A Christian’s Confidence in God’s Faithful Word

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Guest: Dr. James White, Alpha and Omega Ministries

No original manuscripts of the Bible are known to exist. Therefore, the Bible we read is based on copies of the originals. How do we know there weren’t copying mistakes that changed the meaning of God’s word? After all, we base our lives, eternity, and worldview on the Bible – shouldn’t Christians be very sure that the Bible’s words can be fully trusted? Dr. James White, who recently debated liberal scholar Dr. Bart Ehrman on whether the Bible is reliable, will join me to discuss this ultra-important issue.

How Should Christians Pray for President Obama?

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Guest: Joseph Farah, editor, WorldNetDaily.com

Christians are instructed to pray for our civil leaders but how exactly should we do so when many of our new president’s policies (e.g. expansion of abortion, homosexual agenda, etc.) are in direct rebellion to God and His Word? Joseph Farah wrote a provocative column recently entitled, “Pray Obama Fails.” He will join me to discuss how Christians should be praying for President Obama. We will also take your phone calls on this compelling question.

The Omega Letter Special Report: Now What?

Welcome to the Brave New World

Socialist governments ration healthcare when demand exceeds supply—when there’s simply not enough money or medical resources available to provide health care services to all of the people all of the time. What they end up with is either coverage for all of the people some of the time, or for some of the people all of the time.

This sounds great to lots of people, mostly Democrats, until they think about being one of those whom the government decides is too old or too sick to get the rationed treatment. If the procedure or the treatment is too expensive, or if the state decides there’s a more qualified or more deserving candidate, you’re out of luck. In the name of “what’s good for the people,” you end up not getting what you need to stay healthy—or, in some cases, stay alive.

Often, these systems don’t allow you to buy that procedure or treatment on your own because that would be unfair to those who can’t afford it. “Why only the privileged classes would get quality healthcare, and the poor would go without, why that’s so selfish!”—which, in large part, is the motivation to have socialized medicine in the first place.

Consider that in Canada it’s now illegal for a doctor to provide services outside of the system. Which explains, of course, why you see so many Canadians in America getting healthcare.

All this makes perfect sense, or rather, perfect cents, from a purely rational choice/supply and demand point of view.

Now, let’s go to the next logical step.

Consider this past Sunday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi appeared on ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos and had the following exchange:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?

PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children’s health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those—one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?

PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.

So, according to the person third in line for the presidency, spending money on contraception is a good economic stimulus because it will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government. After a public outcry, the contraception provision was dropped from the bill that passed the House on Wednesday, but the Speaker’s comments were revealing—and alarming.

The position that she articulated scares me.

It’s like something out of a science fiction movie.

Today, it looks like a very short step for a government leader to say something like this:

Due to the ongoing economic crisis, state and federal governments are now forced to further ration public services because increasing demand continues to outpace diminishing supply. We can’t raise taxes high enough and fast enough on taxpayers to generate enough revenue to adequately increase services.

Therefore, we’re forced to take drastic steps to reduce the aggregate demand from tax spenders—those who pay little or nothing in state and federal taxes. Since children of tax payers are not a significant drag on the economy, we are targeting limiting the number of children of tax spenders.

Beginning immediately, we will institute policies to reduce the number of children born to tax spenders.

Therefore, we will target increased contraception and abortion spending in our urban centers. Public schools will now institute mandatory pregnancy tests and off campus abortion care if necessary. Any woman choosing to become a mother must submit a Parental Candidate Application and receive her federal Parenting License before the state will approve her pregnancy.

Sadly, we’re forced to now ration childbirth along with our other medical and social services.

Thank you, and may God Bless America.

For this week and in this bill, the bill that passed the House did not have cost-cutting reproductive services. Speaker Pelosi was too honest with her intentions and backed off under the bright lights of media scrutiny and public outrage. But, unless we change course, this is where we’re headed.

And you thought Aldous Huxley was writing science fiction. Welcome to the Brave New World.

Report From Iraq: Meeting with the Prime Minister of Kurdistan

Joel discusses the future of Iraq and the Kurdish people with Prime Minister Barzani.

