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From the Trinity Law School Website

Writing Competition

The Center for Human Rights invites the submission of scholarly papers.

Topic
Scholarly papers must address the issue of “A Christian’s Response to Human Rights.”

Papers may consider addressing issues of the source of Human Rights, the nature of Human Rights, why it matters if Human Rights have a religious or secular basis, how Human Rights are (or should be) protected and enforced, religion’s role in protecting Human Rights, etc. Scholars are not bound by these suggestions and are encouraged to thoroughly address the topic in a manner that best addresses the pertinent issues.

Eligibility
Only students that are currently enrolled in a JD, LLM, and/or SJD program within the United States are eligible to submit a paper.

Article Format
Submissions must be original, unpublished academic works by one author. Students may only submit one paper. Multiple submissions will result in disqualification.

All papers must be submitted electronically to mmoore@tiu.edu. All submissions should be in English and in Microsoft® Word format. The text should be double-spaced in 12-point font with 1-inch margins. The length should be approximately 25 to 50 pages, including footnotes. Footnotes may appear in single-spaced 10-point font. All citations must conform to The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation.

All papers must be accompanied by a single cover page that includes:

The title of the paper;
The author’s name, address, telephone phone number & e-mail address;
The name of the author’s law school, degree program (i.e., JD, LLM, or SJD) and anticipated date of graduation.

Submitted papers will not be returned.

The failure to comply with the requirements of the Article Format will result in disqualification.
Judgment Criteria for Award

Papers will be judged on originality, quality of writing and scholarship, depth of research and analysis, and readiness for publication. All eligible submissions will first be reviewed by members of the Trinity Law Review. Papers that pass initial review process will then be reviewed by a panel composed of the Director of the Center for Human Rights, select TLS Faculty, and editors of the Trinity Law Review.

Prizes
A First, Second, and Third place will be chosen from the eligible submissions. The prizes will be awarded as follows:

First Place: $1,000
Second Place: $500
Third Place: $250

The First, Second, and Third place winners will also receive expedited consideration for publication in the 2012/2013 Trinity Law Review, which will be a special symposium issue on the Center for Human Rights.
Submission Deadline

Submissions are due on or before April 15, 2012. No papers will be accepted after that date.

Winners will be announced by May 30, 2012, via e-mail.

Please submit all papers, questions, or inquiries to: mmoore@tiu.edu

Click here to hear the apologetics.com Radio show,“Does the Reformation Still Matter?”

With Special Guests: Lane Chaplin of “Rightly Divided”, Doug Eaton of “Bethel Grace Baptist Church of Bellflower California”, Pastor Arthur Andrews of “Hephatha Lutheran Church” of Anaheim, Pastor Kent Moorlach of “Communion Presbyterian Church” of Irvine, Joe Long and Susan Yesner, with apologetics.com host Christopher Neiswonger.

This is a recent lecture I gave on the doctrine of the Trinity.  This is part of the Rooted in Truth class which is an overview of systematic theology.

With Candace Jackson, Lindsay Brooks and Christopher Neiswonger

The stories that a person loves says a lot about them. Christians of course have their own peculiar view of the world, and that manifests itself in the arts as much as in the things we might think of as “religious”. We are striving for a higher love that manifests itself in the common place toward a view of God, ourselves and the world. In this, popular culture is both active and reactive – both reflecting what we think we are and telling us what we should be. This kind of thing changes, sometimes sharply. Few things can be as cruel as a community that has found some unstable element of culture through which to interpret itself. We tend to speak in terms of “decades” and look back upon “the 70s”, “the 80s”, and “the 90s” as if they were a thousand years ago, when our own little moment in the light is no different. It will pass, and soon, but not without us saying a little something about ourselves in the meantime, generally, through the stories we tell, and the things we do, and say, and what we choose to love.

http://www.apologetics.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=649:the-apologeticscom-summer-movie-reviews-show&catid=43:kkla-995-fm-los-angeles&Itemid=74Cowboys & Aliens

Captain America

Mr. Popper’s Penguins

Harry Potter IV

Green Lantern

Super 8

And much, much more…

Click this link to hear the full Two-Hour Program!

