The Upper Room - all things Christian

you're welcome. it did mine too! that's why I shared it! :hurray:
glad you enjoyed.

 

Good post, indeed! I hadn't heard their music before. Looks like I'll be a fan, now!

 

Kent, I had not heard of Jesus Culture before a few weeks ago either....now I am a huge fan. Lots of good stuff on YouTube.

Glad I shared.

:mrgreen:

 

Matt Redman - 10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord)

http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=WLPKDWNX

Turn up the volume on this one!

 

Upcoming Billy Graham special

http://www.billygraham.org/articlepage.asp?articleid=9746

November 3, 2013 - Kelvin Smith, like most pastors, is reluctant to show a video instead of preaching. But after watching the new My Hope with Billy Graham Video, "The Cross," he decided to show his entire congregation and saw 30 decisions made to accept Christ.

By Charles Chandler

In 18 years as pastor of Steele Creek Church of Charlotte, N.C., Kelvin Smith had never before shown a video to his congregation instead of preaching a sermon

But his heart was stirred every time he privately watched a DVD recording of The Cross, the centerpiece program of the My Hope America With Billy Graham evangelistic outreach.

So on Oct. 27, Smith showed The Cross at both Sunday morning services, resulting in about 30 new decisions for Christ and droves of believers coming to the altar to pray for the needs in their lives.

Near the end of the first service, a 17-year-old young man came forward to surrender his life to Jesus, tears streaming down his cheeks. His mother told Smith that her son had reluctantly gotten out of bed that morning and had vowed to sleep through the entire service.

“Instead, she said he did not close his eyes the entire time and was just fixated on the film,” Smith said.

In the second service, a 7-year-old boy came forward with his family and insisted on being baptized even though there was no formal baptism ceremony scheduled.

Associate pastor Ted White talked to the child after his decision for Christ, verifying the boy’s understanding of the Gospel and the significance of baptism as an act of obedience serving as an outward sign of the decision he’d made in his heart.

“This was just the simplicity of a child knowing, ‘I have received it’ and saying ‘I want to do it now,’” White said.

Smith said he decided to show the film 11 days before its Nov. 7 national television debut because he not only wanted any unsaved attendees at Steele Creek to have a chance to respond to a powerful Gospel presentation, but also in hopes that believers would be inspired to invite their nonbelieving friends and family members to watch the program with them.

Steele Creek already had trained about 80 people to serve as Matthew hosts.

“I wanted those who are Christians to take this My Hope campaign to heart because there are lost people out here in our communities who need hope,” Smith said.

He told the approximately 1,500 attendees at the two services that they could have a DVD recording of the program, but only if they planned to show it to nonbelievers.

Steele Creek is one of more than 28,000 churches in the United States and Canada poised to use a My Hope video program as a tool to bring an evangelistic crusade into their living rooms.

Smith said Mr. Graham, who turns 95 on Nov. 7, comes across in the video as an entirely trustworthy communicator, regardless of whether the viewer is familiar with his background as a worldwide evangelist.

“When you hear a man of that age talk about the cross, it’s very special and it draws you to him,” Smith said. “And when you’re drawn to him, he’s going to lead you to Christ because that’s what leads him.

"Praise God for the anointing on the film and the hope that it gives. May God use it for many, many years, and may He use it powerfully on Nov. 7."

For national and local TV listings of The Cross, click: http://www.watchbillygraham.com/#tv-listings

 

Upcoming Blood Moons update

Good article:

http://www.pray4zion.org/TheComingBloodMoons.html

btw, Pastor John Hagee's Blood Moon book is a good read:

http://www.amazon.com/Four-Blood-Moons-Something-Change/dp/1617952141

 

Modern Day Jonah - 3 days in the belly of the ship!

http://www.wral.com/man-survives-60-hours-at-bottom-of-atlantic/13177091/

LAGOS, NIGERIA — About 100 feet down, on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, divers had already pulled four bodies out of the sunken tugboat. Then a hand appeared on a TV screen monitoring the recovery.

Everyone assumed it was another corpse, and the diver moved toward it.

"But when he went to grab the hand, the hand grabbed him!" Tony Walker, project manager for the Dutch company DCN Diving, said of the rescue in May.

