of the stream is cut off, the stream will dry up. The Bible as a whole is like a chain hanging upon two staples. The Book of Genesis is the one staple; the Book of Revelation is the other. Take away either staple, the chain falls in confusion. If the first chapters of Genesis are unreliable, the revelation of the beginning of the universe, the origin of the race, and the reason of its redemption are gone. If the last chapters of Revelation are displaced the consummation of all things is unknown. If you take away Genesis, you have lost the explanation of the first heaven, the first earth, the first Adam, and the fall. If you take away Revelation you have lost the completed truth of the new heaven, and the new earth, man redeemed, and the second Adam in Paradise regained.[18]
Hague has it correct. This is the attitude we must have today. Everything falls without foundation. Genesis is the foundation of the rest of Scripture, take it away, or refer to it as a myth, legend, symbolic or metaphoric, every doctrine of the Bible comes into question. There are Christians who claim they still believe the Virgin Birth, the miracles of Jesus, his death, resurrection and ascension and at the same time calling Genesis a “metaphor.” How can one obtain a total understanding of the Gospel message based on metaphors? How do they answer a person, to whom they are witnessing to the question “why do we need salvation?” Do they say, “well, based on metaphor…..?” It makes no sense. Beliefs, especially Christian beliefs, cannot be based on a foundation that so many label as myths, symbolism, metaphors or allegories.
Much has happened since the days of Spurgeon, the ratification of the Five Fundamentals and the publication of The Fundamentals. John Dewey brought liberal thinking into our school systems, presidents, deans and professors of once stark fundamentalist seminaries their liberal views and passed it on to their students, who then became professors and clergy themselves and passed those same views to their students. The Leakey’s and others discovered what they classified as pre-human fossils thus inventing a sequence of human evolution that is widely accepted as truth today. Edwin Hubble came up with the big bang, or nothing causing nothing to explode and become everything. Post Modernism ran amok. No longer were there any absolutes. Good and evil and right and wrong became relative; if something is good for you, it’s good for me even if it isn’t good for me. Such malarkey!
We had the “sex, drugs and rock-n-roll” attitude beginning in the 1960s. Free love, the summer of love. Nothing was wrong anymore. And all this swept into the church. Even a quick glance will tell a person that something is terribly wrong with Christianity, or what is passed off as Christianity, today. Yes, there are many good pastors out there, but the ones who have the sounding board are the wonks. What is being passed off as true doctrine is verging on or surpassing apostasy and heresy. Just look at what is on Christian television. Yes, there are a few good teachers and preachers, but they are badly outnumbered. Is it any wonder that the likes of Joel Osteen and Oprah are considered great Christian teachers? It is a sad state of affairs these days. Is it any wonder why events as “Evolution Weekend” even happen?
Read Matthew 24. It is very obvious that so much of what Christ said would happen at the end of the age is actually happening. We read 31 God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (Genesis 1:31) Can anyone honestly say that things are “very good” today? If they do, they are a liar. We are in the days that Isaiah warmed Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!(Isaiah 5:20).
How did this present state come about? Adam sinned and sin and darkness entered the world. Paul wrote 12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.(Romans 5:12) Yes, one man, Adam, brought sin into the world, just as Genesis 3 says. Creation was no longer very good, in fact, it wasn’t even good. We are all born under the sentence of death thanks to sin. But there is hope. There is a Savior. Just as God first promised in Genesis 3:15, there is redemption from sin and our hopelessness. That is Jesus, God in the flesh. Despite what the liberals inside and outside say, it is the Truth that Christ was born of a virgin, and that He died on the cross with all the sins, including ours today, piled onto Him. His blood saved us. His wonderful Resurrection defeated death. He is our only true hope. All one needs to do is to repent of their sins and put their faith and trust in Christ. Then and only then do we have salvation and the promise of an eternal home in heaven with Him!
Inerrancy of Scripture has taken a thumping over the last century and a half. The result of that is what we see today—anything goes because morals are all relative. And that is hogwash. Only the saving grace of Christ will defeat the relativism that is so alive and well today.
Beale, David O. In Pursuit of Purity:American Fundamentalism Since 1850. Greenville, SC: Unusual Publications, 1986.
Faith Shared. U. http://faithshared.org/index.html (accessed February 7, 2013).
Beach, Henry. The Decadence of Darwinism. doi:fundamentalists.whybaptist.com/chaptersixty-eight.aspx (accessed February 9, 2013).
Clergy Letter Project. U. http://theclergyletterproject.org/rel_evolution_weekend_2013.html (accessed February 5, 2013).
