"Gay Cure" Advert Banned

Christian group sues TfL after 'gay cure' advert banned from London buses

Mayor of London Boris Johnson, who is in charge of Transport for London (TfL), rejected the ad posters as "offensive to gays"

A Christian group has launched a High Court "battle for free speech" after its advert suggesting that gay people can be "cured" was banned from the sides of London buses.

The Mayor of London, who is in charge of Transport for London (TfL), rejected the ad posters as "offensive to gays".

Boris Johnson has also warned that displaying the ad could lead to a retaliation against the wider Christian community.

The rejected posters say: "Not Gay! Ex-Gay, Post-Gay and Proud. Get over it!"

They are in response to a poster campaign by gay rights group Stonewall, which plastered on the sides of the capital's red buses with the message: "Some people are gay. Get over it!"

The banned ad promotes the view of the Core Issues Trust that homosexuals can be "reoriented" through therapy and prayer.

Today Dr Mike Davidson, the head of the trust, asked Mrs Justice Lang to rule at London's High Court that the ban was unlawful and "a deep threat" to democratic freedoms.

Paul Diamond, appearing for Mr Davidson, told the judge: "We believe this is a very important free speech case on whether a totally temperate, restrained advertisement can be put on the sides of London buses."

Before the hearing started, Mr Davidson said: "I hope this hearing will give us the opportunity to put the case for securing some kind of future for people who want to move away from homosexuality and to be recognised as a valid group with needs to be protected and respected."

A TfL spokesman said: "The advertisement breached TfL's advertising policy as in our view it contained a publicly controversial message and was likely to cause widespread offence to members of the public."

The Whole Truth: Da' T.R.U.T.H. with Mia Fields

Suicide Leads to Heaven???

Can a Christian commit suicide and still go to heaven?

This is the follow up article to the nurse who committed suicide. (read more)

As it turns out, she was a devout roman catholic, at least, that's what was said about her.

Now, if she is a roman catholic, then her way into heaven is different from those who actually
follow what the bible says.

This question also came up when Whitney Houston committed suicide. After all, many said she was a believer.

And so there was confusion as to where she ended up, heaven or hell.

What Does the Bible Say About Suicide?



Very little actually. So little that I can't even think of any scripture that talks about it.

When we have a situation where the bible doesn't specifically deals with an issue, we need to think through all the various aspects that the issue relates to, and what the bible says about those.

Then we need to make a decision based on what we understand.

---

I would say that a majority of believers would actually say that a Christian that commits suicide will not go to heaven.

A lot of times this is based on two things that the bible says.

1. Thou Shalt Not Murder (unlawful taking of a life... including your own)
2. There is no repentance in the grave

There reasoning continues stating that basically when you commit suicide, you're taking the life that God gave you and throwing back in His face.

It's basically the ultimate rejection of God in their eyes.

---

Now, I don't agree with that train of thought.

My immediate reaction to someone who claims to be a Christian and yet commits suicide, is to question their faith.

In my eyes, committing suicide (barring mental health issues), seems to indicate that you're not a Christian - its not a case of you losing your salvation, but rather the evidence of you not having salvation to begin with.

But that doesn't answer the question of whether a Christian can commit suicide and still have entrance into heaven.

So let's have a look into this from a biblical perspective.

---

Starting from the initial thought process of suicide being the "ultimate rejection of God", the bible declares that this is false.

The ultimate rejection of God is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 12:22-32
Then was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw. And all the people were amazed, and said, Is not this the son of David?

But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, 'This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils'.

And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, 'Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand: And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand? And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast [them] out? therefore they shall be your judges. 

But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you. Or else how can one enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house. 

He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad. 

Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.'

Jesus tells us in no uncertain terms that there is one sin that is unforgiveable, and that is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. That, and that alone, is the ultimate rejection of God.

So, if suicide is a sin, and it does look like it is (Thou Shalt Not Murder), it can still be forgiven.

But how is this possible? Doesn't the bible say that there is no repentance in the grave?

Well no, the bible doesn't actually say that.

What the bible does do is imply, very strongly I might add, that there is no repentance in the grave.

For one, we have the true story of Lazarus and the rich man. Furthermore, we have Jesus' many sayings about repenting now, because when we do there is judgement.

No indication is given that those who go to hell will actually exit and go to heaven.

And here's the issue, even if there was repentance in the grave, God wouldn't accept it because it's not repentance based on a desire to love Him, but a repentance based on a desire to escape hell.

After all, one can be sorrowful of the punishment for the wrong they did, but not actually be sorrowful for the wrong itself.

But I digress. This isn't about the nature of repentance. We can do that some other time.

---

Now that we know that blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is the only unforgiveable sin, and no repentance is accepted in the grave, we should have a look at what suicide is.

When someone attempts suicide (whether or not they are successful), they are in a very dark frame of mind.

