Northwest News!

67% of Britons said they believed in God or a higher power

A survey of people’s religious beliefs in 10 countries suggests the UK is among the most secular nations in the world.

Ten thousand people were questioned in the poll by research company ICM for the BBC programme What The World Thinks Of God.

Click here to view the survey.

Jesus claimed to be God - John 8:24; 8:56-59 (see Exodus 3:14);10:30- 33
Jesus created all things - John 1:3; Col. 1:15-17
Jesus is before all things - Col. 1:17
Jesus is eternal - John 1:1,14;8:58

Jesus is honored the same as the Father - John 5:23

Jesus is prayed to - Acts 7:54-60

Jesus is worshipped - Matt. 2:2,8,11;14: 33;28:9,17 John 9:35-37

Jesus is called God - John 1:1,14;20:28 Col. 2:9 Tit. 2:13

Jesus is omnipresent - Matt 28:20

Jesus is with us always - Matt. 28:20

Jesus is our only mediator between God and ourselves - 1 Tim 2:5

Jesus is the guarantee of a better covenant - Heb. 7:22;8:6

Jesus said, “I AM the Bread of Life” - John 6:35,41,48,51

Jesus said, “I AM the Door” - John 10:7,9

Jesus said, “I AM the Good Shepherd” - John 10:11,14

Jesus said, “I AM the Way the Truth and The Life” - John 14:6

Jesus said, “I AM the Light of the world” - John 8:12;9:5;12: 46; Luke 2:32

Jesus said, “I AM the True Vine” - John 15:1;15:5

Jesus said, “I AM the Resurrection and the Life” - John 11:25

Jesus said, “I AM the First and the Last” - Rev 1:17;2:8;22: 13

Jesus always lives to make intercession for us - Heb. 7:25

Jesus cleanses from sin - 1 John 1:9

Jesus discloses Himself to us - John 14:21

Jesus draws all men to Himself  - John 12:32

Jesus forgives sins - Luke 5:20;7:48

Jesus gives eternal life - John 10:28;5:40

Jesus gives joy - John 15:11

Jesus gives peace - John 14:27

Jesus has authority - Matt. 28:18; John 5:26-27;17:2; 3:35

Jesus judges - John 5:22,27

Jesus knows all men - John 16:30

Jesus opens the mind to understand scripture - Luke 24:45

Jesus received honor and glory from the Father - 2 Pet 1:17

Jesus resurrects - John 5:39;11:25-26; 6:40,44,54

Jesus reveals grace and truth - John 1:17 see John 6:45

Jesus reveals the Father - Matt. 11:27 Luke 10:22

Jesus saves forever - Matt 18:11 John 10:28 Heb. 7:25

Jesus bears witness of Himself - John 8:18;14:6

Jesus’ works bear witness of Himself - John 5:36;10:25

The Father bears witness of Jesus - John 5:37;8:18; 1 John 5:9

The Holy Spirit bears witness of Jesus - John 15:26

The multitudes bear witness of Jesus - John 12:17

The Prophets bear witness of Jesus - Acts 10:43

The Scriptures bear witness of Jesus - John 5:39

The Father will honor us if we serve Jesus - John 12:26 see Col. 3:24

The Father wants us to fellowship with Jesus - 1 Cor 1:9

The Father tells us to listen to Jesus - Luke 9:35; Matt. 17:5

The Father tells us to come to Jesus - John 6:45

The Father draws us to Jesus - John 6:44

Everyone who’s heard & learned from the Father comes to Jesus - John 6:45

The Law leads us to Christ - Gal. 3:24

Jesus is the Rock - 1 Cor. 10:4

Jesus is the Savior - John 4:42 1 John 4:14

Jesus is King - Matt. 2:1-6 Luke 23:3

In Jesus are the treasures of wisdom and knowledge - Col. 2:2-3

In Jesus we have been made complete - Col. 2:10

Jesus indwells us - Col. 1:27

Jesus sanctifies - Heb. 2:11

Jesus loves - Eph. 5:25

We come to Jesus - John 5:40;7:37;6: 35,37,45, 65

We sin against Jesus - 1 Cor 8:12

We receive Jesus - John 1:12 Col. 2:6

Jesus makes many righteous - Rom 5:19

Jesus is the image of the invisible God - Heb. 1:3

Jesus sends the Holy Spirit - John 15:26

Jesus abides forever - Heb. 7:24

Jesus offered up Himself - Heb7:27;9:14

Jesus offered one sacrifice for sins for all time - Heb. 10:12

The Son of God has given us understanding - 1 John 5:20

Jesus is the author and perfecter of our faith - Heb. 12:2

Jesus is the Apostle and High Priest of our confession - Heb. 1:3

The Son of God has given us understanding - 1 John 5:20

