Is hell real?

The Bible speaks about heaven. The Bible also speaks about hell. Doesn't it seem strange to you that there are so many people who believe in one but not the other?

Christian author Randy Alcorn came across a message from someone who said that Jesus opposed the idea of hell, and that gospel texts which placed "hell" on Jesus' lips had been adulterated.

Said Randy (these are just extracts; you can read his full article here):

This comment is misinformed. The truth is that the oldest and most reliable biblical manuscripts include Christ's explicit statements about Hell. The gospel writers didn't make up their Lord's words in the gospels. They simply recorded them. And the hyper-careful scribes didn't add them to the manuscripts, they simply copied them, word for word, from one to another.

The truth is that Jesus spoke more about Hell than anyone else in all of Scripture. . . Jesus referred to Hell as a real place and described it in graphic terms. . . He spoke of a fire that burns but doesn't consume, an undying worm that eats away at the damned, and a lonely and foreboding darkness.

Christ says that the unsaved "will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth". . . Jesus taught that an unbridgeable chasm separates the wicked in Hell from the righteous in paradise. The wicked suffer terribly, remain conscious, retain their desires and memories, long for relief, cannot find comfort, cannot leave their torment, and have no hope. . .

It isn't just what Jesus said about Hell that matters. It is the fact that it was he who said it.

"There seems to be a kind of conspiracy," wrote Dorothy Sayers, "to forget, or to conceal, where the doctrine of hell comes from. The doctrine of hell is not 'mediaeval priestcraft' for frightening people in giving money to the church: it is Christ's deliberate judgment on sin. . . We cannot repudiate hell without altogether repudiating Christ."

Why do I believe in an eternal Hell? Because Jesus clearly and repeatedly affirmed its existence. As Sayers suggested, you cannot dismiss Hell without dismissing Jesus. . .

We may pride ourselves in thinking we are too loving to believe in Hell. But in saying this, we blaspheme, for we claim to be more loving than Jesus - more loving than the One who with outrageous love took upon himself the full penalty for our sin.

Who are we to think we are better than Jesus?

Or that when it comes to Hell, or anything else, we know better than he does?

God determined he would rather endure the torment of the cross on our behalf than live in Heaven without us. Apart from Christ, we would all spend eternity in Hell. But God so much wants us not to go to Hell that he paid a horrible price on the cross so we wouldn't have to. . .

The price has been paid, but we can't benefit from forgiveness unless we choose to receive it. A convicted criminal may be offered a pardon, but if he rejects it, he remains condemned.

By denying Hell's reality, we lower the stakes of redemption and minimize Christ's work on the cross. If Christ's crucifixion and resurrection didn't deliver us from a real and eternal Hell, then his work on the cross is less heroic, less potent, less consequential, and less deserving of our worship and praise.

Think about it.

Heat, flies and tears

Gali Weiss was a career officer in the Israeli Defence Forces; then she became head nurse at Shaare Zedek Medical Centre in Jerusalem. She's been missing from her post there for the past couple of weeks though. She's been head nurse at the Israeli field hospital caring for earthquake victims in Haiti.

Seeing sights, she says, like she's never seen before, like the streams of people in need leading up to the entrance of the hospital. Doctors have been working all hours. There is no end, she says, to the number of orphans after the earthquake, and no guarantee of where they will go.

More than 150,000 dead have now been buried. Almost 200,000 are believed to have died. More than a million and a half people are said to be homeless. Aid is expected to continue to be needed for months to come.

Her most difficult experience to date was delivering what the medical team thought was a stillborn baby. To their surprise, there was a second, living child in the womb. A story with a painful beginning had a good ending.

Conditions are difficult, with heat, flies and mosquitoes. "Every now and then," said Gali, "we have to pause and wipe away our tears. Then we just need to compose ourselves and move on to the next patient."

Wise words

Fellow Christian blogger Denny Hartford wrote something about marriage I just felt I had to reproduce here. Wrote young Mr Hartford (younger than I am, that is):

Marriage is supposed to be (and can be) about sharing, loving, forgiving and showing forbearance towards one another. And done right, two people move closer together, not farther apart. Love over time thus becomes more beautiful, more productive, stronger - an invaluable resource for not only partners and children but the general culture as well.

But when ego, career advancement, a love for money and position (not to mention roving affections) are allowed priority status in one's life, when these things assume the place that should be reserved alone for one's spouse, the pure and ennobling love of marriage cannot survive.

And neither can the culture. For though a secular judge can come along and divide the spoils, he cannot repair the broken hearts nor the damage done to children and extended family and friends. And with each sacred vow that is broken, the moral structure that underlies a secure and healthy nation is broken a bit more too.

New research figures published this week show that marriage is the number one factor in relationship stability. Said Harry Benson, author of a report by the Bristol Community Family Trust: "Based on data of 15,000 new mothers, marriage is the single biggest predictor, above and beyond the effects of income, education, age, ethnic group, benefit receipt and birth order."

The research shows that one in three unmarried couples with children separate before their child's fifth birthday, which is four times the rate of separation for married parents. Unmarried parents living together are at least twice as likely as married parents to split up in every category of income and education. And of couples who remain intact until their children are 15, at least 97 per cent are married.

Marriage is a wonderful thing. It was instituted by God Himself. It is not just a social convenience, nor an alternative to serial partners, nor something to be made a mockery of by same-sex relationships. It is intended to be a picture of the relationship between Christ and His church. It is the divinely appointed basis for the family and the basis for society.

Marriage vows are intended to be for a lifetime. Marriage is precious. Give yours the place it deserves.

Some good stories from Haiti

There have been some terrible stories coming out of the appalling tragedy in Haiti. But there have been some good stories too.

Like the story of the two-year-old boy who was buried under rubble for two days. After rescuers dug him out, his little face broke into a smile when he saw his mother waiting.

Like the story of the man who waited for days outside the ruins of the bank where his wife worked, refusing to believe that she was dead. After several days, rescuers got her out almost unscathed.

