When Man Takes God and Sin Seriously By Dan Delzell

A well-known television host did a story recently about a judge who is attempting to reduce the 10 Commandments down to 6 Commandments. Without going into all the details, I found the host’s comments to be very insightful. He wondered what Moses would think about such a travesty.

Moses. Not the author of the commandments. Not the One up in heaven who gave us the commandments. But Moses. Really? Moses?

If that doesn’t paint a picture of the way many people view God, I don’t know what does. This story was reported on the day after the President of the United States came out in favor of gay marriage. Does anyone take God seriously today?

For many, God is just an unknown higher power who is there to protect us, but He doesn’t really expect too much out of us. As long as we go through some religious motions, the big guy will keep looking out for us.

How seriously do you take God? How seriously do you take His commandments? Are you alarmed and even fearful when you break one of God’s commands? Or are you more worried about what your pastor or priest might think of you?

How seriously do you take the cross where Jesus died for you? Oh…..you don’t believe in that? I see. Well then, I guess you don’t take it seriously at all.

Every day many people step across the line from this earth to their eternal home. Suddenly, within seconds after their death, they take God very seriously. But by that time, their eternal destiny is sealed. How about you? Where would you go if you died today?

Moses was a man and nothing more. Your pastor or priest isn’t God. You won’t be judged by that spiritual leader. You will stand before your Creator one day. And I guarantee, you will be taking Him very seriously on that day.

The wisest people on earth are those who recognize that they have broken God’s laws….you know, the ones Moses brought down the mountain. These wise people also realize that only Christ can forgive their sins and give them a new heart. That’s why they trust in Him completely and in His death for their sins.

What about you? Do you have a relationship with God through faith in Christ? If not, then I encourage you to begin to take that very seriously. You may or may not believe in its importance today. One day you will. And I assure you that you will not be worried about Moses’ opinion on that day.

Jesus wants us to take sin very seriously….so much so, He said this: “If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.” (Matthew 18:8) Literally, you would be much better off on earth with no hands or feet if that’s what it took to keep you from chasing sin all the way to hell.

Doctors understand how this works when trying to save someone who has a deadly bodily infection. Aimee Copeland is a 24-year-old Georgia student who was infected a couple weeks ago with a rare flesh-eating infection. Aimee’s hands and feet have been amputated in hopes of preventing the infection from spreading to her blood. This extreme infection has required incredibly drastic measures. The doctors and the family understand the seriousness of the infection.

Likewise, the deadly infection of sin is in your soul….and it has spread. The only blood that can heal you is the blood of Jesus which was shed on the cross for you. Jesus does not want you to go to hell. That is why He died for you. Are you ready to get serious about your infection….and the cure, or hasn’t it hit you yet that your spiritual infection is so severe? His blood will wash away your sin only when you place your faith in Christ alone.

Some people take God and sin seriously. Others don’t. Some people take God at His Word. Others don’t. You can be one of the “haves,” or the “have nots.” You can have the cure for your infection, or not. You can live for Christ, or not. You can go to heaven, or not. Isn’t it time to get serious about your sin and your Savior? After all, you’re not getting any younger….and eternity isn’t getting any shorter.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/when-man-takes-god-and-sin-seriously-75463/

MTV Exploits Viewers to Make a Quick Buck

I have joked for years that MTV is destroying civilization as we know it. Then, the network gave us “Jersey Shore,” and proved my joke wasn’t funny, it was true.

Now, I’m convinced the people at MTV actually sit around a conference table and ponder the question: How can we exploit and corrupt the innocence and morality of an entire generation?

Earlier this week, Breitbart.com ran a story about a casting call posted on a site called Realitywanted.com, which lists opportunities to appear on reality TV shows. This one was for a proposed MTVshow titled “Losing It,” in which participants (required to be 18 or older) would allow themselves to be filmed as they embarked on a journey to lose their virginity.

“Do you want to take things to the next level?” the post asked. “Like, are you ready to hand over your V Card? Or do you have a friend who is ready to lose it?”