A treatment of the basic ideas, systems, hermeneutics and history of the end of the world in Christian thought. Special guests the Reverend Kent Moorlach of Communion Presbyterian Church of Irvine, CA and Doug Eaton of Bethel Grace Baptist Church of Bellflower CA, join host Christopher Neiswonger on a trip to the end and back again.

http://www.apologetics.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=637:eschatology-the-end-of-the-world&catid=43:kkla-995-fm-los-angeles&Itemid=74

Listen to the entire 2 hour Apologetics.com Radio Show, “The Psychology of Being the Church” by clicking this link.

The Psychology of Being the Church (Outline)

“Be of this mind…”
Water always flows down hill; the path of least resistance…
Faith isn’t like water; it resists…
“Gravity”

1. We need to frame a Christian psychology before we can practice a Christian sociology

a. What kind of a mind?
b. As for the Christian we might have different gifts, but we are to be of one mind.
c. Almost everything in the Christian life has been traditionally expressed in terms of “faith and practice”.

2. Studies in the Development of Christian Character through the Mysterious Methodology of Divine Providence.

Job and the Devil
Abraham and the sacrifice that God will provide
David and Goliath
David and Nathan
Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms

3. The law and the gospel:

As an antidote to the confusion created by N. T. Wright and other Euronomic revisionist movements in the Church, we are not speaking here about the gospel;
“The gospel is entirely outside you Melanchthon”

4. Galatians 5 and being led by the Spirit

5. Faith Hope Love Prudence Justice Courage and Patience

Suffering and being a follower of Jesus
Long Suffering, Self Denial; Looking for a worthy opportunity to suffer

6. A sign that you might have forgotten something important…

If you have no Joy you might have forgotten your…

7. Something to think about in getting past the past and getting on with the present…

8. Christian self examination vs. Freudian analysis

Philippians 2; Galatians 5

CN

http://www.apologetics.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=626:weighing-the-value-of-the-institutional-church&catid=43:kkla-995-fm-los-angeles&Itemid=74Click link to hear the show!

This show will be a conversation on the nature and identity of the true Church, and the characteristics we might expect. Pastor Kent Moorlach of Communion Presbyterian Church of Irvine and Eric Thomure, Assemblies of God missionary to UCLA will be joining in the discussion. Jesus came to save His Church but of late the Church has found marvelously little value in the institution. The Church seems to be God’s preferred means for everything from preaching to evangelism and those things should make it very important to the Christian. The flaws and foibles of those calling themselves the Church can make it a very easy organization to avoid, and we can make it hard for the uninitiated to find a pleasantness therein to attract them to the fold. Others move Heaven and Earth to bring people in but in so doing abandon due process and theological substance as the price of admission. But if the Church is God’s Church, we might have a vested interest in being a member of that body of which Christ alone is the head.

“Christianity and the Constitution”: The Apologetics.com Radio Show Click link

This edition of the Apologetics.com Radio Show will focus upon the actual form, content and intent of the Constitution while stopping along the way to touch on specific issues related to the place of religion in Constitutional law and the various ways that different parties attempt to bend the document to achieve self interests and political goals. Christopher Neiswonger and Donald Robert McConnell

http://www.apologetics.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=617:social-justice-and-the-problem-of-evil&catid=43:kkla-995-fm-los-angeles&Itemid=74

Click this link to hear the program! http://www.apologetics.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=611:purgatory-and-protestant-thought&catid=43:kkla-995-fm-los-angeles&Itemid=74

There’s been a resurgence of purgatorial ambition of late in evangelical thought, many reconsidering the prospect of posthumous sufferings even among the faithful. Protestantism in general was formed with purgatory in mind, as the first generation Protestants tried to leave behind superstition and theological guesswork in favor of a more solid foundation for faith and practice. The issue was, the sufficiency of Christ and the fullness of the atonement, and that our righteousness is wholly alien to our condition and found in Christ alone. The issue largely becomes one of where we are going to place the limitations upon available information, whether scripture, or tradition, or both.

