I dont think so!! Here a three easy factors to remember when wasting time talking to an atheist on the bus.

1. Sociologically…if God does not exist, then where did the idea for God come from in the first place? There has never been an atheistic society. Every group of people from the dawn of history has believed in some sort of divine power or being. There is an inner craving in the heart of every person to know God. Where did this inner craving come from? We all crave water, and there is water. We all crave love, and there is love. We all crave food, and there is food. How could an organism EVOLVE in a godless universe to universally crave and desire this thing called God…if God is not even there?

2. Scientifically…if God did not exist then how did the Big Bang happen? Scientists tell us that about 15 billion years ago there was nothing, and then in one cataclysmic explosion, there was everything hurtling through space from a central point. There was no gas cloud. There was nothing prior to this explosion. There was no space. There was no time. Something, or someone who stands outside of space and time had to create space and time. Something in time (like you) cannot create time. Someone in space (like me) cannot create more space. The only explanation for the big bang is God, and this is why so many thousands of scientists have turned to God this century. For more on this go to www.reasons.org

3. Historically…there are too many things that have happened in human history that cannot be explained if God does not exist. The most notable of these events is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Don’t believe that Jesus rose from the dead? The evidence is overwhelming that He did.

I could go on and on. Thankfully God does not call us to blind faith. He calls us to reasoned faith. He is there. He makes sense. He wants us to know Him.

Grace does not change us as personalities. To be sure we are 'anew creation' (2 Cor 5:17). Grace changes our outlook, ambitions, motives and behavior, but not our inherited temperament. If, therefore, before experiencing the new birth we are extroverts, we will be extroverts afterwards, but we will be easier to live with!. If on the other hand we are introverts before, we will still be the same, but we will find it easier to live with ourselves!

Secondly, grace does not render us immune to either physical or mental illness. There is a tendency in some Christian circles to declare it in appropriate for Christians to ever fall sick. 'You have no business to suffer depression', some say.

Grace is not the absence of struggle, but the enduring power to 'having down all to stand….stand'. Winners are not those that focus on what they are going through, but going to, because perseverance will always outlast persecution.

“Lord remember me” The story of 5 forgotten men

Lu 23:42* Then he said to Jesus, "Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom."

There are times in our lives when we feel that God has forgotten our situation and us.

I don’t know of a man or a woman of God who as not felt this way at some point. Now I said man or woman of God. I didn’t say nominal, loosely committed occasional church attendee who lives in a Christian community.

I said man or woman of God.

I am talking about the people who are the people we long to be.

Tonight I wish to speak to a couple of groups of people:

The first are those who are in the midst of though times when heaven seems like brass and the only one listening to your prayers and answering him his own way is Satan…

Then there is a second group who feel that God is a tease. That the promises of God are for others and not for them. Other peoples prayers are answered, but not yours which you believe means God must be against you. You are the ones who lie awake at night searching your life for the hidden sins, the so called secret sins that you have been told will stop this thing called blessing, that have the power to turn off this thing called grace that have somehow turned the heavens over your house to brass.

Then there is the third group who feel like they have lived life to bad for God to ever answer a prayer or fully restore a life to victory and full service.

If you ever feel like this then you are not alone in your sense that God has forgotten you. Lets look at the lives of some of God’s ‘greats’ and what they faced.

David

Have you ever known the touch of God on your life only to see it disappear by your own silly choices – that was the life of David

Samson

Have you ever been called by God and messed up so badly you never thought God would hear your prayer even one more time – that was the life of Samson

Nehemiah

Have you ever given yourself totally to the call of God, only to be mocked, ridiculed and let down by everyone, everyday in every way, that was Nehemiah

Job

Have things ever gone a way you never expected? Have things gone as far as they can go… then got a whole lot worst? Then that is the life of Job

Jeremiah the prophet

Have you ever prayed for family or church member sto come back to God – and they didn’t…. that is what it was like to be Jeremiah

This Kind….

We are all aware that the need today in the world is great and is something we are desperate to try and overcome.

We have tried so many things.

We have put our faith in activities and programs that once seem to work but now no longer work.

