Easter

This Easter morning across America children are searching for Easter baskets filled with goodies or colored eggs allegedly placed by the Easter bunny. These are fun activities, and it is quite appropriate to be joyous and happy on this day. However, it is important to remember the reason we celebrate this day, and teach your children the significance of Easter Sunday. On this day, 2,000 years ago, a group of women were walking to Jesus’ tomb. They were His followers, but three days before, Jesus had been crucified, and laid in the tomb. All of His followers were deeply grieved at their Lord’s death. How could this happen? Wasn’t He the Messiah? Isn’t the Messiah supposed to rule the world and set up the Kingdom? Their own lives were in danger because of their association with Jesus. He said “I will never leave your nor forsake you.” What happened? Why did He die?

Jesus did warn them that He would have to die, but then rise from the dead:

“And it came about that after Jesus finished all these words, He said to His disciples, ‘You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man is to be delivered up for crucifixion’ ” (Matthew 26:1, 2).

“Then Jesus said to them, ‘You will all fall away because of Me this night, for it is written, “I will strike down the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered.’ But after I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee’ ” (Matthew 26:31-32).

Jesus also told them the reason He was going to die:

“I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep….the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again.” (John 10:11, 17).

“just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).

The Apostle Paul wrote, “Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you – unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again according to the Scriptures” (1Corinthians 15:1-4).

This is what the Gospel is: that Christ died for our sins, and rose from the dead; and Easter Sunday is when we celebrate His resurrection. On this day, about 2,000 years ago, Christ conquered sin and death forever.

“Christ died for our sins once for all, the just for the unjust, in order that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit.” (1Peter 3:18)

God told the prophet Hosea, “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death” (Hosea 13:14 NKJV).

“then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’ ‘O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?’ The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1Corinthians 15:54-57 NKJV)

As the women walked to the tomb, they were the first human beings on earth to witness discover that the tomb is empty, that death, the ultimate worst enemy of mankind is defeated, that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead. He is alive, but by His sacrifice on the cross He paid for our sins, as was prophesied in the Old Testament:

“Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried…He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall upon Him…By oppression and judgment He was taken away; and for His generation, who considered that He was cut off from the land of the living…But the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief; if He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring…As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; by His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, as He will bear their iniquities.” (Isaiah 53:4-6, 8, 10-11)

Easter Sunday is a joyous day because it is the day Christ rose, but it is by His blood shed on the cross that our sins are paid. God became man, out of His great love for rebellious mankind. He suffered to redeem us.

"He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2Corinthians 5:21).

A person might ask, how then do we get this victory over death applied to us? How do we "become the righteousness of God in Him"? Jesus answers, “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. For God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him…Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life” (John 3:16-17, 5:24).

Jesus said that we need to believe in Him to obtain everlasting life. The Greek word for believe is Pisteuo, which means two things: 1)to accept something as true, and 2)to trust or depend on someone for something. To be saved, we must accept the Gospel as true and put our trust in Christ alone as our only salvation from death.

We must not trust in our own works or abilities, whether it be going to church, giving to the poor, being nice, or taking communion. “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not as a result of works, that no one should boast” (Ephesians 2:8, 9). We are not saved by our deeds, but by God’s grace in sending His Son to die for your sins, and that we believe in Him. However, it is of course important that a Christian do good works, since it pleases God, whom we should earnestly desire to serve because of His magnificent, unfailing love towards us; though we were sinners in open rebellion against God, He died for us. Even as Christians, we still sin - a lot - and yet He is still gracious and loving towards us. Therefore, He is deserving of our allegiance, and we should strive to be totally commited to Him. We love Him because He first loved us.

The Resurrection story, the Gospel message, is what we need to tell our children after all the eggs and baskets have been found. It is the Gospel that we need to tell our friends and relatives as we sit down for Easter dinner. I encourage you to read Isaiah 53, 1Corinthians 15, and the Gospel accounts of Easter; it helps us put Easter into at least some of the perspective it deserves, as finite as our human minds are.

Happy Resurrection Day everyone.

Salute to John Wycliffe

Christians should remember our brothers and sisters of the past and their accomplishments. One good man worthy of remembrance is John Wycliffe, the first man to translate the Bible into our language. This is a speech I delivered at my Worldview class about John Wycliffe:



“Even though there were a hundred popes and though every mendicant monk were a cardinal, they would be entitled to confidence only in so far as they accorded with the Bible.” The idea behind these words that John Wycliffe spoke is foundational to the Protestant Reformation. Although Wycliffe lived 200 years before the Reformation, his teachings are very similar to those of Luther and the other Reformers. He was the first glimpse of the light, the religious truth and the freedom that would soon come.

