Month: August 2010

“reaching islam made simple” review

10 Comments / book and video review / August 27, 2010

Review of sermon given by Stephen Dickie at ASI meeting on August 6, 2010.

F

Well, this review is similar to my previous one of Stephen Dickie’s book: “Islam, God’s Forgotten Blessing” F.

This sermon does show refinement in the presentation of the message – that is, it doesn’t talk about the Qur’an as being a book from God, or about Allah being the same god as the Christian God, and in general, the tone is much better. The same error tho, about Islam being “good” and that we are all “God-Brothers” and the troubling scriptural twisting that somehow Ishmael’s line got the blessings of God is present.

Specific things regarding this sermon:
Right up front Stephen Dickie says the most egregious error of the sermon, the “block-buster” which seems to fail to awaken any reaction in the audience. He says near the beginning that after 9/11 he got interested in studying about Islam, and that it took him around 3 months to get up the courage to put what he thot was “satanic” material about Islam on his computer. He chuckles, and then says: “Islam…. is not satanic.” Now, with this blatant error out of the way quickly, and the audience not reacting, he then goes on mostly a true path for the rest of the sermon.

“I will never let a Muslim call me a Christian”. WOW. And no response from the audience, or from us listening today? How can us Seventh-day Adventists be promoting this kind of material with a pure conscience? How will we feel when the eyes of CHRIST are piercing us thru and thru when he gazes at us from that glorious cloudy chariot? “Um, oh, yes, i’m a Christian now?!”

“Tell them (Muslims) that you don’t eat pork in the first 45 seconds.” This seems like very good advice, as it opens a good wedge for the reception of the gospel.

He says when he reads Deut 21:15-17 to a Muslim, he changes the word “hated” to “unloved”, because he got badly verbally beaten up by a Muslim once! He uses these texts to try and prove that Ishmael must have received a double portion, and the right of the first-born is his!!! He says that God gave the land to Abraham’s descendants, and Ishmael’s line got twice as much as the Jews – plus all the oil! He says that they were never “cut off”, so i wonder what his position is on the Jews, who definitely WERE God’s chosen nation for over 1,000 years, until they killed him on the cross.

This fundamental misunderstanding about what is the “firstborn” derails everything that Brother Dickie is trying to produce – a reason why the Muslims are our “elder brother” and that we are all one family. Of course i recognize that they are humans, and we are all made in the image of God, but they are no more in favor with God than the Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists, or even Satanists.
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maps – worldmapper, population maps, remotest place on earth, air traffic, etc.

5 Comments / daily rambliniscings / August 10, 2010

I thot i’d blogged this before, but guess not. Here are some links to maps showing the remotest places on earth, the size of countries by population etc.

Here’s a cool site with lots of interesting maps. The one morphing from countries with people earning less than 1usd/day to those earning over 200usd/day tells a powerful story:
www.worldmapper.org

Remotest place. Notice how India is really lit up!:
remotest places on earth

24-hour air traffic around the world:
follow the planes

Lights on earth at nite:
are there any lights in North Korea?

giving

Leave a Comment / daily rambliniscings / August 7, 2010

Warren Buffet, the man who gave 33,000,000,000 US Dollars or something like that a year or two ago to Bill Gates’ charity, has called on other wealthy people to give back to society, and 40 people have signed up so far. This is wonderful news, reviving a tiny glimmer of hope for mankind.

The reason this strikes me as important, is that God’s people should be doing such a marvelous mission work, that hearts would be touched, and billions of dollars would flow into God’s coffers. Of course, it is usually God’s way to touch hearts with his Holy Spirit to get the job done without the use of much money (like pulling it out of a fish’s mouth!) but still, there are rich people who are attracted to those making a full sacrifice for the good of others, and we should be like a shining beacon to them.
http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2010/08/04/the-gates-buffett-giving-pledge-the-full-list-of-donors/

where’s the food?

8 Comments / daily rambliniscings / March 4, 2011

I don’t often blog about current news, but the comment about the price of food potentially soaring late this year or early next year struck me, as Ellen White wrote about God’s people should not stock up on food when they see the price rising near the end time.
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Feast or Famine

As Asian governments grapple with too much rain, wheat- growing regions of Europe and Central Asia have the opposite problem.

Wheat has doubled in less than two months as drought slashed the harvest in Russia, the third-largest grower, prompting Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to ban exports yesterday. Dry weather in Kazakhstan, Ukraine and the European Union has also buoyed prices. Rice, a staple for half the world, rallied 9 percent in July, its biggest monthly advance since October.

The UN FAO Food Price Index, which tracks global prices of meat, dairy, cereals, sugar, oils and fats around, rose to 165.5 in July, the highest since February, according to its website.

The surge in wheat prices may fuel another food crisis as early as the fourth quarter this year, as millers seek cheaper substitutes for livestock feeds, sending prices of corn higher, and dragging with it the cost of soybeans, said Franciscus Welirang, chairman of the Flour Mills Association in Indonesia, Asia’s biggest importer of wheat.

Another global food crisis “is what we worry about in the fourth quarter or first quarter of next year,” Welirang said.

edited 2011/3/4 to include quote by Ellen White, God’s messenger:
Broadside #2 1849/01/31 – To Those who are receiving the seal of the living God
For two years past, the Lord has shown me in vision, repeatedly, that it is contrary to the Bible to make any provision for our temporal wants in the time of trouble.

I saw that if the saints have food laid up by them, or in the fields, in the time of trouble when sword, famine, and pestilence are in the land, it will be taken from them by violent hands and strangers would reap their fields. Then will be the time for us to trust wholly in God, and he will sustain us. I saw that our bread and water would be sure at that time, and we should not lack, or suffer hunger.–The Lord has shown me that some of his children would fear when they see the price of food rising, and they would buy food and lay it by for the time of trouble.

Then in a time of need, I saw them go to their food and look at it, and it had bred worms, and was full of living creatures, and not fit for use. About one week since, the Lord showed me in vision, that houses and lands would be of no use in the time of trouble, and in that time they could not be disposed of. I saw it was the will of God that the saints should cut loose from every encumbrance–dispose of their houses and lands before the time of trouble comes, and make a covenant with God by sacrifice. I saw they would sell if they laid their property on the altar and earnestly inquired for duty. Then God will teach them when to dispose of these things. Then they will be free in the time of trouble, and have no clogs to weigh them down.