The La Brea Tar Pits and the Price of Oil

I’ve always wanted to see the La Brea Tar Pits. Ever since I was a boy I had heard stories of the famed petroleum pits that hold millions of fossils. When my wife, my youngest son, and I were in California a few weeks ago, we took time to visit the archeological find in the heart of downtown Los Angeles located in the Miracle Mile District.[1] Oil literally seeps to the surface through fissures in [...]

WANTED! Men to Build the Kingdom

I’m reading David Murrow’s Why Men Hate Going to Church. Murrow writes that while the pastorate is dominated by men, “almost every other area of church life is dominated by women.” ((David Murrow, Why Men Hate Going to Church (Nashville,: Thomas Nelson, 2005), 4.)) Why is the opposite true for a religion like Islam? The average age of a convert to Christianity is sixteen, while the average age of [...]

The Right and Wrong Way to Topple a Dictator

Pat Robertson has put his foot in his mouth again by calling for the assassination of the president of Venezuela. A minister of the gospel and the leader of a world-wide Christian ministry should not be calling for the death of the head of state of any nation. A better approach would be to meet with international church leaders to promote a comprehensive biblical worldview around the world. Effect [...]

The Abrahamic Covenant: Fulfilled or Postponed? (Part 2)

Prior to the establishment of the Abrahamic covenant, God instituted the Noahic covenant. Even though “the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth,” God says that He “will never again destroy every living thing” (Gen 8:21). The everlasting nature of this covenantal promise is so secure that the earth itself would have to pass away in order for it to be postponed, put off, or revoked (8:22). M [...]

The Abrahamic Covenant: Fulfilled or Postponed? (Part 1)

All prophetic eyes are on Israel. A majority of fundamentalists believe that what happens in the Middle East determines the fate of the world. The world moves at Israel’s pace. For the dispensationalist, what the rest of the world does is irrelevant and meaningless because not only are all prophetic eyes on Israel, but God’s eyes are on Israel. The New Testament focuses on Israel as well. Jesus “w [...]

Privacy Right Unlisted, but Undefined

With the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court, it seems that everyone is reading the Constitution again. This is good. The Left is apoplectic over the thought that with an “arch conservative,” or an “extremist," to use Patrick Leahy’s description, on the court, our rights will be taken away from us. Of course, if Congress would do its job, there wouldn’t be fights over nominees. Co [...]

Loving "Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild" but Hating Jesus Dogmatic and Riled

“When Angelo paints even God the Father in human form, mark what robustness is there. And whatever they may reveal of the divine love in the Son, the soft, curled, hermaphroditical Italian pictures, in which his idea has been most successfully embodied; these pictures, so destitute as they are of all brawniness, hint nothing of any power, but the mere negative, feminine one of submission and endur [...]

Prayers Under Attack, Again!

The ACLU has a great racket going on. It sues city and county governments over sectarian (Christian) prayers and the posting of the Ten Commandments and then gets paid for its efforts when judges rule in favor of the ACLU’s arguments. Nearly two years after an anonymous resident sued Barrow County in Georgia to remove a framed copy of the Ten Commandments from the courthouse breezeway, county comm [...]

Who are the Nephilim - Aliens, Demons or Just Plain Folk? (Part 4)

Identifying the Players Since we have dismissed the alien and fallen angel interpretations, we are still left with identifying the “daughters of men” and the Nephilim in Genesis 6. Our methodology remains basic: let the Bible interpret itself. The Sons of God The actions of the “sons of God” in Genesis 6:1–4 are probably similar to those described in Judges 2:10–12: And all that generation also we [...]

Who are the Nephilim - Aliens, Demons or Just Plain Folk? (Part 3)

The most popular interpretation of Genesis 6:1–6 is that the “sons of God” are fallen angels who impregnate women and create a super race of beings called the “Nephilim.” Chuck Missler and Mark Eastman argue in Alien Encounters that “the ‘sons of God’ of Genesis 6 was understood as referring to (fallen) angels by the ancient rabbinical sources, the Septuagint translators, and by the early Church f [...]

