When many people, religious or not, think about Satan, they often think of something like this: a red demon with horns and a pitchfork, trying to obviously tempt others to sin, to live and take in all the worldly pleasures and wealth, disregarding the consequences.
Continue reading “The Great Deception: How and Where Satan Works”
Why does God seem so angry in the Old Testament? And why does He always destroy the Israelites, the very people He created and chose? Why doesn’t He just forgive them? Isn’t He the God of love?
I’ve grown up hearing these questions my whole life when it comes to God. Things like this made me believe in the idea that there was the wrath of God versus the peace of Jesus. These ideas grew into assumptions that God was the one who was always full of anger and wrath, while Jesus was our friend, brought peace, and never acted out in anger…or at least not as intensely as God did.
Continue reading “Why Is God So Angry in the Bible?”
“Sin” brings up all kinds of different ideas and images to different people. Everyone has their own questions and ideas about what sin is and what it isn’t. “Is this a sin?”, “Is that a sin?”, I’m sure we could go on and on about this to no end. When we get bogged down and only focus on determining what counts as a sin, or even which sins are greater than others, we lose sight of the bigger picture. In order to get a clear answer to this question, we should always look to God’s Word for the answer instead of relying on our own thoughts and understanding since God is the one who originally defined sin in the first place.
Continue reading “What is Sin? Sin and the Purpose of God’s Law”
If you’ve read the “Lord of the Rings” books or have seen the movies, then you probably know about the “One Ring,” right?
“One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them.
One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them!”
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
This ring was made by the dark lord, Sauron, to rule and dominate all life on Middle Earth. Through the use of the ring, his influence spread, and all kinds of races – elves, men, dwarves – began to fight with and distrust one another. A result of the evil that was now all over the world. The evil power of that ring allowed Sauron to control others with his will. Anyone who carried that ring began to look more and more like it’s owner – dark, evil, greedy and selfish. It caused wars between kingdoms and peoples. While the Lord of the Rings is just a story, if you look at the world today, don’t you feel the similarities? In our own world, are people more united or more divided? What is the cause of the division and fighting?
Continue reading “One Sin to Rule Them All”