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Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.  (Psalms 55:22)

Read: 1 Timothy 4:1-5
The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it. - Psalm 24:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
On March 26, 1997, police discovered the dead bodies of 39 people in a large mansion in southern California, all of whom had apparently committed suicide. For most people, news of this horrific event was the first time that they'd ever heard of the Heaven's Gate cult and its bizarre leader, Marshall Applewhite. He taught that the earth was about to be wiped clean and the presence of the Hale-Bopp comet in 1997 was the sign that his followers had to leave “their earthly containers.” The cult stressed hatred of this world, including one's own body. They practiced extreme forms of self- denial, including giving away most of their possessions and renouncing anything considered to be indulgent.

Although the final events of the Heaven's Gate cult shocked many people, their grotesque practices and strange beliefs aren't new. Apparently some in Ephesus were teaching similar ideas. This explains the context of Paul's comments to Timothy, who was shepherding the Ephesian church. In his letter to the young pastor, Paul indicates clearly that the source of all such teaching is ultimately demonic. The individuals who teach these deceptions have completely rejected the truth and their consciences have become seared.

No doubt these heretics taught that their fanatical practices, including the prohibition of marriage and severe dietary restrictions, were the path to true spiritual knowledge and life. But Paul exposes this deception for what it truly is—a fundamental denial of God's creation. As we saw at the beginning of our study, the Garden of Eden is a depiction of God's perfect provision of humanity's need. Paul affirms this truth in verse 4. True spirituality can never come from denying any part of God's good creation. All that God has created is to be received gratefully. This truth is related to what we read in Romans 1 at the beginning of our study. Those who refuse to give thanks to the Creator God end up in deception and perversity.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today's passage reminds us to receive gratefully all that God gives. Perhaps you regularly give thanks before meals. This is an excellent way to remind ourselves that everything comes from God. If you've let this habit slip in the midst of a hectic schedule, today would be a good time to start it up again. Why not consider thanking the Lord after each meal as well! As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10:31, “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”

God's Divine Detours
 
"And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt: But God led the people about, through the way of the wilderness of the Red sea: and the children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt." (Exodus 13:17-18)
 
No driver enjoys having to take a detour, but there is usually a very good reason for it, and we accept it with little question. A divinely prescribed detour in our personal goals, however, often becomes a focus of complaint and discouragement. Detours and delays of one sort or another occur in the life of every Christian, but they are always for good reason. Remember Christ taught that when we have "been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things" (Matthew 25:21). Trials and detours prepare us for greater responsibility and blessing.
 
The experience of the children of Israel is a prime example. What started as a detour of perhaps 100 miles developed into a delay of 40 years before they were actually prepared to enter the Promised Land. A mob of slaves--carnal and fearful, selfish and complaining, critical and greedy, worldly and idolatrous--somehow had to become a nation of responsible citizens--disciplined and courageous, industrious and law-abiding, God-fearing and spiritual. This transformation required time and chastening and miraculous guidance, but it was all for their ultimate good and for God’s glory.
 
What God does with His own is by definition right, and we’ll understand it better later on. "Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby" (Hebrews 12:11). HMM

New mysteries of the Shroud unveiled
Body inside ancient linen 'levitated' while leaving image

A new video documentary about the Shroud of Turin makes a startling new claim about what some believe to be the burial cloth of Jesus – the body was weightless or levitating when it left the remarkable image.

In the DVD video "The Fabric of Time," scientific experts using the latest technology are able to produce a three-dimensional holographic image from photographs of the shroud. What they reveal is nothing short of spectacular.

They show the image on the shroud is one produced not from a body lying on a stone slab, but rather an image of a weightless body, perhaps levitating above its resting place.

The documentary also calls into question earlier findings about carbon dating tests that claimed the shroud dated back only to the Middle Ages.

In addition, forensics experts testify bloodstains on the Sudarium of Oviedo, reputed to be the piece of linen that covered Jesus' face, perfectly match those on the shroud.

The history of the Sudarium dates back to the 7th century in Spain. The blood types on both cloths were found to be AB. The pollen grains found on the Sudarium also match those found on the shroud.

Last June, Pope Benedict XVI announced that the next public exhibition of the Shroud of Turin will take place April 19, 2010, through May 23, 2010.

The Vatican announced on October 27, 2009, the pope will visit the Shroud May 2.

Visitors to Turin, where the Shroud has permanently resided since 1578, will view the cloth in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. To conserve and protect the Shroud, it is permanently stored in a custom built, temperature and humidity controlled, lightweight case, which can be moved, raised and opened to display the cloth for public exhibitions.

