IS THE BIBLE TRUE?

If we believe in Jesus we have to believe in the Bible. He taught from it and constantly quoted it in his teachings. (Luke 4:16-22 NIV) “He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom and he stood up to read.

17} The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: {18} “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, {19} to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

{20} Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, {21} and he began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” {22} All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked.”

Doubt and questions can lead to a strong faith. As a young minister I saw and heard a lot of things that troubled me. I decided to search for the truth by studying any and everything I could find. I didn't care where it led me, I just wanted to know the truth.

I studied all the major religions, and many different "religious teachings." I found myself rejecting them because they were unreliable and taught things that I knew couldn't be true. I finally found what I needed by diligently studying the Bible. I was astonished by what I found.

The Bible was written by 40 different authors who lived over a 2,000 year time span. Doctors, shepherds, farmers, kings, and fishermen who didn't have a chance to communicate with each other --wrote about health, ethics, science, philosophy, and God. They made over 300 predictions about a coming Messiah who is going to be born hundreds of years later and all their predictions came true. The odds of that happening would be one with 181 zero’s after it.

The bible is an amazingly whole book, unified in theme, logical in development and doctrine. It inspires work, fairness, and justice for individuals, family and community. It has created more benevolent societies than any book every written.

History books will tell you that the humane society was started in 1866 but they are wrong. Moses wrote about it over 3500 years ago in Exodus 23:4-5 and Luke 14:5 also talked about it. Life insurance? Well look at its first form in Genesis 34:12, Exodus 22:16, and Ist Samuel 18:25.

In spite of all the space exploration there is still a flat earth society. These are people who still believe the earth is flat. Yet Isaiah 40:22 describes God, it’s creator, as sitting enthroned above the circle of the earth. By the way Isaiah was written about 740 B.C. And while we are talking about the universe, Job 26:7 tells us the earth is suspended and free-floating in space.

I could go on and on with this but let’s talk about medicine. Years ago I was in a graduate school psychology class at Georgia State University. I heard the professor talk about the amazing progress of Psychological knowledge. He recalled that during the First World War millions of men came home with something the doctors called “shell shock.” Intense combat ruined them and many spent their entire life on disability payments from the government.

During the Second World War, the psychologist discovered an amazing new treatment. When a soldier had reached his limit of endurance instead of being shipped back to the states to a mental hospital he was simply brought back a hundred miles or so from the front lines. His treatment consisted of giving him all the good food he could eat, and letting him sleep 16 hours a day if he wanted to. Battle fatigue was all but eliminated and very few men were hospitalized or placed on disability because of it.

There was a final key to the success of their treatment. The soldier was told that his battle fatigue was not a free ticket back home. As soon as he recovered he would be sent back to his unit and continue to fight the war.

When I heard that I almost said, “Praise the Lord” out loud in class. I immediately thought of Ist Kings 19. Elijah has called fire down from heaven, and then ran into the wilderness from Jezebels threat. He had severe stress and battle fatigue. He even wanted God to just take his life, although Jezebel had promised to do it for him.

He lay down under a tree and fell asleep exhausted. Then an angel woke him up, fed him and let him go back to sleep. Then the angel woke him up and fed him again. You can read it for yourself. God gave him a new commission that sent him back into the battle. Exactly the same treatment the psychologist discovered over two thousand years later.

Let’s talk about the writing of Moses. He was schooled in all the arts and science of the Egyptians as the son of Pharaoh. The Egyptians had a famous medical book called the Papyrus Ebers. It said: “to prevent gray hair - use the blood of a black calf boiled in oil - or the fat of a rattlesnake”. To remove splinters apply worms blood and Asses dung. (Since manure is loaded with tetanus bacteria a lot of their patients died with lockjaw.)

In the case of tetanus or “lockjaw” in as short a time as two days the toxin produced by the bacteria attack the spinal cord that control muscle activity. Muscles become rigid and extremely painful spasms kill the patient unless he is treated aggressive with antibiotics along with injections of an antitoxin. Even then breathing will have to be taken over by an artificial respirator, and it’s a tough fight to keep the patient alive.

The Papyrus Ebers called for hundreds of remedies like lizard’s blood, swine teeth, putrid meat, milk goose grease, animal’s fats, and the manure from animals and even flies.

Now wait just a minute! Moses was schooled in all of this yet in the first five books of the bible he never included a single one of these hideous remedies. WHY NOT? GOD INSPIRED HIS WRITING!

