Jesus as one man had achieved the impossible. He had obeyed in a world of sin, refuting the charge that God’s laws are too harsh. He had offered Himself as the sacrifice in man’s place, refuting the charge that God doesn’t care. And! By doing both He also refuted the charge that God is some sort of egomaniac demanding worship without anything in return. God Himself in the person of Christ showed just how much he really does care about His creatures. Philippians 2:5-11 says “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of [things] in heaven, and [things] in earth, and [things] under the earth; And [that] every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ [is] Lord, to the glory of God the Father. “
I once worked with a man I’ll call “Ned” who asked me “how can they say Christ was tempted in all things when He was never molested as a child?” It’s a worthwhile question to consider. Hebrews 4:5 does say “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.” Ned’s reasoning in part came from a lack of understanding as to the nature of the first and second deaths and many of the other truths we’ve been discussing. As wonderful as it is to read the four gospels and focus on Christ dying a gruesome, horrible, physical death, it’s in light of the overall background theme of the conflict between good and evil that has been going on in every generation that makes the cross of much greater value.
When I explained to him the meaning of the separation and the Father forsaking the Son on the cross it help him to understand better. As well, to be tempted in all points may not mean every actual sin. For instance it’s a sin to eat drink or smoke things that damage you body. Your health is a gift from God so alcohol, cigarettes and street drugs are not things true Christians will have anything to do with. Tobacco did not exist in Bible time except in the Americas, which had no contact with the Holy land at the time. To be tempted in all points really means every kind of sin. No one had fancy sports cars then. There would still have been the same prideful “because I can afford this and you can’t, I’m better than you” attitude in those who looked at their chariots the same way some people look at cars today. I’m sure you get my point.
If Jesus were only a normal man living a life of sin, His sin would have been enough to keep Him out of Heaven even if He did become perfect while on earth. He had to have lived a perfect life for the whole time He was here. If He was a perfect man, (but only a man) and died, He would have only been able to save one other man, and He would not have been able to get out of the grave Himself, because someone has to pay for sin. It is because He was God, therefore infinite, that He could make an infinite sacrifice and save as many as will come to Him. It is important to note that as God alone, He could not save man because it was man that sinned and man must die for sin. Therefore, for the infinite God to make this infinite sacrifice, the infinite God had to become a finite man. Only He truly has life in Himself because God is the creator and not a created being. All that life was wrapped up in the person of Jesus Christ and offered on the cross to pay the debt mankind owes.
Consider the words of Ephesians 2:8-10 “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” No one can make themselves good enough for God. Think about what it would have been like though if humans could make themselves good enough for God? Then the Lord would owe us salvation, wouldn’t He? Who then would be the highest authority in the universe? Though it is not possible for us to make ourselves good enough for God, His plan of salvation had to play out the way it did in order to preserve His integrity and legal authority as King of the Universe.
And the cross also shows the pain sin has caused the heart of the Lord. With one member of the Trinity coming to earth with the approval of the other two, it was God’s way of acting out how much He hurts when any of us do anything wrong. Isaiah 49:15 and the first part of 16 says ....”Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.”
Romans 3:26 speaks about how through the plan of salvation God is both “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” at the same time. The penalty for sin was death, but because God took that penalty upon Himself man could live and have a second chance. Is that what you’d like to have? If you’ve never done so before I would invite you to ask Jesus to be you Saviour right now.
Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Job Learns What We All Must Post Two
No one knows for sure who Job was or when he lived. There is a “Jobab” listed in Genesis 10 and 1 Chronicles 1 that lived between Peleg and Abraham. Likely he’s the same person. If so, there is much significance to the timing of God’s challenge as this is the time when knowledge was decreasing on the earth. Let’s take a look at the various questions God asks to the one He calls “mortal man” and see if they still can inspire us today:
THINGS WE THINK WE’VE FIGURED OUT
Job 39:1, 2, 5, 10, 13, 14 “Do you know the time when the wild mountain goats bear young? Or can you mark when the deer gives birth? Can you number the months that they fulfill? Or do you know the time when they bear young? “Who set the wild donkey free? Who loosed the bonds of the onager Can you bind the wild ox in the furrow with ropes? Or will he plow the valleys behind you? “The wings of the ostrich wave proudly, But are her wings and pinions like the kindly stork’s? For she leaves her eggs on the ground, And warms them in the dust;”
If you like to watch nature documentaries, or read magazine or encyclopedia articles, you can learn all kinds of things about the animal kingdom. With a little bit of searching here on the internet one could find information on the gestation period of the mountain goat, how to train a wild ox or learn about ostriches. Job 39:17 is fascinating when you consider how many birds much smaller than an ostrich can navigate by the stars, and yet why is the ostrich so foolish? “Because God deprived her of wisdom, And did not endow her with understanding.”
Chapter 39:19, 25 “Have you given the horse strength? Have you clothed his neck with thunder? At the blast of the trumpet he says, ‘Aha!’ He smells the battle from afar, The thunder of captains and shouting.”
In reading this I never thought before how all those centuries we fought wars with horses, they also had to be fearless as they went into battle just like their riders.
Job 38:39, 41 asks “Can you hunt the prey for the lion, Or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, Who provides food for the raven, When its young ones cry to God, And wander about for lack of food?”
The food chain and the circle of life is something taught early on in junior high school biology classes. Predators contribute to the health of a herd by preying on the sick and the old animals. Psalm 104:21gives us the real answer to this question. “The young lions roar after their prey, And seek their food from God.”
Job 40:15-18, 21-23 “Look now at the behemoth, which I made along with you; He eats grass like an ox. See now, his strength is in his hips, And his power is in his stomach muscles. He moves his tail like a cedar; The sinews of his thighs are tightly knit. His bones are like beams of bronze, His ribs like bars of iron. He lies under the lotus trees, In a covert of reeds and marsh. The lotus trees cover him with their shade; The willows by the brook surround him. Indeed the river may rage, Yet he is not disturbed; He is confident, though the Jordan gushes into his mouth,”
Modern commentators believe this refers to the hippopotamus, but some believe this is a reference to a dinosaur like the brontosaurus because of the “tail like a cedar” text. Leviathan is also in controversy as some think it is a large crocodile, while others think it is the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Personally I do believe these are references to the dinosaurs. It seems so obvious as to almost be self-explanatory that the old legends of fire breathing dragons in so many world cultures referred to the dinosaurs. Now here is Old Testament proof such creatures existed. A great discussion of leviathan and behemoth can be found in Jim Pinkoski’s comic book “A Creationist’s View of Dinosaurs and the Theory of Evolution” available from the Amazing Facts ministry. Go to amazingfacts.org for more.
Job 41:1-4, 8-10: “Can you draw out Leviathan with a hook, Or snare his tongue with a line which you lower? Can you put a reed through his nose, Or pierce his jaw with a hook? Will he make many supplications to you? Will he speak softly to you? Will he make a covenant with you? Will you take him as a servant forever? Lay your hand on him; Remember the battle—Never do it again! Indeed, any hope of overcoming him is false; Shall one not be overwhelmed at the sight of him? No one is so fierce that he would dare stir him up. Who then is able to stand against Me?”
Job 41:11, 13, 14, 18-20: “Who has preceded Me, that I should pay him? Everything under heaven is Mine. Who can remove his outer coat? Who can approach him with a double bridle? Who can open the doors of his face, With his terrible teeth all around? His sneezings flash forth light, And his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. Out of his mouth go burning lights; Sparks of fire shoot out. Smoke goes out of his nostrils, As from a boiling pot and burning rushes. His breath kindles coals, And a flame goes out of his mouth.”
And what happened to the dinosaurs? Psalm 74:12-14 tells us “For God is my King from of old, Working salvation in the midst of the earth. You divided the sea by Your strength; You broke the heads of the sea serpents in the waters. You broke the heads of Leviathan in pieces, And gave him as food to the people inhabiting the wilderness.
Job 38:22, 23: “Have you entered the treasury of snow, Or have you seen the treasury of hail, Which I have reserved for the time of trouble, For the day of battle and war?”
