From 1933 to 1945 Adolf Hitler engaged in one of the most horrific killing sprees this world has ever known. During that time, he was responsible for the murder of 6 million Jews, 1.5 million of whom were children. He wiped about 2/3 of the Jewish population in Europe and 1/3 of all of the Jews in the world. In addition to the Jews, 5 million non-Jewish victims were also ruthlessly murdered. The deeds of Adolf Hitler represent one of the largest slaughters of human beings ever to occur on this planet (over 11 million people). Very sadly, the works of Hitler do not compare to what has taken place in our own country by the process of abortion. On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court of the United States legalized abortion, and since that time over 50 million innocent little babies have been killed by this brutal process.1 Clearly, life is under attack in America. Who Is To Blame For This Crisis? First, we blame the Supreme Court who voted to legalize the killing of unborn babies. We blame lawmakers who have made laws to further this atrocity. We blame government social planners and organizations such as Planned Parenthood who promote abortion rather than adoption. We blame doctors and abortion clinic owners who put greed ahead of life. We blame fathers and mothers who choose abortion because they don’t want the stigma or the responsibility of being a parent to their child. AbortionTV.com tells that 95% of abortions are done …

Recently I read a short little piece entitled, “A Rule of Three.” Let me read it to you. I think that you will agree with its sentiments. Three things to govern: Temper, Tongue, Conduct. Three things to cultivate: Courage, Affection, Gentleness. Three things to commend: Thrift, Industry, Promptness. Three things to despise: Cruelty, Arrogance, Ingratitude. Three things to wish for: Health, Contentment, Friends. Three things to admire: Dignity, Intellectual Power, Gracefulness. Three things to give: Alms to the Needy, Comfort to the Sad, Appreciation to the Worthy. And I add one—Things to do: Study the Word of God, Obey It, Teach It to Others. These might just make some good resolutions for the New Year also.

All of us have habits—some good, some not so good, and some that are wrong and sinful. I read recently the following statement about habits. Let us look at them. If a habit… 1. Does not build up, but tears down your physical powers. 2. Does not increase, but depletes your financial strength. 3. Does not add to, but detracts from the beauty of your personality. 4. Does not commend, but reflects on the Worthy Name by which you are called. 5. Set an example you are unwilling for a child to follow—it should be eliminated. What habits do you have?

It is a New Year! While much will continue on this year that we are familiar with, a new year offers a great opportunity to make changes, to do things differently than in the past, to seek to allow God to help mold us in His image, “beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Resolutions are nothing new to us, but being effective at keeping them may be, as 7 of 10 people who make them will have abandoned them before the end of January. What can we do this year to help us do better at following through, with the help of our Lord? It seems to me we all could use a big dose of honesty when it comes to evaluating ourselves. It is easy to create a façade for others to see, and then we con ourselves into believing it. This is the way sin works. This is what the Hebrews writer warns against. “But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called today, so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13). Sin deceives us, and then hardens our hearts so we will not question ourselves and make changes. As Paul urges, “Examine yourselves” (2 Corinthians 13:5), and we do so by letting the Word of God penetrate to the innermost part of our being, showing us where …

It is hard to believe we are ready to begin another New Year. I remember as a young boy, how slowly time passed, but through the years, time has picked up speed and now moves at such a rapid pace. Such is the perspective we gain as the number of days we have before us grows fewer, and the number of days we have behind us grow larger and larger. With the years of experience we have in life ever growing, what can we learn to help us as we begin a new year, a year unknown in what it holds, with both the blessings we will experience, and the challenges we will face? One thing we can learn is that it is not within us to direct our steps (Jeremiah 10:23). As best as we may plan for the New Year, there will be unexpected events we will have to face. Our trust should not be in ourselves alone, then, but in the God who is eternal, who can guide our steps and lead us in the right way. If we make our decisions for life this year based solely on our feelings, our desires and on the flesh alone, we will make our challenges much more challenging to face. The Word of God should be our directive in all our choices and decisions (James 4:15). His will is the best way for us, today and certainly for eternity. Living by His will keeps us in a right relationship …

It was a time for renewed beginnings. The children of Israel, having left Egypt a generation ago, had wandered through the wilderness for forty years. The generation that left Egypt would not see the Promised Land because of its stubborn and rebellious heart. A new generation, under the leadership of Joshua, had left the wilderness and had begun conquering the land God had promised to Abraham so many years before. Now, as they prepared to go take possession of the land, Joshua offered them both encouragement and a challenge. “Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:14-15). Today, we stand at the threshold of a New Year, a year that offers us renewed beginnings. What kind of year will it be, for you individually, and all of us together as the body of Christ? What opportunities are ahead? What challenges will we face? What will we accomplish this year, in our own lives and for the sake of the kingdom? We may not know what the future holds, but we do …

One of the members was talking to me this past Sunday. He said that he was at a church building (not in our county). He did not know anything about it, but he noted the sign said “so-and-so (not the actual name) Church.” As he neared the sign, he noticed down near the ground, mostly covered up by brush, in little-bitty letters, “A Church of Christ.” He said that it seemed to him that they felt that glorifying themselves was more important than glorifying God and His Son Jesus Christ. I told him that I know that, sadly, some churches have indeed thrown Jesus out, not just in their designation of themselves, but in their doctrine and practices. All of that aside, however, this conversation got me to thinking. One of the real problems that we have as individuals is when it becomes big us—little God. That does not mean that we do not recognize God, or that we are not aware of Him, but that sometimes we let our wishes, our thoughts and our desires outgrow God in our lives. Remember this story in the life of Moses? And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together, thou, and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes; and it shall give forth his water, and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock: so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink. And Moses took …

