Earlier today, Saturday May 16, 2009, my son Phillip was married. I get to be the tremendously blessed Dad once again. All my love and the Lord's gracious blessing upon you - Phillip and Emily.
Dad
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
A Glimmer of Hope, But Then??
Maybe the previous article along with the prayers and outcries of many of us, actually did some good! Charles (Chas) Freeman actually "removed himself from consideration to head the US National Intelligence Council, a position President Barak Obama tapped him for ...". Why? Because he was "heavily criticized by Israel advocacy groups and congressional Republicans" whom he called "unscrupulous people". Read the Article on Charles Freeman. Thanks to all of you "unscrupulous" ;-) friends out there!
But, here is another headline - "Clinton:There Will Be a Palestinian State, Jerusalem Will Be Its Capital". See Hillary Clinton's comments. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "all but guaranteed that her government will clash with Netanyahu's when she suggested in a joint press conference with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that for Washington, the division of Jerusalem is a foregone conclusion."
I would suggest that Obama, Clinton, and company read Joel 3:1-2 in the Bible and see that there is a coming judgment pronounced by God on behalf of Israel especially for those who have "divided up My land".
Trying to not be on either side usually means you are taking the wrong side - it seems to be in this case.
But, here is another headline - "Clinton:There Will Be a Palestinian State, Jerusalem Will Be Its Capital". See Hillary Clinton's comments. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "all but guaranteed that her government will clash with Netanyahu's when she suggested in a joint press conference with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that for Washington, the division of Jerusalem is a foregone conclusion."
I would suggest that Obama, Clinton, and company read Joel 3:1-2 in the Bible and see that there is a coming judgment pronounced by God on behalf of Israel especially for those who have "divided up My land".
Trying to not be on either side usually means you are taking the wrong side - it seems to be in this case.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
So Soon??
I am not surprised to see the Obama administration's disregard and disdain for Israel, but I am surprised that it has been unleashed so soon and so blatantly. Below are some news sources you will want to check out on this matter.
http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=18296
Headline: "Obama to Pour Nearly $1 billion into Gaza". For what? Relief to Hamas to help rebuild Gaza. Hmmm - why wouldn't he give the money to Israel who actually owns the land? True believers in Christ who live in Palestinian territory actually long to be under Israel. Why would he give the money to this terrorist group that tries to masquerade as a government? Why doesn't this make big-time news when the economy is supposed to be the major issue? Is anyone upset about the US government giving away another billion dollars to anyone, let alone a terrorist group in the middle east?
This only shows that the economic crisis is a smokescreen for the more major, global, spiritual crisis - the international rejection of Israel. How interesting that a billion dollars can slip past almost everyone in the midst of an economic crisis.
http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=18280
Headline: "Anti-Israel Hamas-embracer to be Named US Intel Chief"
Chas W. Freeman, Jr. has been named as the new head of the National Intelligence Council. He is quoted in this article as having said, "Supporting Israel is not in America's best interests." Hmmm - and all while the Secretary of State is out of the country.
If the administration leadership has read Genesis 12:3, 15:18, 35:9-12, and 50:24, they surely do not believe these verses to be true or authoritative. They fail to accept that this land is promised to the seed of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, not the seed of Ishmael or Esau. To try to take a position of neutrality is to fail to support Israel. To aid Israel's enemies is to curse her. One can only wonder what is coming next and how soon - what will discussions with Iran produce? How many more billions will that cost?
http://www.jewishworldview.com/1208/glick121208.php3
http://www.worldofthebible.com/
Headline: "What a PM Netanyahu Faces From Washington"
Many evangelicals are glad that Netanyahu is back in leadership in Israel. But he faces an America that is not likely to help him as in the past.
http://fun.mivzakon.co.il/flash/video/2673/2673.html
This is a helpful video called "What Really Happened In the Middle East".
As Israel's position grows weaker and weaker, the likelihood of the nearness of coming 70th Week of Daniel/Tribulational events grows stronger and stronger.
Even so ... Maranatha.
http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=18296
Headline: "Obama to Pour Nearly $1 billion into Gaza". For what? Relief to Hamas to help rebuild Gaza. Hmmm - why wouldn't he give the money to Israel who actually owns the land? True believers in Christ who live in Palestinian territory actually long to be under Israel. Why would he give the money to this terrorist group that tries to masquerade as a government? Why doesn't this make big-time news when the economy is supposed to be the major issue? Is anyone upset about the US government giving away another billion dollars to anyone, let alone a terrorist group in the middle east?
