Love Truth Blog

I find a danger for every believer is to cease seeing the world as a Christian, through God’s eyes, and revert to seeing the world as a pagan. This can happen when one buys into some kind of dualism wherein God and Satan are misconstrued as equal but opposing forces. Stories are told of demons possessing God-like powers to levitate objects, change the weather, materialize at will, morph into various forms, bring the dead to life, and even procreate demonic human hybrids. Other stories tell of people getting demonic possessed and become unwilling participants in the committing all sorts of evil. Satan is, however, the chief of all the demons, whose power trumps them all. But this kind of demonology is really pagan as opposed to biblical Christianity, albeit these pagan ideas have crept into the church. God and Satan are never to be considered equal and opposing forces. God is eternal without beginning or end, but Satan is a created being. God is in control of all things, but Satan ...

Jesus Christ said, “But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment” (Matt. 12:36). [1] I’m struck by the real weight the spoken word can have. Not that we speak things into existence, but what we do say tells a lot about who we are. This is evident given the Lord’s own explanation of what He just said: “For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matt. 12:37). It is the heart that drives what we profess and proclaim from our lips, and words spoken reveal the condition of our heart (Matt. 15:18, Luke 6:45). Vile and spiteful things are good indicators of sinful and broken heart. Jesus’ point about the careless word is intricately woven together with what He taught on the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. In the context of Matthew 12, the Pharisees spoke evil of Christ. They said He performed His miracles by the power of Satan, which showed their existing disposition towards H...

Revelation 12 is one chapter in the Bible that really grabs the attention. It is an apocalyptic vision of a woman, a child, and a dragon. Each is described with otherworldly features. The woman is clothed with the sun, rests her feet on the moon, and wears a crown of twelve stars. The dragon is colored red, has seven heads, ten horns, seven crowns, a tail that sweeps away stars, and water spewing from its mouth. The child is destined to rule nations with an iron rod. There are angels who battle against the dragon. The earth even helps the woman and child in their distress. This is really fantasy imagery, which sparks the imagination! The vision story of the woman, child and dragon should never be taken in a wooden literal sense. Hank Hanegraaff notes, “The apostle John does not want us to believe that dragons are real, nor does he want us to believe that a dragon’s tail could sweep a third of the stars out of the sky. Instead, he wants to understand the reality of the devil’s ‘cunni...

I came across this article the other day: “ Malaysia's top court: ‘Allah’ for Muslims only .” It was quite the provocative headline, and ruling, which censored the use of “Allah” for God in Roman Catholic newspaper articles, as clarified in “ Malaysian court to Christians: You can't say ‘Allah ’” This might never really strike a chord in many American evangelicals, as a good number of them would may very well get a bit nervous and perturbed at hearing someone referring to the deity revealed in the Scriptures as “Allah,” albeit Allah has be used among many Arabic speaking Christians (See, for example, “ Allah Does Not Belong to Islam .”) What is also unsettling is an example where the court tells the press what words can be used in publications. (This might be just another American idea too, unless there is something universally true about free speech.) ~ WGN

Recently I had a chance to catch the current reboot of Godzilla, and I really enjoyed the whole story. Loved the roar and nuclear breath effects! I say it made amends for any shortcomings in the1998 movie. One of the interesting twists in the 2014 plot is the exploration of irony, particularly human attempts to destroy the very thing that would save them from their own destruction. In the current reboot, Godzilla is awakened by man in 1950s, and man tries to exterminate the behemoth with nuclear weapons. Man’s attempts fail and Godzilla goes into hiding. Man is unable to control this massive force of nature. Two other Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism (MUTO) are also awakened—one male and one female with the impulse to reproduce. They feast on nuclear radiation, attack with electromagnetic pulse bursts, and threaten the existence of man. It is Godzilla who come out of hiding to battle and destroy the two MUTOs, which brings balance back to nature. The irony is that man...

A constant skeptical refrain that I hear in the world of apologetics is “If God would just open up the heavens and show Himself to me in some spectacular way I would then believe?” But, I do not think that is the real problem. I believe God has given us enough evidence of His existence so that we can know Him and enter into a relationship with Him. The flip side of the coin is that the immortal invisible divinity can remain hidden from the faithless who exchange the truth for the lie. An element of biblical faith is placing trust in things unseen. I find a great example of this is the centurion who called upon Christ to heal his servant. The Gospel of Matthew tells us that “Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, imploring Him, and saying, ‘Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented’ ” (Matt. 8:5-6). But, it is clear that the centurion never met face to face with Jesus; rather, they communicated through a mediating envoy. The Gospel of Luke indicates ...

Last month I had the opportunity to check out Paramount Pictures’ Noah directed by Darren Aronofsky, who also co-wrote the screenplay along with Ari Handel. I thought it was quite the fantasy epic without a dull moment. There was, as anyone could predict, a hefty amount of artistic licensing going on, but the two storytellers crafted something that keeps the attention. Aronofsky and Handel pit the biblical characters Noah (Russell Crowe) against Tubal Cain (Ray Winstone). Noah is a sort of radical environmentalist, who tries to care for the earth. He only uses from the earth what is necessary for survival. He eats only vegetables. He believes animals are innocent but humans are sinful, and the creation would be better off without mankind. He even chides his own son for picking a flower to admire its beauty, indicating they need to be left in the ground to grow. Tubal Cain, on the other hand, is an extreme humanist. He thinks animals exist only to benefit humans. He eats animals raw....