General Articles

On Ambition in Ministry :: By Paul J. Scharf

Published on: by RR10

Ambition in life is generally a good thing. Ambition in ministry is indispensable.

We have all heard the tired trope about pastors working only one day a week. It is sad when people repeat such drivel. It is tragic that some ministers have actually provided fodder for this criticism.

Yes, the ministry can, sadly, become a place for the indolent to hide. I’ve never understood why anyone with this mentality would seek the ministry to begin with, but some undoubtedly have.

But, on the other hand, the ministry can also be a place for the motivated to excel—and it has drawn many through the centuries for that very reason. And I believe that the Apostle Paul, above all others, exhibited this kind of spirit.

“I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus,” he exclaimed in Philippians 3:14.

“I have made it my aim to preach the gospel,” he thundered in Romans 15:20.

Perhaps most succinctly, he stated: “I magnify my ministry” (Rom. 11:13).

He also reminds us never to be “lagging in diligence” (Rom. 12:11a). Rather, we must become “fervent in spirit, serving the Lord” (Rom. 12:11b).

Of course, the motivated minister must find the right place to excel. There are some congregations, for instance, that simply desire to continue the status quo. They have no desire at all to observe evidence of ambition or progress toward excellence. These are, honestly, situations that do not lend themselves to a quest for achievement. Thus, the first area in which the minister may need to exercise ambition might be in locating a fitting environment in which to serve.

But once the minister has found his niche, the place where he can really channel his energy and ambition toward excellent accomplishment—whether that be in a particular local church or in another type of ministry—he will still need to navigate his course within the providence of God when it comes to the issue of ambition.

What do I mean, and how does this work itself out in practice?

First, with regard to the larger issues of one’s direction in life, sometimes we find that our ambitions might outpace the course that God has set before us—and we must remain open to His will. For instance, there was a time when my intention was to enter a doctor of philosophy program in Old Testament. My ambition was to unearth new findings in the Hebrew text in the furtherance of dispensational theology. The Lord, in His providence, has not allowed the fulfillment of that desire, at least not to date.

In its place, however, God has given me so many amazing privileges in ministry that I could never have expected and, frankly, never even thought to ask for. In fact, I really could not have even known how to ask for some of them. I still have larger ambitions to experience and achieve more, yet I realize more clearly now that my life is limited by the bounds of God’s providence, as well as by available time, energy and resources. Looking back, I also understand that my greatest need is to radiate gratitude.

Still, that does not mean that my struggles are past. There is a second arena when it comes to this matter of ambition, in which we face so many day-to-day temptations. In this regard, I have learned that the greatest thing that I must do with many of my ambitions is to restrain them. Failing to do so, I will succumb to the disquieting forces of envy—yearning for more and greater prospects to serve instead of focusing on the plethora of opportunities right before me.

As is the case with any type of anxiety, the cure for this kind of envy is primarily found once again in the exercise of “thanksgiving” (Phil. 4:6). Perhaps just recognizing the need for such is a step in the direction of maturity. Once again, in the smaller issues, as in the larger realm of life, my pressing need is to display gratitude. The legitimate successes of others in ministry must always be a cause for my rejoicing, and never for my jealousy (see 2 Cor. 10:12).

One final thought on this subject: We are facing a crisis today in the lack of young men who aspire to devote their lives to the ministry—especially pastoral ministry. Perhaps one reason is that they have lacked exposure to ministers who model an appropriate level of godly ambition. If all they have witnessed are examples of lethargy, of course they would fail to sense any particular call to spend their lives on the path of ministry.

Help us, O Lord, to demonstrate the right mix of ambition and humility—always tempered by gratitude. May we serve You in the most effective ways possible, striving to provide an example that will impassion others for the ministry, always for Your glory. Amen.

***

Paul J. Scharf (M.A., M.Div., Faith Baptist Theological Seminary) is a church ministries representative for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, based in Columbus, WI, and serving in the Midwest. For more information on his ministry, visit sermonaudio.com/pscharf or foi.org/scharf, or email pscharf@foi.org.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version.

Genetic Manipulation: Preparing for the Anti-Christ :: By Sean Gooding

Published on: by RR10

Revelation 13:11-17

“Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. 12 And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence, and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. 13 He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. 14 And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived.

15 He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. 16 He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, 17 and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”

The rise and the popularity of Artificial Intelligence are astonishing. Like GPS a couple of decades ago, a lot of what we see is just cast-off where the technology is old, and so they can let us see what they had. And since it is new to us, it ‘wows’ us. Please think of how cool some of this stuff is, and yet what they are allowing us to see is probably obsolete to them.

