Holy Ghost Opportunities

We pray and we wait. Then we pray and wait some more. Then we pray some more and wait some more - we may even fast - but God has called us to an active faith. 

No one ever got anything from God without action; from Moses getting off his couch in Pharoah's house to Peter stepping out of the boat to meet his Lord, men and women of God are called to action.

There are Holy Ghost opportunities presenting themselves every single day of every single of our lives. A chance to share the Saviour, a chance to display the power of God to heal, or maybe a chance to speak a word to encourage or convict - everyday we have a chance to respond to God and labour while it is still day.

The other day I was sitting in my car at the supermarket with my wife and sister in-law and saw a lady walking in a lot of pain with a crutch. God immediately convicted me to go and minister to her, but I reasoned in the flesh that she was in a rush and wouldn't respond; again He prompted my heart. I told my wife and sister in-law to give me a minute, as I got out of the car and went after her.

By the time I was out of the car she had met up with her family and I knew I had missed it. Oh what God could have done to set her free and establish a witness in her heart  - I've seen it countless times before. Lord help me to never miss an opportunity again because the flesh has been overfed. If we feed the Spirit then any time those opportunities come it will simply be too strong for the flesh to resist (Read Galatians 5:17).

Australopithecus Afarensis' Funny Footed Cousin?

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The Daily Mail reports that a newly discovered fossilised foot has revealed a 'previously unknown human species' that lived three and a half million years ago.

The Darwinist media circus continues to churn out logical fallacies that stand for discoveries of great scientific importance. Now they have found the foot bones of a monkey and claim that it was an upright human ancestor that spent some time on  the ground, but not as much as the soon to evolve australopithecus, who found much more joy in swinging down from the trees for extended periods to be chased by lions.

A key point here is that finding bones in the dirt tells you nothing. Dates have to be assigned arbitrarily from the world view of the discoverer and the geologic column, made up of dates pulled from the thin air in the 1830s - there are no tags to tell you when it died or what it was. Then if it happens to just be a few bones you have to imagine the rest of the creature according as much to how you want it to look, as to what the few bones can tell you about its general structure - imagine finding the back end of a duckbill platypus and  presuming that it looked like a small beaver at the front.

Besides all the usual evolutionary propaganda blurb, Daniel Lieberman, professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard, was incredibly honest for a Darwinist saying 'The limitations of the fossil record leave ample room for debate about human origins'. Of course, he simply means debate between evolutionists about different ideas they want to pursue grant money with. If only he had the open-mindedness to mean that the limitations of finding bones in the ground means you can never empirically state anything about the distant past unless you were there.

As ridiculous as it was to say Lucy was anything but an ape that spent the majority of her time in the trees pales in comparison to finding JUST A FEW FOOT BONES and saying it was a 'hominin', human ancestor. The fact that these foot bones show an opposable toe make its even more ridiculous - I think that after all these years they have actually found Lucy's feet!

So how do we know its 3.4 million years old (say 'oooooooh!')? Because Dr Yohannes Haile-Selassie, of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History said it is. Wouldn't it be great if radiocarbon dating worked, let alone stretched back that far, and we could see that this poor monkey was happily swinging in the trees when the flood came?*

*Don't believe in/deny the global flood about 4400 years ago? See www.answersingenesis.org or www.icr.org.

Woe unto Hypocrites

The other day I was sitting in my car when I saw a woman very unsteady on her feet. She looked to be in her late thirties or early forties, but was walking like an old woman with a stick.

My heart went out to her in compassion, but I was aware that I didn't have much time due to running errands the day before a friend's wedding. My heart was stirred up though, and I called out the window to ask her if she was a Christian. She said "No! And I don't want to be!" - I of course couldn't leave her to say that, so I jumped out and asked her why she didn't want to be a Christian. She told me that she used to go to church with her mother, but that churches are full of hypocrites that smile in your face in church but ignore you on the street - the bitterness within her was so tangible as she spoke.

I told her that not all churches were full of hypocrites and that there was a lovely church (our church) around the corner that would genuinely welcome her. I told her that people may let her down, but Jesus never will because He's perfect. I said if she came that she'd have a friend and told her my name. Her frown turned to a smile and she thanked me and went on her way. I went back to my car and immediately cried out to God for her soul. I could see by faith that if she came out she would be completely healed of that crippling arthritis.

Glory to our sweet Saviour for that Holy Ghost appointment, but I have thought since that there is great condemnation for hypocrites who drive wounded and lost souls away from the love of God and the salvation in Christ they so desperately need.

Say What?

According to an Oxford university scholar, the 'hardest problem in  science' is showing itself to be the origin of language. In 1886, The Linguistic Society of Paris famously banned all debates on the subject.

