Re: http://townhall.com/columnists/DrMiriamGrossmanMD/2009/08/04/beware_the_“science”_in_sex_education

Neo-science is the religious practice of naturalism. Assumption number one is that there is no supernatural Creator of all things that upholds all things by the word of His power. With this tenet of their faith, they undermine the very foundation of science that scientific law exists only because the world is designed and ordered by a wise Creator so that His image bearers, given dominion over the creation, might investigate and discover the glory of God in what He has made.

The neo-scientist has no foundation to expect the existence of law, and apart from the influence of the Biblical world-view, neo-science has no future. He admits that moral law is arbitrary, and he treats scientific law the same way. The scientific method is mocked as his theory becomes the master of the method, meaning that anomalous data contrary to the theory is excluded, ridiculed or dismissed because it does not conform to the accepted paradigm.

As opposed to neo-science, real science confirms what is written…’from the beginning God made them male and female’ –Jesus Christ

Dr. Grossman, we thank you for the following information…

The Saints Reign with Christ 1000 Years

   
And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years. [Revelation 20:4-6]

Why are those who take part in the first resurrection called blessed and holy? Over these the second death has no power; there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus for He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of God.

What does it matter if the millennium is now or some time yet to come? Wrong views of the kingdom have consequences. Truth matters because all truth is given for our sanctification. Herein is the Gospel of the Kingdom…

Revelation 12: 5-12: In connection with Christ’s birth, death, ascension and coronation, Satan is hurled down from heaven.

Revelation 11:2-6; 12:14: A long period of power and witness bearing for the Church, which is nourished ‘away from the face of the serpent’. The devil’s influence is curbed.

Revelation 11:7; 13 7: A very brief period of most severe persecution. This is Satan’s little season: the most terrible and also the final manifestation of the persecuting power of antichrist.

Revelation 11:17; 14:14: The one and only second coming of Christ in judgment.

Christ’s first coming is followed by a long period during which Satan is bound; followed by Satan’s little season; followed by Christ’s second coming in power and great glory in judgment. Now it is clear that the 1000 year period precedes the second coming.

Revelation 20 contains the doctrine that has become known as the millennium kingdom reign of Christ. The chapter begins with the binding of Satan for a period of 1000 years which is the duration of the millennium. So the millennium reign is coincident with the binding of Satan. For the comfort of the church, Revelation 20 gives us divine commentary on Christ’s doctrine of the kingdom revealed in the Gospels.  

Satan Bound 1000 Years

‘Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. But after these things he must be released for a little while.’ [Revelation 20:1-3]

This binding has to do with the restraint of Satan so that ‘he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished.’

Here is Christ’s doctrine…

“But if I cast out demons with the finger of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace. But when a stronger than he comes upon him and overcomes him, he takes from him all his armor in which he trusted, and divides his spoils” [Luke 11:20-22].

Christ says that a sign that the kingdom of God has come is that He has authority over Satan. In Mark 3:23 we are told that the binding of the strong man is a parable. We take the strong man to be Satan and the stronger man to be Christ. The spoils of the strong man are the redeemed men from every nation and generation.

Paul’s doctrine gives us more apostolic commentary regarding the coming again of Christ consistent with the binding and releasing of Satan in Revelation 20:1-3. This first statement is the death of preterism, and says that the Day of Christ will not come until the revealing of the evil one…

‘Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.’

Paul continues with his doctrine. The lawless one is now restrained, but the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. The lawless one is revealed when the restraint is removed.

‘…And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming.

Note that the work of the lawless one is deception.

‘The coming of the lawless one 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…’ [2 Thessalonians 2:1-12].

Re: http://townhall.com/columnists/StarParker/2009/07/27/abortion_is_not_health_care

Moral relativism relieves us from having to make moral judgments, or in other words ‘every man does what is right in his own eyes.’ But isn’t this a moral judgment in itself that there is no absolute standard of right and wrong? It is part of our rebellion against the Law of God impressed on the conscience.

The preachers of unrighteousness do not want to hear that as image bearers we are responsible to obey the Law and that sin is the transgression of the Law. They say that we are too modern to hold to the old doctrine that sin is the source of all human misery and death.

There is a new doctrine that denies the original sin and its curse. We have moved passed doubting God’s word to an outright denial that God exists. Now we are told that death is the natural order and necessary for life to advance. Quality of life is elevated over life itself.

