Did Mary Need to Be a Virgin?
If there is one area of our lives under attack today it is our sexuality. Our politically correct culture, media, government and progressive "churches" are working hard to destroy any concept of "male" and "female" and any attempt to define sexuality and marriage. If any pastor, parishioner, pundit, or member of the general public raises any clear Biblical standards about these issues you end up with a large target on your back. Of course at a deeper level, we see this battle as a continued war against the Lord and His Image in the world, as seen through "male" and "female" from Genesis 1:26-27.Enter the Christmas Story. Whatever anybody knows about Christmas, most may have heard that Mary was a virgin. People may not like it, believe it, understand it, try to revise it or ignore it.......but the Virgin Birth is front and center in the Bible in passages like Matthew 1:20 and Luke 1:34-35. The Virgin Birth of Christ is the clear teaching of the Bible. It has been held by the Church for over 2000 years as accepted orthodox doctrine in the Nicene and Apostle Creeds. Believe it or not, the Virgin Birth is even believed and held by Islam in the Koran of all places.....go figure.
Its' been hard getting into the Christmas spirit these days when there is an Islamic terrorist event going on almost every week like we saw in the San Bernardino, California and Paris massacres. It's difficult to focus on what gifts to get my loved ones when people are turning our wonderful country and world into a Jihad Zone for their religious extremism.
I was out driving the other day and saw an interesting billboard on the highway that said, "Keep Christ in Christmas." As Christmas draws near this year, there are groups of Christians that are deeply concerned with the increased secularization going on in America that has removed the Lord Jesus Christ from Christmas and turned it into some sort of winter holiday about who knows what. All of this is because there seems to be a quiet and maybe not so quiet war going on today against our Lord and His Church. These days it is getting harder for some to even say "Merry Christmas," let alone, "Jesus is the Savior of the World."
The Carlson Report sends our love and prayers to each of you on this Thanksgiving weekend. May it be your best ever. How thankful to know the Lord of the Bible and live in a wonderful Nation like America that has a rich, Christian heritage of godly people. It was President Abraham Lincoln that made Thanksgiving a National Holiday on October 3, 1863, at the height of the Civil War. Lincoln knew that whatever our trials, it was right and good to stop as individuals and a Nation to seek and thank the Lord. Lincoln wrote:
I barely finished writing about the Islamic terrorist attacks in Paris last week, when yet another scene of Islamic violence took place in Mali today, murdering at least 20. As this mayhem continues to grow daily, the entire world is increasingly on edge with news stories that seem to run 24/7. Recently, King Abdullah of Jordan was quoted as saying that he believes this escalating violence and terror has brought us to what will eventually turn into World War III. The King, himself a Muslim, is uniquely positioned inside the Islamic world to see where this violence is going to lead us in the near future. The only world leader that doesn’t seem to have any clarity about the seriousness of the hour appears to be President Obama.
Have you ever been bored going to church? I hate to admit it, but even pastors get bored at church on occasion. What bores me the most is when things seem too routine, too mechanical, too ordinary…..just going through the motions. When the Church gets taken over with programs and potlucks, there is a tendency for us to miss the excitement the Lord built into the Christian life. It can also become weary and even boring to hear yet another sermon on “How to Love Your Neighbor More.” Sure, we can all learn to love our neighbors more. What else is new? Is that it? My former preaching professor in seminary told our class that it is a terrible thing to bore people with the Gospel. He was right.
By now, most of us have heard the terrible news of the Islamic terrorist attacks in Paris that murdered over 120 civilians. Some of the eyewitnesses on the scene said the murder, blood and carnage looked “apocalyptic.” The Nation of France declared a “State of Emergency” and returned the City to a fear not seen since World War II and the Nazi occupation. Nations around the world, particularly in Europe and the USA, wonder where and when these groups will strike next. Most experts are agreed in their belief that these attacks are only going to grow and get worse in the future.
In the last few years, there has been a growing fear of the future by many. People are worried about nuclear wars, terrorists, extremist governments, natural disasters, worldwide debt, and a hundred other things. As conditions seem to get worse, a few people are in a state of preparation to weather the possible coming storms. Some are buying guns, gold, silver and storing away food and survival supplies. As a matter of fact, there is even a show on the National Geographic Channel now called “Doomsday Preppers” that addresses these very issues.
According to a just published religious poll from the Pew Research Center, people in the USA are becoming “less religious”….whatever that means. The article stated the number of people that are absolutely certain God exists fell to only 63%. This same article went on to say that only about 50% of kids born from 1990 to 1996 are absolutely sure that God even exists. That statistic is as shocking as it is sad.
