god can't even predict Lucifer will betray him....................how to predict TOTO................
4D also god can't handle liao..................
4D also god can't handle liao..................
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Today's Scripture Reading
- Thread starter Psalm23
- Start date
Today’s Scripture Reading [July 10, 2010]
As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured: so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites that minister unto me. [Jeremiah 33:22. KJV]
With the recent geological and cosmic disasters that we all have witnessed like the Haiti earthquake, Japan triple tragedies of earthquake, tsunami and radiation contamination, Iceland volcanic eruption, severe floods and drought in many countries, and so on, these events have triggered off many discussions regarding the end of the age as recorded in the Bible, notably in chapter 24 of the book of Matthew. Concurrently, there seem to have renewed interest and discussion on the topics on creation and whether modern science has made God obsolete. More than 150 years ago when the theory of evolution (and it is still just a theory and not a proven scientific fact) was propagated by Charles Darwin, many famous scientists from both camps – pro-creation and pro-evolution – have come out to give their differing views; some defended that God created the universe and all things while others claimed that the universe and all things are products of random mutation. As it stands today, the pro-evolution scientists seem to be ‘winning’ the debate because more people believe in the theory of evolution rather than believing in the Biblical teaching that God created the universe.
Whether we want to acknowledge and accept the theory of evolution as scientific truth or to accept the Biblical teaching that God is the Creator of all things, it is the choice for each individual to make. Whatever choice or path we take, we must be prepared to face serious consequences of the wrong choice because choosing one of these choices can have serious implication to our spiritual well-being. In fact, it is so serious that we are warned by Prophet Hosea: My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children (Hosea 6:4). The knowledge of God’s creation is far too obvious for anyone to miss. Each and every nature that surrounded us speaks to us the wonderful handiwork of God. For example, we know from historical records, ancient astrologists and astronomers had tried very hard to count the number of stars. Without the benefit of telescope (which was not invented until only in the last century) and by using their naked eyes, these ancient astrologists and astronomers scanned the sky and somehow came to the conclusion that there were only several hundred stars out in the heaven. We must understand that many of these astrologists and astronomers were working for the kings and emperors, and in spite of their high intellectual status as royal astrologists or royal astronomers, they came to the conclusion that there were just few hundred stars in the universe. It clearly indicated to us that their knowledge of the universe was simply of ‘kinder-garden’ standard given today’s understanding of the universe, particularly in the science of stars and planets! Using advanced telescopes and together with modern computer and digital technology that can process photographs of celestial objects that are many light years away from the earth, a study done by some Australian astronomers has estimated that the total number of stars in the known universe are 70,000 million billion. This according to the astronomers is also about 10 times as many stars as grains of sand on all the world’s beaches and deserts! Do these discoveries surprise you? May be but certainly not me because more than 2.500 years ago we are already told us of this knowledge that there are as many stars on the earth as there are grains of sand (Jeremiah 33: 22). Thankfully, this is one of the many modern scientific discoveries that proved the reliability of the Bible, the word of God. Paradoxically, given the scientific discoveries especially the last 100 years, the question that many unbelievers ask “Has science made God obsolete” is now simply an obsolete question itself because science has proved that Bible is a very reliable book for the quest for 'scientific knowledge.' Frankly, however scientific the study can be, no one can really know for sure how many stars are out there in the ‘known’ or ‘known and unknown’ universe but we are sure of one true Biblical (and scientific) fact: There are as many stars as there are as many grains of sand on all the beaches on earth.
Below is a message “The Awesome Mind of God” that was penned by a magazine columnist, Roger Meyer. This is a wonderful message and truly revealed God’s awesome mind. Prayerfully, through this message, we all can come to the knowledge of God that He and only He is worthy to be praise because He is the Creator of all things, and without God nothing can be created (John 1:3) and we can take absolute comfort that the Bible is the infallible word of God.
A Yale University astronomer recently suggested that the estimate of the number of stars could be as much as three times more than previously estimated. The new estimate is 300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. This number is called 300 sextillion in the United States, or 300 trilliard in Europe. Did you know that the Great God calls them all by name?
Psalms 147: 4-5 says: “He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names. Great is our Lord and of great power, his understanding is infinite.” Infinite means “limitless” and “immeasurably great or large.” But we are finite beings, having a limited existence. How can we really comprehend the infinite?
Yes, God has a name for all 300 sextillion stars. Let’s try to put that number in perspective. If you named one star every second, it would only take you a little over 9.5 quadrillion years to complete. That’s still incomprehensible! Let’s put one million people to work naming one star every second. Then the task would only take 96 million years to complete. Obviously, the number is incomprehensible to us puny humans.
Do you know, the Bible also says that God knows how many hairs are on our heads? Matthew 10:30: “But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” There are said to be, on average, over one hundred thousand strands of hair on a young adult. Blondes have about 140,000 strands, brunettes average 108,000 strands, and redheads average about 90,000 strands. If we counted one hair every second, it would take us just shy of 28 hours to finish counting 100,000 strands of hair. And that’s just one head.
The Bible also says that God knows when a sparrow falls (Matthew 10:29). According to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, communication towers conservatively kill 4 to 5 million birds annually, and possibly as many as 10 times that amount. Cars may kill 60 million birds or more each year. Wind turbine rotors kill an estimated 33,000 birds annually. It is estimated that pesticides kill 72 million birds annually. And how many may be killed by oil spills and other environmental disasters, by being orphaned and even by the common house cat? Only the Almighty knows!
The book of Job, chapters 38 and 39, speak of a few of the acts of God. God put things in perspective for His servant Job. God spoke of some of the things that He had made to which Job could relate, like the earth, the sea, and the natural forces of weather such as wind, rain, snow and lightening. He asked Job who provides food for the lion and the ravens, and if Job knew about various animals. He asked Job if he had made the beautiful peacock feathers, or if he had made a majestic horse that gallops like thunder. He asked Job if he knew anything about making the hawk fly, or if he commanded the eagle to make its nest in the high, rocky places.
These questions greatly humbled Job, as it humbles us all. With all of the advancements of science in the last two centuries, man can’t even cure the common cold. Man is only scratching the surface of things that are elementary to God. From astronomy to zoology, our Eternal God knows and created all of it. He made the natural laws within which all those fields of science operate. And even more awesome than all of these things is what God is preparing for mankind in the future. 1 Corinthians 2:9 says: “But as it is written, ‘Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.”
As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured: so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites that minister unto me. [Jeremiah 33:22. KJV]
With the recent geological and cosmic disasters that we all have witnessed like the Haiti earthquake, Japan triple tragedies of earthquake, tsunami and radiation contamination, Iceland volcanic eruption, severe floods and drought in many countries, and so on, these events have triggered off many discussions regarding the end of the age as recorded in the Bible, notably in chapter 24 of the book of Matthew. Concurrently, there seem to have renewed interest and discussion on the topics on creation and whether modern science has made God obsolete. More than 150 years ago when the theory of evolution (and it is still just a theory and not a proven scientific fact) was propagated by Charles Darwin, many famous scientists from both camps – pro-creation and pro-evolution – have come out to give their differing views; some defended that God created the universe and all things while others claimed that the universe and all things are products of random mutation. As it stands today, the pro-evolution scientists seem to be ‘winning’ the debate because more people believe in the theory of evolution rather than believing in the Biblical teaching that God created the universe.
Whether we want to acknowledge and accept the theory of evolution as scientific truth or to accept the Biblical teaching that God is the Creator of all things, it is the choice for each individual to make. Whatever choice or path we take, we must be prepared to face serious consequences of the wrong choice because choosing one of these choices can have serious implication to our spiritual well-being. In fact, it is so serious that we are warned by Prophet Hosea: My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children (Hosea 6:4). The knowledge of God’s creation is far too obvious for anyone to miss. Each and every nature that surrounded us speaks to us the wonderful handiwork of God. For example, we know from historical records, ancient astrologists and astronomers had tried very hard to count the number of stars. Without the benefit of telescope (which was not invented until only in the last century) and by using their naked eyes, these ancient astrologists and astronomers scanned the sky and somehow came to the conclusion that there were only several hundred stars out in the heaven. We must understand that many of these astrologists and astronomers were working for the kings and emperors, and in spite of their high intellectual status as royal astrologists or royal astronomers, they came to the conclusion that there were just few hundred stars in the universe. It clearly indicated to us that their knowledge of the universe was simply of ‘kinder-garden’ standard given today’s understanding of the universe, particularly in the science of stars and planets! Using advanced telescopes and together with modern computer and digital technology that can process photographs of celestial objects that are many light years away from the earth, a study done by some Australian astronomers has estimated that the total number of stars in the known universe are 70,000 million billion. This according to the astronomers is also about 10 times as many stars as grains of sand on all the world’s beaches and deserts! Do these discoveries surprise you? May be but certainly not me because more than 2.500 years ago we are already told us of this knowledge that there are as many stars on the earth as there are grains of sand (Jeremiah 33: 22). Thankfully, this is one of the many modern scientific discoveries that proved the reliability of the Bible, the word of God. Paradoxically, given the scientific discoveries especially the last 100 years, the question that many unbelievers ask “Has science made God obsolete” is now simply an obsolete question itself because science has proved that Bible is a very reliable book for the quest for 'scientific knowledge.' Frankly, however scientific the study can be, no one can really know for sure how many stars are out there in the ‘known’ or ‘known and unknown’ universe but we are sure of one true Biblical (and scientific) fact: There are as many stars as there are as many grains of sand on all the beaches on earth.
