The Father obviously gave control of this earth to the Son. 1 Corinthians 15:20-28 shows that what Christ is doing in the plan of salvation is to buy the world back that Adam sold. He was already king of the universe ruling with the Father from eternity, but when all is said and done here He will also be king of this world too. He’ll have the place Adam once had.
"But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming. Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. For “He has put all things under His feet.” But when He says “all things are put under Him,” it is evident that He who put all things under Him is excepted. Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all."
So this verse is an overview of all of human history. We talked already about how the story of the world can be summed up into a few distinct phases. God gave the universe a demonstration of just how bad things would get under sin before the flood, then He gave us a chance to recover ourselves through obedience, but that didn’t work either since we are no longer capable of obeying on our own. Finally when Jesus came He did for us what we can’t do for ourselves. This text describes the final phases of history. Since Jesus rose from the dead He can now give the promise to those who seek Him that He will raise them up when He returns again. “Then comes the end” refers to a time after when the wicked will be punished for their sins. In just a little bit we’ll briefly discuss what that punishment will entail. This earth, once cut off from God the Father by sin, will then be given back to Him by His Son, Jesus, the king of this world. The earth will regain the place in the universe it once had.
Of course when Jesus did come to earth He looked like any other human being. It was the combination of the miracles He performed and the prophecies He fulfilled that proved He is the Messiah. In Acts 2:22-24 Peter said “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know— “Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.
It was not possible for death to hold Him because death is the penalty for sin and Jesus never sinned. This is according to Hebrews 4:15 “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Peter continues in Acts 2:25-32 with:
"For David says concerning Him: ‘I foresaw the LORD always before my face, For He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart rejoiced, and my tongue was glad; Moreover my flesh also will rest in hope. For You will not leave my soul in Hades, Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life; You will make me full of joy in Your presence.’ "
"Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. “This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses."
The fact that Peter comments the way he does shows that he and the rest of the early church finally understood what the coming of the Messiah really meant. Before the cross everyone within the realm of God’s people was looking for an earthly king to free Israel from the Romans. However, Jesus as a heavenly King came to free them from sin itself. What happened over time is that people had misinterpreted the prophecies of Jesus coming. Instead of a spiritual leader they were looking for a political one. This is why Jesus said in Luke 20:41-44 “And He said to them, ‘How can they say that the Christ is the Son of David?’ ‘Now David himself said in the Book of Psalms: “The LORD said to my Lord, Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.”’ Therefore David calls Him “Lord”; how is He then his Son?”
Showing posts with label moon landings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label moon landings. Show all posts
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Jesus went into the original Sanctuary when He went back to Heaven after rising from the dead and appearing to His disciples. What He is doing now according to the Bible is going through the real cleansing of the Heavenly Sanctuary. He is applying the promised forgiveness from the cross to the legal record of those who accepted it, those who were willing to afflict their souls.
Think about it this way, God knows all things right? None of His creatures do though. However many billions of people who have lived here on earth have committed however many trillions or quadrillions of sins through world history and it’s all written down in these books! Imagine you are not an earthling but a being from another planet. You have lived through countless eons of time in perfect harmony as a result of your world’s complete submission to the Lord’s will all this time. Then you saw how Lucifer, who was once the highest angel, corrupted himself and was cast out of heaven for it. After that Adam and Eve started the rebellion here as well. You have seen every single rape, theft and murder even though these things are completely unheard of on your planet.
You then watched Jesus, Whom you knew as your Royal Commander, come down to this world, live a life of suffering and humiliation; and finally be crucified at the very hands of the ones He was trying to save. Now even though you saw how much God worked to save humanity through every generation culminating in Jesus’ death and resurrection, you might not yet feel guaranteed that the people He’s about to admit back into the family of the universe can actually be trusted not to do it all again at some point in the future. This is especially true as you see the majority of the world’s population trying in its own way to achieve that place. Wouldn’t you want a guarantee?