Harrison Odjegba Okene, the tug's Nigerian cook, had survived for three days by breathing an ever-dwindling supply of oxygen in an air pocket. A video of Okene's dramatic rescue — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArWGILmKCqE — was posted on the Internet more than six months after the rescue and has gone viral this week.

As the temperature dropped to freezing, Okene, dressed only in boxer shorts, recited a psalm his wife had sent him earlier by text message, sometimes called the Prayer for Deliverance. "Oh, God, by your name, save me. ... The Lord sustains my life."

To this day, Okene believes his rescue after 72 hours underwater was the result of divine deliverance. The 11 other seamen aboard the tug Jascon 4 died.

On the video, there was an exclamation of fear and shock from Okene's rescuers, and then joy as the realization set in that this hand belonged to a survivor. "What's that? He's alive! He's alive!" a voice can be heard exclaiming.

"It was frightening for everybody," Walker said of that moment, speaking in a telephone interview Tuesday. "For the guy that was trapped because he didn't know what was happening. It was a shock for the diver while he was down there looking for bodies, and we (in the control room) shot back when the hand grabbed him on the screen."

Walker said Okene couldn't have lasted much longer.

"He was incredibly lucky. He was in an air pocket, but he would have had a limited time (before) ... he wouldn't be able to breathe anymore."

The full video of the rescue was released by DCN Diving after a request from The Associated Press. Initially, a shorter version of the rescue emerged on the Internet. The authenticity of the video was confirmed through conversations with DCN employees in the Netherlands. The video showing Okene was also consistent with additional photos of him on the rescue ship. The AP also contacted Okene, who confirmed the events.

Okene's ordeal began around 4:30 a.m. on May 26. Always an early riser, he was in the toilet when the tug, one of three towing an oil tanker in Nigeria's oil-rich Delta waters, gave a sudden lurch and then keeled over.

"I was dazed and everywhere was dark as I was thrown from one end of the small cubicle to another," Okene said in an interview with Nigeria's Nation newspaper after his rescue.

He groped his way out of the toilet and tried to find a vent, propping doors open as he moved. He discovered some tools and a life vest with two flashlights, which he stuffed into his shorts.

When he found a cabin of the sunken vessel that felt safe, he began the long wait, getting colder and colder as he played back a mental tape of his life — remembering his mother, his friends, but mostly his wife of five years, with whom he hadn't yet fathered a child.

He worried about his colleagues — the Ukrainian captain and 10 Nigerians, including four young cadets from Nigeria's Maritime Academy. They would have locked themselves into their cabins, standard procedure in an area stalked by pirates.

He got really worried when he heard a loud sound in the water outside — sharks or barracuda, he supposed — fighting over something big.

As the waters rose, he made a rack on top of a platform and piled two mattresses on top.

"I started calling on the name of God," Okene told the Nation. "I started reminiscing on the verses I read before I slept. I read the Bible from Psalms 54 to 92. My wife had sent me the verses to read that night when she called me before I went to bed."

He survived on a single bottle of Coke.

Okene really thought he was going to die, he said, when he heard the sound of a boat engine and an anchor dropping, but failed to get the attention of its crew. He figured, given the size of the sunken tugboat, that it would take a miracle for anyone to locate him. So he waded across the cabin, stripped the wall down to its steel body and banged on it with a hammer.

But "I heard them moving away. They were far away from where I was," he said.

By the time the divers found him, relatives already had been told there were no survivors.

Using hot water to warm him up, the rescue crew attached Okene to an oxygen mask. He was put into a decompression chamber and then safely returned to the surface.

Before the slow ascent began, a voice on the video could be heard asking Okene to give a thumbs up if he understood what was about to happen. Slowly he raised his hand and stuck out his thumb.

"Good job, my friend. Well done," the voice says. "You are a survivor."

 

Awesome! Simply awesome!

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/201...t-youll-have-on-repeat-after-just-one-listen/

Fantastic Christmas rendition of a classic song!

Use some good head phones and turn up the sound!

 

‘Science Guy’ Bill Nye Debates Creationist Ken Ham

I just watched most of the debate live online.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/201...-win-the-big-debate-over-darwinian-evolution/

Enjoyed it very much.

It would be a very good topic for a bible study.

Here's the archived version:

http://debatelive.org/

More on Ken Ham: http://www.answersingenesis.org/outreach/speakers/ken-ham/bio/

 

Wish I could have seen it live. I wonder if it's available on YouTube (so I can watch it on TV).