Below is a message “The Awesome Mind of God” that was penned by a magazine columnist, Roger Meyer. This is a wonderful message and truly revealed God’s awesome mind. Prayerfully, through this message, we all can come to the knowledge of God that He and only He is worthy to be praise because He is the Creator of all things, and without God nothing can be created (John 1:3) and we can take absolute comfort that the Bible is the infallible word of God.
A Yale University astronomer recently suggested that the estimate of the number of stars could be as much as three times more than previously estimated. The new estimate is 300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. This number is called 300 sextillion in the United States, or 300 trilliard in Europe. Did you know that the Great God calls them all by name?
Psalms 147: 4-5 says: “He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names. Great is our Lord and of great power, his understanding is infinite.” Infinite means “limitless” and “immeasurably great or large.” But we are finite beings, having a limited existence. How can we really comprehend the infinite?
Yes, God has a name for all 300 sextillion stars. Let’s try to put that number in perspective. If you named one star every second, it would only take you a little over 9.5 quadrillion years to complete. That’s still incomprehensible! Let’s put one million people to work naming one star every second. Then the task would only take 96 million years to complete. Obviously, the number is incomprehensible to us puny humans.
Do you know, the Bible also says that God knows how many hairs are on our heads? Matthew 10:30: “But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” There are said to be, on average, over one hundred thousand strands of hair on a young adult. Blondes have about 140,000 strands, brunettes average 108,000 strands, and redheads average about 90,000 strands. If we counted one hair every second, it would take us just shy of 28 hours to finish counting 100,000 strands of hair. And that’s just one head.
The Bible also says that God knows when a sparrow falls (Matthew 10:29). According to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, communication towers conservatively kill 4 to 5 million birds annually, and possibly as many as 10 times that amount. Cars may kill 60 million birds or more each year. Wind turbine rotors kill an estimated 33,000 birds annually. It is estimated that pesticides kill 72 million birds annually. And how many may be killed by oil spills and other environmental disasters, by being orphaned and even by the common house cat? Only the Almighty knows!
The book of Job, chapters 38 and 39, speak of a few of the acts of God. God put things in perspective for His servant Job. God spoke of some of the things that He had made to which Job could relate, like the earth, the sea, and the natural forces of weather such as wind, rain, snow and lightening. He asked Job who provides food for the lion and the ravens, and if Job knew about various animals. He asked Job if he had made the beautiful peacock feathers, or if he had made a majestic horse that gallops like thunder. He asked Job if he knew anything about making the hawk fly, or if he commanded the eagle to make its nest in the high, rocky places.
These questions greatly humbled Job, as it humbles us all. With all of the advancements of science in the last two centuries, man can’t even cure the common cold. Man is only scratching the surface of things that are elementary to God. From astronomy to zoology, our Eternal God knows and created all of it. He made the natural laws within which all those fields of science operate. And even more awesome than all of these things is what God is preparing for mankind in the future. 1 Corinthians 2:9 says: “But as it is written, ‘Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.”
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Please do not seek medical treatment if you ever catch a cold even if it deteriorate into Pneumonia or worst S.A.R.S. That is your God's grand design for you
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Hi Psalm23,
Do you remember that I had said I will give you a surprise? Well, I had wanted to put all your posts onto a website for you. I did a few and realize that the effort will take up more time than I can spare.
I wish to apologize to you for not fulfilling my promise.
Regards,
Do you remember that I had said I will give you a surprise? Well, I had wanted to put all your posts onto a website for you. I did a few and realize that the effort will take up more time than I can spare.
I wish to apologize to you for not fulfilling my promise.
Regards,
Hi IR123,
No problem. Take you time.
You can use my post as you deem fit. Also, if time permit you may want to edit my message because I think I have made grammatical errors in some of my message. Some of them due to carelessness but many because of my not-so-good command of English. Admittedly, I don't have great grammar skill, perhaps only at passable ' standard so this is where you can add value - all for the glory of God.
God bless.
Psalm23
No problem. Take you time.
You can use my post as you deem fit. Also, if time permit you may want to edit my message because I think I have made grammatical errors in some of my message. Some of them due to carelessness but many because of my not-so-good command of English. Admittedly, I don't have great grammar skill, perhaps only at passable ' standard so this is where you can add value - all for the glory of God.
God bless.
Psalm23
shocking right!)Today’s Scripture Reading [July 17, 2011]
Hear this word that the LORD hath spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. [Amos 3:1-2. KJV]
Often, during our social interactions with friends and colleagues, we heard them making comments like: “It’s now a different world;” “Time has changed;” “We simply cannot keep up with what’s going on in the world.” For instance, I just had a chance to meet up with one of my ex-colleagues and we started talking about the challenges that parents are now facing when raising up their children. Without hesitation, my friend’s wife who has three grown up children made exactly those comments. Her main point was that today’s children are very different from what children were twenty years ago.
I do not know to what extent you can relate this to what the word of God, the Bible has to say about such ‘changes.’ As for me, this is what makes reading and studying the Bible so exciting and relevant when we look around things around us and when we examine the conversations during our social interactions. As we read the Bible from the Old Testament to the New Testament, we discover that nothing is really new when it comes to people’s character. Although many of these writings were written years ago – and some as old as 3,000 years old – they are as relevant today. Though we all may feel that there are great changes around us but these changes are mainly in science, technology and commerce. The evilness and wickedness of man remains the same; the very sinful nature of man remains; the greed for gold made us to override our brotherly concern for one another, and just like the ancient days, it is one of the human quirks of human nature that the more we have, the more we want to hold to it. So, nothing changes, really.
Admittedly, things are changing every minute but we must take understand that these changes are simply part of the Satan’s deceptive plan. We see drastic changes from the way we read the news around us, the way movies are made, the way we communicate, the way we do business. From scripture perspective, I am inclined to opine that these subtlety of the changes is one of the most deceptive works of the devil in order to take our mind away from God . Slow but surely, the devil can devise changes from a seemingly an insignificant event and soon, without realizing it, it evolved into sometime so damaging that is beyond our wildest dream. Though the usual approach is far too familiar but we just simply chose to ignore it. First, the devil will just tell us “It’s ok. No big deal, after all this is what others are doing.” This will then progress to become a common practice that everyone later became comfortable with. Soon these practices penetrated right into our home and our society. From stage one, it leads to stage two just like cancer. When it came to stage four, it turns deadly. Let’s take of our most familiar events of national interest: the casino which government has sugar-coated it with the term “integrated-resort’. We are told that this is a very important industry for our long-term economic survival and if we refused to get in, we will not be able to sustain our economic growth. We are told by senior government officials that “with the casino we will be in trouble; but without the casino we will be in bigger trouble!” We are further sold to the argument that after all there are many other avenues for people to gamble – they can go to the cruise ship; they can go to Genting Highland; they can go to Macau; they can always gambled legally on Toto, 4-D, football. So what’s the big deal for having casino at our doorstep! We know by now, they are dead wrong!