John Wycliffe was probably born around the year 1324 near Richmond in Yorkshire, England. He studied at Oxford University, and became master of Balliol college in 1361. In 1372 he received the degree of doctor of theology. Wycliffe was well-educated and highly respected even by his enemies as a scholar, philosopher, and theologian.

Wycliffe was critical of the Roman Catholic church of the time. He held that the Roman church had too much power in civil government and that the church was gouging the common people to become too wealthy, and he did not keep quiet about his views; Wycliffe was a vocal critic of what he believed were false, unbiblical doctrines of the Roman church.. Wycliffe translated the Bible into the English language, the common language of England. Most of the church hierarchy did not want the common people to be able to read the Bible for themselves, and they thought English was too rough a language for the Holy Bible, ignoring of course what the Bible itself says that all Christians should know and study Scripture. But Wycliffe wrote in the preface to his translation his disapproval of the immoral lives of Catholic clergymen, a condemnation of the worship of saints, images, and of Transubstantiation, and he also included an assertion that all people read the Bible for themselves.

The Church did not like being crossed and criticized like this at all, and hoped to silence Wycliffe; they often pressured England for his arrest. But he was protected by the respected duke of Lancaster, and they feared his great popularity with the people, so he was able to teach and write in relative safety. Therefore, the Church settled to simply harass Wycliffe all his life. Eventually, Wycliffe died of a stroke in 1384. But Wycliffe’s followers continued his work. They were called Lollards or “poor preachers” as they liked to call themselves because they lived like the common people and did not dress richly like the Catholic priests. Seventeen years after Wycliffe’s death, the Church ordered his books burned and punished all who taught his ideas. They also had his bones dug up and burned.

John Wycliffe’s actions earn him the dubbing by historians, “morning star of the reformation” because of the closeness of his teachings to the Protestant Reformation that ignited Europe 2 centuries later. All of Wycliffe’s criticisms of the Roman church were reiterated in the Reformation. John Wycliffe was not perfect in his teachings, but he was still far ahead of his time during the middle ages in his insights on Biblical Christianity. He believed salvation was not by works, that the pope did not have authority over the Bible, that the Catholic dogma of transubstantiation was false, and that worship should be given to no one except Christ. All of these principles were key components of Protestant theology in the Reformation.

Wycliffe taught that salvation was not by works. The Catholic church taught that Christ died for our sins, but we still had to work to get that applied to us. A person had to partake of Seven Sacraments that were necessary for salvation, such as water Baptism, Holy Eucharist, and Penance; they also taught that a person could buy forgiveness from some sins by indulgences, that is, giving money to the church. So it was man’s merit who was meriting the merit of Christ. This is a works gospel, not the Biblical Gospel of grace, that Christ died for our all sins and rose from the grave, and whosoever believes in Him has everlasting life. Salvation by grace through faith alone, not of works, is a crucial doctrine that both Wycliffe and the Reformers taught.

Wycliffe was the first person to completely translate the Bible into English. Before that, English speakers had to read or hear Latin for the common Bible translation, and no one knew Latin except the priests. This prevented the common people from understanding anything what the Bible said. Wycliffe changed that so people who could read English could read for themselves what the Bible said, and people who were illiterate could listen to Bible readings in their own language. That every man have the opportunity to read the Bible for himself is an attitude that the Protestant Reformation strived to establish.

Wycliffe demanded that the Bible be the main source of authority rather than the pope. The Roman Church considered the pope as equal, if not higher than, the Bible. But the Reformation went back to early Christianity, Jesus and the Apostles; man is fallible but God’s word is infallible, and the supreme authority on all matters regardless of what any man says, whether he be king, pope, or pauper. Authority given to the Bible as priority rather than pope and clergy was Luther’s foundational premise that brought Christianity back to God’s truth, and Wycliffe shared that premise.

Wycliffe himself did not impact Martin Luther, the Father of the Reformation, but Luther was influenced by John Huss of Bohemia who was a student of Wycliffe’s works. Huss read Wycliffe’s writings and came to share many of his views. Wycliffe’s theological and philosophical influence strongly effected Bohemia. Wycliffe’s translation of the Bible into his own language inspired the Bohemians to make a translation of the Bible into their language. And Luther translated the Bible into his German language. Wycliffe’s brave act of translating the Bible into the language of the masses set a precedent for the Reformation.

