Ray Comfort's Blog, page 28

Caught Lying about Stealing

When open air preaching I recently took a man in his mid-20’s through the Ten Commandments. As many people do, he trivialized his sins. His lies were only “white” lies that he told “in the past.” He admitted to stealing, but said that it happened when he was “just a kid.” The inference is that a young child was innocent in that he doesn’t know right from wrong. When I asked what it was that he stole, he blurted “I just took a pen from work.” I laughed and said, “So you were a working child?” The crowd also laughed, and that’s when he realized that he couldn’t wriggle his way out of this lie. He admitted that he was 18 years old when he stole the pen.

It’s been said that taking the easy path is what makes men and rivers crooked. But that’s where the analogy between rivers and men, ends. When a river is dammed, it is merely held back, but when a sinner is damned it will be in a terrible place called Hell, from which there is no escape.
Photo: Daniel Schwen

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Will Homosexuals Enter Heaven?

Who will enter Heaven? That’s probably the most important question you and I can ever ask. Here is what the Bible says:

“Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals,nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God” 1 Cor. 6:9-10).

This is the best news humanity could ever want to hear. Fornicators (those who have had sex out of marriage) can be forgiven, and find everlasting life. So can adulterers, thieves, the covetous, and homosexuals. God will give everlasting life to all who repent and trust alone in Jesus. They can go to Heaven and avoid the terrible damnation of Hell. What sort of twisted person would I be, if I removed drunkards from the list, because the world says that drunkards aren’t sinning against God--they are rather “sick”). Who am I to remove adulterers, or thieves, or homosexuals from that list, because I don’t agree with the Bible? If I am to remain faithful as a preacher and Christian, I have to tell people that the offer of eternal life is universal—it’s for is all of humanity. Anything else is a betrayal to those who are still in their sins, the repercussions of which will be seen on Judgment Day.
Photo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rai...

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Oops! A Big Problem

Hubble’s graph (which says that the universe is expanding) has been hailed as the discovery of the century. He has been called a genius for what he discovered. What he found was what Genesis has said for 3,000 years—that everything in the universe had an instantaneous beginning. It didn’t take billions of years. Now science just has to follow where the evidence leads. Check out this clip from the Science Channel to see the supposed dilemma, and see if you can figure out why it’s such a problem.


Clip: from The Science Channel (Fair Use Law).

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Who is this Woman?

This is a youthful picture of “Aunt Bee” (taken around 1920) from the ever-popular Andy Griffith Show. The Bible likens us to flowers that fade, and it’s a tragic fact of a fallen creation that every beautiful rose, in time, loses its petals. Science calls this process “entropy.” Everything is moving from order to disorder, including our aging bodies. If we reach old age, we all end up in disorder—both physically and mentally.

This sad photo reminded me not only of how quickly beauty fades, but also of an episode where an aging Aunt Bee was depressed because she was growing old, and knew that she would soon die. An unthinking Barney Fife blurted out “We all have to die sometime!” much to the horror of the more discrete Andy. The sit-com line got a laugh from the studio audience, but death is no laughing matter. The reality is that all three actors are now dead.

Much of this world is like Barney Fife. They surrender to death as being inevitable. But the Bible tells us that death is an enemy, and that Jesus Christ overcame its power 2,000 years ago. When a sinner repents and trusts in Jesus, God gives him (or her) His Holy Spirit—Who is the source of life itself. When the life of God is present in the Christian, death is conquered. The Scriptures also tell us that God is our enemy until we make peace with Him. So you have a choice today. You can either surrender to death or surrender to God. Please don’t delay.



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Killing to Make Room, When its already Here

I saw this comment on 180movie.com: “Logistically speaking, I don't think our infrastructure here in America could handle another 53 million people…” He got part of it right when he said, “I don’t think.” Anyone who wants to kill babies because they believe that there are too many people on this earth has never flown from Los Angeles to New York, or they never think to look out of the window. If you get a window seat and look down, you will notice there are billions of acres of fertile uninhabited land. According to Heartland magazine an amazing 94.6 % of the United States is rural open space. The murdered babies should have grown up to be adults who produce food, make clothes, write songs, invent things, and create jobs. That’s how life works.