The entire reasoning behind the suicide is that there is ultimately no hope.

There may even by a belief that things might get a little better, but ultimately, it's just a precursor to things getting even worse or even things not getting better to a point they feel they can be bothered to live/endure through.

A Christian, by definition, is someone who is never hopeless. We are the only ones in the world who have an actual hope. It's not even a hope that the current situation will get better, but that we have a God that truly cares and loves us - so much so that He gave His life for us.

This is why I would question the person's faith. How do we know that the person is actually saved? The answer is that we do not know. And the bible is clear that many people will think they have salvation and do not.

Matthew 7:21-23
'Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. 

Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? 

And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.' 

We are promised that God won't allow us to be tempted beyond what we can bear. We have a high priest whom we can cast all our cares upon and not feel condemned in our weaknesses and inabilities. But all of that is based solely on having salvation. Anything short of I solely trust the life, death & resurrection of Jesus (i.e. his redemptive work, including convicting us of sin, enabling us to repent, and follow him et al) means that the person is not Christian - and the suicide shows that the person obviously did not solely trust Jesus for their salvation.

---

Saying that though, having salvation means that our sins... all of our sins... have been forgiven. Even though repentance is apart of the process, God forgives us for things we do not repent for as well as things we have repented for. We do not, and I would say can not, possibly repent for every single sin we have committed in our lives.

For one, we can't remember everything we've done. Secondly, a lot of things we do not consider sin, is actually sin. As a matter of fact, once we are not perfect, we are sinning. And although we can be honest before God and make a blanket plea for forgiveness for sin we've committed knowingly and unknowingly, the fact of the matter is... for there to be true repentance there needs to be an admonition of guilt first. I have done wrong. you have to acknowledge that you're sinning before you can repent of it.

Every day we fall short. Every day we sin because we can't attain perfection. This is why we Jesus' blood cleanses to the utmost. Everyday God is forgiving us for sin we don't even know we commit because God knows we aren't perfect.

Salvation isn't gained through repenting of every single sin we've ever committed. If that was the case, we would still be at the exact place that we begged God to forgive us initially. We would still be on our faces up to this day.

Also... let's not forget that it's not about how the person died. Whether suicide, laying their life down to save someone, or passing quietly in their sleep, the issue is who does their soul belong to.

We know that the fruit of the Holy Spirit is not suicide, never-the-less, if indeed a Christian, which by definition is someone who is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, does go temporarily insane and forgets who their master is... committing suicide... according to the bible, they are saved and will be in heaven.

After all, their sin of committing suicide is not worse than the Christian who is fornicating, lying, committing adultery, teaching bad theology, misrepresenting God, etc. And yet those people will also God to heaven.

Eternal life is a gift of God. Those who have salvation shall never perish. So, it is reasonable to state that a Christian, filled with the Holy Spirit, can go against the will of God and through self-deceit (the flesh) or due to an attack from Satan and his angels, decide to/attempt to/succeed in committing suicide, and still have a seat prepared for them at the great wedding feast.

However, I think it would be better for us to first take a careful look at the fruit in the life of a person who was successful in committing suicide to see if we can actually say they were saved or not before we start putting every drug user into the category of salvation because they said they "believed in Jesus" one time in their life.

Painful? Is It Really?

Have you ever wished that you could feel no pain?

I can guarantee that at least a thousand people in the world, if not almost the entire population has had this same thought at least once in their lives.

Immediately we would think of all the times that we or people we know or don't know have been hurt.

Those people who end up in serious accidents would probably feel this way from time to time.

We would so quickly wish for a life without pain, before we even gave the question much thought. However, I have come to the conclusion that being able to feel pain is a blessing from God, Christ Jesus.

------- Why!?! -------

A while back, I came across a few articles in the newspaper which struck my interest.

The articles were about the problems some couples were having raising their children.

It wasn't the behaviour of the child that was the problem. It was that the children being talked about, could not feel any pain.

Indeed, the children didn't cry if they scraped their knee or if someone accidentally stepped on their foot. You would probably think that's good, but at the same time, the children would just as easily break their legs in different places and never know about it because they couldn't feel the pain.

Normal activities like running and jumping caused tremendous worries for the parents involved as they were terrified whether or not their child might actually fracture or break something and never know.

Necessary things like eating became a problem as well.

One of the mothers told how her son once bit through his tongue and didn't feel it. The same son pulled out his teeth without a word. The child scorched his hand but didn't feel anything.

------- It Comes Natural!?! -------

Apparently, this is a disease that doesn't afflict the majority of the world population... or does it?

I started to think about this, as the majority of the population treat their bodies and lives as though they did have the disease.

They do all manner of evil to themselves and each other even though they still feel the pain.

Can you imagine a world without pain now!?!

How utterly horrible it would be.