Just few days ago, an article appeared in the Straits Times (July 14) with the headline: “More gamblers seeking help over debts.” It was reported that because casinos are accessible 24/7, all year round gamblers can chalk up hefty losses in just few months after trying and failing to win back money. The report further disclosed that the losses per adult resident here jumped 53 percent last year to over 1,400 dollars! By comparison, in the 2011 Growth Dividends that the government gave to all Singapore, the Finance Ministry has said that 80 per cent of Singaporeans has received $600 to $800 (or average $ 700) in these Growth Dividends. It follows that, on the average, each resident here has lost twice as much the amount of the 2011 Growth Dividends! We are grateful for the government's generousity and we wish that it could be more generous. We have see the Finance Ministry and many ministers joined in the ‘Big Bang’ announcing the 2011 Growth Dividend. But when it comes to the grim story like the negative effect that we are now witnessing because of casino, we have not heard much from senior government officials of how they could help to solve the problems. Instead, we hear only noises from the NGOs like the Credit Counseling Singapore, the Silver Lining Community Service, the One Hope Centre. These NGOs are taking the lead to provide counseling services to the gambling addicts. Rightly, people of authority like ministers should be now be taking the lead because they created the problem in the first place. To add salt to the wound, instead people in authority seemed to impliedly telling us that we are still in good-shape in spite of the integrated-resorts. We see often economic figures telling us that because of the integrated-resorts, thousands of jobs are being created; the revenue from the integrated-resorts has contributed to x% of the GDP; hotel occupancy rates are in the 80%; tourism industry is booming, etc but we hardly hear from these officials the harmful effect that are not taking the toll on people’s lives. For many older people like myself, it is really an eye-opener to see the ‘changes’ that are taking place. But please note that I am now contradicting myself. The ‘changes’ that we are now witnessing at the national level because of our need to survive, economically speaking – so they claimed – are something beyond the belief of anyone of my generation or my father’s generation, after all we were told by one of the founding fathers that Singapore could be allowed to have a casino only over his dead body!
I have written several messages concerning the evilness of casino but for my message today, I am trying to relate to the message to that of the book of Amos. It is not my intention to keep bringing up the issues and the problems of casino because I think we all know by now of its severe negative effects, and it can only take a miracle for the government to have a heart change to close down the casino. Furthermore, we have already journeyed so deep into this previously uncharted gaming industry and short of a miracle, economic common-sense tells us that the amount of investments that went into the building of the two integrated-casino-resorts just simply cannot turn back the clock to make Singapore a casino-free nation as it was before. Rather than keeping sharing with you of the obvious of the sin of gaming in general and casino in particular, the purpose of bringing up the issues of casino is to relate to what Prophet Amos has prophesized: God holds the nations of men accountable whether they are in positions of authority or just merely average citizens. In the book of Amos, we are told that God was not just concerned with His covenant people of Israel. Together with the story told in the book of Jonah, God’s judged the surrounding nations as well. In a Bible commentary on Amos that I happened to read, the Amos message centres in the common prophetic conviction that God is the sole and righteous Governor of the world, judging the people righteously, and when they rebel, dashing them to pieces like a potter’s vessel. God condemned sinners whether we are believers or non-believers. We cannot save ourselves from our wickedness, evilness and cruelty. The big difference is the standards to which the people and their nations were held accountable. The non-believers or the heathens were judged for their violation of basic principles of righteousness, but the people of God, the believers, were judged by their faithfulness (or unfaithfulness) of God’s revealed word. These standards of accountable that were prescribed in the Old Testament are consistent with what we find in Paul’s writing in the book of Romans (1:17) “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith;” and Romans (2:11-16) For there is no respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law; (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.”
Another important lesson that we can learn from Prophet Amos is that we do not need to be educated, nor be in high position of authority nor be in high social standing to be God’s messenger. Prophet Amos was chosen by God to be God’s messenger and he was merely a shepherd. Shepherds in those days were people of the lowest social standing and so it was very unlikely that Prophet Amos had gone into seminary, attended prophet school nor did he come from a ministry family. But these did not stop him from being chosen to serve God. Regardless of who were are, if we are saved then we are called, and God’s has a purpose for all of us to be His messenger wherever we live, work or go to school. We need to be available where we are at, and given the current state of internet communication that we have, there is no excuse for us not to take part in declaring the Gospel of Jesus to the world. Since all scripture is God’s word and useful, we can look forward with great excitement when we open His word - whether it’s Leviticus, Amos, Habakkuk, Luke, Romans or Revelation. We can approach God with great expectation because we know God has promised that “For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it (Isaiah 55: 10-11).”
Hear this word that the LORD hath spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. [Amos 3:1-2. KJV]
Often, during our social interactions with friends and colleagues, we heard them making comments like: “It’s now a different world;” “Time has changed;” “We simply cannot keep up with what’s going on in the world.” For instance, I just had a chance to meet up with one of my ex-colleagues and we started talking about the challenges that parents are now facing when raising up their children. Without hesitation, my friend’s wife who has three grown up children made exactly those comments. Her main point was that today’s children are very different from what children were twenty years ago.
I do not know to what extent you can relate this to what the word of God, the Bible has to say about such ‘changes.’ As for me, this is what makes reading and studying the Bible so exciting and relevant when we look around things around us and when we examine the conversations during our social interactions. As we read the Bible from the Old Testament to the New Testament, we discover that nothing is really new when it comes to people’s character. Although many of these writings were written years ago – and some as old as 3,000 years old – they are as relevant today. Though we all may feel that there are great changes around us but these changes are mainly in science, technology and commerce. The evilness and wickedness of man remains the same; the very sinful nature of man remains; the greed for gold made us to override our brotherly concern for one another, and just like the ancient days, it is one of the human quirks of human nature that the more we have, the more we want to hold to it. So, nothing changes, really.
Admittedly, things are changing every minute but we must take understand that these changes are simply part of the Satan’s deceptive plan. We see drastic changes from the way we read the news around us, the way movies are made, the way we communicate, the way we do business. From scripture perspective, I am inclined to opine that these subtlety of the changes is one of the most deceptive works of the devil in order to take our mind away from God . Slow but surely, the devil can devise changes from a seemingly an insignificant event and soon, without realizing it, it evolved into sometime so damaging that is beyond our wildest dream. Though the usual approach is far too familiar but we just simply chose to ignore it. First, the devil will just tell us “It’s ok. No big deal, after all this is what others are doing.” This will then progress to become a common practice that everyone later became comfortable with. Soon these practices penetrated right into our home and our society. From stage one, it leads to stage two just like cancer. When it came to stage four, it turns deadly. Let’s take of our most familiar events of national interest: the casino which government has sugar-coated it with the term “integrated-resort’. We are told that this is a very important industry for our long-term economic survival and if we refused to get in, we will not be able to sustain our economic growth. We are told by senior government officials that “with the casino we will be in trouble; but without the casino we will be in bigger trouble!” We are further sold to the argument that after all there are many other avenues for people to gamble – they can go to the cruise ship; they can go to Genting Highland; they can go to Macau; they can always gambled legally on Toto, 4-D, football. So what’s the big deal for having casino at our doorstep! We know by now, they are dead wrong!
Just few days ago, an article appeared in the Straits Times (July 14) with the headline: “More gamblers seeking help over debts.” It was reported that because casinos are accessible 24/7, all year round gamblers can chalk up hefty losses in just few months after trying and failing to win back money. The report further disclosed that the losses per adult resident here jumped 53 percent last year to over 1,400 dollars! By comparison, in the 2011 Growth Dividends that the government gave to all Singapore, the Finance Ministry has said that 80 per cent of Singaporeans has received $600 to $800 (or average $ 700) in these Growth Dividends. It follows that, on the average, each resident here has lost twice as much the amount of the 2011 Growth Dividends! We are grateful for the government's generousity and we wish that it could be more generous. We have see the Finance Ministry and many ministers joined in the ‘Big Bang’ announcing the 2011 Growth Dividend. But when it comes to the grim story like the negative effect that we are now witnessing because of casino, we have not heard much from senior government officials of how they could help to solve the problems. Instead, we hear only noises from the NGOs like the Credit Counseling Singapore, the Silver Lining Community Service, the One Hope Centre. These NGOs are taking the lead to provide counseling services to the gambling addicts. Rightly, people of authority like ministers should be now be taking the lead because they created the problem in the first place. To add salt to the wound, instead people in authority seemed to impliedly telling us that we are still in good-shape in spite of the integrated-resorts. We see often economic figures telling us that because of the integrated-resorts, thousands of jobs are being created; the revenue from the integrated-resorts has contributed to x% of the GDP; hotel occupancy rates are in the 80%; tourism industry is booming, etc but we hardly hear from these officials the harmful effect that are not taking the toll on people’s lives. For many older people like myself, it is really an eye-opener to see the ‘changes’ that are taking place. But please note that I am now contradicting myself. The ‘changes’ that we are now witnessing at the national level because of our need to survive, economically speaking – so they claimed – are something beyond the belief of anyone of my generation or my father’s generation, after all we were told by one of the founding fathers that Singapore could be allowed to have a casino only over his dead body!
