Most of us will never know what really goes on behind the scenes during the week of Halloween. If you have ever felt more Satanic oppression during this time than at others, you are not alone. Perhaps your spirit feels a burden you cannot shake, a heaviness you cannot explain, a depression you cannot dismiss. What's really going on? My mother told of a time when she and my father experienced unusual Satanic oppression when they had a next door neighbor who was a practicin

Narrative Arc and the Biblical Worldview When Jesus likens the days before His return to the days of Noah, He shows that human history moves in a circle. And yet this circle is intriguingly different from the wheel of time found within the Eastern worldview. Rather than merely revolving in an eternal rotation of birth, death, and rebirth, human history in reality repeats itself in successively worsening degrees. Jesus makes this clear when He warns that it will be easier

Taken as a Whole Called the greatest sermon of all time, Jesus' Sermon on the Mount not only sets the tone of His entire earthly ministry but defines the very essence o f the Gospel. Like His seamless robe, which the Roman soldiers who crucified Jesus cast lots for rather than divide, Christ's sermon must be taken not as a collection of teachings but as a whole. As the New Testament fulfillment of the Old Testament's Ten Commandments, Jesus' sermon is morally binding upon

The Ark Encounter Two years ago, I got to visit the Ark Encounter in Williamstown, Kentucky. I had wanted to go for a long time, and it finally worked out. The entire experience surpassed my expectations. The late-June day was overcast and cool, so it was easy to imagine a looming storm. If you have been there, you remember your very first impression. Mine was fear wrapped in safety. You enter semi-darkness amid ominous thunderbooms as you inch your way through the

Introduction Our culture has long ago lost the inimitable charm of living for others. "Please yourself" has become the mantra of the...

Do Christians Sin Every Day? "I sin every day." This common statement is often attached to the prevailing claim that all sins are...

Those who argue that faith is purely a gift of God contend that a dead man has no power to exert his will. If he did, he would be...

Have you noticed these days how faith--the very means of our salvation, upon which Luther's Protestant Reformation was built--is often casually dropped from the process of salvation? The omission, we find, is intentional. It is also contradictory. Those who preach that we are saved by grace alone and who leave out "through faith” seem afraid we will discover that there is, after all, a condition of salvation. If there is a condition to salvation, then free will is invo

Is faith a work? Of course not, most self-respecting, healthy people will answer. Why would you ask that? Thank you. I agree. Is faith a gift? Well, now, that's a tough one. I always thought faith was the single proof of righteousness, my required response to grace, so I guess not. But then, again, didn't the disciples ask the Lord to increase their faith? And didn't the father of a suffering boy ask the Lord to help his unbelief? Now you've got me all confused. I

"All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name" If you can relate to the days of hymnals, you might have opened one in which "All Hail the Power of...

Introduction: Too often we hear preachers today thunder out the message--that is, if they preach with authority at all--that salvation is by grace alone , misquoting Ephesians 2:8-9 with no qualms. But I always want to shout back, "What have you done with 'through faith ?'" Yes, what have they done with it? And, even when they do include "through faith," what have they done with faith ? Like so many things these days, salvation, grace , and faith don't mean what the

The Spirit of our Age We live in a day of lawlessness that has been allowed to redefine true salvation. The spirit of the age has infected the gospel with antinomianism, cleverly disguising it as “grace.” It has also mislabeled obedience as "legalism," going even so far as to call faith and repentance "works." But obedience has no more to do with legalism than antinomianism has to do with grace. In order to return to a biblical view of salvation, we must expose the fals

Introduction: Without a doubt, the wildly popular song, "I Speak Jesus," has commanded a prominent place on the stage of modern worship music. Having never heard of it until two years ago, I now seem to hear it everywhere. Yet, despite the song's powerful instrumentation and emotional appeal, it continues to unsettle my spirit as intensely as it did the night I first heard it. Researching the context behind the lyrics, in addition to studying the lyrics themselves, has