Posted this at the LFL-WI blog.

This is the sort of story that really gets under my skin. A Florida couple won a lawsuit against her doctors, asserting that they failed to discover that their child would be born disabled (no arms and one leg). The woman testified that she would have definitely aborted the child if they had that information.

"They went from the heights of joyous expectations to the depths of despair," their attorney Robert Bergin told the jury during closing arguments Wednesday.

It is a sham to think that the timing makes any difference. My wife and I also experienced this descent from joy to despair, but it actually occurred at the ultrasound. We were crushed as truly as this couple was crushed. That an abortion is a possible direction to go after receiving such news doesn't make the despair go away. I've known many a parent that lost their child merely through miscarriage and was subsequently crushed at the loss of the child. In situations such as these, despair is the natural response, but it does not justify any and all actions that we might conceive of. FULL POST

"Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it? And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbors together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost. Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth."
(Luke 15:8-10)

As I get older, I find myself going through the same thing this woman went through. Where is that thing that I just laid down a moment ago? Where's my glasses? What happened to that pen I just had in my hand? It was here just a moment ago. Am I getting more stupid as the days progress, or am I just getting old?

Or am I just like the Church?

We can take comfort that we still have 9 pieces of silver and that tenth piece is around here somewhere. It'll turn up sooner or later. In the meantime, we have lots of other things to do that are more important right now.

Or do we?

Many of us may lament the loss of one piece of silver and will light a candle to find it, but if it doesn't show up, we are satisfied that at least we made an effort to find it. We have tall white steeples to let everyone know where our churches are, we put our church in the local Church Directory for everyone to find us, and we've even put a sign out front to invite them in. We have lit our candle and are satisfied that we have done our best. But few of us are willing to sweep the house and turn it upside down in a desperate search for that one lost piece of silver, that one lost sheep. FULL POST

Originally Posted Here | Find Anthony on Facebook

Religious leaders are well aware of the vulnerability of the child brain, and the importance of getting the indoctrination in early.  The Jesuit boast, 'Give me the child for his first seven years, and I'll give you the man,' is no less accurate (or sinister) for being hackneyed.

The above quote comes from Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion in the chapter titled "The Roots of Religion."  I was thinking about that chapter when I heard that Mr. Dawkins was putting out a children's book.   Has Dawkins decided he needs to get into the 'indoctrination' business?

Of course, the word 'indoctrination' has taken on a negative air, and is only applied when one disapproves of what is being transmitted—even if one is about the same business.  Dawkins' real problem is not with the Jesuit's 'sinister' approach.  He admits it is 'no less accurate.'  His real beef must be with the content the Jesuits presented.

Good!  Then we are all agreed!  'Indoctrination' isn't 'sinister.'  Transmitting the beliefs, values, and perceptions of one generation to the next is an important and unavoidable necessity that must take certain definite forms because of the nature of who we are transmitting them too:  children.

Now, we cannot really believe that atheists and secular humanists have every really thought that 'indoctrination' was the exclusive domain of the religionists.  For the last hundred years, they have been on a tear doing all that they can to purge any vestige of anything that even smacks of religion from public society and the public schools.    A more accurate assessment would suggest that even when Dawkins bemoaned the tawdry work of the Jesuits, his side knew early on the importance of 'getting the indoctrination in early.'

So what, then?  What might motivate this upcoming release?  There may be some clues in Dawkins' Delusion. FULL POST

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Praise the Lord everybody. I haven't written much on this trip, I guess because all the exotic stuff about being in Africa is becoming routine. Even the excitement that we have in services here is ... I don't want to say routine, but I've had a thousand or more services like this and how many times can you tell the same story? I must be getting old, callous, or accustomed to the supernatural.

This trip has been different than the others; possibly the most important one. For one thing, we have been attacked by the devil harder than we have ever been, so that has to tell you something. But there have been new open doors that I have not had before. For instance, I was invited to meet the President of Burundi (a Born-Again Christian who has two of my books), I've been on an hour long broadcast on national TV in Rwanda as well as a couple hours on Radio Rwanda and another station. I've preached at the biggest churches in Burundi, passed out a thousand "Four Steps to Revival" and over 200 Bibles, and seen over 400 souls get saved in just this trip alone.

But it's the intensity and violent outpourings of the Holy Spirit that is what I am finding extraordinary. I've had services before that were so anointed that you felt like you were floating, where people could actually see the glow of the Shekinah Glory. I've had healing lines where EVERBODY got healed, and services where the church we were at doubled and tripled in numbers within a week or so. But there is something deeper about this trip that I have not sensed before. Maybe that's why I have gone through so much fire. FULL POST

The Birthplace of 1970 Revival in Africa

“And Elijah said unto Ahab, Get thee up, eat and drink; for there is a sound of abundance of rain.” 1Kings 18:41

On our way to our last series of services in Rwanda, we drove past the place where the 1970 revival first broke out in a little round building just off the highway.  It was small and unassuming by any standards, and nothing would have suggested anything extraordinary, but this is the place where the heavens first broke wide open in 1970 and started an outpouring of the Holy Ghost that swept across the Africa.