The kind of research that is going on is often done in obscure labs and their finds published in journals only the PhD and scientist class people read. But in an article in Biotechnology and Health published in March 2021 tells us about the experiments to grow mouse embryos in artificial wombs and then asks the question, who is next? In May 2020, an article in Forbes Magazine talked about experiments to add live brain matter to inorganic silicon chips to help the chips be faster. The brain is the only intelligent entity in the body. They want the chips to process faster; the human brain is the fastest processor ever created.

Genetic tampering is the system of Satan and his minions. We can go back to Genesis 6 and see the account there of the ‘sons of God,’ fallen angels who engaged in sexual relations with human women, and the result was giant offspring. They were continually thinking of evil, and God had to intervene to protect the genetic makeup of the human line so that Jesus would not have a corrupted gene pool. His gene pool needed to extend back to Adam so that He, Jesus, could be sacrificed for our sins.

The same mindset is at work here. There is genetic manipulation to create something that God didn’t create, nor did He intend to be created. These men are playing God; make no mistake, these experiments will not just stop at mice. Soon, if not currently, they will begin to experiment on us human beings.

There is always a good reason to do evil. They must make the point that evil is necessary to help us humans have a better life. AI will work for us, freeing us to live an easy life. AI will do surgeries faster, better, and more efficiently and make fewer mistakes, making our lives better, and on and on we can go. Let us give the vast majority of scientists the benefit of the doubt; however, behind them are the ones who know what is happening and why it is happening.

Remember the movie Robocop; this is an old what we would call a Sci-Fi movie from the 1980s. In this movie, a police officer is seriously wounded, and this presents just the right opportunity for the scientists to experiment with merging human tissue and robotic limbs together. These ideas are nothing new as far as movies are concerned, but there are some that are trying to make this kind of thing a reality, and it may be that they already have.

In our passage above, the Anti-Christ can deploy his lifelike image. This image will look just like him (verse 14); it will have the ability to speak and breathe and give orders. The False Prophet encourages the masses of the world to worship the beast, the Anti-Christ, and has the power to punish those who refuse to do so.

When we first began looking at passages like this when I was in seminary 4 decades ago, no one understood robotics; we imagined a statue and some sort of ventriloquist’s sleight of hand magic at work. But here we are now, and we know better. This image will look like a man, walk and talk like a man, and even appear to breathe and be alive. It will fool billions of people.

Robotics and AI are interdependent systems to some degree. In an article published in October 2023 titled “9 Emerging Trends in Robotics and Animation,” one can see how AI empowers robots to learn and how this allows them to be used in many ways, in particular alongside humans. There is a growing trend in medicine to use AI.

In the section on humanoid robots, this is what you see:

  • Perhaps the most engaging and closely aligned with the realm of science fiction imagination of robots is the humanoid.
  • These robots are designed to mimic human appearance and movements and are currently gaining traction as a prominent trend in the robotics and automation industry.
  • Robots, such as Sophia and ASIMO, are increasingly used in applications ranging from customer service to education and companionship for the elderly.
  • The trend is propelled by the desire to create machines capable of human-like interaction and a growing interest in social robotics.

Beyond their utility in the aforementioned sectors, they also raise profound questions about the future of human-robot relationships.

This is the very technology that the Anti-Christ will use to deceive the world and bring a level of destruction to the Jews when they realize that he is not their Messiah. By defiling the new temple in Jerusalem with an idol and claiming to be God (hence the call to worship), the Jews will have their eyes opened and rebel against the Anti-Christ. The ensuing deaths will be catastrophic. All the philanthropic theater will be dispelled with, and the real reason for AI will be seen by the world; that is the destruction of mankind and the control of those under its robotic thumb.

An AI who is intelligent, incorporated into all of the world’s systems via the internet, and with electronic access to your cars, banks, grocery stores and hospitals will have the control to make sure no one buys or sells without the mark. These systems are being put in place alongside the rise of AI and the development of robotics as we speak.

Those of us in Jesus Christ are seeing this, and we recoil from it; the people of the world system, blinded from the truth of the scriptures by Satan, rush headlong into the darkness, and what they perceive to be a light is actually the freight train of the dark empire coming to kill and destroy. They think that AI will make all better; we know that AI will make all subservient to Satan and ultimately dead.

Oh, Lord Jesus, come soon! We see the darkness ahead, and it seems that our warnings fall on deaf ears as we are accused of being ‘party poopers’ or ‘religious idiots.’

Keep watching for the expansion of the AI industry and the development of even more and more ‘human’ robots. The world is about to get crazier; I am sure we will see some of it before Jesus comes to get us. Look up; the trumpet will soon sound.

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

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