John Wycliffe was a man of God in a time of spiritual darkness, who bravely stood up against the strong powers of Europe for the sake of Christ. We should salute John Wycliffe for his work to translate the first version of the Bible in our language, and remember the way God used him for his contribution the Protestant Reformation and the return to Biblical Christianity.

The passing of a hero

He followed God's decrees to the end from Answers in Genesis

Memorial Service held for Dr. Morris from ICR

Henry M. Morris, the "father of modern Creationism", has died. He was 87.

He is arguably the most significant individual in defending Christianity in the 20th century. Dr. Morris founded the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) and Christian Heritage College (Now called San Diego Christian College). He has authored numerous tracts and pamphlets as well as over thirty books, including The Genesis Flood, The Long War Against God, Many Infallible Proofs, The Biblical Basis for Modern Science, Scientific Creationism, and the Defender’s Study Bible. Dr. Morris has done more to defend the book of Genesis than anyone else, not only in his own works and writings, but in the way he influenced others, like Ken Ham, President of Answers in Genesis, the largest Apologetics organization in the world.

Before Dr. Morris, Creationism as we know it today didn’t exist. When Darwin, Lyell, and Huxley came in the 1800s with their millions of years and evolution, Christians used no truly Biblical arguments against him. That the earth was millions of years old was treated as such an undisputable fact that Christians were afraid to deny it, and therefore introduced unbiblical compromises to “fit” long ages into the Bible, such as the Gap theory and Day-age theory. Henry Morris was the first to come up with a truly Biblical model of Scientific Creationism, explaining with his expertise in hydraulics that the power of water in the Genesis flood that God send accounted for most of the fossil record, sedimentary rock and erosion we see today. He also explained some of the scientific evidence for a young earth, and the impossibilities of evolution.

He brought to light the fact that true science does not contradict the Bible, but confirms it in every possible aspect. He formulated scientific models for the ancient events described in Bible with expert authority and research. He exposed the falsehoods of evolutionary philosophy and the danger of compromise of evolution and the Bible. We owe a lot to the work of Henry Morris and what he has done for Christianity and our security that the Bible is the inerrant, authoritative Word of God.

My dad met him once at a seminar. He was very impressed with Dr. Morris as a speaker and writer in the ways God used him, but was even more impressed when he met him. My dad found him to be a gracious, humble, unassuming man. Conversing with him you wouldn’t find him much different from the average Grandfather. How I wish I could have met him! I guess I just have to wait until I get to heaven to shake his hand.

Farewell, Dr. Morris. You leave behind you millions of grateful Christians, who will see you again when the time comes for that great marriage supper with the King. Amen.

Jesus vs. Muhammad

As you probably know, the entire Muslim world has been in an uproar over the Danish political cartoons portraying the prophet Muhammad. It’s apparently illegal in Islam to depict Muhammad, in fear that the image will be worshipped as an idol.
But what really makes them angry is that the cartoons portray him in a somewhat negative light.
The cartoons can be seen here on Michelle Malkin’s blog. On her website there is a photo of a man holding up a sign, "Behead those who insult Islam"

The intolerance and hypocrisy here is amazing. The same Muslims who insult and degrade other religions, like Christianity, in terrible, hostile ways, so extreme as to kill people to show disdain of non-Islamic religions, are now angry over a few bloodless cartoons. It’s just drawings on paper, and they want the artist beheaded.

The author below notes this amazing contrast between the two main figures of two different belief systems, Christianity and Islam. Jesus shows love towards those who insult and persecute him; Muhammad shows hate and death towards those who insult and persecute him. It’s a profound difference. The following article was NOT written by me, but by a man named John Piper. It’s reproduced here by permission (see below)

Here it is:

Being Mocked: The Essence of Christ's Work, Not
Muhammad's
February 8, 2006
What we saw this past week in the Islamic
demonstrations over the Danish cartoons of Muhammad was another vivid
depiction of the difference between Muhammad and Christ, and what it means
to follow each. Not all Muslims approve the violence. But a deep lesson remains: The work of Muhammad is based on being honored and the work of Christ is based on being
insulted. This produces two very different reactions to mockery.

