Old photos from the glory days of Manila Bay before it was a “toilet bowl”

Old photos from the glory days of Manila Bay before it was a “toilet bowl”

The Pasig River: Reviving a Dead Water in the Philippines

Tithing

 Nowhere in The New Testament does it say the apostles ever instructed the believers to pay tithes. Paul teaches that giving is completely voluntary (2 Corinthians 9:6-7). 
                                                                                                                           Tithing in the Law of Moses was not about giving. It was about tithing which was required by the law. To not tithe would be breaking the law.
                                                                                                                                    New Testament believers are no longer under the Law of Moses (Romans 7:6; Galatians 5:1). 

                                                                                                                                  Tithing is a personal decision.

The Paedophile Agenda

Is Christ's death effective

Is Christ's death effective? Let us look at the RCC mass from the perspective of Hebrews chapters 9 and 10.

The RCC declares that the mass is limited in its effectiveness, as a propitiatory sacrifice. The RCC teaches that Catholics can go to mass every day of their lives and will die impure and be required to spend time in Purgatory before entering the presence of God.

However, in Hebrews chapters 9 and 10 we learn the Christ is superior to all that has come before, and that the New Covenant is far superior over the Old Covenant with its perpetual animal sacrifice. Christ entered into the Holy Place once for all, by His own blood 'having obtained eternal redemption Hebrews 9:12. Christ is able to cleanse the consciences of those for whom it is made Hebrews 9:14.

24 For Christ has entered, not into holy places hmade with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, 26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, lhe has appeared monce for all nat the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28 so Christ, having been offered once qto bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. Hebrews 9:24-28

Christ did not need to 'suffer often'. His one act of suffering was sufficient for all time. So there is no need to offer Himself repeatedly, as did the High Priest with the on-going need for animal sacrifice. The old sacrifices could not put away sin and had to be repeated. Catholic theology demands that this 'unbloody sacrifice' in which they continually engage in the RCC mass, demonstrates the RCC belief that Jesus' once for all time sacrifice was insufficient to save and atone for all mankind.

Hebrews 10 New International Version (NIV)

Christ’s Sacrifice Once for All
10 The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. 2 Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. 3 But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. 4 It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

5 Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said:

“Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but a body you prepared for me;
6 with burnt offerings and sin offerings
you were not pleased.
7 Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll—
I have come to do your will, my God.’”[a]
8 First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them”—though they were offered in accordance with the law. 9 Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. 10 And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Hebrews 10:1-10

The Berean: Ephesians 2:8-9

The Berean: Ephesians 2:8-9

How we came to worship on Sunday

HOW THE SABBATH WAS CHANGED FROM SABBATH TO SUNDAY 
From a historical point of view, the change from Saturday to Sunday was a process, it wasn't something to happen overnight. Before we take a look at that process I want to express that Sunday worships started not because of a biblical command. It started because of prosecution of the early church by Pagan Imperial Rome, and you can take a look at this for yourself. This process was in three parts, 
(1) The early church kept Sunday because of prosecution, 
(2) Constantine Passes Sunday laws to Christianize his pagan empire because Christianity was growing stronger and taking over his land. 
(3) And the Catholic Church pass another Sunday law to strengthen Constantine Sunday laws because afterward, the early church was still keeping the Sabbath. 
But let's take a look at the process, detail. 
WHEN DID SUNDAY WORSHIP START. We have the process starting in 150 A.D. Why, because Justin Martyr records in the (Clark's Ante-Nicene Library, Chapter LXVII, p. 185, 1953 edition) the only authentic source where was the START OF THE CHANGE. The other sources like the Didache, or the Epistle of Barnabas, proven none authentic. Since Justin martyr has the only authentic source which is placed at 150 AD this means, it is the start of the process. Also, that proves the apostles and the early church kept the Sabbath not Sunday. 
So from 150 and on the church started to keep Sunday, but they didn't only keep Sunday they kept Saturday Holy also, this is recorded in (—Church History, Apostolic Age to A.D. 70, Section 29.). There were three groups of Christians at that time. (1) You had the Romans Christians who kept Sunday. (2) You had the Gentile Christians who kept both days. (3) And you had the Jewish Christians who kept Sabbath. So from 150 to 321 AD many wars between the Jews the Christians in the Roman empire. 
ENTER CONSTANTINE. Constantine saw this as a problem because he wanted to paganize his Roman Empire. Christianity was growing in his empire and it was starting to overthrow it, no matter how many prosecutions they did to it. So he passed into law in 321 AD for the first time, that they had to keep Sunday as a LAW or they will go to jail. Here is the law,❝On the venerable Day of the sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country, however, persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits: because it often happens that another Day is not so suitable for grain-sowing or for vine planting: lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost.❞ 
(—ii. Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church Volume 3 (Edinburgh: 1884): 380, note.) The early church, before this law didn't keep Sunday because it was a law or a command from the Bible, they kept it because of prosecution. The Jews and the Roman empire were at war a lot, and the early church since they kept the Sabbath, the Roman empire confuse them Jews and they were killing off the Christians thinking thus was Jews. So the EARLY CHURCH decided to keep Sunday, because of prosecution and wars, but from no a biblical command. 
There were Christians who kept Sunday but also they were Christians who were true to the word of God and they kept Sabbath, this is the remnant that was alive at that time. Papal Rome saw this as a problem so they passed into law or once again to strengthen Constantine's laws, that the early church had to stop keeping Sabbath and start keeping Sunday, we see this here; ❝Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday (Sabbath), but shall work on that Day: but the Lord’s Day, they shall especially honor; and as being Christians, shall, if possible, do no work on that day. If however, they are found Judaizing, they shall be shut out from Christ❞ 
(—Rev. Charles Joseph Hefele, Henry N. Oxenham (trans.), A History of the Church Councils from 326 to 429 Volume 2 (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1896): 316.) 
And this is how the change came it was a process that happens gradually over time. And this was so effective that now we see practically the whole Christian world keeping Sunday and Sabbath.

