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The Lost Tomb Of Jesus?

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Has Jesus’ tomb been found? If you’ve been following the news, in the last week of February filmmaker James Cameron and director Simcha Jacobovici have announced that they have found the bones of Jesus. Their documentary will air on the Discovery Channel on March 4. Jacobovici has also authored a book entitled “The Jesus Family Tomb: The Discovery, the Investigation, and the Evidence That Could Change History.” What are we to make of this?

If the bones of Jesus have been found, it would mean that the resurrection of Jesus was not true. The Bible teaches that Jesus was resurrected from the dead and ascended into heaven, which leaves no room for a body. The cross and the resurrection are the central tenets of the Christian faith. Paul writes in NIV 1 Corinthians 15:17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. So, this book and documentary are a frontal attack on the basis of Christianity. Jacobovici makes this bizarre statement, “some believers are going to say, well, this challenges the resurrection. I don’t know why, if Jesus rose from one tomb, he couldn’t have risen from the other tomb.” Not much logic here. Multiple resurrections? If Jesus was resurrected, there would be no bones or tomb at all.

Let’s look at the facts. The tomb is not new, it was discovered in 1980 by contruction workers digging in Jerusalem. Inside the tomb were ten limestone ossuaries. A prominent Israeli archaelogist, Professor Amos Kloner, who examined them at the time did not see any special signficance in them. Now, all of a sudden, 27 years later, much ado is being made over these ossuaries. What is the evidence?

The main evidence consists of the names written on the ossuaries. Some of the names are Judah, son of Jesus, Jesus, son of Joseph, Mariamene (Mary Magdalene) and Maria. These were all very common names at the time. The name Jesus appears in 98 other known tombs and on 21 other known ossuaries. So called statistical analysis is purported to indicate that the random probability of this particular association of names would be low. This is not evidence, it is simply junk science. Joe Zias, who was the curator for anthropology and archeology at the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem says, “Projects like these make a mockery of the archeological profession.”

To introduce a high-tech CSI element, the authors did DNA testing. What did they test? Well, that’s not clear at all, as the bones contained in the ossuaries were buried immediately after they were found. So they scraped something out of the boxes and they found that the DNA from the Jesus box and from the Mariamene box were not related. What does that prove? Well, if you have read the fictional novel, The DaVinci Code, you would know. It supposedly supports the preposterous claim that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and had a child. DNA testing in this case is completely meaningless as we don’t even have the bones anymore. In any tomb, one would expect a high probability that that the DNA of a husband and wife would not be related. More junk science.

As opposed to this junk science, what do we have to disprove it. We have multiple ancient texts written by eye witnesses that date to within a few years of the actual events. In these ancient texts, translated for us in the New Testament, we have evidence that Jesus Christ did indeed rise from the dead. No body was ever produced. If Jesus’ body was available, the enemies of Christianity would have produced it and that would have been the end of Christianity. However, no one could find Jesus’ body, because it didn’t exist.

For any thinking person, the evidence against the lost tomb of Jesus is overwhelming. The evidence for the resurrection of Jesus is solid. Use the controversy to talk about Jesus to your friends.

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A Biblical Perspective On The Stem Cell Debate

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Today, I’m going to talk about “A Biblical Perspective on the Stem Cell Debate.” This issue has been around for a while, but has come to Missouri in the form of a ballot initiative called Missouri Amendment 2 : The Stem Cell Initiative. If you’ve been following the news or just the World Series, you’ve heard from actors, politicians and doctors giving you their 30-second take on the issue. It’s a controversial issue and confusing for many people, in fact I really didn’t understand what was at stake until I attended a pastor’s meeting several months ago. At that meeting a Christian PhD scientist explained what Amendment 2 was all about from a biblical perspective.

I began to study the issues in more depth. For those who don’t know my background, besides my theological degree, I also have a PhD in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley and so have the background to understand the issues. Several weeks ago I wrote a blog article on the issue entitled “Missouri Amendment 2 and the Stem Cell Debate – A Biblical Perspective.” To date over 5000 people have read the blog, spending on average 5 minutes on the page. People can comment on the blog and there were so many comments that I could only publish some of them, but I will refer to some comments this morning.