That the promised assurance is being given now is shown by Daniel 7:26 and 27 ‘”But the court shall be seated, And they shall take away his dominion, To consume and destroy it forever.Then the kingdom and dominion, And the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven, Shall be given to the people, the saints of the Most High. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, And all dominions shall serve and obey Him.” The dominion taken away here is that of Satan and his man on earth, the antichrist. The dominion given is the earth. Jesus is proven right here in all His decisions regarding whom to save and whom not to. He now has he legal right to return to this world and rescue His people.
WHAT JESUS IS DOING NOW BY LOOKING AT THE RECORD IN SUCH FINE DETAIL IS TO PROVE TO THE REST OF THE UNIVERSE THAT THE ONES HE WILL SOON RESUCE FROM THIS WORLD REALLY WERE SORRY FOR EVERY WRONG THING THEY EVER DID AND REALLY DID SUBMIT TO GOD COMPLETELY! There is another level to the judgement where before God curses those who weren’t sorry with hellfire He explains to His people why He’s going to do it. However, that’s a topic for the next chapter.
Really the Lord Himself is the One on trial here. The questions the whole universe needed to have answered every since Satan rebelled are simply: “Is God fair?” “Does He really have our best interests at heart when He demands our complete loyalty?” and “Is His way really the only way for the universe to coexist in peace?”
Put all three of these secret keys together and you will realize that heaven is in the same physical reality as this world. There is no such thing as a ‘spirit world’ as someone with a 14thcentury mindset would say. And modern minded people who say heaven is in some sort of other dimension are really saying the same thing in pseudo-scientific terms. This understanding, this fullness of truth will protect one from the errors of the modern view of evolution and the errors of the 14th century mindset already discussed here in this blog. Most Christians who misunderstand certain key Bible passages such as the creation story do so because they have clung to errors on these important topics. Their view of death is that you become a ghost as soon as you die and that you face the judgement alone instantaneously thereafter. Just as their view of the universe was once earth centered and therefore human centered, so their view here is as well.
When you die you fall asleep and don’t go anywhere. People aren’t in heaven yet enmasse. Jesus, His angels and every other being out there are as real as the desk you are sitting at right now. Angels are not ghosts they are physical beings, we are simply being prevented from seeing them. They’ve been working through every generation of history to help people in various ways. And they’ve seen every single If you had a space ship fast enough and knew where to go, you could fly to what Revelation 21 calls the New Jerusalem, what Paul called the ‘third heaven’ God’s Holy city with its Sanctuary itself, right now.
Think about it this way, God knows all things right? None of His creatures do though. However many billions of people who have lived here on earth have committed however many trillions or quadrillions of sins through world history and it’s all written down in these books! Imagine you are not an earthling but a being from another planet. You have lived through countless eons of time in perfect harmony as a result of your world’s complete submission to the Lord’s will all this time. Then you saw how Lucifer, who was once the highest angel, corrupted himself and was cast out of heaven for it. After that Adam and Eve started the rebellion here as well. You have seen every single rape, theft and murder even though these things are completely unheard of on your planet.
You then watched Jesus, Whom you knew as your Royal Commander, come down to this world, live a life of suffering and humiliation; and finally be crucified at the very hands of the ones He was trying to save. Now even though you saw how much God worked to save humanity through every generation culminating in Jesus’ death and resurrection, you might not yet feel guaranteed that the people He’s about to admit back into the family of the universe can actually be trusted not to do it all again at some point in the future. This is especially true as you see the majority of the world’s population trying in its own way to achieve that place. Wouldn’t you want a guarantee?
That the promised assurance is being given now is shown by Daniel 7:26 and 27 ‘”But the court shall be seated, And they shall take away his dominion, To consume and destroy it forever.Then the kingdom and dominion, And the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven, Shall be given to the people, the saints of the Most High. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, And all dominions shall serve and obey Him.” The dominion taken away here is that of Satan and his man on earth, the antichrist. The dominion given is the earth. Jesus is proven right here in all His decisions regarding whom to save and whom not to. He now has he legal right to return to this world and rescue His people.
