This Articles page is proud to serve up links to the house specialties that were on offer at Chez ALS back in the year 2018.
Each entry below contains a "hook" that suggests what the article deals with (an hors d'oeuvre), the first several paragraphs (an appetizer), plus a link to the full article (the main course). If you just want to scan over a list of the titles of all the articles on this site, you can save time by grabbin' a burger at the Article Index page. Bon appétit!
If you want to look for a specific topic, use the search function in the sidebar. Use the menu below to go to similar pages for previous years.
JAN '18: Go for the Gold
The Winter Olympics are here, but the world's best athletes aren't the only ones who should have winning medals on their mind.
Go for the Gold
The Olympics have been in the news recently, partly due to North Korea's efforts to schmooze their way into the Winter Games in Seoul, South Korea in February. While some are welcoming the move, others are warning the Hermit State could simply be playing nice for sanctions relief and to buy time to advance their nuclear weapons program. (Ya think?)
Political intrigue aside, however, I've always enjoyed the Olympics; it's always exciting to see the world's best athletes compete at the highest level, and it's especially thrilling when an athlete you're rooting for ends up standing on that podium to receive a gold medal.
But just like those superbly conditioned athletes, we as born-again believers will also stand on a podium one day soon to be rewarded—only the rewards we receive will never tarnish or corrode...
FEB '18: It's Coming
Many believers today are getting antsy because they know the Rapture is coming...but that's not only thing that's coming.
It's Coming
I recently wrote about the judgment seat of Christ or the Bema, an event following on the heels of the Rapture in which Christians will be rewarded for their works that qualify (and forfeit rewards for those that do not). In that article, I made the comment that I believe part of our rewards will include more substantive roles in the Millennial Kingdom right back here on earth, where God's Word clearly promises us that we will rule and reign with Christ for 1,000 years.
Thinking about the Millennial Kingdom, however, motivated me go back and dust off an article that I started working on about a year ago—an article that got pre-empted and shelved in lieu of something else, and it has to do with some of the reasons why the Millennial Kingdom is a biblical certainty.
MAR '18: Rapture: TBD?
As one high-watch date after another comes and goes, some are grousing: Has the Lord delayed the Rapture?
Rapture: TBD?
My Taiwanese wife Phoebe does study the Bible a lot, but she seems to have avoided getting bitten by the end-time prophecy bug up to this point (although I'm working on her). So she caught me slightly off guard the other day when she asked me out of the blue:
"Honey, when will Jesus come back?"
Now, I've explained to her before all about the Rapture, the Tribulation, the Second Coming, and so forth, but she prefers to study the Gospels and some of the other New Testament epistles with no particular focus on end-time events. It takes her a wee bit longer because she studies English translations, not the Chinese translation, which according to her is bu hao (lousy, lit. "not good"). So, I always perk right up when she asks me a question about end-time stuff.
"Pretty soon, I think."
"Oh."
In spite of the fact that Phoebe's English is actually pretty good (light years beyond my Chinese), she and I routinely speak a peculiar hybrid of English and Mandarin Chinese at home (which I have dubbed Englinese), and that's why I couldn't help but laugh when she proceeded to half-jokingly ask me:
"Is it OK to ask Jesus kuai dian lai?"
APR '18: Watch Is the Word
There is a fringe group today that has twisted the word "watch" into something far different from what the Bible teaches.
Watch Is the Word
Watch. That's the word, isn't it?
That's the word on the lips of every born-again believer out there today living in obedience to the copious number of verses in Scripture that tell us to live in eager, active anticipation of the Lord's soon coming.
And for those blessed individuals who are eternally secure in Christ, that translates to the Rapture, when...
51...we will all be changed, 52in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed.
(1 Corinthians 15:51b–52)
The way prophetic events are racing inexorably toward their divinely ordained fulfillment, it's looking more and more as if the Church has one foot out the proverbial door. Or perhaps I should say in the proverbial door:
1After these things I looked and saw a door opened in heaven, and the first voice that I heard, like a trumpet speaking with me, was one saying, "Come up here, and I will show you the things which must happen after this."
(Revelation 4:1 / emphasis added)
MAY '18: The Turning Point
Events in the Middle East have many believing the fuse has been lit for the battle of Gog Magog, when God will turn His attention back to Israel.