I could tell you that when the doctors gave up on the 14th century black plague that took 60 million lives in Europe - the church stopped it by carefully observing what Moses taught in Leviticus 13:46. Again Moses was 2,000 years ahead of his time.

Moses in Numbers and Leviticus gave a secret that Doctors are using today in Emory University Hospital here in Atlanta, and everywhere else in the world. Let me tell you about it. Vienna Austria in 1840 had the finest medical school in the world. Yet doctors examined patients after performing autopsies without washing their hands. Their patients died like flies. Even in the early 19th century Surgeons and medical students would poke their dirty hands in sterile abdomens. They often sharpened their surgical knives on the soles of their shoes.

Moses in Numbers 19 gave some amazing rules for dealing with contagious diseases. It included washing in water, and even burning your clothes if you had to carry out someone who died. If you watch any surgeon today getting ready to operate he washes under a running stream of water controlled by a foot pedal. Then he is careful not to touch anything else until the scrub nurse places sterile gloves on his hands and he enters the operating room.

How did Moses, schooled in all the arts and sciences of the Egyptians write a book that was 3500 years before it’s time? The only answer is found in Second Peter 1:21:
“For prophesy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

Our bible wasn’t given as a scientific book to explain everything in our world. It’s a spiritual book about God; his will and plan for every person on earth. But it doesn’t contradict true science. It sometimes contradicts the unproven theories of faulty scientist but you can trust it completely as an accurate book.

Having said that I’m going to have to admit that it is full of errors and mistakes. It gives us without any cover-up the mistakes and errors of Adam, Noah, Abraham, David, Peter, Paul and I could go on and on. It shows us what happens when men refuse to listen to God or to obey his laws. It teaches clearly that God can forgive our sins, but sometimes the consequences of our sins follow us all through our life.

Only a very foolish person will deliberately sin, with the thought that God loves everyone and will forgive sins. Get drunk and kill your wife and child, or others and God will forgive your sins. But your wife and child or others you have killed will be forever gone from this earth. Shoot drugs with a dirty needle, or have sex with an aid’s carrier and God will forgive you. But if you contract the aids virus it can destroy your life. God’s word can be trusted to guide us safely from the cradle to the grave. When we look back over a long life, we will be glad that we heeded its teachings.

Hundreds of millions of people have studied and loved the Bible. In the worst of times it was their rock, place of comfort and source of spiritual power. The Bible was not given to us for argument, debate, and to create sectarian division. It is a devinely given light to lead us to a personal encounter with our creator. Once he places his Spirit in our hearts we take on the character of his dear Son Jesus Christ.

I'm the kind of person that will read the back of a cerial box. I love books. Twice I spent over a year teaching every single chapter and verse in the Bible to dedicated church members. My faith in God rest on the solid rock "that the Bible is true and a reliable map that can transform and lead us to my Father's house."

GOD SPEAKS TO HIS PEOPLE

Ken getting ready to fly 7504x from Atlanta Ga. to Durango Mexico for difficult and dangerous Missionary Work. Example: Flying into a high mountain dirt airstrip 8700 feet high to LaNoria with just enough gas to get back to Durango with two people in the aircraft. Instead I flew out of there with three people, struggling to get airborne. High density altitude almost did us in. We got a woman who was dying with enceplelitis to the hospital in Durango and saved her life.

Years ago I made the mistake of telling the President of a Christian Missionary Training School that God talks to me. He astonished me by saying: “I’ve never had that experience. In fact I don’t even know when I got saved. I just grew up in a Christian home, and attended a Christian college. He went on to say that God didn’t call him to be a missionary. He just decided to try it and was successful. [whatever that means] He went on to say that God didn’t call him to be the president of this Missionary organization but he had the talent and ability to do it so he was elected as it’s president.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. The question in my mind was: "why did this young man feel comfortable without ever hearing the voice or the call of God and yet be the head of what was called a Christian Missionary Organization?"

I’m going to try to answer that question. The first thing that comes to mind is the great emphasis that is placed on academic education. No, I’m not against being educated. A woman once wrote to Charles Spurgeon and told him that God didn’t need his “book larning.” Charles Spurgeon wrote her back and told her that God didn’t need her ignorance either.

