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Vol. 15 / Issue 14 / October 13 2011

Contents of this issue

Editorial

John MacArthur is Wrong! - Absurd Message - Part 21

Join us in Facebook



News Items (Common to all issues) :

Standing in the Gap - Fasting prayer on 8th Dec.. 2015

Download Articles in Handheld Computers

Please Join us in "Peace Prayer Room"

Your Spam Folder

Hindi / Malayalam/Tamil Bible Online

Through the Valley of Death

Free Tutorials for your Kids!

Allah and Elohim - Are they the same God? Book

Free E-Cards

Online Games for you!



Editorial

By Sherly Isaac

When Jesus was in this world, He lived a holy and pure life. Bible tells us that Jesus went through all the temptations as the normal human beings went through and yet He was never defeated by those temptations. He came out of all those temptations victoriously. It was in all the areas of His life that He was tempted by the tempter. Jesus was tempted over lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and pride of life but He never succumbed to the will of the enemy and never lost His holiness.

The reason how He could stand firm in spite of temptations was because He always stood on the Word of God. Every time He quoted the scripture as we read in

Luke 4:3-4, "And the devil said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread." But Jesus answered him, saying, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.'"
Luke 4:5-8, "Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, "All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours." And Jesus answered and said to him, "Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, 'You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.'"
And in Luke 4:9-13, "Then he brought Him to Jerusalem, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here. For it is written: 'He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you,' and, 'In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.'" And Jesus answered and said to him, "It has been said, 'You shall not tempt the LORD your God.'" Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time."


This sinless Jesus became sin for us so that we could come out of our sins and live a holy life. We read in 2 Cor 5:20-21, "Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."

He went through all the temptations and yet was victorious but He took all our sins on Himself so that we could be sin free. Recently I saw the TV News about Amanda Knox who was previously accused of murdering her roommate but finally set free after four years of prison time. She was so joyous that she was overwhelmed by her emotions. What a great joy freedom brings in one's life! And when Jesus sets us free from our sins and guilt the same thing happens. Great joy fills our hearts.

Today Jesus wants to wash our sins away and to free us from our sins. Would you come to Jesus who said in Mat 11:28, "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

The creator is ready to set you free by taking the burden of your sins on Himself and to give you rest and peace! Just come to Him



John MacArthur is Wrong! - Absurd Message - Part 21

Ridiculous, Bizarre, Absurd Message

By Sherly Isaac

To read previous or next parts please click on these links:

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22, Part 23, Part 24, Part 25, Part 26, Part 27, Part 28, Part 29

John MacArthur writes in his book titled, "Hard to Believe: The High Cost and Infinite Value of Following Jesus" (Chapter 2, page 24, Title "The Hard Truth" under subtitle "Embarrassed by Jesus") that, "At some point or other in our Christian lives, we have all been ashamed and kept our mouths closed when we should have opened them. Or, given the chance, we've hidden behind some sort of innocuous "Jesus loves you and wants to make you happy" message. If you have never felt shame in proclaiming the gospel, it's probably because you haven't proclaimed the gospel clearly, in its entirety, the way Jesus proclaimed it."

Actually the main message of God and of Jesus is that "Jesus loves you and wants to make you happy" which John MacArthur has misunderstood badly. Time and time again Bible spoke of the great Love of God. Bible tells us that if we obey Him and walk in His holy ways He will pour all kinds of blessings in our lives as we read in Deu 7:12-15, "Then it shall come to pass, because you listen to these judgments, and keep and do them, that the LORD your God will keep with you the covenant and the mercy which He swore to your fathers. And He will love you and bless you and multiply you; He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your land, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flock, in the land of which He swore to your fathers to give you. You shall be blessed above all peoples; there shall not be a male or female barren among you or among your livestock. And the LORD will take away from you all sickness, and will afflict you with none of the terrible diseases of Egypt which you have known, but will lay them on all those who hate you."

You can see in the above verses that how God wants to bless those who walk in the ways of God. But unfortunately John MacArthur painted God of the Bible as an evil, vicious God who wants to rule over us with rigor and whip. He also painted the loving Father like the devil who always wanted us to work hard in tears, in hardship having much heartbreaks in our souls yet at the end to get nothing... and finally to be sent away empty handed. What a pitiful message it is! Yes, my friend, beware of people who preach such messages because God of the Bible is loving, compassionate, caring God who loves us so much that He gave Himself for us so that we could have a wonderful life, forgiven of our sins and experiencing the love of God. Let no one fool you saying that you have to work hard to go to heaven. Let no one fool you saying that you have to be in bondage and hardship all your life and then only you could earn salvation of your souls... never!!

Jesus has already done the work of our salvation and we need not to go to cross again. If you go to cross again, still you cannot achieve salvation of your soul because pure, holy and blameless blood is necessary for the atonement of our souls. And Jesus is the only sinless who already gave His blood for our salvation. Now we have to come at His feet humbling ourselves, repenting from our sins and accepting Him as our Lord and Savior. When we do that, He removes the burden of our sins, pain of death and gives us rest, peace and eternal life. Jesus really wants to make us happy and for this very reason He came in this world!