Like the story of the 3,000-member Church of God in Port-au-Prince. There were 250 people in the church building when the earthquake struck. All but six escaped. Despite having lost the church building and her home, the church's pastor, Pastor Janet, said the Lord told her the church's work must continue. Services were being held in the open air at the tent camp for the homeless. People were accepting Christ even before the preaching began.

"Everyone in our church has been fasting since the day of the earthquake," she said, "asking the Lord to restore our nation so that we can be a light for Jesus."

There is one more thing that needs to be said. Wealthy Saudi Arabia sent a letter of condolence to Haiti. By contrast, Israel was one of the first nations to offer help. Within three days, little Israel had 220 people arrived in Haiti - rescue experts, rescue teams, dog handlers, a crowd of doctors - with a complete field hospital, with operating theatres, x-ray equipment, ventilators, monitors and who knows what else. Within two or three days, the field hospital had treated hundreds of injuries and delivered three babies.

Israel, you will remember, is the nation that was accused of deliberately targetting civilians and deliberately killing children in Gaza. Think about it.

'I was completely in awe'

Marian Chadwick owns a boutique in a shopping precinct in the town of Frisco in North Texas.

It was almost time to lock up for the night, according to CBS news. She had already put the "Closed" sign on the shop door and was inside the shop serving her last customer.

A man walked into the shop wearing sunglasses and a hooded sweatshirt, pulled out a gun and demanded money. At first Marian thought it was a joke and began to joke with him.

When he quickly made it clear that this was no joke and began to bang on the glass counter with his gun, she looked him straight in the eye and said "In the name of Jesus, I command you to get out of my store. You are bound by the Holy Spirit and you are leaving."

The man began to back off, then pointed his gun at the customer and ordered her to get down on the floor. The customer said "I remember thinking 'I don't think so.'"

The gunman turned and left, without any money. No shots were fired and no one was hurt.

In the moment she had to think, Marian thought "If I give him the money, there's no guarantee he won't shoot me anyway. So let's go the hard way then."

Said the customer, Kathy Vereen:"I was just so completely in awe about how God did protect us."

Just for fun (2)

A man went to the doctor.

"What can I do for you?" said the doctor.

"Well," said the man, "the trouble is I can't pronounce my Fs, my Ts or my Hs."

"Well," said the doctor, "you can't say fairer than that."

Well, is it any wonder?

On March 7, 2009, the Daily Mail announced that under new proposals by the UK Government, serial teenage burglars and muggers could escape with a police caution if they had a drug habit.

On July 7, 2009, the Daily Mail reported that almost 1,000 criminals, including murderers, rapists and paedophiles, who should have been returned to jail for breaking terms of early release or after committing new offences were at large because police forces had failed to track them down.

On August 1, 2009, the Daily Mail said criminals on probation were committing one murder and one rape every week.

On August 22, 2009, the Daily Mail said teenage muggers and burglars could escape jail by carrying out as little as 10 minutes of community service a week.

On October 27, 2009, the Daily Mail reported that criminals released from custody supposedly under strict supervision committed 48 serious offences in a year, including murder and rape.

On November 9, 2009, the Daily Mail said that in one year almost 39,000 people were given a police caution for assault causing actual bodily harm and 739 a caution for causing grievous bodily harm.

On November 16, 2009, the Daily Mail said murderers and sex attackers were being allowed to sleep at home during their jail sentences, apparently because of a lack of prison places.

On November 23, 2009, the Daily Mail reported that of 5.2 million crimes reported to police in a year, around 1.7 million had not been investigated.

On November 30, 2009, the Daily Mail said that almost 200 prisoners, including murderers and sex offenders, had been released by mistake at the rate of one every week.

On December 23, 2009, according to the Daily Mail, serial offenders were being given as many as nine or ten police cautions in a year rather than being taken to court.

Assuming these facts are correct, is it any wonder that Britain is in the state that it is?

A young man to be proud of

I wrote here about Daniel James, paralysed from the waist down after an accident in a rugby scrum, who committed suicide, and Matt Hampson, confined to a wheelchair and needing a ventilator to breathe after an accident in a rugby game, who does charity work, coaches youngsters, writes a newspaper column and has his own website.

Now here's a story of another young man injured in a rugby game that will warm the cockles of your heart.

Matt King, a 17-year-old from a village near Biggleswade in Bedfordshire, was 20 seconds into his first professional rugby match when another player accidentally kneed him in the neck.

"I knew I had broken my neck straight away," said Matt. "The paramedics were asking me to move my toes and I couldn't. It was completely terrifying.

"My first thought was 'Let me die,' because my vision of what my life would be like was awful. That was the worst time of my life. I felt and experienced things that I wouldn't wish on any human being."

Matt is permanently paralysed from the neck down and depends on a ventilator to breathe.

During nine months in Stoke Mandeville Spinal Unit he realised he was still young and decided if he was to lead a meaningful life he needed an education.

He returned to school and gained A grades in A-level history and AS geography. He went to Hertfordshire University and graduated with a first class law degree.

He became the first quadraplegic to complete the New York Marathon, using an electric wheelchair with a steering device he controlled with his chin and raising £10,000 for charity.

Now 22 years old, Matt has been offered a training contract with a top London firm of solicitors specialising in personal injury claims. Said Julian Chamberlayne, the firm's training principal: "The way he has overcome his disability is incredible and his razor-sharp intellect will make him an asset to the firm."

He starts there next year after he finishes a legal practice course at the university.

Says his mother Glenda: "We never believed he would get this far. We are very proud of him. He never fails to amaze us with what he's going to do next."

Playing the blame game

When Adam ate of the forbidden fruit and God asked him "Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?" it was not because God wanted to know what had happened. He already knew. It was because He wanted Adam to confess.

You will remember how Adam replied: "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree, and I ate" (Gen 3:12). It wasn't my fault; it was the woman's fault. It was the woman You gave me. Perhaps it was Your fault. The blame game. People are still playing it, even to this day.

It wasn't my fault; it was somebody else's fault. It was the Government's fault. The council's fault. The school's fault. My parents' fault. The system's fault. I once heard an armed robber who had shot a woman he was trying to rob say "It was her fault. She should have given me the money." It wasn't my fault that I shot her. It was her fault that she got shot because she didn't give me her money when I told her to.