WHAT JESUS IS DOING NOW BY LOOKING AT THE RECORD IN SUCH FINE DETAIL IS TO PROVE TO THE REST OF THE UNIVERSE THAT THE ONES HE WILL SOON RESUCE FROM THIS WORLD REALLY WERE SORRY FOR EVERY WRONG THING THEY EVER DID AND REALLY DID SUBMIT TO GOD COMPLETELY! There is another level to the judgement where before God curses those who weren’t sorry with hellfire He explains to His people why He’s going to do it. However, that’s a topic for the next chapter.
Really the Lord Himself is the One on trial here. The questions the whole universe needed to have answered every since Satan rebelled are simply: “Is God fair?” “Does He really have our best interests at heart when He demands our complete loyalty?” and “Is His way really the only way for the universe to coexist in peace?”
Put all three of these secret keys together and you will realize that heaven is in the same physical reality as this world. There is no such thing as a ‘spirit world’ as someone with a 14thcentury mindset would say. And modern minded people who say heaven is in some sort of other dimension are really saying the same thing in pseudo-scientific terms. This understanding, this fullness of truth will protect one from the errors of the modern view of evolution and the errors of the 14th century mindset already discussed here in this blog. Most Christians who misunderstand certain key Bible passages such as the creation story do so because they have clung to errors on these important topics. Their view of death is that you become a ghost as soon as you die and that you face the judgement alone instantaneously thereafter. Just as their view of the universe was once earth centered and therefore human centered, so their view here is as well.
When you die you fall asleep and don’t go anywhere. People aren’t in heaven yet enmasse. Jesus, His angels and every other being out there are as real as the desk you are sitting at right now. Angels are not ghosts they are physical beings, we are simply being prevented from seeing them. They’ve been working through every generation of history to help people in various ways. And they’ve seen every single If you had a space ship fast enough and knew where to go, you could fly to what Revelation 21 calls the New Jerusalem, what Paul called the ‘third heaven’ God’s Holy city with its Sanctuary itself, right now.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Of Course They Landed on the Moon POST TWO
Paul’s experience makes the situation quite a bit more interesting. What he saw he spoke of several times, one is in Acts 26:12-23 ““While thus occupied, as I journeyed to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests, “at midday, O king, along the road I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and those who journeyed with me. “And when we all had fallen to the ground, I heard a voice speaking to me and saying in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ “So I said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ And He said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. ‘But rise and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness both of the things which you have seen and of the things which I will yet reveal to you. ‘I will deliver you from the Jewish people, as well as from the Gentiles, to whom I now send you, ‘to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.’
“Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, “but declared first to those in Damascus and in Jerusalem, and throughout all the region of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent, turn to God, and do works befitting repentance. “For these reasons the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me. “Therefore, having obtained help from God, to this day I stand, witnessing both to small and great, saying no other things than those which the prophets and Moses said would come— “that the Christ would suffer, that He would be the first to rise from the dead, and would proclaim light to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles.”
Paul’s encounter with Christ was just as supernatural as what Peter described. Yet Paul saw Jesus at least three years after He returned to Heaven. The Lord was not a ghost, just as He said to the disciples that Sunday night in Luke 24:37-43, He was still the same Jesus! Paul never met Him that we know of before the cross yet his account harmonizes well with those who did.
Do you trust these men? A liar can’t keep his story straight indefinitely and will always slip up somewhere because he has to make an effort to remember what lies he’s told to whom. And what are the odds that liar would remember his story perfectly 30 years later in Peter and Paul’s case and 60 years later in John’s? When one is telling the truth he or she does not have to remember it in that sense because the truth just is what it is. The overwhelming changes in the disciples from their encounters with Christ testify to the fact that they did experience something real. They all abandoned Him in the garden that Thursday night and their entire world was crushed when Jesus was put on the cross. Yet 50 days after that in Acts 2 and for the rest of their lives we see nothing but courage in them. They might have gone to their graves for a lie to avoid shame and embarrassment but would they have lived so courageously for that same lie until then?
