Punishment or Rehabilitation - What should our future prisons do?

 Please read the following article.

 New idea for prison design seeks to rehabilitate, rather than punish - Article

My thoughts on this:

 We don't need rehabilitation, we need regeneration, which only comes through the Gospel. Man  may be able to change some outward behaviors, but only God can change someone's heart and give them a new nature in Christ Jesus. Besides if we don't have real punishment for crime -that is,  justice- then we are just slapping victims in the face, and we are saying that we have a better way than God.

Remember, God punishes sin! He put his Son on the cross for our sin! He does not allow sin to go unpunished, and neither should we allow crime to go unpunished.

 But what about mercy? Isn't God merciful?   God has given us mercy we do not deserve! But this does not mean that sin is not dealt with in God's justice!

 Even earthly justice is from God, as it says in Romans:

"Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing." (Romans 13:1-6, ESV)

So, the governing authorities have authority to do what? - Punish!   "He... carries out Gods wrath on the wrongdoer"!(from Verse 4, above)

 Rightful, just punishment by governing authorities is from God. It is to be a "terror" (deterrent) to those who do wrong. If we do not have real, lawful punishment, by governing authorities, then we are not doing God's will as a society. Also, I think there would be no proper respect for authority in general as people may tend to do whatever they want then, without fear.

 We should reject the notion of prisons for rehabilitation, and keep them for punishment. Lets not make them like hotels.

 Spiraling Prison populations, is the problem to be solved in the article.  But is it the result of a wrong approach to prisons?  No.  It  is the result of spiraling crime caused by sin and the degradation of real justice in our society as we seek to eliminate God and His Laws from our public and private life. Its not because we've somehow been using a "wrong approach" to prisons (ie. punishment) which leaves us with "67% recidivism".

 Actually the Spiraling Prison population is not the problem, but our failure to properly deal with crime to begin with. We don't begin with God's Law anymore. We don't call sin what it is anymore. We have to be politically correct.

 As far as the programs to get people prepared to enter society, aren't we supposed to be doing that when they are children – so that maybe they won't become criminals later on? Any reasonable person can see that. 

Where are the parents? Why are kids sitting down and being baby-sat by violent video games? And then why they are expected to be prepared to go out into society with even a hint of a proper mind-set?  Is anyone thinking?

 And public schools? - breeding grounds for immoral, godless ideas and the promotion of the idea that we are just animals that evolved with no purpose from other, lower, animals! Ideas have consequences! (Public schools are part of the problem - one of the reasons we end up with so many criminals).

The article mentions promoting “a sense of dignity and empowerment which can reduce their chances of re-offending”.  So, we want to teach them this AFTER they commit a crime?

 Anyone taught Biblical Truth and values from childbirth is likely to have that sense of God-given dignity as they understand that we are made in His image! You DO NOT get get that sense of dignity from thinking that we are just evolved animals! This should be taught to them since childbirth! So perhaps, God willing, instead of “re-offending”, they won't offend the first time (with reference to committing a crime).

But alas, due to our sin nature, even our best efforts will not fully curtail sinful behavior or crime. God deals with sin. Repent and believe the Gospel.  That is the solution.

 Punishment for crime in society is part of God's plan, and should not be modified or done away with!

Burning Korans

This is my opinion on the burning of Korans on Sept 11, 2010: It should NOT be done!

I believe the Koran is NOT God's Holy Word, as the Bible is. However, burning it proves nothing. Burning it gives some form of acknowledgement that it is a 'holy' book. I do not acknowledge it as a holy book. The Bible is the only Holy Book. Calling another book "holy" is blasphemy.

What is the point of burning it? Just to anger Muslims? Or to prove that we're 'better'? (We are ALL sinners) Burning Korans is a self-righteous act.

Burning Korans does not bring anyone to Christ; preaching the Gospel does. We must preach the truth in love.

Burning Korans will not only bring greater retaliation on our troops in the Middle East, but also more harm to Christians around the world in predominantly Muslim Countries, where Christians are already persecuted.

Christians are persecuted by Muslims in many nations, such as Indonesia, etc. However, we should not be afraid to speak out against the false teachings of Islam.

There is a way to speak the truth without malice or hatred. The goal is not to harm or even to dis-respect, but to bring people to Christ as their only hope of salvation.

Blasphemous E-mail Jokes

I think we all get these jokes from time to time in e-mails from well-meaning friends, that are actually blasphemous. You know the kind - cutesy, supposedly "harmless fun" type jokes about the Bible or Jesus or Christianity in general.

I recently received one from a friend, and felt I had to say something about it to him. I'm not sure I actually want to share it here, but I feel it might be beneficial to do so, so you can see for yourself how bad it is, and jokes that are like it.

