Stephen K. Ray's Blog, page 490
February 20, 2011
Four Last Things in a Terrifying Story
Watch my YouTube Video: Going to Hell
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The Last Nightmare
A Short and Terrifying Story by Steve Ray
[image error]Everything went blank for a moment, but that moment seemed like eternity. He felt a motion, not with wind and breeze, but a motion none the less. He was traveling, moving, floating, transcending-he wasn't really sure. The sudden blackness gave him time to regain his thoughts, just enough time to recapture the last moments.
Though his first thoughts were garbled and dreamlike, they slowly began taking shape, like a tree seen through a thick fog, slowly it all came back to him out of the swirling, traveling, blank void. Utter confusion was giving way to bits of clarity.
They had rushed him to the hospital. He remembered the sirens and the cold hands of the paramedics. Cold hands all over his body, probing and poking. Yes, there had been screams, he remembered now—and the sound of sobbing.
Then the horrendous sound resurfaced, a sound that could be felt. It was a sound that had subsumed his whole being, wrapping itself around him, ripping through him. Then the sound of crunching metal, broken glass, and twisted carnage. What must have lasted only seconds seemed to him a long and troubling nightmare—then the dark, foggy void.
For the rest of the story, click here.
For other stories and articles, click here.
February 19, 2011
Pictures from Nazareth over 100 Years Ago (see the Virgin Mary)
Today we are in Nazareth, celebrating Mass at the Grotto of the Annunciation.
These pictures are over a hundred years old from Nazareth. Not much changed between then and the first century.
When you look at these old pictures and hundreds more I have in a book I purchased in Nazareth (written in Arabic), you can imagine Mary as she walked the dusty streets of Nazareth.
Who is this father, mother and child? Can you "see" Mary at the well of Nazareth where all the women came to collect water?
February 18, 2011
Pilgrimage Day One: Arrival and Galilee
When we arrived the internet was down at the hotel and it was the beginning of the Sabbath so we had to wait until Sunday before the internet was fixed. I am so grateful for my iPhone that works through the 3G network so I was still able to make and upload the videos.
I started the day by running from Jerusalem to Abu Ghosh. We then packed and took a drive to the airport to meet our two buses and our local guide Amer. Both flights came in without incident– not even any lost luggage. We drove to Galilee had a nice Mass on the shore of the Sea of Galilee with the moon rising and then dinner and bed.
Islam's Public Enemy #1: A Coptic Monk
Meet Coptic priest Zakaria Botros from Egypt. Little known in the West but making waves with Muslims in the Middle East. He fights fire with fire. He sits with the Christian Scriptures and the Koran in front of him.
He is an expert at Classical Arabic and all the literature of Islam. He challenges the Muslim to respond and refute him.
To read the article about this courageous Christian, click here. To see him on video, go to www.youtube.com and search for Zakaria Botros. To read his Nine Demands of Islam, click here.
February 17, 2011
Are You Born Again?
It seems that God is kind of predictable in a way :-) since He always starts new things in the same way – with "water and the Spirit". Consider the following:
1) The first creation came from the the earth which was covered with WATER and the SPIRIT hovered over the waters and from the water emerged land and man and God's first creation (Gen 1:1-2).
2) A new humanity was started with Noah through WATER and SPIRIT. The ark went through the water and a dove (representing the Spirit) hovered overhead with an olive branch. Peter said this represents baptism which "now saves us" (1 Peter 3:18-21).
3) The nation of Israel was created through the WATER of the Red Sea (baptism) with the cloud and fire of the Holy SPIRIT overhead — my oh my, again we have water and Spirit (Ex 14).
4) Ezekiel then describes what the New Covenant will look like and he said we will be sprinkled with clean WATER and his SPIRIT will be placed in us (Ez 36:25). Born again, I suspect.
5) Then Jesus, right before saying you must be born of "water and the Spirit" had just gone down into the WATER of the Jordan and the SPIRIT came down and landed on his head. Again, water and the Spirit (Mt 3:16; Jn 1:29).
6) Jesus teaches Nicodemus that he must be born again, or from above which is accomplished through "WATER and the SPIRIT."
7) When Jesus finished these words what was the first thing he did? He went down and baptized people in the Jordan with his disciples (Jn 4:1-2).
8) At the first Holy Ghost Gospel Revival meeting :-) Peter stood up at Pentecost and said, "Repent, and be baptized (WATER) every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy SPIRIT" (Acts 2:38).
9) Peter also says "Baptism now saves you" (1 Pet 3:18), and Paul is told "Rise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on his name" (Acts 22:16), and Paul writes that we are saved "by the washing of regeneration (WATER) and renewal in the Holy SPIRIT" (Titus 3:5).
Other verses you should know — click here!
For my article on Infant Baptism, click here
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Too bad many Evangelicals and Fundamentalists refuse to see it but the Bible is pretty clear about new birth through the sacrament of baptism. Jesus is not ambiguous in this matter and he is alluding quite clearly to new beginnings in the Old Testament. The Early Church is also very clear and so is the teaching of the Catholic Church today.
(Picture to right is the place in the Jordan River where Jesus was baptized. Click for larger image.)
St. Augustine said, "Who is so wicked as to want to exclude infants from the kingdom of heaven by prohibiting their being baptized and born again in Christ?"