This only shows that the economic crisis is a smokescreen for the more major, global, spiritual crisis - the international rejection of Israel. How interesting that a billion dollars can slip past almost everyone in the midst of an economic crisis.
http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=18280
Headline: "Anti-Israel Hamas-embracer to be Named US Intel Chief"
Chas W. Freeman, Jr. has been named as the new head of the National Intelligence Council. He is quoted in this article as having said, "Supporting Israel is not in America's best interests." Hmmm - and all while the Secretary of State is out of the country.
If the administration leadership has read Genesis 12:3, 15:18, 35:9-12, and 50:24, they surely do not believe these verses to be true or authoritative. They fail to accept that this land is promised to the seed of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, not the seed of Ishmael or Esau. To try to take a position of neutrality is to fail to support Israel. To aid Israel's enemies is to curse her. One can only wonder what is coming next and how soon - what will discussions with Iran produce? How many more billions will that cost?
http://www.jewishworldview.com/1208/glick121208.php3
http://www.worldofthebible.com/
Headline: "What a PM Netanyahu Faces From Washington"
Many evangelicals are glad that Netanyahu is back in leadership in Israel. But he faces an America that is not likely to help him as in the past.
http://fun.mivzakon.co.il/flash/video/2673/2673.html
This is a helpful video called "What Really Happened In the Middle East".
As Israel's position grows weaker and weaker, the likelihood of the nearness of coming 70th Week of Daniel/Tribulational events grows stronger and stronger.
Even so ... Maranatha.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Pray for Chad Trip
Below is Pastor Keith's itinerary for the trip to the Chad . . .
SUNDAY, JANUARY 11 : departs Philadelphia, Air France #0365 at 6:55 pm EST
MONDAY, JANUARY 12 : arrives Paris at 8:10 am (2:10 am EST), departs Paris, Air France #0856 at 3:55 pm (9:55 am EST), arrives N'Djamena, Chad 9:45 pm (3:45 pm EST), Dadje Samuel and Kirk Carver will pick up at airport and bring to TEAM Mission station where he will spend the night
TUESDAY, JANUARY 13 : drive from N'Djamena to Moundou with Dadje Samuel, Kirk Carver, and Larry DeArmey , stay at Guesthouse in Moundou !
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14 through SATURDAY, JANUARY 17 : Teaching the General Epistles (Hebrews through Jude) at Kou-Bethanie (training center in Moundou) to potential evangelists/church planters
SUNDAY, JANUARY 18 : preaching at one of the churches in Moundou area
MONDAY, JANUARY 19 : finish teaching the General Epistles in Moundou
TUESDAY, JANUARY 20 : travel to Gadjibian for Chadian National Conference
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 21 through FRIDAY JANUARY 23 : participate in Chadian National Conference, including preaching several messages on the theme of "endurance"
SATURDAY, JANUARY 24 : to Bessao ??
SUNDAY, JANUARY 25 : preaching at one of the nearby churches
MONDAY, JANUARY, 26 through FRIDAY, JANUARY 30 : Teaching the General Epistle again, this time to students and faculty at the Bible Institute in Bessao
SATURDAY, JANUARY 31 : return trip to N'Djamena ; depart N'Djamena, Air France #0881 at 11:50 pm (5:50 pm EST)
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 01 : arrive Paris 5:45 am (11:45 pm on Jan. 31 EST), depart Paris, Air France #0366 at 1:30 pm (7:30 am EST); arrive Philadelphia at 4:15 pm EST
SUNDAY, JANUARY 11 : departs Philadelphia, Air France #0365 at 6:55 pm EST
MONDAY, JANUARY 12 : arrives Paris at 8:10 am (2:10 am EST), departs Paris, Air France #0856 at 3:55 pm (9:55 am EST), arrives N'Djamena, Chad 9:45 pm (3:45 pm EST), Dadje Samuel and Kirk Carver will pick up at airport and bring to TEAM Mission station where he will spend the night
TUESDAY, JANUARY 13 : drive from N'Djamena to Moundou with Dadje Samuel, Kirk Carver, and Larry DeArmey , stay at Guesthouse in Moundou !
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14 through SATURDAY, JANUARY 17 : Teaching the General Epistles (Hebrews through Jude) at Kou-Bethanie (training center in Moundou) to potential evangelists/church planters
SUNDAY, JANUARY 18 : preaching at one of the churches in Moundou area
MONDAY, JANUARY 19 : finish teaching the General Epistles in Moundou
TUESDAY, JANUARY 20 : travel to Gadjibian for Chadian National Conference
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 21 through FRIDAY JANUARY 23 : participate in Chadian National Conference, including preaching several messages on the theme of "endurance"
SATURDAY, JANUARY 24 : to Bessao ??