I have written several messages concerning the evilness of casino but for my message today, I am trying to relate to the message to that of the book of Amos. It is not my intention to keep bringing up the issues and the problems of casino because I think we all know by now of its severe negative effects, and it can only take a miracle for the government to have a heart change to close down the casino. Furthermore, we have already journeyed so deep into this previously uncharted gaming industry and short of a miracle, economic common-sense tells us that the amount of investments that went into the building of the two integrated-casino-resorts just simply cannot turn back the clock to make Singapore a casino-free nation as it was before. Rather than keeping sharing with you of the obvious of the sin of gaming in general and casino in particular, the purpose of bringing up the issues of casino is to relate to what Prophet Amos has prophesized: God holds the nations of men accountable whether they are in positions of authority or just merely average citizens. In the book of Amos, we are told that God was not just concerned with His covenant people of Israel. Together with the story told in the book of Jonah, God’s judged the surrounding nations as well. In a Bible commentary on Amos that I happened to read, the Amos message centres in the common prophetic conviction that God is the sole and righteous Governor of the world, judging the people righteously, and when they rebel, dashing them to pieces like a potter’s vessel. God condemned sinners whether we are believers or non-believers. We cannot save ourselves from our wickedness, evilness and cruelty. The big difference is the standards to which the people and their nations were held accountable. The non-believers or the heathens were judged for their violation of basic principles of righteousness, but the people of God, the believers, were judged by their faithfulness (or unfaithfulness) of God’s revealed word. These standards of accountable that were prescribed in the Old Testament are consistent with what we find in Paul’s writing in the book of Romans (1:17) “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith;” and Romans (2:11-16) For there is no respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law; (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another
In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.” Another important lesson that we can learn from Prophet Amos is that we do not need to be educated, nor be in high position of authority nor be in high social standing to be God’s messenger. Prophet Amos was chosen by God to be God’s messenger and he was merely a shepherd. Shepherds in those days were people of the lowest social standing and so it was very unlikely that Prophet Amos had gone into seminary, attended prophet school nor did he come from a ministry family. But these did not stop him from being chosen to serve God. Regardless of who were are, if we are saved then we are called, and God’s has a purpose for all of us to be His messenger wherever we live, work or go to school. We need to be available where we are at, and given the current state of internet communication that we have, there is no excuse for us not to take part in declaring the Gospel of Jesus to the world. Since all scripture is God’s word and useful, we can look forward with great excitement when we open His word - whether it’s Leviticus, Amos, Habakkuk, Luke, Romans or Revelation. We can approach God with great expectation because we know God has promised that “For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it (Isaiah 55: 10-11).”
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Today’s Scripture Reading [July 17, 2011]
[Reposted....noted a few typo-errors in my previous post.]
Hear this word that the LORD hath spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. [Amos 3:1-2. KJV]
Often, during our social interactions with friends and colleagues, we heard them making comments like: “It’s now a different world;” “Time has changed;” “We simply cannot keep up with what’s going on in the world.” For instance, I just had a chance to meet up with one of my ex-colleagues and we started talking about the challenges that parents are now facing when raising up their children. Without hesitation, my friend’s wife who has three grown up children made exactly those comments. Her main point was that today’s children are very different from what children were twenty years ago.
I do not know to what extent you can relate this to what the word of God, the Bible has to say about such ‘changes.’ As for me, this is what makes reading and studying the Bible so exciting and relevant when we look at things around us and when we examine the conversations during our social interactions. As we read the Bible from the Old Testament to the New Testament, we discover that nothing is really new when it comes to people’s character. Although many of these writings were written years ago – and some as old as 3,000 years old – they are as relevant today. Though we all may feel that there are great changes around us but these changes are mainly in science, technology and commerce. The evilness and wickedness of man remains the same; the very sinful nature of man remains; the greed for gold made us to override our brotherly concern for one another, and just like the ancient days, it is one of the human quirks of human nature that the more we have, the more we want to hold to it. So, nothing changes, really.
Admittedly, things are changing every minute but we must understand that these changes are simply part of the Satan’s deceptive plan. We see drastic changes from the way we read the news around us, the way movies are made, the way we communicate, the way we do business. From scripture perspective, I am inclined to opine that these subtlety of the changes is one of the most dangerous deceptive works of the devil in order to take our mind away from God . Slow but surely, the devil can devise changes from a seemingly an insignificant event and soon, without realizing it, it evolved into sometime so damaging that is beyond our wildest dream. Though the usual approach is far too familiar but we just simply chose to ignore it. First, the devil will just tell us “It’s ok. No big deal, after all this is what others are doing.” This will then progress to become a common practice that everyone later became comfortable with. Soon these practices penetrated right into our home and our society. From stage one, it leads to stage two just like cancer. When it came to stage four, it turns deadly. Let’s take one of our most familiar events of national interest: the casino which government has sugar-coated it with the term “integrated-resort’. We are told that this is a very important industry for our long-term economic survival and if we refused to get in, we will not be able to sustain our economic growth. We are told by senior government officials that “with the casino we will be in trouble; but without the casino we will be in bigger trouble!” We are further sold to the argument that after all there are many other avenues for people to gamble – they can go to the cruise ship; they can go to Genting Highland; they can go to Macau; they can always gambled legally on Toto, 4-D, football. So what’s the big deal for having casino at our doorstep! We know by now, they are dead wrong!
Just few days ago, an article appeared in the Straits Times (July 14) with the headline: “More gamblers seeking help over debts.” It was reported that because casinos are accessible 24/7, all year round gamblers can chalk up hefty losses in just few months after trying and failing to win back money. The report further disclosed that the losses per adult resident here jumped 53 percent last year to over 1,400 dollars! By comparison, in the 2011 Growth Dividends that the government gave to all Singaporeans, the Finance Ministry reported that 80 per cent of Singaporeans has received $600 to $800 (or average $ 700 per Singaporean) in these Growth Dividends. It follows that, on the average, each Singaporean here has lost twice as much the amount of the 2011 Growth Dividends! We are grateful for the government's generosity and we wish that they could be more generous. We have seen the Finance Ministry and many ministers joined in the ‘Big Bang’ announcing the 2011 Growth Dividends. But when it comes to the grim story like the negative effect that we are now witnessing because of casino, we have not heard much from senior government officials of how they could help to solve the problems. Instead, we hear only noises from the NGOs like the Credit Counseling Singapore, the Silver Lining Community Service, the One Hope Centre. These NGOs are taking the lead to provide counseling services to the gambling addicts. Rightly, people of authority like ministers should be taking the lead because they are the one who created the problem in the first place. To add salt to the wound, instead people in authority seemed to impliedly telling us that we are still in good-shape in spite of the integrated-resorts. We see often economic figures telling us that because of the integrated-resorts, thousands of jobs are being created; the revenue from the integrated-resorts has contributed to x% of the GDP; hotel occupancy rates are in the 80%; tourism industry is booming, etc but we hardly hear from these officials the harmful effect that are now taking the toll on people’s lives. For many older people like myself, it is really an eye-opener to see the ‘changes’ that are taking place. But please note that I am now contradicting myself. The ‘changes’ that we are now witnessing at the national level because of our need to survive, economically speaking – so they claimed – are something beyond the belief of anyone of my generation or my father’s generation, after all we were told by one of the founding fathers that Singapore could be allowed to have a casino only over his dead body!
I have written several messages concerning the evilness of casino but for my message today, I am trying to relate it to the message to the book of Amos. It is not my intention to keep bringing up the issues and the problems of casino because I think we all know by now of its severe negative effects, and it can only take a miracle for the government to have a heart change to close down the casino. Furthermore, we have already journeyed so deep into this previously uncharted gaming industry and short of a miracle, economic common-sense tells us that the amount of investments that went into the building of the two integrated-casino-resorts just simply cannot turn back the clock to make Singapore a casino-free nation as it was before. Rather than keep sharing with you of the obvious of the sin of gaming in general and casino in particular, the purpose of bringing up the issues of casino is to relate to what Prophet Amos has prophesized: God holds the nations of men accountable whether they are in positions of authority or just merely average citizens. In the book of Amos, we are told that God was not just concerned with His covenant people of Israel. Together with the story told in the book of Jonah, God’s judged the surrounding nations as well. In a Bible commentary on Amos that I happened to read, the Amos message centres in the common prophetic conviction that God is the sole and righteous Governor of the world, judging the people righteously, and when they rebel, dashing them to pieces like a potter’s vessel. God condemned sinners whether we are believers or non-believers. We cannot save ourselves from our wickedness, evilness and cruelty. The big difference is the standards to which the people and their nations were held accountable. The non-believers or the heathens were judged for their violation of basic principles of righteousness, but the people of God, the believers, were judged by their faithfulness (or unfaithfulness) of God’s revealed word. These standards of accountable that are prescribed in the Old Testament are consistent with what we find in Paul’s writing in the book of Romans (1:17) “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith;” and Romans (2:11-16) "For there is no respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law; (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.”