When someone asks me "Have you been born again?" I simply answer "Absolutely, but I've been born again the Bible Way!"
February 16, 2011
Mary a Mediatrix? Isn't there just One Mediator?
The Bible says, "For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim 2:5). Yet Catholics refer to Mary as a Mediatrix (feminine form of the word mediator).
So, isn't that prima facie evidence that Catholics make up doctrines, worship Mary and disregard the Bible?
I was again challenged with this the other day. Interesting how the same old, same old keeps coming up no matter how many times you answer it. Interesting how these same misconceptions keep coming up as though some contentious power keeps inserting them into gullible minds. Interesting how people love to twist the rubber nose to make it obscene, grotesque, and distorted.
So here was my short response — again!
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In 1 Timothy 2:5 Paul recognizes that there is a huge chasm between the holy God and sinful men. Paul states that there is only one mediator that can bridge that uncrossable gorge. How do we sinners reach a holy God across such a chasm?
God has provided the solution. He has provided the-one-and-only Mediator (1 Tim 2:5), the bridge, the stairway between heaven and earth, (John 1:51 based on the ladder seen by Jacob). This one Mediator is the God-Man Jesus Christ and he is the only one that can bridge the gap–mediate–between heaven and earth to bring reconciliation between God and men.
Thus, there is one Mediator to reconcile God and man. Jesus is the mediator of the new covenant as the writer of Hebrews informs us three times, for example: "Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel" (Heb 8:6, 9:15, 12:24). No one else could have ever become such a mediator of the New Covenant.
However, after Jesus has accomplished such an act of redemption and mediatorship, he calls us to share in his ministry.
I remember my father saying to me before I joined the Catholic Church, "When you become Catholic you will pray to Mary and remember that Paul says there is only one Mediator between God and man." I lovingly but sternly replied to my father, "Dad, never ask me to pray for you again!"
My father was shocked but understood my meaning. As soon as he asks me to pray for him — he asks me to be a mediator between him and God. I told him that to be consistent with his Protestant theology he should not ask me or anyone else to intercede for him, to be a mediator — one who stands in the middle — but he should pray directly to Jesus himself.
But Scripture constantly commands us to pray for one another, to intercede for our fellow humans. We are all "mini" mediators sharing in the mediatorship of Christ. And it goes the other way too. When God tells us to share the Gospel with lost sinners he is asking us to stand between himself and the sinner to share the Gospel, although he could have chosen to communicate with them directly.
Mary is not the infinite mediator, nor does she impose on the prerogatives of her Son. She, like us, intercedes for sinners and the people of God. Mediatrix is simply the feminine form of mediator. All of us share in the ministry of Christ, mediating and praying for our fellow man. In this sense, all of us are mediators and the females among us are mediatrixes.
I am frequently asked, "Where does the Bible say we should pray to dead saints?" to which I usually ask, "Where does the Bible say that saints are dead?"
Those of us, including most Protestants, believe that when a person dies in friendship with Christ they are still alive in Christ.
To prove that those who died in a state of grace were not dead, Jesus said to the Sadducees (who didn't believe in the resurrection which is why they were "sad you see" — as my dad used to joke with us kids), "'I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead but of the living" (Matt 22:32). Jesus said that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were still alive.
Those who say "Why do you Catholics pray to dead saints" need to understand that those who die in Christ are not dead. Catholics affirm that they are alive and in the presence of Christ and that they can intercede for us as much as my father or I can intercede for each other.
Mary and the saints do not answer our prayers, any more than I answer the prayers of my dad. Rather, Mary, the saints and you and I all are intercessors. We do not answer the prayers, we simply intercede with the Father through his Son Jesus.
When I take pilgrimage groups to Israel I always take them to the top of Mount Tabor where the Transfiguration took place. I always ask people how a "dead guy" like Moses could be talking to Jesus about things that are taking place on earth (Lk 9:31).
When my father asks me to pray for him he asks me to stand in the middle — to be a mediator, an intercessor — and when God commands me to preach the gospel to the lost, he tells me to stand in the middle — to be an ambassador for Christ as Paul says,
"Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God" (2 Cor 5:20).
(Opps, to the right is a Pentecostal preacher Kenneth Copeland acting as a mediator, interceding with God, standing in the middle as they pray for this man!)
I hope that helps explain why we call Mary a mediatrix and why all of us are mini-mediators sharing in the ministry of Christ — the one-and-only mediator of the New Covenant, but certainly not in any way claiming to be the one mediator of the New Covenant, nor in any way arrogating to ourselves or to Mary the unique prerogatives and ministry of Jesus.
One last thought on this matter. Sometimes there is a misunderstanding of the differences between prayer and worship. In the Catholic tradition they are very different things. In Protestantism prayer and worship are sometimes used as synonyms. Pray simply means to ask, whereas worship is to adore.
If a Catholic says he "prays to Mary" it's perceived as worship by many Protestants, but the Catholic it simply making a request that Mary intercede for us — the same as when my dad asked me to intercede for him. In Catholicism there is a big difference between pray and worship.
We honor, love and venerate Mary. We ask her to pray for us. But we worship God ALONE!
For more on this and other Marian topics, all filmed on location in the Holy Land, check out my documentary MARY, MOTHER OF GOD here.
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