Some who read this with doubt may just write most of this discourse of as flowery poems and not literal descriptions of anything. Is there really a storeroom in Heaven filled with hail and snow? We can describe what we see in the process of water vapor changing form from liquid to solid or gas. Indeed we have seen already in chapter two that Job 36: 27-29 does describe this cycle. However, look up Ezekiel 38:22 “And I will bring him to judgment with pestilence and bloodshed; I will rain down on him, on his troops, and on the many peoples who are with him, flooding rain, great hailstones, fire, and brimstone.”
Job 38:8-11, 16 “Or who shut in the sea with doors, When it burst forth and issued from the womb; When I made the clouds its garment, And thick darkness its swaddling band; When I fixed My limit for it, And set bars and doors; When I said, ‘This far you may come, but no farther, And here your proud waves must stop!’ “Have you entered the springs of the sea? Or have you walked in search of the depths?”
We have mapped the sea floor and we do have the ability to go under water to the very bottom, but still it has been said that we know more about outer space than we do about the oceans.
THINGS WE THINK WE’VE FIGURED OUT
Job 39:1, 2, 5, 10, 13, 14 “Do you know the time when the wild mountain goats bear young? Or can you mark when the deer gives birth? Can you number the months that they fulfill? Or do you know the time when they bear young? “Who set the wild donkey free? Who loosed the bonds of the onager Can you bind the wild ox in the furrow with ropes? Or will he plow the valleys behind you? “The wings of the ostrich wave proudly, But are her wings and pinions like the kindly stork’s? For she leaves her eggs on the ground, And warms them in the dust;”
If you like to watch nature documentaries, or read magazine or encyclopedia articles, you can learn all kinds of things about the animal kingdom. With a little bit of searching here on the internet one could find information on the gestation period of the mountain goat, how to train a wild ox or learn about ostriches. Job 39:17 is fascinating when you consider how many birds much smaller than an ostrich can navigate by the stars, and yet why is the ostrich so foolish? “Because God deprived her of wisdom, And did not endow her with understanding.”
Chapter 39:19, 25 “Have you given the horse strength? Have you clothed his neck with thunder? At the blast of the trumpet he says, ‘Aha!’ He smells the battle from afar, The thunder of captains and shouting.”
In reading this I never thought before how all those centuries we fought wars with horses, they also had to be fearless as they went into battle just like their riders.
Job 38:39, 41 asks “Can you hunt the prey for the lion, Or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, Who provides food for the raven, When its young ones cry to God, And wander about for lack of food?”
The food chain and the circle of life is something taught early on in junior high school biology classes. Predators contribute to the health of a herd by preying on the sick and the old animals. Psalm 104:21gives us the real answer to this question. “The young lions roar after their prey, And seek their food from God.”
Job 40:15-18, 21-23 “Look now at the behemoth, which I made along with you; He eats grass like an ox. See now, his strength is in his hips, And his power is in his stomach muscles. He moves his tail like a cedar; The sinews of his thighs are tightly knit. His bones are like beams of bronze, His ribs like bars of iron. He lies under the lotus trees, In a covert of reeds and marsh. The lotus trees cover him with their shade; The willows by the brook surround him. Indeed the river may rage, Yet he is not disturbed; He is confident, though the Jordan gushes into his mouth,”
Modern commentators believe this refers to the hippopotamus, but some believe this is a reference to a dinosaur like the brontosaurus because of the “tail like a cedar” text. Leviathan is also in controversy as some think it is a large crocodile, while others think it is the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Personally I do believe these are references to the dinosaurs. It seems so obvious as to almost be self-explanatory that the old legends of fire breathing dragons in so many world cultures referred to the dinosaurs. Now here is Old Testament proof such creatures existed. A great discussion of leviathan and behemoth can be found in Jim Pinkoski’s comic book “A Creationist’s View of Dinosaurs and the Theory of Evolution” available from the Amazing Facts ministry. Go to amazingfacts.org for more.
Job 41:1-4, 8-10: “Can you draw out Leviathan with a hook, Or snare his tongue with a line which you lower? Can you put a reed through his nose, Or pierce his jaw with a hook? Will he make many supplications to you? Will he speak softly to you? Will he make a covenant with you? Will you take him as a servant forever? Lay your hand on him; Remember the battle—Never do it again! Indeed, any hope of overcoming him is false; Shall one not be overwhelmed at the sight of him? No one is so fierce that he would dare stir him up. Who then is able to stand against Me?”
Job 41:11, 13, 14, 18-20: “Who has preceded Me, that I should pay him? Everything under heaven is Mine. Who can remove his outer coat? Who can approach him with a double bridle? Who can open the doors of his face, With his terrible teeth all around? His sneezings flash forth light, And his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. Out of his mouth go burning lights; Sparks of fire shoot out. Smoke goes out of his nostrils, As from a boiling pot and burning rushes. His breath kindles coals, And a flame goes out of his mouth.”
And what happened to the dinosaurs? Psalm 74:12-14 tells us “For God is my King from of old, Working salvation in the midst of the earth. You divided the sea by Your strength; You broke the heads of the sea serpents in the waters. You broke the heads of Leviathan in pieces, And gave him as food to the people inhabiting the wilderness.
Job 38:22, 23: “Have you entered the treasury of snow, Or have you seen the treasury of hail, Which I have reserved for the time of trouble, For the day of battle and war?”
Some who read this with doubt may just write most of this discourse of as flowery poems and not literal descriptions of anything. Is there really a storeroom in Heaven filled with hail and snow? We can describe what we see in the process of water vapor changing form from liquid to solid or gas. Indeed we have seen already in chapter two that Job 36: 27-29 does describe this cycle. However, look up Ezekiel 38:22 “And I will bring him to judgment with pestilence and bloodshed; I will rain down on him, on his troops, and on the many peoples who are with him, flooding rain, great hailstones, fire, and brimstone.”
Job 38:8-11, 16 “Or who shut in the sea with doors, When it burst forth and issued from the womb; When I made the clouds its garment, And thick darkness its swaddling band; When I fixed My limit for it, And set bars and doors; When I said, ‘This far you may come, but no farther, And here your proud waves must stop!’ “Have you entered the springs of the sea? Or have you walked in search of the depths?”
We have mapped the sea floor and we do have the ability to go under water to the very bottom, but still it has been said that we know more about outer space than we do about the oceans.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Chapter four post one
JOB LEARNED WHAT WE ALL MUST
1 Timothy 6:16 “who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen.” This reference is to God the Father. What do you think of as you read it? I’m sure most people would imagine the Lord on His throne surrounded by some sort of mist or cloud that can’t be seen past. We can see He’s in there but can’t see Him, we can only hear His voice. Maybe there are flashes of colour in the background as we hear Him speak. I imagine that too. However! Would this verse not also apply to the concept of God dwelling in an intellectual light no man can approach unto?
A friend of mine once gave me an interesting factoid - apparently in ancient times, the knowledge base of a society like the Roman Empire would double every 150 years; while today our knowledge base doubles every eight years. With all the advances in technology in the last few generations we now think we dwell in a far greater intellectual light than we have before. Should we be surprised then that so many feel no need of Him today?
In the previous chapter we looked at some references to creation from Job chapter 38. We saw how the angels and the Adams from the rest of the universe watched as God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit made this world. In this chapter we’ll take a greater look at the last few chapters of the book of Job and examine the scientific statements they make. The book of Job is the very first book of the Bible ever written and tells the story of one man who suffers and how it affected his faith. Though the Lord never reprimands Job for complaining about his trials, God does not apologize for them either. (We have already briefly discussed the first 2 chapters of Job as well. If you haven’t already, I’d like to ask you to stop here, go to your Bible, and read them fully. Job’s problems ultimately are not God’s fault.) He goes on at the conclusion of the book to question this one “mortal man” about a great many things until Job sees his total and utter helplessness as a human being. What’s interesting to note is that some of those challenges God gave we have found answers to through all the progress we’ve made in the last 150 years.
Before we get to that, if our view of today’s modern age is not 100% accurate, who’s to say that what we believe about the past is? Jesus had this to say in Matthew 24:37 “But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.” For today’s time to be like that of the flood, they must have had technology! Could it be that the history of their increasingly bold rebellion against God was tied to a growth in technology then just as much as it is today?