The Turning Point
If you've been paying any attention at all to recent developments in the Middle East (and if you visit websites like this, I'm betting you have), you know that both Russia and Iran have been steadily building up a major military presence in Syria, a military presence that leads right to Israel's doorstep. Not only that, but the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) and Iranian forces stationed in Syria have been involved in several comparatively limited but worryingly escalating confrontations that are beginning to make a lot of people nervous.
I won't take the time here to recap the details of those skirmishes (I refer you to Commentary entries for 2/19, 4/16, and 5/14 of this year for a few of the particulars), but be advised that it very much appears that we are now officially in the run-up to the biblical conflagration outlined in Ezekiel 38–39, aka the battle of Gog Magog.
The fuse has been lit.
JUN '18: The Blood of Bulls and Goats
Ezekiel 40–48 describes worship at a future temple in the Millennial Kingdom that includes...uh, animal sacrifices?!
The Blood of Bulls and Goats
If you're anything like me, you are anxiously looking forward to the Rapture and the events that follow it, especially the Millennial Kingdom. That's when we will literally rule and reign with Christ right here on good old terra firma, which will have been restored to a veritable paradise.
It seems, however, that many people within the Church, even among the small and dwindling percentage that rightly understand that there will even be such a thing as a Millennial Kingdom, don't fully grasp certain things about the coming kingdom that are given to us in Scripture, and that is the reason for this article.
JUL '18: When We All Get to Heaven
Some today believe that a loving, merciful God would never send anyone to hell for eternity...or would He?
When We All Get to Heaven
I don't know about you, but I just don't have much use for a lot of the songs they sing in many churches these days. No offense, but you can keep all the repetitive, soft-and-sweet, plain vanilla lyrics—gimme a shot of the hard stuff. The old-time gospel songs we used to sing in the small-town church I grew up in still do it for me in ways that nothing they sing in churches today can touch: good old-fashioned gospel songs that punch you in the gut with the gospel message of salvation through faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ and the certainty of His soon return. Songs like "Power in the Blood," "At Calvary," Standing on the Promises," "When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder," "The Old Rugged Cross," "Victory in Jesus," "Are You Washed in the Blood?" and many others.
Oh, and one other song that became a most welcome earworm recently while reading up on one of the latest waves of false doctrine that is breaking over the levees of the Church today is "When We All Get to Heaven." What brought it to mind was an aberrant doctrine that is gaining a lot of traction in today's uber-tolerant, uber-inclusive society (and Church), where political correctness and the opinions of men increasingly trump the Word of God and a biblically sound presentation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
AUG '18: Breakfast of Champions
An NBA phenom writes a Bible verse on his sneakers to motivate himself, and some Christians use the verse the same way. So, what's the problem?
Breakfast of Champions
Wheaties, known as the "Breakfast of Champions" and for many decades a mainstay in the American breakfast cereal market, has had the image of a star athlete gracing the front of the box since 1934, when New York Yankee slugger Lou Gehrig debuted in that role. For 84 years running, a dazzling array of champions and star athletic performers have appeared on boxes of Wheaties, asking young champions-to-be the age-old question:
"Have you had your Wheaties today?"
Since the spring of 2015, that illustrious list of champions has included a highly celebrated member of the reigning NBA Champion Golden State Warriors.
If you know a basketball from a stack of buttermilk pancakes (and quite possibly even if you don't), you know the name. If you're anything resembling a basketball fan, he needs no introduction. Stephen Curry—point guard for the Golden State Warriors, three-time NBA Champion, and arguably the greatest three-point shooter in the history of the game.
Even if you know who Stephen Curry is, one thing you might not know about him is the fact that ever since his high school days he has always written something on the side of his sneakers before every game—a powerful motivational phrase that has driven him to excel and be the best he can be.
SEP '18: One Year On
It's been one year since the confirmation of the first great sign of Revelation 12, and I thought I'd mark the occasion with an interview.
One Year On
OK, let's have a show of hands. How many of you really thought we would be here to say "Happy First Birthday" to the REV12 sign? All right, you can both put your hands down now. I know for a fact that a substantial percentage of those who understood and embraced the stellar-planetary alignment of September 23, 2017 that confirmed the great sign in Revelation 12:1–2 never dreamed we would be here one year on, but here we be. Many assumed the second sign of verses 3–4 would follow in short order and WOOSH, we'd be outta here.