SUNDAY, JANUARY 25 : preaching at one of the nearby churches
MONDAY, JANUARY, 26 through FRIDAY, JANUARY 30 : Teaching the General Epistle again, this time to students and faculty at the Bible Institute in Bessao
SATURDAY, JANUARY 31 : return trip to N'Djamena ; depart N'Djamena, Air France #0881 at 11:50 pm (5:50 pm EST)
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 01 : arrive Paris 5:45 am (11:45 pm on Jan. 31 EST), depart Paris, Air France #0366 at 1:30 pm (7:30 am EST); arrive Philadelphia at 4:15 pm EST
Saturday, December 20, 2008
The Festival of Lights (Part 2)
May all of my readers have a very blessed remembrance of the incarnation of Jesus this season. He is the "thematic center", the "hermeneutical principle which unlocks the mystery of the world." And now, here is the rest of the sermon by Helmut Thielcke . . .
WHAT DIFFERENCE does it make if I see in God the Creator of the galaxies and solar systems and the microcosm of the atom? What is this God of macrocosm and microcosm to me if my conscience torments me, if I am repining in loneliness, if anxiety is strangling me? What good is that kind of God to me, a poor wretch, a heap of misery, for whom nobody cares, whom people in the subway stare at without ever seeing?
The "loving Father above in the skies" is up there in some monumental headquarters while I sit in a foxhole somewhere on this isolated front (cut off from all communication with the rear), somewhere on this trash heap, living in lodgings or a mansion, working at a stupid job that gives me the miseries or at an executive's desk which is armored with two anterooms ...what do I get out of it when someone says says, "There is a Supreme Intelligence that conceived the creation of the world, devised the law of cause and effect, and maneuvered the planets into their orbits?" All I can say to that is, "Well, you don't say so! A rather bold idea, but almost too good to be true," and go on reading my newspaper or turn on the television. For that certainly is not a message by which I could live.
BUT, if someone says, "There is Someone Who knows you, Someone Who grieves when you go your own way, and it cost Him something (namely, the whole expenditure of life between the Crib and the Cross!) to be the Star to which you can look, the Staff by which you can walk, the Spring from which you can drink" - when someone says THAT to me, then I prick up my ears and listen. For if that is true, REALLY true, that there is Someone Who is interested in me and shares my lot, then this can suddenly change everything that I hoped for and feared before. This could mean a revolution in my life, at any rate a revolution in my judgment and knowledge of things.
. . . Christmas teaches us that, if we wish to know God, we must in our relationship to the world begin at a completely DIFFERENT end, namely, that we do not argue from the structure of the world to God, but rather from the Child in the manger to the mystery of the world, to the mystery of THE world in which the manger exists. For, if this Child exists, then He is the heart and center of the world, then, to put it in philosophical terms, He is the hermeneutical principle which unlocks the mystery of the world.
Then I see in this Child that in the background of this world there is a Father. I see that love reigns above and in this world, even when I cannot understand this governance, and I am tormented by the question of how God can permit such tragic things to happen. This problem confronts us even at this heart and center of the world; for how could God allow His beloved Son to be born in a stable, how could He allow Him to die on the gallows of the Cross, how could the Lord of the world be driven out of the world, how could there be a darkness which could not be overcome?
BUT if the manifestation of love conquers me at ONE point, namely, where Jesus Christ walked on this earth and loved it, then I can trust that it will also be the message at those points in the story of life which I cannot understand. Even a child knows that his father is not playing tricks on him when he refuses to grant one of his wishes and thus treats him in a way that is seemingly incompatible with love. The highest love is almost always incognito and therefore we must trust it.
So even for the Christian the mysteries of life are by no means solved so far as his reason and understanding is concerned. But as a disciple I can have the peace which passes all understanding and which therefore cannot be shaken by reason either, because it is itself allied with it.
Let me put this in the form of an illustration. If I look at a fine piece of fabric through a magnifying glass, I find that it is perfectly clear around the center of the glass, but around the edges it tends to become distorted. But this does not mislead me into thinking that the fabric itself is confused at this point. I know that this is caused by an optical illusion and therefore by the way in which I am looking at it. And so it is with the miracle of knowledge which is bestowed upon me by the Christmas event: If I see the world through the medium of the Good News, then the center is clear and bright. There I see the miracle of the love that descends to the depths of life. On the periphery, however, beyond the Christmas light, confusion and distortion prevail. The ordered lines grow tangled and the labyrinthine mysteries of life threaten to overwhelm us. Therefore our sight, which grows aberrant as it strays afield, must recover its perspective by returning to its thematic center. The extraordinary thing is that the mystery of life is not illuminated by a formula, but rather by another mystery, namely, The News, which can only be believed and yet is hardly believable, that God has become man and that now I am no longer alone in the darkness.