Any college graduate will tell you that before they get their diploma they have at least read parts of a stack of books about six feet high. Every airline pilot has studied books until their brains felt like mush. They have to learn thousands of rules, regulations, emergency procedures; the mechanical working of the aircraft, complex and complicated flight information, meteorology and the list could go on and on.

No one should ever put down knowledge. It’s always a valuable tool. For example, in over 50 years that I’ve had a pilot’s license I paid my dues, read everything I could get my hands on about flying and took lots of advise from veteran pilots. I was a Missionary pilot for years. It’s a dangerous business and several of my closest friends died doing it.

I gave up my dream of being a pilot in the Airforce to be a Minister of the Gospel. Years later God allowed me to do exactly what I had given up. I had learned to fly, but fogotten about flying and didn't have the money to drive a car much less fly an airplane. But God spoke to me "To buy an airplane and get ready to go to the mission field as a Missionary pilot". In less than a week I had the Cessna Skyhawk and was getting ready to be a missionary pilot. Yes, I was euphoric and filled with awe.

I’ve taken lots of people on flights across the country. One thing always happened. In my aircraft there was a radio speaker mounted on the ceiling of the cockpit just above the pilot’s head. A pilot talking to the control center sounds like Greek to a non-pilot passenger sitting in the right seat.

The message that comes back over the speaker above the pilot’s head is absolutely incomprehensible to the non-pilot. I’ve been asked many times: “What did they say? How can you possibly understand that message.” Well, the answer is simple. I’ve heard it before, I know what the message is probably going to be, and I understand the aviation language they are using.

In II Timothy 3 Paul told Timothy that terrible times would come in the last days. What he wrote describes our country perfectly. In verse 5 he said men would have a form of Godliness but deny its power. Have nothing to do with them. In verse 7 he said: “They are ever learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

How in the world can that be? Let’s take a look at the second chapter of Ist Corinthians verse 12: “We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. Verse 14: The man without the spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

This passage is telling us that being saved is much, much more than reading about or even believing that Jesus was the Son of God. Knowledge has it place but not here. Churches often try to teach people to evangelize by visiting people, use psychology, and clever arguments to lead a person to saying those magic words: “I believe Jesus is the Son of God, and accept him as my savior. Then they say: "I guess according to what you have told me, I’m saved.”

If someone had to tell you that you have been born again, you didn’t get it. The bible tells us that the devils believed and trembled but that didn’t mean they were saved. Knowing God is such a powerful experience that no one has to tell you that you have had it. My Uncle used to tell me that if the “stewards” in his church would get saved it would be the biggest revival in the history of their church.

I was taken to church when I was two week old and later on as a young boy attended every Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday night church service with my mother. I hated church. By the time I was six years old I could cuss for five minutes without repeating myself, and loved to tell my mother lies. At eleven years old I had heard all the hell fire and brimstone sermons you could ever imagine and by that time they had absolutely no effect on me.

One day at eleven years old in front of a store I heard a little Salvation Army brass band play “Down at the Cross-where my savior died.” They never knew it but I started to cry and walked into some bushes so no one could see me. I didn’t know what in the world caused that reaction. Over the next two week this strange thing would come over me and I would cry. Something was happening to me and I didn’t know what.

Then I heard the still small voice of God speaking to me. He said: “Your father is unsaved, and unless you do something he is going to be lost.” The country was just coming out of the great depression and my father was working hard to feed and clothe 9 children. He was so busy he never was very close to me. But it broke my heart to think of him being lost. God knew I was too stubborn and full of sin to be worried about myself and he reached me exactly where I was the most vulnerable.

Finally, on a Wednesday night at eleven o’clock in the bed by myself I made a decision. I knew I would have to give up my passionate ambition to be an Army Air Force Pilot. I loved airplanes. I told the Lord that if he would save my Dad I would give him my life for the longest day I lived. As God’s peace came over me I knew I had a covenant with God and the Holy Spirit had changed me. Soon everyone in amazement knew it too. Even the dear black lady that helped my mother keep house and raise us knew it. She knew what I had been and had trouble believing what I had become. She finally said "he shore has changed."

I never told a soul why I became a Christian. When I finished high school my father offered to send me to college but when I insisted that I had to be a minister he said: “I won’t give you one thin dime to be a preacher.” Finally I left home with $2.38 cents in my pocket, a few clothes in a handbag, my bible and hitchhiked away from home to preach the gospel. I didn't know where I was going or what I would do. I knew absolutely nothing except that God had called me.