Christopher Neiswonger and Dennis Alvy purge the subject on this edition of the Apologetics.com Radio Show.

http://www.apologetics.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=612:the-place-of-the-law-of-god-in-the-christian-life&catid=43:kkla-995-fm-los-angeles&Itemid=74
Click this link to hear the program.

Are Christians under the law? Or led by the Spirit? Should we be careful about using the Bible as a manual of timeless ethics rather than a history of redemption? Is the law for the Christian but not the world or the World but not the Christian? Whatever we think about these things, the nature of Christian behavior seems to be one of the most important themes in the ministry of Jesus, ethics never being far from his mind. And so what are we to do? And how are we to know? Christopher Neiswonger and Dennis Alvy on this edition of the Apologetics.com Radio Show.

Subject, Object, Copula. “God is good.” This is what communication demands, because, everything is relational. And every truth is thought in the form of a relation between something and something else or something and itself. There just isn’t any other way for things to be. So of course Jesus is logical, because to be illogical is to be confused, or ignorant, or just wrong about something. God, in Christian Theology, is an eternal mind. He thinks. He is personal (in fact, tri-personal). But He is not confused about either what He thinks is true or what He thinks is false or the relationship between the two. He knows that He exists instead of not existing. He knows the difference between Himself and the things He created. He knows what He loves and what He hates and what time of the day it is, and all of these are logical distinctions. Logic is just our little name for the way God thinks. We think the way we do, and think well when we do, because He thinks the way He does, and we are created after His image and likeness.

The implication of this being that that which is irrational, is ungodly. Eastern religions tend to prize irrationality; perfection in thought and rationality are peculiarly Christian ways of understanding the Creator. The irrational, sub-rational, super-rational (or wherever you want to go with it) identify something as being fallen, and dark, and ultimately brutal. There are some philosophies that explain everything in terms of an ultimate Personality with intent, and order, and reasons expressive of the perfections of the Divine nature, and then there are those that reduce everything to an ultimate irrationality, chaos, and mindless accidental causation. Really, these are the only two big philosophies: God, or the void; everything else is details.

God is Good. And because God is good He is also Truth, and truth neither lies nor errs. Logic is not some eternally existing Platonic thing outside of God to which He looks for verification as a principle. Properly, there is no “thing” called logic. Logic is a primary personal attribute that doesn’t exist ‘outside’ of persons at all. What some people derogatorily describe as “mere human reason”, is the imago Dei, the image of God. At worst we should call it Divine reason subsidiarily expressed. We call our Christian ethics the works of God’s good moral will, why not the thoughts that are true the lesser reflections of His Holy intellect? These are really the only ways that we can be like God. To do the good that pleases Him and think His true thoughts after Him: morally and thoughtfully. When the Westminster Shorter Catechism says that we were created in “knowledge and original righteousness”, that’s what it means. In thinking true thoughts and willing true goods. The ability to think true thoughts about God, the self, and the world and to reconcile those thoughts in a true understanding so that we might see the face of God in Jesus Christ demands that our thoughts be reasonable.

If someone wants to disagree they would need to do so without using propositions or without using logic and so without using words, because the use of any word presupposes the identity and meaning of the word used as opposed to an infinite series of other possible meanings. So, no words, no numbers, no images, pictures, symbols, or representations of any kind because all of these presume the laws of identity and non-contradiction. We simply cannot speak, not even to object, without using them.

This in itself tells us things about the Eternal God who raised us from the dust and breathed life into us, bringing forth children from the clay. Logic itself is not something He created, because if it were, He would have had to have not created it before He created it, and that is a logical distinction.