This may be a hard thought for some to consider. Evolutionists and Bible critics believe the modern view that we all started as cavemen with no knowledge at all, have steadily grown over time until we have what we have now, and that this is the only time humanity has ever possessed this much knowledge. Any great achievement of a previous civilization that we can’t fathom is called a ‘mystery’. Many of these include things like the statues of Easter Island; the Nazca lines in Peru and of course the Pyramids. One of the most ridiculous and outlandish theories touted in the 1970’s to explain these mysteries was the book “Chariots of the Gods”, where space aliens are credited with the engineering achievements of ancient mankind. However the more rational theory is that the people who lived back then were smart, for a while smarter than we are.
Bible scholars don’t normally have much to say one way or the other because their focus is not on this aspect of history. But think about it, God made Adam and Eve perfect. That should mean as we previously discussed that they had perfect memories (they didn’t need to write things down) and much higher mental abilities than we have today. Since the first ten generations lived into the 900’s, they were healthier and stronger than we are, their brains must have matched their bodies then. Think also about how much time they had then to study the world around them. It took ten more generations for the lifespan to get down to Abraham’s 175. Moses was seven generations after that and he lived to be 120. We don’t have confirmation of 70 year lifespans until the time of David as shown by Psalm 90:10 “The days of our lives are seventy years; And if by reason of strength they are eighty years, Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; For it is soon cut off, and we fly away.” As we saw a decline in physical power and strength, there must have been a corresponding decline in mental ability as well. (On a side note, do you know the main reason for the decline in lifespan? God’s original diet is listed as fruits, nuts and grains in Genesis 1:29. In Genesis 3:18 vegetables were added after sin. With this their perfect bodies did not decay for nine centuries. It was after the flood that they were allowed to eat meat, see Genesis 9:3. Meat eating is what caused this great decline in lifespan.)
This is the view Rene Noorbergen takes in “Secrets of the Lost Races”, written in part to respond to Chariots of the Gods. On pages 10-14 he compares the Bible’s list of the pre-flood leaders, known as the Patriarchs, with that of ancient Egyptian and Babylonian history, identifying them to be the same. Page 11 says “Upon comparing the list of the prehistoric Chaldean kings with the pre-Flood patriarchs, we find a fascinating parallel that again supports our basic premise.” He then goes on to elaborate on the similar meanings of the various names given in both accounts. Page 19 also takes China’s history into account, “The Chinese have set 2250 B.C. as the beginning for their history, while traditional Bible chronology estimates 2248 B.C. as the year for the Flood occurrence.”
Noorbergen gives his book’s basic premise on pages 3-4: “According to the Genesis account, the antediluvian people were highly knowledgeable, being the first to develop agriculture, animal husbandry, construction, architecture, political organization, metal-working, the abstract arts, mathematics, chronology and astronomy. What’s more, while the Genesis record tells us that there were altogether only ten generations of antediluvians, they developed the majority, if not all, of the basic elements of civilization by the sixth generation. Now if the antediluvians, beginning with the raw earth, were able to master the arts of civilization in the first six generations their existence, we may well wonder to what degree they further developed and refined those arts in the remaining four prior to the Deluge.”
He then continues on page 21 with: “Is it possible that the few human survivors of the Flood, whether the leader was called Noah, Nu-u, or Nuwah, depending on the tradition, were not so primitive after all? Can we assume that they carried with them sufficient knowledge of the antediluvian era to enable them to give a rapid start to the new civilization that sprang up … in the years immediately following the Flood?”
Page 124 gives a description of a model airplane found in an ancient Egyptian tomb. This finding is also discussed and pictured in “Unlocking the Mysteries of Creation, Premiere Edition, by Dennis R. Petersen, page 225. On pages 94-95 Noorbergen tells of an ancient map, the “Piri Reis chart of 1513”, which was drawn “from a composite of twenty older maps”, eight of which “were from the time of … Alexander the Great”. It “showed South America and Africa in correct relative longitude” when our modern map makers took “another two hundred years” to establish this as true. The map also “accurately showed the coastline of Queen Maud Land in Antarctica – even though the map was drawn in 1513, and the southern continent’s existence was not verified until 1819!” A picture of this map is in Unlocking the Mysteries of Creation, page 211. (This book like the other creation textbook I mentioned in the last chapter. It contains a great many things that are obviously true and gives a great many challenges to evolution. Unfortunately, the author clearly has the same earth centred, 14th century understanding of the events of day four of creation week as is shown by his statements on page 22.)
This information comes from chapter three of “Secrets of the Lost Races”, called “Following in the Tracks of Ancient Explorers”. There Noorbergen describes ancient records and evidence of post-Flood world exploration from several cultures. On page 99 we read: “In Genesis 10:25 we meet a descendant of Noah called Peleg who was given his name because ‘in his day was the earth divided’. The usual interpretation of this passage is that it refers to the division of nations; however, it could also mean division as in ‘allotment, marking off an area, a measurement.’ A more accurate translation of this historical passage could read, ‘Peleg, in his day was the earth measured, or surveyed.’”
I had previously heard two other interpretations of this verse. That the story following in chapter 11 of the Tower of Babel, when God confused the languages of the people to scatter them all over the earth, took place in Peleg’s time. And that the continents were originally one even after the flood and that this was the time in which they broke up into the geography we have today. Likely all these interpretations are correct.
In the same chapter Noorbergen discusses the story of Chinese world exploration with a focus on the “Shan Hai King”, a Chinese story from 2208 B.C. This “treatise on geography … for several hundred years … was regarded as a scientific work … but during the third century B.C., when many Chinese records were reevaluated and condensed, it was discovered that {it} did not correspond to any lands known at the time … {and} was reclassified as myth (page 103).” Rene shows on pages 103 and 104 that this work describes North America.
He also discusses “petroglyphs” ancient rock carvings found all over the world, one of which he mentions at Writing-on-Stone provincial park near Milk River, Alberta. That happens to be only a three and a half hour drive from my home, so after reading about them my wife and I went there and took the tour. I remember the very first set of carvings the tour guide took us to. When she asked us what we thought it was, two pictures came to both our minds. One was shaped very much like the animals in the famous cave paintings in France, which Rene discusses elsewhere in his book. The other was shaped like a brontosaurus. And all the information at the displays in the Visitor’s Centre clearly told how the Siksika First Nations, (formerly known as the Blackfoot Indian tribe) were not the ones who carved these stone pictures. They regarded them as sacred but had no idea who did carve them or how old they were.
“Secrets of the Lost Races” has greatly elaborated on my understanding of early world history. Though they likely did explore the earth, and built many of the great mystery monuments in those first five generations after the flood, by the time of Abraham five generations further on, we have an example of technology in his day. In Genesis 22:6 “he took the fire in his hand”. The way they traveled with fire back then was to coil up a very long rope, light one end and put it in a container. It would slowly burn over the course of days and could be taken out anytime it was needed to ignite a new fire. They didn’t even have flints, what we gave up when matches and lighters were invented! It’s clear that no matter what else may have been known or discovered in those first few generations after the Flood, as the people settled down in their respective regions of the earth and created the cultures we have today; it was all lost by Abraham’s time.
1 Timothy 6:16 “who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen.” This reference is to God the Father. What do you think of as you read it? I’m sure most people would imagine the Lord on His throne surrounded by some sort of mist or cloud that can’t be seen past. We can see He’s in there but can’t see Him, we can only hear His voice. Maybe there are flashes of colour in the background as we hear Him speak. I imagine that too. However! Would this verse not also apply to the concept of God dwelling in an intellectual light no man can approach unto?
A friend of mine once gave me an interesting factoid - apparently in ancient times, the knowledge base of a society like the Roman Empire would double every 150 years; while today our knowledge base doubles every eight years. With all the advances in technology in the last few generations we now think we dwell in a far greater intellectual light than we have before. Should we be surprised then that so many feel no need of Him today?
In the previous chapter we looked at some references to creation from Job chapter 38. We saw how the angels and the Adams from the rest of the universe watched as God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit made this world. In this chapter we’ll take a greater look at the last few chapters of the book of Job and examine the scientific statements they make. The book of Job is the very first book of the Bible ever written and tells the story of one man who suffers and how it affected his faith. Though the Lord never reprimands Job for complaining about his trials, God does not apologize for them either. (We have already briefly discussed the first 2 chapters of Job as well. If you haven’t already, I’d like to ask you to stop here, go to your Bible, and read them fully. Job’s problems ultimately are not God’s fault.) He goes on at the conclusion of the book to question this one “mortal man” about a great many things until Job sees his total and utter helplessness as a human being. What’s interesting to note is that some of those challenges God gave we have found answers to through all the progress we’ve made in the last 150 years.