Exploring the Mind & Heart of the Prince of Preachers. http://www.spurgeon.us/mind_and_heart/alphalist.htm (accessed February 7, 2013).
Feinberg, Paul D. “The Meaning of Inerrancy.” In Inerrancy, edited by Norman L. Geisler. Grand Rapids. MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1980.
Fosdick, Henry Emerson. Shall the Fundamentalists Win? http://baptiststudiesonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/shall-the-fundamentalists-win.pdf (accessed February 7, 2013).
Hauge, Dyson. “The Doctrinal Value of the First Chapters of Gensesi.” In The Fundamentals, edited by R. A. Torrey and A. C. Dixon and Others, 272-73. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2008.
Moredock, Will. Former Southern Baptist Minister Rev. Gaddy to Discuss Separation of Church and State. Charleston, SC: Charleston City Paper, Unknown. http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/former-southern-baptist-minister-rev-gaddy-to-discuss-separation-of-church-and-state/Content?oid=1113880 (accessed February 7, 2013).
Mortenson, Dr. Terry. “Where did the Idea of “Millions of Years” Come From?” In The New Answers Book 2, edited by Ken Ham. Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2008.
Orr, James. “The Early Narratives of Genesis.” In The Fundamentals, edited by R. A. Torrey and A. C. Dixon and Others. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2008.
[1]. David O. Beale, In Pursuit of Purity:American Fundamentalism Since 1850 (Greenville, SC: Unusual Publications, 1986), 149.
[2]. Ibid.
[3]. Ibid., 149.
[4]. Henry Emerson Fosdick, Shall the Fundamentalists Win?, http://baptiststudiesonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/shall-the-fundamentalists-win.pdf (accessed February 7, 2013).
[5]. Will Moredock, Former Southern Baptist Minister Rev. Gaddy to Discuss Separation of Church and State (Charleston, SC: Charleston City Paper, Unknown), http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/former-southern-baptist-minister-rev-gaddy-to-discuss-separation-of-church-and-state/Content?oid=1113880 (accessed February 7, 2013).
[6]. Faith Shared (U), http://faithshared.org/index.html (accessed February 7, 2013).
[7]. Clergy Letter Project (U), http://theclergyletterproject.org/rel_evolution_weekend_2013.html (accessed February 5, 2013).
[8]. Paul D. Feinberg, “The Meaning of Inerrancy,” in Inerrancy, ed. Norman L. Geisler (Grand Rapids. MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1980), 294.
[9]. Dr Mortenson, “Where Did the Idea of “Millions of Years” Come From?,” in The New Answers Book 2, ed. Ken Ham (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2008), 67.
[10]. Exploring the Mind & Heart of the Prince of Preachers, http://www.spurgeon.us/mind_and_heart/alphalist.htm (accessed February 7, 2013).
[11]. Ibid.
[12]. Exploring the Mind & Heart of the Prince of Preachers.
[13]. Beale, In Pursuit of Purity:American Fundamentalism Since 1850, 40.
[14]. Ibid.
[15]. Ibid. 41-45
[16]. Henry Beach, The Decadence of Darwinism, doi:fundamentalists.whybaptist.com/chaptersixty-eight.aspx (accessed February 9, 2013).
[17]. James Orr, “The Early Narratives of Genesis,” in The Fundamentals, ed. R. A. Torrey and A. C. Dixon and Others (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2008), 240.
[18]. Ibid.
7 Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. 8 The Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed….21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. 22 The Lord Go fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. (Genesis 2:7-8, 21-22)
By Frank Schoenbach, Director
February 6, 2013
The above passage is seen as silly, a myth and/or a fantasy by atheists, agnostics, liberal theologians, liberal clergy and liberal lay people. That God could form Adam out of the dust of the earth and Even out of Adam’s rib is just ridiculous to them. What is their counter claim? Well, simply put, about fifteen billion years ago, nothing caused nothing to explode which became everything, and then three, no almost four billion years ago, a non-living something somehow became a living something that turned into everything that’s alive on earth today. Makes perfect sense, right?
This weekend, February 8-10, is once again the weekend for the evolutionists to enter churches around the nation to celebrate the wonders and the solid proofs of Darwinism. Well, except for the eugenics part. And the racism part. They just brush those two aside so no one will dig deeper, never mind that Darwinism, eugenics and increased racism were the inspiration of Planned Parenthood and the Holocaust. But other than that, they are going to once again celebrate Darwin, all because he noticed that some finches have different sized beaks and that he had to sail all the way from England to the Pacific Ocean to notice.