Note that my title this morning is called “A Biblical Perspective.” Here at Life Church, we believe that the Bible is to be our authority on the decisions we make in life. NIV Psalm 119:105 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path. Not everyone agrees, here is part of a comment to my blog, misspellings included. “You are an idiot. You must realize that religeon can never be part of politics and it should never be. You, like so many like you, take liberties with your alledged interpretation of the bible, a fictional book at best.” This person has a religion, it’s just not based on the Bible or on God’s truth Here’s another comment from another person, “Reading 2000 year old scripture and applying it to today’s problems with health is stupid.” Is applying the Bible to today’s moral issues involving life and death stupid? I don’t think so. If we don’t use the Bible as our standard, then there is no standard.

NIV Romans 8:7 The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. As a believer, I submit my life to God’s Word. As a church, we submit our lives to God’s Word. As you will see this morning, the issues involved in this debate, although seemingly complex at first, are actually quite simple to understand. The Biblical teaching in this area is also very clear for those who take it seriously. There is no disagreement among evangelical Bible-believing denominations, churches and ministries on this issue. Why should Life Church get involved in the debate at all?

To hear more about this topic, listen to my November 5, 2006 message entitled A Biblical Perspective On The Stem Cell Debate

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Expand Your Vision To The World

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What is vision? Vision is eyesight, but today I want to talk about something more than mere eyesight. Another definition of vision in the dictionary is “a mental image of the imagination.” For some people, vision in life is limited essentially by what they can see with their eyes, they have a small vision. God wants you to have a large vision, a vision in your imagination painted by God’s spirit NAS Proverbs 29:18 Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained. A vision from God focuses your life on what’s important. People who have no vision from God simply do what they want, they are self-centered, they are unrestrained, their lives are chaotic, they never accomplish anything of significance in God’s eyes. God doesn’t want you to live life like that, consumed with just working, paying your bills, taking care of yourself, He has much bigger plans for you.

Today, my message is entitled “Expand Your Vision To The World.” I’m going to talk about how you can take your vision off of yourself and expand it to God’s vision for your life. God wants you to make an impact on your world that is far bigger than your life and the life of your immediate family. NCV Mark 16:15 Jesus said to his followers, “Go everywhere in the world, and tell the Good News to everyone.” Are you a follower of Jesus Christ? Then Jesus’ command applies to you. God’s vision for your life is for you to go and tell the Good News to everyone you meet. That’s your mission in life, that’s a large vision that God has for you to reach out to make a difference.

What will be the final result of Jesus’ followers carrying out God’s vision? NLT Rev. 7:9 After this I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb. One day, there will be a vast crowd of believers, from every nation, every people-group on this earth, worshipping God. God wants you and me to have a part in making it happen. God wants you to have a vision to reach many people for Jesus, both here in St Louis and around the world. Your life is meant to affect history and eternity.

Last week, I spoke about talking to other people about Jesus and I gave you some important tools in order to do that. However, I know that nothing will happen as long as we have a small vision, as long as our vision for next week is centered on ourselves. Change in life only happens as we allow God to change our thinking and our vision. So, let’s look at the question, “How can you expand your vision to the world?”

To hear more about this topic, listen to my October 29, 2006 message entitled Expand Your Vision To The World

Missouri Amendment 2 and The Stem Cell Debate – A Biblical Perspective

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Missouri Amendment 2, the Stem Cell Initiative, will be on the ballot this coming November 7. The Missouri Coalition For Lifesaving Cures is supporting Amendment 2 with a record breaking contribution of $28 million from a billionaire Kansas City couple, Jim and Virginia Stowers. The motive of the Stowerses, according to their lawyer, is that “They want that science to progress without restriction to cure disease.” Supporters of the amendment claim that passage will ensure your family’s access to federally-approved cures available to other Americans and will ban human cloning. The ballot language on Amendment 2, as well as the propaganda put out by Missouri Coalition For Lifesaving Cures, is full of lies intended to mislead Missouri voters. Many pro-life Christians have been misled as well, as the whole story is difficult to sort out.