Paul also said in First Thessalonians 2:4, 5 “But as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts. For neither at any time did we use flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak for covetousness—God is witness.
Verses 9-13 of the same chapter say “For you remember, brethren, our labor and toil; for laboring night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, we preached to you the gospel of God. You are witnesses, and God also, how devoutly and justly and blamelessly we behaved ourselves among you who believe; as you know how we exhorted, and comforted, and charged every one of you, as a father does his own children, that you would walk worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory. For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe.
What the men of God had to say was the word of God. Their character backed up their words. When someone initially searched for God who has no previous knowledge pf spiritual things, that person will look to the one sharing with him and base his decision to some degree on that person’s character. The student looks to the teacher and says “what is truth” but is also saying “does this work for you.” Once the student comes into his own faith relationship with God he will have that faith tested by being allowed to see that his teacher is not perfect after all. Therefore it behooves Christians to live out what they believe every day. The consistency of character these men showed for the rest of their lives is evidence they can be trusted.
It is the Lord who ordained that humans would be used to reach each other. Not everything therefore, will come to us individually straight from God. He will raise up and call some, so they can help others. He will show it’s His word by the changes in your life He makes.... that’s the proof! Just like the proof of creation we’ve already seen, the life, death and resurrection of Christ is proven the same way, by the peace of mind Jesus brings to those who receive Him. Psalm 51:10 says “create in me a clean heart
Remember Jesus words to doubting Thomas in John 20:29? “Jesus said to him, ‘Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’” Ultimately none of us were there. We have to trust those who were. The ultimate proof of creation, Psalm 51:10, is also the ultimate proof Jesus is the Saviour of the world. How could His salvation mean anything if He hadn’t made us in the first place? How could His creation mean anything without His saving Grace either? To repeat the verse, it says “Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.”
The fact that there are people today who reject the moon landings is proof of the principle of human nature that ultimately one has to experience things for oneself in order to believe them. They youth of today weren’t there so they can’t believe it. If mankind did return to the moon then many of those same youth would likely admit it was true after all. We all need a continual refreshing like this in order to sustain what we believe in. It’s the same in spiritual things.
“Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, “but declared first to those in Damascus and in Jerusalem, and throughout all the region of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent, turn to God, and do works befitting repentance. “For these reasons the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me. “Therefore, having obtained help from God, to this day I stand, witnessing both to small and great, saying no other things than those which the prophets and Moses said would come— “that the Christ would suffer, that He would be the first to rise from the dead, and would proclaim light to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles.”
Paul’s encounter with Christ was just as supernatural as what Peter described. Yet Paul saw Jesus at least three years after He returned to Heaven. The Lord was not a ghost, just as He said to the disciples that Sunday night in Luke 24:37-43, He was still the same Jesus! Paul never met Him that we know of before the cross yet his account harmonizes well with those who did.
Do you trust these men? A liar can’t keep his story straight indefinitely and will always slip up somewhere because he has to make an effort to remember what lies he’s told to whom. And what are the odds that liar would remember his story perfectly 30 years later in Peter and Paul’s case and 60 years later in John’s? When one is telling the truth he or she does not have to remember it in that sense because the truth just is what it is. The overwhelming changes in the disciples from their encounters with Christ testify to the fact that they did experience something real. They all abandoned Him in the garden that Thursday night and their entire world was crushed when Jesus was put on the cross. Yet 50 days after that in Acts 2 and for the rest of their lives we see nothing but courage in them. They might have gone to their graves for a lie to avoid shame and embarrassment but would they have lived so courageously for that same lie until then?
Paul also said in First Thessalonians 2:4, 5 “But as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts. For neither at any time did we use flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak for covetousness—God is witness.
Verses 9-13 of the same chapter say “For you remember, brethren, our labor and toil; for laboring night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, we preached to you the gospel of God. You are witnesses, and God also, how devoutly and justly and blamelessly we behaved ourselves among you who believe; as you know how we exhorted, and comforted, and charged every one of you, as a father does his own children, that you would walk worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory. For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe.