Later, I was married and had a daughter that my father had never seen. I got word in a revival that my dad had suffered a massive heart attack and if I wanted to see him I had better come home. I couldn’t pray a single prayer. I drove straight to the hospital and when I walked into his room the tears rolled down his cheeks. He said: “Son, I’ve got something to tell you. "I know Dad," I said. Then he said to me: "I’ve prayed and given my heart to the Lord. I want you to forgive me and bring your wife and that baby I’ve never seen to our house when I get out of this hospital.” We cried and rejoiced together. We all spent two weeks at home with family.

I never told him or anyone else why I became a Christian. It was private between God and myself. From then on he was my strongest ally and did what he could to help us. We had some really tough times but God always was faithful to us.

Years later I went to see my Dad. After 20 years of heart attacks, strokes and many physical problems he was so weak and sick he could barely walk and wanted me to help him out to the front porch. We sat down in a swing and he knew his time was short. He said, with tears running down his thin, wrinkled face, “Son, out of all the wrong things I’ve ever done in my life there’s one thing that troubles me to most. I regret that I was so blind and didn’t help you become a minister. Will you please forgive me for that?” I cried and hugged him and said “Dad, I can’t do that. I’ve never held anything against you and there’s nothing to forgive. He cried and said: “Please, just say the words to me.” Tearfully, I said: “Dad I forgive you.” We hugged each other and cried.

I never told him why I gave my heart to the Lord. A few weeks later he fell over and was gone. At the funeral I couldn’t shed a tear. I knew my Dad was safe. Running over and over in my mind was one thought. God has been faithful to his promise and now I must be faithful to mine.

When God speaks to us, we know it. It has some eternal purpose, and always involved his will for us. 20 years is a long time to wait for the proof but I never had a doubt that God would save my Dad.

I have a wonderful daughter and a son-in-law who are dedicated Christians. My three grandchildren are wonderful Christians and a constant joy to us. I’ve traveled and preached all over the world and have a wonderful life. The blessings of obedience are still going on for all of us.

My wife and I have been in full time Ministry together for over 57 years. We started Christian Ministries over 17 years ago. We meet people everywhere, in the strangest places, and pray with them often in public places. I create the booklets and CD’s in my office and we give them to needy people that we meet and pray with in the strangest places. Often we pray with them in the parking lots, shopping centers, and even on commercial aircraft. Their reaction is to say that they have been praying for help and know that God sent us to them.

It takes time for us to pray with troubled people and give them full color helpful booklets and a CD called “Songs for troubled hearts”. We have never asked for money but simply trust God to supply what we needed. Somehow we always have just enough to keep going. It’s really been amazing how God provides for us as we do his will.

(1 Cor 3:5-9 NIV) “What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. {6} I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. {7} So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.

THE BIBLE IS GOD'S WORD

Absolutely everyone is a believer. The most devout Christian and the most passionate atheist believe things they cannot prove. It’s not a matter of whether or not you have faith. It’s just a matter of what you decide to believe. The Christian has an argument and so does the Atheist. The Christian can’t “prove” that God exists and the Atheist can’t prove that he doesn’t exist.

The main difference between dedicated, committed Christians and “nominal” religious church members is what they believe about the Bible. Many “nominal” (meaning in name only) church members never read the Bible. They depend on the Preacher to tell them what to believe. The old "cracker barrel philosopher" Josh Billings said: "Truth is what has got itself believed by me."

One of the reasons I know the Bible is God’s word is because for many centuries it has survived so much ignorant and bad preaching by ignorant, false teachers and religious con men. My Grandson asked me years ago: “How do we know the Bible is not just a bunch of stories made up by men?” I gave him as many reasons as he could handle and he seemed to be satisfied.

Here’s how to be scientific in your study of the Bible. First there are many things that cannot be proven by electron microscopes, test tubes, electronic gadgets, or experiments done on rats or monkeys. You can't use any of these things to prove that George Washington ever lived, or that you attended the third grade, or that you ate lunch on the first Tuesday of last October.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt that those things did happen. Those things are proven by universally accepted methods of legal and historical proof. This method depends on three types of testimony. They are written manuscripts based on eyewitness accounts, exhibits, other manuscripts and oral testimony that give credibility to the written manuscripts in question. Then there is something called the “continuity of history.” The facts were repeated over and over again all down through the ages and no one can disprove them.