Before we get to that, if our view of today’s modern age is not 100% accurate, who’s to say that what we believe about the past is? Jesus had this to say in Matthew 24:37 “But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.” For today’s time to be like that of the flood, they must have had technology! Could it be that the history of their increasingly bold rebellion against God was tied to a growth in technology then just as much as it is today?
This may be a hard thought for some to consider. Evolutionists and Bible critics believe the modern view that we all started as cavemen with no knowledge at all, have steadily grown over time until we have what we have now, and that this is the only time humanity has ever possessed this much knowledge. Any great achievement of a previous civilization that we can’t fathom is called a ‘mystery’. Many of these include things like the statues of Easter Island; the Nazca lines in Peru and of course the Pyramids. One of the most ridiculous and outlandish theories touted in the 1970’s to explain these mysteries was the book “Chariots of the Gods”, where space aliens are credited with the engineering achievements of ancient mankind. However the more rational theory is that the people who lived back then were smart, for a while smarter than we are.
Bible scholars don’t normally have much to say one way or the other because their focus is not on this aspect of history. But think about it, God made Adam and Eve perfect. That should mean as we previously discussed that they had perfect memories (they didn’t need to write things down) and much higher mental abilities than we have today. Since the first ten generations lived into the 900’s, they were healthier and stronger than we are, their brains must have matched their bodies then. Think also about how much time they had then to study the world around them. It took ten more generations for the lifespan to get down to Abraham’s 175. Moses was seven generations after that and he lived to be 120. We don’t have confirmation of 70 year lifespans until the time of David as shown by Psalm 90:10 “The days of our lives are seventy years; And if by reason of strength they are eighty years, Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; For it is soon cut off, and we fly away.” As we saw a decline in physical power and strength, there must have been a corresponding decline in mental ability as well. (On a side note, do you know the main reason for the decline in lifespan? God’s original diet is listed as fruits, nuts and grains in Genesis 1:29. In Genesis 3:18 vegetables were added after sin. With this their perfect bodies did not decay for nine centuries. It was after the flood that they were allowed to eat meat, see Genesis 9:3. Meat eating is what caused this great decline in lifespan.)
This is the view Rene Noorbergen takes in “Secrets of the Lost Races”, written in part to respond to Chariots of the Gods. On pages 10-14 he compares the Bible’s list of the pre-flood leaders, known as the Patriarchs, with that of ancient Egyptian and Babylonian history, identifying them to be the same. Page 11 says “Upon comparing the list of the prehistoric Chaldean kings with the pre-Flood patriarchs, we find a fascinating parallel that again supports our basic premise.” He then goes on to elaborate on the similar meanings of the various names given in both accounts. Page 19 also takes China’s history into account, “The Chinese have set 2250 B.C. as the beginning for their history, while traditional Bible chronology estimates 2248 B.C. as the year for the Flood occurrence.”
Noorbergen gives his book’s basic premise on pages 3-4: “According to the Genesis account, the antediluvian people were highly knowledgeable, being the first to develop agriculture, animal husbandry, construction, architecture, political organization, metal-working, the abstract arts, mathematics, chronology and astronomy. What’s more, while the Genesis record tells us that there were altogether only ten generations of antediluvians, they developed the majority, if not all, of the basic elements of civilization by the sixth generation. Now if the antediluvians, beginning with the raw earth, were able to master the arts of civilization in the first six generations their existence, we may well wonder to what degree they further developed and refined those arts in the remaining four prior to the Deluge.”
He then continues on page 21 with: “Is it possible that the few human survivors of the Flood, whether the leader was called Noah, Nu-u, or Nuwah, depending on the tradition, were not so primitive after all? Can we assume that they carried with them sufficient knowledge of the antediluvian era to enable them to give a rapid start to the new civilization that sprang up … in the years immediately following the Flood?”
Page 124 gives a description of a model airplane found in an ancient Egyptian tomb. This finding is also discussed and pictured in “Unlocking the Mysteries of Creation, Premiere Edition, by Dennis R. Petersen, page 225. On pages 94-95 Noorbergen tells of an ancient map, the “Piri Reis chart of 1513”, which was drawn “from a composite of twenty older maps”, eight of which “were from the time of … Alexander the Great”. It “showed South America and Africa in correct relative longitude” when our modern map makers took “another two hundred years” to establish this as true. The map also “accurately showed the coastline of Queen Maud Land in Antarctica – even though the map was drawn in 1513, and the southern continent’s existence was not verified until 1819!” A picture of this map is in Unlocking the Mysteries of Creation, page 211. (This book like the other creation textbook I mentioned in the last chapter. It contains a great many things that are obviously true and gives a great many challenges to evolution. Unfortunately, the author clearly has the same earth centred, 14th century understanding of the events of day four of creation week as is shown by his statements on page 22.)
This information comes from chapter three of “Secrets of the Lost Races”, called “Following in the Tracks of Ancient Explorers”. There Noorbergen describes ancient records and evidence of post-Flood world exploration from several cultures. On page 99 we read: “In Genesis 10:25 we meet a descendant of Noah called Peleg who was given his name because ‘in his day was the earth divided’. The usual interpretation of this passage is that it refers to the division of nations; however, it could also mean division as in ‘allotment, marking off an area, a measurement.’ A more accurate translation of this historical passage could read, ‘Peleg, in his day was the earth measured, or surveyed.’”
I had previously heard two other interpretations of this verse. That the story following in chapter 11 of the Tower of Babel, when God confused the languages of the people to scatter them all over the earth, took place in Peleg’s time. And that the continents were originally one even after the flood and that this was the time in which they broke up into the geography we have today. Likely all these interpretations are correct.
In the same chapter Noorbergen discusses the story of Chinese world exploration with a focus on the “Shan Hai King”, a Chinese story from 2208 B.C. This “treatise on geography … for several hundred years … was regarded as a scientific work … but during the third century B.C., when many Chinese records were reevaluated and condensed, it was discovered that {it} did not correspond to any lands known at the time … {and} was reclassified as myth (page 103).” Rene shows on pages 103 and 104 that this work describes North America.
He also discusses “petroglyphs” ancient rock carvings found all over the world, one of which he mentions at Writing-on-Stone provincial park near Milk River, Alberta. That happens to be only a three and a half hour drive from my home, so after reading about them my wife and I went there and took the tour. I remember the very first set of carvings the tour guide took us to. When she asked us what we thought it was, two pictures came to both our minds. One was shaped very much like the animals in the famous cave paintings in France, which Rene discusses elsewhere in his book. The other was shaped like a brontosaurus. And all the information at the displays in the Visitor’s Centre clearly told how the Siksika First Nations, (formerly known as the Blackfoot Indian tribe) were not the ones who carved these stone pictures. They regarded them as sacred but had no idea who did carve them or how old they were.
“Secrets of the Lost Races” has greatly elaborated on my understanding of early world history. Though they likely did explore the earth, and built many of the great mystery monuments in those first five generations after the flood, by the time of Abraham five generations further on, we have an example of technology in his day. In Genesis 22:6 “he took the fire in his hand”. The way they traveled with fire back then was to coil up a very long rope, light one end and put it in a container. It would slowly burn over the course of days and could be taken out anytime it was needed to ignite a new fire. They didn’t even have flints, what we gave up when matches and lighters were invented! It’s clear that no matter what else may have been known or discovered in those first few generations after the Flood, as the people settled down in their respective regions of the earth and created the cultures we have today; it was all lost by Abraham’s time.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Bible Proof There's Life on Other Planets post three
One of the biggest reasons for the confusion people have when they contrast science and the Bible is because the creation story in Genesis 1 seems to suggest an earth centered view. You have to know how to read it. It is simply told from the point of reference of someone standing on this new planet like a reporter might have covered it for CNN. Job 38:4-7 has the creation from the point of view of the Angels and others watching in heaven. “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone, When the morning stars (note: these are the angels) sang together, And all the sons of God (these are the Adam type leaders) shouted for joy?”