I'll also include a portion of what I wrote to my friend without his name.

Here's the story/joke that's spreading around, even by some Christians who may not know better:

"A child was asked to write a book report on the entire Bible.
This is amazing and brought tears of laughter to my eyes.
I wonder how often we take for granted that children understand what we are teaching???
Through the eyes of a child:
The Children's Bible in a Nutshell
In the beginning, which occurred near the start, there was nothing but God, darkness, and some gas. The Bible says, 'The Lord thy God is one, but I think He must be a lot older than that.
Anyway, God said, 'Give me a light!' and someone did.
Then God made the world.
He split the Adam and made Eve. Adam and Eve were naked, but they weren't embarrassed because mirrors hadn't been invented yet.
Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating one bad apple, so they were driven from the Garden of Eden......Not sure what they were driven in though, because they didn't have cars.
Adam and Eve had a son, Cain, who hated his brother as long as he was Abel.
Pretty soon all of the early people died off, except for Methuselah, who lived to be like a million or something.
One of the next important people was Noah, who was a good guy, but one of his kids was kind of a Ham. Noah built a large boat and put his family and some animals on it. He asked some other peop le to join him, but they said they would have to take a rain check.
After Noah came Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob was more famous than his brother, Esau, because Esau sold Jacob his birthmark in exchange for some pot roast. Jacob had a son named Joseph who wore a really loud sports coat.
Another important Bible guy is Moses, whose real name was Charlton Heston. Moses led the Israel Lights out of Egypt and away from the evil Pharaoh after God sent ten plagues on Pharaoh's people. These plagues included frogs, mice, lice, bowels, and no cable.

God fed the Israel Lights every day with manicotti. Then he gave them His Top Ten Commandments. These include: don't lie, cheat, smoke, dance, or covet yourneighbor's stuff.
Oh, yeah, I just thought of one more: Humor thy father and thy mother.
One of Moses' best helpers was Joshua who was the first Bible guy to use spies. Joshua fought the battle of Geritol and the fence fell over on the town.
After Joshua came David. He got to be king by killing a giant with a slingshot. He had a son named Solomon who had about 300 wives and 500 porcupines. My teacher says he was wise, b ut that doesn't sound very wise to me.
After Solomon there were a bunch of major league prophets. One of these was Jonah, who was swallowed by a big whale and then barfed up on the shore.
There were also some minor league prophets, but I guess we don't have to worry about them.
After the Old Testament came the New Testament. Jesus is the star of The New. He was born in Bethlehem in a barn. (I wish I had been born in a barn too, because my mom is always saying to me, 'Close the door! Were you born in a barn?' It would be nice to say, 'As a matter of fact, I was.')
During His life, Jesus had many arguments with sinners like the Pharisees and the Democrats.
Jesus also had twelve opossums.
The worst one was Judas Asparagus. Judas was so evil that they named a terrible vegetable after him.
Jesus was a great man. He healed many leopards and even preached to some Germans on the Mount.
But the Democrats and all those guys put Jesus on trial before Pontius the Pilot. Pilot didn't stick up for Jesus. He just washed his hands instead.
Anyways, Jesus died for our sins, then came back to life again. He went up to Heaven but will be back at the end of the Aluminum.. His return is foretold in the book of Revolution.
-------You must share this delightful story! --------"

If you are a Christian, I hope you can see the blasphemy here.

Its sad to say that what [was] sent [to] me here, is actually the way that many people today really see the Bible. But, instead of being funny, its a testimony to how weak the teaching is in many churches today. I hope the "child", (although the writer didn't seem like one, but rather a scoffing, mocker of Christianity), will grow up in serious study of God's Word, as should we all. As this kind of joke is spread around the internet, it will cause many to stumble and not take God's Word seriously. We already see how people scoff at, and mock Christianity. We do not need to add to that by spreading these kinds of jokes.

The true Word of God is what man will be judged by, according to Jesus.
John 12:48
"He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him—the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day."

And also, Jesus said, in Matthew 24:36, "But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgement."

Lets not speak (or write) idly about God's Word, but hold it up in reverence! Better to do away with Bible jokes, and be serious about it [instead].

The Lord has been convicting me of my sins of not taking His Word seriously. When we think or speak lightly of His Word, we think or speak lightly of Him. And He doesn't take that lightly!

I'm not saying this in anger, so please don't take it that way. May the Lord work in [all] our hearts to bring us to repent of our known sins, and bring us to a greater love and reverence for Him!

If you receive a joke or story like the one above, please delete it and do not spread it. If you, as a Christian are forwarding and spreading these kinds of jokes and stories, then I believe you are sinning, and causing harm to the body of Christ. So please, whenever you receive one, delete it and even write back to the sender telling them not to send those kinds of things to you.