This is all thanks to something known as The Clergy Letter Project, which was developed by atheist biology professor Dr. Michael Zimmerman, at the time at Butler University in Indianapolis. On the letter’s genesis, Zimmerman writes on how it all began:
“In the fall of 2004, I worked with clergy throughout Wisconsin to prepare a statement in support of teaching evolution. We were called to action by a series of anti-evolution policies passed by the school board in Grantsburg, WI. The response was overwhelming. In a few weeks, nearly 200 clergy signed the statement, which we sent to the Grantsburg school board on December 16, 2004. Additionally, groups of educators and scientists sent letters to the Grantsburg School Board and to the Superintendent of Schools protesting these policies. In response to all of this attention, as well as the efforts of others, the Grantsburg School Board retracted their policies.”
After this great victory in the small town of Grantsburg, the project evolved. More and more clergy were signing on and Zimmerman concluded that what he was doing was not just good but very good. But why would a member of the clergy sign such a letter? Consider this sample:
“Getting the word out that religion does not require us to leave our brains at the church door has contributed to our growth in recent years.”~~ The Rev. Kristi Denham, Pastor, Congregational Church of Belmont, Belmont, CA
First off, as John MacArthur would say, this church in Belmont has no pastor. Second, in other words, Kristi Denham is alluding that Christians who believe this stuff are knuckle dragging Neanderthals and her church is for people with fully developed brains. Does it not seem wrong that all these pastors of Christian churches followed the lead of an atheist and took part in this farce?
In 2006, Zimmerman and his followers began “Evolution Sunday.” This event was held on or near the birthday of Charles Darwin, which is February 12th. (Atheists make sure the world knows that Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born on the same day, February 12, 1809 as if there is some significance to that fact. Plain and simple, it means nothing.) The first year saw 467 churches take part in preaching the glories of Darwinism from the pulpit. The number of participating churches peaked at 1,049 in 2009. This year, as of January 30, 2012, just 523 churches have signed on to this, slightly more than a 50% drop. The numbers for my state, Wisconsin, also peaked in 2009 with 36 churches. For 2012, the number has fallen by 50% to just 18. (See chart below) However, there is a slight increase both nationally and in Wisconsin in 2013.
*Numbers are as of February 5.
This year in Wisconsin, the 22 participants are an interesting group. As can be seen in the chart above, the Lutheran church is number one with five participating churches. It is not known which synod or synods these five represent, but it would be a good guess to say that most, if not all, are part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, the most liberal synod in Lutheranism.
As usual, nationwide the “denomination” with the most participating “churches” is the Unitarian Universalists, or the UU’s. This year, there are eighty-nine participating. New this year is a Buddhist organization called Blue Mountain Lotus Soceity. Also new this year is a Swedenborgian organization in Ohio that is taking part. There are also Jewish, islamic and New Age groups.
In the first eleven chapters of Genesis, almost every doctrine in all of Scripture is introduced. Because of the first eleven chapters of Genesis, we have the answers to
And most importantly:
We are living in a fallen world. Humans more and more reject any notion that may come from the Bible. Creationism is the perfect target. Doubting Genesis leads to doubting the rest of God’s Word. Our children, as well as we were, are bombarded with evolution and all it entails. Genesis 1 and 2 are treated as myths, not only inside the Church, but in secular, pagan society as well. We have been taught that man is the answer, that man’s theories of evolution, billions of years, the big bang, etc disprove the Bible!
The problem issue for these people is authority. Whose authority do we accept; God’s or man’s? Unfortunately in these years of growing apostasy within the Church, more and more are accepting the theories of man. The atheists and the liberal theologian, liberal clergy and liberal laypeople are afraid of one thing: God created the universe and He created us. With God as the Creator, God sets the rules and if we don’t follow His commands, His Word, there is a dire consequence; eternal, physical torment in Hell, separated from God forever. That is what those who invented Evolution Weekend and those who willingly participate cannot handle, that God has total authority over them. That’s why Creation is attacked, that’s why Evolution Sunday exists, to undermine God. Believe me; God is much more intelligent than even Dr. Michael Zimmerman.
Genesis 3:15 is the first promise of a Savior. After Adam sinned, God cursed the ground, Adam, Eve and the Serpent. To the snake He said:
15 And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed (Satan) and her seed;
He shall bruise you on the head,
And you shall bruise him on the heel.”
This is the beginning of the Gospel message. Why does God say “her seed?” Women do not have the seed, men do. Except in one case, when the power of the Holy Spirit caused Mary to be with child. There was no seed of man. The seed of man is corrupt and sinful. We are all born sinners. There could not be a seed of a man involved.