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Change in Future Blog Posts

I have signed a contract with Regal to publish a book on the life of Job. I therefore no longer own the rights to it and cannot publish the content (tentative title, From the Mouth of God. Publishing date March 2013).

Someone sent me a news item yesterday saying that Justin Bieber was on a 12 hour Air New Zealand flight recently, when a fellow passenger heard him cussing and said, “Stop yelling curse words and using that kind of language on a plane. It’s not appropriate.” Bieber was said to have apologized and was embarrassed by her “outburst.” Cussing is never appropriate, anywhere. All a dirty mouth reveals is a dirty heart. God bless this woman for her little outburst. Bring back the soap.
Pic. Georges Biard 

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A Study in Job

Job then begins to speak of God’s wisdom and greatness. He says, “He removes the mountains, and they do not know when He overturns them in His anger; He shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble; He commands the sun, and it does not rise; He seals off the stars…”

Before I became a Christian, God was a distant heavenly figure, who had little or no part in earthly affairs. However, the moment I was converted, I began to understand that the sun rises because God causes it to rise. He spoke it into existence, set it in motion so that its rays would hit the earth, guides every one of the trillions upon trillions of light beams that race at the speed of light to ripen apples and tomatoes. Nothing happens without God’s permissive hand. Without Him, volcanoes don’t erupt, the earth doesn’t quake, the sun doesn’t rise, the stars don’t shine, the heavens don’t exist, dogs don’t bark, apples don’t grow and seeds don’t sow. He holds our very breath in His hands. In Him we live, and move, and have our being. As water saturates the oceans, His presence saturates life:

“Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite. The Lord lifts up the humble; He casts the wicked down to the ground. Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving; Sing praises on the harp to our God, Who covers the heavens with clouds, Who prepares rain for the earth, Who makes grass to grow on the mountains. 9 He gives to the beast its food, And to the young ravens that cry” (Psalm 147:5-9).
Job then laments the fact that the life he knows is quickly draining from him. He says, “Now my days are swifter than a runner; they flee away, they see no good. They pass by like swift ships, like an eagle swooping on its prey."

Continued Monday...

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A Study in Job

The third straw grasped at is that our good deeds outweigh our bad deeds. This is the basis for most religions outside of Christianity. We acknowledge our sins, but insist that if we utter enough prayers, suffer enough pain lying on a bed of nails or sitting on a hard pew, give enough to the poor, repent enough of our sins, confess to a priest enough, do enough good works, our good deeds will be enough to outweigh the bad. But the fallacy of such a view is shattered in a moment by comparing that to criminal law--“Judge, I raped and murdered that woman, but I would like you to take into account that I gave money to the Red Cross last year, and I’m involved in a service group that helps the community.” What sort of sick individual could think that a judge would consider these “good” works, in the light of such a heinous crime? The attempt to excuse himself (to justify himself) would be an indication that the criminal didn’t consider his crime of rape and murder to be very serious. A good judge would throw the book at such a slow-witted and callous individual.

Perhaps you are thinking, “But that’s an earthly courtroom. We are talking about God. He’s all-loving and kind.” Do you really think that an earthly judge has a greater sense of justice than God? When Bildad asked, “Does God subvert judgment? Or does the Almighty pervert justice?” it was rhetorical. It doesn’t need an answer. God is infinitely more just than any earthly judge. He will not subvert or pervert justice in the slightest.

You say, “But rape and murder are a little different from lying and stealing, and looking with lust.” They are different, but that doesn’t negate their seriousness in God’s eyes. In His pure eyes our sins are worthy of the death sentence and damnation.
Continued tomorrow...