Promote reverence for the Word of God, not jokes!

Chris

The Book

I was just thinking a little bit while watching a video on Answers in Genesis. I have come across people who discredit Christianity by claiming that the Bible is just some old book. They think its full of fairy tales, like the Flood of Noah, and such. They won't trust this Book! They believe we shouldn't trust it either.

But why do so many people trust so many other books. I grew up trusting that encyclopedias were true and I always trusted them to be accurate, and never doubted. Why? Because I was always taught that the information in them was trustworthy. Teachers, my parents , and others gave me confidence in those books, all throughout my school years.

I used to (and still do) like dinosaurs. I believed every "science" book that taught how dinosaurs evolved and how man evolved too. No one EVER told me to question those books.

I was taught that fiction was make-believe. ok, fine. I was taught that science books were true and so were text-books, etc. So I never doubted them. But when it came to the Bible, there was always sort of a big, mysterious question mark about it. I wasn't really taught that it was a FACTUAL HISTORY book, even though growing up Catholic. I was not told that it was fiction either, but I sort of believed that the stories of the Bible (like the Flood, and the Parting of the Red Sea, etc) were things that happened in some mystical time and place far away and long ago. The Bible was a good book to live your life by, basically, but somehow, in my mind it never seemed to really be either fact or fiction. It was something to "believe", but yet it wasn't fact-based true reality, like "science".

It was never really impressed upon me that these were REAL EVENTS that actually happened to REAL PEOPLE, on this Earth, in REAL HISTORY!

Its really obvious to me now, as a Christian, how falsely indoctrinated and blinded people are. It's nothing new, of course. We are all blinded because of our sin nature. We all once loved the darkness and hated the light, until God in His own sovereign will saved us and in so doing, changed us (Christians), and enabled us to know and believe the truth. Only God can do that.

But, on top of our own sinful blinded nature, add the other things that are piling blindness on top of blindness to people. We are taught that evolution is true, all throughout our school years, and no-one tells us to question that, so we don't. And then when someone does question it, it seems like HERESY! "What? You mean you believe that book, the Bible? Science has disproven that!" And they laugh. These are unbelievers.

Sadly, many Christians agree with them! If they are believers at all, somehow they haven't been taught that the Bible is really a FACTUAL HISTORY book! Everything in there actually happened. It makes no sense to believe in fairy tales, but it makes great sense to believe in the truth. Not just philosophical 'truth', but actual historical fact. Why base our entire belief on a book unless it really IS TRUE?

Maybe the next time someone challenges me saying that the Bible is just a book made up by men, I think I'd like to ask them why they never questioned whether the encyclopedias were true or not. They were written by men too, after all. And Maybe I'd ask them, "Isn't it true that you believe what you believe because some 'scientists' said it was true? And you didn't question it? Why?Scientists are just fallible men and they make mistakes all the time. We see that in the fact that they continually revise their 'theories'." (And in the case of evolution, these 'theories' have been taught as 'fact', and shoved down all of our throats for many years.)

But the Bible is God's own revelation of Himself.

Of course, Only God can regenerate a person, not my words. Just a thought.

Chris

Is God a Man-Made Invention?

I run across people who refuse to believe that there is a God. To them, the Bible is just a man-made book of stories. They ask questions like "if you believe in Jesus, then do you believe in Santa Claus too"? It's all the same to them.

Well, I want to ask a question too.

Lets say, for the sake of argument, that the Bible is a made-up book of stories only. Lets say that man, to satisfy his need to answer the question of life and existence, etc, made up the Bible, and of course made up the God that we find written of in the Bible.

My question is this: Why would man ever make up a God like this?

What do I mean? Well, take a look at the way man is in his heart, his mind, his attitude, his desires, his will, his imagination etc. When man creates, he creates according to what's in his mind, his imagination, his will, and his desires, etc. Man tends to fantasize about things he wants for himself.

My point is, man fulfills his own need for religion with a god after man's own image and likeness, doesn't he? Man want's a god that will allow man to do what he wants, without any sort of punishment or accountability (I'm not talking here about people who know and believe the truth). Man wants a god that will fulfill man's desires, like a great genie, granting man's wishes. Does this make sense? Why wouldn't man want a god like that?

But what kind of god do we find in the Bible? Is it a god who does all that man wishes? No. Is it a god who allows man to do whatever he wants and its OK? No.

We find in the Bible a God who does not fit the natural desires of man at all. We find a God who does His own will and commands and requires man to follow His way, not man's way. This God punishes man for his evil. This God is infinitely Holy! Why would man ever create or dream up a god like the God of the Bible? He wouldn't! That's my point. This God goes against the nature of man, and places demands and requirements on man that natural man cannot and will not fulfill. This God tells man that man's natural desires are evil! This goes against the very sort of thing man would dream up if he were to create a god.