Jesus came into this world to die for us, to have the all the sins of everyone who has lived and is living today brought on Him. He died, God’s wrath was done. Then something even more remarkable happened—Jesus rose from the dead on the third day in a glorified body to show what it will be like for all who have repented to Him and put all their faith and trust in Christ.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. (John 14:6) Christ is the only way to eternal life in heaven. Only He can save us from the sin we are born in. There is no other who can save us. Repent then and put your faith and trust in Christ. Time is running out.
Sources used:
Creation Sunday:
http://creationsunday.wordpress.com/
The Clergy Letter Project (Evolution Weekend):
http://www.theclergyletterproject.org/rel_evol_sun.htm
News story on the Grantsburg evolution controversy:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6433296/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/evolution-flap-flares-wisconsin/#.TylnPvnJRwc
Ken Ham on Michael Zimmerman: :
http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2010/04/23/the-rest-of-the-story-exposing-misquotes-atheist-professor/
For further reading
Answers in Genesis:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/
Creation Today:
http://www.creationtoday.org/
Creation Education Center:
http://www.cecwisc.org/
Institute for Creation Research:
http://www.icr.org/
Creation Ministries International:
http://creation.com/
Greetings in the Name of Jesus. I had planned to write this article as an end of year review of various news stories, most of which were missed by the media, both Christian and secular. However, my wife Pat and I were hit hard by the flu just after Christmas and it lingered for just over three weeks. Thankfully we are both fully recovered thank Jesus!
By Frank Schoenbach, Director
January 25, 2013
5 and on her forehead a name was written, a mystery, “BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”(Revelation 17:5)
Source: “Vatican Calls for World Government and a New World Order”
On November 7, 2011, I published an article on this blog titled “Is the Vatican Paving the Way for the Anti-Christ?“ It concerned the publication of the “Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, produced a document titled “TOWARDS REFORMING: THE INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL AND MONETARY SYSTEMS IN THE CONTEXT OF GLOBAL PUBLIC AUTHORITY.” In essence, this called for a one world governmental and finacial authority. I was told by one Catholic that “just because something comes from the Vatican doesn’t mean it came from the Pope.” I disagreed because it was obvious that the pope had his fingerprints all over that document.
On December 3, 2012, we heard this same vision from the horse’s mouth. On that day, the Pope gave a speech before the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, calling for for the “construction of a world community, with a corresponding authority,” to serve the “common good of the human family”. Obviously, this time there is no doubt that not only this speech, but the 2011 document, came directly from Herr Ratzinger himself.
Of course, there is no hint of malice here. No, of course not. The pope was quoted as saying: The proposed body (World Government) would not be a superpower, concentrated in the hands of a few, which would dominate all peoples, exploiting the weakest. Of course it won’t be a new superpower, that will NEVER happen. Sorry to say Herr Ratzinger, even with the best intentions, no organization or governmental authority will stay within it’s mission statement very long. Power hunger will soon dominate and the world will be the worse for it. The pope actually believes that this “moral authority that has the “power to influence in accordance with reason, that is, a participatory authority, limited by law in its jurisdiction.” Once again, no global governmental authority will remain a pacifist for very long. Once it has a “moral” control, it will soon have a control by force. After all, that is what is coming, and all signs show these days that we will not have much more time to wait.
In 2010, this same pope called for a central world bank to control all the economies of all nations. With calling for a one world political authority and a one world economic authority, there is but one piece left for the pope to call for–a one world religion. There is already one such religious body in place that can easily become that one world religion, the end-times religion that will bring all who are still on earth to worship the Antichrist….and that would be the Roman Catholic Church.
Whatever one believes about end times eschatology, there is no doubt that the Church of Rome is attempting to lead the way for the coming New World Order, an order that will not be a force for peace.
Friends in Christ, watch the signs of the times as Jesus told them in Matthew 24. Christ can return at anytime. We must be ready, we must be in Him.
Maranatha!
God Bless you all.
In the next couple months, I’ll be providing excerpts from my upcoming book Beginnings: Genesis 1-11 for Individual or Group Study. This is the first as I look at how there could have been light on the first day of Creation when the sun, moon and stars weren’t created until day four.