People will never get anywhere in life until they recognise they are responsible for their actions, and for the consequences of their actions.

The Bible says we are all sinners. None of us is perfect; not one.

If you will believe that Jesus died in your place to pay the price for your sin, tell Him that you're a sinner and sorry for your sins and invite Him into your life to be your Saviour and Lord of your life, He will forgive you every sin that you have ever committed. He will cleanse you inside so that you can know the peace of sins forgiven, look anyone in the eye and walk down the street with your head held high.

He will not only forgive you your sin but set you free from the power of sin, so that you don't have to do those things any more. If you sin after accepting Christ, it's not because you have to, but either because you choose to sin or because you allow yourself to do so.

So if you fail after accepting Christ? There's still forgiveness. 1 John 1:9 says "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Confess it. Repent of it. Tell Him you're sorry. He will be faithful to forgive you.

When you accept Christ, He gives you a new heart. Keep it fit for Him to live there. Be careful what you watch. Be careful what you listen to. Don't go to places or put yourself in situations where you're likely to be tempted.

"Keep your heart with all diligence," the Bible says, "For out of it spring the issues of life" (Pro 4:23).

Well, what does stupendous smell like?

I am a Bible-believing Christian. I believe the Bible is true because I have proved it to be so. I believe God exists because He transformed my life and brought me, through faith in Christ, into a personal relationship with Himself. I believe atheism is foolishness.

From time to time I write about atheism in this blog. Yet I doubt I could do so quite as well as does author Dave Hunt in a recent article of his.

It is astonishing, he says, that almost no one on either side of this debate ever mentions the one key factor that separates man from all lower creatures: man's ability to form conceptual ideas and to express them in words and music and art! We are made in the image of God our Creator and the lover of our souls. The same cannot be said of any other living creature.

This simple fact reveals the futility of searching the world of fossils to find a 'missing link' between man and lower creatures of any kind. It is equally futile to search the DNA of men and animals for a missing link. Neither the skeletal structure nor the DNA has anything to do with who the person really is. The DNA of a chimpanzee is 96 per cent like that of humans. This does not indicate any evolutionary connection between man and chimps as Francis Collins, a professing Christian recently appointed to head the National Institutes of Health, suggests. Even if the complete skeletons and DNA of Albert Einstein, Charles Dickens, and Ludwig van Beethoven could be discovered, would they hold the key to the genius of these men? Of course not! The real person is a nonphysical being living inside the physical body. This fact is indisputable.

As for your brain, it does not originate your thoughts. You are the thinker who will live on endlessly after the body lies rotting in the grave. Souls and spirits are not subject to the laws of physics and chemistry that govern our bodies. These facts bear serious consequences for each of us. What happens to the soul and spirit after death? Hebrews 9:27 states 'It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.' You can laugh your way into hell, but you can't laugh your way out. . .

Atheists want to avoid the question of origins. They talk about a sudden burst of energy that one critic named the 'Big Bang,' but they cannot tell us what energy is, where or why it was hiding, or why it suddenly showed itself in a cosmic explosion. Nor can they explain how life could spring forth from a universe that had experienced temperatures hotter than the interior of the hottest star. They can't tell us what life is or how it could be imparted to lifeless chemicals that the body comprises. Isn't it dishonest to talk about evolution without first of all facing certain foundational questions? . . .

Atheists are materialists. For them nothing exists except matter. Allegedly, man is no more than his physical body. The materialist thesis is easily disproved. Thoughts are not physical, nor are ideas. Dictionaries and encyclopedias are filled with words for which there are no physical descriptions. What is the color of ethical? What does stupendous smell like? How much does remarkable weigh? . . .

The truth cannot be avoided, and honestly facing it must not be delayed! Twice the Bible declares 'The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God' (Ps 14:1, 53:1).

That's just part of the article. I really do recommend that you read it all. You can do so by clicking here.

Homosexuals, Christians and the law

Homosexuals' rights are more important than Christians' rights - and that appears to be official.

When the Civil Partnership Act came into force in the UK in 2005, Lillian Ladele, a registrar employed by Islington Council, was unwilling to conduct same-sex civil partnership ceremonies as a matter of Christian conscience.

She tried to change her rotas. There were, she said, other registrars able to conduct same-sex ceremonies. But homosexual colleagues said her stance was "an act of homophobia" and complained they felt victimised. Miss Ladele was disciplined.

She claimed she suffered ridicule and bullying as a result of her stance and was effectively being forced to choose between her religion and her job.

She went to an employment tribunal claiming she had been discriminated against. The tribunal decided the council had discriminated against her by failing to consider her for promotion; deciding to discipline her and threatening her with dismissal; concluding she had committed gross misconduct; labelling and treating her as homophobic; disregarding her concerns about her treatment; and failing to apply its anti-discrimination policies to homosexual colleagues who were mistreating her. An employment appeal tribunal, however, overturned that decision.

Now the Appeal Court has decided that Miss Ladele suffered unfair treatment by her employer. (The council allowed confidential information about her to be discussed at a meeting of the council's Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Forum.) But it decided she had not suffered discrimination or harassment, because the council was treating her no differently to its other registrars by ordering her to carry out the ceremonies.

Lord Neuberger, Master of the Rolls, said the prohibition of discrimination by the 2007 Sexual Orientation Regulations takes precedence over any right a person would otherwise have by virtue of his or her religious belief to practise discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation.

Human rights law also put the rights of homosexuals before the rights of Christians to hold to their beliefs. It was simply unlawful for Miss Ladele to refuse to perform civil partnerships.

The Court of Appeal refused Miss Ladele permission to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Christian organisations said the ruling could see Christians banned from some jobs. "Our public services are increasingly using equality and diversity policies to leave Christians sidelined," said Andrea Minichiello Williams, of Christian Concern for Our Nation. "It's time for common sense to be restored."

'Don't let go. I'm coming home'

There was a remarkable story in the news the other day.