If man came up through evolution, and there was no God to tell him what holiness was or what sin was, etc, then how would man ever come up with such concepts? Nothing would be sin. Nothing would be wrong. Man would just live according to his desires of the moment, like animals. The concept of right and wrong shouldn't even come into the mind of man, as there would be nothing to base it on, and man, questioning existence, etc would most likely invent a god based on man's own likeness and nature.

If you were to invent a god to believe in and follow, would he be like the God of the Bible? Would he have the exact same attributes that this God has? Would your god give man commandments to obey like the ones we find in the Bible? What would your god be like?

I just don't see how there couldn't be a God, for one thing. But also, as I look at the God of the Bible, I realize (only by God's grace) that this kind of God would not be the invention of man, because He does not fit with what man, by [his sinful] nature, wants or desires. I conclude that this God is the real and true God (The only True and living God), who interacts with man, and He revealed Himself actually and truly to man, in history. We have this revelation of God today in the Bible.

The Bible is therefore true and must be obeyed, because God commands it. The Bible is not some man-made story book, but rather the very self-revelation of the very God who literally created all things, including man!

Evolution: "So Easy, A Caveman Can Do It."

Somehow, people find it so easy to believe in a theory of unguided, purely natural events which, over supposed billions of years caused man to come about from a single-cell organism which, prior to its own existence, didn't exist.

How can this be? Can anyone with any sense in their head, even if their not Christians, honestly look at the amazing complexity of the human body, and still believe that there was no Creator? How can it be that each and every cell in our body has a purpose, and each and every part of each and every cell has a purpose for the functioning of life, and yet it somehow came about by chance, random mutations?

Hmmm... As far as I'm concerned, it simply is not possible.

If believing in creation requires faith, then how about this "theory" called evolution? It's not actually proven, even though the claim is that it has been. We've been taught this idea since we were children in our public schools and we dare not question it.

I would like to invite my readers to a page which gives the other perspective: http://answersingenesis.org/creation/v22/i1/creation.asp

Please read this article and come back here and comment on it.

God Bless!

chinam

Repentance

What do we need most today in the Christian Church in America?

More so-called "converts" to walk the aisle in altar calls?
Larger million-dollar buildings to seat all the so-called "converts"?
More multi-million-dollar book sales by popular pastors?
More teaching that makes everyone feel good about themselves?

No, no, no, no!

There are so many things that could be listed above, which some people may give as answers to the question above. However, the answer would all be 'NO', in my view. Truth be told, I think what the Christian Church in America (all denominations and non-denominations included) needs most today is repentance!

That's a horrible word these days, isn't it? It means turning from our ways to God's way. It requires obedience to God's Word, the Bible.

In general, Christianity in America has slipped to a low, low, low point with regards to doctrine, obedience to God's Word, turning from our ways to His way, etc. The Church has mingled with the world and gotten into the flesh, to say the least.

So many people get caught up in buying the latest popular book by some great oratory teacher, without being 'Bereans' and checking to see if the author teaches the truth! Just because someone is popular and accepted by many, or even millions, of people, does not mean that they teach the truth!

Hey, take a good look! There's a lot of money being made from those books! People are buying and buying and buying; but are the Bibles being read in the homes? If they were, I doubt that a lot of these other books would sell very well.

The Flock is being fleeced! Money is being sucked out of the pockets of millions as if by a giant vacuum cleaner! All in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ! Look at the Christianity on TV, such as TBN, etc. Millions of dollars flow into that business. When is enough enough?

The sad part is, unbeleivers don't know what true Christian faith is, because they never see it! They see the false teachers on TV, and so on, and that's exactly what they think Christianity is all about.

Quite a few people that I have known have told me that Christianity is just a money-making machine! They were turned off from Christianity and God has been blasphemed a million-fold, because of the sin in the church. How will they ever know the Truth?

Where are the Churches that have not given themsleves over to the 'numbers game', bringing thousands down the aisle and calling them saved Christians, then building mega-churches to seat them?

Where are the true godly churches to stand and say to the world that this is not Christianity according to the Bible!?

This nation used to be blessed by God, but that blessing is gone. I believe we as a church and a nation are going to be judged by God.

We will no longer be the most powerful nation in the world, and that 's not too far away. We've allowed the Bible to be taken out of schools and public places because some people have a false notion of what 'seperation of church and state' means. Because of this, and because no-one is standing for the Truth today, we have a moral problem in our country the likes of which has never been seen before! What shall we do Brethren?!

- Chris Anna