Getting beyond the object-subject distinction is the rage in the halls of philosophical confusion right now. Theo-babble is on the rise. The thinker’s flavor of the week. But the Christian should not allow themselves be confused by these kinds of pious sounding words without intelligible meaning. There is a God, and we are not Him, and that is a logical difference. To fail to reason well is to succeed at reasoning paganly. To begin with true premises and end with false conclusions is the beginning of suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.

And since we who know Him long to be like Him, let us think as He thought and do as he did.

Christopher Neiswonger

Click the link to hear the show.

http://www.apologetics.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=586:cs-lewis-and-the-end-of-the-world&catid=43:kkla-995-fm-los-angeles&Itemid=74

“Christ and Culture”
Posted in Radio – Recent Past Shows

Click here to visit Apologetics.com Radio and hear the full show…
After the existence of God and the identity of the God that exists, the most important question for Christians has always been the relationship between Christ and Culture. 50 or so years ago H. Richard Neibhur wrote a definitive short work on the subject by framing the five traditional categories that we use to talk about these important matters.

•Christ against Culture
•Christ within Culture
•Christ above Culture
•Christ apart from Culture, and;
•Christ transforming Culture

More than being a simple application of proof texts for or against, one’s entire hermeneutic (method for the interpretation of scripture) seems woven into one’s Christ/Culture commitment. It seems to shape everything after it, taking a primary place in one’s faith and practice. What we will do as Christians is dependent upon what we think we should do and what we think we should do is rooted in our approach to our worldly interactions. Our Church and State view; our approach to our children’s education; our evangelism or lack thereof; our missiology; our arts and literature; our science; our politics and especially for the sake of this show, our apologetics methodology lay deeply rooted in our view of Christ and Culture.

Christopher Neiswonger with special guest Pastor Kent Moorlach of Communion Presbyterian Church of Irvine CA; with callers.

Click this link to hear the full two hour broadcast!

The limitations of Christian prudence in regard to the arts is an ever present discussion in Christian circles (Augustine had much to say about the dangers of the theatre). It has been so since the Hebrew era, through the Church Fathers, the Renaissance and the Reformation. Still, as a body of believers we have our own internal critique of faith, of culture, and of the relation between the faith and the culture. Is the culture dictating the content of the faith? Or is our faith transforming the culture? Or have we missed them both and we are just riding the waves of history wherever they might blow? That’s all too heavy a discussion for tonight so we’re just going to talk about Harry Potter from a Christian perspective… both for it… and against it.

Christopher Neiswonger and Lindsay Brooks (and callers with varying levels of affirmation or consternation).

Join Apologetics.com with special Guests; Doug TenNapel of www.TenNapel.com; Pastor Philip George of Calvary Presbyterian Church of Glendale California; and Pastor Kent Moorlach of Communion Presbyterian Church of Irvine California with Host Christopher Neiswonger, as we consider the power, the path, the meaning and the purpose of prayer. Some might say that talking about prayer is like talking about music; it’s better to simply hear the song, but the Bible and the Christian tradition have a lot to say about what we say to God and how we say it. We speak to each other; why not to God? Considering the most influential and enduring prayers from the Bible and history with an emphasis on the Bible’s own internal critique of ways and means.

http://www.apologetics.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=571:the-power-of-prayer-a-users-guide&catid=43:kkla-995-fm-los-angeles&Itemid=74

With Special Guests Doug Eaton of Bethel Grace Baptist Church, Pastor Philip George of Calvary Presbyterian Church of Glendale CA, Reverend Kent Moorlach of Communion Presbyterian Church of Irvine CA, Host Christopher Neiswonger of Apologetics.com and callers from across the theological spectrum, this years show is focused upon the influence and thought of Martin Luther and the “Five Solas” of the Reformation for Reformation Day 2010. “Justification by faith alone is the doctrine upon which the church stands or falls” – Martin Luther

http://www.apologetics.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=570%3Aannual-reformation-day-show-2010&catid=43%3Akkla-995-fm-los-angeles&Itemid=74

“Now, after more than five years of self-imposed absence from stage and CD, Mr. Boltz has reached a musical and religious destination. As an openly gay man, living in a gay-friendly part of South Florida with his partner, Franco Sperduti, he has released his first album since coming out.”

