The Plain Truth Is: 2015

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

The Plain Truth: Fearless Living in Fearful Times!

The Plain Truth: Fearless Living in Fearful Times!: More than two thousand years ago, Jesus' disciples knew what it was like to experience fear and worry as they faced an uncertain futu...

Fearless Living in Fearful Times!

More than two thousand years ago, Jesus' disciples knew what it was like to experience fear and worry as they faced an uncertain future. Jesus said something they really hadn't heard Him say before. He told them He would be leaving, and it turned their world — as they knew it — upside down. But then He went on to share some words to calm their troubled hearts. These words ring true in light of world events today and can calm our troubled hearts as well.
Let's consider what Jesus said to His disciples:
"Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also." (John 14:1–3 NKJV)
Jesus starts by saying, "Let not your heart be troubled." Another way to translate this phrase is, "Don't be agitated or disturbed or thrown into confusion." He didn't say, "Mull over your problems." Rather, He said, "Don't be troubled." Life is filled with trouble. It seems that once you have one problem resolved, three more take its place. Job 5:7 says, "Man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward" (NKJV). It is so true. From the moment we come into this life, there are all kinds of troubles awaiting us.
While there are reasons to be troubled in life, there are greater reasons to not be troubled. In Jesus' words, we find three reasons why we don't have to be gripped by fear, and why we can find hope in hopeless times.
Reason one: We know Jesus. Jesus told His disciples, "You believe in God, believe also in Me" (verse 1). What is He saying by implication? "I am God. You believe in God the Father. I am God the Son. Believe in Me. Trust Me." In the original language, this is a command. Jesus was not just asking the disciples to believe. He was commanding them.
There are times in our lives when we don't understand why God did or God did not do a certain thing. When I don't understand something about God, I always try to fall back on what I do understand. I do understand that God loves me. I do understand that He is looking out for me and has my best interests in mind. I do understand that no matter what happens, He will see me through.
Reason two: If you are a Christian, you are going to heaven. Jesus said, "In My Father's house are many mansions" (verse 2). God has placed eternity in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11). This simply means that we sense there is more to life, and that keeps us moving forward. No matter what experiences we have had, no matter how wonderful they were, they were just a glimpse of what is still ahead. No matter what happens to us on this earth, it pales in comparison to this great hope. There is a better world ahead, something far greater than what we are experiencing now.
Reason three: Jesus is coming again. Some day, in the not-too-distant future, Jesus Christ will set foot again on Earth. It might be sooner than we think. When the Lord returns, He will not merely send for us, but will come in person to escort us to the Father's house. He said, "I will come again and receive you to Myself" (verse 3). He will take us with Him to heaven (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17).
Yes, there are some things we are afraid of, and rightly so, because it causes us to be discerning and careful. But we need to keep our fears in perspective. Jesus said in Matthew 10:28, "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (NKJV).
With this in mind, let's think about what we should really be afraid of. The worst-case scenario is not dying. The worst-case scenario is dying without Jesus.

Monday, September 7, 2015

The Plain Truth: Why We Should Stay Out of Syria!

The Plain Truth: Why We Should Stay Out of Syria!: It is one thing to provide humanitarian aid to the suffering Syrian people (although that is hardly an easy task to accomplish, as prais...

Why We Should Stay Out of Syria!