Reassuringly, the casting call promised that filming would not include the act itself. Such a sacrifice on MTV’spart, considering the ratings that could be achieved by following a newbie into the bedroom.

Yet this is what now can be considered MTV’ssense of boundaries. You’ll only be exploited to a point.

Fast forward to Tuesday. The casting call has “expired or been removed.” Since it wasn’t set to expire until May 28, it’s safe to assume MTV took the hint from the disgusted reactions across the blogosphere and Twitterverse to such a grotesque concept for a TV show.

MTV’s bad taste is now the stuff of legends. After all, this is the cable network that gave us “The Hard Times of RJ Berger,” a short-lived “teen sex comedy” about a nerdy 15-year-old whose claim to fame is a notoriously large sex organ.

But bad taste and the “entertainment” it produces aren’t nearly as egregious as MTV’sutter lack of social responsibility.

Media is now considered a “sexual super peer,” especially for adolescent girls. This means girls look to media for guidance and information about sexual behavior and practices. The American Psychological Association, in a 2007 report from its Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls, stated emphatically that media is primarily responsible for sending consistently negative messages about sex that serve to corrupt girls’ sexual innocence and define themselves in sexual terms.

But beyond awareness and self-image, tweens and teens are acting on the information gleaned through the media’s constant barrage of sexual themes. Young people’s “sexual media diet” or “SMD” is predictive of the onset of sexual activity.

In a study of 12- to 14-year-old girls, those with larger SMDs were more likely to be sexually active within two years than those who consumed less sexual material. And a 2008 study released in the journal Pediatrics revealed that exposure to sexual content actually is a predictor of teen pregnancy. Other studies confirm that teen girls have high rates of regret about sex and, more often than not, wish they had waited to become sexually active.

The folks at MTV may think they exhibit responsibility by balancing hypersexed shows like “Jersey Shore” with “16 and Pregnant,” another in its “reality” lineup that focuses on the struggles of being a single teen mom. (Really, what is “real” about any of these shows?)

It’s a sure bet they pat themselves on the back for their partnership with the Kaiser Family Foundation on a website for young people called Itsyoursexlife.com, which offers advice and information on how to enjoy “safe and healthy” adolescent sex. (The guru at that site is Dan Savage, the vulgar and volatile gay activist who makes news by bashing the Bible.)

But none of MTV’s smoke screens can obscure the fact that one of the most popular networks for teens and tweens would sell out the physical, emotional and spiritual health of its audience if it meant making money on a tasteless reality show.

So it’s back to the conference room for the MTV creative team. Can’t you just wait to see what they come up with next?

Marybeth Hicks

Marybeth Hicks is the author of Don’t Let the Kids Drink the Kool-Aid: Confronting the Left’s Assault on Our Families, Faith, and Freedom (Regnery Publishers, 2011).

http://townhall.com/columnists/marybethhicks/2012/05/24/mtv_exploits_viewers_to_make_a_quick_buck/page/full/

Aborted Child Born Alive and Left to Die

In Vietnam, a family is distraught because their child was born alive, covered in blankets by the hospital, and left to die. In a twisted scenario where one bad decision led to even worse results, the parents had been convinced to abort their child after seeing ultra-sounds that showed troubling birth defects. After the abortion, the child was placed in a bed under blankets until the family could return to recover the body. But upon returning and removing the blankets, family members saw the child and realized the ultrasounds had been wrong—the child had been born healthy. Moreover, the child was still alive.

However, the child had been bleeding profusely, and although the hospital immediately began working to save the child’s fleeting life, in the end nothing could be done to save it.

Had this terrible situation arisen in Illinois when Barack Obama was a state senator, it would have been illegal for doctors or nurses to try to save the child once it was discovered alive.  For as an Illinois state senator, Obama “voted four times against legislation to protect and care for infants accidentally born alive during late-term abortions.” As Erik Erickson has said: “Obama did not think that a child who was alive and outside the mother’s womb should be considered a child for the purposes of giving the child equal protection rights if it was the mother and doctor’s intention that the child be killed.”