Jesus cleanses us from our sins by His blood - Rev. 1:5; Rom. 5:9

Jesus is the Light of the world - John 9:5

Jesus has explained the Father - John 1:18

Jesus was crucified because of weakness - 2 Cor. 13:4

Jesus has overcome the world - John 16:33

Truth is in Jesus - Eph. 4:21

The fruit of righteousness comes through Jesus Christ - Phil. 1:11

Jesus delivers us from the wrath to come - 1 Thess 1:10

Disciples bear witness of Jesus Christ - John 15:27

Jesus died and rose again - 1 Thess. 4:14

The Christian dead have fallen asleep in Jesus - 1 Thess. 4:15

Jesus died for us - 1 Thess. 5:10

Jesus tasted death for everyone - Heb. 2:9

Jesus rendered the devil powerless - Heb. 2:14

Jesus is able to save completely - Heb. 7:25

Jesus was a ransom for many and to serve - Matt. 20:28

Jesus came to be a high priest - Heb. 2:17

Jesus came to save - John 3:17; Luke 19:10

Jesus came to preach the kingdom of God - Luke 4:43

Jesus came to bring division - Luke 12:51

Jesus came to do the will of the Father - John 6:38

Jesus came to give the Father’s words - John 17:8

Jesus came to testify to the truth - John 18:37

Jesus came to die and destroy Satan’s power - Heb. 2:14

Jesus came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets - Matt. 5:17

Jesus came to give life - John 10:10,28

Jesus came to taste death for everyone - Heb. 2:9

Jesus came to proclaim freedom for believers - Luke 4:18

Below is a great article by James Dobson that was published in TIME magazine.  He is the founder of Focus on the Family and is write in response to the US Vice President’s daughter’s actions.

 A number of social conservatives, myself included, have recently been asked to respond to the news that Mary Cheney, the Vice President’s daughter, is pregnant with a child she intends to raise with her lesbian partner. Implicit in this issue is an effort to get us to criticize the Bush Administration or the Cheney family. But the concern here has nothing to do with politics. It is about what kind of family environment is best for the health and development of children, and, by extension, the nation at large.

With all due respect to Cheney and her partner, Heather Poe, the majority of more than 30 years of social-science evidence indicates that children do best on every measure of well-being when raised by their married mother and father. That is not to say Cheney and Poe will not love their child. But love alone is not enough to guarantee healthy growth and development. The two most loving women in the world cannot provide a daddy for a little boy–any more than the two most loving men can be complete role models for a little girl.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

BEAUTIFUL

A man was just waking up from anesthesia after surgery, and his wife was sitting by his side. His eyes fluttered open and he said, “You’re beautiful.” Then he fell asleep again.

His wife had never heard him say that, so she stayed by his side. A few minutes later, his eyes fluttered open and he said, “You’re cute!”

The wife was disappointed because instead of “beautiful,” it was now “cute.”

She said, “What happened to ‘beautiful’?”

The man replied, “The drugs are wearing off”

 OLD FRED

Old Fred’s hospital bed is surrounded by well-wishers, but it doesn’t look good. Suddenly, he motions frantically to the pastor for something to write on. The pastor lovingly hands him a pen and a piece of paper, and Fred uses his last bit of energy to scribble a note, and then dies.

The pastor thinks it best not to look at the note right away, so he places it in his jacket pocket.

At Fred’s funeral, as the pastor is finishing his eulogy, he realizes he’s wearing the jacket he was wearing when Fred died. “

Fred handed me a note just before he died,” he says. “I haven’t looked at it, but knowing Fred, I’m sure there’s a word of inspiration in it for us all.”

Opening the note, he reads aloud, “Help! You’re standing on my oxygen tube!”