If Christ had not been insulted, there would be no salvation. This was his saving work: to
be insulted and die to rescue sinners from the wrath of God. Already in the Psalms the path of mockery was promised: "All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads" (Psalm 22:7). "He was despised and rejected by men . . . as one from whom men hide their faces . . . and we esteemed him not" (Isaiah 53:3).

When it actually happened it was worse than expected. "They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head. . . . And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, 'Hail, King of the Jews!' And they spit on him" (Matthew 27:28-30). His response to all this was patient endurance. This was the work he came to do. "Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth" (Isaiah 53:7).

This was not true of Muhammad. And Muslims do not believe it is true of Jesus. Most
Muslims have been taught that Jesus was not crucified. One Sunni Muslim
writes, "Muslims believe that Allah saved the Messiah from the ignominy of crucifixion." 1 Another adds, "We honor [Jesus] more than you [Christians] do. . . . We refuse to believe that God would permit him to suffer death on the cross." 2 An essential Muslim
impulse is to avoid the "ignominy" of the cross.

That's the most basic difference between Christ and Muhammad and between a Muslim and a follower of Christ. For Christ, enduring the mockery of the cross was the essence of his mission. And for a true follower of Christ enduring suffering patiently
for the glory of Christ is the essence of obedience. "Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account" (Matthew 5:11). During his life on earth Jesus was called a bastard (John 8:41), a drunkard (Matthew 11:19), a blasphemer (Matthew 26:65), a devil (Matthew 10:25); and he promised
his followers the same: "If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household" (Matthew 10:25).

The caricature and mockery of Christ has continued to this day. Martin Scorsese
portrayed Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ as wracked with doubt and beset
with sexual lust. Andres Serrano was funded by the National Endowment for the
Arts to portray Jesus on a cross sunk in a bottle of urine. The Da Vinci Code
portrays Jesus as a mere mortal who married and fathered children.

How should his followers respond? On the one hand, we are grieved and
angered. On the other hand, we identify with Christ, and embrace his
suffering, and rejoice in our afflictions, and say with the apostle Paul that vengeance belongs to the Lord, let us love our enemies and win them with the gospel. If Christ did his
work by being insulted, we must do ours likewise.

When Muhammad was portrayed in twelve cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, the uproar across the Muslim world was intense and sometimes violent. Flags were burned, embassies were torched, and at least one Christian church was stoned. The
cartoonists went into hiding in fear for their lives, like Salman Rushdie before
them. What does this mean?

It means that a religion with no insulted Savior
will not endure insults to win the scoffers. It means that this religion is destined to bear the impossible load of upholding the honor of one who did not die and rise again
to make that possible. It means that Jesus Christ is still the only hope of peace with God and peace with man. And it means that his
followers must be willing to "share his sufferings, becoming like him in his
death"
(Philippians 3:10).

Footnotes
1 Badru D. Kateregga and
David W. Shenk, Islam and
Christianity: A Muslim and a Christian in Dialogue
(Nairobi: Usima Press, 1980),
p. 141.
2 Quoted from The Muslim
World in J. Dudley Woodberry, editor,
Muslims and Christians on the Emmaus
Road (Monrovia, CA: MARC, 1989), p. 164.
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The Christian and Capital Punishment

This is a formal persuasive essay I wrote for school during the Tookie Williams fiasco. The death penalty is an important issue where Christians must be informed. Enjoy!




The Christian and Capital Punishment

Today, capital punishment is a controversial topic. People in the world are increasingly condemning this practice, and many Christians are beginning to denounce it as well. These Christians argue that the Bible says, “thou shalt not kill,” and Jesus said, “he that takes up the sword shall die by the sword,” therefore making it immoral for a government to kill its people, and it does not even prevent crime. But in reality, capital punishment is justice, and it really works. Also, the Bible strongly supports the institution of a death penalty, and nowhere does the Bible condemn civil government for taking the life of a criminal. The arguments Christians should consider for capital punishment are that the Old Testament commands it, the New Testament reaffirms it, and it works to prevent crime and execute justice.

Capital punishment was commanded for certain crimes in the Old Testament. While the Ten Commandments reads, “Thou shalt not kill” in some Bible translations, this does not apply to government using its authority to uphold justice with a death penalty, because in the same book capital punishment is instituted to punish criminals. In the laws God gave to Moses, the death penalty was the price of justice for murder, adultery, rape, and other offenses. “Thou shalt not kill” is better translated as “thou shalt not murder.” Some may argue that this is strictly in the Mosaic Law and meant only for Israel at that time. However, even before Mosaic Law God instituted capital punishment by civil government as one of His first commands to Noah after the Flood. He said, “Whoever shed man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man” (Gen. 9:6). This command in Genesis was given for all people, not merely the nation of Israel as the Mosaic law. Some Christians counter that the New Testament repealed capital punishment as part of the old covenant and is no longer valid today.