Another important lesson that we can learn from Prophet Amos is that we do not need to be educated, nor be in high position of authority nor be in high social standing to be God’s messenger. Prophet Amos was chosen by God to be God’s messenger and he was merely a shepherd. Shepherds in those days were people of the lowest social standing and so it was very unlikely that Prophet Amos had gone into seminary, attended prophet school nor did he come from a ministry family. But these did not stop him from being chosen to serve God. Regardless of who were are, if we are saved then we are called, and God’s has a purpose for all of us to be His messenger wherever we live, work or go to school. We need to be available where we are at, and given the current state of internet communication that we have, there is no excuse for us not to take part in declaring the Gospel of Jesus to the world. Since all scriptures are God’s word and useful, we can look forward with great excitement when we open His word - whether it’s Leviticus, Amos, Habakkuk, Luke, Romans or Revelation. We can approach God with great expectation because we know God has promised that “For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it (Isaiah 55: 10-11).”
[Reposted....noted a few typo-errors in my previous post.]
Hear this word that the LORD hath spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. [Amos 3:1-2. KJV]
Often, during our social interactions with friends and colleagues, we heard them making comments like: “It’s now a different world;” “Time has changed;” “We simply cannot keep up with what’s going on in the world.” For instance, I just had a chance to meet up with one of my ex-colleagues and we started talking about the challenges that parents are now facing when raising up their children. Without hesitation, my friend’s wife who has three grown up children made exactly those comments. Her main point was that today’s children are very different from what children were twenty years ago.
I do not know to what extent you can relate this to what the word of God, the Bible has to say about such ‘changes.’ As for me, this is what makes reading and studying the Bible so exciting and relevant when we look at things around us and when we examine the conversations during our social interactions. As we read the Bible from the Old Testament to the New Testament, we discover that nothing is really new when it comes to people’s character. Although many of these writings were written years ago – and some as old as 3,000 years old – they are as relevant today. Though we all may feel that there are great changes around us but these changes are mainly in science, technology and commerce. The evilness and wickedness of man remains the same; the very sinful nature of man remains; the greed for gold made us to override our brotherly concern for one another, and just like the ancient days, it is one of the human quirks of human nature that the more we have, the more we want to hold to it. So, nothing changes, really.
Admittedly, things are changing every minute but we must understand that these changes are simply part of the Satan’s deceptive plan. We see drastic changes from the way we read the news around us, the way movies are made, the way we communicate, the way we do business. From scripture perspective, I am inclined to opine that these subtlety of the changes is one of the most dangerous deceptive works of the devil in order to take our mind away from God . Slow but surely, the devil can devise changes from a seemingly an insignificant event and soon, without realizing it, it evolved into sometime so damaging that is beyond our wildest dream. Though the usual approach is far too familiar but we just simply chose to ignore it. First, the devil will just tell us “It’s ok. No big deal, after all this is what others are doing.” This will then progress to become a common practice that everyone later became comfortable with. Soon these practices penetrated right into our home and our society. From stage one, it leads to stage two just like cancer. When it came to stage four, it turns deadly. Let’s take one of our most familiar events of national interest: the casino which government has sugar-coated it with the term “integrated-resort’. We are told that this is a very important industry for our long-term economic survival and if we refused to get in, we will not be able to sustain our economic growth. We are told by senior government officials that “with the casino we will be in trouble; but without the casino we will be in bigger trouble!” We are further sold to the argument that after all there are many other avenues for people to gamble – they can go to the cruise ship; they can go to Genting Highland; they can go to Macau; they can always gambled legally on Toto, 4-D, football. So what’s the big deal for having casino at our doorstep! We know by now, they are dead wrong!
Just few days ago, an article appeared in the Straits Times (July 14) with the headline: “More gamblers seeking help over debts.” It was reported that because casinos are accessible 24/7, all year round gamblers can chalk up hefty losses in just few months after trying and failing to win back money. The report further disclosed that the losses per adult resident here jumped 53 percent last year to over 1,400 dollars! By comparison, in the 2011 Growth Dividends that the government gave to all Singaporeans, the Finance Ministry reported that 80 per cent of Singaporeans has received $600 to $800 (or average $ 700 per Singaporean) in these Growth Dividends. It follows that, on the average, each Singaporean here has lost twice as much the amount of the 2011 Growth Dividends! We are grateful for the government's generosity and we wish that they could be more generous. We have seen the Finance Ministry and many ministers joined in the ‘Big Bang’ announcing the 2011 Growth Dividends. But when it comes to the grim story like the negative effect that we are now witnessing because of casino, we have not heard much from senior government officials of how they could help to solve the problems. Instead, we hear only noises from the NGOs like the Credit Counseling Singapore, the Silver Lining Community Service, the One Hope Centre. These NGOs are taking the lead to provide counseling services to the gambling addicts. Rightly, people of authority like ministers should be taking the lead because they are the one who created the problem in the first place. To add salt to the wound, instead people in authority seemed to impliedly telling us that we are still in good-shape in spite of the integrated-resorts. We see often economic figures telling us that because of the integrated-resorts, thousands of jobs are being created; the revenue from the integrated-resorts has contributed to x% of the GDP; hotel occupancy rates are in the 80%; tourism industry is booming, etc but we hardly hear from these officials the harmful effect that are now taking the toll on people’s lives. For many older people like myself, it is really an eye-opener to see the ‘changes’ that are taking place. But please note that I am now contradicting myself. The ‘changes’ that we are now witnessing at the national level because of our need to survive, economically speaking – so they claimed – are something beyond the belief of anyone of my generation or my father’s generation, after all we were told by one of the founding fathers that Singapore could be allowed to have a casino only over his dead body!
I have written several messages concerning the evilness of casino but for my message today, I am trying to relate it to the message to the book of Amos. It is not my intention to keep bringing up the issues and the problems of casino because I think we all know by now of its severe negative effects, and it can only take a miracle for the government to have a heart change to close down the casino. Furthermore, we have already journeyed so deep into this previously uncharted gaming industry and short of a miracle, economic common-sense tells us that the amount of investments that went into the building of the two integrated-casino-resorts just simply cannot turn back the clock to make Singapore a casino-free nation as it was before. Rather than keep sharing with you of the obvious of the sin of gaming in general and casino in particular, the purpose of bringing up the issues of casino is to relate to what Prophet Amos has prophesized: God holds the nations of men accountable whether they are in positions of authority or just merely average citizens. In the book of Amos, we are told that God was not just concerned with His covenant people of Israel. Together with the story told in the book of Jonah, God’s judged the surrounding nations as well. In a Bible commentary on Amos that I happened to read, the Amos message centres in the common prophetic conviction that God is the sole and righteous Governor of the world, judging the people righteously, and when they rebel, dashing them to pieces like a potter’s vessel. God condemned sinners whether we are believers or non-believers. We cannot save ourselves from our wickedness, evilness and cruelty. The big difference is the standards to which the people and their nations were held accountable. The non-believers or the heathens were judged for their violation of basic principles of righteousness, but the people of God, the believers, were judged by their faithfulness (or unfaithfulness) of God’s revealed word. These standards of accountable that are prescribed in the Old Testament are consistent with what we find in Paul’s writing in the book of Romans (1:17) “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith;” and Romans (2:11-16) "For there is no respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law; (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.”
Another important lesson that we can learn from Prophet Amos is that we do not need to be educated, nor be in high position of authority nor be in high social standing to be God’s messenger. Prophet Amos was chosen by God to be God’s messenger and he was merely a shepherd. Shepherds in those days were people of the lowest social standing and so it was very unlikely that Prophet Amos had gone into seminary, attended prophet school nor did he come from a ministry family. But these did not stop him from being chosen to serve God. Regardless of who were are, if we are saved then we are called, and God’s has a purpose for all of us to be His messenger wherever we live, work or go to school. We need to be available where we are at, and given the current state of internet communication that we have, there is no excuse for us not to take part in declaring the Gospel of Jesus to the world. Since all scriptures are God’s word and useful, we can look forward with great excitement when we open His word - whether it’s Leviticus, Amos, Habakkuk, Luke, Romans or Revelation. We can approach God with great expectation because we know God has promised that “For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it (Isaiah 55: 10-11).”