As side note, I've been reading articles about the debate. It seems that the "scientific" community is chastising Nye for participating in the debate. I've noticed that christians welcome these debates but "scientists" reject them. I wonder why?

 

It is seen as giving credibility to the strict creationist point of view. The fact that too many in the general population automatically attribute equal weight to both sides of a debate tends to support the avoidance of adding credibility.

 

The debate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6kgvhG3AkI#t=801

 

Thanks.

 

Bill Nye: Bible doesn't tell Earth's true history

http://www.wral.com/bill-nye-bible-doesn-t-tell-earth-s-true-history/13360391/

PETERSBURG, Ky. — True to his passionate and animated TV persona, "Science Guy" Bill Nye tapped on the podium, threw up his hands and noted that science shows the Earth is "billions and billions" of years old in a debate at a Kentucky museum known for teaching that the planet's age is only 6,000.

Nye was debating Creation Museum founder Ken Ham and promoting science in the snappy way that made him a pop culture staple as host of "Bill Nye The Science Guy" in the 1990s.

The event was meant to explore the age old question, "How did we get here?" from the perspectives of faith and science.

Ham, an Australian native who has built a thriving ministry in Kentucky, said he trusts the story of creation presented by the Bible.

"The Bible is the word of God," Ham said. "I admit that's where I start from."

Nye delivered a passionate speech on science and challenged the museum's teachings on the age of the earth and the Bible's flood story. Like most scientists, Nye believes there is no credible evidence that the world is only 6,000 years old.

"If we accept Mr. Ham's point of view ... that the Bible serves as a science text and he and his followers will interpret that for you, I want you to consider what that means," Nye said. "It means that Mr. Ham's word is to be more respected than what you can observe in nature, what you can find in your backyard in Kentucky."

The event drew dozens of national media outlets and about 800 tickets sold out in minutes. Ham said ahead of the debate that the Creation Museum was having a peak day on its social media sites.

"I think it shows you that the majority of people out there, they're interested in this topic, they want to know about this, they don't want debate shut down," Ham said before the debate.

At times, the debate had the feel of a university lecture, with slides and long-form presentations.

Responding to an audience question about where atoms and matter come from, Nye said scientists are continuing to find out.

Ham said he already knows the answer.

"Bill, I want to tell you, there is a book that tells where atoms come from, and its starts out, 'In the beginning ...,'" Ham said.

Nye said there are plenty of religious people around the world who don't question evolution science.

"I just want to remind us all there are billions of people in the world who are deeply religious, who get enriched by the wonderful sense of community by their religion," said Nye, who wore his trademark bow tie. "But these same people do not embrace the extraordinary view that the Earth is somehow only 6,000 years old."

The debate drew a few Nye disciples in the audience, including Aaron Swomley, who wore a red bowtie and white lab coat. Swomley said he was impressed by Ham's presentation and the debate's respectful tone.

"I think they did a good job outlining their own arguments without getting too heated, as these debates tend to get," he said.

Some scientists had been critical of Nye for agreeing to debate the head of a Christian ministry that is dismissive of evolution.

Jerry Coyne, an evolution professor at the University of Chicago, wrote on his blog that "Nye's appearance will be giving money to organizations who try to subvert the mission Nye has had all his life: science education, particularly of kids." Coyne pointed out that the Creation Museum will be selling DVDs of the event.

The debate was hatched after Nye appeared in an online video in 2012 that urged parents not to pass their religious-based doubts about evolution on to their children. Ham rebutted Nye's statements with his own online video and the two later agreed to share a stage.

 

Pat Robertson sides with Bill Nye —

Creationist Ken Ham's theology doesn't actually represent official-everybody-believes-this Christian theology. Or even, necessarily, mainstream Christian theology. And here's more evidence of that: Pat Robertson does not believe the Earth is only 6,000 years old and would like Ken Ham to stop making his side look dumb.

 

On the lighter side - this guy's funny

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g705VNsymQQ

Pastor Broderick Rice

 

Anne Graham Lotz - Malaysian a/c and the rapture - a preview?

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5001337

 

Maybe I missed it but is this really the link you intended?