Greetings from Mumbai (aka, “Bombay”). I’m here in the commercial capital of India and the site of the horrific terrorist attacks  by Pakistani Islamic jihadists that killed more than 200 Indians at the famed Taj hotel, the Jewish “Chabad” center, and several other locations around this city. Today, I had the opportunity to visit several of these sites and pray for the survivors and for the families of those injured and killed. Currently, I’m on a two-week speaking tour throughout India with several dear friends, teaching Christian pastors, ministry leaders and lay leaders about “God’s love and plan for the people of Israel and the epicenter.” The last few days have  been so wonderful, so full and so intense that I haven’t had a spare minute to write. I promise to write more about what I’m seeing and hearing very soon.

But first I wanted to let you know a little more about my five-day trip last week to northern Iraq. By God’s grace, I had the privilege of spending time with a number of key Iraqi Christian leaders to encourage them, pray with them, oversee the progress of The Joshua Fund’s work there, and develop future plans for blessing the poor and needy in Iraq and strengthening the Iraqi church. Several colleagues and I also had the privilege of meeting with His Excellency Nechirvan Barzani, the Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). It was a fascinating discussion that lasted about an hour, twenty minutes of which I conducted a formal interview of the Prime Minister on camera for the Inside The Revolution documentary film we’re producing.

The Prime Minister is one of the region’s very impressive up-and-coming young Reformers. Born in 1966, he is the grandson of the Mustafa Barzani, the legendary champion of Kurdish rights and leader of the Kurdish independence movement. He is a Sunni Muslim who is proud of his cultural and religious heritage. But he is also a strong supporter of a united, federal Iraq and is a devout believer in helping all of Iraq become what Kurdistan has become over the past several decades — a Jeffersonian democracy, where there are full protections for free and fair elections, the freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion — including the right to choose another religion if one desires.

Prime Minister Barzani told me in no uncertain terms that he strongly opposes radical Islam. His first order of business when he came to power in 1997, he said, was to shut down a Saudi-funded college teaching Sharia law because he knew it would lead to jihadist violence and fan the flames of extremism. He shut down Saudi-backed madrassas (extremist elementary and secondary schools) throughout Kurdistan.  Two years ago, he not only banned “honor killings” — the Muslim practice of murdering family members when they sin or embarass the family or convert to another faith — but has been waging a public educational campaign to convince the Muslim majority in Kurdistan that such killings are “dishonorable” and wrong.

What’s more, Prime Minister Barzani has been a strong and consistent protector of Iraqi Christians who have been badly persecuted elsewhere in the country. He has welcomed many such Christians to resettle in the Kurdish region (which includes three of Iraq’s eighteen provinces) and practice their faith freely. He has helped clear bureaucratic obstacles for Christians trying to set up businesses and build churches. He has praised Christians for doing humanitarian relief work among the Kurds. Indeed, he told me how grateful he is for the work Kurdish Christians, Iraqi Arab Christians, and evangelical followers of Jesus from around the world are doing to bless the people of Iraqi generally and Kurdistan in particular.

When I get back to the States, I will type up and post my full interview. But for now, let me just say what a pleasure it was to spend time with this impressive Iraqi leader, a true Reformer who is appreciative of his Islamic heritage but has become a real friend of the Christian community at a time when the Church has been quite embattled. Please pray for Prime Minister Barzani — for his protection, for him to have wisdom and discernment as he governs, for the Lord to show favor to him and his family and his administration as he protects Muslims, Christians, Jews and those of no faith. Please also pray that the model he is building in Iraqi Kurdistan would be soon be followed by leaders throughout all of Iraq, and even by other would-be Muslim Reformers throughout the region.

2009 Forecast: Increasing Thunderstorms — Seek Shelter

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[Note: Program originally aired January 3rd, 2009.]  Lots of people are just glad the year 2008 is over. Whether it was the precipitous real estate market drop, the Wall Street meltdown, job layoffs, taxpayer-funded bailouts of financial institutions, the trend towards big-government intervention into private industry, or just election fatigue after a two-year presidential campaign, there’s a belief that things can only get better in 2009.   Outside our borders, the world seems more turbulent than ever: the Israelis and Palestinians are Read more

Christians and Environmentalism: To What Extent and At What Expense?

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Guest: Cal Beisner, Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation

[Note: Program originally aired April 26, 2008.]  This past week has been “Earth Week”. Time Magazine published a “Special Environment Issue” with a controversial altered image of the famous soldiers on Iwo Jima raising, not an American flag, but a tree. The cover reads, Read more

A Prayer for President Obama

Our Father, Lord of all creation, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ:  We pray today with a sense of special urgency and responsibility.  We come before you to pray for our new President, Barack Obama, and for all those in this new administration who now assume roles of such high responsibility.