With the denial of revealed truth comes the denial of creation and the fall of man into sin and the denial of judgment and righteousness and the denial of redemption in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We commend Mr. Thomas for standing up for Protestantism; that is, the priesthood of every member of the New Covenant. We thank the Protestant Reformers for giving us an open Bible so that more Christians can exercise their high privilege of examining the Scriptures for themselves and holding their church leadership accountable…

‘[The Bereans] were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so’ [Acts 17:11].

We thank Cromwell and his Puritan army for giving us the rule of law by putting to death the tyrannical and seditious king Charles I and stopping his allies, both foreign and domestic. And we thank the New England children of the Puritans for giving us American constitutionalism, establishing a free church and a free state among men free to govern themselves according to the law of God.

Jesus Christ prayed, “Sanctify them by Thy truth; Thy word is truth” [John 17:17]. The Scriptures sanctify the church and the church is the only sanctifying influence on the state. When the church departs from the Scripture, there is nothing to replace its sanctifying influence. The church and the state both revert to lawlessness and tyranny.

All true Christians are once-for-all justified and have been transferred from under law in Adam to under grace in Christ. Jesus Christ is their representative head; their salvation is in Him. This is often called the Covenant of Grace. Though Adam’s covenant was a law-based covenant, Christ’s covenant is a grace-based covenant. It was announced in Genesis 3:15, prophesied through the Old Testament “covenants of promise” and fulfilled in Jesus Christ’s New Covenant of grace.

To be in Christ is to be under grace by faith alone and no longer under law for salvation through perfect obedience in Adam’s failed covenant. Everyone is either in Adam under law or in Christ under grace, but not in both at the same time, nor in neither. This is why we must preach the Gospel of grace to all men.

To be under grace means that sin cannot have dominion over us because grace in Christ frees us from the condemnation of perfect Law-obedience in Adam. This is through our Lord’s perfect Law-keeping life and atoning death for law-breakers. We cannot understand the cross without understanding the Law. Under grace means that God grants us justification by faith alone in Jesus Christ through His perfect atonement for sin and the imputation of His perfect righteousness as a gift. It also means that the new birth writes God’s Law upon our hearts so that we delight in it again [Jeremiah 31:31-34, 32:40; Romans 7:22].

This “grace in which we stand” throughout the Christian’s walk impels and empowers the forgiven sinner to love God and keep His commandments without fear of condemnation. Under grace, the believer no longer finds obedience to God’s Law a condemning burden, but a joyful privilege of the saved under grace [Romans 3:24, 5:2, 5:15, 5:21, 6:14-15].

The Christian lives under grace according to God’s Law so that sin no longer has dominion over him. Although the Christian still commits sins against God’s commandments while under grace, the power of sin, which is the condemnation of the law, is broken. Sanctification, then, is the daily exercise of saving faith in Christ, redeemed by His blood and covered with His righteousness, by which justifying faith we seek to keep the Law of God under grace. That is why Jesus said: “if you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” Faith working through love to God is the evidence of being under grace. And such faith always works.

The Law and the Gospel are different, yet they are inseparable friends. The Law supports the preaching of the Gospel, revealing the meaning and glory of the cross. And the Gospel, which saves from the condemnation of the Law, sends the redeemed back to the Law as a rule of life under grace.

An understanding of the Covenant of Grace puts to death those things that tempt us to sin that grace might abound. How can we who died to sin still live in it? We are no longer under law, but through the covenant promises we are under grace. That is why we have no confidence in the flesh, but rest in the promises of Christ because our confidence is in Him alone.

If Paul were speaking only to Jewish Christians, under law might have a primary reference to the Sinai Covenant. However, the Roman Christians were primarily Gentiles. To be under law in this passage cannot mean that they were formerly under the Mosaic Law or covenant. Yet, Paul says that these Gentiles were formerly under law and, therefore, condemned under sin’s dominion.

Paul explains that all men are “under law” to God in Adam as the head of the human race and, therefore, condemned for Adam’s one transgression…

‘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...So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men...’ [Romans 5:12, 18]

Adam was placed under law as a working principle in his covenant relationship to God. If he obeyed God’s Laws perfectly, he would be blessed; if he disobeyed them, he would be cursed. This law-covenant with Adam is often called the Covenant of Works.

Adam was the covenant head and representative of the whole human race. All his descendants were under law with him and fell with him. Therefore, all men are condemned in Adam’s sin against God’s law-demand of perfect obedience. In Adam all men are born under sin because they are born condemned under law in the Covenant of Works, both Jew and Gentile [Romans 3:19-20].