We looked at Genesis 1:1-3 in the previous chapter, let’s look at it again for some further clarification. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” That does not mean that the earth was an empty rock and actually has been here for 4 billion years and that the Lord simply added an atmosphere and ocean. To be without form means it did not exist.
Today most people just can’t wrap their heads around such an idea because they have been so completely indoctrinated with evolution. A lot of people try to blend the two conflicting ideas on our origins. You will hear things like “maybe they weren’t seven of our days, maybe they represent longer time periods”. Theories like this come from a desire to make sense of what we can’t make sense of. To blend creation and evolution in this way always ends up making creation serve evolution because people just can’t believe the Lord can cause something to exist where there was nothing before. Even the big bang theory is based on this same false premise that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. (We can now destroy small amounts of uranium or plutonium can’t we?) The observations scientists have made of an expanding universe led them to conclude that all the matter in the universe was once concentrated in one place and exploded in this bang. Some scientists have now abandoned the theory because they realized someone would have to have been there to set off the explosion, i.e. God. It’s entirely possible the universe is 28 billion years old just like scientists have estimated based on their observations. If so, then each and every solar system within the universe was created by God Himself in a process of seven literal days. The Father, Son and Spirit spoke together and where there was once nothing, behold new planets came into existence complete with eco-systems and first parents for every species. This is the only way to blend the truths of the bible with what we can clearly see in our telescopes that neither downgrades God nor goes against known fact.
What makes God “God” is three things that simply cannot be explained and have to be accepted. 1. He is all-seeing, all-knowing, 2. He has always been and always will be, and 3. He has the power of creation, of life and death. He can cause matter to come into existence simply by speaking.
God does not have to serve man’s limited ability to comprehend Him. “He works in mysterious ways”, is a common catch-phrase. Often the reason His ways are mysterious to us is because we are not willing to surrender our preconceived notions. As Peter said in Acts 11:17 when the Lord worked in a way beyond his understanding, “who was I that I could withstand God?” The science minded person may think this cannot be accepted, but yet science has to do this all the time. A good example is the history of our study of light, which will be discussed in the next chapter. For now, take the example of the simple act of having a shower. When you turn on the water, by all known laws of physics (motion, heat, and air pressure) the shower curtain should push out from the bathtub. Yet it sucks in to the tub every time. We can’t explain it. Do we ignore this fact and repeat a lie over and over telling everyone to believe that the shower curtain does push out or do we surrender to a truth beyond our ability to comprehend because it is plain and obvious? God can only help us when we surrender to the truth that He is God.
We have already looked at one spiritual proof of the Lord’s creative power. If you will repent of your sins and accept Jesus’ death on the cross in your place, the Holy Spirit will bring Him into your heart and make you into a new person. From that point on, He wants you to live out the new life He has in store for you. In Galatians 2:20 we read, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” We get a second spiritual proof from the creation week. THINK ABOUT IT! The calendar has days, marked by the rotation of the earth; months, marked by the phases of the moon; and years, marked by the earth’s orbit around the sun. There is no astronomical reason for the week! The seven literal days of creation are where we got our week form. The Lord’s final act in that week was to mark it off with an anniversary as described in Genesis 2:1, 2 “Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.”
God made the Seventh day of the week Holy as a memorial of creation. The best way to prove creation is in fact to give Sabbath keeping a try and honour Him on His Holy day. He blessed the day. He is there in a special way each week from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, the original Bible Sabbath. There’s a connection there you’ll make with Him when as a born-again believer with a living faith you keep His day His way. Once you see just how much Jesus has done for you and you experience His love anew through the Sabbath, you will know the truth beyond all doubt. No evolutionary science will ever sway you again. Genesis 2:1, 2 is a declaration that creation is finished as well. In other words, Earth is the last planet the Lord made. (This also gives us the only possible explanation for Satan’s rebellion. It’s been said sin can never really be explained; to have lived for eons of time in peace and harmony and then to want something more? It does make no sense. However, after all that time seeing new wonders continually unfold as creation grew and grew, maybe when God said it was done, they said to themselves, “that’s it?”)
This understanding then clearly explains what really happened on day 4 in the creation account. ‘Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; “and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.” Genesis 1:14-19.
According to the 14th century view, which most people think is what the Bible says; the rest of the universe was created solely for the benefit of earth. This of course makes no room for other planets, nor does it make room for all that we’ve seen so far. How could Satan’s fall and the war in Heaven have happened if he was only two days older than Adam and Eve? The Lord did create the sun and the moon and the planets in our solar system on day 4 because they were created for our benefit. That does not mean this is when He created the whole rest of His dominion though. It just means He made it possible for us to see what‘s out there. Those lights were put into the firmament, which is our atmosphere. In reference to the stars, which are light-years away, it simply says He made them “also”. There is no indication then that He actually did make them the same day.
A few verses sum up our discussion. 1 Corinthians 4:9, “For I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last, as men condemned to death; for we have been made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men.” Ephesians 3:10 “to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places,” The word “spectacle” could be replaced with “reality show” couldn’t it? A very short time after Paul wrote these words the spectacle came to its fullest meaning as Christians were fed to the lions in the Roman Coliseum. Yet Paul obviously understood that there was more going on than could be seen with human eyes. The progress of the gospel was not just for the benefit of the people of this world, it was also for everyone else watching us from far away in space.
Our final proof there is life on other planets comes from the parable in Luke 15:4-6. It is normally understood as applying to individual persons that Jesus came to save, but can it not, in light of this study, also apply to our one isolated little world? “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? “And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. “And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbours, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ Jesus sought you out and is rejoicing now with the angels that you have turned from your sins and come to Him. He has also sought out the whole world. When He returns, takes us to Heaven and then after the millennium establishes His kingdom on earth (more on this to come), this parable will be completely fulfilled. Our lost planet will once again be in its rightful place in God’s universe.
We have seen so far that the two conflicting worldviews from the 21st and 14th centuries both contain some errors and some similarities to the real truth. Science has questioned God, and just like other prophetic references to His foreknowledge that this would happen, He also has some answers you may be surprised to see. They are in the last four chapters of the book of Job. We will look at them next.
We looked at Genesis 1:1-3 in the previous chapter, let’s look at it again for some further clarification. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” That does not mean that the earth was an empty rock and actually has been here for 4 billion years and that the Lord simply added an atmosphere and ocean. To be without form means it did not exist.
Today most people just can’t wrap their heads around such an idea because they have been so completely indoctrinated with evolution. A lot of people try to blend the two conflicting ideas on our origins. You will hear things like “maybe they weren’t seven of our days, maybe they represent longer time periods”. Theories like this come from a desire to make sense of what we can’t make sense of. To blend creation and evolution in this way always ends up making creation serve evolution because people just can’t believe the Lord can cause something to exist where there was nothing before. Even the big bang theory is based on this same false premise that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. (We can now destroy small amounts of uranium or plutonium can’t we?) The observations scientists have made of an expanding universe led them to conclude that all the matter in the universe was once concentrated in one place and exploded in this bang. Some scientists have now abandoned the theory because they realized someone would have to have been there to set off the explosion, i.e. God. It’s entirely possible the universe is 28 billion years old just like scientists have estimated based on their observations. If so, then each and every solar system within the universe was created by God Himself in a process of seven literal days. The Father, Son and Spirit spoke together and where there was once nothing, behold new planets came into existence complete with eco-systems and first parents for every species. This is the only way to blend the truths of the bible with what we can clearly see in our telescopes that neither downgrades God nor goes against known fact.
What makes God “God” is three things that simply cannot be explained and have to be accepted. 1. He is all-seeing, all-knowing, 2. He has always been and always will be, and 3. He has the power of creation, of life and death. He can cause matter to come into existence simply by speaking.
God does not have to serve man’s limited ability to comprehend Him. “He works in mysterious ways”, is a common catch-phrase. Often the reason His ways are mysterious to us is because we are not willing to surrender our preconceived notions. As Peter said in Acts 11:17 when the Lord worked in a way beyond his understanding, “who was I that I could withstand God?” The science minded person may think this cannot be accepted, but yet science has to do this all the time. A good example is the history of our study of light, which will be discussed in the next chapter. For now, take the example of the simple act of having a shower. When you turn on the water, by all known laws of physics (motion, heat, and air pressure) the shower curtain should push out from the bathtub. Yet it sucks in to the tub every time. We can’t explain it. Do we ignore this fact and repeat a lie over and over telling everyone to believe that the shower curtain does push out or do we surrender to a truth beyond our ability to comprehend because it is plain and obvious? God can only help us when we surrender to the truth that He is God.
