God, Aliens, and Other Stuff

Pastor Mark Welch of The Pointe Church in Antelope, CA once shared a story about an aged pastor in Michigan who was being honored as the original founder of a church there. At a community meal, that old pastor wound up seated across from young Mark. The man asked Mark general questions as to where he was from and who he was. Mark told him about his father and grandfather who were pastors. Finally the old man began to tell a story. When he was a young man, he felt the call to be an evangelist. In those days, what you did was rent a huge circus tent and set it up wherever you could. People just showed up and the event ran as long as it needed. One time the evangelist came to a farm to ask permission to use the land. The farmer agreed, but warned, "Don't expect me to show up." The evangelist said that was fine. One night the farmer did show up with several friends. They were rowdy and drunk and rude. They heckled the minister as he preached. Suddenly, God spoke to the eva...

Scripture quotes are from biblegateway.com, NKJV. Whenever LORD is all caps, the actual Hebrew is the name of God, usually pronounced and spelled Yahweh or Jehovah in English. When written Lord, the word is Adonai, meaning Lord, our Lord, or my Lord. "Mary, did you know t hat your Baby Boy will calm the storm with His hand? Did you know t hat your Baby boy has walked where angels trod? When you kiss your little Baby you kissed the face of God?"   Lyrics by Clay Aiken   I highly recommend reading Part 1 before proceeding to this post. In that post, we reviewed the groundwork leading up to the amazing Isaianic prophecy in Isaiah 9 of the Old Testament. We saw that in the late 8th century BC, King Pekah of northern Israel conspired with King Rezin of neighboring Syria to attack King Ahaz of Judah. In fact, the Syrian troops were gathering in central Israel, referred to as Ephraim. This intelligence put all of Judah into a panic. The prophet Isaiah met King Ahaz on th...

Whenever LORD is all caps, the actual Hebrew is the name of God, usually pronounced and spelled Yahweh or Jehovah in English. When written Lord, the word is Adonai, meaning Lord, our Lord, or my Lord.   "Mary did you know that your baby boy would one day walk on water? Mary did you know that your baby boy would save our sons and daughters?" Lyrics by Mark Lowry The looming Syro-Ephaimite War The prophet Isaiah lived in Israel approximately seven centuries before the birth of Jesus Christ. He had a long ministry, covering the reigns of four kings of the little nation of Judah. During the reign of the third king, Ahaz, Isaiah had a most remarkable vision of a special child that would be born in his lifetime. That child would be a sign to Judah and its capitol Jerusalem that the Assyrians of northern Mesopotamia would not totally vanquish Ahaz’s kingdom. Nor would a confederacy of Syria and Northern Israel succeed in breaking into the city of Jerusalem, plundering its weal...