SOLUTION NIGHT: Freedom from Sickness, Satanic Oppression and Bondage

The bible says for this purpose the son of God was made manifest that he might destroy the works of the devil. Today we see sicknesses of all kinds, demonic oppression, stagnation, bondages, people living under spells and nothing good seems to be happening in their lives. Their lives are in constant darkness and disappointment follows them everywhere. All these are from the devil who comes to steal , to kill and, to destroy but thank God there is an answer to your problems. And that answer is found only in Jesus Christ the son of the living God.

If you find yourself in this type of situation and you live within Abuja try as much as you can to be at this meeting and I assure you that as you take that step of faith to come every problem of yours would not follow you to the year 2015. Never! Every sickness will be healed in the name of Jesus. Your time to testify has come and I mean it. Be at the Night of Solution. God Bless you.

Yours Truly

Prince Ezeaka

Prince FullofGrace Ezeaka's Blog: SOLUTION NIGHT

Prince FullofGrace Ezeaka's Blog: SOLUTION NIGHT: The bible says for this purpose the son of God was made manifest that he might destroy the works of the devil. Today we see ...

The Sovereignty Of God

By Andrew Wommack

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My heart was really stirred this last month. I attended a meeting where an old friend of mine was ministering. He had been through some terrible things that nearly destroyed his faith. He became bitter and angry at God for the things that had happened. When I heard him, he had humbled himself and was again loving the Lord and excited about the future. Praise the Lord! However, in the process, he had come to believe that it was the Lord that caused all his problems. He had resigned himself to the "sovereignty of God."
I believe this is the worst doctrine in the church today. I know that this is a shocking statement and is near blasphemy to some people, but the way sovereignty" is taught today is a real faith killer. The belief that God controls everything that happens to us is one of the devil's biggest inroads into our lives. If this belief is true, then our actions are irrelevant, and our efforts are meaningless. What will be will be.
If we believe that God wills everything, good or bad, to happen to us, it gives us some temporary relief from confusion and condemnation, but in the long-term, it slanders God, hinders our trust in God, and leads to passiveness.