It was here that a small group of determined prayer warriors took hold of the horns of the altar of God and crashed the gates of Heaven, crying out to God with broken hearts for God to send revival.  They gathered in this tiny place and cried and cried and cried out to God to send revival. They were just a handful of simple country folk, but they had the courage to believe God and hold Him to His Word.  They refused to let go until He sent revival, and when it came, it broke out like a fire that raged across the continent. FULL POST

"And after him was Eleazar the son of Dodo, the Ahohite, who was one of the three mighties. He was with David at Pasdammim, and there the Philistines were gathered together to battle, where was a parcel of ground full of barley; and the people fled from before the Philistines.
And they set themselves in the midst of that parcel, and delivered it, and slew the Philistines; and the LORD saved them by a great deliverance." (1Ch 11:12-14)

There comes a time in your Christian life when you have had enough of good intentions, fair speeches, and repetitive platitudes. There comes a time when you are ready to plant your feet on solid ground and are ready to fight. No more talk; it is time to DO something.

I don't believe that David and his two companions honestly thought they were going to live through this battle. After all, the enemy was so fearsome that the entire army of Israel ran in terror. It says in 2 Samuel 23 that they only came back after it was safe. This was way past what David faced with Goliath.

But while the situation had changed, the principles had not. They gripped their swords and drew a line in the ground beyond which they would not move.

Three guys standing against incredibly overwhelming odds ... no let me take that back. No bookie in Las Vegas would even give you that much of a spread – there were NO odds. Not a chance. Adios, amigo! FULL POST

One of the main issues that I stress in my Revival Meetings is the absolute necessity of winning souls. Revival is not about us feeling good or having real Spirit-filled services – it is first, last, and always about winning the lost. That is the true purpose for revival. Turning the focus of the Church off ourselves and onto saving others is the central theme of the Cross ... and one of the hardest things to get Christians to realize in their apostate churches.

Winning souls is so vital that I will usually spend an entire service on this one issue alone. I start with the last thing that Jesus asked us to do before He left – go make disciples. I point out that we have done everything else but what He asked us to do.

The Church of Ephesus sounds like a great church ... until you get to the part about leaving their first love, that love for telling others, and their subsequent demise if they don't repent.

The True Vine tells us that if we do not bear good fruit, we will be broken off and thrown into the fire. Jesus says the same thing several times. What is that fruit? Souls. Where are the souls at your Altar Calls? Do you even HAVE Altar Calls? When's the last time souls got saved at your church? Where is the fruit? FULL POST

What happens when bad things happen to good people? Is God not fair who watches over us?

We all want to believe in a fairy-tale existence where life is at least fair if not blessed. We hold on to our Christianity and find an equilibrium in our lives where we are comfortable with our faith in God and expect that all things will work to good for those who love Him and keep His commandments. That's what it says in the Bible, doesn't it? Even though the Bible also says that the heart of man is deceitful and desperately wicked, still, we don't actually FEEL overly wicked. We believe in God and go through all the modes of Christian life that we are expected to part of, so naturally we expect good things from God.

But what happens when things don't go the way we expected or at least hoped? Sometimes Life deals a losing hand that places us in a terrifying situation that doesn't make sense to us. Sometimes, all of a sudden, things aren't so good, and we find ourselves wondering what happened. We know that tragedies happen all the time, but we expect them to happen to someone else, not us. What happens when all a sudden the table is turned and we have nowhere to go for help?

It is easy to talk about holding on to our faith when it's not our faith that is being tested. We can mouth all the platitudes – and we do to others who are experiencing a catastrophe – but when it's us who is facing a catastrophe, it can feel like we are grasping thin air in our desperate cries to God for help. This wasn't supposed to happen. Not to us. But it did, and now we are crying out to God for help ... but sometimes there is only stillness in the night air as we wait for an answer. FULL POST

" ... let not thy dread make me afraid." (Job 13:21)

Throughout the years, I've witnessed the struggle to define what the Fear of God really is ... and what it is not. A friend of mine has said that people will follow their hearts, and so it is with how people define what the Fear of God is to them.

The expanse of extremes range from the old fashioned "fear and trembling" that I was raised with to the more modern "awesome respect" that I hear so often today. Some say we shouldn't tremble at the presence of God because He is our Daddy and we should be able to crawl into His lap and just "love on Him", while others point to a myriad of Scriptural references to a more intense fear of God that drives us into righteousness.

Isaiah 8:13 cries out to "let Him be your fear, and let Him be your dread", while Paul echoes this several times with "fear and trembling" and other serious admonitions. Moses' knees smote together and David's skin quaked for fear of God. This is not just "awesome respect" but a deeper level that is not to be addressed lightly. While many today look narrowly at the restrictive attitudes of the old Pentecostal revivals, it can also be said of today's churches that they have thrown all restraint to the winds in order to "walk in Love". FULL POST

"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things." (Isa 45:7)

Here is something interesting. The Word of God says that He formed light, not created it. Somehow, I always figured that everything was dark, and then God created light. Not so. He IS light. It was already there. Wow, does that have tremendous implications!

I had to know more, so I looked up the word, "yatsar". It means to form or fashion, to devise, to frame. The word implies initiation as well as structuring. It is used to designate a potter as he squeezes and mold clay into a vessel. I know that one has just struck you! The Potter fashioned us in the same way that He has fashioned and formed Light!

In Isaiah 29:16, "Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter's clay: for shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not? or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding?" The "potter's" in "the potter's clay" is the same word, as it the word "framed". It is the same in many other scriptures, and suggests that the prophets of God carried a "formed" or "shaped" message to Israel. FULL POST