Christian Reader,

Does this not rip your heart to shreds? Here we have a professing Christian who’d spent the last few decades of his life performing “Christian” music, married since years ago, with children, now “living in a gay-friendly part of South Florida with his partner.” And now, because of his wife’s “support,” and apparently no love enough from his church to bring him under discipline unto restoration, he is all the more encouraged and confirmed in his unnatural lusts and selfishness.

Mr. Freedman’s article paints the picture of the proverbial poor and inner-tortured homosexual man who struggled for years to be straight, all the while kicking the goads. “How hard that must have been for him!” is the employed tactic seeking the reader’s pity. True. I’m sure it was very difficult. Sin is certainly a struggle, and dealing with those sins that beset us is hard work. However, giving in to them altogether, or worse yet, glorifying this particular struggle as “coming out” and embracing a new “freedom” is a real shame.

Indulge me for a moment here:

Replace homosexuality with extra-marital affairs. Imagine a man who has lived a double life against wife and children for so long, having been involved with another woman (or women) outside of his beloved wife. His conscience witnesses against his deeds, but he simply cannot help it. He’s lying to himself (so he thinks), thinking he cannot bear any longer the shekels of this one-woman-man shell he’s been living behind called marriage. One day, because of all the hurt and struggle, and because he’s tired of the lies, he comes clean. Then, he announces his victimization to all the world, desiring to be freed from the smite of his conscience. Would this man be received so warmly and pitifully as it seems Mr. Boltz has? I doubt it. Ask Tiger Woods.

Let’s be clear: We all have besetting sins. We all have secret sins about which we want no one to know. No, we’re not serial killers or rapists with Manson-lamps (Manson’s crazy eyes) going out at night to wreak havoc and terror upon our fellow man. But, as Christians, we all have this residue of indwelling sin harbored in the recesses of our hearts. These sins haunt us and scrape away until, at times, we arrive at our wits’ ends to the point that we’re driven to one thing: Confession of our sins, hatred toward them, renewed repentance, new obedience, and a trusting in Christ alone and His merit for our salvation.

Does this recognition of our sins give us leave to just go ahead and engage in them all the more, even scandalously so, and chalk it up to “God loves me. My family supports me”? I’d hope not. Precisely what Mr. Boltz has done is deny the very essence of what Scripture teaches pertaining to his condition and, instead, has taken on a pragmatic stance of “Well, my wife, kids, and many of my fans support me, so it must be okay. Let’s blame my guilt on the fundamentalist circles of my upbringing, but not the text of Scripture.”

Now, his time in songwriting is not spent pertaining to the Gospel, though he adamantly still confesses to be a Christian; no, now his time is spent writing of his “torment” as a homosexual man in a straight man’s Christian entertainment suit, tortured by the fundamentalist teachings of his past. Now, his time is spent writing songs about how we shouldn’t judge him and “Tell [Him] Who to Love.” A little defensive and insecure for something you don’t think’s so bad, Ray. I’m just sayin’.

Consider his poor wife and kids. They “support” him. Maybe they once had a biblical stance on homosexuality. But now, forced to choose sides since their beloved husband and father couldn’t sacrifice his lusts and challenge them the proper way and had to “come out” so he could be free from those fundamentalist fetters, they concede to the “don’t-be-a-homophobe” taunts of the militant homosexuals. They buy the victim mentality of his “coming out.” Make no mistake, that is the thrust of Mr. Freedman’s article as well, despite whatever his intentions may have been. His sentiment, and all of those who write such things about professing Christians “coming out,” is that they are victims of their “natural” inclinations within; ergo, those inclinations need not be challenged, mortified, counseled about, and done away with; rather, they should be embraced, celebrated, and defensively broadcast and defended!

