One of my favorite sites on the internet is Snopes. If you haven't heard of it, it is a page that investigates Urban Legends. If I get an e-mail from someone talking about this situation or that event or beware of this, Snoopes is my first stop. I was browsing their site, and came across this article talking about secret signs, etc…. I thought I would link to it just in case anyone else reading this may be interested.
He is Risen!
Well, in preparation for Easter, I thought I would post the words to the famous song Christ the Lord is Risen Today by Charles Wesley. Remember, Christ the Lord is Risen and his act of sacrifice on the cross has paid our sin debt. For more information on this, click here. HE IS RISEN!
Christ, the Lord, is risen today, Alleluia!
Sons of men and angels say, Alleluia!
Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!
Sing, ye heavens, and earth, reply, Alleluia!Love’s redeeming work is done, Alleluia!
Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia!
Lo! the Sun’s eclipse is over, Alleluia!
Lo! He sets in blood no more, Alleluia!Vain the stone, the watch, the seal, Alleluia!
Christ hath burst the gates of hell, Alleluia!
Death in vain forbids His rise, Alleluia!
Christ hath opened paradise, Alleluia!Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia!
Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia!
Once He died our souls to save, Alleluia!
Where thy victory, O grave? Alleluia!Soar we now where Christ hath led, Alleluia!
Following our exalted Head, Alleluia!
Made like Him, like Him we rise, Alleluia!
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!Hail, the Lord of earth and heaven, Alleluia!
Praise to Thee by both be given, Alleluia!
Thee we greet triumphant now, Alleluia!
Hail, the resurrection day, Alleluia!King of glory, Soul of bliss, Alleluia!
Everlasting life is this, Alleluia!
Thee to know, Thy power to prove, Alleluia!
Thus to sing and thus to love, Alleluia!Hymns of praise then let us sing, Alleluia!
Unto Christ, our heavenly King, Alleluia!
Who endured the cross and grave, Alleluia!
Sinners to redeem and save. Alleluia!But the pains that He endured, Alleluia!
Our salvation have procured, Alleluia!
Now above the sky He’s King, Alleluia!
Where the angels ever sing. Alleluia!Jesus Christ is risen today, Alleluia!
Our triumphant holy day, Alleluia!
Who did once upon the cross, Alleluia!
Suffer to redeem our loss. Alleluia!
Yak-Shaving
I had some down-time today waiting on my computer, so I was doing a little surfing and working on my blog. I just put an RSS feed in my blog, so I downloaded an RSS reader plug-in for Firefox called Sage. In looking around at my RSS feed, I noticed links to this place called Technorati. Poking around there let me to PointMan’s Blog. This guy appears to have things together. Some of his articles I found interesting. Here is a sampling:
Here is an article about the crazyness in our countries moral compass:
Talk about a screwed up moral compass… Idiot. These big lobsters never survive once captured so he just threw $150 down the toilet. It would have done more good given to a shelter or mission.
Here is an article about guns in our country:
Liberals booted God from the schools: no prayer, no Bible reading, no Ten Commandments, no teaching based upon the Bible. No speaking of Christ. After all, kids might really take those teachings to heart. They may decide not to lie, steal, fornicate, rape, and kill! They might honor and obey their parents, the law, and school officials. They might become kind, gracious, fair, honest, and principled! Heavens, we can’t have that can we? After all, we demand a secular society. Well, we have it and our schools have become Ignorance Factories, sex clinics, self-esteem laboratories, and sports clubs.
Hope you guys enjoy reading his blog as much as I did!
BTW, if you want to know what yak-shaving is, follow this link. Basically, it boils down to:
You see, yak shaving is what you are doing when you’re doing some stupid, fiddly little task that bears no obvious relationship to what you’re supposed to be working on, but yet a chain of twelve causal relations links what you’re doing to the original meta-task.
TRex “stuff” found
A 70-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex fossil dug out of a hunk of sandstone has yielded soft tissue, including blood vessels and perhaps even whole cells, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday.
Answers in Genesis has been saying this for some time now. Here is a link to an article they published in 1997 talking about this same thing. The traditional media is just now picking up on this and reporting it. I don't know why…perhaps they can no longer cover it up, or ignore it.
Update on Richmond Visit
Well, the IMB has refined their plans for me to visit Richmond. Instead of flying out on Thursday, I'm now leaving on 1 April (Friday). I will return late Monday evening. All interviews have been shifted to Monday.
Christian Jihad
Now that I have finished reading Constitutional Chaos, I have started reading Christian Jihad co-written by Ergun Caner and his brother Emir Caner.