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD

The word "sovereign" is not used in the King James Version of the Bible. It is used 303 times in the Old Testament of the New International Version, but it is always used in association with the word "LORD" and is the equivalent of the King James Version's"LORD God." Not a single one of those times is the word "sovereign" used in the manner that it has come to be used in religion in our day and time.
Religion has resulted in the invention of a new meaning for the word "sovereign," which basically means God controls everything. Nothing can happen but what He wills or allows. However, there is nothing in the actual definition that states that. The dictionary defines "sovereign" as, "1. Paramount; supreme. 2. Having supreme rank or power. 3. Independent: a sovereign state. 4. Excellent." None of these definitions means that God controls everything.
It is assumed that since God is paramount or supreme that nothing can happen without His approval. That is not what the Scriptures teach. In 2 Peter 3:9, Peter said, "The Lord is...not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." This clearly states that it is not the Lord's will for anyone to perish, but people are perishing. Jesus said, "Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat" (Matt. 7:13). Relatively few people are saved compared to the number that are lost. God's will for people concerning salvation is not being accomplished.
This is because the Lord gave us the freedom to choose. He doesn't will anyone into hell. He paid for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2; 1 Tim. 4:10), but we must choose to put our faith in Christ and receive His salvation. People are the ones choosing hell by not choosing Jesus as their Savior. It is the free will of man that damns them, not God.
People virtually have to climb over the roadblocks that God puts in their way to continue on their course to hell. The cross of Christ and the drawing power of the Holy Spirit are obstacles that every sinner encounters. No one will ever stand before God and be able to fault Him for withholding the opportunity to be saved. The Lord woos every person to Him, but we have to cooperate. Ultimately, the Lord simply enforces the consequences of people's own choices.
God has a perfect plan for every person's life (Jer. 29:11), but He doesn't make us walk that path. We are free moral agents with the ability to choose. He has told us what the right choices are (Deut. 30:19), but He doesn't make those choices for us. God gave us the power to control our destinies.
Typical teaching on the sovereignty of God puts Jesus in the driver's seat with us as passengers. On the surface that looks good. All of us have encountered the disastrous results of doing our own thing. We desire to be led of the Lord, and teaching that nothing happens but what God wills fits that nicely. However, the Scriptures paint a picture of each of us being behind the wheel of our own lives. We are the one doing the driving. We are supposed to take directions from the Lord, but He doesn't do the driving for us.
Man has been given the authority over his own life, but he must have the Lord's direction to succeed. Jeremiah 10:23 says, "O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." God created us to be dependent upon Him and our independence is at the root of all our problems. As if it wasn't bad enough for man to try to run his affairs independently of God and His standards, it has been made even worse by religion teaching us that all our problems are actually blessings from God. That is a faith killer. It makes people totally passive.
James 4:7 says, "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." This verse makes it clear that some things are from God, and some from the devil. We must submit to the things that are of God and resist the things that are from the devil. The word "resist" means, "Actively fight against." Saying "Whatever will be will be" is not actively fighting against the devil.
If a person really believed that God is the one who put sickness on them because He is trying to work something for good in their life, then they should not go to the doctor or take any medicine. That would be resisting God's plans. They should let the sickness run its course and thereby get the full benefit of God's correction. Of course, no one advocates that. That is absurd. It is even more absurd to believe that God is the one behind the tragedy.
Acts 10:38 says that Jesus healed all those who were oppressed OF THE DEVIL. It was not God who oppressed them with sickness. It was the devil. It's the same today. Sickness is from the devil, not from God. We need to resist sickness and, by faith, submit ourselves to healing, which is from God through the atonement of Christ.
I know someone is thinking, What about the Old Testament instances where God smote people with sickness and plagues? There is a lot I could say about that if I had the space, but a simplified answer to that question is that none of those instances were blessings. They were curses. God did use sickness in the Old Testament as punishment, but in the New Testament, Jesus bore our curse for us (Gal. 3:13). The Lord would no more put sickness on a New Testament believer than He would make us commit a sin. Both forgiveness of sin and healing are a part of the atonement Jesus provided for us.
Deuteronomy, chapter 28, should forever settle this question for all who believe the Word of God. The first 14 verses of Deuteronomy 28 list the blessings of God and the last 53 verses list the curses of God. Healing is listed as a blessing (Deut. 28:4). Sickness is listed as a curse (Deut. 28:22, 27-28, 35, 59-61). God called sickness a curse. We should not call it a blessing.
Knowing that God is not the author of my problems is one of the most important revelations the Lord has ever given me. If I thought it was God who killed my father when I was twelve, and some of my best friends before I was 20, if it was God who had people kidnap me, slander me, threaten to kill me, and turn loved ones against me, then I would have a hard time trusting God, if He was like that.
On the contrary, it is very comforting to know that God only has good things in store for me. Any problems in my life are from the devil, of my own making, or just the results of life on a fallen planet. My heavenly Father has never done me any harm and never will. I KNOW that.
I am not saying that there is nothing to learn from hardships. Most of you reading this article have come to the Lord because of something in your life that overwhelmed you and caused you to turn to the Lord for help. That situation was not from God regardless of the results. It was you turning to the Lord and the faith you placed in Him that turned your life around, not the hardship.
If hardships and problems made us better, then everyone who has had problems would be better for them. Those who have the most trouble would be the best. That simply is not so.
Let me illustrate this with a story about my son, Joshua. When he was only a year old, I was loading lumber on a large truck in the heat of a Texas summer. I had Joshua with me, and he was having a big time playing in the lumber yard. By mid-afternoon, he was tired and sleepy and started to lie down in the dirt for a nap. I knew his mother wouldn't like that, so I put him in the cab of the truck to lie down and take his nap.
He had been wanting to get into that truck all day, and when I put him in there, he revived. I had to roll the windows down because it was hot, and Joshua was leaning out the windows and waving at me in the side view mirrors. I told him to lie down and even gave him a spanking, but he didn't take heed. He leaned out the window too far, fell out of the cab, hit his eye on the running board and landed on his head.
I ran up to him, prayed over him, and held him until he quit crying. Then I told him that was why I told him to lie down and go to sleep and not lean out the window. I used that situation which caused him pain, to teach him, but if Joshua would have been like the sovereignty teachers of today, he would have gone out and told all his friends that his father made him fall out of that truck to teach him to obey. That's not so. I did what I could to restrain him. I would be very hurt if that's the way Joshua thought I was.
Likewise, I don't believe it blesses our heavenly Father for us to blame Him for all the problems that come into our lives. Sure, He will comfort us when we turn to Him in the midst of our problems, but He doesn't create the negative circumstances that hurt our lives.
God is sovereign in the sense that He is paramount and supreme. There is no one higher in authority or power, but that does not mean He exercises His power by controlling everything in our lives. God has given us the freedom to choose. He has a plan for us. He seeks to reveal that plan to us and urge us in that direction, but we choose. He doesn't make our choices for us.
In many instances, it is our wrong choices that bring disaster upon us. In other cases, our problems are nothing but an attack from the devil. In some cases, natural forces of an imperfect world cause us pain. Our tragedies are never the judgment or correction of God. Jesus came to give us abundant life. The devil came to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10). Don't ever get that confused. If it's good, it's God. If it's bad, it's the devil.
This is a fundamental doctrine of Christianity that must be understood properly if you want victory in your life. Believing that God controls everything renders a person passive. Why pray and believe for something better? Whatever God wants will come to pass. That simply is not true.
The Lord is the answer to all our problems. He is not the problem.
If you would like more ministry on this pivotal point, please order my teaching entitled, "The Sovereignty of God." There is much more detail on the teaching than I was able to put into this article. This teaching will change your life.
I suggest that after you listen to it that you share it with someone else. I really believe that confusion on this subject is how Satan pushes his will off on most people. This teaching could change someone's life.

