googlef87758e9b6df9bec.html A Sure Word: January 2010

Monday, January 18, 2010

Dr. King! We Need You!

Today in the US, we are celebrating the birth of that great, civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. He was a man of God, one who believed that our rights are endowed by our Creator and that He made all men equal. I often wonder what Dr. King would think about today’s racial climate. What would he think about government quotas that seem to assume blacks cannot be successful without help from the government? What would he think about Harry Reid who feels Americans were ready to embrace a black president like Barak Obama because he is light-skinned and doesn’t speak with a “negro dialect”? What would he think about President Clinton’s comments to the late Ted Kennedy that a few years ago, Obama would have been serving them coffee? What would he think about two Black Panther thugs intimidating voters in Philladelphia? What would he think about Janeane Garofalo, and those like, who brandish the word “racist” as though it’s the trump card in any political debate?

I think Dr. Luther would scarcely recognize the civil rights movement of today. Democrats today are all too keen of a person’s skin-color. I cannot fathom why blacks vote in block for a party that seems to contrary to their interests.

Dr. King had the right idea. We should strive for a society where people aren’t judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. We should strive to end the false label of “race” and remember that God has made all nations of one blood (Acts 17:26).

On this day, I thought it would be fitting to publish a portion of Dr. King’s most famous speech: I have a Dream:

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!


Sunday, January 17, 2010

The Tragedy at Haiti WAS because of Sin

I’ve heard a lot of fuss surrounding Pat Robertson’s comments which suggested that the tragedy in Haiti was because of some “pact with the devil”. To be honest, I’m not familiar with Haitian history but it’s not necessarily relevant anyway. The tragedy there was due to sin, though perhaps not in the way meant by Robertson. I’ll let Mr. Robertson explain his own comments but here I’ll offer my own opinion.

In the beginning, after having created the universe, God looked at everything He had made and pronounced that it was all “very good” (Genesis 1:31). In His original creation, there would not have been earthquakes. Neither would there have been volcanoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, or even death. On the 6th day of creation, the world was a paradise prepared for people to inherit and enjoy.

Unfortunately, the paradise was not to last. Adam disobeyed God and did the only thing God had commanded him not to do and so God cursed Adam with death. We are descended from Adam and we have inherited his body of flesh. Because we have his mortal body, we all die physically (Romans 5:12, 1 Corinthians 15:22).

But what most people overlook is that in the same passage where God pronounced the curse to Adam, the Bible also tells us that He “cursed the ground” for Adam’s sake (Genesis 3:17). Adam’s original task of dressing and keeping the garden (Genesis 2:15) was multiplied because now Adam would plow the ground and it would yield thorns and thistles (Genesis 3:18). The world became a hard place and Adam would have to labor all his life and earn his bread by the sweat of his brow (Genesis 3:19). This terrible event, now known as The Fall or The Curse, affected the entire creation. Romans 8:22 tells us that even now the entire creation groans and travails under The Curse.

People sometimes look at tragic events like the earthquake in Haiti or the 2004 Tsunami and wonder how there could be a God who would create a world filled with such suffering. Christians should understand that the cursed world we live in now isn’t the perfect world God had created and intended us to inhabit. Death was never His plan – it is the enemy to His plan (1 Corinthians 15:26).

Jesus promised that someday He would make a new creation where there would be no more Curse (Revelation 22:3). While we are here though, we need to rest in the words of John 16:33:

“These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”

Sunday, January 10, 2010

The Evos were Wrong – Again!

I’ve blogged before about the myth of sea-to-land evolution. This fundamental tenet of evolution was built on the flimsiest of evidence. I could almost hear a collective sigh of relief when Tiktaalik was found; at last a fossil was found onto which scientists could pin the label, “transitional” in the sea-to-land mythos. It seems now they were wrong again.

Here’s what has happened. Scientists have long believed that life began in the sea and later evolved to become terrestrial. They identified certain lobbed-finned fishes (known as elpistostegids) as being the ancestors of tetrapods. The oldest elpistostegid fossils are those of Tiktaalik and Panderichthys dated by evolutionists to be some 386 million years old. OK, here’s the funny part: researchers recently discovered tracks of a 4-legged animal which they believe are 395 million years old! You can read about the find here. According to the article, this find is “upending accepted thinking about when and where land animals first emerged.”

Excuse me a moment while I have a chortle.

You can see the problem. It’s difficult to identify a 386 million year old fish as the ancestor of 4-legged creatures when you have clear, fossilized tracks of a 4-legged creature walking around 10 millions before its supposed ancestor.

The find has certainly put more than a wrinkle in the sea-to-land scenario which under girds the entire theory. From the article, we read this amazing admission: “"We thought we'd pinned down the origin of limbed tetrapods," says Jennifer Clack of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. "We have to rethink the whole thing."”

Wow! They have to “rethink the whole thing.” Do you think anyone might rethink the theory of evolution itself? Might it occur to anyone that maybe fish DIDN’T evolve to become tetrapods? Such a realization would require critical thinking and open-mindedness. I’m not holding my breath.

Friday, January 1, 2010

The Best New Year Resolution

Start the New Year with Christ as your Savior!

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17)