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A Study in Job

I have talked to many people about how we can be righteous before God, and I have learned that when we are confronted by the Ten Commandments, we either ask what we should do to be made right with God, or we try to justify (excuse) ourselves. We normally do that in three ways:

1. We trivializing that nature of our sins (“My lies were white, and the things I stole were small”)

2. We say that what we did wrong was in the past,

3. We insist that our good deeds outweigh our bad deeds.

Each of these attempts to declare that we are innocent has obvious flaws. We may trivialize sin, but God doesn’t. He is perfect and utterly holy. A lie is a lie no matter how we may color it, and the Scriptures warn, “Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 12:22). We may not understand what it means to be utterly holy, but we can get a glimpse of the standard of the judge by the sentence he hands down for a crime. We are warned that all liars will have their part in the lake of fire (see Revelation 21:8). The crime of lying is extremely serious in God’s eyes.

When we attempt to justify our guilt by saying that what we did was in the past, we forget that everything we do is in the past. The inferences are, 1. My sin was so far in the past that it should be forgotten by God. Or, 2. I did those things when I was young and I didn’t understand right from wrong. I have matured and I now live a good life.

In 2012 a Nazi name Laszlo Csatary-- accused of complicity in the killings of 15,700 Jews was and found to be hiding in Budapest, the capital of Hungary. A statement released by those who found him said, "last week submitted new evidence to the prosecutor in Budapest regarding crimes committed during World War II by its No 1 Most Wanted suspect Laszlo Csatary."[1] The centre said it had fresh evidence of crimes "related to Csatary's key role in the deportation of approximately 300 Jews from Kosice to Kamenetz-Podolsk, Ukraine, where almost all were murdered in the summer of 1941….This new evidence strengthens the already very strong case against Csatary and reinforces our insistence that he be held accountable for his crimes. The passage of time in no way diminishes his guilt and old age should not afford protection for Holocaust perpetrators."[2] During World War II he served as a senior Hungarian police officer in the Slovakian city of Kosice, then under Hungarian rule. He was complicit in the deportations of thousands of Jews from Kosice and its environs to the Auschwitz death camp in the spring of 1944. Csatary had treated the Jews in the ghetto with cruelty, whipping women and forcing them to dig holes with their bare hands. In 1943, a Czech court condemned him to death after a trial held in his absence. He had fled to Canada and had worked as an art dealer using a false identity, before being unmasked in 1995 and forced to flee. The fact that his crimes were in the past is irrelevant.

Continued tomorrow...

[1] http://www.afp.com/en/news/topstories...
[2] Idem

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A Study in Job

Job’s comforter’s words were mingled with truth. They were there to comfort and encourage their friend. However, their belief that Job was suffering for his sins soon began to show. In chapter 8 Bildad the Shuhite tells Job that his words are like wind, that they had no substance. He insists that Almighty doesn’t pervert justice. Then, despite Job’s offering of sacrifices for his beloved children, Bildad frankly says that God judged his children and killed them for their rebellion. He tells him that if he was pure, God would prosper him:

"If you were pure and upright, surely now He would awake for you, and prosper your rightful dwelling place. Though your beginning was small, yet your latter end would increase abundantly” (Job 8:6-7).

God doesn’t pervert justice. Job knew that his children were sinners, and he feared that they may have cursed Him in their hearts, so He didn’t disagree with what he heard. After all, these were his friends. Then he asks the most profound of questions:

“But how can a man be righteous before God?” (Job 9:2).

The question begs another question. What does it mean to be righteous? One person’s perception of the word differs from another. The key is in the question itself. Job didn’t ask, “But how can a man be righteous before man?” If that were the case, all we would need to do is show an outward piety. Giving to the poor, feeding the hungry, helping others, and kind words are all that is needed to be declared extremely righteous by man. However, to be righteous in the sight of a holy God means to be morally perfect, in thought, word and in deed, and the only way to know if we come up to that standard is to look to God perfect Law—the Ten Commandments.
Continued tomorrow...
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