American history

On this day of Thanksgiving for the freedoms and ideals created in the American dream, be reminded, the original colonists in Jamestown and Plymouth both initiated a socialist communal system when they first landed.

They thought shared ownership and labor would be the ideal to build upon. They found what history has continually validated.... it doesnt work. The colonists with communal ownership the first year did not take ownership or individual responsibility for production. Not enough was produced and it failed.

The next year both colonies instituted free enterprise. Land was given to the individuals. They were responsible to produce what they needed. Each had ownership and responsibility for themself and what they owned. They produced more than enough under this system.

Our country was birthed with individual responsibility, property rights and free enterprise ... our economic foundation. Property rights provide the basis for individuals to pursue Happiness as stated in the constitution.

Property rights is not just owning land. Your property includes your ownership of your ideas, your labor/skills, and whatever those create/produce. You are free to exchange what you own in the market.

This is the basis of our free enterprise system that has built the worlds largest most productive economy. This is the core of the American Dream. You can be or do whatever you want if you work hard enough and pursue your dream. You own the results.

Wake up America...Our ideals are being lost. We began the slippery slide toward socialism almost 100 years ago as the state grew and government programs provided more and more handouts instead of encouraging ways people could work their way out with hand ups.

Government dependency has grown. The system of taxing the producers to provide for others is at its core creating a government dependent class.

When the incentive for free enterprise is removed by increased taxes or regulation on how or what you can do or produce you stifle and kill the fuel that drives the engine and it will sputter. Increase these disincentives and it will die. When more people are government reliant than self-reliant we are done.

Is this what you really want? Be THANKFUL for what you have with the greatest form of government and economic system ever devised. Fight to protect these ideals in the battle of ideas.

Learn the truth about our history and founding principles. These ideas have been fought and died for over the past 225+ years. Dont let ignorance and apathy lose what has been diligently protected.

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Media Myths About Trump

The Southern Poverty Law Center Scam

Antarctic SAGA - Trapped Fallen Angels | Enoch | Nephilim

The Satanic Temple in America: Do these Atheist Do-Gooders Deserve the Wrath of their Religious Opponents?

The Satanic Temple in America: Do these Atheist Do-Gooders Deserve the Wrath of their Religious Opponents?

Sheep Rustlers (Pastor Charles Lawson)

Holy fear

Holy fear is the kind of fear inspired by love. A fear based on respect for someone we love. When we genuinely love another person we will live inside a healthy anxiety, a worry that our actions should never disappoint, disrespect or violate the other person. We live in Holy fear when we are not anxious to betray, or disrespect someone. This is different than being afraid of something though. God does not intimidate you.

God revealed Hell to us for a purpose. That purpose is to warn us about how awful it will be there (scare us) so that we would want to avoid it. God then leads us to the solution (Jesus) so we can avoid going there (hell).

Hell is a scary place. I believe it is alright to scare people about things that are truly scary. A father and mother must warn their children about sex, drugs, crime, about being dishonest, and they should warn them about hell also. If telling them the truth about those things scares them away from them and steers them toward God then scaring them would be a good thing.