Since evolutionists think that their 'evolution of man' timeline is so water-tight, what's the problem with the evolution of man's speech? Surely there must be some DNA analysis, some radiocarbon dating, some bones or some observation of apes that makes it as clear as day - after all, the whole world is so sure that man most definitely, undeniably (and un-test-ably) descended from them.

There are two schools of thought: continuity and discontinuity - either a gibbering monkey managed to say 'b', then 'ba', and then thousands of generations later 'banana', or suddenly after thousands of years of hominid silence someone suddenly burst into a full-blown language and someone else also instantly developed the ability to understand it. Yes, I know it sounds silly, but if you start out with believing that everything made itself then you will end up with some pretty bizarre conclusions.

The thing is apes look a little bit like us - they have arms and legs and can walk upright for short periods of time - so they were the best candidate for those who want to deny God to point to as our ancestors. I mean who would have believed it if they pointed to an elephant? A monkey losing its hair, strength and tree climbing ability to survive is just so much more plausible. But monkeys don't talk. Not even close*. They gibber because they don't have the biological structures to produce words or the mind to do it. Monkeys deceive each other all the time, and therefore all the other monkeys are programmed by this to act on nothing that is not immediately verifiable. There is just no room for abstract things such as words - any time another monkey wanted to say 'oo-ah' for banana instead of just pointing to it, the other monkey would disregard it to protect himself from those naughty other monkeys trying to deceive him - I mean it was obvious it was a snake not a banana!

Displaced references - those that have no relation to the immediately perceivable surroundings have no place in Darwinism. In fact, words themselves have no place as symbolism has no place without a culture that already has mutual understanding of socially endorsed, symbolic cultural facts. They cannot be trusted amongst animals that need inherent value and meaning in communication for their survival. To put this simply, if all the monkeys haven't got together and decided that 'wah-wah' now means banana and that it is okay to use a newly invented sound by arbitrarily assigning it to an object then there is no way within Darwinism or any other secular theory of origins for language to come about.

The Bible has the answers, yet again. In the beginning was The WORD! Language has its origins with a transcendent, intelligent creator that injected it into His creation. God is spirit and to express Himself in a limited, physical creation it took symbolism and abstract meaning. When he made man in His image He made him for fellowship, and that took an ability for Adam to express Himself and converse, and in conversing, understand what he could of his almighty Creator.

*I think God made parrots such great speakers just to make Darwinism look stupid. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N'kisi

Unequal Marriage 'Consultation'

I just finished filling in a survey on the UK Home Office website. It was apparently supposed to be part of a consultation on the proposed new legislation to make same-sex marriage legal. The only thing is 'Equalities Minister' Lynne Featherstone has already said that the legislation will go through regardless of the outcome of the consultation - what ever happened to democracy?

She said 'I believe that if a couple love each other and want to commit to a life together, they should have the option of a civil marriage, whatever their gender'. I can't believe that someone with such a prominent position can make such an ignorant statement, but then again, we are living in the most godless generation this country has ever seen. 'Love' has no legal definition and the use of the term has no place in law, being as unquantifiable and indefinable as it is. So why is Featherstone saying such things?

Legally, if someone cannot meet the terms of the law then they are breaking it and must make whatever personal changes necessary to comply. In the post-modern and secular humanist society we find ourselves in, it seems the law has to be the one to change to suit the whims of the non-compliant few. So what if a grown woman loves a boy? Or a man professes love for his sister? Well in a few years time this society might have become just warped enough to also change the law to suit their 'love'.

"But it is harmful and destructive to society for tantamount paedophilia and incest to take place" I hear you cry - but a homosexual lifestyle is just as harmful to society. First of all it is harmful to the individual - homosexuals are four times as likely to abuse drugs or alcohol, have huge suicide rates and only a small percentage will ever make it over 60 due to the inordinate number of premature deaths. Add to this damage caused to the human body from unnatural use and you have one of the most damaging lifestyles imaginable. If you knew someone was living a lifestyle that was going to knock 30 years off their life expectancy wouldn't you want to warn them away from it?

Secondly, it is harmful to society as a whole as homosexuals are notoriously promiscuous and any 'marriages' will have a high chance of failure, causing fractured relationships, bitterness and hatred and the spread of STDS, HIV and AIDS. Spiritually there is also a curse on a homosexual society as it shuns the order of God and takes up its own perverted passions as described in Romans chapter one. I really wish I could expose all these left-wing extremists in power to the ravages of homosexual lifestyles and see how their rabid secularism would hold up against the ghastly facts.

The Football Curse

As news headlines are filled with the plight of Fabrice Muamba, I couldn't help but think about the inordinate numbers of players that either collapse, or collapse and die while playing soccer.