What the men of God had to say was the word of God. Their character backed up their words. When someone initially searched for God who has no previous knowledge pf spiritual things, that person will look to the one sharing with him and base his decision to some degree on that person’s character. The student looks to the teacher and says “what is truth” but is also saying “does this work for you.” Once the student comes into his own faith relationship with God he will have that faith tested by being allowed to see that his teacher is not perfect after all. Therefore it behooves Christians to live out what they believe every day. The consistency of character these men showed for the rest of their lives is evidence they can be trusted.
It is the Lord who ordained that humans would be used to reach each other. Not everything therefore, will come to us individually straight from God. He will raise up and call some, so they can help others. He will show it’s His word by the changes in your life He makes.... that’s the proof! Just like the proof of creation we’ve already seen, the life, death and resurrection of Christ is proven the same way, by the peace of mind Jesus brings to those who receive Him. Psalm 51:10 says “create in me a clean heart
Remember Jesus words to doubting Thomas in John 20:29? “Jesus said to him, ‘Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’” Ultimately none of us were there. We have to trust those who were. The ultimate proof of creation, Psalm 51:10, is also the ultimate proof Jesus is the Saviour of the world. How could His salvation mean anything if He hadn’t made us in the first place? How could His creation mean anything without His saving Grace either? To repeat the verse, it says “Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.”
The fact that there are people today who reject the moon landings is proof of the principle of human nature that ultimately one has to experience things for oneself in order to believe them. They youth of today weren’t there so they can’t believe it. If mankind did return to the moon then many of those same youth would likely admit it was true after all. We all need a continual refreshing like this in order to sustain what we believe in. It’s the same in spiritual things.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Of Course They Landed on the Moon POST ONE
OF COURSE THEY LANDED ON THE MOON
I’ll give him a fake name – ‘Neil’. He is a composite character taken from a few people near me in life. A modern minded person, into science, philosophy and science fiction/fantasy, he is a lot like I was when I was his age. There is one crucial difference though. My friend, like many young people today, does not believe the moon landings were real. There have been books, TV documentaries and websites speaking about the issue and calling into question what was once fully accepted. The lack of stars behind the astronauts in any of the lunar surface pictures, the way those pictures were lit, the way they seemed to walk in their spacesuits, the way the shadow lines cross the ground, the waving of the U.S. flag; all these and more are given as “proof” that the moon landings couldn’t possibly be real. These have also clearly been debunked in other books, TV documentaries and websites. Those things that couldn’t happen, like the uneven shadow lines, are shown there to be everyday occurrences.
What shows those in the “against” camp to be completely incorrect and what I find fascinating about the whole debate is the incredible amount of evidence they ignore. Thousands of people were involved in the launching of the spaceships. After all these years and not one has cracked and spilled the beans, what does that say? Where did the rockets go each time they launched? They went up; if it was a fake they would have had to come down somewhere. Could you hide a 300 foot tall rocket? As my wife suggested to me in our conversations on the issue, how far would the conspiracy have had to go? Was every single Mercury, Gemini and pre-landing Apollo mission also a fake or was it just the actual moon landings? Do these same people who watch TV every day believe the satellites those TV signals come from are unreal? If the helicopter had the capsule in tow and dropped it into the ocean before it picked it up, where did it come from? There would have been thousands of people on the navy ships to see this part of the hoax. They never said anything. What about the total and complete disdain any living astronaut has for the issue. It’s entirely beneath them to even discuss it at all. If it was faked, then why have an Apollo 13 near disaster? Surely anyone who would lie to that degree would gloss things over so well that they would be seen to succeed without any problems. Not one of these points is ever dealt with by those who discount the success of the Apollo missions.