THE STRENGTH OF SIN IS THE LAW 1 Corinthians 15:56

                                                       

Have you ever come across this scripture in the bible? Maybe you have read it before but have not given it a second thought. Well it is there and it means that what gives sin strength or power is the law. In other words what multiplies sin is when there are laws and do’s and don’ts and this is what the devil is trying to achieve today by deluding some Christians and getting them to preach more of the law because he knows that if they do that they will be giving more strength to sin and thus he will be harvesting more souls. The bible says in Romans 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. The devil knows these truths that by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in the sight of God and that is why he is bombarding the church today with false visions and messages and centered on works because he knows that no one can be justified by works and he wants people not to be justified in the sight of God. He is smart and subtle in the manner he does it, he even uses scriptures just to deceive people and dishonor the blood of Jesus, that is why it is so important for believers to study the word and rightly divide it that is the only way to decipher the antics and craftiness the devil employs to deceive people.

Let me take you back to the garden of Eden after God had given instructions to Adam not to eat the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that command from God was a kind of law and Satan seized the opportunity using that command to tempt and deceive them and that is the origin of the fall of man and his environment and all the ills the world today. Now supposing God never gave any of such instruction to Adam and Eve the devil will have had nothing to tempt them with, so you see that laws breed sin, the more the law, the more the sin. The bible says in Romans 5:20 Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, But thank God the bible also states in Romans 6:14 that “sin will not have dominion over you because you are not under the law but under grace”.

The devil wants sin to be strengthened the more in this end time because he knows that the strength of sin is the law and that is why he is using believers in this last days by disguising himself as an angel of light or even disguise himself like Jesus and show them a false visions of heaven and hell and tell them that they should go and preach more legalistic messages which the bible says produces and strengthens sin.  The devil wants people to be bound by legalism for he knows that no one can keep the law because under the law if you offend in one you are guilty of all. The children of Israel were under the law and yet they couldn’t keep it, they failed many times. The law spells out details of how they should live their life down to a minutest detail but yet they couldn’t keep it. That was why Jesus said to the Pharisees in John 7:19 Did not Moses give you the law, yet none of you keeps the law? Why do you seek to kill Me?" Jesus healed people on the Sabbath day and the Pharisees were angry and wanted to kill him. So the devil knows this very well that with the law people are under bondage. Today one might say that we are no longer under the dispensation of the law so why am I saying the strength of sin is the law. Yes, we are not under the dispensation of law but of grace yet people still want to be justified by the works of the law, they still hold unto such legalistic teachings which dishonors the blood of Jesus and places emphasis on human achievements and efforts. So many churches today are under this category they judge from appearance, they forbid their ladies from wearing trousers, putting make-up and gold jewelries they say ladies who use such things will not make it to heaven, they always judge from appearance and not rightly and Jesus told the Pharisees in John 7:24 Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment." Yet they ignore the words of Jesus and prefer to judge people from appearance not knowing that God judges the intent of the heart. Now I am not in any way supporting indecent dressing from the ladies and shouty make-ups and too much adorning of jewelries because I believe that any true believer will not base his or her life craving for such things and if truly the Spirit of God dwells in you and you succumb to his leading your life will be regulated by prompting from the Spirit in your inner man rather than an external legalistic law as we have in many churches today. The bible does not in any way forbid women from adorning themselves rather it states that their lives should not be based on those adornments in other words they should not crave and get carried away by those ornaments just like the rich in the bible are instructed not to be carried away by their wealth and still many have misconstrued it to mean that Christians are not meant to be rich. In I Peter 3:3-5 the bible states categorically “Do not let your adornment be merely outward — arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel — rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God. For in this manner, in former times, the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves, being submissive to their own husbands,”