By Frank Schoenbach, Director
December 12, 2012
3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. (Genesis 1:3-5)
16 God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. 17 God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. 19 There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day. (Genesis 1:16-19)
Q: How could there be light on day one (Genesis 1:1-5) if the sun wasn’t created until day four? (Genesis 1:14-19)
A: A simple answer is we don’t know. God did it and we believe! However, there is one clue found in Revelation. 23 And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb (Revelation 21:23). The city referred to is the New Jerusalem. Chapter 21 provides all the details of what our eternal home will be like. There will no longer be a need for the sun or any light in the sky. The brilliance of our Savior Jesus will be all the light we will need and what a wonderful glow it will be!
There are, of course, other theories on where the light came from. One example is that of Dr. Millard J. Erickson, whose book Christian Theology is the standard text for systematic theology courses in many seminaries across the nation. Dr. Erickson accepts the age-day theory.[1] Erickson wrote that “the sun, moon and stars were created on the first day, they did not become clearly visible (as if the earth were covered with a cloud envelope) until the fourth day.[2]
This begs the question; just who or what God was hiding these bodies from? There were no animals of any kind until day five when sea creatures and birds came into being.
Earlier in his book, he rejects the “pictorial-day” theory because it “presents the theological problem that it makes God an apparent deceiver (and deception, as we saw in Chapter 13, is contrary to His nature.”[3] However, could not God “hiding” the sun, moon and stars until day four be a form of deception? This is an apparent contradiction on Dr. Erickson’s part.
In honesty, we do not know for sure just how light was created before the sun, but we can totally trust God’s Word that it was done in the way He said it was! Anyone who denies this is, plain and simple, limiting God. And that is something we simply cannont do.
By Frank Schoenbach, Director
November 15, 2012
13 For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. 14 I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. (Psalm 139:13-14)
5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:5)
Should there be any doubt among Christians that life begins the second the sperm fertilizes the egg? Look at what God told Jeremiah—He knew him before He formed him. And He knows us in the same way! And yet, babies inside the safety of their mother’s womb are routinely sucked out and ripped to shreds. Why???
Since these premeditated killings were legalized through Roe v Wade in 1973, some 54,000,000 babies suffered this horrible and senseless death. Think about that number, 54,000,000. That is the Holocaust times nine! And we consider the Nazi’s who carried out the Holocaust evil? Which they were!! But what does that say about us? Despite that, many Christians voted for this practice to continue, unabated. Since this president will likely appoint two new Supreme Court justices, we will probably never see the Supreme Court overturn this awful decision. But we must continue to speak against this and pray that the eyes of those who have the authority to repeal abortion.
Consider this video of Dr. Anthony Levatino describing how an abortion is performed.
Torturous is an understatement. Even barbaric doesn’t describe the killing of a baby. Murderers on death row who are executed via lethal injection are made not to suffer. Our pets, when we have to put them to sleep are done so without pain. Why then is a human baby different? Is being ripped apart humane? Is the brain being sucked out civilized? NO!
We are made in God’s image! 27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.(Genesis 1:27). That fact places us over animals. We are created as intelligent, rational, emotional and have the presence of will! We were specially created, wonderfully made. And yet, abortion takes place thousands of times daily, millions of times a year. What is wrong with this picture?
Please watch this video of Dr. R.C. Sproul Sr and Dr. R. C. Sproul Jr discuss abortion.
Yes, God hates abortion and He will judge us for allowing it. Dr. Sproul Sr is correct, it is a monsterous evil. But will it end in the United States or elsewhere in the world?
That is the question. The answer is that as this world becomes more secular, more humanistic, more immoral, abortion will never end. More and more, abortion is seen as just another form of birth control, which says much about the state of this country and the world. Even now becoming more popular are abortions due to the gender, usually female, of the baby and abortions of babies with some sort of handicap that can be detirmined inside the womb. More and more baby girls are dying for just being girls. And many are being killed because they have a condition such as Down’s Syndrom. Who are we to make that detirmination? Humans are playing God in this…..WE ARE NOT GOD!
Is there hope? Of course, with God there always is. Abortion is sin. We are all sinners: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,(Romans 3:23) But, we all have the blessed hope of salvation from our sins through our Savior Jesus Christ. Christ said 16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. (John 3:16). There is no other way to eternal life in Heaven but through Jesus who said , “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” (John 14:6)
As we spiral toward the End Times, now is the time for all to come to Jesus. Repent of your sins and trust in Christ before it is too late! That is our Hope, that we are wretched, vile, disgusting sinners and Christ died a horrible death on the Cross, shedding His blood for all our transgressions and He rose on the Third Day and conquered death and sin for all who believe. There is no other way.
C0ming next: Part 3: Redefining Marriage
Until then 19 The Lord has established His throne in the heavens, And His sovereignty rules over all(Psalm 103:19)
MARANTHA!