Prominent Darwinist and anti-Christian, Professor Richard Dawkins, who is also the Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford, England, says he hates to be agreeing with Hitler on the point, but applying eugenics to breeding humans is a pretty good idea after all. This article, although shocking, illustrates the entirely consistent thinking of those who think we are nothing more than evolved animals.

Read Dawkins and Eugenics.

1. Only in recent years has science discovered that everything we see is composed of invisible atoms. Here, Scripture tells us that the “things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”
2. Medical science has only recently discovered that blood-clotting in a newborn reaches its peak on the eighth day, then drops. The Bible consistently says that a baby must be circumcised on the eighth day.
3. At a time when it was believed that the earth sat on a large animal or a giant (1500 B.C.), the Bible spoke of the earth’s free float in space: “He…hangs the earth upon nothing” (Job 26:7).
4. The prophet Isaiah also tells us that the earth is round: “It is he that sits upon the circle of the earth” (Isaiah 40:22). This is not a reference to a flat disk, as some skeptic maintain, but to a sphere. Secular man discovered this 2,400 years later. At a time when science believed that the earth was flat, is was the Scriptures that inspired Christopher Columbus to sail around the world (see Proverbs 3:6 footnote).
5. God told Job in 1500 B.C.: “Can you send lightnings, that they may go, and say to you, Here we are?” (Job 38:35). The Bible here is making what appears to be a scientifically ludicrous statement—that light can be sent, and then manifest itself in speech. But did you know that radio waves travel at the speed of light? This is why you can have instantaneous wireless communication with someone on the other side of the earth. Science didn’t discover this until 1864 when “British scientist James Clerk Maxwell suggested that electricity and light waves were two forms of the same thing” (Modern Century Illustrated Encyclopedia).
6. Job 38:19 asks, “Where is the way where light dwells?” Modern man has only recently discovered that light (electromagnetic radiation) has a “way,” traveling at 186,000 miles per second.
7. Science has discovered that stars emit radio waves, which are received on earth as a high pitch. God mentioned this in Job 38:7: “When the morning stars sang together…”
8. “Most cosmologists (scientists who study the structures and evolution of the universe) agree that the Genesis account of creation, in imagining an initial void, may be uncannily close to the truth” (Time, Dec. 1976).
9. Solomon described a “cycle” of air currents two thousand years before scientists “discovered” them. “The wind goes toward the south, and turns about unto the north; it whirls about continually, and the wind returns again according to his circuits” (Ecclesiastes 1:6).
10. Science expresses the universe in five terms: time, space, matter, power, and motion. Genesis 1:1,2 revealed such truths to the Hebrews in 1450 B.C.: “In the beginning [time] God created [power] the heaven [space] and the earth [matter] . . . And the Spirit of God moved [motion] upon the face of the waters.” The first thing God tells man is that He controls of all aspects of the universe.
11. The great biological truth concerning the importance of blood in our body’s mechanism has been fully comprehended only in recent years. Up until 120 years ago, sick people were “bled,” and many died because of the practice. If you lose your blood, you lose your life. Yet Leviticus 17:11, written 3,000 years ago, declared that blood is the source of life: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood.”
12. All things were made by Him (see John 1:3), including dinosaurs. Why then did the dinosaur disappear? The answer may be in Job 40:15–24. In this passage, God speaks about a great creature called “behemoth.” Some commentators think this was a hippopotamus. However, the hippo’s tail isn’t like a large tree, but a small twig. Following are the characteristics of this huge animal: It was the largest of all the creatures God made; was plant-eating (herbivorous); had its strength in its hips and a tail like a large tree. It had very strong bones, lived among the trees, drank massive amounts of water, and was not disturbed by a raging river. He appears impervious to attack because his nose could pierce through snares, but Scripture says, “He that made him can make his sword to approach unto him.” In other words, God caused this, the largest of all the creatures He had made, to become extinct.
13. Encyclopedia Britannica documents that in 1845, a young doctor in Vienna named Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis was horrified at the terrible death rate of women who gave birth in hospitals. As many as 30 percent died after giving birth. Semmelweis noted that doctors would examine the bodies of patients who died, then, without washing their hands, go straight to the next ward and examine expectant mothers. This was their normal practice, because the presence of microscopic diseases was unknown. Semmelweis insisted that doctors wash their hands before examinations, and the death rate immediately dropped to 2 percent. Look at the specific instructions God gave His people for when they encounter disease: “And when he that has an issue is cleansed of his issue; then he shall number to himself even days for his cleansing, and wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh in running water, and shall be clean” (Leviticus 15:13). Until recent years, doctors washed their hands in a bowl of water, leaving invisible germs on their hands. However, the Bible says specifically to wash hands under “running water.”
14. Luke 17:34–36 says the Second Coming of Jesus Christ will occur while some are asleep at night and others are working at daytime activities in the field. This is a clear indication of a revolving earth, with day and night at the same time.
15. “During the devastating Black Death of the fourteenth century, patients who were sick or dead were kept in the same rooms as the rest of the family. People often wondered why the disease was affecting so many people at one time. They attributed these epidemics to ‘bad air’ or ‘evil spirits.’ However, careful attention to the medical commands of God as revealed in Leviticus would have saved untold millions of lives. Arturo Castiglione wrote about the overwhelming importance of this biblical medical law: ‘The laws against leprosyin Leviticus 13 may be regarded as the first model of sanitary legislation’ (A History of Medicine).” Grant R. Jeffery.

