Good News from Lebanon and Egypt

Georges Houssney,
Director, Horizons International.

From Lebanon: The body of Christ is growing. Evangelical churches are numerous and are increasingly open to converts from Islam, which are increasing in number. Many Christians from Muslim Backgrounds are seeking refuge in Lebanon because of its religious freedom. God is doing amazing things through various churches and ministries, including Horizons. Pray that God would use the political instability to bring many to himself.

From Egypt: In recent years there has been a huge renewal movement among the Copts of Egypt, which is the largest group of Christians in the Middle East. They have become much more open to evangelical Christianity, and to the ever growing number of Muslims coming to Christ. Pray for peace and kingdom growth.

(from Horizons International newsletter, February 2011)

Recent Sea Floor Formation is Scientific & Biblical Truth

Sea floor studies from the last few decades “show that today’s igneous ocean floor—all of it—has formed via seafloor spreading since roughly mid-way through the Flood.” And as Whitcomb and Morris suggested, “ocean basins were deepened after the Flood.” But what colossal energetic process could have done this?

It looks like the sea floors were made recently and rapidly. Experiments have demonstrated that silicate-rich sea floor “material can weaken dramatically, by factors of a billion or more, at mantle temperatures.”10 This means that once the earth’s crust was broken at the start of the Flood, hot mantle material, forming new lower ocean basins, propelled continent-size tectonic plates horizontally on the order of one meter per second. This catastrophic breakup and heating was implied in Genesis 7:11, which references the “fountains of the great deep” bursting forth.

The evidence for recent sea floor formation is one of the scientific observations made in the seminal book The Genesis Flood, written 50 years ago this month by John Whitcomb and Henry Morris. It is even more scientifically valid today than when first written. Most of the perspectives that were laid out by John Whitcomb and Henry Morris in their 1961 publication have been verified beyond reasonable doubt by ongoing observations..

(extracted from Frank Sherwin & Brian Thomas, Genesis Flood Insights More Relevant Today than Ever, Acts & Facts, February 2011, Institute of Creation Research)

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Jewish outreach on the Indian beach

You might think it strange that a Chosen People Ministries would go to India, but there is an excellent reason. The region of Goa is one of the most important destinations for Israeli tourists. Many young Israelis celebrate the completion of their compulsory military service with a few months of world travel, and the resort area of Goa in Southwest India is a popular destination. Known for its scenic beauty, it is a magnet for young Israelis who want to kick back on its splendid beaches or explore its lush landscape.

RB, who is with CPM, led a small team of young evangelists there to strike up conversations and to share the Gospel with Jewish people and others who were open to hearing about Messiah. RB says, "In Goa, we began meeting people. We had many long, spiritual conversations, with lots of questions being asked...especially at one late-night hang out, where two of our team members met a group of Israelis. One guy in particular asked them many questions about the Lord and said he never heard almost anything about Yeshua (Jesus) and was curious to understand. He asked questions for almost an hour."

Bringing Jewish people to faith in the Lord is often a step-by-step process - just as it says in John 4. One sows and another reaps, but we know that the Lord gains the glory.

(from Chosen People Ministries newsletter, February 2011)

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The Evolution of the Trojan Horse

During the 1800s, England hosted three major “Trojan horse” attacks on the Genesis account of the worldwide Flood. The first one was especially influential, opening the door for the others. Each attack was hospitably “invited” into Christian circles and produced ruinous corruptions to the worldviews of those who unsuspectingly played “host” to such visitors.

Originally, Christian scientists and leaders treated the Biblical account in the book of Genesis as a literal record of a global deluge. "Throughout the entire eighteenth century [i.e., 1700s], and well into the nineteenth [i.e., 1800s], an imposing list of scientists and theologians produced works in support of the Flood…. That the Flood was universal and that it was responsible for the major geologic formation of the earth was accepted almost without question in the western world during that period."¹
 

The first such Trojan horse was introduced, ironically, by a French Protestant creationist, Baron Georges Cuvier. Cuvier proposed a theory of “multiple catastrophes” that treated the Genesis record as mostly irrelevant (if not misleading) for understanding the natural world and its catastrophic past.² Cuvier’s theory was employed in 1814 by Thomas Chalmers for his ruin-and-reconstruction “gap theory,” an unequal and humanistic yoking of unbiblical “science” notions with the early chapters of Genesis.

The next breed of Trojan horse involved in the assault on the Genesis account of the Flood was grounded upon the anti-catastrophist uniformitarianism of Charles Lyell, Darwin’s ideological mentor. As Lyell’s old-earth uniformitarian theory gained popularity, catastrophist views of geologic history (including Cuvier’s) lost popularity. Consequently, efforts to preserve academic “respectability” led some Christians to mix Lyell’s anti-catastrophist dogma with a non-catastrophist view of the Genesis Flood, the so-called “tranquil flood” theory promoted by the likes of Carolus Linnaeus and John Fleming.³

Another Trojan horse was welcomed during the 1800s, the “local flood” theory of John Pye Smith.⁴ Thus, long before Charles Darwin published his atheistic concept of “natural selection” (a bait and switch metaphor that arbitrarily replaced the all-wise and all-powerful Creator with a magic force called “nature”), many of the leaders in Christian circles, both scientists and church leaders, had already closed the book of Genesis—at least as to what it teaches about the global Flood.

Today Christendom faces new breeds of Trojan horses (e.g., BioLogos, Intelligent Design deism, day-age “progressive creation,” framework hypothesis, etc.), which lie in wait to attack our understanding of Genesis and what it teaches about the Flood. Beware—and keep your Bible open!

(excerpted from Johnson, J. J. S. 2011. Just Say No to Trojan Horses. Acts & Facts. 40 (2): 17-18.)

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References (selected)

1. Morris, H. M. and J. C. Whitcomb. 1961. The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and Its Scientific Implications. Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 91.

2. Ibid, 92.

3. Ibid, 95-99.

4. Ibid, 107-113.

Iran's Supreme Leader warns against House Church movement

House church leaders fear a new wave of persecution after a threatening speech by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Hoseini-Khamenei. In a speech on Oct. 19, 2010, he warned against the 'network of house churches' that 'threaten Islamic faith and deceive you Muslims.' Iranian Christians hope the speech will not result in more pressure but instead will draw more Iranians to Christ.

A house church leader from Iran who asked to remain anonymous said, "I think this is the first time that he openly agitates aginst the house church movement and mentions it specifically. Speeches like this often have far raching consequences in the country. Not that the people of Iran react with violence aginst Christians, but behind the scenes, the security services and religious police will take measures. That is what leaders of house churches fear the most at this moment.

"To mention an upside of this," the church leader added, "now that Khamenei mentions and acknowledges that there is a house church movement, this may encourage secret believers or motivate seekers for Christian faith to find out if strands of these networks are available in their city or neighborhood."

(from Voice of the Martyrs, February 2011)

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