Well, Dear Mr. Boltz, I pray for you. I don’t say that with some sort of “I’m-Better-Than-You-You-Evil-Homosexual” sense of false-piety. I say it with a great deal of pity and concern because, it seems, you’ve convinced yourself of the rightness of your cause, but not due to the teachings of Scripture. Instead, you comfort yourself with an unscriptural presumption pertaining to the mercies of God, yet without embracing the proper means of availing yourself to such mercies. No, you and I aren’t much different. But I’m thankful for friends and a church that won’t allow me to carve a way of destruction for myself by supporting me in that which is clearly condemned in the Scriptures.

I have besetting sins of my own. I hate them. You’re not alone in difficult and seemingly insurmountable struggles that burden your conscience. Your conscience bothered you for a long time and for good reason. I fear now, however, due to your new found “freedom” you’ve allowed said conscience to become seared by convincing yourself that you’re a victim of fundamentalist interpretations of Scripture, and not by the actual truth that you’re behaving selfishly and indulgently according to your flesh’s desire. Instead of battling these things with a host of friends, counselors (read: Pastor/Elders), you’ve just given in. I pray, though, this will not be an instance of “and God gave them over” as found in Romans 1.

It’s hard to bottle our struggles up and not just let them roam free and overtake us. But, for Christ’s sake, we must daily lay them at His feet, mortify them, confess them, repent of them, and pray for Christ’s deliverance from them. The *last* thing we should do is glorify them and try to biblically justify them so as to have our consciences hushed of its rightful accusations.

You profess a Christian testimony, Friend. Then please, by all means, repent of this lifestyle. Get the proper pastoral and biblical counseling you need. Stay off tour and, instead, like all Christians *should* do, establish yourself in a Confessional church that will help you in your struggles, and love you enough to tell you what those struggles are: sin.

If you persist, and you’re adamant in doing so, please stop professing the God of the Scriptures, and don’t lie to yourself that all is well. All is not well in such a hardened condition. And, trust me, it’s all too easy to fall into a state of callousness over our sins. This is one reason we have the Scriptures. To remind us. This is the reason God gives His Spirit. To convict us. This is why God has given us pastors and teachers. To teach us. This is why God has given us a conscience. To warn and protect us.

Repent, my Friend, and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ Whom you profess for deliverance from the woeful condition in which you find yourself. We’ve all been in such woeful conditions and this by virtue of our very existence in this world. Don’t wait. Today is the day of salvation.

Sincerely in Christ,

Josh

Along those same line of thought, I appreciate this quotation from the venerable and beloved Matthew Henry, speaking to diligence in our duties:

It is best to remember our duty, and to do it in its time; but, if we have neglected that, it is next best to remember our faults, and repent of them, and do our duty at last; better late than never.

So, in whatever we’re doing, if we come to an immediate recognition that we’ve failed in this area or that, let us take up our duty once again immediately, repenting from our sloth, etc. and pressing toward our goal in Christ Jesus. The most pervasive attack of distractions I have found to be on the Lord’s Day when providential hindrances have kept me from my usual Sabbath schedule. It is on those days I must be diligent in my duties to keep the Sabbath and, if I’ve found myself straying, or being distracted, to repent immediately and take those duties back up. This, instead of saying to myself, “Oh great! I’ve failed in keeping the sabbath today, what’s the point of trying any further?”

If we are to be honest with ourselves, are we ever truly able to keep the commandments purely and without admixture of taint in either matter, manner, or motive? Of course not. Does this absolve us of our duties to endeavor to keep the Lord’s commandments? Absolutely not. Instead, it drives us to the ever pleasantly good news that that we have the imputed righteousness of Christ and, therefore, we ought all the more in a sense of gratitude and duty (both, not either/or) take up the Lord’s commandments with cheerfulness and resolve.