As a pastor of a Missouri church with a Ph.D. in the field of science, it is my responsibility to expose the error in this Stem Cell Initiative and show you why it is the duty of every Bible-believing believer to vote “NO” on Amendment 2. NIV Ephesians 5:11 Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. The fact that various ministers from non-Bible believing churches support the initiative, shows only that these people cannot be trusted to either understand or explain the truth.

Missourians by an overwhelming margin (8 out of 9) oppose human cloning, as do most Christian religious denominations. The language of the Stem Cell Amendment on your November ballot will read that the amendment will “ban human cloning or attempted cloning.” This is a lie and it is inexcusable that this language has been allowed on the ballot. The fine print of the amendment, which will not appear on your ballot, states in Section 6.2 ““Clone or attempt to clone a human being” means to implant in a uterus or attempt to implant in a uterus …” Therefore, Amendment 2 redefines human cloning as implanting a cloned human embryo in the womb and creates an unlimited right to clone and destroy non-implanted human embryos for the purpose of harvesting embryonic stem cells.

A flyer sent out to Missouri homes from the Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures states “And, making stem cells in a lab dish is not the same thing as cloning a human being.” This statement is very misleading and suggests that those who are opposed to human cloning should not be opposed to producing embryonic stem cells. The truth is that it is necessary to clone a human being in order to create the embryonic stem cells. So, those who are rightly opposed to human cloning, should also be opposed to created embryonic stem cells and should vote “NO” on Amendment 2.

Not only, does Amendment 2 protect, rather than ban human cloning, it also protects the destruction of human embryos by amending the Missouri constitution. The Bible teaches that life begins at conception and that human life must be protected at all stages of development. NIV Psalm 139:13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. Thus, the destruction of cloned human embryos to produce embryonic stem cells is immoral and must be opposed.

You might ask, but what about the lifesaving cures? Whether lifesaving cures can be made from embryonic stem cells is unknown, as none currently exist. There are many therapies being researched from adult stem cells, which have no ethical concerns. However, lifesaving cures, even if possible, must not be created by destroying other human life.

For more information about the issues of stem cell research, read an interview or watch a video interview with Dr. Christina Powell. Read a column by Chicago Sun-Times columnist Bob Novak on how misleading Amendment 2 is. More information about the issues surrounding Missouri Amendment 2 can be found at the website of Missourians Against Human Cloning. Email this blog post to your friends and encourage them to vote “NO” on Amendment 2.

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Laughing At The Da Vinci Code

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This weekend the Da Vinci Code movie was released. It is based on the best-selling book by author Dan Brown which was first published in 2003. The book has sold over 40 million copies and will probably end up as the best-selling novel of all time.

So why is the book so popular? Why am I talking about it in a Sunday morning message? What’s it all about? The novel is so popular because it is not just a spell-binding novel, it presents itself as much more than fiction. The first word that one encounters in the book is the word “FACT”. Later on author Brown writes, “All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.” The reason I’m talking about it on Sunday morning is that the theories spoken by the most educated characters in the novel call into question the basic elements of the Christian faith and a lot of people are taking these theories seriously.

NIV Colossians 2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. I don’t want you taken captive or your faith shaken by the philosophy behind the Da Vinci Code. I also want each of us to be able to discuss these issues intelligently with others who may find the arguments compelling.

What is the book all about? Sorry if you haven’t read it yet or seen the film but here it is in a nutshell, blockbuster secret included. The story begins with the murder of the curator of the French Louvre Art Museum. The curator was also the head of a secret Catholic society called the Priory of Sion. The Priory of Sion guards a secret that if made public would destroy Christianity. Before he died, the curator tries to leave clues to pass on this secret to his granddaughter Sophie and Harvard professor Robert Langdon.

The novel is about Langdon’s search to discover the secret, which is the location and identity of the Holy Grail. The Holy Grail is not the cup used by Christ at the Last Supper but, and here is the blockbuster secret, The Holy Grail is Mary Magadalene. She supposedly was the wife of Jesus and bore him a child. The Priory of Sion is still guarding this secret and Jesus’ bloodline continues to this day.