In other words, where death was intended no life could be salvaged.

Thus, it came as no surprise that a House Judiciary Report from 2000 said physicians at one prominent hospital in Chicago had been aborting “healthy infants and infants with non-fatal deformities [and although] many of these babies…lived for hours after birth, no efforts [were] made to determine if any of them could have survived with appropriate medical assistance.”

In one specific example from an Illinois hospital, an aborted baby “left to die on the counter of the soiled utility room wrapped in a disposable towel, was accidentally thrown in the garbage.” Later, when hospital staff realize what had happened and begin looking for the child, they “were going through the trash [and] the baby fell out of the towel and on to the floor.”

I’m a bit confused here: Is this part of Obama’s promise of “hope and change” or simply a precursor of his pledge to “fundamentally change America”?

Think again about the child in Vietnam. There, the discovery of a live baby was a traumatizing experience to which everyone responded by trying to save the child’s life: the room was frantic with people fighting for life. But in Chicago, Illinois—which was Obama’s Illinois—it would have been illegal to try to save the child’s life, just as it was illegal to try to save the life of any child who’d survived abortion.

Here’s the bottom line: In Vietnam an aborted child was born alive, but left to die—just like Obama would have wanted it.

AWR Hawkins

AWR Hawkins is weekly contributor to Andrew Breitbart’s “BIG” sites, a columnist for Pajamas Media, and a contributor to RedCounty.com. He holds a PhD in US military history from Texas Tech University.

http://townhall.com/columnists/awrhawkins/2012/05/23/aborted_child_born_alive_and_left_to_die/page/full/

N.C. Vote Proves Rush Is Right on Marriage

President Obama is apparently tired of pretending he opposes gay marriage. Good.

Good, because lying to the American people is always wrong, and because now the American people will have a clear choice: a president who supports gay marriage, or a president who sides with the majority of the American people, including 61 percent of North Carolinians.

I’m tired of pretending, too.

Conservative elites, including those at Fox News, have shamefully kowtowed to the politically correct opinion on gay marriage.

Some do so reluctantly because they have been cowed into believing defeat is inevitable.

Some do so because they think the “base” is wrong on gay marriage, and they want to bring the Republican Party slowly on board with their own avant-garde moral values.

Tuesday’s vote in North Carolina should explode the cover of both camps.

By a margin of 22 points, the people of this moderate swing state that voted for Obama in 2008 decisively rejected gay marriage.

Both Obama and former President Bill Clinton came out strongly against the marriage amendment.

The GOP elites, including conservative elites? Nowhere to be found.

The marriage amendment outpolled Mitt Romney by approximately 18 points. Did he come out for the marriage amendment? No. The silence is deafening.

But Romney is not alone in his lack of courage. Not Ron Paul, not even (it saddens me to say) Rick Santorum showed the courage — or the common sense — to voice support for North Carolina’s marriage amendment.

Fox News does not celebrate this victory. Sean Hannity does not celebrate this victory. Sarah Palin is not tweeting tonight on North Carolina. Laura Ingraham does not cover this issue.

Marriage is an orphan issue.

Elites are busy running from it, believing the fantasies spread by Human Rights Campaign and other gay marriage advocates that somehow an issue that garners the repeated majority support of Americans — in every state from North Carolina to California — is bad for the GOP.

Elites are running from marriage — with one huge and notable exception: Rush Limbaugh.

On May 7, as Joe Biden was endorsing gay marriage, Limbaugh once again rushed in to state the obvious political consequences no one else is acknowledging:

“I tell you what they’re doing. When they say that they are not interested in the votes of white working-class Americans, that’s a big chunk. That’s the old Reagan Democrats and so forth. White working-class voters — the middle class, lower middle class — they’re not interested in that. They’re not interested in the mainstream. They’re not seeking reelection from the mainstream, unless the mainstream is the unemployed, college students and militant radical minorities.”