College history classes all across America and around the world teach as a fact the history of Thucydides who lived about 471 BC to 400 BC. He was a Greek scholar, statesman and one of the world’s greatest historians. He wrote the history of the Peloponnesian war. There are only 8 existing “copies” of the earliest manuscripts of his work and they are dated 900 AD, or about 1300 years after they were written.

In one of them Thucydides gives his account of the funeral oration given by Pericles for the burial of soldiers who died defending the Greek city states from Persion Invasions. With only 8 existing “copies” written 1300 years after the fact, college history professors have no trouble teaching this history as absolute truth.

Aristotle who lived in 384 - 322 BC was the student of Plato and the third member of the great intellectual triumvirate of ancient Greece. His “Poetics” was written in 343 BC. Today only five of the earliest “copies” are in existence and they are dated 1400 years later, or about 1,057 AD.

The original manuscripts of Caesars “Hstory of the Gallic wars” written in 58 BC are gone, but we have 10 “copies” dated 942 AD, or about 1,000 years later. Historians all over the world have absolutely no problem with teaching college students that these manuscripts are absolutely authentic and unquestionable true.

THE MANUSCRIPTS OF THE BIBLE There are over 20,000 accurate copies of the New Testament dated only a few years after the death of Jesus and many were written by eye-witness observers. Others took down the testimony of those who repeated the story of the resurrection of Jesus until they were put to death for doing it. Sir Frederic Kenyon, the director of the British Museum and the world’s foremost authority on manuscripts stated flatly that the New Testament is authentic beyond question.

World famous Philosopher Will Durant, trained in historical investigation, and who was not a Christian said: “Mere inventors of the Bible would have left out the squabbles of the Apostles for first place - their cowardly flight at the arrest of Jesus, Peters denial, the despairing cry of Jesus on the cross. That a few simple men could have invented so powerful and appealing personality of Jesus, such lofty ethical teaching, and such an inspiring vision of brotherhood - that would have been a far greater miracle than any recorded in the book.”

This is just a tiny fraction of evidence I have from years of studying the Bible, History and modern science. I could fill a very large book with amazing facts about the Bible. The most convincing evidence for me is the large number of Godly Christian believers who believed it, lived it out one day at a time, and told me it was all true as they breathed their last breath.

If you would like to have more of the “evidence” then contact me at www.pastorken.com An old Christian lady had died and her family was going through her things. They picked up her Bible and noticed that in hundreds of places she had written in the margins by verses “TP”. Finally an old friend told them what it meant. She said: “She would only write TP by a verse when she had relied on a promise and it worked for her”. It was tried and proven in her daily life. Pretty good evidence!

What have you decided to believe?

THE KEY TO HEAVEN

Universalism is the false doctrine that everyone, someway, or somehow will be saved. A large number of “Christians” believe this totally false concept. Universalism is not in any way compatible with Biblical Christianity. 23 times in the New Testament there are passages about Hell. Sixteen times it was Jesus talking about it. Seven other times the New Testament writers were talking about it. Stay with me. This is interesting and tells us how to make our salvation certain and sure.

(Mat 25:31-32 KJV) “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: {32} And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats:” (Rev. 20:11 Great White Throne Judgment)
{34} “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. (First time Jesus called himself a King)

The Final Judge of all history will not ask what we have felt or thought, but what we have done or left undone in our dealings with others.
Jesus said: “You fed me, gave me something to drink, invited me in, gave me clothes, took care of me when I was sick, and visited me in prison.
The righteous people had one question. “When did we do this to you?”

{40} “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it for me.”
{41} “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

Why? Because they did nothing for Jesus when he came to them in the form of his brethren. Hungry, thirsty, needing clothes, sick and in prison.

{46} “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

I know! There are lots of questions. How can we know who is the brother of Jesus? Jesus said, “whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother” (Matt. 12:50).
(1 John 3:17-18 NIV) “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? {18} Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”

COMPASSION! That’s the key to heaven. It’s understanding and feeling the suffering of others and doing something about it.

In Matthew 10:4-15 Jesus sent out 12 disciples to preach the gospel. He told them to take nothing – to stay with some good family that offered hospitality. Then (This doesn’t sound like our sanitized and whimpy Jesus) he said: “If they don’t take care of you or listen to you it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town”.