The above verse is not saying that women should not put on jewelries, fine clothes, and a good hairstyle because these false teachings and visions have made a lot of women to start looking haggard and beggarly rather it is saying that their lives should not be based on those things but the inward spirit of the heart. If you are a lady reading this today please dress well, look good, wear jewelries, make good hairstyles but please don’t spend your entire time and money on them or based your life on these things because there is more to life than those things. I will even advice that you spend more money and time on godly things than on those material things. Jesus doesn’t want to take away those things from you (including wealth) rather he wants those things not to take you away from him. There is no problem for a boat to be in water but there is problem when the water begins to enter the boat. It is not bad to put a golden hat on your head but trouble begins when the golden hat gets into the head. I will explain more on this issue in subsequent chapters in this book.

So devil knows what he is doing in these last days and he is doing it through the church, he wants to weigh believers down with bondage, with burden, with labor of being legalistic and funny enough many have towed that line thinking they are holy and righteous while other believers who enjoy liberty in Christ are seen as sinful and hell-bound. The devil is using these false visions to bring back legalism into the body of Christ because he also knows that no flesh can be justified through the works of the law. What a terrible thing!

                                       

Beyonce Worshipper Sacrifices Life For Singer

         

Wonders, they say, shall never end in this world; that is the only way to describe how a 23 years old lady, Taniya Hattersfield, killed herself as a sacrifice to music star, Beyonce Knowles, who is worshipped by a group of people.

Pulse.ng stated that they even have a church called National Church of Bey, where they practice a religion called Beyism.

The Church was founded to worship the R&B star, Beyoncé,with hundreds of members who call themselves Divine Divas and see Beyoncé’s music as a very sacred text.

The founder of the National Church of Bey, has defended the church, and says Beyoncé is lord and saviour.

According to a report in the American media, Taniya, of College Park, GA, who was a new member of the church, was found in a pool of her own blood in the basement of her family home, at the steps of a home-made shrine to singer Beyoncé, where she was surrounded by hundreds of candles and a suicide note she had written stuffed behind her pocket.

In the suicide note, Taniya wrote that she made herself a sacrifice to her Beyonce, 'lord and saviour'.

Her father is reported to have said that does not consider her his daughter anymore, that his own offspring would never worship any singer.

He said just because him and her mother 'had a good time one Friday night don’t make her my daughter.'

Meanwhile, rage has consumed lots of people over the National Church of Bey, and many people have called for Beyoncé to speak out against the new religion, but not one single word has come out of Beyoncé mouth.

My Traditional Marriage: Photos

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN THE WORKPLACE: STATEMENT ON AMICUS BRIEF FILED AT U.S. SUPREME COURT

Posted by Ravi Zacharias on January 22, 2014

As responsible citizens who love Jesus Christ and love our country, we want to express our deep conviction on matters of our faith and expression. No one ought to be compelled to so amputate their belief that it is meaningless except in private.

The faithful Christian cannot separate his life into sacred and secular, worship and work. A Christian does not cease to worship the Lord when he or she goes to work or opens a family business. Romans 11:36 says, “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.” As Christians we are called to do all things to the glory of God, including – perhaps especially – our work. This amicus brief – which includes my signature – was filed at the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of Protestant theologians in support of the appeals by Hobby Lobby Stores and Conestoga Wood Specialties, and demonstrates how the holistic nature of the Christian faith extends to a believer’s vocation.