Sometimes people ask me, given the wall of hatred now directed at anyone who opposes gay marriage, why do I continue to fight?

Two reasons:

The first and most important is that marriage matters. Gay marriage is based on a falsehood about human nature: Gay unions are not marriages — they do not serve the same purpose as unions of husband and wife.

Gay marriage is a profoundly political creature — an attempt to use government to redefine reality itself that is unjust and will have consequences.

The second equally important reason is this: I simply cannot stand to see the party of Ronald Reagan abandon the American people out of a misplaced deference to political correctness, fear and willful stupidity.

Tuesday, North Carolina became the 32nd state in a row to vote against gay marriage when its citizens were given the chance.

If gay marriage becomes a reality in this great nation, it will not be because the American people have not done everything they can to make their voices heard.

Maggie Gallagher

Maggie Gallagher is a nationally syndicated columnist, a leading voice in the new marriage movement and co-author of The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off Financially

http://townhall.com/columnists/maggiegallagher/2012/05/24/nc_vote_proves_rush_is_right_on_marriage/page/full/

What If We Have Only Memories of Freedom?

This is something to think about!  Our freedoms are slowly being taken away daily by our government, right under our noses! (trinityspeaks)

What if Memorial Day reminds us of times when we had more freedom? What if freedom is dying right under our eyes? What if the memory of the past is more fulfilling than the reality of the present?

What if the federal government could write any law, regulate any behavior and tax any event, no matter what the Constitution authorized? What if the majority in Congress rejects the idea of limited government and views the Constitution as granting it blanket power to do whatever it can get away with? What if the constitutional prohibition on the government’s taking of life, liberty or property without due process of law is only for show and is not for real?

What if the House of Representatives seriously considered letting the military lock up whatever Americans the president ordered the troops to arrest, without charges filed or lawyers present or a judge presiding? What if the House seriously debated this idea of indefinite military detention of Americans in America and actually voted in favor of it? What if this unconstitutional monstrosity becomes the law and your right to due process depends on whether you remain with the majority, stay silent or behave properly? What if the Constitution’s guarantees are not guarantees at all, but are subject to the whims of whoever is in power?

 

What if the Declaration of Independence, which articulated the moral authority for the revolution against Great Britain, recognized that our rights come from our Creator and are inalienable? What if very few in government recognize the divine origin of human freedom and its natural integrity to our humanity?

What if the government only permitted freedom so long as it was exercised as the government pleases? What if the government rejected the basic values of every person’s right to life and liberty and property in favor of some collective good, where the government could arrest you without evidence, ration your freedom to suit the general welfare and take your property from you and sell it at a profit?

What if the government could hire thugs to keep you safe? What if it gave the thugs uniforms and badges and sent them to airports? What if it gave them rubber gloves to wear and told them they could touch you and your children and your parents however and wherever they wished? What if these thugs touched the private parts of little babies and old ladies and intentionally restrained those who have criticized them while the rest of us just watched and let this happen?

What if the airlines did a better job of keeping their customers happy and their property safe than the thugs did? What if the government spent millions of your tax dollars to advertise what a great job it’s doing? What if the government charged the airlines millions of their dollars for the illusory services these thugs are rendering? What if the government’s thugs never caught a single bad guy intent on harming a flight in America? What if the government’s thugs actually let weapons and bad guys onto planes because the thugs are dopes who have no competition, who can’t be sued and who won’t be fired?

What if the government found more dopes and dupes and convinced them that they should conspire to commit acts of terrorism? What if the idea for terrorist acts and the means for committing them came from the government? What if no real threats were involved in these games and no real weapons were used, just fake threats and fake weapons, fomented and provided by the government? What if the government created these phony crimes just so that it could solve them? What if no one was ever in danger from these government-created crimes, except those the government tricked? What if the government did this again and again and then boasted that it was keeping us safe from its own creations? What if Congress and the media and even the courts fell for this?