Anne Graham Lotz - Malaysian a/c and the rapture - a preview? but the video is "Fire on the mountain" a nice rendition of it but it somehow doesn't link with the title.

 

Dang. Fixed it but here it is again.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5001337

 

Ken Ham reviews "Noah"

http://time.com/42274/ken-ham-the-unbiblical-noah-is-a-fable-of-a-film/

Ken Ham: The Unbiblical ‘Noah’ Is a Fable of a Film

Leading creationist Ken Ham, who recently debated Bill Nye, says that the new blockbuster, starring Russell Crowe, is an insult to Christians: "Ultimately, there is barely a hint of biblical fidelity in this film. It is an unbiblical, pagan film from its start"

As a Creationist and also a believer in the historical account of Noah and the Flood, I agree with atheist Darren Aronofsky’s statement about his just-released film “Noah”: It is the “least biblical” of Bible-themed films. Any other agreement I have with the filmmaker’s take on the book of Genesis and its account of Noah ends right there. Further, I told a group of pastors earlier today that because I found “Noah” to be a boring 2½ hour movie, it may be the worst film I’ve ever seen.

Except for some of the names in the movie, like Noah, his sons’ names, and Methuselah, hardly any remnant of the Bible’s account of the Flood in Genesis 6-9 is recognizable. Yes, there is an Ark in the film that is true to the massive biblical proportions, but it did not look like a seaworthy vessel. There were many animals that came to Noah and went on board the Ark, but there were far too many creatures crammed inside and certainly many more than were needed. Also, while the extreme wickedness of man was depicted, the real sin displayed in the film was the people’s destruction of the earth. Lost within the film’s extreme environmentalist message is that the actual sins of the pre-Flood people were a rebellion against God and also man’s inhumanity to man.

Noah’s misanthropy is revealed many times in the film. For example, when the girlfriend of Noah’s son Ham is caught in a trap and is about to be overtaken by some marauders, Noah leaves the girl to die at their hands. The film’s Noah wants to totally destroy the human race and doesn’t want his sons to have children. In perhaps the most shocking part of the film, Noah plans to kill his unborn grandchild, the child of Shem’s wife, if it is a girl. As Noah values his animals on board more than people and rants about it, he becomes a psychopath. Hollywood’s Noah is not the righteous man described in Hebrews 11 and other scriptures.

Even putting aside the movie’s scene that presents evolution’s alleged progression of simple animals to humans, I noted pagan elements in “Noah.” His grandfather Methuselah is something of a witch doctor. In addition, Noah gets the idea of building the Ark after drinking a magical potion.

Ultimately, there is barely a hint of biblical fidelity in this film. It is an unbiblical, pagan film from its start. It opens with: “In the beginning there was nothing.” The Bible opens with, “In the beginning God.” That difference helps sum up the problem I have with the film. The Bible is about the true God of creation; the movie does not present the true God of the Bible.

It is hard to fathom why some Christian leaders have recommended this movie. Some of them argue that it can be used for evangelistic purposes. However, because the film grossly distorts the Genesis account of the Creation and the Flood, and it totally denigrates the godly character of the Noah of the Bible. In good conscience, we can’t encourage this strategy of evangelism.

Now, if a Christian who is knowledgeable about the true account of Noah knows of someone who has already seen the film, then that believer should certainly take the opportunity to share about the truthfulness of God’s Word — including the forgiveness offered in Jesus Christ, our modern-day Ark of salvation. But, in the end, the movie is so anti-biblical that it will do more harm than good in relation to the Christian faith and the Word of God.

There will be many people who will choose to see this movie. We can’t prevent that, and I am not calling for a boycott. But we have an obligation to send out a warning, and in so doing also to communicate biblical truths and undo the possible damage that might be caused by this sci-fi fantasy — one that is making a mockery of the Word of God and its true account of Noah, the Flood, and the Ark.

While the Bible’s account of the Flood is one of judgment, it is also one about mercy and salvation. Likewise, our future full-size evangelistic Noah’s Ark will honor the Bible as God’s Word and not treat it as a pagan fable.

“Noah” is an insult to Bible-believing Christians, an insult to the character of Noah, and most of all, an insult to the God of the Bible. As a result, I believe Hollywood will have a much harder time in marketing future biblically themed movies to Christians.

Ken Ham is the president of Answers in Genesis and the future Ark Encounter.