We know that you and you alone are sovereign; that you rule over all, and that you alone are able to keep and defend us.  We know that our times are in your hands, and that “the king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord” [Proverbs 21:1].  Our confidence is in you and in you alone.  We come before you as a people who acknowledge our constant need for your provision, wisdom, and protection.

Father, we pray today for Barack Obama as he takes office as President of the United States.  We pray that you will show the glory of your name in our times and in these days, confounding the wisdom of the wise, thwarting the plans of the arrogant, and vindicating those who do justice and practice righteousness.

Father, we pray with thanksgiving for the gift of government and the grace of civic order.  Thank you for giving us rulers and for knowing our need for laws and ordered life together.  Thank you for this nation and the blessings we know as its citizens.  Thank you for freedoms unprecedented in human history.  We understand that these freedoms come with unprecedented opportunities.

Lord, we pray with thanksgiving for the joy and celebration reflected on millions of faces who never expected to look to the President of the United States and see a person who looks like themselves.  Father, thank you for preserving this nation to the moment when an African-American citizen will take the oath of office and become our President.  Thank you for the hope this has given to so many, the pride emerging in hearts that had known no such hope, and the pride that comes to a people who have experienced such pain at the hands of fellow citizens, simply because of the color of their skin.  Father, we rejoice in every elderly face that reflects such long-sought satisfaction and in every young face that expresses such unrestrained joy.  May this become an open door for a vision of race and human dignity that reflects your glory in our differences, and not our corruption of your gift.

Father, protect this president, we pray.  We pray that you will surround this president and his family, along with all our leaders, with your protection and sustenance.  May he be protected from evil acts and evil intentions, and may his family be protected from all evil and harm.

We pray that the Obama family will be drawn together as they move into the White House, and that they will know great joy in their family life.  We are thankful for the example Barack and Michelle Obama have set as parents.  Father, protect those precious girls in every way — including the protection of their hearts as they see their father often criticized and as he is away from them on business of state.  May their years in the White House bring them all even closer together.

Father, we pray for the safety and security of this nation, even as our new president settles into his role as Commander in Chief.  We know that you and you alone can be our defense.  We do not place our trust in horses or chariots, and we pray that you will give this president wisdom as he fulfills this vital responsibility.

Father, grant him wisdom in every dimension of his vast responsibility.  Grant him wisdom to deal with a global financial crisis and with the swirling complex of vexing problems and challenges at home and abroad.  May he inspire this nation to a higher vision for our common life together, to a higher standard of justice, righteousness, unity, and the tasks of citizenship.

Father, we pray that you will change this president’s heart and mind on issues of urgent concern.  We are so thankful for his gifts and talents, for his intellect and power of influence.  Father, bend his heart to see the dignity and sanctity of every single human life, from the moment of conception until natural death.  Father, lead him to see abortion, not as a matter of misconstrued rights, but as a murderous violation of the right to life.  May he come to see every aborted life as a violation of human dignity and every abortion as an abhorrent blight upon this nation’s moral witness.  May he pledge himself to protect every human life at every stage of development.  He has declared himself as an energetic defender of abortion rights, and we fear that his election will lead directly to the deaths of countless unborn human beings.  Protect us from this unspeakable evil, we pray.   Most urgently, we pray that you will bring the reign of abortion to an end, even as you are the defender of the defenseless.

Father, may this new president see that human dignity is undermined when human embryos are destroyed in the name of medical progress, and may he see marriage as an institution that is vital to the very survival of civilization.  May he protect all that is right and good.  Father, change his heart where it must be changed, and give him resolve where his heart is right before you.

Father, when we face hard days ahead — when we find ourselves required by conscience to oppose this president within the bounds of our roles as citizens — may we be granted your guidance to do so with a proper spirit, with a proper demeanor, and with persuasive arguments.  May we learn anew how to confront without demonizing, and to oppose without abandoning hope.

Father, we are aware that our future is in your hands, and we are fully aware that you and you alone will judge the nations.  Much responsibility is now invested in President Barack Obama, and much will be required.  May we, as Christian citizens, also fulfill what you would require of us.  Even as we pray for you to protect this president and change his heart, we also pray that your church will be protected and that you will conform our hearts to your perfect will.

Father, we pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, the ever-reigning once and future King, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.  He and he alone can save, and his kingdom is forever.  Above all, may your great name be praised.  Amen.