Jesus had a lot to say about this subject. In Luke 16:19-31 Jesus said:
“There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: {20} And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, {21} And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.”
(This is a true story – not a parable because Jesus named all of the people in it)

There is no record that the rich man did anything mean to Lazarus. He didn’t run over his feet with his chariot wheels, or drive him away from his gate. Thank God Lazarus had a faithful dog named “moreover” who came and licked his sores. (A little humor)

The only thing the rich man did was to “ignore Lazarus and his needs.” He just had a terminal mindset of “let someone else do it.” What's mine is mine and I'll save it for my family. It made him the most selfish, mean, sorry man in the world. According to Jesus this rich man asked Father Abraham to send Lazarus to hell to be his servant and give him a drink of water.

Our world is filled with kind, generous, godly people whose heart is filled with compassion. Only when we get to our father’s house will be know the full extent of their mercy, kindness, and generosity. In 57 years of marriage and in the ministry these wonderful people have blessed us. We’ve never asked for money or help but these people have loved us and graciously met our needs. It has created a bond of love, joy and happiness that nothing can take away.

Maggie and I also have always been compassionate and generous. For 17 years we have made and given away thousands of full color booklets and CD's of Maggie singing her songs. I make all of these item by hand and then we give them away. We've done this because many compassion and loving people have made it possible by their "spontaneous and loving gifts" to Christian Ministries. Ocassionally people offer to pay us for them, but we tell them they are free to everyone.

Recently I talked to a black man sweeping the floor at Home Depot. I ask him a question about plants, and he took the time to show me a variety of them, and tried to help me. I found out that he had a degree in English Literature, was an artist, and had sold a few paintings. He was working three jobs. I left the store and thought about the art materials in my workshop. In trying to move I wanted to give them away. I called the store, gave a description of him, and ask the people to please have him call me. When he came to my house I gave him all I had, and promised to find some more for him. He turned out to be a Christian.

Later, as he was leaving our home Isaiah Findley said to me: “Recently I had made a little money and had several hundred dollars in my pocket. I stopped at a store and asked a man in front to buy me a cold drink. “He said: “I can’t do that.” I told him: “Well all right, I’ll buy you one.” Then he told the man: “You need to be careful. Jesus may be standing in front of you in the form of someone else and asking for help. You never know.”

A few hours earlier I had just written this article but I had never mentioned it to him. I was astonished by his story and how cleverly he had presented the teaching of Jesus to this stranger. Compassionate Christians are all around us. The brothers and Sisters of Jesus are everywhere. We all have work to do.

THE MINISTRY OF JESUS

Jesus went where the people were. We don’t picture him giving some scholarly lecture in a large massive cathedral. We love the fact that he was available to ordinary people. In 1990 when my wife and I decided to stop pastoring we started something we called “Christian Ministries.” Our goal was to create full color booklets on a variety of helpful topics, and record Maggie singing comforting songs on a CD. We decided to give them away and trust God to supply our needs.’

It’s been an amazing and wonderful 18 years of talking to people everywhere, praying with them and giving them helpful booklets and a CD. It’s been absolutely astonishing how we meet and help needy people.

A few days ago we drove home from Ohio to Conyers Georgia. We stopped at a rest area in West Virginia and Maggie saw a lady weeping. Maggie simply asked her what was wrong. The lady, still crying, said her husband had lost his job in South Carolina and they thought about moving to Ohio to be near her mother. She knew her father had never wanted her but while she was in Ohio her mother told her that she had never wanted her either. She was heart broken and felt so unloved.

Maggie prayed for her, and brought the lady and her husband outside to talk to me. After hearing her story I went to the car, got a CD of Maggie’s called “Songs for troubled hearts” and several full color booklets to give to her. One was called “Disappointment” and the other was called “When Life is not fair.” They thanked us over and over again outside the welcome center, and soon we were on our way again.

Many hours later we found a truck stop in South Carolina and after a break Maggie was in the car. A police Lieutenant was walking in as I was walking out. He spoke to me, and I knew instantly he needed help. We shook hands and I told him that years ago I was a Chaplin for the officers in a large 350-man police force. He started talking to me about his job.

When I ask him: “What is the hardest part of your job” a lot of hurt poured out. He said: “I watched a young teenaged boy breathe his last breath recently. A few days later I saw a black man’s car split in two and watched him die. What really hurts is that an old man called me over, and said “officer, can you help me.” His wife had aggressive Alzheimer’s disease, and slapped him around, and was very mean and nasty. He was tired of being abused.