Football is definitely a demanding sport, but when you compare it to marathon running, boxing or triathlon, you realise that the sporting world holds many more gruelling challenges. I wish Fabrice a speedy recovery - this is in no way an attack against him (he is in fact an acquaintance of a friend) - but as I was at my in-laws and watched Liverpool vs Stoke City in an FA Cup clash I couldn't help but notice something disturbing.

Football, the most popular game in the world, has become a false religion. On Saturdays and sometimes Sundays, millions around the world gather in their 'churches' and sing praise and worship songs to the god of football. Yesterday, as I had come from church service, I saw that the Liverpool and Stoke fans were having theirs. They started to sing Oh When the Saints Go Marching In - an old hymn. They also sing 'Glory Glory Man United' - another modified hymn. Men around the world have given their money, emotions, and time up to the god of football. Lifting their hands in worship they pledge their lives to something that matters little in the light of this life, let alone eternity.

I cannot see this as any less than a strategy of hell. The Kingdom of God needs men to see it continue to advance, but as the men of this world have given themselves to football worship churches remain filled with women. Though it may be ostensibly secular, football worship has all the marks of a religion - sectarianism, tribalism, a place of gathering, liturgical practices such as singing national anthems and modified hymns and most of all, having control over someone's emotions to the point of encouraging into violence and driving to despair. Football fans have killed each other and themselves over their 'support' of teams.

All this acts to dull their ears to truth, and if you wanted any more proof for a demonic strategy its right there. Church folks are not immune to this either - I have sat at a table where we were about to study the Word of God, only to have two bible study leaders obsessing over the 'results'. The Word was on my mind, and all the more considering the setting we were in, but there's was on football. There are levels, and following sport is not sin, but it can prove to be a real distraction as the spirit of false religion takes a hold.

In conclusion, I think there is a curse on fanatical support of football, both to those who support and those who play. Not a curse on sport or that sport in particular, but a curse and judgement against the spirit of idolatry. Wikipedia has a list of 84 players that have died on the pitch, or soon after leaving it, while playing league football since the end of the 19th century. That averages as one player dying while playing league football every 1.45 years. On this calculation, playing football should be categorised as a potentially lethal pursuit akin to BASE-jumping.

I will leave the judgement to the reader, but I think that idolatry in all forms is cursed. Whether it is ostensibly religious or secular, replacing God with anything else on the throne of your heart is tantamount to dancing around a totem pole babbling. Doing it in such an outrageous way as paying men thousands of pounds a week to kick a leather ball through a metal frame while two thirds of the world is in poverty and as many are going to hell without Christ is certainly skating on thin ice. Man was made to worship, and for the secularisation of this nation and the love of sin, football stadiums have become the new age church. Just look at the picture above! It looks like a Billy Graham crusade! Christians guard your hearts...

Red Deer Cave People or Red Deer Cave Apes?

A new set of bones is now doing the proverbial rounds on the Darwinist circuit. Dubbed the Red Deer Cave People, this latest collection is apparently causing a 're-think' of how another type of hominid was in East Asia other than 'modern' man at the time the bones are purported to date from.

Hold on a second, nothing can't explode! Okay, lets grant the secular humanist his Big Bang (big dud), and his impossible formation of the elements from hydrogen and helium, and the impossibilities of abiogenesis etc etc etc. That granted, what can your really tell from bones in the ground? They don't come with a date tag or a description of who they were and how they got there. That all has to be shoe-horned into a pre-existing world view. Unfortunately for the popular scientific press, that world view is invariably Darwinism.

But lets look at the bones: we have a skull appearing in pictures which is a partial reconstruction due to parts being missing. The lower mandible of the skull being presented is missing; so is the complete rear-portion (occipital bun). The  right side from the upper mandible to the bottom of the frontal lobe is also missing, but has been reconstructed in plaster. What we have is robust skull that has very large and ape-like ocular recesses (orbit). There is also a remarkable cheek bone flare, reminiscent of a male Orang Utan and suggesting a powerful and wide jaw.

What is disappointing is the fact that the reconstructed orbit on the right side has been purposely made smaller to appear more human-like - if you look closely you can see an obvious difference in the original orbit and the reconstruction. I could put it down to incompetence on the part of the person who carried out the plaster moulding if I did not know this was making international news and the fact that I have seen such tricks from evolutionists before. A cursory glance at the illustrations in Donald Johanson's book Lucy reveals such unscientific doctoring - when presenting a line of supposed human ancestors, they are all given a modern human pelvis!

Something revealing with this current 'find' is the fact that the most recent of the discoveries of this particular 'hominid' were uncovered in 1989! Did it really take over twenty years to report on this smashed ape skull? Methinks that someone needed their tenure renewing or a new shot of grant money, and so something that was probably long disregarded was resurrected for financial gain. This wouldn't be the first time - remember Ida? What's next? Make sure the carbon dates that didn't fit into the paradigm are safely discarded and start promoting the book!