Resolutions For 2025

I will continue the resolutions I made in 2019, three of which was based on Rev Stephen Schaefer's advice and the fourth was added in the middle of 2019 and renewed in September 2019 and renewed again in January 2020 and again in September 2023.

1. Every day I will pray that what ever I do, I will do it to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31).
2. I will pray to be filled with the Spirit so that I have no room for other things (Ephesians 5:18).
3. I will pray that I may walk in the Spirit, so as not to fulfil the lust of the flesh (Galatians 5:16).
4. I will also pray to speak gracious words of comfort like a priest (Colossians 4:6).

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31 ESV)
And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, (Ephesians 5:18 ESV)
This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. (Galatians 5:16 KJV)
Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. (Colossians 4:6 ESV)

Additionally, I would also like to bring to my remembrance the three requests I made in 1979, for the perseverance of Jacob, the heart of David and the power of Elijah.

And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. (Genesis 32:28 KJV)
And when he had removed him, he raised up unto them David to be their king; to whom also he gave testimony, and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfil all my will. (Acts 13:22 KJV)
Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. (James 5:17 KJV)

Negotiation And Hardened Hearts

After that, Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'Let My people go, so that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness.'"
But Pharaoh replied, "Who is the LORD that I should obey His voice and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and I will not let Israel go." (Exodus 5:1-2 BSB)

Did God ask Moses to lie when He asked Moses to request for a three-day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to Him, implying that the Israelites will return after that? No. If the Pharaoh had accepted the request, it would be so.

So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh. "Go, worship the LORD your God," he said. "But who exactly will be going?"
"We will go with our young and old," Moses replied. "We will go with our sons and daughters, and with our flocks and herds, for we must hold a feast to the LORD."
Then Pharaoh told them, "May the LORD be with you if I ever let you go with your little ones. Clearly you are bent on evil. No, only the men may go and worship the LORD, since that is what you have been requesting." And Moses and Aaron were driven from Pharaoh's presence. (Exodus 10:8-11 BSB)

But God hardened the Pharaoh's heart, and he kept negotiating with Moses about the terms of release. But finally, after the ten plagues, he expelled all the Israelites from his land.

This is God's pattern of negotiation. First, He will give the best offer. For those whom God did not call, their hearts will be hardened, and they will reject the best offer. Then the offer will get worse and worse until everything is taken away.

In 1948, they were offered 50% of Palestine, but they rejected the offer and fought. They would have retained Gaza and West Bank if they had not fought again in 1967. Today they are still trying to negotiate for the two-state solution. Eventually, they will have nothing.

The Gospel offered a 100% redemption if we just believe. But many hardened their hearts and refused the offer because they thought it was humiliating to admit that they are sinners and can do nothing to save themselves. But God is merciful, and some will believe and accept the offer and be saved.

But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. (John 1:12 NLT)

Usury - Bible vs Koran

"If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him. (Exodus 22:25 ESV)

Do not charge a fellow Israelite interest, whether on money or food or anything else that may earn interest. You may charge a foreigner interest, but not a fellow Israelite, so that the LORD your God may bless you in everything you put your hand to in the land you are entering to possess. (Deuteronomy 23:19-20 NIV)

Note that the Bible forbids charging of interest for the poor and fellow Israelites. But the foreigner may be charged interest. Thus, banking is not a sin in the Bible. It is commercial and not charity. But the Quran seems to forbid all interest, banking or otherwise.

Allah will destroy Riba (usury) and will give increase for Sadaqat (deeds of charity, alms, etc.) And Allah likes not the disbelievers, sinners. (Quran 2:276 Mohsin Khan)

The Call of Abram

Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. (Genesis 12:1-4 KJV)

Abraham is our father in faith. Although he was commended for his faith, he did not receive what was promised. He waited and waited and finally got to own a piece of the promised land which he had to buy it from the Hittites for use as a permanent burial place.

By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, without knowing where he was going. (Hebrews 11:8 BSB)

Languages And Nations

Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words. It came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. They said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly." And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar. They said, "Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth." The Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. The Lord said, "Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another's speech." So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth. (Genesis 11:1-9 NASB95)

It seemed that after the flood, technology had improved rapidly. It took the descendants of Cain seven generations before Jabal built tents. But soon after the flood, the people learnt how to make bricks instead of stone.

To slow down the rapid modernisation of the world, God confused the languages. We have to wait for a few millenniums before we reach today's technology.

When they heard the loud noise, everyone came running, and they were bewildered to hear their own languages being spoken by the believers. They were completely amazed. "How can this be?" they exclaimed. "These people are all from Galilee, and yet we hear them speaking in our own native languages! (Acts 2:6-8 NLT)

Vegetarian Diet and Capital Punishment

Then God blessed Noah and his sons and told them, "Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth. All the animals of the earth, all the birds of the sky, all the small animals that scurry along the ground, and all the fish in the sea will look on you with fear and terror. I have placed them in your power. I have given them to you for food, just as I have given you grain and vegetables. But you must never eat any meat that still has the lifeblood in it. And I will require the blood of anyone who takes another person's life. If a wild animal kills a person, it must die. And anyone who murders a fellow human must die. If anyone takes a human life, that person's life will also be taken by human hands. For God made human beings in his own image. Now be fruitful and multiply, and repopulate the earth." (Genesis 9:1-7 NLT)

If anyone is on a vegetarian diet for health reasons, I have no comment since I am not a doctor or a dietician. But if anyone is on a vegetarian diet for religious reasons, I wish to point out that God, in His covenant with our ancestor Noah, had given permission for Noah's descendants to eat animals after the flood. God also authorised capital punishment for those who murder.

Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. (1 Timothy 4:1-3 ESV)

No Climate Change

In the six hundred first year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the water that had covered the earth was dried up. Then Noah removed the ark's cover and saw that the surface of the ground was drying. By the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth was dry. Then God spoke to Noah, "Come out of the ark, you, your wife, your sons, and your sons' wives with you. Bring out all the living creatures that are with you - birds, livestock, those that crawl on the earth - and they will spread over the earth and be fruitful and multiply on the earth." So Noah, along with his sons, his wife, and his sons' wives, came out. All the animals, all the creatures that crawl, and all the flying creatures - everything that moves on the earth - came out of the ark by their families. Then Noah built an altar to the Lord. He took some of every kind of clean animal and every kind of clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. When the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, he said to himself, "I will never again curse the ground because of human beings, even though the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth onward. And I will never again strike down every living thing as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night will not cease." (Genesis 8:13-22 CSB)

God had promised that long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall never cease. We do not have to worry about climate change.

They have not said in their hearts, 'Let us fear the LORD our God, who gives the rains, both autumn and spring, in season, who keeps for us the appointed weeks of harvest.' (Jeremiah 5:24 BSB)