Dr Paul Allen

Even though we may not be able to fully explain why Satan came into being, we know he does exist, and he was there from the beginning of mankind because he tempted Adam and Eve in the third chapter of Genesis.  We also know that Jesus commanded “the unclean spirits, and they obey him” (Mark 1:27), Which is a fantastic statement. He said to Satan in the wilderness, “Be gone!” and he was gone (Matthew 4:10). And we know at the end of history, God will throw Satan into the lake of fire so that he can’t influence God’s people anymore or harm us anymore (Revelation 20:10). So, from all this, we know God could have bound Satan completely the moment he fell or at any point in history in between. We know he doesn’t because, in the end, the whole New Testament is telling the story of Satan’s activity in this world and how he deceives, how he tempts, and how we need to do warfare against the principalities and powers. “Seeing and savoring the superior beauty of Christ is the way we defeat the ev

Proverbs 18:21 says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue: And they that love it shall eat its fruit.” I want to illustrate the story of King Ahab to show the importance of declaring victory over your life. This king of Israel had agreed to let the enemy come in and take some of his belongings.  But when the adversary demanded even more, King Ahab said, “Tell my lord the king, ‘Your servant will do all you demanded the first time, but this demand I cannot meet.’” Something snapped in Ahab, and he decided at that moment that he had given up all that he was going to give up. The enemy will never be satisfied.  There needs to come a time when you decide to stop letting negative thoughts and words control your life. Satan’s goal is to kill, steal, and destroy you and your family, but if you can change the narrative, you can change the outcome.  Victory has a voice. Don’t let the enemy, circumstances, the world, or other people’s opinions control the narrative of your life. You ma

I love the seemingly insignificant phrases in the Bible—phrases like the ones we find at the end of Genesis 1:16—“He also made the stars” (NIV)—or at the end of John’s gospel, where we are told the exact number of fish that Peter caught after Jesus had been raised from the dead—153 “large fish” (John 21:11). We frequently pass over these kinds of comments without giving them further thought.  But we must remember that there is no such thing as an insignificant phrase in the Bible. The Lord was not trying to fill up a minimum word or page count like many students try to do today with their writing assignments. Everything the Bible says is essential, and God intends to teach us something. Rather than passing over these phrases, we should consider what God might be trying to teach us through them. The account of the feeding of the five thousand, recorded in all four Gospels, contains several seemingly insignificant phrases—but one in particular has recently grabbed my attention. In John 6

By faith, he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them. (Heb. 11:28) “When I see the blood, I will pass over you.” These words from Exodus 12:13 are some of the most comforting in the Old Testament, if not the entire Bible. But comfort (biblically speaking) often comes amid crisis.  When God spoke these words to Israel through Moses, Israel was in anything but a comfortable position. For several hundred years, they had been harshly enslaved by the Egyptians. Their God—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—had been deafeningly silent throughout those centuries.  Egypt was a land full of pagan deities, and Pharaoh was a self-proclaimed deity among them—and he knew neither Joseph nor the God of Joseph. Time has a way of chilling warm memories, and all that God had done for Israel and the Egyptians had faded from memory. The people of God now pined away as slaves, labouring under the blighting sun of Pharaoh’s vainglory—a time of c

 1. A Prayer for Loved Ones I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all, making my prayer with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion on the day of Jesus Christ. It is suitable for me to feel this way about you all because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. —Paul the apostle, Philippians 1:3–11 2. A Prayer for Family and Friends Have mercy, oh Lord, o

There are more significant questions beneath this question, making this an essential issue to many. As we move toward an answer, here are three pivotal concerns behind the question that can help us understand why this gnaws at many people’s hearts. 1. What do we mean when we talk about heaven? Generally, when people think about heaven, they refer to what theologians more appropriately call “the intermediate state.” When a believer in Christ dies, their soul leaves the earth, and they go into the presence of Jesus until the second coming of Christ. Here, we are liberated from physical pain, sin, the presence of evil, and all effects of the fall. We shall see the face of Jesus and experience unfettered communion with him. We will be, ideally, euphorically and eternally happy. The intermediate state, though, is temporary. At the second coming of Christ, we will descend with Jesus to the earth, where heaven will become a place on earth. At that point, the resurrection of the dead will occu

  God’s people kept falling back into sexual sin during the days of the Judges, and the pattern continues to this day with the constant lure of wealth, power, success, pleasure, comfort, sex, indulgence, and pornography. These same demons are powerfully at work in our culture, continuing to seduce God’s people into evil and sin.  The rise in everything from worship of the environment (as our sacred goddess Mother); to greed that worships the demon Mamon in everything from crime to skyrocketing debt; to murder of the innocents, starting with the unborn; to the mainstream acceptance of pornography, polygamy, fornication, adultery, homosexuality, transgenderism, and every other sexual deviancy, is all the work of Baal and Asherah waging spiritual warfare that manifests in our physical world. The liberal, progressive, woke, and mainline Protestant “churches” that fly rainbow flags and celebrate tolerance, diversity, and Pride Month are filled not with the Holy Spirit but with unholy spirit

Jerry Savelle, a famous televangelist and proponent of the prosperity gospel, claims that believers will see improvements in wealth and well-being in this life, has died at 76. Jerry Savelle Ministries International announced on Facebook that the preacher died on Monday, identifying him as “a beloved husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, pastor, mentor, and resolute friend.” The ministry stated, “Jerry’s journey on earth was one of immense impact, rooted in the powerful love of Jesus Christ. His life testified to the beauty of grace and power of faith.” Savelle was a proponent of the prosperity gospel, the controversial belief that faith in God leads to improved health and financial well-being, as seen with such works as his 2014 book, Why God Wants You to Prosper. WHAT IS THE PROSPERITY GOSPEL? However, Russell S. Woodbridge of The Gospel Coalition authored a  piece  in 2015 critically examining the origins of the prosperity gospel. Savelle was cited as an example of the th