How should we as believers respond to such a tale? A lot of Christians are getting all bent out of shape over it, but I just laughed. What a bizarre story. God laughs too. He laughs at every attempt of someone to cast aside His truth. NIV Psalm 2:1-4 Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the LORD and against his Anointed One. “Let us break their chains,” they say, “and throw off their fetters.” The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them.

Dan Brown takes his “novel” very seriously and wants to influence the world to his way of thinking. Don’t think just because a movie or book is fiction that the author doesn’t have an agenda. There is a diabolical agenda behind The Da Vinci Code. However, first of all today we just need to laugh at the big secret and at all the strange fictions that the book portrays as fact.

Now let’s go into a little more detail about some of the fictions presented in the book and movie that challenge our Christian beliefs. We’ll look at the facts from the Bible and church history so that you can be informed and help others find the truth.

To hear more about this topic, listen to my May 21, 2006 message entitled Laughing At The Da Vinci Code

God And The Tsunami

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In the past week, we have been overwhelmed with pictures and videos of the destruction and loss of life that has occurred as a result of the earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean. Some people blame God for what has happened. Others say that God had nothing to do with it, it was just random chance. Both opinions are wrong. The Bible clearly teaches that nothing happens by chance. NLT Proverbs 16:33 We may throw the dice, but the LORD determines how they fall. Nothing happens outside of God’s control, even natural disasters. Chance is simply a word that humans use for something for which they cannot determine cause and effect.

However, to say that nothing happens outside of God’s control, does not mean that God caused the death and destruction. Death and destruction are a result of Satan’s activity and sin in a fallen world. Death and destruction entered our world as a result of Adam’s original sin and are here to stay until the end of history. Yet, God in His awesome power, is able to use events such as these to further His purposes in the world.

Since God is in control of everything, God is in control of history. History is not a random set of events leading nowhere. History is linear, it had a beginning and it has an ending at the return of Jesus Christ to this planet. What is God doing in history? First, let’s look at one line of the Lord’s prayer. NIV Matthew 6:10 Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. History is about God’s kingdom coming to earth, it is about His will being done on earth as it is in heaven. The end of history awaits more people becoming followers of Jesus Christ, that is Christians. NLT 2 Peter 3:9 The Lord isn’t really being slow about His promise to return, as some people think. No, He is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to perish, so He is giving more time for everyone to repent.

So now that we understand in the broadest sense what is going on in history, let’s look at how God may be using the tsunami and what our response should be. The biggest barrier to the advance of Christianity around the world is the religion of Islam, with 1 billion adherents. Islam is violently opposed to Christianity in every state in which it has come to power. Conversion to Christianity is often grounds for capital punishment. Christians and missionaries are heavily persecuted. Islamic lands are almost untouched by the Christian message. God’s purposes in history will not let this situation stand and so we are beginning to see tremendous upheaval in these lands to open them up to Christianity.

Afghanistan was 99% Muslim. Now after the war, it is democratic and more open to Christian influence than ever before. Iraq was 95% Muslim and now despite the ongoing violence has a far greater Christian presence than ever before. I am not giving an opinion on whether these wars were just or not, I am simply saying that God is using them to open up closed Islamic lands to Christianity. Indonesia, the country most affected by the tsunami is the largest Muslim country in the world (87%). It has a record of increasing persecution of Christians. Now Indonesia is receiving aid from many Christian organizations around the world. Sri Lanka (70% Buddhist) and India (82% Hindu) were also impacted by the tsunami. God is and will be using these tragic events, not to punish Muslims, but to open their lands to the good news of Jesus Christ.

What should the response of Christians be to these disasters? The Word of God is clear. NLT Isaiah 58:10 Feed the hungry and help those in trouble. Then your light will shine out from the darkness, and the darkness around you will be as bright as day. God wants believers to extend a helping hand to those who are in deep distress, to show the love of Jesus to them in every possible way. If you are a believer, I encourage you to support Christian aid agencies, such as AG Relief, that can supply both physical and spiritual help. Pray that these terrible events will open up people’s eyes to the only one who can ensure their eternity, Jesus Christ.

We look forward to the end of history. One day, there will be no more pain, no more tears, no more death. But until that day, we work with God, extending His kingdom to the hungry and those in trouble, wherever they may be.

NIV Matthew 28:18-20 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

 

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