The human heart has become a very terrible thing and just likes to use every single advantage to do evil things.

I came to the conclusion that feeling pain, in this day and age is a tremendous blessing.

We should praise Jesus for giving us the ability to feel pain.

Without pain we wouldn't be able to know when our body needs healing. Without pain we wouldn't know, for the most part what things aren't healthy for us to do. Without pain we probably wouldn't even be able to grasp what Jesus being crucified and going through that entire ordeal would be like.

Dust is All I Am

The bible declares in Genesis 2:7, "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

The reason I am stating this is because over the past months I have been convinced that Christians should not characterize anybody by the color of their skin.

----- Obviously -----

Now I know that some people will right about now say... 'Well, Duh!' But it's not that simple. Not only should we not characterize other people by the color of their skin, but we must also stop characterizing ourselves by this as well. I have used the scripture above to help show where I am coming from with this thought.

God created each of us from the dust of the earth. Because of this (obviously I'm not going to get into the whole body chemistry stuff) we are different colors. However, throughout the bible you do not see people make choices based on the colour of anybody's skin. Even the enemy's of God, didn't do this. So why has it permeated the world (Christians included) that we characterize by the colour of each other's skin?

Not only this, but we even characterize wrongly. For example, look at any typical garden and you can see that the dust (dirt, ground, soil, whatever...) is brown. But yet, we call brown people black. Well... that is, we call people from America, the Caribbean, Europe and 'parts' of Africa black. I find this wrong. It bothered me so much that I started asking many people questions about how they came to this conclusion. All the people I asked were Christians.

My question was something like, you would call someone from south Africa black? They say yes. Why wouldn't you call someone from India or Afhghanistan black even though they have the same colour of skin? After this they would usually try to change the topic as they can not give an answer why they do this.

Based on this conviction, whenever people start saying black and white, I say oh, you mean that brown, or cream person. The person I'm speaking to gets annoyed at the fact that I don't call people black or white. When I say, well they aren't black or white are they? They tend to get in a huff.

----- It's All About Race -----

What race is it all about? When I was growing up people used to talk about the human race all the time. But since then, people started increasingly calling people of different colours different races, as if they were something other than human. This thought about correct categorizing isn't politically correct either, as people don't seem to like being referred to as brown, cream, peach, coloured... but would rather a blanket statement of what they are not. The differences which we should categorize by, if we do categorize, is nationality for one. This is found in the bible, over and over again.

I believe that people who won't want to look at people this way have a problem which they are not willing to allow God to help them overcome. While growing up I used to meet Christians (at least that's what they called themselves) who argued vehemently that Jesus was black because he was born in africa. Little children in schools are taught to tell the difference between the colours of crayons, but when it comes to skin they have to be taught something different, as if the colors change.

----- Biblical Conclusion -----

Firstly, Jesus wasn't black, because there is no human that is black. Jesus was most likely some shade of brown, even if it is a very very light shade (which people today would call mixed-race).

Secondly, we as Christians should submit ourselves to God and ask Him to help us see and categorize people as He does, and not as the world does.

Thirdly, it might not seem like it matters at first, but when you see the effect it has when you are able to no longer categorize people by their color you'll see how much different from the world you now are as a Christian.

I leave you with this thought. The last time I filled out a form that had those checkboxes for ethnicity I had to put other, because I couldn't in all good conscience, tick anything else because I no longer fit in any of the categories that they usually presented.

Christian Sows Seeds and Reaps

Heavenly message in field took dedicated farmer twenty years to create

His first attempt in the 1990s was a disaster - a thorny mess of thistles

A farmer has reaped what he sowed after trees he planted 20 years ago finally revealed a message only those from above can read.

Peter Gunner, 62, planted dozens of willow trees two decades ago and has pruned them to spell out his favourite Bible passage, John 14:6: "Jesus said to him: 'I am the way, the truth, and life'."

But the message can only be seen from the air.

The committed Christian created his own Garden of Eden in his Sussex field so visitors wandering through the thick maze could experience his metaphor for life.

He said: "You walk around in it but you don't really know what your life is going to look like from above."

The creation at his home Burchetts Farm is the second time he has attempted the ambitious project.

His first attempt in the 1990s was a disaster. Instead of forming in a pretty pattern of words he ended up with a thorny mess of thistles which mean he had to start all over again.

For his second attempt the religious farmer mapped the words on a computer before getting to work on the field armed with a tape measure and string.

Despite years of pruning Mr Gunner only saw his labor of love for the first time recently, when a police officer neighbour gave him an aerial picture taken for a helicopter.

Unfortunately, the aerial images highlighted slight mistakes in his creation - the top of the J is slightly wonky and the 'a' in 'am' is askew - but he hopes to fix them one day.

Refuting Shabir Ally on Muhammad in the Bible

The latest episode of Jesus or Muhammad