_________________________

Christians are, first of all, citizens of a heavenly kingdom.  The followers of Christ know no allegiance of ultimate rank to any government or earthly authority.  Yet, the Bible clearly teaches that God has given us the gifts of law, government, and ruling authorities for our good.  We are instructed to pray for “rulers and all who have authority” and to be faithful in praying “so that we can have quiet and peaceful lives full of worship and respect for God” [1 Timothy 2:2].

As Barack Obama prepares to take the oath of office and become the 44th President of the United States, Christians should be thinking about how to pray for the new President.  I offer this prayer as a place to start, as we observe the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States together.

The Presidential Transition and What It Means For America and You

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In Hour 2 of The Christian Worldview this Saturday, we’ll analyze some of the news stories of the week from an always-biblical perspective: more “inauguration invocation situations” involving gay bishop Gene Robinson and Rick Warren’s praise for Robinson’s inclusion (huh?!), the man-made global warming myth, and a report card on President Bush for his two terms.  We’ll also take your phone calls in both hours so be ready to contribute to the show.

When Relevance Becomes Irreverence – The Curious Case of Mark Driscoll

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Guest: Cathy Mickels

Being “relevant” to your audience is the big buzzword in Evangelical and Emergent churches today.  Whether it’s dressing down to look like “one of them” or playing “edgy” music or using Hollywood movies as sermon examples or preaching “30 days of sex with your spouse”, being relevant and “contextualizing” your message is seen to be as important as sound doctine (if that’s important anymore).

One of the more curious examples of this rush towards relevance is Mark Driscoll, popular author and preaching pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle that attracts 7500 attendees to seven church locations each week and who also has an enormous following world-wide.  Why Driscoll is a “curious case” is that he describes himself as “Emerging Reformed” which I would define as sort of merging Reformation theology with urban culturalism.  So what’s the big deal?

Well, you can read for yourself what author Cathy Mickels from Seattle reports in a memo this week highlighting concerns about Driscoll’s so-called relevant ministry and the association well-known church leaders like John Piper, Erwin Lutzer, Alistair Begg, and others have with him as part of “The Gospel Coalition“.  You can also click on the links below to YouTube videos of Mark Driscoll (viewer warning advised).

When is “the line” crossed between relevance and irreverence?  How are the younger generation and the unchurched to be reached without someone and some message they can relate to?  You won’t want to miss Hour 1 of The Christian Worldview this Saturday.

Follow-up radio program on March 28, 2009:  The Pornification of the Pulpit. Guest: Phil Johnson

MEMO BY CATHY MICKELS:
Mark Driscoll: Is He Qualified To Lead?

• Mark Driscoll on “Biblical Oral Sex” (YouTube)
• Driscoll on “Masturbation as Birth Control” (YouTube)
• Who Would Jesus Smack Down? (NYT)
• Driscoll with D.L. Hughley on CNN (CNN video)
• Ed Young Sex Challenge (AP Video)

“Sound Doctrine, Sound Words” by Phil Johnson, Shepherds’ Conference 2009
http://gracelifepulpit.media.s3.amazonaws.com/SC-2009-03-06-PJ.mp3

Mark Driscoll: Is He Qualified To Lead?

Guest Blogger: Cathy Mickels lives in Seattle and is the co-author of Spiritual Junk Food: The Dumbing Down of Christian Youth

Summary and Introduction

This memo is written to Christian leaders detailing my concerns regarding the ministry of Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. His church has grown to 6,000 members in 11 years and is also described as one of the fastest growing, innovative churches in America.

Because this ministry is characterized by so many examples of the trivialization of Scripture, crudeness, foolish talk and vulgarity it will be a challenge to keep my correspondence as brief as possible.

Research leads me to concur with Pastor John MacArthur, who has also said, “I have a great concern about him. [Mark Driscoll.]”

Note: The Christian Worldview radio programs on this topic

• When Relevance Becomes Irreverence: The Curious Case of Mark Driscoll. Guest: Cathy Mickels
• The Pornification of the Pulpit. Guest: Phil Johnson, Grace to You

In fact, in a radio interview with Todd Friel on the April 7, 2008, edition of Way of the Master, referring to Mark Driscoll’s book, Confessions of a Reformission Rev, Pastor MacArthur said, “…there are statements in that book that are so sexually explicit and unnecessary and purely gratuitous humor at the basest kind of level; I saw a video from a service in the church in January in which comments were made from his pulpit, which were then put…. on the website, which again, were sexually explicit and gratuitous and unnecessary Read more

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