The Signature of God With all these truths revealed in Scripture,how could a thinking person deny that the Bible is supernatural in origin? There is no other book in any of the world’s religions (Vedas, Bhagavad-Gita, Koran, Book of Mormon, etc.) that contains scientific truth. In fact, they contain statements that are clearly unscientific. Hank Hanegraaff said, “Faith in Christ is not some blind leap into a dark chasm, but a faith based on established evidence.” (11:3 continued)

 Click here for more information.

Morris Hunsucker emailed me the following, which I thought was very good.  It illustrates Ephesians 4:27, which tells us “neither give place to the devil.”

Chapter One

I walk down the street.I fall into a hole in the sidewalk.I did not see the hole.For a moment, I do not understand what happened to me.It takes forever for me to get out of the hole and get cleaned up.  Chapter TwoI walk down the street.I forget about the hole in the sidewalk.I fall into it again.I know what happened and I cannot believe I fell into the same hole.It takes me less time to get out and get cleaned up. Chapter Three

I walk down the street.I remember the hole.I carefully try to avoid it, but slip and fall in anyway.I am disgusted with myself and vow it will never happen again.I manage to get out and get cleaned up quickly.  Chapter Four I walk down the street.I see the hole.I stay far away from it and manage to avoid falling in.I am discouraged however, that it takes so much effort to stay away from the hole and to stay clean.I pray and ask God to keep me clean. Chapter FiveI walk down a different street.

Some of you have met Steve before.  He and April are coming over to do Christian work in Ireland, and they will be getting married on tomorrow.

 You can find out more about them by clicking here.

This has to break your heart.  There is very little gospel being preached in South Africa.  Sin is wrecking havoc in the lives of men and women.  As a church we must be concerned about taking the gospel of Jesus Christ to these people.  He desires to be preached there.  Kevin and Corli Hall are friends of ours, who are missionaries serving in South Africa.  They not only need help with AIDS but more so need to know the forgiveness of their sins and the new life that can be found only in the shed blood of Jesus Christ.  Will you read this article and let it break your heart. Will you decide now to do your job in our church.  We must be praying, giving, going, and training leaders that can go to South Africa as well as every other country where the name of Jesus Christ is not known.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa —  Fewer than half of South Africa’s 15-year-olds will live to see their 60th birthday because of HIV/ AIDS, according to a new report.An estimated 950 people died per day during 2006 from AIDS-related diseases and a further 1,400 were infected each day — a total of 530,000 new infections, said the report by the Actuarial Society of South Africa and the Medical Research Council.The report, issued every two years and widely used as a model for predicting the course of the disease and its impact, included an estimate that 5.4 million of South Africa’s 48 million people were infected with the AIDS virus by the middle of 2006 — a figure in line with the government’s own estimates issued earlier this year.Only India is believed to have more people infected with HIV than South Africa.

The report said life expectancy dropped from 63 in 1990 to 51 in 2006. In the hardest hit province of KwaZulu-Natal, it was as low as 43.

“The Demographic Impact of HIV/AIDS in South Africa: National and Provincial Indicators for 2006″ said that 15-year-olds had a 56 percent chance of dying before the age of 60, compared to a 29 percent chance of dying in 1990.

Read the rest of the story by clicking here.