He that endures to the end shall be saved.

                  Not only did Christ suffer in order to save us, but He also suffered in order to teach us. Suffering is an inescapable fact of life and often times it seems as if the righteous suffer more than the wicked. It seems as if life is unfair, why do believers suffer more afflictions? The world persecutes the righteous and God permits this suffering that we might draw closer to Him. In Christ's passion we are taught exactly how we are to suffer. When Christ was before the High Priest, he was questioned, beat, and spat upon, and yet He remained silent in action and word. It was only when Caiphas asked if He was the messiah did Christ reply, testifying to the truth. From this response Christ was spit upon, struck in the face, and mocked. He politely asked why He had been struck, asking if He had spoken evil, the tell Him what it was. Christ teaches us through this that we should remain silent in the face of our accusers except in proclaiming the truth of Christ. Trying to reason with the unreasonable will not bring about any fruit, remain silent in action and word.

                 When Christ was scourged He did not complain, or even plead His case. When the crown of thorns was placed upon Him and the soldiers mocked Him, He remained silent in action and word. He did not try and explain to them that He is God in the flesh, nor did He condemn them. Christ shows us that no matter how we are afflicted, by illness or persecution, that we are to remain silent in action and word. Bearing these afflictions with a contrite and humble heart is a greater testimony of Christ than any word or deed. When we are mocked for being Christian we do not judge nor hate, but again remain humbly silent in action and word.

                When Christ embraced His cross and carried it to Golgotha, after being beaten, scourged, and mocked, could have easily given up had He chose to. Instead Christ carried on, despite the torment, pain, and the mockery. We too must embrace our cross, this means to accept our suffering, afflictions, and mockery. Carry our cross to golgotha (golgotha, the place of the skull, representing death) despite everything we may face, the humility we may encounter, and the seemingly unbearable weight of the cross.

                On the cross, Christ had clearly gone through inexplicable torture and pain. Watching the children He created curse Him, drive nails into His flesh, and mock Him, yet He prayed for them all. He listened to a condemned man, the thief, and forgave him putting this thief before Himself. Even in His final moments He was concerned not for Himself, but for His mother, giving her to His apostle, St. John. When we have reached our threshold for pain and suffering, the only words we should speak are those of prayers. Especially for those who may be persecuting us, and above all forgive them. We also learn that we should put ourselves aside for others who may be in need, no matter what we may be dealing with, we should never be so selfish as to put ourselves above others. The same is said for when Christ, despite Him being near death, still had concern for His mother's well being.

               How much love Christ has for us that He consistently put others before Himself, yet He is God incarnate! To remain silent and humble, to embrace your very suffering and death, to pray for those driving nails into your flesh, to put everyone before you, even though you have suffered tremendously and are on the verge of dying. Christ has taught us how to love through suffering. That suffering is not a condemnation, but a virtue. If we can follow the example of Christ and suffer patiently with a humble and contrite heart, then through this we might know Him and attain salvation.

And remember "He that endures to the end shall be saved." Mt. 10:22

The Fault of Man (Tiktaalik and the Fossil Record)

"if tiktaalik was  discovered in a cenozoic era,It could have been a blow to evolution,but it has been discovered between the strata of fish and amphibians and the amazing part is if you look at tiktaalik anatomically it's head resembles a croc with a body of a fish which leads us to a logical conclusion that a fish is going out of water around 375 million years ago,again two seperate fields of science,geology and anatomy going in concordance with each other." - (identity of person concealed)




              I was not aware that having a resemblance to something proves anything. This shows an assumption or implied interpretation on the part of scientists. Claiming that tiktaalik's placement in the fossil record and its resemblance to both fish and crocodile proves evolution as a fact is quite a large assumption. If a person resembles a primate, does that then mean they are closer to monkeys than man? Variations within species does not prove that overtime a species changes into another, and it certainly does not prove evolution to be fact, no more than the existence of Christ proves His divinity. This argument, however, is considered a "typical creationist argument" a nice ad hominim attack in an attempt to villify any who dare question evolution. May I then use evidence that clearly supports my religion and the existence of Christ to prove that God exists? History, scripture, and archaeology are all in concordance with one another, so logically we can conclude that God is fact. I am only using the same logic that is used by this gentleman, and other scientists, to prove that evolution is fact.