But here we are one year later, and in honor of that one-year anniversary I felt led to share some things from my heart about the current state of affairs one year after what was nothing less than one of the most stunning and compelling stellar-planetary signs God has ever revealed.
OCT '18: Delusion
The Bible speaks of a "strong delusion" God will send on mankind during the Tribulation, and people have various views of it. Here's mine.
Delusion
To anyone who is paying any attention at all to what's going on these days, one thing jumps out with screaming clarity:
The world just keeps getting worse and worse.
There's no nice way to say it—there's no use trying to sugarcoat it or massage it to make things seem better. With each passing day, we see society spinning increasingly out of control and plunging into greater depths of deception and depravity. Of course, biblically knowledgeable believers aren't exactly reeling in shock at this because we were warned in advance.
The apostle Paul minces no words in characterizing the way the world would become in the last days; and although the points he mentions have always been true to some extent, it's hard to deny they are intensifying in concert with the fulfillment of other end-time prophecies:
1But know this, that in the last days, grievous times will come. 2For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3without natural affection, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, no lovers of good, 4traitors, headstrong, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; 5holding a form of godliness, but having denied its power. Turn away from these, also.
(2 Timothy 3:1–5)
NOV '18: Twenty Questions (2)
The second edition of Twenty Questions, put together from questions I have answered on Quora over the last two years.
Twenty Questions (2)
No, not the party game.
Just 20 questions.
And 20 answers.
I have been working on an article lately that is taking a bit longer than expected, and so I decided to take a timeout to have a little fun and put together another "Twenty Questions" compilation, composed of questions I have answered on Quora over the last two years. As in the first edition, these are all manner of questions concerning God, the Bible, faith...you name it, and a few have been slightly edited.
So without further ado, I give you the second edition of "Twenty Questions."
DEC '18: The Event
New Agers have been channeling "aliens" for decades, and have received a detailed narrative to explain the Rapture and other things.
The Event
A couple of months ago, I wrote an article about the strong delusion Paul mentions in 2 Thessalonians 2:11, a delusion God will send upon the world during the Tribulation. In that article, I argue that this strong delusion that God will send upon a world that has rejected the truth of the gospel is nothing less than the idea that the Antichrist is their "savior," and that he should be worshiped as God. A Christ-rejecting world will fall for it hook, line, and sinker, and as a result be damned to an eternity of separation from God.
I also discussed how the UFO/alien narrative will play a key role in this strong delusion, as the Antichrist will present himself and be perceived as not necessarily an extraterrestrial per se, but at least as a man who has the support and backing of a benevolent extraterrestrial race, and who has been empowered by them to perform supernatural wonders to establish himself as the one chosen to lead the world into a wonderful New Age of enlightenment.
One important aspect of this strong delusion and the stages of delusion that will lead up to it that I didn't say too much about in my earlier article was the way in which this deception will incorporate and interact with the startlingly real future event that will trigger the whole shebang—something many in the New Age community have come to refer to simply as "the Event."
1. Adapted from Sunset Over Grass Field © AOosthuizen at Can Stock Photo
2. Butler With Tray © NewAfrica at Depositphotos
3. Holding Gold Medal © hin255 at Adobe Stock
4. The Lion and the Lamb – panoramio © Timothy Shields (cropped, resized) [CC BY 3.0]
5. Adapted from The Rapture © Hasenonkel at Can Stock Photo
6. Adapted from Sunset Over Grass Field © AOosthuizen at Can Stock Photo
7. Turning Point Road Sign © Andy Dean at Adobe Stock
8. Goat © rostyle at Adobe Stock
9. Adapted from Heaven's Gates in the Clouds © alswart at Adobe Stock
10. Adapted from Stephen Curry 2 © Keith Allison from Owings Mills, USA (cropped, resized, text added) [CC BY-SA 2.0]
11. Celebration of the First Year © OlegDoroshin at Adobe Stock
12. Man with a Mental Illness © mizar_21984 at Adobe Stock
13. Questions and Answers © OutStyle at Adobe Stock
14. Flying Saucers Around the Earth © oorka at Fotosearch
Scripture Quotations:
All Scripture is taken from the World English Bible, unless specifically annotated as the King James Version (KJV) or the American King James Version (AKJV).