In 1974 James Bain, a 19-year-old black youth, was sent to prison in Florida for kidnap, rape and burglary.

While in prison, said his mother, he turned away from God because he thought God abandoned him. But she kept on at him, by phone and on visits, and "he came back around to find God again."

Jamie was in prison for 35 years from 1974 to 2009. In 2001, Florida passed a statute allowing cases to be reopened for DNA testing. Five times Jamie applied for the test. He was refused each time until an appeal court granted his application. His test proved he was innocent of the charges for which he was imprisoned. "Mr Bain, you are a free man," a judge told him.

Someone asked him if he was angry after serving so long for something he didn't do. "No, I'm not angry," he said, "because I've got God."

His mother is putting her house and her 1992 Toyota car in his name so that he can have something of his own. "He's suffered enough," she said.

Jamie, now 54 and grey haired, had been so worried about his mother, who had been in hospital several times. She was afraid she would die while he was still in prison. Then came news that he was to be released.

"Don't let go," he told her. "I'm coming home."

Happy New Year

I never used to observe New Year. While others were getting ready to celebrate, I went to bed. I didn't see the point. New Year's Day was just the same as the day before; the only thing that had changed was the date on the calendar.

Then I discovered, to my surprise, that although I didn't observe New Year, God did. I went to a church where they had the habit of holding a watchnight service on New Year's Eve. I found that God spoke to us during the service by leading us to Bible promises to direct us and encourage us in the year ahead.

New Year is a good time for looking back at what you did and what you didn't do. It's a good time for looking forward at what you're hoping to do and what you're hoping not to do. It's a good time for looking backward, looking forward and looking up.

May each one of you have a blessed and a prosperous New Year.

The best gift of all

Lee Strobel is a well known American Christian writer. More than 30 years ago he was an atheist, working at that time as a reporter on the Chicago Tribune.

During his time there he wrote a series of articles about Chicago's neediest people. For one of them, he visited a 60-year-old grandmother named Perfecta Delgado, living in a tiny two-room flat with her granddaughters Lydia and Jenny, aged 11 and 13.

Their previous home had been gutted by fire. Here they had no carpet, no furniture except a small kitchen table, and just a handful of rice to eat. The girls had only one short-sleeved dress each and a thin sweater between them. When they walked in the bitter cold to school, one would wear the sweater half-way there, then hand it to her sister to wear the rest of the way.

Perfecta had arthritis and was unable to work. She did, however, have a faith in Jesus and spoke about Him often. She said she was convinced that He had not abandoned them. Though there wasn't much in the flat by way of material goods, there was, somehow, a gentle feeling of hope and peace.

Strobel talked with them, got the material for his article, and went his way.

On Christmas Eve he was on duty in the Tribune newsroom. It was a poor news day; nothing was happening. On a whim, he decided to go back to Perfecta's flat and see how they were doing.

One of the girls opened the door. He could scarcely believe his eyes. Inside the flat there were rugs, roomfuls of furniture, a Christmas tree, presents, piles of warm winter clothes and boxes and boxes of food, all of it sent by people who had read his newspaper article.

What surprised him even more was that Perfecta and the girls were preparing to give much of it away. Why, he wanted to know. "Our neighbours are still in need," said Perfecta. "We can't have plenty while they have nothing. This is what Jesus would want us to do."

Strobel asked her how she felt about the generosity of the people who had sent all the goods.

"This is wonderful," she said. "This is very good. We did nothing to deserve this. This is a gift from God.

"But it's not His greatest gift. We celebrate that tomorrow. That's Jesus."

Happy Christmas!

Legalised euthanasia 'a mistake'

While we are on the subject of euthanasia, Els Borst, who was Dutch Health Minister when the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalise euthanasia in the early Noughties, has now said that legalising euthanasia was a mistake, and they should first have focussed on palliative care.

Care for the terminally ill had declined, she said, since euthanasia became legal, and more should have been done to give legal protection to those who wanted a natural death.

In 2008, Dutch doctors reported 2,331 cases of euthanasia, 400 cases of assisted suicide and 550 deaths without request. There is, of course, no record of the cases that weren't reported.

Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Dutch Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, said that even today effective palliative care was not in place in the Netherlands.

The country's politicians had denied there had been a "slippery slope." But how could you say that, he said, when euthanasia was originally only for the terminally ill and was now for the mentally ill and newborn babies?

A new turn in assisted dying battle

An unusual situation has occurred in the UK. For years, proponents of euthanasia have fought to have euthanasia made legal. For years, Parliament has refused to oblige.

Some few years ago, the euthanasia lobby changed tactic. It decided to press for assisted suicide to be made legal as a first step. Several bills were brought forward, but again Parliament declined to change the law.

Brits who wanted help to die travelled to an assisted suicide facility in Switzerland. Technically, relatives who accompanied them left themselves open to a charge of assisting a suicide. Police investigated the circumstances on their return, but none of the relatives were prosecuted.

Then a multiple sclerosis sufferer named Debbie Purdy, backed by the organisation that used to be known as the Voluntary Euthanasia Society but changed its name to Dignity in Dying, went to the High Court requesting an assurance that her husband would not be prosecuted if he accompanied her on such a journey. Unsurprisingly, the High Court declined to give her such an assurance, and the Appeal Court agreed with that decision.

She appealed to the House of Lords. Lord Phillips, the senior law lord, announcing the Lords' decision, said the law was unclear and the Director of Public Prosecutions must state in what circumstances he would and would not prosecute. The DPP, Keir Starmer, did so, thus effectively allowing assisted suicide in some circumstances without a change in the law by Parliament.

Lord Phillips said in an interview with the Daily Telegraph: "I have enormous sympathy with anyone who finds themselves facing a quite hideous termination of their life as a result of one of these horrible diseases, in deciding they would prefer to end their life more swiftly and avoid that death as well as avoiding the pain and distress that might cause their relatives."

In the meantime, at very considerable expense, the position of highest court in the land was transferred from the House of Lords to the new Supreme Court, which has Lord Phillips as its president.