And further in page 24-25 John MacArthur writes, "Human nature really hasn't changed much throughout history; shame and honor were as big a deal in the ancient world as they are today. Back in the ninth century B.C., the epic poet Homer wrote, "the chief good was to be well spoken of, the chief evil, to be badly spoken of by one's society." In the first century A.D., The apostle Paul "ministered in a shame-sensitive, honor-seeking culture," shamelessly preaching a shameful message about a publicly shamed person. And so the message was offensive. It was scandalous. It was stupid. It was foolish. It was moronic.

Yet, as 1 Corinthians 1:21 says, "it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe." It was this scandalous, offensive, foolish, ridiculous, bizarre, absurd message of the cross that God used to save those who believe. Roman authorities executed HIs Son, the Lord of the world, by a method they reserved only for the dregs of society; His followers had to be faithful enough to risk meeting the same shameful end."


Once again John MacArthur misunderstood the message of the cross. Message of the cross is not offensive, scandalous, stupid, foolish or offensive but instead the message of the cross is hope for the hopeless, soothing balm for the hurting, healing stream for the sick and suffering, timely gift for the needy and it is a message of eternal life for people destined to perish. How could anybody ever say that the message of the cross as scandalous, offensive, foolish, ridiculous, bizarre, absurd message? Only those who have never known the love of God can say so others cannot! And if you give your life to Jesus, your end will not be shameful as John MacArthur has said but it would be the most honorable life as you become the child of the Most High God.

People got offended not because the message was offensive but because their deeds were evil. Jesus said in John 3:17-19, "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil."

These people were in the dark. Yet they did not want to come out of darkness to light and because of that they rejected Jesus and His message. Even today, people are rejecting Jesus' message because they want to continue in darkness and does not want to come to Jesus nor do they want to have fellowship with Him.

Even when Jesus did mighty miracles and healings yet people got offended. Why? Because they never understood the almighty God who walked among us. We read an instance in Mark 3:1-6 that, "And He entered the synagogue again, and a man was there who had a withered hand. So they watched Him closely, whether He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him. And He said to the man who had the withered hand, "Step forward." Then He said to them, "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?" But they kept silent. And when He had looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts, He said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored as whole as the other. Then the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against Him, how they might destroy Him."

You can see that how hard hearted they were and there was no love or compassion for others in their hearts. Even they wanted to see Jesus dead because He did good to a man.

Every time Jesus did something good for others, they were getting more upset and offended because they were evil and they never wanted to come out of their evilness. But if we repent from our sins and come to the cross at the feet of Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins, He will gladly forgive our sins and turn our darkness to light, and will transform us from our ugliness to become a beautiful child of God.



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Standing in the Gap - Fasting prayer on 8th Dec.. 2015

As the Bible says in Ezekiel 22:30 "So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it." And also the Bible says in Numbers 16:48, "And he (Aaron) stood between the dead and the living; so the plague was stopped." We have fasting prayer every second Tuesday of each month. Our next fasting prayer meeting will be conducted on 16th Nov. 2015

Download Articles in Handheld Computers

You can now download articles in Palm Doc format for your palm handheld computer. It will work with any devise that has Palm OS and Palm Doc Reader installed. To download click on the link named "Palm Doc Format" i.e. at the top of this page by the side of each articles.

Please Join us in "Peace Prayer Room"

If you have any prayer request please join us any time at our New Chat Room at http://insearchofpeace.org/prayer If any of us available in prayer room, we will be praying online otherwise you can email your prayer request to feedback@insearchofpeace.org

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Hindi / Malayalam/Tamil Bible Online

Now you can read Bible in Hindi online at http://www.hindibible.org
in Malayalam online at http://www.malayalambible.org
in Tamil online at http://www.hindibible.org?ver=tamil

Through the Valley of Death

As many of you know that in the year 2005, our dad was very sick even unto death. God miraculously healed him. We have compiled it in a book form. I sure believe that it will inspire you and encourage you greatly.

This book is available for purchase at JasmineCorp Store

Free Tutorials for your Kids!

Now you can learn Graphics and web designing online. These tutorials are free but you may need to get login ID by registering yourslef. Currently tutorials for Paint Shop Pro, HTML and Dreamweaver/Fireworks are available but in future more tutorials will be added.

Check the tutorials at:http://jasminecorp.net/tutorial

Allah and Elohim - Are they the same God? Book

Now available "Allah and Elohim - Are they the same God" Available at JasmineCorp Store, and "Is Jesus God?" Available at JasmineCorp Store,

Both books compares the Bible and the Quran and read eye opening facts about Jesus, God of the Bible, Allah and Islamic faith. I am sure that you want to read this.

Also read:
Book Title: Is Jesus God?
Author: Sherly Isaac
ISBN: 0759628092
http://insearchofpeace.org/books.htm

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