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Today’s Scripture Reading [July 24, 2011]
Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God. Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. [Revelation 3:2-3. KJV]
If you have been following our local news in the last couple weeks, you must be feeling a deep sigh of concern. For six weeks in a row, there were six separate dead bodies discovered across the island. With these discoveries, the police must be working extra time to unravel events leading to these dead bodies. With so many bodies discovered, the chances are that several of these were murder victims. Perhaps there are still other dead bodies that are yet to be discovered (which I pray that there is none anymore), we can easily come to one simple conclusion: we are now approaching the state of anarchy and lawlessness and nothing could help, it seems, to stop this from turning it into a full-blown apocalyptic event of lawlessness as foretold in the Bible (Matthew 24:12). For many of us, we may take comfort that Singapore is still safe because when we compare the latest mass killing that just took place in Norway where almost 100 innocent people were ruthlessly killed, we are indeed a safe place to live, relatively speaking. But for how long can our safe haven last? This is a big question that demands a big answer!
Another big question we need to ask ourselves is that, is the state of anarchy (and of course greed) confines to just ordinary people or has it penetrated into the society at large from government system to corporation? The answer is obvious. We read of the news of phone hacking by famous news media corporation. The fact that two of the most senior police officers – the commissioner of police and his assistant – have resigned because of the sandal gives us a very clear indication that people in high positions are also involved in this phone-hacking scandal. People at high places have all the muscles needed to let them do what they like and yet the law is powerless to apprehend them.
In our newspaper today, I noted the following comment made by a Beijing news analyst that can well summarize the dire state of growing social and political problems in China. His comment: Our society rests on physical might and not the rule of law. Government officials are often seen as above the law and they set a poor benchmark for the people’s behaviour. Many believe that reason can only be made with the form of the fist. People are not used to obeying laws. In life, we get through back doors, short-cuts and guanxi. It is no different when we are on the road.” Though the comments that he made were related to his observations on the unruly behaviour of Beijing’s motorists, this is largely no different from what we see things around us. Globally-speaking, with fractured financial institutions especially in most western nations, incomprehensible U.S. national debt of over 14 trillion U.S. dollars, and divided nationals along political, moral, religious and ethnical lines, the thread of a full-blown anarchy of many nations is simply not if, but when will it take place. Looking back to the economic collapse of 2009, precipitated by the U.S. sub-prime mortgage bubble, it was not merely the lack of oversight of the financial systems, but it was, at its heart, a morality issue. Greedy bankers knew very well that people just couldn’t service the mortgage loans but they still extended the loans to them. This irresponsible granting of loans to home-owners was already set to be defaulted from the very beginning the loans were approved. The combined loans given to those thousand of home-owners would enable the banks to earn huge interest, the so-called investment consultants would earn monetary incentives and commissions, and the senior management would have a big paoyut in the form of stock options and bonuses. The end result was that these non-performance mortgage loans slowly built up. It was not if, but when the bubble would explode and it did explode finally in 2009 causing the infamous financial crisis across the globe. Greed has lost the people’s trust of their government and financial institutions, and this mistrust is not confined just in the U.S. It has spread like wild forest fire to almost all nations across the globe.
Much has been said about the dire state of affair in U.S to a point I personally felt quite unjustified that why only U.S. and some western nations are singled out. These countries seem to be the punching bags when something goes wrong in the world system whether it is in financial, political or moral areas. Are other nations not just as corrupt? Can we, unlike the Amercians or the Europeans who have loss all their trust with their government, trust our own government here? I will be joking if I will to tell you that, yes, we can all trust the governments in this part of the world! In the newspaper just few days’ ago, we read of the news that China had executed scores of their senior government officials because of corruptions and misappropriations of state fund. In Hong Kong, there were street protests early this month when people were protesting skyrocketing housing prices and poor government policies. Some protesters carried large signs depicting the government and a billionaire property developer with devil horns and vampire fangs. They chanted slogans accusing the government and property developers of colluding to establish a business monopoly. In Japan, people are crying out that the government is not responding fast enough to the triple tragedies of earthquake, Tsunami and nuclear plant explosions. And at home here, people cried for help because our public housing seems to be now beyond the reach of average wage earners even though they are university graduates holding professional jobs. People were not happy that the public housing which is supposed to be heavily subsidized is now being built by profit-centered private contractors whose main objectives, for obvious reasons, are to make more profits and to create more monetary value for their shareholders. Greed has now inflicted a potent poison into the global systems of government and corporations, big and small. It is interesting that greed and anarchy are like Siamese-twin. Both are always marching in parallel, marching at the same time and at the same intensity: when greed is abound, anarchy is also abound! And we all know that since there is no way to control greed because that’s the very nature of man, it therefore follows that there is no way to control anarchy! Furthermore, if we extend the definition of anarchy from being just limited to the act of killing of the innocent or robbery, but to include events like legalizing or spread practice of abortion, prostitution, pornography, casino, drugs, homosexual and same-sex marriage, we can easily come to a firm conclusion that we are not just approaching towards the dire state of lawlessness and anarchy, it is here now and it is here to stay for ‘good!’
We behave based on what we believe in, and not based what we do not believe in. There are people who are proud because they believe that there is no God. This was what some people has confessed and proclaimed publicly: I’ve no God - and am proud of it. I wonder why should this make people proud! If we accept (and I do accept) that God is our Heavenly Father, than to say that I am proud because I have no God, is like an orphan telling us that he is proud because he is fatherless and motherless because without God, it is like without a Heavenly Creator who is also our Heavenly Father. So, how could anyone be proud to be without a father or a mother? By any account, the fatherless (and the motherless as well) needs all sympathy. Yes, for some reasons, some people have become fatherless (or motherless) and certainly it was not their fault to be fatherless or motherless but to be proud of it? No! Quite the opposite to what was publicly proclaimed in the newspaper, the Bible tells us that “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good (Psalm 14:1). You must ask yourself this simple question: Do you trust what the newspaper tells you, or what the Bible teaches you?
Because we believe in God, we believe in a set of basic beliefs. Among them are: (a) An absolute God exists (Psalm 14:1; John 17:3); (b) God created the universe (Genesis 1:1); (c) Man is created in God’s own image (Genesis 1:27); (d) God is our Heavenly Father (Matthew 6:26); (e) And because man is created in God’s image, all people are worthy of respect and honour (1 Peter 2:17); (f) God provides for His creation (Genesis 2:8-9); (g) Mankind is fallen (Genesis 3:6-7); (h) Jesus is mankind’s only hope for redemption (John 17:3; Ephesians 1:7); (i) the Bible is the word of God (John 1:1; 2 Timothy 3:16). But do Christians really live up to these set of beliefs? It is ironic that many self-proclaimed Christians compromise these basic beliefs and allow themselves to be used as instruments by the devil to advance his unholy pursuits. When the compromise has become the way of life, lawlessness and anarchy will follow. This state of spiritual near-death cannot happen to us without our conscious efforts to make compromise to our set of beliefs. This is exactly what Jesus rebuked His church at Sardis two thousand years ago. The people could well claim to be believers but they were spiritually dead. Jesus further warned them to watch! It is not that it is wrong to keep tabs on world news, but watching world news is chiefly about observing. True watching as warned by Jesus is not simply listening and then forgetting altogether. True watching emphasizes diligence; it is being alert to spiritual dangers more than physical ones. It is about faithfully carrying out our God-given responsibilities. It involves significantly our heart’s desire to repent and to guard and maintain our godly position so that we do not backslide and to avoid doing what the world is doing. We need spiritual vibrancy to keep our momentum of being re-created to His image going stronger each day. This process must not be slowed down. Rather we must pick up the momentum each time we read of the news of greed, of anarchy, of lawlessness. We need to be vigilant and our faithful prayer, no matter how soft our voice is, will be heard if we are sincere in our prayer.