Entering into the story at this point is a remarkable lady named Alison Davis. She was born with severe spina bifida. She also suffers from hydrocephalus, emphysema, osteoporosis and arthritis. She is confined to a wheelchair, is doubly incontinent and sometimes has intractable pain. For 10 years she wanted to die and several times attempted suicide until friends persuaded her that her life was worth living.

She went to India to visit seriously disabled children and became "mother" to 130 of them. She established a charity to support them and learned Telugu so she could write to them in their own language. She is a committed pro-lifer and heads an organisation called No Less Human, which stands up for the rights of the disabled.

Ms Davis, backed by the Christian Legal Centre, is seeking to challenge the law lords' decision in the Purdy case in the Supreme Court. She said the DPP's guidelines not only are "unfair, unjust and fatally discriminatory against suffering people, who deserve the same presumption in favour of life as any able-bodied person would automatically receive," but have no place in a civilised society.

Her legal challenge says the "expression of the private 'political' view of Lord Phillips in the Daily Telegraph raises a question of apparent bias" and his personal sympathy invalidated the House of Lords decision. (A House of Lords judgment in a previous case regarding immunity of prosecution of Chile's General Pinochet was set aside because Lord Hoffman, one of the law lords, had links to Amnesty International.)

It further claims that "the decision of the former House of Lords is 'unconstitutional' and usurps the power of Parliament," and calls for the full Supreme Court to reconsider the Purdy case.

It will be interesting to see how the Supreme Court responds.

The problems with global warming (3)

I have said that I do not believe in man-made global warming. I appear to be in good company. There are many who claim that there is no hard evidence for global warming, and even if there were, for the fact that man is responsible.

Melanie Phillips, for instance, points to the 700-plus international scientists who are critical of global warming theory. They have variously said that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is telling lies about the relationship between climate change and hurricanes, that its ice-core research is wrong, and that its statements are "all a fiction" and "the biggest scientific scam ever," with "no evidence to prove that current climate variations are not a natural cycle."

A couple of weeks ago hackers obtained around 1,000 e-mails sent to or received by Professor Phil Jones, director of the climate research unit at the University of East Anglia, and published them on the internet. The unit's work has been crucial in building the case for global warming.

The e-mails appeared to show that climate figures had been manipulated. What appeared to have happened was that scientists, rather than base their findings on the figures, had manipulated the figures to agree with what they thought was the case.

I am not an expert on climate. I want to make that quite clear. But there is one thing I do know.

Many years ago, after a worldwide flood, God said "While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease" (Gen 8:22).

That's God's promise.

The trouble is there are a lot of people who think they know better than God does, and even more people who are ready to believe them.

The problems with global warming (2)

Some 15,000 delegates, 45,000 green activists and 5,000 journalists will be in Copenhagen for the UN's climate change conference over the next 11 days.

It is estimated that the Climate Change Act, passed in the UK a year ago, will already cost Britain £18 billion, or £720 for every household in the country, every year between now and 2050. But that, it seems, is not enough.

A few weeks ago British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said negotiators had until the Copenhagen conference to save the world from global warming. The alternative to united action was a catastrophe of floods, droughts and killer heatwaves. The cost of failing to address global warming, he said, would be greater than the impact of two world wars and the Great Depression.

You might have thought the purpose of the conference was simply to consider whatever was responsible. Not so. A treaty had been prepared for signing at the conference, we are told, which would create a new global organisation with power, under the guise of saving the planet, to transfer money from one nation to another, and to enforce the conditions of the treaty.

The goal of the environmental movement, we are told, was to use climate change to bring the nations under the umbrella of an organisation with global governance.

Lord Monckton, a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, has argued that global warming hysteria was being advanced by the political left to impose global taxes on the United States in pursuit of international control of the US economy under a one-world government to be administered by the UN.

He told the Americans: "I read that treaty and what it says is that a world government is going to be created. The word 'government' actually appears as the first of three purposes of the new entity.

"The second purpose is the transfer of wealth from the countries of the West to Third World countries, in satisfaction of what is called, coyly, 'climate debt' because we have been burning CO2 and they haven't. And the third purpose of this new entity, this government, is enforcement. . .

"Unless you stop it, your president will sign your freedom, your democracy and your humanity away forever."

It was reported that President Obama was "leaning toward not going" to the Copenhagen conference. Then that he would be there for the first days, but not at the end. Last week it was said he would not be there at the beginning, but at the end, when the decisions would be made.

So what will be decided at the Copenhagen conference? We shall soon know.

Christ is the answer

What an age we live in!

One afternoon this week I was looking at a few recent news items. The Bank of England had loaned £61 billion of taxpayers' money to two banks without Parliament or the public being told. Representatives of 192 countries were about to meet in Copenhagen to consider spending vast amounts of money to prevent predicted global warming that isn't happening.

In the UK, convicted murderers were being allowed to sleep at home, apparently because of a lack of prison places. People guilty of causing grievous bodily harm, sexual assault and rape, including child rape, were being dealt with by being given a police caution.

Schools were failing to provide adequate teaching. Vast numbers of youngsters were leaving school without an adequate mastery of the three Rs.

On the evening of that same day I attended my first Christmas carol service this year. Standing by a Christmas tree in the bitterly cold outdoors in the centre of a little community not too far from my home with Christians who were singing carols with infectious joy, it hit me afresh.

He came. He did it. He lived, He died and He rose again.

He's alive today. He's coming soon. "Be of good cheer," He said, "I have overcome the world."

If you don't know Him personally, make His acquaintance this Christmas season.

"Come to me," He said, "all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

Five minutes to midnight?

Pressure on Israel has been increasing. And Israel appears to be ready to compromise on some important issues.

This week, following pressure from the US, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a total freeze on building construction in Judea and Samaria for 10 months.

The following day Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot announced that the US now wants Israel to release a thousand Palestinian terrorists from prison, allow Palestinian paramilitaries to operate in areas at present under Israeli control, and surrender land in the Jordan valley to the Palestinians - all this before starting talks with the Palestinians.