Sadly, over the years, the Christian faith has been targeted by a rabid secularization and evicted from any or all public expression. The encroachment upon our civil liberties is frightening and we ought to take a stand. The cases of Hobby Lobby and Conestoga highlight the extreme dilemma that results when Christians are forced to choose between violating the government’s regulations and violating his or her sincerely held religious beliefs in the workplace. These beliefs are planted in our conscience.

This is another example of the increasing problems of privatization in our society, which is the socially required and legally enforced separation of our private lives and our public personas. Privatization insists that issues of ultimate meaning be relegated to our private spheres, so as individuals we are forced to keep our moral and religious beliefs private and never express them in public. Secularism is also a belief on ultimate things. Why is it that the secular thinker is not asked to keep his or her secularism in private as well? We know that the premise of privatization is flawed, because that which is sacred to you in private is also sacred to you in public. It is not at all surprising that meaninglessness and hopelessness have become the hallmark of the millennial generation that has been indoctrinated into absolutizing relativism and a valueless belief system. Evidently some lawmakers have not seen this breakdown and the connection.

It is easily demonstrated that private belief separated from public practice is philosophically contradictory and pragmatically unworkable. That this threat is happening in America, whose very values emerged from a Judeo-Christian backdrop and the sacredness of belief in the transcendent, is lamentable.

Commitment to God most certainly has its private expression, but it implicitly directs all of life. Spiritual reality is not just a sentinel from 5:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. behind closed doors. For the follower of Jesus Christ, worship is co-extensive with life. Privatization with disregard for coherence forces this dichotomy. In today’s society, moral and religious beliefs are often privatized, while in the name of freedom and non-offensiveness, all kinds of anomalous beliefs are made public and even mandated.

We should not be required to choose between fulfilling our vocational duties and staying true to the convictions of our Christian faith. We work with the same values that come from our love for God and the preservation of our original bequest in this great country

MEDITATING ON GOD'S WORD

                                      
Meditation is an almost-forgotten discipline in the Christian Church, but it is a practice that draws us closer to the Lord. When we meditate upon His Word, it transforms our lives so that we are more like Him.

What does “meditation” actually mean? It means: “to murmur, speak, moan, mutter, babble, talk, sing, discuss, or ponder verbally.” God told Joshua to meditate on His Word both day and night. God said that his way would be prosperous and successful if he did so. (See Joshua 1:8.) So shall it be for you. Meditation places the Word of God in your heart. It is a deliberate process of communing with God by quietly studying, singing, and reflecting on His Word again and again—over and over, and over again—and over again. In this way you are strengthening the Word of God in your heart, mind and soul.

The process of meditation is like a sheep’s digestion process. When a sheep first swallows, the food passes to the first of its four stomachs. Later, the sheep brings up the digesting food as “cud” and chews it again. Again the sheep swallows, passing the cud to the second stomach. The sheep brings it back up a third time, chews it, and swallows it again. Eventually the cud will go through all four of its stomachs.

In the same way that the sheep is nourished by food, you receive sustenance from the Word of God. Jesus explained, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). As the sheep chews its cud, you, too, chew on God’s Word. Meditating on His Word maintains your spiritual health and elevates you to receive revelation from Him.

Meditation helps you have the mind of God. It disciplines your thinking so that you may know God better. God said:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9).

Meditating on God’s Word renews your mind and transforms your life. It allows you to replicate the mind of Christ within you. (See Romans 12:2 and 1 Corinthians 2:16.) Likewise, it enables you to bring every thought under obedience to His Word repeatedly until you automatically think, say, and do it. It is then that you experience Kingdom living and enter a heavenly realm of blessings in the here and now!

Satan knows the power that comes from meditation on God’s Word. He also knows that when you grow in the knowledge of God’s Word and faith, you are able to subdue and take dominion over him. His greatest fear is that this will happen and you will multiply your knowledge and faith to other men and women, inflicting severe and heavy casualties upon his kingdom and his activities. His purpose, therefore, is to thwart you from obtaining your divine potential. He will do all he can to prevent the Word of God from richly dwelling in you. Resist him by submitting to God’s revelation of His Word in your life. Then declare God’s Word over satan’s lies, which are always contrary to the truth.

Be very careful about how you think. If you allow it, your thoughts can cause you to separate yourself from God and negate the force of His power being manifested in your life. Your thoughts can also cause you to turn your focus away from God and toward a worldly mentality. This is why we’re told to take captive every thought that is contrary to the Word of God. (See 2 Corinthians 10:5.)