I have never doubted for one second that the moon landings were real. One thing that confirmed my beliefs over the years and closed my heart to any doubts was when I saw the video of the astronauts proving Galileo right. As a young person I greatly valued seeing this in light of being taught the story of Galileo’s persecution. What the astronauts did was to take a hammer and a feather up to the moon and drop them both at the same time. People disagreed with Galileo’s statements that all things fall at the same rate and used the feather as their example. Without air on the moon, the feather and the hammer fell at exactly the same rate landing on the moon’s surface at exactly the same time. This was not something that could be faked.
When you take all of the supposed reasons for the moon landing to be faked into account, what those who believe and promote them are really saying is not that they don’t believe, but that they can’t bring themselves to believe. It’s just too far beyond their worldview to surrender their preconceived notions.
In a way it’s not surprising that today’s youth do feel this way. The situation is the same one that we were in during the 1970’s with the book “Chariots of the Gods”. Its premise was essentially “how could those ancient peoples have built such great monuments when as far as we know they were nowhere near as advanced?” Today’s youth are well aware of the factoid that the average car has had a more powerful computer chip in it than was on the Apollo spaceship for at least the last twenty years. Therefore, how could they have done it? Your car couldn’t make it to the moon right?
The answer is simple, they were smart. I was quite adept at doing math in my head until I started using a calculator. Then I lost that skill. The entire world is the same way today. A slide rule may not be as fast as a computer, but the engineers at NASA could get the same results with it if they needed to. The kind of computers we have now were not what they had then. What they couldn’t get their computers to do, they did themselves. I’m not the first to say this but it’s something everyone should know. That is even though today’s computers are much more powerful and much smaller, they run complicated applications for processing video and picture files that the computers back then did not do. All they used those giant, room-sized computers for was number crunching. There were no operating systems to load up on the Apollo Command Module. Neither was there a mouse, printer/scanner nor a wireless router for high speed internet with their associated driver programs. There wasn’t even a monitor in the capsule the way we think of one. The display screen simply showed the numbers they needed to see. The majority of the computing was done on the ground anyway.
Computers are only as popular as they are today because they have been made so user friendly. They’re nothing more than glorified video game consoles, typewriters and stereo systems. Have you the average layman reading these words ever wrote any programs on your home computer yourself? People today take these things for granted, which leads them into error. Having been raised with them their whole lives and knowing nothing else, its no wonder young people today can’t picture the world any other way. The thing is; it was.
I know it’s true that they landed on the moon because I was there. I was four years old watching the rocket lift off live on television. I will never forget the wonder that filled my heart as I saw the great blasts of smoke and steam shoot out from the side of the Saturn V booster to a distance beyond it that was greater than its height. I remember the scene a few days later with the helicopter coming to the capsule, already in the water, and the frogmen leaping out into the ocean to gather and collect the astronauts and bring them home safely. No one will ever be able to convince me of anything other than the truth of the matter. They did land on the moon every one of those six times.
It was not my purpose to get into a major discussion on the topic of the actual moon landings. Instead rather, to springboard into why there is so much doubt among the young of today and what lessons we can draw from this controversy as it applies to the spiritual things we’re discussing here on this blog.
What about the stories of those who can say “I WAS THERE“ to seeing Jesus rise from the dead, were they fakes, yes or no? What does that mean for us today in the age where so many think they no longer need God?
Acts 1:3 says “to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.” Take the example of the Lord’s appearing to 500 at once mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15:6. How could that possibly be attributed to mass hysteria? Note that the text here says “He presented Himself”. The crowd didn’t control the appearance.
John was one of those who saw Him many times after His resurrection. 1 John 1:1-4 says “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life— the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us— that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you that your joy may be full.”
John was the youngest disciple. He wrote these words at least 60 years later. Growing up a Jew he knew of the hopes Israel had in the coming Messiah. He knew the true God, the God of the Bible, was not the same as the statues worshipped by every other culture in the entire world.