Death certificate is imprinted on the Shroud of Turin, says Vatican scholar

A Vatican scholar claims to have deciphered the "death certificate" imprinted on the Shroud of Turin, or Holy Shroud, a linen cloth revered by Christians and held by many to bear the image of the crucified Jesus.

Dr Barbara Frale, a researcher in the Vatican secret archives, said "I think I have managed to read the burial certificate of Jesus the Nazarene, or Jesus of Nazareth." She said that she had reconstructed it from fragments of Greek, Hebrew and Latin writing imprinted on the cloth together with the image of the crucified man.

The shroud, which is kept in the royal chapel of Turin Cathedral and is to be put in display next Spring, is regarded by many scholars as a medieval forgery. A 1988 carbon dating of a fragment of the cloth dated it to the Middle Ages.

However Dr Frale, who is to publish her findings in a new book, La Sindone di Gesu Nazareno (The Shroud of Jesus of Nazareth) said that the inscription provided "historical date consistent with the Gospels account". The letters, barely visible to the naked eye, were first spotted during an examination of the shroud in 1978, and others have since come to light.

Some scholars have suggested that the writing is from a reliquary attached to the cloth in medieval times. But Dr Frale said that the text could not have been written by a medieval Christian because it did not refer to Jesus as Christ but as "the Nazarene". This would have been "heretical" in the Middle Ages since it defined Jesus as "only a man" rather than the Son of God.

Like the image of the man himself the letters are in reverse and only make sense in negative photographs. Dr Frale told La Repubblica that under Jewish burial practices current at the time of Christ in a Roman colony such as Palestine, a body buried after a death sentence could only be returned to the family after a year in a common grave.

A death certificate was therefore glued to the burial shroud to identify it for later retrieval, and was usually stuck to the cloth around the face. This had apparently been done in the case of Jesus even though he was buried not in a common grave but in the tomb offered by Joseph of Arimathea.

Dr Frale said that many of the letters were missing, with Jesus for example referred to as "(I)esou(s) Nnazarennos" and only the "iber" of "Tiberiou" surviving. Her reconstruction, however, suggested that the certificate read: "In the year 16 of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius Jesus the Nazarene, taken down in the early evening after having been condemned to death by a Roman judge because he was found guilty by a Hebrew authority, is hereby sent for burial with the obligation of being consigned to his family only after one full year". It ends "signed by" but the signature has not survived.

Dr Frale said that the use of three languages was consistent with the polyglot nature of a community of Greek-speaking Jews in a Roman colony. Best known for her studies of the Knights Templar, who she claims at one stage preserved the shroud, she said what she had deciphered was "the death sentence on a man called Jesus the Nazarene. If that man was also Christ the Son of God it is beyond my job to establish. I did not set out to demonstrate the truth of faith. I am a Catholic, but all my teachers have been atheists or agnostics, and the only believer among them was a Jew. I forced myself to work on this as I would have done on any other archaeological find."

The Catholic Church has never either endorsed the Turin Shroud or rejected it as inauthentic. Pope John Paul II arranged for public showings in 1998 and 2000, saying: "The Shroud is an image of God's love as well as of human sin. The imprint left by the tortured body of the Crucified One, which attests to the tremendous human capacity for causing pain and death to one's fellow man, stands as an icon of the suffering of the innocent in every age." Pope Benedict XVI is to pray before the Shroud when it is put on show again next Spring in Turin.

Digital map reveals Israeli archaeology

A searchable map detailing 40 years of Israeli archaeological work in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, developed for the USC Digital Library, has won the 2009 Open Archaeology Prize from the American Schools of Oriental Research.

A nonprofit organization founded in 1900 and located at Boston University, the American Schools of Oriental Research support the study and public understanding of peoples and cultures of the Near East. The prize, to be presented today at a professional meeting in New Orleans, recognizes “the best open-access, open-licensed, digital contribution to Near Eastern archaeology by an ASOR member.”

Project leaders Lynn Swartz Dodd of USC and Rafi Greenberg of Tel Aviv University are expected to accept the award on behalf of an international team composed of Americans, Israelis and Palestinians.

The digital map apparently won the approval of jurors because it offers a body of information previously unavailable to the public about sites surveyed or excavated since 1967, when Israel occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

USC’s website is part of an effort to establish a framework for the disposition of the region's cultural heritage in the event of a peace agreement between Israel and Palestine. Interactive satellite maps on the website show about 7,000 archaeological locales, including Shiloh, where the original tabernacle of the Hebrews is thought to have been located, and the Qumran caves, where the Dead Sea scrolls were found.

The public can access the West Bank and East Jerusalem Archaeology Database at http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/wbarc. Users must have Google Earth to get full use of the information.

Jake, the rancher, went one day, to fix a distant fence.