The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. (Matt. 8)

Not only did my “poor” rich Savior never commit transgression against, but He also rose to the level of perfection required, by God’s Law. All of this He did without many of the creature comforts we finite men enjoy. Alas! we possess the frail frames of mortality and, like our father Adam, we are given over to our lusts because we have “not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin” (Heb. 12). Not only haven’t we resisted unto blood, we fright at resisting unto mere inconvenience or slight discomfort.

How can I make such accusations against so many a people? Because I know my own heart and the Bible teaches that our hearts, each and everyone, with the exception of the Lord Jesus Christ, are bastions of iniquity, desperately wicked, deceitful above all things. And yet, for poor sinners, there is a great Savior. For those who are “poor in spirit,” who mourn o’er their sins, who are broken and contrite because of their manifold breaking of God’s Law, there is One Who has paid the price for their sins. He is a great Savior, indeed, and it is said concerning Him:

For he [that is, God the Father] hath made him [the Lord Jesus Christ] to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. (II Cor. 5)

You see, the Lord’s people, for whom He came to save from their sins (Matt. 1:21), are made rich Saints by His condescending down to an estate of poor human kindness. By His living a life of perfect righteousness, and dying a perfect death on the cross as a satisfaction of God’s wrath against their sins. By applying said purchase to them and granting them repentance and willingness to believe in the day of His power, through the empty instrument of faith. If that’s not a rags-to-riches story, then there can be none.

Nevertheless, there is a sad case of those who are not poor, or so they think themselves. Nay, they glory in their “riches,” and cling to their filthy rags of righteousness, so as to draw God into their debt. In doing so, they heap more and more condemnation on themselves, ripening their souls all the more for the Day of Judgment. O, how they think they will be weighed and found balanced enough on the good to enter into the eternal comfortable presence of God! Yea, they carry about themselves a pretense of value to men and God alike, but there end is a woeful estate indeed.

May those who profess the title of Christian never look upon their works as any merit, nor ever cling to anything other than the Lord Jesus Christ and His righteousness. May those who profess their loyalties to Christ instead cast away their filthy rags and be shut up to faith in Christ, as if backed into a corner by the devil’s accusations and by the woeful inadequacies of their own righteousness.

Dear Christian Reader, trust not in your poverty of ‘works,’ all the which got you into a debt you could never repay, but instead trust in the richness of your “poor” Savior and His righteousness, that you may stand before God, robed in Christ’s garment of righteous riches, without spot or blemish.

Christopher Neiswonger in a special presentation at the global center of one of the world’s largest non-governmental relief, development and advocacy organizations on why the existence of God has an important place in our thoughts about human rights and international development.

http://apologetics.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=524%3Athere-is-a-god-and-why-it-matters&catid=43%3Akkla-995-fm-los-angeles&Itemid=74 Click to hear the lecture.

“Why do we need to defend “the existence of God” and relatedly the existence of this one specific God as opposed to one of the many other deities? Two reasons: Truth and Goodness. Having the wrong God or no God at all will tend bring about, as it’s normal consequence, violations of human rights, the repression of peoples on the basis of race, nationality and gender, the objectification and evaluation of people on the basis of utility which manifests itself in slavery, human trafficking, genocide, and the devaluation and commodification of children. Making ourselves into animals, or less than animals, carries within itself every kind of misery. These things are always looking for an opportunity to manifest themselves in the very worst that humanity has to offer and the denial of objectives goods and the inherent dignity and value of Man as a creation in the image of God, rather than an accident of the mindless universe, is usually at its center.”

http://apologetics.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=524%3Athere-is-a-god-and-why-it-matters&catid=43%3Akkla-995-fm-los-angeles&Itemid=74

I am, in Christ, beloved.