The Lieutenant was on the verge of tears as he said: “All I could do was give him a phone number for social services. They would come take her to a nursing home”.

A few days later he got a code 28 on his police radio which meant a suicide. When they gave him the address he was sick at heart as he pulled into the driveway of the old man’s house. The man who asked for help had put a shotgun in his mouth and blew the back of his head away.

I immediately assured him that he did his best and I probably couldn’t have done it any better. When I first moved to Atlanta I had the same kind of experience. A family asked me to talk to their brother who was a policeman. They didn’t give me any details. I made an appointment to see him on Sunday and he killed himself on Saturday night.

After spending a lot of time with him I took this Lieutenant who had a wife and two small children around to the back of my car. I gave him a CD and several booklets and told him to call me or contact me if I could do anything more for him. He told us his mother had breast cancer. Then with people coming and going all around us we prayed together in front of the open trunk with arms around each other. On the verge of tears he thanks us both for praying with him.

Just happened? Coincidence? Absolutely not. God placed us all together at the exact right time and place. Could it be that we all need to live our Christian life outside the church where the needy people are?

DON'T BE NEGATIVE

In today’s pop culture the message is don’t be negative. Say only positive things. Never discuss your troubles with anyone. Unfortunately, the Bible is the most negative book in the world. In the world that God created everything has to be properly balanced. For a battery to work there has to be a positive and negative terminal. Take away either one and you can’t start your car.

I know! It’s much more popular to be positive than to be negative. We just have to know when and where each is required. Martin Luther said: “The church is like a drunkard on a horse. First he falls off to the right, then gets back on and promptly falls off to the left.” Obviously he was saying that we need balance. Try to use “one without the other” and we will be like the drunkard who can never stay on the horse.

240 times in the Bible the words “thou shalt not” is quoted. All of these scriptures are negatives. “Do not.” is listed 90 times in the Bible. The Ten Commandments are prohibitions: “Thou shalt not” – or in other words “Don’t do that.” (except for Commandments 4 and 5 in Ex. 20:8-11,12). These ten laws define “negatively” the heart of the covenant relationship between God and Israel.

Millions of laws, rules and regulations are a part of everything that is done in this country. Laws, rules of business, accounting, space flight, medicine, all have negative rules and laws. No doctor may neglect his patient and bring about his death by careless behavior. An airline pilot will loose his license if he breaks any one of the hundreds of rules and laws.

For example several years ago three airline pilots flew a plane loaded with passengers to their destination. Hours later they tested more than twice the legal limit for being drunk. They all were heavily fined and lost their Pilots license forever. One lived in Conyers. So what’s all this talk about not being negative?

The senseless rebuke of anyone who talks negative about anything is as old as civilization. It’s the heart and soul of an old Greek philosophy that matter is not real. It’s based on Plato’s theory of forms. It’s the basis of the “Christian Science Church,” and the teaching of its founder Mary Baker Eddie. She stole most of her ideas from a preacher named Quimbley.

“The word of Faith doctrine” is being preached all over America. This false claim is based on the teaching that we are little gods, and our spoken words have creative power just like the word God spoke during the creation of the world. Utter nonsense. Then the followers of this non-biblical doctrine are told that what they say can bring about “positive or negative consequences”.

Recently I heard the King of the Religious con men say while looking sternly in the camera: “When you pray don’t ever use that faith destroying old saying “If it be thy will”. Then he spouted off a laundry list of everything wonderful and good that his deluded followers could have if they only “spoke the right words.” (Be sure and send me a faith offering of at least a thousand dollars.) Please don’t spit on your computer. I am fully aware that I’m being negative!

In his agonizing prayer in the garden before his crucifixion Jesus prayed: (Luke 22:42 KJV) “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.”

Is the police force negative when it kills a bank robber who has just shot three people? Is a fireman being negative when he closed down a building that has faulty wiring? Are our troops in Iraq being negative when they kill the murdering butchers who behead innocent people and blow up women and children?

Is the government negative to prosecute crooked businessmen, or drug dealers? If everyone were positive all the time then there would be no law and order, no prisons, mental hospitals for insane criminals, or stop signs. Our world would be terrifying. A red light is definitely negative.

We would have no United States Of America without the declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson to King George of England. In it Jefferson listed long pages of grievances of the colonies. He pleaded for understanding. He begged King George to stop the corruption of the English Governors who care nothing about the subjects in the colonies. It’s the world’s saddest and most negative letter ever written.