We have already looked at one spiritual proof of the Lord’s creative power. If you will repent of your sins and accept Jesus’ death on the cross in your place, the Holy Spirit will bring Him into your heart and make you into a new person. From that point on, He wants you to live out the new life He has in store for you. In Galatians 2:20 we read, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” We get a second spiritual proof from the creation week. THINK ABOUT IT! The calendar has days, marked by the rotation of the earth; months, marked by the phases of the moon; and years, marked by the earth’s orbit around the sun. There is no astronomical reason for the week! The seven literal days of creation are where we got our week form. The Lord’s final act in that week was to mark it off with an anniversary as described in Genesis 2:1, 2 “Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.”
God made the Seventh day of the week Holy as a memorial of creation. The best way to prove creation is in fact to give Sabbath keeping a try and honour Him on His Holy day. He blessed the day. He is there in a special way each week from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, the original Bible Sabbath. There’s a connection there you’ll make with Him when as a born-again believer with a living faith you keep His day His way. Once you see just how much Jesus has done for you and you experience His love anew through the Sabbath, you will know the truth beyond all doubt. No evolutionary science will ever sway you again. Genesis 2:1, 2 is a declaration that creation is finished as well. In other words, Earth is the last planet the Lord made. (This also gives us the only possible explanation for Satan’s rebellion. It’s been said sin can never really be explained; to have lived for eons of time in peace and harmony and then to want something more? It does make no sense. However, after all that time seeing new wonders continually unfold as creation grew and grew, maybe when God said it was done, they said to themselves, “that’s it?”)
This understanding then clearly explains what really happened on day 4 in the creation account. ‘Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; “and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.” Genesis 1:14-19.
According to the 14th century view, which most people think is what the Bible says; the rest of the universe was created solely for the benefit of earth. This of course makes no room for other planets, nor does it make room for all that we’ve seen so far. How could Satan’s fall and the war in Heaven have happened if he was only two days older than Adam and Eve? The Lord did create the sun and the moon and the planets in our solar system on day 4 because they were created for our benefit. That does not mean this is when He created the whole rest of His dominion though. It just means He made it possible for us to see what‘s out there. Those lights were put into the firmament, which is our atmosphere. In reference to the stars, which are light-years away, it simply says He made them “also”. There is no indication then that He actually did make them the same day.
A few verses sum up our discussion. 1 Corinthians 4:9, “For I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last, as men condemned to death; for we have been made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men.” Ephesians 3:10 “to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places,” The word “spectacle” could be replaced with “reality show” couldn’t it? A very short time after Paul wrote these words the spectacle came to its fullest meaning as Christians were fed to the lions in the Roman Coliseum. Yet Paul obviously understood that there was more going on than could be seen with human eyes. The progress of the gospel was not just for the benefit of the people of this world, it was also for everyone else watching us from far away in space.
Our final proof there is life on other planets comes from the parable in Luke 15:4-6. It is normally understood as applying to individual persons that Jesus came to save, but can it not, in light of this study, also apply to our one isolated little world? “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? “And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. “And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbours, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ Jesus sought you out and is rejoicing now with the angels that you have turned from your sins and come to Him. He has also sought out the whole world. When He returns, takes us to Heaven and then after the millennium establishes His kingdom on earth (more on this to come), this parable will be completely fulfilled. Our lost planet will once again be in its rightful place in God’s universe.
We have seen so far that the two conflicting worldviews from the 21st and 14th centuries both contain some errors and some similarities to the real truth. Science has questioned God, and just like other prophetic references to His foreknowledge that this would happen, He also has some answers you may be surprised to see. They are in the last four chapters of the book of Job. We will look at them next.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Chapter three post two
The next logical question then is “why can’t we communicate with them“? Isaiah 59:1, 2, and Hebrews 10:12 answer this very important thought. “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, That it cannot save; Nor His ear heavy, That it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear.” “But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God,” (This “right hand of God” is another reference to the throne room, or Sanctuary.) We are isolated here because of sin. Jesus had to die to save us from sin, but only once and only here. He did not have to go to any other planet and die for anyone there. So there is therefore no other world in rebellion against the Lord. All the rest of creation is at peace with God.
This brings up a very important point. They were there. Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”. Since death is the penalty for sin, and there is no sin in the rest of the universe, these beings have lived through countless eons of time and have watched every moment of human history unfold. They haven’t just had the privilege of seeing things from our point of view; they have also watched God as He worked to save this world.
Think about the full realities of this point. For however many years these ‘people’ have lived, they never once have had to experience any pain or suffering at all. Before this world began, they never knew what it was like to be lied to, or stole from. Yet now they have seen every murder, every broken home, every wrong thing that’s ever happened in this world.
In Job chapters 1 and 2 Satan came as earth’s representative because he did in fact steal this planet from Adam and Eve as is told in Genesis 3:1-7. Just as Adam is called a son of God, Lucifer (Satan’s original name) is referred to as “son of the morning” in Isaiah 14:12. Therefore he was once the highest angel, next in line to the Lord Himself. This reference along with Ezekiel 28:12-17 and Revelation 12:3-9 are the three most notable descriptions in the Bible of the devil. Ezekiel 28:15 says “You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, Till iniquity was found in you.” Lucifer at some point traded away the perfection God had originally given him and became Satan. Why did he do this? Isaiah 14:13 gives us the answer. “For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north”. This desire for pride and self-exaltation lead to war in Heaven. Lucifer became Satan when he desired a place higher than he already had. The only place left was that of the Lord Himself. According to Revelation 12:4, 9 Satan took a full one-third of the angels with him as they were cast down to this earth.
Yet here he is in Job chapters 1 and 2 still in Heaven! He still had some level of access to the rest of the universe and was not fully cast down at this point. There must have been some questions raised in the minds of those who live on the other planets when Lucifer started this rebellion. God had to take time to answer them, which is what world history is really all about. We can give a reasonable guess as to what those questions were simply by examining the kinds of questions people here ask today. “Does He really love us?” “Is He really fair?” “Why does His law say if you’re not in complete submission to Him, you must die?” “How can I be expected to live up to God’s law anyway?” “Is the Lord right in demanding our worship and adoration, or is He just on some sort of ego-trip?” One more very important question as well “If You are going to let the people of earth whom You save join the fellowship of these other planets Lord, how can we be sure they can be trusted?” This is of course not the question we ask, but it must be the question the rest of the universe is asking about us.
All these questions and whatever others there may have been are getting their answers in a living demonstration as world history plays out. In fact, when you study it out completely, the earth is one big giant experiment to test if there is any possible way to run the universe other than God’s. The Lord is really the one on trial. Not only did Adam and Eve fall, but in every generation their children have carried on the family business. Yet the Lord has been continually offering mercy and kindness, even to those who don’t care about Him. All of world history from the fall of our first parents (highlighted by the story of Cain and Abel) to the flood can be summed up in one sentence: God gave the rest of the universe a demonstration of just how bad things would get elsewhere if sin were allowed to run rampant. The rest of the Old Testament time period can also be described with one simple statement: The Lord gave man a chance to recover through obedience. The Ten Commandments are God’s Law. Violating them is what 1 John 3:4 says is sin. In Exodus 24:3 “all the people answered with one voice and said, ‘All the words which the Lord has said we will do.’” However they were trying in their own strength. Their history showed just how futile it is for any of us to try to make ourselves good enough for God.
The next phase of human history is in the life, death and resurrection of Christ. This is simply put as: God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. From the New Testament we can see a progressive decline in the place Satan has in the universe. Cross reference Luke 10:18 with Revelation 12:12 and you will see that Satan has now lost his place and is confined to this world. “And He said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” “Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.” When you think about it, the devil spent at least 4000 years telling everyone who would listen that he was the real victim, yet Jesus, who is God the Son, came and proved every one of the devil’s charges to be false.
Philippians 2:5-8 “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.” Jesus “humbled Himself”, though He should not have had to, He did. His example shows the humility of God, that He keeps His own law and that He really does love us to go to such great lengths to save us. After putting his own Creator on the cross, Lucifer lost all credibility with the rest of the universe. The planet He stole was now bought back by Jesus.