That's why I celebrate Christmas.
WHAT DIFFERENCE does it make if I see in God the Creator of the galaxies and solar systems and the microcosm of the atom? What is this God of macrocosm and microcosm to me if my conscience torments me, if I am repining in loneliness, if anxiety is strangling me? What good is that kind of God to me, a poor wretch, a heap of misery, for whom nobody cares, whom people in the subway stare at without ever seeing?
The "loving Father above in the skies" is up there in some monumental headquarters while I sit in a foxhole somewhere on this isolated front (cut off from all communication with the rear), somewhere on this trash heap, living in lodgings or a mansion, working at a stupid job that gives me the miseries or at an executive's desk which is armored with two anterooms ...what do I get out of it when someone says says, "There is a Supreme Intelligence that conceived the creation of the world, devised the law of cause and effect, and maneuvered the planets into their orbits?" All I can say to that is, "Well, you don't say so! A rather bold idea, but almost too good to be true," and go on reading my newspaper or turn on the television. For that certainly is not a message by which I could live.
BUT, if someone says, "There is Someone Who knows you, Someone Who grieves when you go your own way, and it cost Him something (namely, the whole expenditure of life between the Crib and the Cross!) to be the Star to which you can look, the Staff by which you can walk, the Spring from which you can drink" - when someone says THAT to me, then I prick up my ears and listen. For if that is true, REALLY true, that there is Someone Who is interested in me and shares my lot, then this can suddenly change everything that I hoped for and feared before. This could mean a revolution in my life, at any rate a revolution in my judgment and knowledge of things.
. . . Christmas teaches us that, if we wish to know God, we must in our relationship to the world begin at a completely DIFFERENT end, namely, that we do not argue from the structure of the world to God, but rather from the Child in the manger to the mystery of the world, to the mystery of THE world in which the manger exists. For, if this Child exists, then He is the heart and center of the world, then, to put it in philosophical terms, He is the hermeneutical principle which unlocks the mystery of the world.
Then I see in this Child that in the background of this world there is a Father. I see that love reigns above and in this world, even when I cannot understand this governance, and I am tormented by the question of how God can permit such tragic things to happen. This problem confronts us even at this heart and center of the world; for how could God allow His beloved Son to be born in a stable, how could He allow Him to die on the gallows of the Cross, how could the Lord of the world be driven out of the world, how could there be a darkness which could not be overcome?
BUT if the manifestation of love conquers me at ONE point, namely, where Jesus Christ walked on this earth and loved it, then I can trust that it will also be the message at those points in the story of life which I cannot understand. Even a child knows that his father is not playing tricks on him when he refuses to grant one of his wishes and thus treats him in a way that is seemingly incompatible with love. The highest love is almost always incognito and therefore we must trust it.
So even for the Christian the mysteries of life are by no means solved so far as his reason and understanding is concerned. But as a disciple I can have the peace which passes all understanding and which therefore cannot be shaken by reason either, because it is itself allied with it.
Let me put this in the form of an illustration. If I look at a fine piece of fabric through a magnifying glass, I find that it is perfectly clear around the center of the glass, but around the edges it tends to become distorted. But this does not mislead me into thinking that the fabric itself is confused at this point. I know that this is caused by an optical illusion and therefore by the way in which I am looking at it. And so it is with the miracle of knowledge which is bestowed upon me by the Christmas event: If I see the world through the medium of the Good News, then the center is clear and bright. There I see the miracle of the love that descends to the depths of life. On the periphery, however, beyond the Christmas light, confusion and distortion prevail. The ordered lines grow tangled and the labyrinthine mysteries of life threaten to overwhelm us. Therefore our sight, which grows aberrant as it strays afield, must recover its perspective by returning to its thematic center. The extraordinary thing is that the mystery of life is not illuminated by a formula, but rather by another mystery, namely, The News, which can only be believed and yet is hardly believable, that God has become man and that now I am no longer alone in the darkness.
That's why I celebrate Christmas.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
The Festival of Light (Part One)
Most years about this season I revisit an old sermon that was preached by the German evangelical theologian Helmut Thielicke, entitled "The Festival of Light" (found in "Christ and The Meaning of Life", Baker, 1962). I trust you will find joy and significance in these devotional portions I share...
WHEN I am asked why as a Christian I celebrate Christmas, my first reply is that I do so because something has happened TO me and therefore - but only as I am receptive and give myself to it - something now can happen IN me.