What if, on Memorial Day, we remember times that were more free than today? What if, on Memorial Day, when we think of those who died for our freedom, we end up recognizing that the freedom they died for is dying? What if it becomes fashionable for the government to ignore the Constitution? What if the Constitution dies because the government stops following it? What if, next Memorial Day, freedom is just a memory?

What do we do about it?

Judge Andrew Napolitano

Judge Andrew P. Napolitano is the youngest life-tenured Superior Court judge in the history of the State of New Jersey. He sat on the bench from 1987 to 1995, during which time he presided over 150 jury trials and thousands of motions, sentencings and hearings. He taught constitutional law at Seton Hall Law School for 11 years, and he returned to private practice in 1995. Judge Napolitano began television work in the same year.

http://townhall.com/columnists/judgeandrewnapolitano/2012/05/24/what_if_we_have_only_memories_of_freedom/page/full/

Put A Lid On It

“In your anger do not sin.” Ephesians 4:26

Now that the weather is getting warmer, it will be my job to barbecue the hamburgers, or steaks if I’m fortunate! Over the years I have learned, through trial and error, how to regulate the heat on the grill so that the meat is properly cooked. If I waited until the coals were too hot, they would reach a point where I couldn’t keep the fire under control—and sure enough, everything would be charred to a crisp. My solution to this problem was to buy a grill with a lid on it. Closing the lid while the food was cooking reduced the oxygen flow and transformed the flames into a constructive, controlled heat. The outcome was tender, flavorful char-grilled food for everyone to enjoy!

Like barbecuing, we have the ability, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to put a lid on our anger so that it can become a productive force in our lives. Anger does not have to rage untended in our souls until it scorches everything and everybody nearby.

I find it important to note in our text that anger in itself is not a sin. The Bible says, “In your anger do not sin.” Anger alerts us that something has gone wrong. It’s a sign that we have suffered an injustice, or that someone has been treated unfairly. You can’t keep anger from happening but you can make sure that it doesn’t do collateral damage. If we are not careful, anger easily ignites other destructive sins.

So how do we keep the energy of our anger from bringing sin into our lives? One of the keys is to be slow to anger. The Bible tells us that God Himself experiences anger, but it also says He is slow to anger. Psalm 103:8 says, “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.”

As we follow God’s example, being slow to anger will give us time to prayerfully evaluate the emotion. We might ask the Lord to show us if our emotion is really justified, or if we have done anything to contribute to the situation that has caused the anger in the first place. Slowing down gives us time to ask ourselves: “Do I have all the facts?” and “In the long run is this situation even worth my anger?” And time enough to ask, “What could I do to be a part of the solution by showing God’s patience, love, and compassion?”

It’s all about counting to 10—in a spiritual sort of way!

The combination of prayer and a bit of contemplation will empower us to redirect our anger to positive outcomes. It’s all about keeping the lid on the flames before you ruin someone’s dinner!

YOUR JOURNEY…

• Use the counting to 10 routine to take 10 seconds to pray!
• The next time you’re able to resist a sinful response to anger, spend time journaling about the experience. How did you feel as a result of choosing righteousness? What impact did your choice have on those around you?
• Unresolved anger is the root of many sins such as hatred, slander, and revenge. Pray and ask the Holy Spirit to show you areas of residual anger; then take the necessary steps to free yourself from that pitfall.

http://getmorestrength.org/daily/put-a-lid-on-it/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GetMoreStrength+%28Strength+For+The+Journey%29

The Delight of Despair

When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead —Revelation 1:17

It may be that, like the apostle John, you know Jesus Christ intimately. Yet when He suddenly appears to you with totally unfamiliar characteristics, the only thing you can do is fall “at His feet as dead.” There are times when God cannot reveal Himself in any other way than in His majesty, and it is the awesomeness of the vision which brings you to the delight of despair. You experience this joy in hopelessness, realizing that if you are ever to be raised up it must be by the hand of God.