According to the newspaper, if those talks begin, the US will insist that Israel accept a Palestinian state in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and Gaza and ethnically clean those areas of Jews.

Recently US National Security Adviser General James L. Jones said nothing was going to stand in the way of the creation of a Palestinian state. The time had come, he said, to relaunch negotiations without preconditions to reach a final status agreement on two states. He emphasised President Obama's personal commitment to this resolution.

When he was campaigning for the top job at the White House, Barack Obama said "We must isolate Hamas [the Palestinian terrorist organisation in charge in Gaza] unless and until they renounce terrorism, recognise Israel's right to exist, and abide by past agreements. There is no room at the negotiating table for terrorist organisations."

That appears now to be forgotten.

Javier Solana, Secretary General of the Council of the European Union, was talking some months ago about imposing a Palestinian state by UN resolution, if necessary without Israel's consent.

Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper says that according to Israeli officials the US was considering adopting a unilateral declaration by the Palestinians of an independent state in the West Bank and Jerusalem, regardless of negotiations with Israel.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is said to have had positive meetings with EU states, including France, Spain, Sweden and the UK, with regard to the plan for the unilateral declaration of an independent state, and he is reported to have said the US did not oppose his plan.

When Israel's Prime Minister visited the US earlier this month, he was granted a meeting with President Obama only at the last minute. He was transported to the White House in a van, instead of the official vehicle which normally takes world leaders to meetings with the US President, and the White House issued no official photographs of the meeting.

Meanwhile, Israel is still faced with the possibility of attack from Iran, whose leadership has promised to wipe Israel off the map. While Iran rushes to stock nuclear weapons, the US and the EU do nothing to prevent it except continue to threaten sanctions.

Says investors.com:

Iran tests an advanced warhead design as it gets caught shipping weapons to Hezbollah. Syria is reported to give the group operational control over Scud missiles. It's five minutes to midnight.

Tyranny abhors a vacuum. While the US and the West dither in Hamlet-like fashion over whatever we shall do in places such as Afghanistan and Iran, the Axis of Evil is in full swing in its plans to destroy Israel and threaten Europe and America. . .

The time for dithering on Iran is over.

Iran is currently engaging in large-scale military exercises to protect its nuclear sites from a possible pre-emptive strike by Israel, and trying to pressure Russia for delivery of promised

S-300 anti-aircraft defence systems, which will make an attack on Iran's nuclear sites so much harder.

Pressure on Israel will continue to increase as Bible prophecy continues to be fulfilled.

Getting answers to prayer (again)

The Bible tells the story of Hannah. Hannah was dearly loved by her husband Elkanah, but she had a problem. She was barren. She had no children.

Elkanah's other wife, Peninnah, who evidently had no trouble having children, used to mock Hannah until Hannah was throroughly miserable. Why was Peninnah allowed to mock Hannah in this fashion? Because, I would suggest, Hannah needed to get desperate.

When she got desperate, she went to the temple and prayed. She promised if God would give her a son she would give him to the Lord all the days of his life.

When Eli the high priest saw her lips moving and no sound coming out, he thought she had been imbibing a little too freely and told her to leave off the drink. Hannah explained she was not drunk, but had been praying from the anguish of her soul. Eli blessed her, and prayed her prayer would be answered.

When Hannah left the temple, she wasn't sad any more. She knew she had touched home. She knew her answer was on its way.

When the child was born, she kept the promise she had made to the Lord. When the boy was weaned, she took him to the temple and gave him to Eli. The boy, Samuel, became the prophet in Israel. (You can read the story in 1 Samuel.)

There are two lessons from the story of Hannah. The first is that sometimes an answer to prayer can be delayed until it fits in with God's plans and purposes. The second is that sometimes, instead of just putting up with a situation, we need to get desperate. When we pray like we won't take no for an answer, things begin to happen.

Is that OK?

Britain's conspiracy of shame

On the subject of abortion, Chuck Missler, of Koinonia House, suggests that after decades of battling for the hearts and minds of America, the effects of millions of prayers are being felt.

Between faithful crisis pregnancy workers, technology that allows us to look inside the womb, and mothers who have hope for a better way, the tide is turning against abortion in the United States, he says. There are now officially more people in America who call themselves pro-life than pro-choice. . .

Abortion is losing its appeal all across the nation. A Gallup poll in May found that more than half (51 per cent) of Americans polled described themselves as "pro-life" and 42 per cent described themselves as "pro-choice." The self-described pro-lifers outnumbered pro-choicers for the first time since Gallup started polling on this question in 1995. . .

It is good to see hope for America's unborn children after decades of fighting. But the battle is not over. There are still more people who need to come to truly appreciate the value of even the youngest human life. There are millions of little ones still waiting to be born, and there are millions of mothers who will be much better off finding help so they can joyfully hold their babies in their arms. Keep praying.

What we have here in Britain is a Government-led conspiracy to see that abortion is made available to anyone who wants it.

The Government will tell you that an abortion is allowed only "if two registered medical practitioners certify in good faith that continuation of the pregnancy would involve risk of injury to the physical or mental health of the woman greater than if the pregnancy were terminated." Doctors (some are more conscientious than others, it must be said) sign consent forms at random, sometimes without even seeing the patient - and get paid for it.

Recently the ProLife Alliance won a long, drawn-out legal battle to force the Department of Health to reveal details of abortions carried out between 24 weeks of pregnancy and birth ostensibly on grounds of serious handicap. The Department of Health tried practically every trick in the book to prevent the information being made available.

The alliance said in a statement:

The most significant aspect of the tribunal decision is not so much the ruling re the disclosure of statistics as the damning assessment of the Department of Health's failure to regulate abortion.

The Department bears the full burden of enforcing abortion laws in this country, yet the tribunal highlights the absence of any mechanism for rigorous scrutiny of abortion referral forms, with no audit, spot checks, outside opinion or quality control of the basis for the terminations. It expressed particular concern that decisions were not scrutinised clinically or substantively and that no witnesses were able to point to a case where the diagnosis of a certifying doctor had ever been checked by the Department of Health.

