I’ve had some dark years.  Many, in fact.  I learned about Jesus as a youngster, learned the Kingdom of Heaven would open its doors wide, once I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior.  This, my father taught to me.  What caused me to rebel, go seeking elsewhere; what compelled me to run from Him?  I am unsure, but oh, what I learned!  I spent many years reading the Gnostic gospels.  I felt those in the higher echelons of the church had changed and rearranged the word of God in order to gain power for themselves.  They wanted to rule over the people.  They wanted to serve as mediator between God and the masses.  I felt
those in power knew ‘the useless eaters’ would remain useless if they had no direct access to God.  Well, all this may be so.

What caused me to turn to the Lord? A very dear friend!  A soul winner.  His instruction came at the end of many years of searching, yearning and seeking.  This friend came along just in the nick of time, for by then, I possessed an empty and craving heart.  I had lost hope of ever finding peace.  My soul sought the Lord’s favor, and I was unaware that this was the source of its dissatisfaction.  Once I made the call, spoke directly to the Father, confessed my sins to Him, claimed Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, I felt the Holy Spirit rush in to claim me.  I was home at last.  Thank God almighty, I was home at last.

A week ago or so, Karen King of the Harvard Divinity School, came out with the news that she had found a fragment that proclaimed that Jesus was married.  Well, after all, it is time for this news to come around again.  Apostates are not going to cease their effort to discredit God and His son, Jesus, His life, the Word, and the scripture found in the New and Old Testaments.  Yet, I know the word of God has been left intact, in order to reach all saints, everywhere.  I know he has saved it for us.  He is at the helm, after all.  He can do that.  I can feel the truth of scripture when I spend time reading it.  The Holy Spirit fills my every cell and causes me to nod my head in agreement.  Yes, yes, yes!

There is nothing Karen King can do to dampen my loyalty and faith in Jesus Christ.  For you see, I spent years reading the Gnostic gospels, yes, even some of Karen’s own work.  Was I filled with the love of God?  No!  I was left empty, craving more, with a hole in my heart as big as the Pacific Ocean.  What Karen is not understanding is that what she proposes to be the truth of God is not, in fact, the truth.  The truth can only be found in the Word.  Why do I say this?  Because only the Word of God fills my heart’s desire, leaves me feeling content and happy, leaves me knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt where I best and safely abide. The only thing I could count on coming from the Gnostic gospels was that reading them always left me with more to question, a serious lack, a deep and desperate need to quench my seeking and miserable soul. Always!

What about Karen King?  Professor Karen King, “was appointed to the Divinity School [Harvard] in 1998 and from 2003 to 2009 served as the Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History.  In October 2009, she became the first woman appointed as the Hollis Professor of Divinity, the oldest endowed chair in the United States (1721).  Trained in comparative religions and historical studies, she pursues teaching and research specialties in the history of Christianity.” 

“Her books include The Secret Revelation of John; The Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle; What Is Gnosticism?; Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity(with Elaine Pagels); and Revelation of the Unknowable God. Other publications include Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism (ed.) and Women and Goddess Traditions in Antiquity and Today (ed.).”

Read More About Karen King Here.

In my understanding, divinity is defined as nothing less than God.  I have strong feelings, however.  Karen King holds a 'godly' position, but is actually a wolf wearing a coat of shearling.  These are big words:  Christianity, Divinity and Eccesiastical.  Yet the works she has authored indicate her primary interest is Gnosticism.  I only need to cite her list of accomplishments to come to that conclusion.  What about this fragment that she has found? 

Let us consult Al Mohler’s blog at Religion Today.  From Gospel of Jesus’ Wife?  When Sensationalism Masquerades as Scholarship, by Al Mohler, September 20, 2012.

“The little piece of ancient papyrus with its fragmentary lines of text is now, in the hands of the media, transformed into proof that Jesus had a wife, and that she was most likely Mary Magdalene. Professor King will bear personal responsibility for most of this over-reaching. She has called the fragment nothing less than “The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife” — a title The Boston Globe rightly deemed “provocative.” That same paper reported that Professor King decided to publicize her findings before additional tests could
verify the fragment’s authenticity because she “feared word could leak out about its existence in a way that sensationalized its meaning.” Seriously? King was so concerned about avoiding sensationalism that she titled the fragment “The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife”?"

"This is sensationalism masquerading as scholarship. One British newspaper notes that the claims about a married Jesus seem more worthy of fans of Dan Brown’s fictional work, The Da Vinci Code, than “real-life Harvard professors.” If the fragment is authenticated, the existence of this little document will be of interest to historians of the era, but it is insanity to make the claims now running through the media.”

“Those who use Gnostic texts like those found at Nag Hammadi are attempting to redefine Christianity so that classic, biblical, orthodox Christianity is replaced with a very different religion. The Gnostic texts reduce Jesus to the status of a worldly teacher who instructs his followers to look within themselves for the truth. These texts promise salvation through enlightenment, not through faith and repentance. Their Jesus is not the fully human and fully divine Savior and there is no bodily resurrection of Christ from the dead.”

“…Those arguing for the superiority of the Gnostic texts deny the divine inspiration of the New Testament and prefer the heterodox teachings of the Gnostic heretics.  Hauntingly, the worldview of the ancient Gnostics is very similar, in many respects, to various worldviews and spiritualities around us today.”

““The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife”? Not hardly. This is sensationalism masquerading as scholarship. Nevertheless, do not miss what all this really represents — an effort to replace biblical Christianity with an entirely new faith.”
 