Holy And Unholy Fear | Ron Rolheiser

Holy And Unholy

Fear | Ron Rolheiser

Wrong Reasons For Following Jesus - Inspired Walk

Wrong Reasons For F

ollowing Jesus - Inspired Walk: Why should we be following Jesus? In our own life, our motives for being followers of Christ must be CORRECT and GENUINE. We must not be like some of the 5000 who followed Jesus because they were only interested in satisfying their fleshly and temporary desires.

Getting High with the Most High: Drugs in the Bible

Getting High with the Most

High: Drugs in the Bible

Frankincense: How to Use Ancient Wonder Cure for Healing

Frankincense: How to Use Ancient Wonder Cure for Healing

What is Free Masonry and what do Free Masons believe?

What is Free Masonry and what do Free Masons believe?

Location of Hell

Every time hell is being mentioned, it is being referred to as being “down” from our earth. Being down from our earth tells me that hell is literally underneath our earth“. Here are some Bible verses. For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment …” (2 Peter 2:4)

“Let death seize them; let them go down alive into hell, for wickedness is in their dwellings and among them.” (Psalm 55:15)

“Her house is the way to hell, descending to the chambers of death.”(Proverbs 7:27)

“They do not lie with the mighty who are fallen of the uncircumcised, who go down to hell with their weapons of war; they have laid their swords under their heads but their iniquities will be on their bones, because of the terror of the mighty in the land of the living.” (Ezekiel 32:27)

“Therefore Sheol has enlarged itself and opened its mouth beyond measure; their glory and their multitude and their pomp, and he who is jubilant shall descend into it. People shall be brought down, each man humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shall be humbled.” (Isaiah 5:14-15)

“… then I will bring you down with those who descend into the Pit, to the people of old, and I will make you dwell in the lowest part of the earth, in places desolate from antiquity, with those who go down to the Pit, so that you may never be inhabited; and I shall establish glory in the land of the living. ‘I will make you a terror, and you shall be no more; though you are sought for, you will never be found again,’ says the Lord God. (Ezekiel 26:20-21)

“But if the Lord creates a new thing, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into the pit, then you will understand that these men rejected the Lord. Then it came to pass, as he finished speaking all these words, that the ground split apart under them, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up … So they and all those with them went down alive in the pit; the earth closed over them, and they perished from among the congregation.” (Numbers 16:30-33)

“Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit.” (Isaiah 14:15)

“For Sheol cannot thank You, death cannot praise You; Those who go down to the pit cannot hope for Your truth.” (Isaiah 38:18)

“… Deliver him from going down to the Pit … He will redeem his soul from going down to the Pit, and his life shall see the light.” (Job 33:24,28)

“Let us swallow them alive like Sheol, and whole, like those who go down to the Pit…” (Proverbs 1:12)

“But those who seek my life, to destroy it, shall go into the lower parts of the earth.” (Psalm 63:9).

Stand strong

Those who endeavor to obey all the commandments of God will be opposed and derided. They can stand only in God. In order to endure the trial before them, they must understand the will of God as revealed in His word; they can honor Him only as they have a right conception of His character, government, and purposes, and act in accordance with them.
None but those who have fortified the mind with the truths of the Bible will stand through the last great conflict. To every soul will come the searching test: Shall I obey God rather than men? The decisive hour is even now at hand.
Are our feet planted on the rock of God's immutable word? Are we prepared to stand firm in defense of the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus?
Before His crucifixion, the Saviour explained to His disciples that He was to be put to death and to rise again from the tomb, and angels were present to impress His words on minds and hearts.
But the disciples were looking for temporal deliverance from the Roman yoke, and they could not tolerate the thought that He in whom all their hopes centered should suffer an ignominious death.
The words which they needed to remember were banished from their minds; and when the time of trial came, it found them unprepared.
The death of Jesus as fully destroyed their hopes as if He had not forewarned them. So in the prophecies the future is opened before us as plainly as it was opened to the disciples by the words of Christ (Rev 12:17, John 14:15)

Stand strong

When God sends to men warnings so important that they are represented as proclaimed by holy angels flying in the midst of heaven, He requires every person endowed with reasoning powers to heed the message.

The fearful judgments denounced against the worship of the beast and his image (Revelation 14:9-11), should lead all to a diligent study of the prophecies to learn what the mark of the beast is, and how they are to avoid receiving it.

But the masses of the people turn away their ears from hearing the truth and are turned unto fables. The apostle Paul declared, looking down to the last days: "The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine." 2 Timothy 4:3.

That time has fully come. The multitudes do not want Bible truth, because it interferes with the desires of the sinful, world-loving heart; and Satan supplies the deceptions which they love.