However, the New Testament also affirms capital punishment as the duty of civil government. The Apostle Paul writes in Romans, “Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God…. For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil…. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath upon the one who practices evil” (Romans 13:1,3,4). When the Bible speaks this way, “the sword” refers to death. The meaning of Christ’s saying, “He that takes up the sword shall die by the sword” (Matthew 26:52) is clarified here. The person that murders will also be killed by the sword of civil government, and this government is exercising a God-given right to justice, a tool that God uses to punish evil-doers. Capital punishment cannot merely be an outdated part of the old covenant, because laws that are no longer valid for Christians were always identified in the New Testament, and capital punishment is never repealed or spoken against in the New Testament, but reaffirmed as true for today.

Lastly, Christians should support capital punishment because it works. It has been suggested in various studies and statistics that capital punishment is a deterrent to murders, and the lack of the death penalty causes more murders. For instance, in the late 1960s and 1970s, when capital punishment was either outlawed or in question in the United States, the number of murders per year rose considerably, from 13,000 in 1967 to 19,555 in 1978*. Some argue that capital punishment is not a deterrent to murderers because most murderers are uneducated and irrational, not thinking of consequences. On the contrary, fear of consequences is the strongest of deterrents to the irrational and uneducated mind. The irrational person will not listen to reason and will refrain from an act only as a result of consequences. That is exactly why the consequences must be death, rather than life in prison which many criminals do not mind with relaxation, cable television and the possibility of escape. Further, a Christian can know capital punishment has a deterrent effect because the infallible word of God shows this with Israel, when God said, “all Israel shall hear and fear, and not again do such wickedness as this among you,” (Deuteronomy 13:11) as a result a death penalty. Even if the death penalty was not a deterrent, it is necessary to eliminate hardened murderers because they are detrimental to society and could kill again. Other inmates, prison guards, and any person within their reach if they escape prison are in danger as long as the hardened murderer lives.

Capital punishment should be supported by Christians because the Old Testament and New Testament establish it, and also because it works well. The Old Testament gave clear commands that people who shed innocent blood will have their own blood shed by the civil government. The New Testament never rebuked governments giving the death penalty, and in fact reaffirmed the commands of the Old Testament that the government has a God-given right to use capital punishment. Capital punishment works to carry out justice and to prevent crime by deterrence. Regardless of the arguments of the liberal anti-death penalty lobby, they are the words of fallible man, but the word of God is infallible and completely trustworthy and must be obeyed. Christians should not be influenced by humanism and liberal ideas, but stand firm in Scripture, realizing that capital punishment is the hand of God in punishing evildoers and a way to protect people.


*Glenn Dunehew, http://www.forerunner.com/forerunner/X0131_Capital_Punishment

The meaning of Christmas

Here is a letter I sent to the North County Times in December. There was as you know a "war on Christmas", and Christians were working to put the "Christ" back in "Christmas" and tried to get people to say the words, "Merry Christmas" instead of "happy holidays" at stores.

But the words themselves are meaningless without the message behind the words, the Gospel, the good news message of Jesus Christ. So, here's my letter:

The true meaning of Christmas is often forgotten in the Christmas rush. Christmas is the celebration of the day Jesus was born. We do not know the exact season or date Jesus came into this world, but we do know that in Bethlehem, the King of kings was born in a miserable stable and laid in an animal feeding trough. He could have come in all the wealth and influence of Rome, yet He came into the family of a poor carpenter in Judea.

Jesus, the Son of God, came with a message of love and good news for the world. The human race is fallen in sin, and we justly deserve the penalty of hell, but “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” (John 3:16-17)Jesus said, “He who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life.” (John 5:24) Whoever believes Christ’s death and resurrection and trusts in Him alone for forgiveness has assurance of heaven with God; this is the marvelous meaning of Christmas.

I have returned!

Hello all! No, I'm not dead, hospitalized, or held hostage by crazed Marxist guerrillas. But I have been away from this blog for the past 3 months.

I am sorry that I have been away for so long. I've been very busy, and I was on a short-term missions trip to Argentina in December.

But I'm back now to discuss the Biblical worldview and its relationship to news, culture and religion!