Our method and methodologies were once powerful, but now they are pitiful.

The many things we are trying to do and trying to apply to our churches and to see the church come back again to it’s greatness are proving useless and are having no effect at all!

It puts us into the exact same position as the disciples.

Jesus' response today, as then is that our methods are not correct.

Our ignorance and lack of understanding is holding off the worlds deliverance from the forces of darkness.

Jesus said that this kind need to be dealt with in a very specific manner.

The word fasting here means not just the absence of food for a period of time, but prayer and attention in a very specific manner, in a very focused manner.

We try and make Christ politically correct

Jesus said He came to save the lost. Not shelter them from the condition and state of their own heart.

Sunday after Sunday we present a Cross-less gospel. A gospel of no pain, a gospel of no shame, a gospel of no price, a gospel of discount virtue all in the name of reaching the masses.

At no place in the gospel do you see Jesus water down the force of His message or the requirements of Lordship. He tailored His message to the audience, but He never changed His standards of Lordship or requirements of those that were to follow Him.

He asked the same of His disciples that He asked of the woman at the well, that he asked of Mary Magdalene, that he asked of the man at the pool of Bethesda, that He asks of you and I.

Let me just reemphasize this one point – you cannot attempt to cure a patient, if they refuse to admit they are sick. A man must come first humbly to God and state clearly he is aware of the state of his soul and allow God to measure the remedy. There is no point someone coming to a doctor and saying look I am not feeling well, And then the Doctor gives you a prescription and as you leave the office you say : Thanks for your time but don’t worry, I have come up with this great cure by myself and I am going home toonly take 30% of what you recommended because the other stuff is a little hard to swallow.

Then 12 months later the patient comes back in a worst state and blames the doctor because he isn’t any better – yet we do it in our own lives as individuals and as churches all the time. We refuse the full council of God and wonder why the full power of God is not working in our lives.

Things are different today than they was 50 years ago or 100 years ago that keep people from Church

Rubbish!

The problem today in the church is not new circumstances of the mind but old conditions of the heart.

"Well these young people, all the x-box, the computer games, the radio, the cars, the movies, the internet, all these things are being offered to modern man and this is the problem today."

The world, the hardhearted or the backslidden has never been short of an excuse not to go to church.

This sort of thinking is monstrously superficial.

Just because there is a change in the form of pleasure, we think that the whole situation is new and we talk as if everything is just against US.

Hell and the devil have always been against us. The world has always hated this message and people, worldly people either in the church, or external to the church have never been short of an excuse to avoid it.

Two years ago I had a word of knowledge for Clare about his health.

He was suffering from cancer I told him that God would heal him but it would not be immediately, but he would be healed.

Clare is doing brilliantly and has fully and miraculously healed, bless God. I took this picture in Prescott Arizona last weekend.

The other reason - In and Out Burger; Double, Double Protein style.

Men are more likely than women to prefer marriage over lifelong singlehood and in many ways are as interested in serious family relationships as women, according to a new study that provides the government's first comprehensive glimpse into the male psyche.

The survey, released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, involved more than 12,000 men and women ages 15-44. It asked a variety of questions about sex, living together, marriage, divorce and parenting.

This is the first time men have been included in the agency's study, which has been conducted periodically since 1973. The new report, an analysis of data collected in 2002, focuses on men and offers some comparisons with women.

To the statement “It is better to get married than go through life single,” 66% of men agreed, compared with 51% of women.

“There's a lot of evidence out there in the culture — and this is the most striking I've seen yet — that men value what marriage is and does more than women,” says Scott Stanley, co-director of the Center for Marital and Family Studies at the University of Denver.

Responses from both sexes suggest that “the majority agree it is better to get married, and few people agree that divorce is best,” says Gladys Martinez, lead author of the study.

Other survey findings:

•47% of men and 58% of women have had a biological child.

•76% of men and 72% of women agreed “it is more important for a man to spend a lot of time with his family than be successful at his career.”

Neil Chethik, author of VoiceMale: What Husbands Really Think About Their Marriages, Their Wives, Sex, Housework, and Commitment, says the new data seem to mirror his research, in which 90% of married men said they would marry the same woman if given a chance to do it again. “Everything I've seen that has started to look at men more carefully shows that men are committed or dedicated.”