When Jesus went back to Heaven, they were ready to receive Him. He returned in triumph to make everything ready for when He would come back to earth and rescue us. Jesus can now judge us fairly, because He knows what it’s like to live the way we do. Human history now entered its fourth phase as the results of Jesus achievement were to be shared across the entire world and also demonstrated in the lives of those who received Him as their Saviour. The angels and the beings on the other planets have watched the progress His followers have made over the last 20 centuries in fulfilling His calling.
They will also watch in triumph as God works through His people in this fifth phase of history, what the Bible calls “the last days” to bring this entire controversy to its rightful conclusion. This is the time period we live in today. It’s the one where people are running to and fro with an increase of knowledge which began a little over 150 years ago. It’s the one with man trying desperately to create a heaven on earth for himself and take back his place among the stars while the Lord is working at the same time to make people ready His way, with the full and complete truths of the Bible restored in their lives. As mentioned in the last chapter and one of the most important points of this whole book, the dark ages were a spiritual as well as an intellectual darkness. That which most people today think the Bible says is only what they were told the Bible says by the influence the dark ages had on western civilization. Jesus spoke in Matthew 7:21-23 of a great many people alive at His Second Coming that He will say He didn’t know even though they thought they were His people. Why is that? Because when given a chance to fully recover from the darkness they turned it down. More on this will be discussed in another chapter.
Though the discussion here has been of the entire world on the grandest possible scale, each and every human life is also a repeat of this same controversy. Psalm 91:11 says, “For He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you in all your ways.” This “charge” does not mean “control”; it instead means “responsibility”. Just like in the old cartoons, when someone has to make a moral decision there was a good angel on one shoulder and a bad angel on the other, each whispering advice. God sends His angels to influence and protect us, while Satan is using his angels to lead us astray in any way possible. The interest the angels and the beings of the other planets have is just as much in your life and mine as it is in everyone else’s.
This brings up a very important point. They were there. Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”. Since death is the penalty for sin, and there is no sin in the rest of the universe, these beings have lived through countless eons of time and have watched every moment of human history unfold. They haven’t just had the privilege of seeing things from our point of view; they have also watched God as He worked to save this world.
Think about the full realities of this point. For however many years these ‘people’ have lived, they never once have had to experience any pain or suffering at all. Before this world began, they never knew what it was like to be lied to, or stole from. Yet now they have seen every murder, every broken home, every wrong thing that’s ever happened in this world.
In Job chapters 1 and 2 Satan came as earth’s representative because he did in fact steal this planet from Adam and Eve as is told in Genesis 3:1-7. Just as Adam is called a son of God, Lucifer (Satan’s original name) is referred to as “son of the morning” in Isaiah 14:12. Therefore he was once the highest angel, next in line to the Lord Himself. This reference along with Ezekiel 28:12-17 and Revelation 12:3-9 are the three most notable descriptions in the Bible of the devil. Ezekiel 28:15 says “You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, Till iniquity was found in you.” Lucifer at some point traded away the perfection God had originally given him and became Satan. Why did he do this? Isaiah 14:13 gives us the answer. “For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north”. This desire for pride and self-exaltation lead to war in Heaven. Lucifer became Satan when he desired a place higher than he already had. The only place left was that of the Lord Himself. According to Revelation 12:4, 9 Satan took a full one-third of the angels with him as they were cast down to this earth.
Yet here he is in Job chapters 1 and 2 still in Heaven! He still had some level of access to the rest of the universe and was not fully cast down at this point. There must have been some questions raised in the minds of those who live on the other planets when Lucifer started this rebellion. God had to take time to answer them, which is what world history is really all about. We can give a reasonable guess as to what those questions were simply by examining the kinds of questions people here ask today. “Does He really love us?” “Is He really fair?” “Why does His law say if you’re not in complete submission to Him, you must die?” “How can I be expected to live up to God’s law anyway?” “Is the Lord right in demanding our worship and adoration, or is He just on some sort of ego-trip?” One more very important question as well “If You are going to let the people of earth whom You save join the fellowship of these other planets Lord, how can we be sure they can be trusted?” This is of course not the question we ask, but it must be the question the rest of the universe is asking about us.
All these questions and whatever others there may have been are getting their answers in a living demonstration as world history plays out. In fact, when you study it out completely, the earth is one big giant experiment to test if there is any possible way to run the universe other than God’s. The Lord is really the one on trial. Not only did Adam and Eve fall, but in every generation their children have carried on the family business. Yet the Lord has been continually offering mercy and kindness, even to those who don’t care about Him. All of world history from the fall of our first parents (highlighted by the story of Cain and Abel) to the flood can be summed up in one sentence: God gave the rest of the universe a demonstration of just how bad things would get elsewhere if sin were allowed to run rampant. The rest of the Old Testament time period can also be described with one simple statement: The Lord gave man a chance to recover through obedience. The Ten Commandments are God’s Law. Violating them is what 1 John 3:4 says is sin. In Exodus 24:3 “all the people answered with one voice and said, ‘All the words which the Lord has said we will do.’” However they were trying in their own strength. Their history showed just how futile it is for any of us to try to make ourselves good enough for God.
The next phase of human history is in the life, death and resurrection of Christ. This is simply put as: God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. From the New Testament we can see a progressive decline in the place Satan has in the universe. Cross reference Luke 10:18 with Revelation 12:12 and you will see that Satan has now lost his place and is confined to this world. “And He said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” “Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.” When you think about it, the devil spent at least 4000 years telling everyone who would listen that he was the real victim, yet Jesus, who is God the Son, came and proved every one of the devil’s charges to be false.
Philippians 2:5-8 “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.” Jesus “humbled Himself”, though He should not have had to, He did. His example shows the humility of God, that He keeps His own law and that He really does love us to go to such great lengths to save us. After putting his own Creator on the cross, Lucifer lost all credibility with the rest of the universe. The planet He stole was now bought back by Jesus.
When Jesus went back to Heaven, they were ready to receive Him. He returned in triumph to make everything ready for when He would come back to earth and rescue us. Jesus can now judge us fairly, because He knows what it’s like to live the way we do. Human history now entered its fourth phase as the results of Jesus achievement were to be shared across the entire world and also demonstrated in the lives of those who received Him as their Saviour. The angels and the beings on the other planets have watched the progress His followers have made over the last 20 centuries in fulfilling His calling.
They will also watch in triumph as God works through His people in this fifth phase of history, what the Bible calls “the last days” to bring this entire controversy to its rightful conclusion. This is the time period we live in today. It’s the one where people are running to and fro with an increase of knowledge which began a little over 150 years ago. It’s the one with man trying desperately to create a heaven on earth for himself and take back his place among the stars while the Lord is working at the same time to make people ready His way, with the full and complete truths of the Bible restored in their lives. As mentioned in the last chapter and one of the most important points of this whole book, the dark ages were a spiritual as well as an intellectual darkness. That which most people today think the Bible says is only what they were told the Bible says by the influence the dark ages had on western civilization. Jesus spoke in Matthew 7:21-23 of a great many people alive at His Second Coming that He will say He didn’t know even though they thought they were His people. Why is that? Because when given a chance to fully recover from the darkness they turned it down. More on this will be discussed in another chapter.
Though the discussion here has been of the entire world on the grandest possible scale, each and every human life is also a repeat of this same controversy. Psalm 91:11 says, “For He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you in all your ways.” This “charge” does not mean “control”; it instead means “responsibility”. Just like in the old cartoons, when someone has to make a moral decision there was a good angel on one shoulder and a bad angel on the other, each whispering advice. God sends His angels to influence and protect us, while Satan is using his angels to lead us astray in any way possible. The interest the angels and the beings of the other planets have is just as much in your life and mine as it is in everyone else’s.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Chapter two post two
The first thing we’ll look at is the fact that the Bible does not teach a flat earth. Isaiah 40:22 says “It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers.” Today’s Astronomers have carefully observed that the universe is in fact expanding. The rest of this verse confirms this truth to be both scientific and Biblical. Who is responsible for that expansion? The Lord is. “Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.”