I think it’s time now to return to the book of Jude!  John Piper will help us target what we need to know.  Remember this, brothers and sisters, for this issue is definitely going to come around again!  There are those who want you to question your faith.  The great deceiver would want you to turn away from it entirely!

Read The Value of Learning: A Lesson from Jude, by John Piper.  Piper sites the little book of Jude to remind us what to look for in our daily lives as Christians.  We are under attack, both from those who have turned away from Jesus Christ, and sometimes even from members of our own church:

"In this next-to-last book of the Bible, Jude writes to encourage the saints to "contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints" (verse 3). The letter is a call to vigilance in view of "certain persons [who] have crept in unnoticed    ...ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ" (verse 4). Jude describes these folks in vivid terms. They "revile the things which they do not understand" (verse 10). They "are grumblers, finding fault, following after their own lusts; they speak arrogantly, flattering people for the sake of gaining an advantage" (verse 16). They "cause divisions, [and are] worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit" (verse 19)."

Here are the verses from biblegateway.com, NASB:

Jude 1:3
Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.

Jude 1:4
For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

Jude 1:10
But these men revile the things which they do not understand; and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed.

Jude 1:16
These are grumblers, finding fault, following after their own lusts; they speak arrogantly, flattering people for the sake of gaining an advantage.

Jude 1:19
These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit.

Lord, Lord, Father, Father we ask that you protect us from the great deceiver.  Give us the eyes to perceive the truth in your glorious word.  Give us the ears to hear and immediately identify the great deceiver.  Give us the wisdom to know that these efforts to weaken our faith will never cease.  Treachery is everywhere, please protect us, give us strength!  Praise be thy name!  In the name of Jesus we all pray, by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

The latest in the nuclear family warfare surrounding the Trinity Broadcasting Network:  A photograph entered into the court record of what appears to be Jan Crouch, her head tossed back in ecstasy, showing off a letter that is alleged to have been written by her husband, Paul, on what was assumed to be his deathbed. In this letter, according to documents filed in Orange County Superior Court, the ailing Paul Crouch Sr. decided who would lead the Trinity empire after he was gone. It would not be his namesake, son Paul Crouch Jr. – but another son, Matthew Crouch.

“The photo was taken by Matthew Crouch in mid September 2011 while Paul Crouch Sr. was in the hospital suffering from congestive heart failure,” says the declaration of Michael Koper. “Apparently, Matthew Crouch and Jan Crouch were celebrating what they believed was Paul Crouch Sr.’s impending death and Matthew Crouch’s promotion to President of TBN that would subsequently occur.”

Paul Crouch Sr. didn’t die. But Matthew Crouch is now in charge of Trinity’s day-to-day operations, while brother Paul Crouch Jr. and his entire family have been ousted from the Trinity empire.

Perhaps not coincidentally, both of Paul Crouch Jr.’s daughters – Brittany Crouch Koper and Carra Crouch – are suing Trinity. Brittany Koper has accused the mighty Christian broadcaster of playing fast and loose with the ministry’s millions, and provided internal documents to back up her claims. Carra Crouch alleges that she was plied with alcohol and raped by a TBN employee in Atlanta when she was just 13 – and that her family covered up the incident, rather than report it to authorities, to protect TBN’s reputation.

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I heard this down in Kentucky many years ago.  I was down there deer hunting with a friend on his family's property.  Way back in them hollers, anyway, it was in camp on the second night, we were just lounging around drinkin' a little, tellin' stories, playin' music.  A couple good ole boys broke out with this song and we all sang along while they played.  After it was over, the old man said, "You all probably didn't know it, but that song was made up right on the stage one night, not too far from here."  Then he had us, and he told the tale...

Well, this is legend of course, and can't be proved one way or another, not now.

Hank Williams SR had just finished singing a song in an old beat down bar somewhere in the deep south.  As he was getting ready to start another, thanking the crowd and all, someone from the crowd shouted, "HEY HANK!!! Got any new songs for us to hear yet, we gettin' kinda tired of these ones?"  Another man shouted out, "Yeah Hank, sing us a new one."  Well, Hank stood there wondering what to do, he didn't have any new songs to play for the people, so the story goes, he prayed,  "Dear Lord, give me a song to satisfy these people for the time being."  He started strumming the old guitar, strummed on it some more, then, he lit up like a lite some folks say, and out of his mouth, and from the old guitar came this little GEM.  It has stood the test of all time.

As Hank played he had a shine all about him, some folks said two bright lights were at his side, one on each side of him.  The crowd sat there in stunned silence while the song came out of him and the guitar.  After he finished playing he simply said, "Well, I just got that from the Lord, I hope it was all right, and I hope you liked it."  There was no loud applause, no nothing from the small crowd at all, just a bunch of absolutely stunned men and women.  Then Hank said, "That's all I got for tonight" and walked off the stage.

Now supposedly Hank just got in his Cadillac and drove off, headin' for another town, and supposedly a revival broke out in the bar that night.  Many people turned to the Lord that very evening, right then and there, and in the weeks following.  Now this is about the way I heard it, and I'm tellin' it as good as I can remember.  Is it true? I don't rightly know, but I'll tell you what, I believe it, you can make up your own mind on it.

After the old man told us this story, someone said, "How do you know that? Where did you hear it from?"  He just smiled, then he laughed, and he said, "Well maybe, just maybe, I was one of the folks there that night."

Believe the man or not, doesn't matter, the song has been recorded many times over, and there are a few versions of the story out there, maybe not on the net, but back in them hills.  Indeed, the legend lives on...

Praise the lord, I saw the light!