“He laid His right hand on me . . .” (Revelation 1:17). In the midst of the awesomeness, a touch comes, and you know it is the right hand of Jesus Christ. You know it is not the hand of restraint, correction, nor chastisement, but the right hand of the Everlasting Father. Whenever His hand is laid upon you, it gives inexpressible peace and comfort, and the sense that “underneath are the everlasting arms” (Deuteronomy 33:27), full of support, provision, comfort, and strength. And once His touch comes, nothing at all can throw you into fear again. In the midst of all His ascended glory, the Lord Jesus comes to speak to an insignificant disciple, saying, “Do not be afraid” (Revelation 1:17). His tenderness is inexpressibly sweet. Do I know Him like that?

Take a look at some of the things that cause despair. There is despair which has no delight, no limits whatsoever, and no hope of anything brighter. But the delight of despair comes when “I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells . . .” (Romans 7:18). I delight in knowing that there is something in me which must fall prostrate before God when He reveals Himself to me, and also in knowing that if I am ever to be raised up it must be by the hand of God. God can do nothing for me until I recognize the limits of what is humanly possible, allowing Him to do the impossible.

http://utmost.org/the-delight-of-despair/

The Right Delight

“Then all the people went away to eat and drink, to send portions of food and to celebrate with great joy, because they now understood the words that had been made known to them.” — Nehemiah 8:12

Rebecca just got promoted at work. As soon as she leaves the office with her new paycheck, her first stop is the car dealership down the block. She drives away with a brand new car.

Tom just celebrated a milestone birthday. In honor of the occasion he drives over to the jewelry store and buys himself a snazzy, new watch.

These stories sound familiar to most of us, and chances are that most of us either have done something like this, or know others who have. And in fact, there’s nothing wrong with these actions. People certainly are entitled to mark happy occasions with personal celebrations. Turning to the Bible, however, we see that perhaps there is an additional component to celebration that we might have overlooked.

In the wake of Ezra the Scribe’s success in reviewing the Bible’s teachings with the large crowds that had gathered, the people declared a holiday marking their spiritual achievements. Strikingly, the resultant revelry was marked by people sending to others less fortunate “portions of food” (in Hebrew, manot) as gifts.

This recalls a similar mass act of giving recorded in the Book of Esther, where we are told that in commemoration of God’s salvation of the Jewish people from the hands of the evil Haman, the Jews of Persia sent “presents of food to one another and gifts to the poor” (Esther 9:22).

In both of these examples, we find a celebration of thanksgiving marked not just by self-indulgence, but also by a desire to ensure that one’s neighbors and friends – as well as those in need – are included in the joyous occasion. Indeed, what more appropriate reaction to God’s abundant kindnesses could there be than to share the bounty of His goodness with others who have less than we do?

Over the course of our lives we all hopefully have the chance to experience success or joy, even if only small or fleeting. When we do, let us remember these biblical examples and share our happiness with others. And in turn – and perhaps more importantly – let us commit to rejoicing with our fellows – our coworkers, spouses, children, next-door-neighbors – when they succeed.

For after all, as we learn from the books of Nehemiah and Esther, when we spread happiness and good tidings with others, we are engaged in the truest form of gratitude to and worship of the Almighty.

http://www.holylandmoments.org/devotionals/the-right-delight

How Science Helps Religion

And the earth helped the woman–Rev 12:16

One hears a great deal from many different quarters of the conflict of science and religion. It might be well if we heard a little more of the various ways in which science has helped faith. Of this help in the realm of applied science one scarcely needs to speak. It was science which built those mighty Roman highways which, at the Advent, carried the Gospel everywhere. And how railways and steamships and cars and planes have been the servants of missionary work is a familiar fact in all Christendom. To the scientific concept of the printing press the debt of the Gospel is incalculable. It has scattered the tidings of the Savior to the remotest corners of the world. And if our missionaries can live and labor now in regions that were once the white man’s grave, we owe it to the activities of science. Such facts are familiar to us all, and there is little need to dwell on them. In the evangelization of the world, applied science has been a powerful helper. But there are other and perhaps deeper ways, more vital than such applications in which, in the language of St. John, the earth has helped the woman.