When your thoughts are focused on God’s Word, He’s obligated to direct your path into the way of knowledge that is necessary to accomplish His will in your life. The amount of time you give to meditating on God’s Word is in direct proportion to the increase you receive, multiplied back to you.

                        

Muslim who converted to Christianity will speak in Edmond

Nabeel Qureshi, who converted to Christianity from Islam, says he wants to build bridges of understanding between Muslims and Christians. Qureshi will speak Feb. 9 at First Presbyterian Church of Edmond.

By Carla Hinton Published: February 1, 2014

EDMOND — A former Muslim on a search for Allah said he found the Christian savior instead.

Nabeel Qureshi, Ph.D., said he put his life experiences and the events surrounding his conversion from Islam to Christianity in his book “Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus.”

Qureshi, 30, of Atlanta, said he grew up in a devout Muslim family and had read the Quran in Arabic by the time he was 5. He said he was proud of his Islamic identity, but a close college friend presented Christianity to him, eventually leading to his conversion.

With his book set for release Feb. 11, Qureshi, who holds master's degrees in Christian apologetics and religion, will share excerpts from his spiritual journey during a presentation set for Feb. 9 at First Presbyterian Church of Edmond. He is a member of the Ravi Zacharias International Ministries speaking team, traveling around the world to discuss his perspective of Islam and Christianity.

First Presbyterian's senior pastor, the Rev. Mateen Elass, Ph.D., who also converted to Christianity from Islam, said he hopes Qureshi's presentation will “encourage respectful dialogue and learning about other religious beliefs.”

In a recent telephone interview, Qureshi discussed his mission as a member of the Ravi Zacharias International Ministries speaking team:

Q: Why do you make it a point to speak to different audiences about your life experiences and conversion?

A: I feel that Christ is an important truth; the Christian message is important. It's not just something I believe, it's something that has the power to shape and change the world. That's why I share with people what happened to me.

