In at least three regions of the world and at least at three different times in the year, we hear people greet each other “Happy New Year!” or whatever equivalent in their languages.

• Most common perhaps is the “new year” that begins on January 1 in the widespread Gregorian calendar (which was promulgated during the watch of the Roman Catholic Pope Gregory, in 590 – 604A.D.; hence the name). [For more on the Gregorian calendar click on this popular link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar.]

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Some people have wondered whether every human being ever born has his name written in God’s “Book of Life” — or whether his name is written there only when he is “saved” or is on his way to salvation.

What, exactly, does the Bible say about this important subject?

We would want to make sure we are  not among those people who are “not found written in the Book of Life and [will be] cast into the lake of fire,” after everyone will have been judged (Revelation 20:11-15).

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He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life. (Genesis 3:24, NKJV.)

After Adam and Eve had sinned and had been driven out of the Garden of Eden, God placed cherubim — special angelic, spiritual creatures (a description of them is found in Ezekiel 1:4-28; 10:1, 15) — and a flaming sword to bar man from re-entry into the garden.  This was to prevent access by man to the “tree of life,” to take its fruit, eat it, and live forever (Genesis 3:22).

Why did God bar man from eating the fruit of that tree?  After all, doesn’t God want man to have everlasting life — to live forever?

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Most evangelical Christians today maintain that the anonymous Letter to the Hebrews could not have been written by the apostle Paul.  For example, the monumental Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (published 1993 by Inter-Varsity Press Academic, edited by Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin and Daniel G. Reid) does not include the Letter to the Hebrews among those written by Paul. Some commentaries and books on the New Testament suggest that Apollos or Barnabas, instead, could have written this letter. Others also suggest Priscilla.

One Bible commentary has even judged that, because of the lack of a clear identity of the author of this letter, it would be presumptuous for anyone to suggest any possible author.

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Hardly can we find a person today who does not want peace.  Yes, there are always those who are for war.  There have always been such people from the beginning of human history.  But, as bloody wars and violence have alarmingly proliferated and escalated just in the last decade, many people feel they have had it, and their cries for “Peace, peace!” haven’t been louder, especially at this time of year!  Yet, amidst all this clamor for the much pursued “peace on earth, goodwill towards men” — peace between and among nations — that global peace has remained elusive.  Why?

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One of the various charges God gave to the Old Testament priesthood of Israel (descendants of Aaron) was this:  “Do not drink wine or intoxicating drink, you, nor your sons with you, when you go into the tabernacle of meeting [with the LORD] , lest you die.  It shall be a statute throughout your generations” (Leviticus 10:9).

Why did God give this charge to the priests?  He told them:  so “…that you may distinguish between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean, and that you may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the LORD has spoken to them by the hand of Moses” (Verses 10-11).

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It seems evident that there is, in almost every person, a sense of “Something” or “Someone” that’s beyond what our five natural senses can comprehend. [See: A Law-abiding Universe — But Man!]  And this sense of “mystery” has driven mankind to worship that “great unknown” — whether some impersonal “Force” or some “Person” somewhere out there in the unseen world or universe.  That worship has taken many forms, has engendered many often conflicting ideas or concepts, many different rituals and rubrics.  Thus we have today’s major “world religions” — Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism — not to mention the smaller but often aggressive religions.

In the midst of all this bewildering religious smorgasbord, one is left with the question: which of these religions is true?  And which one offers and practices true worship?

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The prophet Malachi declares some amazing prophecies about our end times, just before Jesus Christ returns in victory to rule this dying world.

One such prophecy — which many Bible students have failed to appreciate or have chosen to misunderstand or ignore — is found in Malachi 4.

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Many sincere Christians — clerics and laymen alike — look at our world with its hordes of “unsaved” or “unchurched” people numbering in the multiple millions.  And, with great urgency and compassion, these Christians long with all their hearts to reach out to these people with the gospel of salvation in Christ.

Indeed, as Jesus Himself said, He came “to seek and save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).  Jesus was referring here to the Jewish tax collector Zacchaeus and other human beings like him (including you and me!) who are all sinners and are “lost” on their way to salvation and eternal life.  “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one, to his own way” (Isaiah 53:6).

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Exercising what they consider their “freedom in Christ,” many — if not most — who profess faith in Christ eat flesh of all animals, regardless of some animals being labeled by the Old Testament as “unclean”  (Leviticus 11; Deuteronomy 14; etc.).  There are even some who go as far an extreme as to say that “Pork is Christian food!”

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