"Voice of God" Alarm

Many churches in England have been targeted by thieves who ripped off the metals fittings on Churches' rooftops. In particular metals like lead and copper which fetch high prices in the market. On average 7 churches are targeted each day in the U.K. Therefore this is a serious problem not only to the churches but the insurance companies.

Interestingly the church has come up with an innovative alarm that is "voice of God" alarm. Motion sensors will be installed on the roof tops and when motion is detected a booming "voice of God" will be activated to announce that the thieves have been detected! Most likely many of the thieves will be surprised by the "voice of God".

To read an article on this subject click on the title of this post.

Watch this video. Ecclesiastical is the insurance company insuring the churches.

New Life Restoration Center

This morning our church had the honor of Pastor Teo Chung Hock from New Life Petaling Jaya branch to share with our congregation. He has been invited to host our church's youth camp over the next few days.

New Life has an Iban language branch here in Kuching.

During the morning service Pastor Teo shared his inspiring testimony. He hails from Miri and now a pastor in Kuala Lumpur. Before he became a Christian, he hated Christians and called them hypocrites. His sister in K.L was a fervent Christian then and when he has to go to K.L to attend college he warned his sister not to bring him to church. Knowing that he will not have anything to do with church, his sister introduced him to the church's youths who befriended him. Since he did not want to go to church, his new friends brought him to cell meetings. Teo agreed and he told himself that he wanted to prove to the Christians that he was a more righteous person than the Christians. The cell meeting was held weekly and he attended weekly to show that he was a better person than the Christians. He even sneered at the Christians who missed some of the weekly meeting. As for him, he never missed any of the meeting ! As he get to know more about Christianity and also the love shown by his new friends, he said to himself that Christianity was alright. Slowly he was moved by God. After 4 months of cell meetings, during a worship session he accepted the Lord. That day was 24th April 1996. At that time his sister did not know of his conversion yet, and as he reached home his sister gave him his first Bible, than he broke the good news to his sister. Hence, he can remember the date of his conversion clearly. A very significant and meaningful day in his life.

After working in the secular world for 5 years he felt God calling him to full time church work therefore he joined New Life in 2004. In 2008 he was installed as a pastor in New Life Church, Petaling Jaya.

Praise God for his testimony! A person who hated Christians before now he is a pastor!

To go to New Life website click on the title of this page.

Creation Apologetic

Last evening trainer Joseph Tan from Kuala Lumpur conducted a three hour course on Creation Apologetic at Good News Fellowship. Creation Apologetic is defending our Christian faith using information and data from the Bible. It is also to prove that God Words are true and they are consistent with what had happened and what is happening to man kind and this universe.

The scientific worldviews are contrary to the Biblical world view, and many people are confused by the different in views. In secular schools evolution is taught and young people of today find that it is hard to understand because the Bible seem to contradict the scientific information. The speaker use various information and fact in the Bible as well as things happening in this world to prove that God is indeed the Creator of this universe and the earth.

One example, scientists claimed that the Grand canyon in the US was formed million of years ago, and you can see the fine layers of sediments in the mountains. But when Mount St.Helen erupted not too long ago scientists found similar layers of sediments were created in a very short span of time, not over millions years ago.

In the final analysis God Words are true.

To check up a helpful website on Creation Apologetic click on the title of this post.

Worship When Depressed

Is it possible to worship when one is depressed? In most circumstance people tend not to participate in worship when one is in a low state of emotion. At least this was also my experience. But Pastor John Piper and worship leader Bob Kauflin said otherwise.

According to Piper worship is satisfaction with God and it is not an outward emotional state. If we are a born again Christian we can worship God even when we are experiencing depression or a low state of emotion. The key is satisfaction with God does not depend on our emotional state. Piper said we can be "satisfied with God and weeping your eyes out at the death of your mother.” Since we have the contentment of God we can worship Him despite our emotional state.

What Piper said is Biblical :

2 Corinthians 6:10: “Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.”

The lesson here is that no matter what our emotional position is knowing that we are satisfied and content in God we should worship Him wholeheartedly. Especially worshiping Him in songs.

To read further click on the title of this post.

Investors Fleeced of RM620 Million

The Companies Commission of Malaysia reported that for the past 3 years Malaysian investors have been fleeced of Ringgit Malaysia 620 million! (About USD200 million). These are reported cases, plus the non reported cases, the figures is surely more than this.

In Malaysia there are many kind of scams and people fall into them despite cases reported in the news media. There is also a recent case of investing in gold where the company cheated investors of about RM440 million! These people were convicted in court and they are returning some money to the investors.

We may wonder why so many people are falling into these scams. Many people are not satisfied with what they already have financially and they are looking to be rich quickly. Thus many of these scams promised high interest returns, e.g 30% in one year. The current bank interest is around 3-4% per year.

Basically it boils down to greed. It is a good lesson for us Christians because the Bible taught us too,

Proverbs 25:28

'The greedy stir up conflict,
but those who trust in the LORD will prosper."

To read a news article click on the title of this post.

400th Anniversary of Alkitab

The Malay language Bible is known as the Alkitab. Recently the Malaysian Christians celebrated the 400th anniversary of the Alkitab. Despite the length of the existence of this Malay Bible, the use of the Arabic word for God - "Allah" is not allowed in this country. The Muslim communities said the word "Allah" is exclusive to Islam, thus no other religion can use this word as God. However, "Allah" has been in use by the Middle Eastern Christians and Muslims for ages to refer to God. Even before the creation of our country, the word had already been in used. Sadly, the Malay speaking Christians in Malaysia cannot use "Allah" freely to refer to God. The Catholic Church of Malaysia won a case against the government in 2009 to enable them to use "Allah" in their weekly publication "The Herald", but the government appealed this case and it is still pending. Meanwhile, the Catholic publication is not allowed to use this word.

This issue is a challenge to the Malay speaking Christians in Malaysia as a large portion of the Christians in this country speak the Malay language, thus using the Alkitab. There is no solution in sight.

We pray for God's will to prevail in this case and many other issues relating to Christianity in Malaysia.

To read a news article click on the title of this page.

The Jesus Discovery

The Jesus Discovery is also a title of a book written by Professor James Tabor and film maker Simcha Jacobovici in which they claimed that they have found the tomb of Jesus and his family. They said the bones of Jesus and his family were found in 10 ossuaries and one of them marked with "Judah son of Jesus". These certainly contradict what modern Christians believed about Jesus who resurrected from death. Many experts disagreed with these findings, firstly their evidence are based on a robotic camera that took some images and there was not actual excavation of the sites and secondly those inscriptions were common in that era. These experts also said that this authors are only interested in selling their books and making money.

"Many experts agree with the Christian viewpoint that the controversial findings are false, not only for faith's sake, but to prevent archaeological and scientific misuse as well."


To read the full article click on the title of this post.