I happen to not believe the lie that Islam is a peacefull religion. Read the Koran (or Qur'an. I don't know the proper spelling, and have seen it many ways online), and you will find this out. According to the Qur'an, there are two ways a Muslim gets to their "heaven" (only one way will certainly get theim there). The first way they get there is by having their good and bad weighed once they are dead. If their good deeds outweigh the bad deeds they have done in life, their god Allah will allow them in. The second (and the "sure" way way for them to get into their "heaven") is to die as a martyr in a jihad. If they do this, Allah will allow them in. The Qur'an also commands them to kill unbelievers and infidels who will not convert to islam. In my book, this makes Islam a violent religion.
This is where most people end the discussion of Jihad–a holy war–ends. This book, Christian Jihad makes the case that as Christians, we also have skeletons in our closet. Does anyone remember these things called The Crusades? "Christians" did the same thing except they said "God" called them to retake the Holy Land. What is the difference? Here is the description of this book from Ergun Caner's website:
Western Christians are often myopic when it comes to our own history. Christian Jihad examines the tragic events in Christian history when we have been guilty of the exact same atrocities which the Muslims have carried out in recent days.
IMB Job Update
Well, Ted from the IMB called me today to set up the time for my trip to Richmond. It looks like everything is set for a visit next weekend (that is 31 March – 4 April). They will fly me down, get me a hotel room, rental car, etc…. I’ll have 2 “real” interviews on Friday, 1 April as well as lunch with the team I would be working with. Saturday, I’ll meet with a real estate agent to look at houses, neighborhoods, etc…. Sunday, I’m going to go to church with Ted at Derbyshire Baptist Church. (Hopefully I found the right one to link to :^). I still don’t know about Monday yet…I may just travel back home, or I may have some more meetings.
They were originally going to fly Cyndi down too, but plane tickets were in the $400 range, so they decided not to do that. But, she is going to drive to Middletown, MD, then come down to Richmond on Saturday to look around with me. Yeah, it is a bit of an inconvienience for her, but that is the best we can do on such short notice.
Again, if anyone has any information about Richmond, churches in the area (we are looking for a good conservative church), where to look for houses to rent, etc… feel free to contact us. You can find my contact information here.
[Update 01-18-2009 01:56:11] Updated contact information link. it was bad anyway…I made it point to the contact page on this domain.
President of Zambia Saved
Online Study Update
Are you captive? We are here to help you find freedom by God's grace. Please examine our courses by clicking on the links below, and enroll today. All courses are free of charge.
That is the tagline from a website I recently visited. It is called SettingCaptivesFree. I don't know too much about what they believe, but I like the looks of their program. I also like the fact that their material is free. The guy who runs it attends Parkside Church where Allistair Begg is the pastor. Pastor Begg has a segment on ThePath, and from what I can tell, they watch who is on the radio fairly closely so I don't think this group is out in left field somewhere.
Anyway, I know that the kinds of problems the SettingCaptivesFree studies deal with are a big problem with some people, so I decided to link to them from here.
Thoughts on The Church
Our church, Highland Baptist Church, is preparing to do a 40 Days of Purpose campaign. Thinking about this and the Evangelism Celebration I recently attended made me wonder “Why isn’t the church effective today?”
Why isn’t the church effective today? That is an interesting question. And, depending on who you talk to, you will receive different answers. I have an answer that, if you think about it, is very simple yet very profound: the church isn’t effective today because the church–the people–isn’t real. How can the church be real, you may ask…isn’t the church just the building? No! Wrong! The church is those who are saved. We assemble with other beleivers to worship and be more effective at our mission.
Why isn’t the church real? Well, I think the church quit being real quite some time ago. Sure, every congregation has had people who are real and who really care about God, but church has become something we do rather than something we are. People, wake up! The church needs to develop a heart for the lost! We need to desire to be right with God! If we the church were to seek God and repent, revival would sweep the nation! We would have another Great Awakening!
The world sees that the church isn’t real anymore and doesn’t want part of it. They want answers, but want people to care about them. They want people to care. They want real people. They don’t want 3 points and a prayer any more. They want people to invest in them. In the past, everyone played church and it was accepted. Because everyone did it, it was easier to be fake. Now, people want the answers we have, but they want…no need…to hear it from someone who cares.
[Update 2012-12-26 14:44:51] The old link that would describe the Great Awakening went dead. I’ve replaced http://www.wfu.edu/~matthetl/perspectives/four.html with a link to wikipedia.