The wind was cold and gusty And the clouds rolled gray and dense.

As he pounded the last staples in And gathered tools to go,

The temperature had fallen, The wind and snow began to blow.

When he finally reached his pickup, He felt a heavy heart.

From the sound of that ignition He knew it wouldn't start.

So Jake did what most of us would do if we had been there.

He humbly bowed his balding head and sent a loft a prayer.

As he turned the key for the last time, He softly cursed his luck.

They found him three days later, Frozen stiff in that old truck.

Now Jake had been around in life and done his share of roaming.

But when he saw Heaven, he was shocked -- It looked just like Wyoming!

Of all the saints in Heaven, His favorite was St. Peter.

So they sat and talked a minute or two, Or maybe it was three.

Nobody was keeping' score -- In Heaven, time is free.

'I've always heard,' Jake said to Pete, 'that God will answer prayer,

But one time I asked for help, Well, he just plain wasn't there

'Does God answer prayers of some, And ignore the prayers of others?

That don't seem exactly square -- I know all men are brothers.

'Or does he randomly reply, Without good rhyme or reason?

Maybe, it's the time of day, The weather or the season.

'Now I ain't trying to act smart, It's just the way I feel.

And I was wondering', could you tell me -- What the heck's the deal?!

Peter listened very patiently And when Jake was done,

There were smiles of recognition, And he said, 'So, you're the one!!

That day your truck, it wouldn't start, And you sent your prayer a flying,

You gave us all a real bad time, With hundreds of us trying.

'A thousand angels rushed, To check the status of your file,

But you know, Jake, we hadn't heard From you in quite a long while.

'And though all prayers are answered, And God ain't got no quota,

He didn't recognize your voice, And started a truck in Minnesota ..     

 

Hacked e-mails show global-warming fraud?
Top climate-research center confirms authenticity of data posted on Internet

Officials at a key global warming research center in the United Kingdom are authenticating a series of e-mails and other documents apparently taken from their computer system by a hacker but they cannot explain what was meant by references to a "trick" that would "hide the decline," nor their e-mail exchanges instructing the deletion of certain items.

According to the Australian Investigate magazine, it was a 62 MB Zip file including documents, e-mail exchanges and other information from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit that apparently was posted by an unidentified hacker on a Russian web server.

Phil Jones, chief of the center, confirmed to the magazine the documents appeared accurate and authentic.

"It was a hacker. We were aware of this about threee or four days ago that someone had hacked into our system and taken and copied loads of data files and e-mails," he said.

"It's completely illegal for somebody to hack into our system," he told the magazine.

Author James Delingpole noted in a UK Telegraph column the "most damaging revelations … are those concerning the way Warmist scientists may variously have manipulated or suppressed evidence in order to support their cause."

He cited this e-mail with it's possible admission of manipulation, "I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd (sic) from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."

And this expressing internal doubts: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate."

Further, there was an exchange suggesting the suppression of information: "Can you delete any e-mails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis."

"And, perhaps most reprehensibly," Delingpole suggested, "a long series of communications discussing how best to squeeze dissenting scientists out of the peer review process. How, in other words, to create a scientific climate in which anyone who disagrees with AGW can be written off as a crank, whose views do not have a scrap of authority."

He cited this e-mail: "This was the danger of always criticizing the skeptics for not publishing in the 'peer-reviewed literature.' Obviously, they found a solution to that – take over a journal! So what do we do about this? I think we have to stop considering 'Climate Research' as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal. We would also need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board…What do others think?"

The fact is despite the politically correct global warming alarmism promoted by a financially vested former vice president Al Gore and others, thousands of scientists are skeptical about the accuracy, level and cause of "global warming."

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, even has suggested to members of Congress that they consider the joint opinion of nearly 32,000 scientists, including more than 9,000 Ph.D.s, who agree humans have nothing to do with any "global warming."

Paul was referring to the Petition Project, which actually was launched some 10 years ago when the first few thousand signatures were assembled. Then, between 1999 and 2007, the list of signatures grew gradually without any special effort or campaign.

But in the last few years, and especially because of the release of the movie "An Inconvenient Truth" by Gore, the campaign has been reinvigorated.

"Mr. Gore's movie, asserting a 'consensus' and 'settled science' in agreement about human-caused global warming, conveyed the claims about human-caused global warming to ordinary movie goers and to public school children, to whom the film was widely distributed. Unfortunately, Mr. Gore's movie contains many very serious incorrect claims which no informed, honest scientist could endorse," project spokesman and founder Art Robinson has told WND.

Robinson, a research professor of chemistry, co-founded the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine with Linus Pauling in 1973, and later co-founded the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.

Paul cited the petition results in his statement to Congress.