It is one thing to provide humanitarian aid to the suffering Syrian people (although that is hardly an easy task to accomplish, as praiseworthy as it may be), but it is a grave mistake for America to attempt to get involved in the military conflict. There is hardly a “lesser of two evils” to side with there.
On the one hand, we know that President Bashar Assad has continued in his father’s tyrannous and murderous footsteps, with the blood of tens of thousands of his people already on his head. In fact, some of the bloodshed has taken place in the very same locations, with Hafez Assad being responsible for the 1982 massacre in Hama that took the lives of between 10,000-40,000 Syrians, while in 2012, Bashar Assad’s troops slaughtered scores of insurgents in the same city.
And there is no doubt that the reports of wholesale torture, imprisonment, rape, and murder of men, women, and children by Assad’s forces are largely accurate. (Can you imagine what the world outrage would be if the government of Israel engaged in atrocities 1/100th this severe?)
It is understandable, then, that we feel the need to take action against the Assad regime.
But what would happen if Assad was toppled? And if we stand against Assad, who are we standing with? (Sarah Palin’s recent quip at the Faith and Freedom Conference, “Let Allah sort it out” – meaning, until we have strong leadership in the White House, we should keep our hands out of Syria – is actually somewhat apropos.)
We have witnessed the slaughter and/or exodus of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians since the fall of Saddam Hussein, an eventuality that the Bush administration apparently gave little thought to, while the persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt under the Muslim Brotherhood continues to rise. (The mass exodus of Christians from the Muslim Middle East is well-documented, even if underreported.)
In the same way, there is good evidence that the fall of Assad would open the door to the massacre of the Christian population of Syria, with reports of 300,000 Christians already fleeing the country. Does America want to be party to this? Have we learned our lessons from Iraq? (This is not to say that the war was wrong but rather that we failed to think through the implications of our actions.) Have we learned our lessons from Egypt, where the “Arab Spring” quickly became a “Sharia Fall”?
We helped fund and arm the Mujahedeen in their battle for liberation against Russia in Afghanistan, the end result being that one fundamentalist Islamic movement – meaning, the Mujahedeen, militant Muslim freedom fighters – came into power, only to be displaced by an even more militant Islamic movement (the Taliban). In the eyes of fundamentalist Islam, America may be a useful ally, but ultimately, America is the enemy. What lessons have we learned from this?
There are even some who claim that “the Taliban — and al-Qaeda — were [created] by the CIA in league with Pakistani and Saudi Arabian intelligence.” If true, should we learn something from this?
In recent days, there have been reports of atrocities committed by the Syrian “rebels” in the name of Islam, including the execution of a 14-year-old boy for insulting Mohammed, while YouTube videos show government troops being shot in the head by the “rebels” as others chant “Allahu Akbar”! (I put “rebels” in quotes because calling them “rebels” only tells part of the story.)
On Sunday, June 16th, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the West “against arming Syrian rebels ‘who kill their enemies and eat their organs,’ referencing a widely circulated video that purports to show a rebel fighter eating the heart of a dead soldier,” while at the same time, the Assad government is being aided by the Lebanese-based terrorist organization Hezbollah, and Iran has promised to send several thousand troops to Assad’s aid.
And that is only the tip of the iceberg, as a June 3rd AP report notes that, “The Syrian conflict, now in its third year, has taken on dark sectarian overtones. Predominantly Sunni rebels backed by Sunni states Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are fighting against a regime that relies on support from Alawites and Shiites at home, and is aided by Iran and Hezbollah. The Syria conflict is also part of a wider battle between Saudi Arabia and Iran for regional influence. Sunni fighters from Iraq and Lebanon have crossed into Syria to help those fighting Assad, while Shiites from Iraq have joined the battle on the regime’s side.”
Then, of course, there are the implications for the safety of Israel in the case of either an Assad victory or an Assad defeat, the former assuring Syria’s ongoing cooperation with Hezbollah and Iran, the latter assuring the rise of a more militant Islamic regime to Israel’s north, with dangerous implications for Lebanon as well.
In light of these realities, and in light of our government’s failure to exercise more foresight in dealing with the Muslim world, we do best at this point to avoid military involvement in Syria while doing our best to provide humanitarian aid to the suffering country and looking for ways to help end the bloodshed. But short term or long, we should not delude ourselves: This is a hornet’s nest.

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

The Plain Truth: The Nucleus of Civilization!

The Plain Truth: The Nucleus of Civilization!: According to the Bible, God himself ordained the family as the basic building block of human society, because He deemed it "not good...

The Nucleus of Civilization!