“As stewards of the gospel , we must love our Muslim neighbours by presenting Christ to them.” “Since its founding, the Jenkins Center has provided and produced resources to help Christians boldly, respectfully, and relevantly proclaim the gospel to Muslims.” Sharon, who has a burden  to reach the lost, attended a Jenkins Center event, and “I left that hall with tears in my eyes and a burden in my heart.” The Jenkins Center stands on biblical values and offers students a way to learn how to reach their Muslim neighbours. Go Deeper:   Read the full article  here.

“One may understand   a push for a cease-fire for humanitarian reasons or for tactical military needs, but this call for a cease-fire is directly linked to the advent of a Muslim religious month,” writes Dr. A. S. Ibrahim for World. Ramadan is a time when  Muslims around the world observe a month of fasting, prayer, and reading the Quran. “When Muhammad had the chance, he didn’t seek a cease-fire nor did he voice concerns that the fighting was violating Ramadan.” The backlash of Israel  dishonouring Ramadan should be viewed in the context of Islamic history and the teachings of the Quran. “As Israel knows all too well, the fight goes on, Ramadan or not,” writes Dr. Ibrahim. Go Deeper:   Read the full article by Dr. Ibrahim on World.

 

Imagine a hypothetical scenario: It’s the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, and an opportunity emerges for the terrorists of Hamas to attack the heartland of Israel. Would they refrain from launching the attack to observe their holy month? Now, move from the hypothetical scenario back to reality. As the Israel-Hamas war continues, many politicians and media pundits have come together in a concerted effort to pressure Israel for a cease-fire in Gaza during Ramadan. Why exactly? It is a holy month for Muslims, we are told, so Israel must stop its military operation. The fanciful pattern is now predictable. A politician or a celebrity issues a demand and posts it on social media to millions of keyboard “followers,” who then repost and simply repeat the demand without the least intellectual effort to fathom its core. One may understand a push for a cease-fire for humanitarian reasons or tactical military needs. Still, this call for a cease-fire is directly linked to the advent of a Muslim rel

Would you describe yourself as an assured Christian? Are you sure God loves you, that your sins have been forgiven, and that God will keep you on the narrow road that leads to life? For many Christians, these questions hang awkwardly. Doubt plagues them, making every burden heavier, every shadow darker, and every hardship more significant. Where can they look for certainty? We start by encouraging doubting Christians to look away from themselves to Christ and God's free grace. Many of our doubts find their root in the secret fear that we must do something to prime the pump of grace. The gospel speaks eloquently to such insecurity.  We need no prior qualification or merit besides sin to receive grace. At no point in the golden chain of salvation is God waiting for us to take the first step before He will open the floodgates of grace. Every Godward thought, every desire for Christ, comes down from above and is itself the fruit of grace—grace previously and freely given. In the quest

J. Gresham Machen, in his prescient and potent little book Christianity and Liberalism, argued that Christianity is “an event-centered religion.” Christianity is based on historical events. Something happened in history, and all that man is, believes, and does is based on these events—events that occurred in history.  Chief among these historical events is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. As the Apostle Paul so aptly put it, if Jesus Christ was not raised from the dead, we are the world’s most pitiable fools, and rather than following Christ, we ought to “eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” (1 Cor. 15:32). But because Christ has been raised from the dead, Christians frame their entire lives in the light of the resurrection.  In short, we live resurrection lives that reflect our hope in the resurrected Christ. As central as the resurrection is to the Christian life, it is not the end of the work of Christ. After Christ was raised from the dead, He “ascended up into heaven,” as both the

If you were asked to describe our world in one word, would you choose “peaceful”? I’m guessing there are a lot of other words that come to mind before that one. Your list may include words like “chaotic,” “broken,” “unstable,” “frightening,” or “disintegrating.”   Right now, the world is anything but peaceful.   But we all desire and need peace. Many people look for peace in superficial things, including drugs, alcohol, entertainment, and money, and yet they still feel empty.   Truthfully, we’ve been looking for peace in all the wrong places because the world cannot offer true, lasting peace. We need peace that isn’t of this world.   Other-worldly peace is just what Jesus offers us. On Palm Sunday, a week before He was to go to the cross, suffer, and die, Jesus took His disciples aside and gave them a fantastic promise, saying, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.”  This is a remarkable promise.   Peace Served Three Ways Think about what Jesus was going through when He said th

How Not to Fight Sin Fighting sin is spiritual warfare, and warfare requires a battle plan. If left to our own devices, we would have little success against our unseen enemy. Thankfully, God’s word supplies wisdom to assist us in eluding the evil one’s snares. We’ll begin by briefly considering how not to engage in the battle, followed by practical tactics to flee sin and follow God. Don’t Fight Sin by Ignoring It Pretending sin isn’t there won’t help you fight it, as with Ben. Ben was a jokester, but at times, his jesting became inappropriate. He turned innocent comments into crude remarks and occasionally used off-colour language to get a laugh. When conviction came, he rationalized it away. He’d think, “I didn’t really mean it. It’s not who I really am. It’s not that big of a deal. I’m free in Christ.” An unwillingness to admit sin prevents you from repenting of it. Don’t Fight Sin by Entertaining It We also can’t fight by entertaining sin, as with Jess. Jess struggled with body ima