Whilst the alliance is opposed to all abortions, it says, it would argue that at the very least there should be mechanisms in place to ensure conformity with the existing requirements of the Abortion Act.

I look forward to the day when many more people on this side of the Atlantic become seriously concerned about the barbarous practice of killing unborn babies.

You can make a difference

Mrs Mary Fox lived with her 17-year-old son Raum in Bodmin, Cornwall. Raum, who had learning difficulties, was bullied by local youths - to the extent that his mother walked with him to and from school.

On Guy Fawkes night, some youth put a lighted firework through the letterbox of their home. The firework set the house on fire. Three youths were seen laughing and mocking outside the house as flames shot out from the front door two feet into the air.

Raum suffered minor injuries as his mother pushed him through an upstairs window. His mother died in the fire.

What happened to them brings to mind the case of 38-year-old Fiona Pilkington, whose teenage daughter Francecca had severe learning difficulties. Local youths made their lives a misery for years. They shouted obscenities and threw missiles at the house; I don't know what they didn't do altogether. Ms Pilkington made 33 separate complaints to the police. The police and the local council apparently did nothing.

Eventually Ms Pilkington decided she couldn't take any more. She put her daughter in her car, drove to a quiet spot, doused the car in petrol, and with both of them sitting inside, ignited the petrol. Both died in the blaze.

I don't blame the British nation as such for getting into the state that it has, although a nation is made up of individuals, and every individual must be responsible for his own conduct. I don't blame the Government for everything that happens, although the Government has done little to stop it, and much of what it has done has only made things worse.

In large part, I blame the Christian church. I think the Christian church - of which I am a part - has not been what God intended it to be and has not lived as God intended it to live.

Please don't be discouraged. Be encouraged. Decide you are going to be the person God intends you to be and live like God intends you to live, letting your light shine into this nation's darkness so that you will make a difference.

A word from Dottie Rambo

The other night when I tuned in to a Christian TV station there was a recorded interview with Dottie Rambo. Dottie Rambo was a gospel singer who wrote thousands of gospel songs.

She appears to have had some times of heartache in her life. Perhaps it was during one of those times that she wrote the particular song she was discussing. I don't know the title of the song; I'm not too sure of the words. But the theme of the song was this: you've come too far to turn back now. You've fought too many battles. You've seen too many victories. You've seen too many suns go down to think about quitting at this stage in the game.

When God had finished sending plagues on Egypt and that colossal number of Israelites was on its way to the Red Sea there was still time to turn back. When the Israelites were camping by the Red Sea and they found themselves trapped between the Red Sea in front of them and Pharaoh's chariots behind them there was still time to turn back. But once they had crossed the Red Sea on dry land and the waters of the Red Sea had closed behind them, there was no going back.

Ahead of them was the wilderness. It wasn't going to be easy. The difference was that now they had their freedom. In Egypt, their lives had been dictated by the slavemaster's whip. Ahead, their lives would be subject to God's promises.

The Christian life is something like that. When you became a Christian, Paul says, you were delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of His Son. It isn't all easy, being a Christian, but it's all glorious. I don't know if it happened that way with you, but when you became a Christian, someone should have told you you were going to be in a battle. "Be strong," Paul told Timothy, "in the grace that is in Christ Jesus." The thing is you're on the winning side. "Thanks be to God," says Paul, "who always leads us in triumph in Christ" (2 Cor 2:14).

Starting the Christian life is not enough. We've got to run the race. We've got to finish the course. We've got to cross the line. That's the important thing: that we finish the course.

There may be a Christian reading this who has had a hard time and is feeling ready to quit. Don't do it. God knows where you live. He hasn't forgotten your address. He hasn't accidentally deleted your personal details off His computer database. He has a purpose for your life and He is preparing you for it. The most important deliverance of all may be just around the corner.

Besides, if you have experienced His deliverance and known His love, if you have, as it says in Hebrews, "tasted the heavenly gift. . . become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come," who are you going to go back to?

You mustn't give up. "He who endures to the end shall be saved." You might have a few bumps and bruises by the time you've done, but you need to reach the finishing line. You can't give up. You've fought too many battles. You've been delivered too many times. You've seen too many victories. You've come too far to quit now.

The problems with global warming (1)

There always seems to have been someone to tell us either that we are about to enter a new ice age and get ourselves frozen to death or that the ice caps are going to melt, the earth is going to become desert and we are all going to be roasted to a frazzle.

I am old enough to remember how around 1970 Americans like Paul Ehrlich were telling us quite clearly that by the year 2000 there wouldn't be enough food to eat or air to breathe on the planet.

The latest scare, of course, has been man-made global warming. Governments appeared to fall for it. Unfortunately for the environmentalists, the arguments in its favour appear to be losing their potency. The BBC now says that for the last 11 years there has not been any increase in global temperatures. Over the past 11 years, in fact, I believe global temperatures have dropped.

More and more people have begun to see that there is no concrete evidence for man-made global warming, to the extent that environmentalists are no longer talking about global warming, but about climate change. Climate change, of course, includes not only global warming, but global cooling.

An attendee at an environmental conference recently complained that in any other sphere, people wanted to see independent verification of scientific findings; but if environmental organisers said something, it was taken as gospel.

What he wanted to see, he said, was journalists treating "big environmentalism" the same way they treated big politics, big government and big business. By asking the same questions. Like where's the money coming from to promote all this about man-made global warming? And who's channelling it?

Now there are some interesting questions. . .

Some atheists are no longer so sure

Chuck Colson points out in Christianity Today that while Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens are producing books promoting their atheism, other British atheists are reconsidering the matter and coming to different conclusions.

Anthony Flew has concluded that evolutionary theory has no reasonable explanation for the origin of life and that atheism is not logically sustainable.

A. N. Wilson noticed people who insist we are "simply anthropoid apes" cannot account for things like language, love and music. That and the even stronger argument of how the Christian faith transforms individual lives convinced him that the religion of the incarnation is true.

Colson, who says faith and reason are not enemies, gets students to write four basic questions on a piece of paper: Where did I come from? What's my purpose? Why is there sin and suffering? Is redemption possible?