According to the Bible, God himself ordained the family as the basic building block of human society, because He deemed it "not good that man should be alone" (Genesis 2:18). That verse stands out starkly in the biblical creation narrative, because as Scripture describes the successive days of the creation week, the text punctuates each stage of creation with the words, "God saw that it was good" (Genesis 1:4,10,12,18,21,25, italics added). The goodness of creation emerges as the main theme of Genesis 1, and the statement "God saw that it was good" is repeated again and again, like the refrain after each stanza of a lengthy song. Then finally, after the sixth day of creation, we're told with emphasis, "God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good" (italics added).
But then Genesis 2:18 takes us back to the end of day six and reveals that just before God ended His creative work, just one thing was left that was "not good." Every aspect of the entire universe was finished. Each galaxy, star, planet, rock, grain of sand, and tiny molecule was in place. All the species of living things had been created. Adam had already given "names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field" (v. 20). But there was still one glaring unfinished aspect of creation: "For Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him" (v. 20). Adam was alone, and in need of a suitable mate. Therefore God's final act of creation on day six — the crowning step that made everything in the universe perfect - was accomplished by the forming of Eve from Adam's rib. Then "He brought her to the man" (Genesis 2:22).
By that act, God established the family for all time. The Genesis narrative says, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh" (v. 24). Jesus quoted that verse in Matthew 19:5 to underscore the sanctity and permanence of marriage as an institution. The same verse is quoted practically every time two believers are united in a Christian marriage ceremony. It is a reminder that marriage and the family are ordained by God and therefore sacred in His sight.
So it is no mere accident of history that family relationships have always been the very nucleus of all human civilization. According to Scripture, that is precisely the way God designed it to be. And therefore, if the family crumbles as an institution, all of civilization will ultimately crumble along with it.
Over the past few generations, we have seen that destructive process taking place before our eyes. It seems contemporary secular society has declared war on the family. Casual sex is expected. Divorce is epidemic. Marriage itself is in decline, as multitudes of men and women have decided it's preferable to live together without making a covenant or formally constituting a family. Abortion is a worldwide plague. Juvenile delinquency is rampant, and many parents have deliberately abandoned their roles of authority in the family. On the other hand, child abuse in many forms is escalating. Modern and postmodern philosophies have attacked the traditional roles of men and women within the family. Special interest groups and even government agencies seem bent on the dissolution of the traditional family, advocating the normalization of homosexuality, same-sex "marriage," and (in some cultures nowadays) sterilization programs. Divorce has been made easy, tax laws penalize marriage, and government welfare rewards childbirth outside of wedlock. All those trends (and many more like them) are direct attacks on the sanctity of the family.
These days whenever families are portrayed in films, television dramas, or sitcoms, they are almost always caricatured as grossly dysfunctional. Someone recently pointed out that the only television "family" who regularly attend church together are "The Simpsons" — and they are cartoon exaggerations deliberately saddled with the worst imaginable traits, designed mainly to mock and malign both church and family. It's no joke, though. A relentless parade of similarly dysfunctional assortments of people assaults us on television and in the movies. Hollywood has defined a broad new meaning for the word family.
Meanwhile, traditional nuclear families with a strong, reliable father and a mother whose priorities are in the home have been banished from popular culture, made to feel as if they were the caricature.
Although many Christian leaders have been passionately voicing concerns about the dissolution of the family for decades, things have grown steadily worse, not better, in society at large. Secular social commentators have lately begun to claim that the traditional nuclear family is no longer even "realistic." An article published not long ago by the on-line magazine Salon said this: "The 'ideal' American family — a father and a mother, bound to each other by legal marriage, raising children bound to them by biology — is a stubborn relic, a national symbol that has yet to be retired as threadbare and somewhat unrealistic."¹ The nuclear family simply won't work in 21st-century society, according to many of these self-styled "experts."
I know those voices are wrong, however, because I have witnessed literally thousands of parents in our church who have put into practice what the Bible teaches about the family, and they and their families have been greatly blessed for it.
As society continues its mad quest to eliminate the family, and as our whole culture therefore unravels more and more, it becomes more important than ever for Christians to understand what the Bible teaches about the family, and to put it into practice in our homes. It may well be that the example we set before the world through strong homes and healthy families will in the long run be one of the most powerful, attractive, and living proofs that when the Bible speaks, it speaks with the authority of the God who created us — and whose design for the family is perfect.as always The Plain Truth!