Monty Python's a hoot! I taught 'em everything I know.

I vote for option two. Was that, like, an option on a telephone tree?

Come here, Mr. Watson, I want to create the earth!

Yeah, this is an exact mirror of an earlier thread.

Hey, Yoda was on the TV last night. I think it was something like the attack of the clones or something. It had Luke Skywalker (I think it was Luke) and somebody kissing (Princess Leia?) at the end. I caught about the last 10 mins or so whilst I was channel surfing.

I still say the first Star Wars was the best. And in this one, like the first, the music was fantastic. John Williams rocks! Woo hoo!

And may the farce be with you.

The Bible says married people shouldn't withold sex from each other without a mutual agreement. God knows how important sexul relations are. That's why he formed the marriage bond. Sex is meant to enhance that, used in the confines of marriage. Outside that, it can be a destructive force. Anything can be, used in a way God didn't intend it to be. See the instruction manual for details.

And if you type a colon like so : and then the word smile and then another colon without any spaces between the whole thing, you'll get a smiley on your page.

Try it. It's fun!

But who ever heard of sex and smiling going together anyway.

Ahm rahtcheer!

People who are a mess need not feel out of place in a church. After all, we have a mess-iah.

You see, stick around and you'll see how messed up the rest of us are. Messed up or not, the Lord can meet your needs.

Did you hear about the guy who went up to the front every night praying "Fill me Lord Jesus?"

One night someone yelled, "Don't do it, Lord! He's full of holes!"

Well. The rest of us can be, too. (See mess, above, for details).

I know the sound of one hand clapping. It's a song, believe it or not.

Please, hold the applause.

Yeah. That could be a problem. Basically, the Law condemned man instead of saving them. And before the law, man didn't have rules to go by at all, for the most part. Like us, they were saved by a persoaal relationship with the Lord. Now, we have Jesus and the holy spirit to help us. Old things have passed away and all things have become new.

I don't know entirely why God sent his son, but I do know that he sent him and that I have faith in him and in what he can do and I'm glad that he sent him!

Whether we have the law, no law or Jesus, God has always made provision for men to meet him by faith. He had a walk with Adam, Isaac, Abraham, Noah and all the rest of them.

Maybe you need to use a different towel!

My prayers are with him. It's good to be prepared for anything by faith. My granddaughter entered the hospital late last month and her daughters were able to share the Gospel with her and she came to the Lord through faith, thank God.

I've been reading more and more about people in the hospital. They got saved through reading Gideon-placed scriptures in their hospital rooms. There's usually one in every bedside table with helps in the front and a plan of salvation in the back. The kids stood around their semi-conscious mother and read Psalms to her just about all night until she came to and then they shared the Gospel with her in the morning before she passed away.

Moreover, some people who have a conversation about the Gospel in the hospital are heard by others in the room and they ask to come to the Lord as well, the room mate or the room mate's family, even.

God has a purpose for what is happening. I testify to you that our prayers are called for and that they are effective. May God listen and hear us from heaven above.

Good question. My understanding of things is often far from perfect, but I'll try to answer as best as I know how.

In the Old Testament, man was still saved by faith, but the faith was augmented by sacrifice. There were blood sacrifices involved. In Moses' time it was a passover lamb (Jesus became our passover for us). Remember, the Israelites had to put the blood of the passover Lamb on their door posts so the Angel wouldn't slay their firstborn.

Later, animal sacrifice was required for the Israelites to cover their sins. It wasn't just sacrifice, but sacrifice combined with faith and obedience to God's law that got them to the right relationship with the Lord and their salvation.

Now years went by. The Israelites strayed from the Lord again and again. The covenant of I will be your Lord and you will be my people just was not working. God had to come up with a better way, a more perfect way, a way which was foreshadowed again and again throughout the Old Testament.

Instead of the blood of imperfect bulls and goats to cover our sins, now we had the blood of Jesus Christ. We come to Jesus by faith, admit publicly we now know he is the Son of God and God has raised him from the dead. We admit we are sinners and we need his forgiveness and his blood to cover our sins and we turn to his way of life in repentence. It is a new covenant between man and God, a new agreement. As Romans 10:9 says, God showed his love to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. It is a great and a wonderful thing.

Further, John 1:11-12 says "He came to his own and his own received him not, but as many as received him, to them gave he power to become sons of God, even to those who believed in his name."

And John 5:24 gives us assurance of salvatino once we come to God in repentance and faith: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth in my word, and believes in Him who sent me hath everlasting life and will not come into condemnation but has passed from death into life."