There is a Sun "that smiles at me," and I can run out of the dark house of my life into the sunshine (as Luther once put it). I live by virtue of the miracle that God is not merely the mute and voiceless ground of the universe, but that He comes to me down in the depths. I see this in Him Who lay in a manger, a human Child, yet different from us all. And even though at first I look upon it only as a lovely colored picture, seeing it with the wondering eyes of a child, who has no conception whatsoever of the problem of the personhood of God and the Trinity and the metaphysical problems of time and eternity, I see that He, "Whom all the universe could not contain," comes down into the world of little things, the little things of MY life, into the world of homelessness and refugees, a world where there are lepers, lost sons, poor old ladies, and men and women who are afraid, a world in which men cheat and are cheated, in which men die and are killed.
CRIB and CROSS: these are the nethermost extreme of life's curve; no man can go any deeper than this; and He traversed it all. I do not need first to to become godly and noble before I can have a part in Him. For there are no depths in my life where He has not already come to meet me, no depths to which He has not been able to give meaning by surrounding them with love and making them the place where He visits me and brings me back home.
Once it HAPPENED, ONCE in the world's history it happened, that Someone came forward with the claim that He was the Son of God and the assertion "I and The Father are one," and that He proved the legitimacy of that claim, not by acting like a supernatural being or stunning men with His wisdom or communicating knowledge of higher worlds, but rather by proving His claims through the depths to which He descended. A Son of God Who defends His title with the argument that He is the brother of even the poorest and the guilty and takes their burden on Himself: that is a fact one can only note, and shake one's head in unbelief - OR one must worship and adore. There is no other alternative. I MUST WORSHIP. That's why I celebrate Christmas.
WHEN I am asked why as a Christian I celebrate Christmas, my first reply is that I do so because something has happened TO me and therefore - but only as I am receptive and give myself to it - something now can happen IN me.
There is a Sun "that smiles at me," and I can run out of the dark house of my life into the sunshine (as Luther once put it). I live by virtue of the miracle that God is not merely the mute and voiceless ground of the universe, but that He comes to me down in the depths. I see this in Him Who lay in a manger, a human Child, yet different from us all. And even though at first I look upon it only as a lovely colored picture, seeing it with the wondering eyes of a child, who has no conception whatsoever of the problem of the personhood of God and the Trinity and the metaphysical problems of time and eternity, I see that He, "Whom all the universe could not contain," comes down into the world of little things, the little things of MY life, into the world of homelessness and refugees, a world where there are lepers, lost sons, poor old ladies, and men and women who are afraid, a world in which men cheat and are cheated, in which men die and are killed.
CRIB and CROSS: these are the nethermost extreme of life's curve; no man can go any deeper than this; and He traversed it all. I do not need first to to become godly and noble before I can have a part in Him. For there are no depths in my life where He has not already come to meet me, no depths to which He has not been able to give meaning by surrounding them with love and making them the place where He visits me and brings me back home.
Once it HAPPENED, ONCE in the world's history it happened, that Someone came forward with the claim that He was the Son of God and the assertion "I and The Father are one," and that He proved the legitimacy of that claim, not by acting like a supernatural being or stunning men with His wisdom or communicating knowledge of higher worlds, but rather by proving His claims through the depths to which He descended. A Son of God Who defends His title with the argument that He is the brother of even the poorest and the guilty and takes their burden on Himself: that is a fact one can only note, and shake one's head in unbelief - OR one must worship and adore. There is no other alternative. I MUST WORSHIP. That's why I celebrate Christmas.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Greek Help - Free!!
I have suggested several times the site at http://www.zhubert.com/tutorial-daily for help in quickly locating words in the NT text, doing lexical work, parsing verbs, etc. If you have not tried it, you probably really do want to, even if you don't realize it yet.
Recently I have been getting requests to repeat the Greek elements course I have taught for our church. However, there just is not time with all the other courses I'm teaching now. But, there is a free tool to teach you New Testament Greek from the very beginning. Yes, free !! It is done by Dr. Ted Hildebrandt, professor at Gordon College (formerly at Grace College). You can find it at http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/Ted_Hildebrandt/New_Testament_Greek/Video/00-GTLearnVideos.html.
Happy learning !!
Recently I have been getting requests to repeat the Greek elements course I have taught for our church. However, there just is not time with all the other courses I'm teaching now. But, there is a free tool to teach you New Testament Greek from the very beginning. Yes, free !! It is done by Dr. Ted Hildebrandt, professor at Gordon College (formerly at Grace College). You can find it at http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/Ted_Hildebrandt/New_Testament_Greek/Video/00-GTLearnVideos.html.
Happy learning !!
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