—————–

By Sharon Jayson - USA TODAY

Extract from Chapter 1

D. Martin Lloyd-Jones states that the audacity of the humanist lies not in their statement or philosophy but in the simple self evident fact that it just does not work.

They doggedly deny the existence of anything else other than human beings, and go on to say that man is this wonderful thing and yet if we look around our society, the simplest fool can tell that things are getting worst not better.

All our education, technology and politics and other man made attempts have not and cannot ever bring the enlightenment that has been falsely promised for centuries.

The parody of the blind leading the blind is that they neither know where they are going or what there environment looks like and yet they hail that what they see as perfection and if 'we' would only pluck out our eyes we would all see better.

And the liberal church, so preoccupied with it’s own wisdom, takes hot pokers of stupidity and self and every day drives them deeper into there own eyes of sensibility and logical observation doing everything they can to confirm their own illogical conclusions.

There is nothing that brings any credibility to the humanist argument.

For more click here

"I don't think being a minority makes you a victim of anything except numbers. The only things I can think of that are truly discriminatory are things like the United Negro College Fund, Jet Magazine, Black Entertainment Television, and Miss Black America. Try to have things like the United Caucasian College Fund, Cloud Magazine, White Entertainment Television, or Miss White America; and see what happens…Jesse Jackson will be knocking down your door.

Guns do not make you a killer. I think killing makes you a killer. You can kill someone with a baseball bat or a car, but no one is trying to ban you from driving to the ball game.

I believe they are called the Boy Scouts for a reason, that is why there are no girls allowed. Girls belong in the Girl Scouts! ARE YOU LISTENING MARTHA BURKE?

I think that if you feel homosexuality is wrong, it is not a phobia, it is an opinion.

I have the right "NOT" to be tolerant of others because they are different, weird, or tick me off.

When 70% of the people who get arrested are black, in cities where 70% of the population is black, that is not racial profiling, it is the Law of Probability.

I believe that if you are selling me a milkshake, a pack of cigarettes, a newspaper or a hotel room, you must do it in English! As a matter of fact, if you want to be an American citizen, you should have to speak English!

My father and grandfather didn't die in vain so you can leave the countries you were born in to come over and disrespect ours.

I think the police should have every right to shoot your sorry ass if you threaten them after they tell you to stop. If you can't understand the word "freeze" or "stop" in English, see the above lines.

I don't think just because you were not born in this country, you are qualified for any special loan programs, government sponsored bank loans or tax breaks, etc., so you can open a hotel, coffee shop, trinket store, or any other business.

We did not go to the aid of certain foreign countries and risk our lives in wars to defend their freedoms, so that decades later they could come over here and tell us our constitution is a living document; and open to their interpretations.

I don't hate the rich I don't pity the poor.

I know pro wrestling is fake, but so are movies and television. That doesn't stop you from watching them.

I think Bill Gates has every right to keep every penny he made and continue to make more. If it ticks you off, go and invent the next operating system that's better, and put your name on the building.

It doesn't take a whole village to raise a child right, but it does take a parent to stand up to the kid; and smack their little behinds when necessary, and say "NO!"

I think tattoos and piercing are fine if you want them, but please don't pretend they are a political statement. And, please, stay home until that new lip ring heals. I don't want to look at your ugly infected mouth as you serve me French fries!

I am sick of "Political Correctness." I know a lot of black people, and not a single one of them was born in Africa ; so how can they be "African-Americans"? Besides, Africa is a continent. I don't go around saying I am a European-American because my great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather was from Europe .

I am proud to be from America and nowhere else And if you don't like my point of view, tough…

I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG, OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA , AND TO THE REPUBLIC, FOR WHICH IT STANDS, ONE NATION UNDER GOD, INDIVISIBLE, WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!

86% of Americans believe in God. Therefore I have a very hard time understanding why there is such a problem in having "In God We Trust" on our money and having "God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. Why don't we just tell the 14% to Shut Up and BE QUIET!!!"