If Jesus has not risen from the dead, then you and I have no reason to think His sacrifice means anything. It would just be one more martyr, squashed by the imperial power of Rome, and so we would remain damned, without hope.

Satan continually tries to make us think it is OK to rebel, because “God is holding out on us.” Whether the Serpent

symbolizes the Devil or embodies the Devil, we cannot exactly know. However, what is clear from additional Scripture is that the Serpent was certainly the locus by which Satan himself was manifest.

Jesus is saying, don’t you know that the heart of The Father is not to laugh at us or to mock us. But the heart of The Father is to leave the ninety-nine saved and go after the one that is lost until He finds him, so that he can be brought back in to safety, back in security, back in the fold, into fellowship.

If the heart of sinfulness is self-centeredness, the heart of all biblical religion is God-centeredness: in short, it is worship.

Does that mean God no longer heals today? Of course not! But what we see in most who promote “Healing Ministries” today is a far cry from the miraculous, supernatural healing ability given to the apostles on behalf of non-Christians.

Most people (most of us!) in the West would say, unhesitatingly, that “democracy is a good thing.” However, no one brought up under a democratic form of government can remain ignorant of its many inconsistencies, its fumbling

inefficiencies, and corruptions. No one should be unaware of how thin may be the line between democracy and

demagoguery, a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power

Instead of the apostolic doctrine, for the last one hundred years, men have been preaching what was called, before the First World War, “a social gospel.” That old Gospel of individual personal salvation is no good; what we need is a social message. So they gave ethical teaching and said this was the only way to redeem society, the interesting thing is that the more they have done that, and the less they have preached the apostolic doctrine, the more immorality and vice and ethical problems have increased.

Do we have a desire to come together with other Christians? Could this mean if you have no desire to often meet

with other Christians, that you might not be one?

We must constantly define the church in our pluralistic society. Pluralism is a philosophy that allows for a wide diversity of viewpoints and doctrines to co-exist within a single body. It is an attempt to accommodate conflicting viewpoints and keep it peaceful. Peace and unity are wonderful. But they are not the primary value, or only focus. People often strive to keep the church visibly united at all costs. The tragic price tag for that historically has been the loss of meaning and purity in Christ’s church.

Six of the ten commandments were meant to protect relationships from abuse. The most important relationship organism next to the family is the church—a place where people can bond spiritually and emotionally with one another and strengthen one another.