Who are the Nephilim - Aliens, Demons or Just Plain Folk? (Part 2)

“Space gods made me, this I know, For the Bible tells me so. . . .”[1] Prior to the publication of Barry H. Downing’s The Bible and Flying Saucers in 1968, Morris K. Jessup put forth a similar thesis in an attempt to reconcile the Bible, science, and belief in extraterrestrials: The biblical writers misunderstood unusual and seemingly supernatural phenomena and believed that a God was at work when [...]

Who are the Nephilim - Aliens, Demons or Just Plain Folk? (Part 1)

For centuries, Bible commentaries have tried to make sense of Genesis 6:1–7 and the identity of “the sons of God” and the “Nephilim.” Several theories have been put forth: (1) fallen angels who cohabitated with earthly women, (2) the godly descendants of Seth (“sons of God”) who intermarry with unbelievers (“daughters of men”), (3) dynastic rulers who are often described as “gods” (Heb.: elohim), [...]

The Suicide of the Left - Literally!

I can’t help responding to and laughing at the report that Helen Thomas, the so-called “dean of the White House press corps,” says she would not be able to live if Vice President Cheney were to run for the highest office. “The day I say Dick Cheney is going to run for president, I’ll kill myself. All we need is one more liar.”[1] Promises, promises! Of course, Thomas is the one lying. [...]

The Left Needs a Fact Checker

In his 1968 book The Population Bomb, Paul R. Ehrlich made predictions about the future of our planet based on his understanding of population growth and projected food supplies. Ehrlich’s work was not new. Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834), a British political economist and mathematician, proposed that population growth would outstrip any increase in food supplies in his day. Malthus theorized th [...]

"Raising Arizona" and Socialist Dreamers

In the movie Raising Arizona (1987), H.I. (Nicholas Cage), an ex-convict, and Edwina “Ed” (Holly Hunter), an ex-police officer, are a down-and-out married couple who desperately want a child. Unable to have a child of their own, they decide to take one from the Arizonas who just had quintuplets. According to the paper, it’s “more than they can handle.” H.I. reasons that since the Arizonas have so [...]

The Radicalized University

A silent campus does not mean a less radicalized campus. The radicalization takes place in the classroom and the dorms. In the 1960s, campus turmoil was taken to the streets. Today, the radicalization process is taken to our nation’s corporations, universities, courts, and political parties. Our nation is being radicalized from the inside out. America’s colleges and universities do not reflect the [...]

The First Step in College Preparedness

It won’t be long before it’s time to go back to school. The college campus is a dangerous place. Statistics show that Christian students get eaten alive by professors who attack the Christian worldview. The barrage of assaults is unrelenting—everything from atheistic philosophy classes to a religious-based evolutionism that permeates the entire curriculum. We shouldn’t be surprised at the casualty [...]

The Appearance of Truth

When error comes, it always rides in on the wings of truth.[1] Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971), Premier of the former Soviet Union, described a time in the Communist republic’s history when a wave of petty theft was sweeping through the government-owned plants. To curtail the stealing, guards were placed at factory entrances to watch the laborers as they entered and departed. At the Leningrad timber [...]

Picking Judges - A Lesson from the Bible

According to Exodus 18, civil magistrates represent God in a delegated and limited capacity, similar to the way Aaron represented Moses to the people with Moses as “god” (elohim): Then the anger of the LORD burned against Moses, and He said, “Is there not your brother Aaron the Levite? I know that he speaks fluently. And moreover, behold, he is coming out to meet you; when he sees you, he will be [...]

God, H.G. Wells, and The War of the Worlds

H.G. Wells (1866–1946), author of a number classic science fiction works, most notably The Invisible Man (1897), The Time Machine (1895), The First Man on the Moon (1901), and The War of the Worlds (1898), was not what one would describe as a religious man. He reports in his autobiography that he lost his religious faith when he was about 12 years old. He was an outspoken advocate of Darwinism, so [...]