The Laws that all men are guilty of breaking under law are more than the particular law of not eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They are the moral Laws of God revealed in the Ten Commandments and summerized in the two great commandments to love God with the whole heart and to love men as yourself. Even Gentiles, who do not have the Mosaic revelation, do “by nature” the things of “THE Law,” their conscience bearing witness, because they have the “work of THE Law written in their hearts” as did Adam, though now defiled [Romans 2:14-16].

What Law was originally in Adam’s heart while under law and is still written in all men’s hearts? In Romans 2:14-16, this Law is defined in context as “the law of nature,” the reflection of God’s image in man clearly seen in His eternal moral Law. Thus, all men are condemned under law for not perfectly obeying the Law of God.

In fact, “the power of sin is the Law” [1 Corinthians 15:56]. The Law itself can only reveal God’s holy nature, the original moral image of God in man, and define sin and righteousness. It ultimately stirs up sin by our inability to keep it perfectly and cannot justify us [Romans 7:8-10]. The more we try to keep it for righteousness before God, the more we sin in failure. All men are under sin’s dominion because they are under law to God. Therefore, sin is our master while we are under law.

There is much controversy over the doctrine of Law and Gospel. Errors in this doctrine abound. The church cannot fully love Christ if it does not fully understand what He has accomplished in the New Covenant. It falls to the ministers of the gospel to teach their people and for the people of God to gird up the loins of their minds that they might know the blessedness of their standing in Christ…

The mark of a minister “approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed,” is, that he “rightly divides the word of truth.” …This revelation is divided into two parts—the Law and the Gospel—essentially distinct form each other; though so intimately connected, that an accurate knowledge of neither can be obtained without the other. [Charles Bridges, The Christian Ministry]

The apostle taught that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God [Romans 1-3]. Paul also taught that repentant sinners are once-for-all justified by faith alone in Christ alone [Romans 4-5]. Such a once-for-all justification might entice some to take advantage of God’s grace and to continue in sin that grace might abound [Romans 6:1]. But Paul rejected such thinking about sanctification as impossible for the justified man [Romans 6-8]. Why? Because “sin shall not be master [have dominion, rule, tyranny] over you, for [because] you are not under law but under grace” [Romans 6:14].

This is not an imperative statement, a command to obey. It is an indicative, a declaration of fact. You might call it a promise of Paul to the Roman Christians. This statement explains why it is impossible for the justified man to live under the dominion of sin as do the unconverted. He is under grace. To be under grace is to be freed from slavery to sin, which is the natural state of all men under law. God will not allow the tyranny of sin in the New Covenant of Jesus Christ…

“And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from doing them good; but I will put My fear in their hearts so that they will not depart from Me” [Jeremiah 32:40].

“Let us sin that grace might abound” cannot be the working principle of those once-for-all justified by faith alone [Romans 5:1-2]. Something about being under grace prevents this. What is not under grace is still under law.

Let us examine what it means to be under law and under grace.

Re: http://townhall.com/columnists/FrankTurek/2009/07/15/country_a_mess__blame_the_church

Christ walks in the midst of His churches. ‘The seven lampstands…are the seven churches’ [Revelation 1:20]. The judgment for neglecting love is severe. Without love the church ceases to function as a light to the world. ‘Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven’ [Matthew 5:15].

‘We love Him because He first loved us’ [1 John 4:19]. If I speak as angels and know all mysteries and do all things and don’t have love, ‘then I am nothing’. Read 1 Corinthians 13: 1-8 and think of Jesus Christ; He is love personified. How can the church love like that?

If you are a believer consider that Christ placed His affections on you and gave Himself for you. He did that not because of anything lovely in you, but because He purposed to love you. Knowing that He loves us that way, gives us power to begin to love others in the same way. We can love unconditionally because that’s the way He loves us. Our motive is one of love for grace freely given, not guilt or merit earning.

“For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them” [Matthew 18:20].

This is the church where Christ is walking in their midst: those gathered together in His name. This is the all important qualifier. His name is associated with His identity and His doctrine as revealed in His word.

Is Collins’ faith based on the Biblical revelation of Jesus Christ? Then by what judgment will he judge the truth? How can any man sit in judgment over the Bible and pick and choose what he will believe and not believe?