The Lord is beyond our reality and yet here he tells us that same God came into our reality to give us life. He was an eyewitness and he shares what he knows to be indisputably true. Even more so, he not only saw Jesus he touched Him! John’s main concern is not all that Jesus did to prove Himself after He rose form the dead, but the way He lived His life during the time of His ministry when He taught so much truth, gave so many practical demonstrations of His love and reached out to save those who would reject Him.
Peter actually uses the word “eyewitness” in 2 Peter 1:16-19, specifically talking about transfiguration of Luke 9:28-36, when he, John and James were with Jesus. They saw Jesus in a glorious white light and saw Moses and Elijah. They also audibly heard the voice of God the Father. Peter wrote these words many years later. “For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’ And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain. And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts;"
Elsewhere Peter speaks of the “more sure word of prophecy”. In other words, even though he did have eyewitness experiences, the real proof of Jesus Messiahship is found in the prophecies of the Old Testament that the Lord fulfilled while on earth. Some of those prophecies, like how Judas would betray Him, were not ones Jesus could personally control. Here in the above passage Peter notes how those prophecies were confirmed by this supernatural encounter.
I’ll give him a fake name – ‘Neil’. He is a composite character taken from a few people near me in life. A modern minded person, into science, philosophy and science fiction/fantasy, he is a lot like I was when I was his age. There is one crucial difference though. My friend, like many young people today, does not believe the moon landings were real. There have been books, TV documentaries and websites speaking about the issue and calling into question what was once fully accepted. The lack of stars behind the astronauts in any of the lunar surface pictures, the way those pictures were lit, the way they seemed to walk in their spacesuits, the way the shadow lines cross the ground, the waving of the U.S. flag; all these and more are given as “proof” that the moon landings couldn’t possibly be real. These have also clearly been debunked in other books, TV documentaries and websites. Those things that couldn’t happen, like the uneven shadow lines, are shown there to be everyday occurrences.
What shows those in the “against” camp to be completely incorrect and what I find fascinating about the whole debate is the incredible amount of evidence they ignore. Thousands of people were involved in the launching of the spaceships. After all these years and not one has cracked and spilled the beans, what does that say? Where did the rockets go each time they launched? They went up; if it was a fake they would have had to come down somewhere. Could you hide a 300 foot tall rocket? As my wife suggested to me in our conversations on the issue, how far would the conspiracy have had to go? Was every single Mercury, Gemini and pre-landing Apollo mission also a fake or was it just the actual moon landings? Do these same people who watch TV every day believe the satellites those TV signals come from are unreal? If the helicopter had the capsule in tow and dropped it into the ocean before it picked it up, where did it come from? There would have been thousands of people on the navy ships to see this part of the hoax. They never said anything. What about the total and complete disdain any living astronaut has for the issue. It’s entirely beneath them to even discuss it at all. If it was faked, then why have an Apollo 13 near disaster? Surely anyone who would lie to that degree would gloss things over so well that they would be seen to succeed without any problems. Not one of these points is ever dealt with by those who discount the success of the Apollo missions.
I have never doubted for one second that the moon landings were real. One thing that confirmed my beliefs over the years and closed my heart to any doubts was when I saw the video of the astronauts proving Galileo right. As a young person I greatly valued seeing this in light of being taught the story of Galileo’s persecution. What the astronauts did was to take a hammer and a feather up to the moon and drop them both at the same time. People disagreed with Galileo’s statements that all things fall at the same rate and used the feather as their example. Without air on the moon, the feather and the hammer fell at exactly the same rate landing on the moon’s surface at exactly the same time. This was not something that could be faked.
When you take all of the supposed reasons for the moon landing to be faked into account, what those who believe and promote them are really saying is not that they don’t believe, but that they can’t bring themselves to believe. It’s just too far beyond their worldview to surrender their preconceived notions.
In a way it’s not surprising that today’s youth do feel this way. The situation is the same one that we were in during the 1970’s with the book “Chariots of the Gods”. Its premise was essentially “how could those ancient peoples have built such great monuments when as far as we know they were nowhere near as advanced?” Today’s youth are well aware of the factoid that the average car has had a more powerful computer chip in it than was on the Apollo spaceship for at least the last twenty years. Therefore, how could they have done it? Your car couldn’t make it to the moon right?