The warning by our Living God, Lord Jesus to His church must be seriously taken note of. He warns that, if we failed to watch, to live according to our set of beliefs and to neglect responsibilities to our Master, He will come upon us like a thief. He implies that those who truly backslide will not be counted worthy to escape the wrath of lawlessness. We must take note that Christ will return when we are most unexpected of Him. There are general indicators of His imminent return but those are simply to general to provide us concrete proof of His exact time of His return because the overall timing is a mystery. Rather than trying to discern the timing of His return, we are instructed to ‘watch’ but not in the sense of just simply reading or watching the world events in the newspaper, internet or TV and just forget all about what is going on in the world. Rather we are to watch over all that God has given to us so that when the Day arrives, we are ready and be counted worthy to be His children. Greed and anarchy are marching alongside with each other faster and with greater intensity by the day but it’s our job not to join the march. Don’t be one of these marching soldiers of greed and anarchy because the captain that is leading the march is none other than Satan himself!
Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God. Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. [Revelation 3:2-3. KJV]
If you have been following our local news in the last couple weeks, you must be feeling a deep sigh of concern. For six weeks in a row, there were six separate dead bodies discovered across the island. With these discoveries, the police must be working extra time to unravel events leading to these dead bodies. With so many bodies discovered, the chances are that several of these were murder victims. Perhaps there are still other dead bodies that are yet to be discovered (which I pray that there is none anymore), we can easily come to one simple conclusion: we are now approaching the state of anarchy and lawlessness and nothing could help, it seems, to stop this from turning it into a full-blown apocalyptic event of lawlessness as foretold in the Bible (Matthew 24:12). For many of us, we may take comfort that Singapore is still safe because when we compare the latest mass killing that just took place in Norway where almost 100 innocent people were ruthlessly killed, we are indeed a safe place to live, relatively speaking. But for how long can our safe haven last? This is a big question that demands a big answer!
Another big question we need to ask ourselves is that, is the state of anarchy (and of course greed) confines to just ordinary people or has it penetrated into the society at large from government system to corporation? The answer is obvious. We read of the news of phone hacking by famous news media corporation. The fact that two of the most senior police officers – the commissioner of police and his assistant – have resigned because of the sandal gives us a very clear indication that people in high positions are also involved in this phone-hacking scandal. People at high places have all the muscles needed to let them do what they like and yet the law is powerless to apprehend them.
In our newspaper today, I noted the following comment made by a Beijing news analyst that can well summarize the dire state of growing social and political problems in China. His comment: Our society rests on physical might and not the rule of law. Government officials are often seen as above the law and they set a poor benchmark for the people’s behaviour. Many believe that reason can only be made with the form of the fist. People are not used to obeying laws. In life, we get through back doors, short-cuts and guanxi. It is no different when we are on the road.” Though the comments that he made were related to his observations on the unruly behaviour of Beijing’s motorists, this is largely no different from what we see things around us. Globally-speaking, with fractured financial institutions especially in most western nations, incomprehensible U.S. national debt of over 14 trillion U.S. dollars, and divided nationals along political, moral, religious and ethnical lines, the thread of a full-blown anarchy of many nations is simply not if, but when will it take place. Looking back to the economic collapse of 2009, precipitated by the U.S. sub-prime mortgage bubble, it was not merely the lack of oversight of the financial systems, but it was, at its heart, a morality issue. Greedy bankers knew very well that people just couldn’t service the mortgage loans but they still extended the loans to them. This irresponsible granting of loans to home-owners was already set to be defaulted from the very beginning the loans were approved. The combined loans given to those thousand of home-owners would enable the banks to earn huge interest, the so-called investment consultants would earn monetary incentives and commissions, and the senior management would have a big paoyut in the form of stock options and bonuses. The end result was that these non-performance mortgage loans slowly built up. It was not if, but when the bubble would explode and it did explode finally in 2009 causing the infamous financial crisis across the globe. Greed has lost the people’s trust of their government and financial institutions, and this mistrust is not confined just in the U.S. It has spread like wild forest fire to almost all nations across the globe.
Much has been said about the dire state of affair in U.S to a point I personally felt quite unjustified that why only U.S. and some western nations are singled out. These countries seem to be the punching bags when something goes wrong in the world system whether it is in financial, political or moral areas. Are other nations not just as corrupt? Can we, unlike the Amercians or the Europeans who have loss all their trust with their government, trust our own government here? I will be joking if I will to tell you that, yes, we can all trust the governments in this part of the world! In the newspaper just few days’ ago, we read of the news that China had executed scores of their senior government officials because of corruptions and misappropriations of state fund. In Hong Kong, there were street protests early this month when people were protesting skyrocketing housing prices and poor government policies. Some protesters carried large signs depicting the government and a billionaire property developer with devil horns and vampire fangs. They chanted slogans accusing the government and property developers of colluding to establish a business monopoly. In Japan, people are crying out that the government is not responding fast enough to the triple tragedies of earthquake, Tsunami and nuclear plant explosions. And at home here, people cried for help because our public housing seems to be now beyond the reach of average wage earners even though they are university graduates holding professional jobs. People were not happy that the public housing which is supposed to be heavily subsidized is now being built by profit-centered private contractors whose main objectives, for obvious reasons, are to make more profits and to create more monetary value for their shareholders. Greed has now inflicted a potent poison into the global systems of government and corporations, big and small. It is interesting that greed and anarchy are like Siamese-twin. Both are always marching in parallel, marching at the same time and at the same intensity: when greed is abound, anarchy is also abound! And we all know that since there is no way to control greed because that’s the very nature of man, it therefore follows that there is no way to control anarchy! Furthermore, if we extend the definition of anarchy from being just limited to the act of killing of the innocent or robbery, but to include events like legalizing or spread practice of abortion, prostitution, pornography, casino, drugs, homosexual and same-sex marriage, we can easily come to a firm conclusion that we are not just approaching towards the dire state of lawlessness and anarchy, it is here now and it is here to stay for ‘good!’
We behave based on what we believe in, and not based what we do not believe in. There are people who are proud because they believe that there is no God. This was what some people has confessed and proclaimed publicly: I’ve no God - and am proud of it. I wonder why should this make people proud! If we accept (and I do accept) that God is our Heavenly Father, than to say that I am proud because I have no God, is like an orphan telling us that he is proud because he is fatherless and motherless because without God, it is like without a Heavenly Creator who is also our Heavenly Father. So, how could anyone be proud to be without a father or a mother? By any account, the fatherless (and the motherless as well) needs all sympathy. Yes, for some reasons, some people have become fatherless (or motherless) and certainly it was not their fault to be fatherless or motherless but to be proud of it? No! Quite the opposite to what was publicly proclaimed in the newspaper, the Bible tells us that “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good (Psalm 14:1). You must ask yourself this simple question: Do you trust what the newspaper tells you, or what the Bible teaches you?
Because we believe in God, we believe in a set of basic beliefs. Among them are: (a) An absolute God exists (Psalm 14:1; John 17:3); (b) God created the universe (Genesis 1:1); (c) Man is created in God’s own image (Genesis 1:27); (d) God is our Heavenly Father (Matthew 6:26); (e) And because man is created in God’s image, all people are worthy of respect and honour (1 Peter 2:17); (f) God provides for His creation (Genesis 2:8-9); (g) Mankind is fallen (Genesis 3:6-7); (h) Jesus is mankind’s only hope for redemption (John 17:3; Ephesians 1:7); (i) the Bible is the word of God (John 1:1; 2 Timothy 3:16). But do Christians really live up to these set of beliefs? It is ironic that many self-proclaimed Christians compromise these basic beliefs and allow themselves to be used as instruments by the devil to advance his unholy pursuits. When the compromise has become the way of life, lawlessness and anarchy will follow. This state of spiritual near-death cannot happen to us without our conscious efforts to make compromise to our set of beliefs. This is exactly what Jesus rebuked His church at Sardis two thousand years ago. The people could well claim to be believers but they were spiritually dead. Jesus further warned them to watch! It is not that it is wrong to keep tabs on world news, but watching world news is chiefly about observing. True watching as warned by Jesus is not simply listening and then forgetting altogether. True watching emphasizes diligence; it is being alert to spiritual dangers more than physical ones. It is about faithfully carrying out our God-given responsibilities. It involves significantly our heart’s desire to repent and to guard and maintain our godly position so that we do not backslide and to avoid doing what the world is doing. We need spiritual vibrancy to keep our momentum of being re-created to His image going stronger each day. This process must not be slowed down. Rather we must pick up the momentum each time we read of the news of greed, of anarchy, of lawlessness. We need to be vigilant and our faithful prayer, no matter how soft our voice is, will be heard if we are sincere in our prayer.