Outside of Christ I would be but an object of God’s wrath (rightfully so). My only hope is in that Mediator of the New Covenant, the Lord Jesus Christ, and His righteousness. I’ll be clear, that’s what keeps me “going” most days. Over the last few, I have been alarmingly troubled by the propensity of my heart toward cold thoughts of the God Whom I should be serving. I am increasingly plagued by my thoughts, words, and deeds which are diametrically opposed to the holy, perfect, and good Law of God.

Genesis 3:21 “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.”

With the advent of the modern “two-kingdoms” view, can we expect God to do anything in this life besides merely spiritual edification? Does God’s plan include changing the world today? Or only after the second coming? Pastor Paul Viggiano of Branch of Hope Presbyterian Church hosting.

http://www.apologetics.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=511%3Adoes-god-physically-bless-his-people-in-this-life&catid=43%3Akkla-995-fm-los-angeles&Itemid=74

Seldom do we think about it with as much seriousness as we should, but it is all around us. It ravishes both those we love and those we consider enemies. Quite often, we play with it as if it were some tame animal that could never turn on us, but in reality, the only reason we think little of it is because it has already turned on us and has us under its sway. Scripture speaks of the exceeding deceitfulness of sin, and part of that deceitfulness is that it convinces us of its harmlessness, but when we see the havoc it has released upon this world we should think twice. The truth of the matter is that the sicknesses and death that plagues us are not the biggest problem. All have sinned and fallen short, our sin condemns us before a holy and just God, and part of its tyranny is to convince us that though we may not be perfect, we certainly don’t deserve the wrath of God. The deceitfulness of sin doesn’t stop there, it goes on and moves us to suppress the truth when we hear it and reject the very remedy for our condition.

Yet, by the grace of God, Scripture does not stop there; it goes on to tell us that, through Christ, all who have faith in Him have peace with God, and have been set free from sin (Rom 6:18). Though this does not mean we will never have to fight with our old nature, it does mean that the fact that we have turned to Christ is because the Lord, through his grace, has released us from sin’s ultimate deception. On top of this, he has promised that He will complete the work He has started in us.

This promise of Christ completing His work in us deals primarily with sanctification, but it doesn’t stop there. All of sin’s tyranny will ultimately be destroyed for the believer. Because of Christ’s resurrection, we too will be resurrected. Though we were sown perishable we will be raised imperishable. Though we have been sown in dishonor we will be raised in glory. And though we have been sown in weakness we will be raised in power (1 Cor. 15:42-43). Even though through one man’s trespass, death has reigned, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:17). So when you look around and see the ravishing effects of sin in yourself and the lives of those around you; remember to take sin seriously, and to trust in Christ who is greater than the tyranny of sin. For there is no condemnation, there is no disease, and there is no death as powerful as the life given to us in Christ, which is our hope of glory.

Doug

http://www.apologetics.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=505%3Asacrifice-and-the-christian-life&catid=43%3Akkla-995-fm-los-angeles&Itemid=74

“Over the memorial weekend we take time honor those who sacrifice to defend our freedoms. These men and women choose to protect and defend others even over their own safety. This idea of sacrifice runs all through Christianity. From the Old Testament sacrifices, to the sacrifices made by Christ in taking on flesh and being obedient even unto death. It is in Christ’s example that the Christian is to model his or her life. For scripture tells us in 1 Peter 4:1 “Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking?

In this show join host Donald McConnell, Dean of Trinity Law school; Jeff Saltzmann, Pastor of Bethel Grace Baptist Church in Bellflower; and Doug Eaton of Trinity Law School as they discuss “Sacrifice and the Christian Life.” Join them as they look at questions such as, “Why did God demand the sacrifice of animals in the Old Testament? Did those sacrifices actually atone for sin? What did Paul mean when he said he was filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, “What apologetic role does suffering play?” The panel will also be spending some time looking at three chapters from Calvin’s Institutes that deal with this aspect of the Christian life; On Self-Denial, On Bearing Our Cross, and On Meditating on the future life.”