Covetousness, (continued from page 2)

In Matthew 26:14-15, "Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, What are you willing to give me if I deliver Him to you? And they counted out to him thirty pieces of silver." After Jesus was crucified, "Then Judas, His betrayer, seeing that He had been condemned, was remorseful and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood; And they said, What is that to us? You see to it; Then he threw down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed, and went and hanged himself" (Matthew 27:3-5). As with Achan, his covetousness brought him death in the end.

Ananias & Sapphira Compromised The Truth

The final example is about Ananias and Sapphira taken from Acts 5:1-11. Ananias and Sapphira, his wife, sold a possession and kept part of the money back for themselves. Though it was not wrong for them to keep part of the money (v.4), they lied to the apostles and brethren about how much they had sold the land for and claimed that they had given all for benevolence. Their covetousness caused them to lie and contributed to their death.

What caused these individuals to covet? James writes, "But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin when it is full-grown, brings forth death." Jesus said in Matthew 6:21, "for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Ephesians 5:3 says of covetousness, "...let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints." It is important for us not to love the world nor to have a love of money in order to avoid covetousness. I encourage you to place this verse of a song in your heart, "This world is not my home, I'm just a passing thru. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue... I can't feel at home in this world anymore."

Harry C. Washington, III
Woodland, CA.

Old Testament, (continued from page 4)

neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and

the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." Satan well understood that Eve was a free moral agent and thus became a lobbiest to influence her decisions. He campaigned to Eve and convinced her of the woman’s right to choose by appealing to those things which she found appealing or important to her. But, in his arguments of persuasion, he never pointed out to her that she also had the right to choose obedience to God. He never does!

In our society of ever plummeting morals, the forbidden fruit of sin does not just hang low on the tree, but often falls at our feet. Regardless of how easy sin is to reach, we decide for ourselves how accessible that sin becomes to us. Jesus said in Matt 7:14, "Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." The road you travel is the road you choose. Choose wisely!

Rational Thinking, (continued from page 7)

eminent scientist from Cornell University, looked upon "religion" as a branch of superstition unwilling to make full use of the facts. Yet he was quoted as stating that evolution's most elemental principle, that life came from non-life, has a mathematical probability so small that it would take 6,000 books of 300 pages each just to print the number! And he claims we are illogical.

Sir Arthur Keith, a noted evolutionist, declared with sterling logic, "Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We accept it because the alternative, special creation, is unthinkable." And what about atheism's view of the origin of life? George Wald, biologist from Harvard, describes evolution's dilemma thus: "Modern biologists, having viewed with satisfaction the downfall of spontaneous generation (life coming from non-life, CBG), yet unwilling to accept the alternative belief in special creation, are left with nothing. One has only to contemplate the magnitude of the task to concede that the spontaneous generation of an organism is impossible. Yet here we are, as a result I believe, of spontaneous generation." (italics mine, CBG) Amazing, you say! Yes, but only to those who are not as "rational" as our atheist neighbors.

Christians should make the very finest jurors, in that they are more accustomed to evaluating the evidence than most. Biblical Faith is not the acceptance of a thesis without the facts, but having examined all the evidence, faith reaches only those conclusions that are warranted by those facts.