"Our energy policies must be based upon scientific truth – not fictional movies or self-interested international agendas," Paul said. "They should be based upon the accomplishments of technological free enterprise that have provided our modern civilization, including our energy industries. That free enterprise must not be hindered by bogus claims about imaginary disasters."

The petition states:

"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."

Robinson has warned that there are some very serious ramifications to assuming "global warming" results from mankind's actions and therefore those behaviors all need to be halted.

"The campaign to severely ration hydrocarbon energy technology has now been markedly expanded," he said. "In the course of this campaign, many scientifically invalid claims about impending climate emergencies are being made. Simultaneously, proposed political actions to severely reduce hydrocarbon use now threaten the prosperity of Americans and the very existence of hundreds of millions of people in poorer countries," he told WND.

Warned Paul, "Above all, we must never forget our contract with the American people – the Constitution that provides the sole source of legitimacy of our government. That Constitution requires that we preserve the basic human rights of our people – including the right to freely manufacture, use, and sell energy produced by any means they devise – including nuclear, hydrocarbon, solar, wind, or even bicycle generators.

"While it is evident that the human right to produce and use energy does not extend to activities that actually endanger the climate of the Earth upon which we all depend, bogus claims about climate dangers should not be used as a justification to further limit the American people's freedom," Paul said.

"The world is currently cooling; electorates are increasingly reluctant to support eco-policies leading to more oppressive regulation, higher taxes and higher utility bills; the tide is turning against Al Gore's Anthropogenic Global Warming theory. The so-called 'skeptical' view is now also the majority view," Delingpole said in his commentary.

Investigate magazine quoted Jones denying there was any attempt to mislead or conceal.

"They're talking about proxy data going further back in time, a thousand years, and it's just about how you add on the last few years, because when you get proxy data you sample things like tree rings and ice cores, and they don't always have the last few years," he said.

He said he could not recall what he meant when he wrote about a plan to "hide the decline."

In the e-mail, dated 10 years ago, Jones wrote: "Once Tim's got a diagram here we'll send that either later today or first thing tomorrow. I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd [sic] from1961 for Keith's to hide the decline. Mike's series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998. Thanks for the comments, Ray. Cheers, Phil Prof. Phil Jones Climatic Research Unit."

The documents also included a message dated just a few weeks ago from Kevin Trenberth to Michal Mann about the "BBC U-turn on climate."

"Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F and also a record low, well below the previous record low. This is January weather (see the Rockies baseball playoff game was canceled on saturday and then played last night in below freezing weather)."

Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.  (1 Peter 5:7)

Read: Colossians 1:3-8; 2 Thessalonians 2:13-17
I thank my God every time I remember you. - Philippians 1:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
The murderous Russian dictator, Josef Stalin, reportedly once said, “Gratitude is a sickness suffered by dogs.” A different man, also named Josef, would strongly disagree. Josef Gabor grew up in communist Czechoslovakia, under the dark shadow of Stalin's Soviet Union. Gabor was told that religion was weakness and was taught communist doctrine by his father. His mother, though, was a follower of Jesus Christ. She took Josef and his brother to church, which was a three-hour train ride away. Despite the distance and danger of going to church, Josef Gabor remains grateful to God for a mother who helped bring him to Christ. For many years, Gabor served with Trans World Radio, and is currently the director of Youth for Christ in Central Europe.

Yesterday we saw how gratitude flows na-turally from seeing God's power to break the bondage of evil. In today's passage, we find that gratitude similarly flows when we see the gospel's worldwide spread. These two truths go hand-in-hand, because the gospel always brings freedom and healing wherever it goes.

It's possible that Paul never visited the church in Colossae. But when Epaphras, who was probably converted through Paul's ministry, brought news of the good things that were happening in this small church, Paul was filled with gratitude. Notice the triad of faith, love, and hope in verses 4 and 5. Together, these offer evidence of the gospel's transforming power. The news that gospel was spreading into this part of the world (now part of modern-day Turkey) filled Paul with praise and thanks, because it confirmed that the good news of Jesus Christ was indeed increasing around the world.

Paul had the same response when he learned about the effects of the gospel in the Thessalonian church, one of the first churches that he planted in Europe. Despite persecution and efforts to thwart the gospel, this church had become “imitators” of the more established, mature churches in Judea.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Both yesterday's and today's Bible readings show that gratitude is an essential part of the gospel. When the gospel comes into people's lives, thanksgiving is evidence of its transforming power. But it's also the case that when we hear about the spread of the gospel, we're filled with thanksgiving to God. Today would be a good time to learn more about the gospel's spread and power. A good place to start is www.moodyministries.net. As you read more, thank the Lord for His powerful work around the world.