“For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”
It was headlines all over the news this week. Did you see it? This RARE news item, which finally came out, was the overt and outrageous bias and manipulation of the Republican President Debates by the Moderators of the mainstream media outlet, CNBC. It was shocking! It was so bad that by the end of the debates, the Republican Candidates began to fire back at the Moderators who had pretended during the event to be impartial “journalists.”
Over the years I have come to realize that finding a real friend is not easy. Surely a real friend is more than just being on someone’s Facebook page at the click of a mouse. A friend is a lot more than a casual acquaintance you see at school or work. It is much more than being around someone you work with or walk past at school in the hallways between classes. It is much more than living in the same neighborhood. Finding real friends can be challenging at times.
As we continue to watch the recent deadly tensions in Israel between the Israelis and the Palestinians over the Land and control of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, most people fail to see the profound issues that are under way. From Presidents to Popes, no one seems to have found any lasting answer about what to do. Finding a lasting peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis has turned into the most vexing political and spiritual problem in history.
I sat back this past week and watched the Democratic Presidential Debates. It seemed like every sound byte was another candidate talking about another promised giveaway program that seems to be meant to buy votes. Some of the candidates even wanted to give away money to people who were not citizens. Sadly, we are truly nearing the end of this Country as we know it. Back in 1776, around the time of our Nation’s founding, a European historian, Alexander Fraser Tytler, published a work entitled, “The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic.” In his work, Tytler made the following observation:
If there is one name that is universally recognized for betrayal and evil it is Judas Iscariot. The name of Judas is infamous in the minds of people around the world and throughout history.
Just the other day, Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO of Facebook, was pictured wearing a virtual reality headset. Facebook is investing billions of dollars to explore taking their social networking to another level, by incorporating it with virtual reality. Many people may not be aware of “virtual reality,” but it is an attempt to create reality for people using technology. People are fitted with headsets and other controls to allow them to experience life in another dimension. According to Wikipedia:
This past week has marked yet another season of murder, violence and tension surrounding the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. What else is new? The Temple Mount area, and the surrounding Old City of Jerusalem, has become the most fought over area in human history. This pattern has seemingly gone on for the last 4000 years or so…..ever since Abraham visited the area with his son Isaac in Genesis 22. When you visit Jerusalem today, one never knows if you will be able to visit the location or not due to the unpredictable political and spiritual issues surrounding the area. It is as though the tensions of the whole world are somehow contained in that small piece of ground. While few may care or even understand the issues, all of our lives are somehow eternally connected to those few acres in Jerusalem, its’ peace and future. Jerusalem has truly become the “Ground Zero” for every event in our world today.
During my past 30 years or so of ministry I have watched a growing phenomenon emerging in the Church world that has shaped American Christianity like nothing else. It is the rise of the Mega Church. It kind of started with Pastor Bill Hybels doing market research in the Chicago area about what people liked and didn’t like about a typical church. That market research birthed what became the Willow Creek Association and a new way of doing church. Many others have joined this movement. Some of these leaders have become celebrities that are widely known around the world. While I am not sure Bill Hybels or anyone in this movement would agree, the movement seemed to move the Church more toward the audience’s wants and less toward God’s Word and will…..at least at first glance. It was and is assumed by the architects of this movement, that the Lord would still be there, whatever was done in His Name. The message of this movement came down to almost a simple slogan that went something like this, “same message different methods.”
One of the hardest things to watch these days are the silly attempts by our political leaders in Washington to totally ignore reality in their mishandling of foreign policy. There seems to be no end to it. While volumes could be written about the current chaos with the Iran “deal,” there seems to be a close runner up. The runner up candidate goes to our dealings with Russia and their leader, Vladimir Putin.
Just the other day, a person sent me a devotional from a local mega church that said the goal of the Great Commission is to be more like Jesus. The devotional read:
If there is one area where Christians and Jews miss each other today it is the fact that we have a different understanding of our holidays. As an example, Christians have Good Friday, while Jews have Passover. However separate their meaning is to each faith, these two holidays are very closely related. The Jews celebrate the Passover deliverance from slavery in Egypt. Christians celebrate the deliverance from sin through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. What each group commemorates actually happened on the same Hebrew calendar date. In reality they actually are the same event, as they have the same meaning….deliverance from bondage. That said, most Christians and Jews still live in totally different worlds. Christians joyously affirm that our Lord Jesus Christ is Israel’s Messiah and deliverer, while most Jews today are still waiting for the coming of the Messiah.