            I am not trying to attack evolution itself, what I am criticizing is the mentality of those who feel that evolution is a fact. If you wish to believe it, I am not going to criticize anyone for that. However to say scientifically that something is a fact, when in reality you must assume these bones came from another species, would not be fact but assumption. If that is enough for a person to believe, then so be it, that is not my business, but to parade this as fact is downright absurd, just as many atheists believe that proclaiming God is absurd.

          What is most amazing to me about the fossil record is that it does not show, as many claim, a pattern of transitional forms but explosions of mass biological diversity without plausible evolutionary transition. There are many fossils appear abruptly in the fossil record, fully formed, with no evidence to link it to any other previous fossil. At first look, a diagram of the fossil record looks to prove exactly what evolutionists have been saying, but upon further investigation we are left scratching our heads. Often times there are millions of years in between so called "transitional fossils", as if these animals lept from one variation to another over night, as opposed to a slow change over time.


           I love it when new "missing links" are discovered, because it's then--and only then--that Darwinists admit how precious little evidence had previously existed for the evolutionary transition in question. When reports came out of an alleged example of a fossil representative of the stock that might have led from fish to tetrapods -- Tiktaalik roseae -- evolutionists finally came clean about the previous lack of fossil evidence for such a transition:

"The relationship of limbed vertebrates (tetrapods) to lobe-finned fish (sarcopterygians) is well established, but the origin of major tetrapod features has remained obscure for lack of fossils that document the sequence of evolutionary changes."

(Edward B. Daeschler, Neil H. Shubin, and Farish A. Jenkins, "A Devonian tetrapod-like fish and the evolution of the tetrapod body plan," Nature Vol 440: 757-763 (April 6, 2006))

Authority Jennifer Clack even admits that before finding Tiktaalik, the large morphological gap between fish and true tetrapods was "frustratingly wide":

"It has long been clear that limbed vertebrates (tetrapods) evolved from osteolepiform lobefinned fishes3, but until recently the morphological gap between the two groups remained frustratingly wide. The gap was bounded at the top by primitive Devonian tetrapods such as Ichthyostega and Acanthostega from Greenland, and at the bottom byPanderichthys, a tetrapod-like predatory fish from the latest Middle Devonian of Latvia."(Jennifer A. Clack & Per Erik Ahlberg, "A firm step from water to land," Nature440:747-749 (April 6, 2006); emphasis added)

Again Daeschler et al. reiterate the lack of evidence previous fossils provide for a transition, focusing on deficiencies in what was previously considered to be the closest fish to tetrapods (see the diagram below as well):

"Panderichthys possesses relatively few tetrapod synapomorphies, and provides only partial insight into the origin of major features of the skull, limbs and axial skeleton of early tetrapods. In view of the morphological gap between elpistostegalian fish and tetrapods, the phylogenetic framework for the immediate sister group of tetrapods has been incomplete and our understanding of major anatomical transformations at the fish-tetrapod transition has remained limited."

(Edward B. Daeschler, Neil H. Shubin, and Farish A. Jenkins, "A Devonian tetrapod-like fish and the evolution of the tetrapod body plan," Nature Vol 440: 757-763 (April 6, 2006)

               Again, I believe the fossil record to be a matter of perspective. It is not "obvious" that anything evolved into another species over time and it is certainly NOT clear. We cannot even logically assume that evolution occurred, based on the fossil record, as demonstrated by Tiktaalik and the millions of years that separate its ancestors. These claims made by science are perspective being pushed as fact, and darwinian interpretation forced onto finds in all areas of science. Simply put, the fossil record does not prove evolution in any way shape or form.