On the other side of the paper, they list philosophies and religions and examine how each philosophy or religion deals with the four questions and which best conforms to the way things really are. Students quickly see that only Christianity teaches that humans are created in the image of God and it is no coincidence that Christians have waged most of the great human rights campaigns.

People have a caricatured view of Christians, seeing them as followers, often hypocritical and judgmental, of an outdated book. But an explanation of why Christianity is so reasonable, says Colson, will open the mind, if not the heart, of many a doubter.

A hope worth having

Hope is what keeps people going. People in the Holocaust who lost hope died quickly, they tell me. Countless thousands who continued to hope perished too. But some who dared to hope survived, often in incredible circumstances.

People like Ruth Dobschiner, a nurse in Nazi-occupied Holland who lost all her family in the Holocaust but survived herself as a result of what seemed like a series of miracles. She came to faith while hiding in a Dutch attic. After the hostilities she moved to Scotland, and lived and worked in Glasgow for quite some years.

A couple of years ago I came across a bench dedicated to her name in a National Trust sanctuary south of Oban. I never did find out how it came to be there. One day, perhaps, I will.

Christians who have trusted Christ for His salvation have a hope more certain than the ground beneath their feet. One day this old world might be rolled up like an old blanket, but the hope we have who have trusted in Christ extends clean out of this world into the next.

The book of Hebrews speaks of those

. . . who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us.

This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the inner part behind the veil,

where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus. . .

This hope, both sure and steadfast, goes beyond the veil into the very presence of God. Jesus is the forerunner. He has entered for us. His presence there is proof that those who own Him will be there with Him.

Whenever I read those words in Hebrews (and sometimes when I don't) I have a picture in my mind. The details may sound a little ridiculous, but the picture as a whole so clearly illustrates the point.

With me is a rope, perhaps of the sort that mountaineers use, but absolutely unbreakable. The rope goes from me up into heaven and over the windowsill of God's throne room (I told you the details of the picture were somewhat unbiblical). At the end of the rope is an anchor, and one arm of the anchor is caught around one of the legs of God's throne.

In other words, only if God Himself is overthrown can the hope He has provided fail.

Now there is a hope worth having.

Middle East tensions increase

Israel's situation becomes more difficult as the days go by. This week the United Nations Human Rights Council discussed the Goldstone commission's report into the fighting between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead. The report accused Israel of war crimes.

The council heard wildly antisemitic diatribes from Muslim nations. It also heard testimony that "the Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare."

The council approved the Goldstone report by 25 votes to six.

To give you an idea of the impartiality involved here, the Human Rights Council, in setting up the commission headed by Judge Richard Goldstone, had called for "an urgent, independent international fact-finding mission, to be appointed by the President of the Council, to investigate all violations of international human rights law by the occupying Power, Israel, against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in the Gaza Strip."

In other words, Israel was condemned before the "independent, international fact-finding mission" began.

There has been rioting in Jerusalem in recent days.

In 1996 Israel decided to open an archaeological tunnel near the Western Wall. Palestinians claimed it was an attempt to attack a mosque on the Temple Mount and used it as an excuse for a season of violence, with Palestinian security forces, armed by Israel, opening fire on Israeli soldiers.

In 2000 Palestinians used the excuse of a visit to the Temple Mount by Ariel Sharon - a visit that had been agreed in advance with the Palestinian Authority - to start the second intifada, years of terror which left 1,500 Israelis dead.

This time Palestinian authorities claimed, without any evidence, that Israelis were seeking to worship on the Temple Mount and called Palestinians to flood the Temple Mount to protect the mosque there. Masked Palestinians threw stones at Israeli police; 18 policemen and 15 protesters were hurt.

Fatah leaders called on European governments and the US to condemn Israel's imaginary provocations. European governments - it would be funny if it weren't so serious - demanded Israel end its bad behaviour, and the US demanded that Israel explain itself.

There were claims that it was an attempt to start a third intifada. If it was, it doesn't seem quite to have caught on - yet.

The world has discovered that Iran had a further nuclear processing plant it hadn't got round to telling the International Atomic Energy Authority about. This was said to be proof that Iran intends to produce not nuclear energy, as it has always claimed, but nuclear weapons. Iranian president Ahmadinejad, who has promised to destroy Israel, remained defiant and Iran continued to test rockets which can reach Israel.

Israelis have said that if nothing is done to stop Iran producing nuclear weapons Israel will have to attack Iran's nuclear sites by the end of the year. No one seems to be doing anything effective to stop Iran's march to nuclear capability.

Meanwhile, Ray Gano provides more evidence of the Obama administration's pro-Arab sympathies and lack of concern for the Jews.

The Jews recently celebrated some of the most important days in the Jewish calendar - Rosh Hashanah, the 10 Days of Awe and the Day of Atonement. The United States Consulate in Jerusalem - Israel's capital - made no mention on its website of the Jewish festivals, but included greetings from Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and the US Consul General to the Muslims for the celebration of Eid.

Consulate staff explained that they are the US representative to the Palestinian Authority, while the United States Embassy in Tel Aviv is the US representative to Israel.

There is only one problem with that. The website of the embassy in Tel Aviv didn't mention the Jewish holy days either.

A tragedy 15 times over

According to the Daily Mail, a woman has admitted having had 15 abortions in a period of 17 years. The woman, an academic prodigy in her teens but from a troubled family, said the abortions were "an act of rebellion."

It's interesting that her abortions were punctuated by several attempts at suicide.

An abortion is decided on usually not to save the life of the mother, but for selfish reasons, like "My boyfriend told me I had to get rid of it," or "Having a baby now would ruin my career" or "This really isn't the right time for me to have a baby just now."

The tragedy is that each abortion takes a human life - a life given for a purpose. Each tiny person in the womb is a unique individual with a unique personality and a life never to be repeated.

While we are on the subject, if you would like to hear a magnificent pro-life song beautifully sung, click here. I really would encourage you to listen to this.

If you happen to be reading this and you are hurting or in need of help because abortion has touched your life, click here.