The warning by our Living God, Lord Jesus to His church must be seriously taken note of. He warns that, if we failed to watch, to live according to our set of beliefs and to neglect responsibilities to our Master, He will come upon us like a thief. He implies that those who truly backslide will not be counted worthy to escape the wrath of lawlessness. We must take note that Christ will return when we are most unexpected of Him. There are general indicators of His imminent return but those are simply to general to provide us concrete proof of His exact time of His return because the overall timing is a mystery. Rather than trying to discern the timing of His return, we are instructed to ‘watch’ but not in the sense of just simply reading or watching the world events in the newspaper, internet or TV and just forget all about what is going on in the world. Rather we are to watch over all that God has given to us so that when the Day arrives, we are ready and be counted worthy to be His children. Greed and anarchy are marching alongside with each other faster and with greater intensity by the day but it’s our job not to join the march. Don’t be one of these marching soldiers of greed and anarchy because the captain that is leading the march is none other than Satan himself!
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Dear Faithful Readers of the Today's Scripture Reading:
It has been exactly two years since I started this thread. Admittedly, two years is not a long time, and I sincerely pray that God will continue to give me the wisdom, the courage and the enegy to stay faithful and to continue writing and sharing His goodness, mercy and grace. Above all, I pray that I can live day by day all for the glory of God. I demand nothing more but just to bring His Gospel, the redemptive work of our Lord Jesus, to the world as we are commanded to do so.
As you can see from my very first few threads, I do not really expect big viewership, and indeed my hope was that if only just one or two read my threads here, I would be very pleased. In fact, my greater hope is that if readers can come forward and point out to me those areas that I have gone wrong or not-so-correct especially relating to Christian doctrines, or if I had misquoted, misapplied and misinformed you of the word of God, the Bible, I will be too pleased to learn and certainly to check for the truth. I am prepared to apologize on anything that I said which is not from the Bible or have wrongly told you incorrectly what the Bible teaches.
Thankfully, I have couple of very faithful Christian friends who have given me encouraging comments, and I have learnt quite alot from them. I truly appreciate their comments.
As in all public forum, we certainly do expect some people disagreed with us, no matter what we write. My job, however, is not to let people agree with me. My calling is to share the word of God, and I (or rather I think, all of us as Christians) should let God do His job of convicting people of their sins. This is the job exclusively for the Holy Spirit to bring the loss sinners to Him. We can never do this job.
Again, my sincere request is that all comments are welcomed but please, no vulgar language should be used, not only here but I too hope in other public forums as well.
God bless
Psalm23
It has been exactly two years since I started this thread. Admittedly, two years is not a long time, and I sincerely pray that God will continue to give me the wisdom, the courage and the enegy to stay faithful and to continue writing and sharing His goodness, mercy and grace. Above all, I pray that I can live day by day all for the glory of God. I demand nothing more but just to bring His Gospel, the redemptive work of our Lord Jesus, to the world as we are commanded to do so.
As you can see from my very first few threads, I do not really expect big viewership, and indeed my hope was that if only just one or two read my threads here, I would be very pleased. In fact, my greater hope is that if readers can come forward and point out to me those areas that I have gone wrong or not-so-correct especially relating to Christian doctrines, or if I had misquoted, misapplied and misinformed you of the word of God, the Bible, I will be too pleased to learn and certainly to check for the truth. I am prepared to apologize on anything that I said which is not from the Bible or have wrongly told you incorrectly what the Bible teaches.
Thankfully, I have couple of very faithful Christian friends who have given me encouraging comments, and I have learnt quite alot from them. I truly appreciate their comments.
As in all public forum, we certainly do expect some people disagreed with us, no matter what we write. My job, however, is not to let people agree with me. My calling is to share the word of God, and I (or rather I think, all of us as Christians) should let God do His job of convicting people of their sins. This is the job exclusively for the Holy Spirit to bring the loss sinners to Him. We can never do this job.
Again, my sincere request is that all comments are welcomed but please, no vulgar language should be used, not only here but I too hope in other public forums as well.
God bless
Psalm23
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These things I command you, that ye love one another. [John 15:17]
Who were these you/ye (one another) Jesus spoke to in John 15:17? What have they (you/ye) to do with the/those nations that are at war with one another for the last 4,000 to 5,000 years?
Your KJV Babble messed you so-called Christians big time LOL! :*:
Matthew 11:28-30 (My rough cut)
28 "[Come] hither unto Me, all who labour and are [heavily] loaded-up, and I will pause [to refresh] ye.
29 Lift up the balance of Mine upon ye, and learn from Me; because I am gentle and lowly of the heart, and ye shall find [paused] refreshment to the souls of yours.
30 For the balance of Mine is gracious, and the burden of Mine is light-weight."
loaded-up (verb) = to load up with burden/wealth.
balance (noun) = the coupling/beam of a balancing scale.
pause [to refresh] (verb) - in contrast to "pause [to cease/stop]" (e.g. God paused [to cease] on the 7th day - Genesis 2:2 & Hebrews 4:4).
burden (noun) = invoice.
Tsk Tsk Tsk!
Luke 13:3 (My rough cut)
I tell you, No, but [otherwise] supposing you repent NOT, you will all likewise be lost.
supposing (subjunctive mood) = a hypothetical yet possible condition.
repent = to change the mindset. In its proper context, it has nothing to do with your past wrong doings/sins, but to get out of the Solomonic (Judeo; Judaic; Zionist) religion of Satan. :*:
NOT = a subjective/conditional negation (So this teaching/warning is not too serious).
lost - as a lost sheep i.e. without a Shepherd (Nothing to do with "perish" or "annihilation").
the Holy Spirit ??????
Q1) What's that?
Q2) Do you worship "it"?
Q3) Was this the same "Mister" "the Holy Spirit" "which" impregnated Mary, and "they" had a son (Jesus), whom addressed SOMEONE ELSE (God) as his Father? Simply put, how come Jesus never once mentioned "the Holy Spirit" as his Father? :*:
the ghost ?????
What's that? The same "fella" that impregnated Mary? :*:
spirit (neuter noun pneuma - as in pneumatic) = wind; air; breath = gast/gust (Not ghast/ghost)! The word, "spirit" is a neuter noun. "IT" is not a being (masculine/feminine noun) or a person (masculine noun) or any god (masculine noun).
The word ‘blessed’ is used many times in the Bible. It denotes happiness, joy, thankfulness and divine favor from God ?????
That's plain STUPIDITY! For example:
Mark 14:22 (My rough cut)
And as they were eating, the Jesus took a loaf, blessed [it], broke [it], and gave to them, and said, "Take, this [Passover] is the body of Mine."
Jesus blessed the loaf of bread. The Father God did not "divinely" favoured the bread; a far cry from the health and wealth gospel.
bless (Greek verb eulogeo) in the NT = agreeing/well with the word/logic = to make righteous.
The Bible defines itself as such:
1Peter 3:9 (My rough cut)
NOT giving forth [back] bad in stead of bad, or railing in stead of railing, but on the contrary blessing; ye having known that ye were called to this [completion], in order that ye should inherit a blessing (a noun).
in stead of = in the place of.
blessing (Greek verb eulogeo) = the contrary of "bad" and "railing".
BLASPHEMY!
"Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is ONE LORD"! (Mark:12:29)
It was quoted from:
Deuteronomy 6:4 (My rough cut)
Hear, Israel: YHWH Elohym is one [united] YHWH.
Elohym = Gods (plural). :*:
*Not one God, but one YHWH (the personal name of the Father God/Creator).
Thus Mark 12:29 should be rendered:
But the Jesus answered him, "First of ALL the commandments is 'Hear, Israel; Lord [YHWH] the God of ours, is one Lord [YHWH].
ALL the commandments = Probably 613 commandments in total.
For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. [Mark 10:45] ??????
It should read:
For also the Son of the human did not come to be attended to, but [otherwise] to attend to, and to give the soul of His a ransom in [the] stead of many."
human = Adam.
Thy kingdom come (Come the kingdom of Thine) = WHEN Thy kingdom come.
*So then, God's kingdom is NOT HERE YET/NOW! Satan is not THE GOD of this aion! :*:
Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. [Exodus 20:7]
the LORD = YHWH (Yahweh; Yahveh; Jehovah).
God = Elohym; Elohim (plural).
vain = falsehood (Not vanity).
In ancient times, the Israelites MUST make vows/contracts before the YHWH God, and this verse is to warn them to keep it. Whereas in the present Renewed Covenant, Jesus taught His disciples not to make any vow/swearing at all (including wedding vows).
Btw, the term "the Ten Commandments" is unbiblical. It should correctly be "the Ten Words" -- the 10 Matters/Headers of 613 (?) commandments/statutes/ordinances/laws/instructions.
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