But God will have a people upon the earth to maintain the Bible, and the Bible only, as the standard of all doctrines and the basis of all reform

St. Christopher

Saint Christopher is the patron saint of travelers. He is listed as a martyr. He is venerated in Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, and Anglicanism. His name may have been Reprobus, though nobody knows that for sure. Other than his being on the list of martyrs there is no prime source that refers to him, only stories passed down by word of mouth through the ages. According to the accounts he was extremely tall. Some say he was seven foot five inches tall, some say he was a giant. Either way, he was probably a man of significant physical stature. Usually, there is only a grain of truth in most stories told.

God is Love

God is

Love

Life in Jesus' time

Curious about what life was like in the time of Jesus of Nazareth?

The following bullet points of the socioeconomic life of that time is summarized from New Testament scholar Craig Blomberg’s book Jesus And the Gospels:

• The Jewish people made up roughly 8% of the Roman empire. Of the 50 million inhabitants of the Roman empire, 4 million were Jews and 700,000 of them lived in Israel. (55)

• Jesus ministered mainly outside of large pro-Roman cities. However, the region of Galilee was not as rural as you think–“…the majority of Galilee was made up of as many as two hundred small villages, few as large as Capernaum, which had possibly one thousand inhabitants. We must, therefore, avoid stereotyping Jesus and his disciples as roaming through largely uninhabited regions with large farms. Galilee was in some respects more urban than we imagine it.” (57)

• The news was either posted in town squares or announced by a herald. (57).

• Your average family “lived in one-room, two-level dwellings with living quarters separated from and raised above the animal stalls.” (58) Jewish extended families often lived together. (63)

• Towns stunk because many would pour their sewage into designated sections of the middle of the street. (59)

• The wine was the drink of choice, but it was “as much as three times as diluted as it is today.” (59)

• Wealthy Romans had four meals a day of meat and dairy, while many other ordinary Jews had two meals consisting mostly of bread. (59)

• After dinner, usually amidst only good friends, two-three hours of the evening was spent in conversation. (59)

• Women dressed simpler than men, yet had more colorful clothing. Most men had beards, and most women had long hair put in a bun. (60)

• The transit system within the Roman empire was the best in the ancient world, but roads that were not well-traveled could be quite dangerous. “Inns dotted the landscape, providing lodging for travelers, but many were notorious as hangouts for pirates and prostitutes. More reputable people preferred to stay in private homes with relatives, friends, or people who were recommended to them.” (57)

• 1 to 2 percent of the population had 1/2 the wealth of the empire (political, military and religious leaders), 5-7 were considered rich (bureaucratic individuals), and about 15 percent were middle class (priests, Pharisees, fortunate merchants, etc.); while 70 percent of the population lived within what we would consider poverty and “were struggling farmers and fisherman or subsistence  laborers working for others”. (60)

• Slavery was common. For the most part, people were either born into slavery, a prisoner of war, or sold themselves into slavery to pay off debts. “Unlike pre-Civil War America, in the Roman world slaves could own property, earn money, and often save enough to buy their own freedom.” (61)

• Most of Jesus’ disciples and followers were poor, but they “relied on the support that others offered, including considerable help from a strategic group of well-to-do women (Luke 8:1-3).” (61)

• Due to the Jewish triple tax (10% to priests and Levites, 10% for temple sacrifice, and a bit over 3% for the poor) and normal Roman taxes, Jews could pay more than half their income in taxes. (61)

• One job that was not held in high repute was teaching, and many teachers were former slaves (62).

• Men were expected to marry: Jews usually by 18, Romans by 25, and Greeks by 30. Women were usually married in their mid teens. Divorce was common, but not as common among Jews. Children had no social voice. Girls were not formally educated unless among the Greco-Roman rich. Jewish boys were educated in the Bible, and Greek boys in Homer and rhetoric. (63)

• Privacy was rare in crowded cities, and usually only the wealthy owned books. (58)

• Funerals and weddings could last a week among an entire village.  Jews enjoyed singing and story-telling, Greeks enjoyed theater, and Hellenists enjoyed sporting events like Olympic games and gladiators. Holy days and the once-a-week Sabbath for Jews were a time of joy and celebration, while for Romans and Greeks (who did not get weekly days off)  “numerous annual holidays, temple rituals, and patriotic celebrations provided relief from daily routines”. (63)

Sunday Sermon Notes: August 19, 2018

Sunday Sermon Notes: August 19, 2018

What is the Legacy of Isaiah the Prophet?

What is the Legacy of Isaiah the Prophet?

Deranged: Sharpton Compares Trump Supporters to People Who Attend Lynchings After Church

Deranged: Sharpton Compares Trump Supporters to People Who Attend Lynchings After Church