The answer is simple, they were smart. I was quite adept at doing math in my head until I started using a calculator. Then I lost that skill. The entire world is the same way today. A slide rule may not be as fast as a computer, but the engineers at NASA could get the same results with it if they needed to. The kind of computers we have now were not what they had then. What they couldn’t get their computers to do, they did themselves. I’m not the first to say this but it’s something everyone should know. That is even though today’s computers are much more powerful and much smaller, they run complicated applications for processing video and picture files that the computers back then did not do. All they used those giant, room-sized computers for was number crunching. There were no operating systems to load up on the Apollo Command Module. Neither was there a mouse, printer/scanner nor a wireless router for high speed internet with their associated driver programs. There wasn’t even a monitor in the capsule the way we think of one. The display screen simply showed the numbers they needed to see. The majority of the computing was done on the ground anyway.
Computers are only as popular as they are today because they have been made so user friendly. They’re nothing more than glorified video game consoles, typewriters and stereo systems. Have you the average layman reading these words ever wrote any programs on your home computer yourself? People today take these things for granted, which leads them into error. Having been raised with them their whole lives and knowing nothing else, its no wonder young people today can’t picture the world any other way. The thing is; it was.
I know it’s true that they landed on the moon because I was there. I was four years old watching the rocket lift off live on television. I will never forget the wonder that filled my heart as I saw the great blasts of smoke and steam shoot out from the side of the Saturn V booster to a distance beyond it that was greater than its height. I remember the scene a few days later with the helicopter coming to the capsule, already in the water, and the frogmen leaping out into the ocean to gather and collect the astronauts and bring them home safely. No one will ever be able to convince me of anything other than the truth of the matter. They did land on the moon every one of those six times.
It was not my purpose to get into a major discussion on the topic of the actual moon landings. Instead rather, to springboard into why there is so much doubt among the young of today and what lessons we can draw from this controversy as it applies to the spiritual things we’re discussing here on this blog.
What about the stories of those who can say “I WAS THERE“ to seeing Jesus rise from the dead, were they fakes, yes or no? What does that mean for us today in the age where so many think they no longer need God?
Acts 1:3 says “to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.” Take the example of the Lord’s appearing to 500 at once mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15:6. How could that possibly be attributed to mass hysteria? Note that the text here says “He presented Himself”. The crowd didn’t control the appearance.
John was one of those who saw Him many times after His resurrection. 1 John 1:1-4 says “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life— the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us— that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you that your joy may be full.”
John was the youngest disciple. He wrote these words at least 60 years later. Growing up a Jew he knew of the hopes Israel had in the coming Messiah. He knew the true God, the God of the Bible, was not the same as the statues worshipped by every other culture in the entire world.
The Lord is beyond our reality and yet here he tells us that same God came into our reality to give us life. He was an eyewitness and he shares what he knows to be indisputably true. Even more so, he not only saw Jesus he touched Him! John’s main concern is not all that Jesus did to prove Himself after He rose form the dead, but the way He lived His life during the time of His ministry when He taught so much truth, gave so many practical demonstrations of His love and reached out to save those who would reject Him.
Peter actually uses the word “eyewitness” in 2 Peter 1:16-19, specifically talking about transfiguration of Luke 9:28-36, when he, John and James were with Jesus. They saw Jesus in a glorious white light and saw Moses and Elijah. They also audibly heard the voice of God the Father. Peter wrote these words many years later. “For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’ And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain. And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts;"
Elsewhere Peter speaks of the “more sure word of prophecy”. In other words, even though he did have eyewitness experiences, the real proof of Jesus Messiahship is found in the prophecies of the Old Testament that the Lord fulfilled while on earth. Some of those prophecies, like how Judas would betray Him, were not ones Jesus could personally control. Here in the above passage Peter notes how those prophecies were confirmed by this supernatural encounter.
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