Jesus Had a Scientific Mind

To begin with, modern science has taught us that it is our duty to look facts in the face, never to come to them with preconceptions, never to shut our eyes to anything. In that respect, I venture to suggest that our blessed Lord had a scientific mind. He never came to things with preconceptions; He never shut His eyes to anything. He saw the vultures gathering by the carcass as well as the chickens gathering to their mother. He saw the tiny sparrow falling dead as well as the sparrow happy in its nesting. No man can have the mind of Christ who has not the courage to have the eyes of Christ. He rejected the traditions of men and saw things for Himself. And is not that the method of all modern science by which it has found the wonder of the world–to reject the traditions of the fathers and see things for itself?. Science has done that with nature, and doing it has won her victories. The world has proved itself a thousand times more marvelous than the traditions of the fathers ever dreamed. Jesus did that with men and women, with the Magdalene, with Peter, with Zaccheus, and in a deep sense, we are saved by being seen.

Science and Jesus Teach Surrender

That thought of method may be pushed a little further, and I do so in the words of Huxley. “It seems to me,” said Huxley, “that science teaches in the clearest manner the truth embedded in the Christian thought of entire surrender to the will of God. Sit down before the fact as a little child (the very word is Christ’s), be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever end nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have only begun to learn content and peace of mind since I have resolved at all risks to do this.” Now tell me, what is the essence of religion, I mean on the side of the response of man? Is it not summed up in this single word, entire surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ? As evangelical preachers constantly proclaim, it is not enough merely to admire Him. It is not enough, gazing on His beauty, to call Him the Altogether Lovely. You must trust Him, become a little child, yield yourself to Him in full surrender, if peace and power and liberty and knowledge are ever to possess the soul. Now when the preacher proclaims that, there are those who say, “I don’t believe it. I’m captain of my soul and master of my fate. I am free. I am going to stand upon my feet.” Then comes the scientist (our supposed enemy) and says, “Friend, you’re in the wrong, the preacher’s right. The only way to peace and power and knowledge is the childlike way of full surrender.” So the earth helps the woman. So science corroborates our faith. The scientist finds that he is more than conqueror, in precisely the same way as the believer. And yet men talk, till one is sick of it, of the conflict between science and religion.

Faith Is Basic to Everything

Lastly, science helps religion by the new majesty that it has given to faith. That may seem a daring thing to say: let me explain my meaning. A Christian is a man who lives by faith–as a simple matter of fact we all do that. You cannot mail a letter without faith; without faith you cannot board a train. But a Christian is a man who takes that faith which runs like a thread of gold through all our life and centers it on the Lord Jesus Christ for time and for eternity. Now there are not a few who hold that science is the enemy of faith; that the more you expand the realm of exact knowledge, the more you contract the realm of faith. Whereas the truth is, the more that knowledge grows in a universe which thrills with the Divine, the more does faith become imperative and wonderful. Things do not grow less mysterious, they grow more mysterious as knowledge widens. To Peter Bell the primrose is a weed: to Tennyson the wallcress is a microcosm. The faith of a Lord Kelvin (as I who was his student know) is a thousand times larger and more wonderful than the faith of the untutored savage. When I think of the presuppositions on which the chemist builds, of the postulates demanded by the physicist, of the invisibilities that science reaches when she resolves matter into energy, I feel that science is founded upon faith as truly as the life of the believer. So my hope is that in coming days science and religion will be at peace again. Like righteousness and peace in the old psalm, the dawn is breaking when they will kiss each other. Then with blended voices, they will lift their common praise to Him, Whose we are, and Whom we serve.

http://devotionals.ochristian.com/george-h-morrison-devotional-sermons-devotional.shtml

 

Never Be Tired of Speaking of Christ

Never Be Tired of Speaking of Christ.