The point is that it is most foolish to accept Christ’s words regarding sin and grace and redemption then reject His testimony on Genesis and the curse of death that resulted from Adam’s sin. If there is no curse, then there is no need of redemption from sin or death. Even most Darwinites can see that their theory is incompatible with the Bible.

It is said that debating the authority and truthfulness of Scripture is not productive.

It is said that criticisms of [macro] evolution have resulted in a crisis of faith versus ‘scientific knowledge’.

The Bible believer needs not compromise his belief in creation and the Genesis Flood. This is still the best explanation for the fossil record. Regardless of how many compromise their beliefs, the words of Christ stand…

’Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away’ [Matthew 24:35]

“But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female’. ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’…” [Mark 10:6-8, Jesus quotes from Genesis 1:27 and 2:24]

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-06/uoca-uoc061709.php

http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/Asteroids5.html#wp1175557

“Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” [Luke 13:1-5].

In the context of modern disasters, some have appealed to these passages in order to make the point that God's ways are ‘past finding out’. The Bible provides certain cases where God directly tells us His purposes. For instance, 2 Chronicles 36:15-17 and 2 Kings 23:26-27 make it clear that the exile of Judah to Babylon took place because of the people's sins. But unless we have such a statement from God, we cannot see his purposes infallibly. If we presume to draw quick conclusions, we may find ourselves doing the same thing that Job's friends did. They thought that the disasters that fell on Job must have come on account of his sins. Yet the ending of the Book of Job indicates that the friends were wrong [Job 42:7-9].

God’s providential rule is mysterious, and we must realize that there are many purposes of which we cannot know. But there is something peculiar about the way in which some have appealed to Luke 13:1-5. Whether intended or not, they have used it in order to turn aside the idea that God's judgment was being manifested in any particular disaster. The practical effect of this argument is largely to assure their audience that the disaster was not after all a judgment, and that we can all be comforted and spiritually put at ease, knowing that the whole thing is just unaccountable; we need not fear that it has anything to do concerning God and his judgments and his wrath.

The peculiarity here is that Jesus' words in Luke 13:1-5 actually point in the opposite direction. Jesus does unsettle rather than comfort His audience. According to customary thinking of the time, the Galileans must have been terrible offenders to experience the judgment that fell on them. So the audience thinks that they can comfort themselves that at least they are not going to experience such a disaster. Jesus overthrows customary thinking by saying that the Galileans were not worse. That is already unsettling. But then He adds an ominous warning, “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” He accuses them of being guilty and needing repentance, and counsels them that unless they turn to God they will perish.

The appeal to Luke 13:1-5 as a lesson only of comfort, and never of judgment is completely one-sided and hypocritical. It presents an over simplified and unbalanced view of how the Biblical principles apply to the present. We must be ready to speak of judgment and wrath as well as mercy and comfort. Why are we ashamed of the gospel? The gospel is the only power sufficient to deliver men from wrath and bring them into the riches of God’s mercy displayed in Christ.

In particular, every disaster is a forerunner of the Last Judgment. It should be used as an occasion to reflect on the transitory character of this life [1 Corinthians 7:31], on the fact that God gives us blessings that we do not deserve [Matthew 5:45], and that men who are rebels against God rightly deserve wrath.

McNair, who was married, was shot to death at his condo early Saturday by his 20-year-old girlfriend, Sahel Kazemi, who then turned the gun on herself.

“Drop your stone the next time you write about Steve McNair. Drop your stone the next time you text somebody. Drop your stone the next time you twitter. Drop your stone, those of you in the barbershops, the beauty shops. Those of you walking the streets on the corner, drop your stone,” Bishop Joseph W. Walker III told thousands of people, among them family members, fans and more than 50 former teammates, gathered at Mount Zion Baptist Church.

“What I do know about this man was that he loved God though he was just like us: imperfect,” Walked said. “But he knew God.”

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=ap-mcnairkilled&prov=ap&type=lgns

The New Covenant Church does not stone adulterers, but it does practice church discipline by exposing the sin for the purpose of repentance [1 Corinthians 5]. Does the pastor mean that the church is not to judge sin? In so doing he has defamed the church by allowing open sin to exist in the membership.

If McNair knew God, then he would have repented under discipline. Since the church did not exercise its duty, then they cannot know if he was a believer or not.

So, not only is the church not to judge sin, but men are no longer responsible for their sin. Is that the reason the church has left off discipline? God no longer judges sin because Christ has taken on the sins of all, even those who live in sin. Is that the message of the church? That is not the message of the New Testament…