Finally Jefferson wrote that all hope of redress, correction of the wrongs, had brought the colonies to a place where they were forced to declare themselves Independent and free from the rule of King George. With the help of Almighty God, we will give our sacred honor, our possessions and our lives to right this terrible wrong.

Critical Thinking at the University. I spent lots of my time at Georgia State University earning a Master’s degree in Psychology. I also earned a Doctorate in Theology. Many have paid their dues at a University studying all kinds of subjects. What is “Critical Thinking?”

While critical thinking is something we all engage in to manage our day-to-day lives, the word 'critical' is commonly thought to have a negative meaning, for example finding fault with someone or something. We need to find fault with the “con man” that is trying to swindle our aged parents. We need to find fault with the corrupt politicians who are stealing, taking bribes and destroying our great country.

My neighbor recently bought a new Miracle Grow feeder that uses a bottle of liquid. No mixing or mess. On the box and in their advertising on TV they show two flowering plants. On is small, and the other is very large. “Use our product and you will get flowers over twice as large.”
My curiosity got the better of me. I went to Home Depot and looked at the package. In very tiny letters on the bottom of the advertisement was this statement. “Use of this product produces much larger flowers than using no fertilizer at all.”

At a University, however, 'critical' has a broader meaning: being critical involves making judgments and evaluations. Making judgments can involve distinguishing between fact and opinion or evaluating the validity of information and it’s sources.

These judgments need to be well grounded in research, wide reading, and consideration of all possible viewpoints. Critical thinking in this sense is based on a number of factors, and is not just uninformed personal opinion. We all need to learn how to do it in order for our skills and knowledge to grow and develop.

My grandson Ken Jansen earned a Masters degree in music from Akron University. He’s a great music director and is also an ordained Minister. He gave me a wonderful gift recently. It was a CD computer program with all 24 very large volumes of Pulpit Commentaries on it. I’ve own the books for over 57 years. Now it’s so easy to research scriptures and with a PDF program just cut and paste the information into my writing.

It’s a marvelous tool for critical research of every verse in the Bible by the best scholars of Greek and Hebrew, then five different highly educated scholars gave their Homiletical views of the chapters. It has over 22,000 pages and 95,000 entries.

Godly Christian men produced it over a hundred years ago. They used their knowledge working together to carefully explain the clear meaning of the Bible. It has none of the foolishness, liberal thinking, and false teaching so prevalent today. Thanks Ken, for a great gift to help me with my “Critical Thinking”.

You take what life gives you and just go on

Dorothea S. Kopplin wrote a small book in 1945 called “Something to live by”. When I bought this hard cover little book it cost thirty-five cents. It’s so old and fragile I open it carefully because I’m afraid it’s yellow pages will crumble and be lost.

In the Preface Dorothea writes: “When I was told I could not live to bring up my children I decided to write a book to serve as a substitute in their lives”. This little book is filled with wonderful quotations from great literature, popular wisdom, and the Bible.

In the “Purpose of sorrow” she wrote something that took me back to my youth. I understood it completely because my Father was a very intelligent man, and the Superintendent of a Textile mill. His office was only two blocks from our house and I often visited him.

It was in the late 1930’s and he showed me the massive looms and how they worked. He often designed the beautiful patterns for the jacquard looms. This was before computers and everything was done by hand and careful drawings on punch cards that controlled picks that lifted up the treads faster than the eye could see.

He gave each of his children a set of towels, and other things that he designed and then produced on the looms. Mine is a gold color with black Egyptian figures inset around the sides.

Dorothea writes: “A Christians life is lain in the loom of time to a pattern which he does not see, but God does; and his heart is in the shuttle. On one side of the loom is sorrow, and on the other side is joy. The shuttle, struck alternately by each, flies back and forth, carrying the thread, which is white or black as the pattern needs.

In the end, when God lifts up the finished garment, and all its changing hues shall be seen, it will then appear that the dark and deep colors were as needful to beauty as the bright and lighter ones”.

It’s amazing that 62 years later Dorothea’s little book filled with messages of courage, love, hope, and comfort for her children is still being a blessing.

She didn’t whine or cry, or moan about her problems, but wrote everything she could find that was uplifting, thought provoking, filled with love and the goodness of God.

Question: Who can we encourage, laugh with and speak a word of encouragement to them today? Everyone we meet needs it.