“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me” (John 17:20-21). In the Lord’s Prayer, there are several things that are quite evident: 1. Jesus’ concern for His apostles. 2. Not only for His apostles but also for all who would believe on Him. 3. That this belief would come through the apostles’ doctrine. 4. That there would and could be unity among all such believers. 5. This unity would have a tremendous impact on the unbelieving world. One of the most difficult things for modern man to accept and understand is that God intended for all believers to be united in religious matters. If this is not the case, then our Lord prayed a deceptive prayer, knowing all the time that He was praying for something that was not possible. However, our Lord knew that men could be united if they followed the apostles’ doctrine (Acts 2:42). Unity of teaching cannot help but to produce unity of believers. There cannot be unity in diversity of doctrine and beliefs. Each separate and distinct religious organization exists today because of a distinctive and different doctrine. This is in direct contradiction to the Lord’s sentiments expressed in His prayer to the Father. We can also know the mind of God …

The following quote may be shocking and disturbing to some, “One of the greatest enemies Christianity now has or has ever had is organized religion” (F.D Srygley, Biographies and Sermons, 7). The quote is taken from the first sentence of a sermon, entitled “Organized Religion vs. Christianity” by F.D. Srygley (1856-1900). Another quote from the same sermon will explain this seemly shocking statement. Religious people have committed nearly every crime in the catalogue of iniquity to build up, strengthen, and maintain organizations Christ never authorized. All denominational organizations use the power of organization against men and doctrine whenever the interests of organized religion demand it. They have to do this in self-defense. “Self-preservation is the first law of nature,” and no organization can maintain itself with opposing men and doctrine that antagonize it. This explains why there is now, has always been, and always will be a conflict between Christianity and every form of ecclesiastical organization. (F.D. Srygley, Biographies and Sermons, 8) The source of Christianity and the church of Christ is readily available to all. The New Testament of Jesus Christ is that source document. “The church of to-day could not disregard the government of the New Testament church and still be the same church. Its congregations are not bound in the coils of an ecclesiasticism as merciless as it is unscriptural. …The destruction of the unity of the church was the work of the apostasy; hence when the church is reclaimed from apostasy it will be freed from the disunion” …

Many of us make resolutions each New Year, most of which are broken fairly soon. This is being written just before the New Year, but the desirability of making the proper resolutions is so important that it makes very little difference when it is published or read. The stimulus for writing it came from a reading again from Psalm 119. David was a man after God’s own heart. His resolutions are worthy of our attention and emulation. In verse 7 he says, “I will praise (give thanks unto, ASV) thee with uprightness of heart, when I shall have learned thy righteous judgments.” There are at least five Hebrew words translated praise. The word used here (yadah) is translated “confess” 16 times, “give thanks” 32 times and “praise” 53 times. It is possible that he used this term because he wanted to emphasize his confession and thanksgiving for the righteous judgment of God with reference to his own grievous sins. In any case, we need to resolve to praise and thank God with uprightness of heart. Perhaps our petitions would get more attention from Him if our prayers had more praise and thanksgiving instead of mostly begging for what we want. Verse 8 says, “I will observe thy statutes: Oh forsake me not utterly.” There are at least six other times in the chapter when he says similar things about the judgments, statutes, ordinances or commandments of God. Each of us should deliberately resolve to keep the statutes, precepts and commandments …

At the stroke of midnight tonight, we shall enter a period of time the world has never seen before. Parts of our globe will enter that time period before we do and other parts will enter after; nonetheless, the whole earth will soon experience a time we have never seen before. When one thinks of this, he cannot help but be fascinated and filled with wonder. The thought of entering a new year is exciting, though many of us have done that seventy, eighty or even ninety times. On rare occasions, it has been done more than a hundred times, but these are rare indeed. There is an old proverb that says, “Time and tempest wait for no man.” That is true. Time relentlessly moves on no matter how much we would wish for it to stand still. God designed it that way, and we should rejoice that it is. For the Christian, the coming of the New Year will move all of us one more year closer to heaven and all its glories. It will also move us closer to death, for that is the door through which we must pass in order to obtain that heavenly summer land. As we look back over the past year, our hearts think of those saints who have gone before us, and while we wish we could enjoy their company for but one hour, we do not wish to call them back from the peace and serenity they enjoy in that beautiful …

The first Bible book has been properly named “Genesis,” a word that means “birth” or “origin.” The origin of man and of the universe has been a battleground between faith and unbelief for centuries. The end of this battle is nowhere in sight. God has no problem with questioning and investigation. God has no problem with true science. As such, science has been a blessing to humanity by improving the quality and length of life. With the exception of the origin of species, in no area has science been satisfied with providing nothing more than educated guesses, as scientists might call them. In no other matter do some scientists and some in the circle of higher learning dogmatically scream louder over so little data (external to the Bible). Here is an area where scientists have no real-time evidence to examine, test or measure. Yet, they are certain their conclusions are infallible and think you are ignorant if you do not accept them. In any other study, their credibility would be called into question, and they would be dismissed from their laboratories for approaching a problem with an agenda, for their lack of objectivity and for their negligence of breaking scientific rules otherwise demanded in their community. They accuse creationists of starting out with preconceived ideas. Go figure. No, we start with Genesis Chapter 1. True scientists are known for their careful approach to a question. They study, measure, examine, re-examine and search for every angle possible for what could give …