Man, what a fantastic promise! Those who know the reality of sin and the consequences can turn to the provision of God for salvation and can have assurance that they have eternal life and have passed from death to life.

In my life, that gives me a great deal of joy. That is a fantastic thing, as far as I'm concerned. The greatest thing in all of life, whether it's explained with the scriptures or without.

We can be very glad that God made provision for us in the Old Testament and in the New. I am awestruck by his provision for us.

Spinoza's cool. He got a lot of space in the philosophy books, and had a cool name, too. Must've been a stage name or somethin.

I heard that John Lennon song sung in a church a while back. We did a contemporary worship service in a Presbyterian Church (lst Presbyterian, Asbury Park NJ, now the church on the hill) I uess in about 1974 or so. A cousin of mine played keyboards as us youth sung the song for the congregation. Kind of ironic, wasn't it?

I could imagine that someone in the back could've sat there and called out "here pagan, pagan pagan. Here pagan!"

Isaiah 55 is a stunning chapter of the Bible. There's a lot of famous verses in this chapter and it's just earth shaking.

One thing out of it is particularly striking to me at this time. It's Iaiah 55:11: "So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth, it shall not return to me void. It shall accomplish what I please and it shall propser in that for which I have sent it."

What a striking statement. What power that has in it. I have read over and over lately how a small book of scripture or a Bible picked up by someone can lead someone toward knowledge of God, faith and repentance.

God's word shall not return to him void. I hope you can experence that first hand and that you can come to an understanding and a realization of the power of the Lord's word. It is a real blessing that we have that available in this day and age.

Geo.

LexMS I disagree with the first part of your post but agree with the last. I think the Bible IS the word of God. The Holy Spirit influenced men to write it and those words have been around for 2000 years and longer. I know of no other book in history that has been around so long and in so many copies.

We are all entitled to our own beliefs, of course, but I believe the Bible is the true and inspired word of God, infallible and eternal. We might not always exist, but the word of God still will. It will not return to God void and it will accomplish what God pleases and it will prosper in the purpose for which he sent it.

I think that a book written by mere men without true and correct imspiration would not inspire me as much as the Bible does.

JMO, of course.

GS

50 ROCKS baby!

I wasn't offended by Shinn's question here. I'm never offended by others' opinions on Jesus, God and religion. I'm glad people are thinking about it, to tell you the truth.

Now other people may not believe the same way I do, and I'm not offended by that, either. I can handle that.

I do have my own thoughts about things and I'm glad to share them. I've been thinking along Shinn's lines a lot lately anyway. How DO we explain our faith? The Bible says we're supposed to be able to explain our faith (1 Peter 3:15 says: "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.")

That said, I've been studying how to explain the Gospel, the Good News of God, to people. Basically, there's a five-fold method, very simple. It covers:

1. The fact of sin's existence and its definition (disobedience of God's laws) (Jn 3:3, James 2:10)

2. The penalty of sin (It causes our physical death and spiritual death, separation from Christ and God). (Rom 5:12, Galations 2:10)

3. God's provision for our sin (basically, that's why he sent his son here: to be a provision to cover our sins). (Rom 5:9. 1 Peter 1:4)

4. How to accept God's provision and salvation (confession of faith, etc). (Romans 10:9, John 1:11-12)

and 5. Assurance of salvation. (Jn 5:24 and 1 Jn 5:13)

If we can blunder our way through those five elements, we can expain the gospel to others. Now, it works better with scripture because there is great power in it. Isaiah 55:11 says "My word will not return to me void. It will accomplish what I please and it shall prosper in the thing for which I send it." But any way we share the Gospel, even clumsily, is good. God will bless our efforts. It's said that most people need to hear the Gospel message 7.6 times before they come to the Lord and personal evangelism works the best in spreading the Gospel.

Now, I can explain those verses I mentioned in plain english to you. One method of sharing the gospel is to have someone read those verses and say what they mean to them. It's the Hmmmmm factor.

At any rate, that's my "take" on it currently.

Cool beans. Nothing wrong with the path I'm on. The Lord'll keep me straight. I find a lot of people who lack senses of humor. They tell me "That's not funny!" I say, "well, it's just because you lack a sense of humor!" And they really scowl about that. Hmmmmmmm.?! I wonder why.

If I can misperceive something, chances are, I will. That's why God's got his hands so full with me!

Yes. I definitely believe we were created for God's purposes. Everything was created for his purposes and his plan. We live for God's glory through worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry to other Christians and a minsion to all people. Life is a temporary assignment, a trial, and a trust.