Ravi's Letter to me - A Moment in Eternity

EVENTS MEDIA GIVE CONTACT SHOP

Dear Prince, A Moment in Eternity Early in December, I was enjoying breakfast with a fine Christian businessman from another country who, in his travels, covers several continents.  One of his biggest questions was, “How does one do business in a society where corruption is the defining reality?”  As we were talking, I couldn’t help but notice that the music playing in the background was “Hark! the herald angels sing, ‘Glory to the newborn King.’”   We were not in the West.  This was a Middle Eastern country, a city with a futuristic skyline almost brash in its opulence and pomp, with pictures of sheikhs in their palaces lining the hotel walls.  Boasting the tallest building in the world, the largest indoor ski slopes, seven-star hotels with rows of Rolls Royces parked in front to stun the eyes—a country dripping wealth all around, a city that is a commercial capital, and the envy of the world.  It is not straining the description to say it had all the marks of the modern tower of Babel.  But there was no mistaking by the décor that this was Christmas. In fact, as I write, I am in the largest Muslim country in the world, yet, everywhere there are Christmas decorations, the strains of Christmas carols in the malls and elevators, and the hotel staff wishing me a “Merry Christmas.”  It’s Christmas in Indonesia.  If you were in the UAE, Indonesia, even Syria, you would see the same thing and hear the same Christmas carols in the hotels and malls.  Ironically, on the news this very week is a story of a school in a town in Texas that sent a letter to parents of students informing them there was a ban on children wearing red or green for their “holiday party”; apparently, red and green “send the wrong message.”  This is incredible!  It actually took an action of the City Council to override this ludicrous prohibition.  Imagine such presumption!  It’s not enough to prohibit themessage of Christmas; now it is forbidden even to wear the traditional colors associated with Christmas.  Undoubtedly, wearing red or green to school at Christmas violates the separation of church and state doctrine.  I’m surprised they have allowed traffic lights to function at Christmas.  Is the day far off when censors might wish to scan our brains as we enter a school in case we smuggle the “illicit” Christmas story past the main entrance?  Perhaps we’ll need two lines of detectors, one checking for weapons and the other for thoughts of Jesus’s birth.  This is the new America of tolerance, another vacuous word defined by relativists whose only absolutes are the denial of any other reality except their own.   I ponder, I wonder, I move from the emotions of strained credulity to recognizing that this is the logical outworking of atheism and the illusion of neutrality: when man becomes God, the body becomes the soul and time becomes eternity.  These are the challenges we face in our times.   But then I think of that extraordinary verse in Isaiah 9:6, “For to us a child is born, to us a Son is given.”  Let us be sure of what is being said here.  The Son is not born; the Son eternally existed and is given.  TheChild is born and entered our time.  He who dwells in the realm of eternity entered time.  He understands our times.  And so it is that eternity breaks into time to give us a glimpse of what always was and is and will be.  God in that divine moment revealed Himself as He had never been revealed before, through His Son.  That is what the Christmas message was about and is about.  Who were the ones to be told?  First Mary, then Joseph, the shepherds, and then the rulers: From the confines of a simple home to the palatial structures of rulers and to the work place of those whose lives intersected the work-a-day world, the very ones who raised lambs prepared for the ceremony of communion with God.   Every facet of our lives is covered in the story.  The gifts that were given by the wise men represent our common experiences: gold (representing our riches), frankincense (our worship), and myrrh (our bitter suffering).  In one person, the king, the priest, the Savior came to earth.  Eternity’s anvil was provided against which the hammers of time must find their meaning.  What more important message could there be than that there is a Savior who is the only hope for the corruption that is in all of our hearts?   In Dubai, where gold is carried into the shops in wheelbarrows, where countless minarets regularly sound forth a call to prayer as a means to an end, where wheeling and dealing is a fact of life and fears lurk of the next terrorist scheme planned nearby, the joyous Christmas message of the Savior is everywhere.  In America, whose constitution is based in the Judeo-Christian worldview, our youth need metal detectors to enter schools and the same message of redemption is deemed dangerous.  Our hearts need to be changed and only God is big enough for that.  The Son comes to offer his redemption, hope, peace, and joy to every nation and to every sector of life, if only we would see the simplicity and sublimity of his visitation.  At Christmas, time was interrupted by eternity’s angelic announcement: the call of the miraculous entering the mundane and the monotonous, the pure calling to our impurity, the power to change appealing to our intransigence.  It is the miracle that is needed to change our world and the real “star story” of the greatest visitation of all else we slide down the misery scale into the fake world of towers and multiple-star hotels.   This is the time to especially invite your international friends into your homes.  Let them hear the story in word and in song.  They respect a festival and celebration.  Let them experience the story of the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us, full of grace and truth.   My life was changed by this story fifty years ago.  Millions of lives have been changed by this story over history.  It is the only answer to a world spinning out of control.  I couldn’t help but listen to the familiar words of the carol as I was immersed in a different world.   Born to raise the sons of earth, Born to give them second birth.   In India, Christmas is called “Bada Din.”  It literally means The Big Day.  Isn’t it fascinating that in a land rife with religion and spirituality the one day out of all the celebrations and festivals that is called The Big Day is the day when the child was born and the Son was given?  Skeptics and mockers are still with us, dreaming about the cities of men without the message of the Savior.  Chesterton said it well, “Truth will always be stranger than fiction because we have made fiction to suit ourselves.”  And so I listen again to the earth-shaking message of that beautiful carol:   Hark! the herald-angels sing, “Glory to the new-born king, peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled!”   I am never one to correct a lyricist because poetic license is legitimate to the world of rhyme.  But if I were to suggest an amendment, it would be:   Hark! the herald-angels sing, “In time revealed, th’ eternal King.”   Rhyme and reason come together in time when eternity sounds its music.  The colors of Christmas may be banned but the Christian hymn writer George Wade Robinson trumps once again:   Heav’n above is softer blue, Earth around is sweeter green; Something lives in every hue Christless eyes have never seen: Birds with gladder songs o’erflow, Stars with deeper beauty shine, Since I know, as now I know, I am His, and He is mine.   Spread the word.  It is the heart that sees the hues … and that can never be banned.  “Merry Christmas” to all of you, our friends and supporters.  Thank you for a blessed year.  We pray God’s blessing on you in the year ahead.   I would be remiss if I didn’t say that for some, this has also been a year of the loss of a loved one who left time to enter eternity.  I know that because some were very dear friends to me.  I already miss them.  May our Lord cushion that blow till we enter his presence when He will shine a new light and those losses will be seen as precious treasures, yea, the ultimate heralds that make up the City of God. Ravi Zacharias