Isaac Newton theorized on gravity and the laws of motion after an apple fell and hit him on the head. Well according to Job 26:7, God has power over gravity. “He stretches out the north over empty space; He hangs the earth on nothing.” Indeed it is His power that keeps everything in motion safely. Colossians 1:16, 17 (this is how the New Revised Standard Version puts it) “For in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” If you’ve ever studied the atom you know that in its nucleus there are protons and neutrons. Because of their strong magnetic forces, those positively charged protons should make the nucleus of an atom fly apart. However, they are counterbalanced by even stronger nuclear forces that hold the protons and neutrons together. In other words, every single atom in the entire universe is held together by a power that the Bible says belongs to the Lord. The reference here speaks of Jesus as co-creator with the Father, and it includes everything from the smallest atoms to the largest star systems.
Today astronomers know that the Pleiades are a group of stars growing closer and closer together and the stars in Orion’s belt are hurtling away from each other at fantastic speeds. Arcturus, or the Bear, is one star to the naked eye but a group of seven small ones when you look closely. This was written down in Job 38:31, 32 around three thousand five hundred years before the invention of the telescope. “Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, Or loose the belt of Orion? Can you bring out Mazzaroth in its season? Or can you guide the Great Bear with its cubs?”
If you’d like a few more, I invite you to look up these verses. On the number of stars: Jeremiah 33:22. On how different they are: 1 Corinthians 15:41. On the fact that air has weight: Job 28:25. On the cycle of rain: Job 36:27-29. On mountains under the ocean floor: 2 Samuel 22:16 and Jonah 2:6. And on springs under the ocean, a discovery only made in the last few years: Job 38:16 (we’ll take a detailed look at ALL the scientific statements in the last few chapters of Job in chapter 4).
Cross reference Hebrews 1:1-3, 10; Isaiah 40:25, 26 and Genesis 1:1, 2 and you will see that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were involved in creating the physical realm. While the New King James version uses the word “worlds” we will see it here in the New International Version, which uses the word “universe”. “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He made the universe (or worlds in NKJV). The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word. After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the majesty in Heaven.”
“And: You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands.”
“To whom then will you liken Me, Or to whom shall I be equal?” says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, And see who has created these things, Who brings out their host by number; He calls them all by name, By the greatness of His might And the strength of His power; Not one is missing.” (We have a system called “New Galactic Catalogue” for labelling objects in the night sky - such and such a star or nebula is called “NGC 2160”. Here in Isaiah, we see that the Lord names all the stars.)
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.”
The issue of creation versus evolution is of course the most controversial aspect of the religion/science debate today. It is not my purpose to “prove” creation. There are several Christian based scientific organizations dedicated to that cause. Along with them, a number of “Creation Museums” have now come into existence in North America. They also provide interesting facts about the debate that can indeed challenge one’s point of view. However, I still don’t see them able to really “prove” that God did create the world in six literal days, though I do believe that He did. More on this will come in the next chapter.
Would you like something in the way of proof? Here is proof no geologist can dispute. During the early 1990’s, shortly after the various communist governments of eastern Europe fell in rapid succession, a number of Christian groups went in as quick as they could to teach the message of God’s love in giving Jesus to die for the sins of the world. At one meeting in one of those countries a man stood up to give his testimony. “You all know who I am”, he said to the audience. He was the former head of the secret police in that country. He went on to tell a little of his life story, focusing in on the fact that he had been an alcoholic and then he finished with “what atheism, evolution and communism could not do in 50 years, Jesus Christ did in one week”. This story was personally told to me by the speaker of that meeting, a Christian Pastor named Louis Torres.
That’s proof of creation. Psalm 51:10 says “Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.” Hebrews 11:6 says, ”But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” Those who have traveled the world for the last 150 plus years and found reasons to reject God in their search through geology, archaeology and history found those reasons because they chose to look for them in the first place.
Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution do represent the great divide from which science and faith departed. However that gap had already been widening. The French Revolution was the first time in history anyone anywhere ever attempted to build an atheist state. On November 17th, 1793, the leaders of the revolution held a symbolic event at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. It was meant as an act in bold defiance of God, the Church and anything religious. In essence what they were saying was “from now on, worship no god but reason”. What did they mean? They made no difference between good and bad religious faith after more than 1200 years of superstition and oppression by the church. They ignored the fact that God had been working since the days of Martin Luther to eradicate those errors. They decided instead that by simply thinking long enough, using logic and deduction, they could solve every problem man has ever had.
Once the Bible had been made illegal and the Ten Commandments were fully voided by the French legislature, the horrors that followed caused historians to refer to this time period in France as the “reign of terror”, one of the most unreasonable times in history that there ever was. Did you know this event was actually predicted in Daniel 11:38? “But in their place he shall honor a god of fortresses; and a god which his fathers did not know he shall honor with gold and silver, with precious stones and pleasant things” (emphasis supplied). God knows the future. He knew what the issues of our day would be and He knows what the real solution is.
Notice carefully the words of Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the Lord, “Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool.” The Lord Himself asks us to reason, not with ourselves, not with the world around us from which science has drawn all the knowledge it has gained so far, but with Him! The one promise science cannot keep, no matter how far and wide it searches for answers to life’s questions, the one thing we humans cannot do in our own power and strength; is clear our own consciences. Only be accepting Jesus’ death on the cross in our place can anyone truly have peace inside. Only by the hope that since Jesus rose from the dead to new life can we have life inside our hearts. When you know the Lord, there’s a quality and a peace to your life that you can’t even put into words. You just know it’s there. People who don’t have this peace will tell you plainly, “I’m really not living, I’m just existing”. The despair they feel cannot be filled with gadgets no matter how many new ones are invented.
Isaac Newton theorized on gravity and the laws of motion after an apple fell and hit him on the head. Well according to Job 26:7, God has power over gravity. “He stretches out the north over empty space; He hangs the earth on nothing.” Indeed it is His power that keeps everything in motion safely. Colossians 1:16, 17 (this is how the New Revised Standard Version puts it) “For in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” If you’ve ever studied the atom you know that in its nucleus there are protons and neutrons. Because of their strong magnetic forces, those positively charged protons should make the nucleus of an atom fly apart. However, they are counterbalanced by even stronger nuclear forces that hold the protons and neutrons together. In other words, every single atom in the entire universe is held together by a power that the Bible says belongs to the Lord. The reference here speaks of Jesus as co-creator with the Father, and it includes everything from the smallest atoms to the largest star systems.
Today astronomers know that the Pleiades are a group of stars growing closer and closer together and the stars in Orion’s belt are hurtling away from each other at fantastic speeds. Arcturus, or the Bear, is one star to the naked eye but a group of seven small ones when you look closely. This was written down in Job 38:31, 32 around three thousand five hundred years before the invention of the telescope. “Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, Or loose the belt of Orion? Can you bring out Mazzaroth in its season? Or can you guide the Great Bear with its cubs?”
If you’d like a few more, I invite you to look up these verses. On the number of stars: Jeremiah 33:22. On how different they are: 1 Corinthians 15:41. On the fact that air has weight: Job 28:25. On the cycle of rain: Job 36:27-29. On mountains under the ocean floor: 2 Samuel 22:16 and Jonah 2:6. And on springs under the ocean, a discovery only made in the last few years: Job 38:16 (we’ll take a detailed look at ALL the scientific statements in the last few chapters of Job in chapter 4).
Cross reference Hebrews 1:1-3, 10; Isaiah 40:25, 26 and Genesis 1:1, 2 and you will see that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were involved in creating the physical realm. While the New King James version uses the word “worlds” we will see it here in the New International Version, which uses the word “universe”. “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He made the universe (or worlds in NKJV). The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word. After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the majesty in Heaven.”
“And: You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands.”
“To whom then will you liken Me, Or to whom shall I be equal?” says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, And see who has created these things, Who brings out their host by number; He calls them all by name, By the greatness of His might And the strength of His power; Not one is missing.” (We have a system called “New Galactic Catalogue” for labelling objects in the night sky - such and such a star or nebula is called “NGC 2160”. Here in Isaiah, we see that the Lord names all the stars.)
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.”
The issue of creation versus evolution is of course the most controversial aspect of the religion/science debate today. It is not my purpose to “prove” creation. There are several Christian based scientific organizations dedicated to that cause. Along with them, a number of “Creation Museums” have now come into existence in North America. They also provide interesting facts about the debate that can indeed challenge one’s point of view. However, I still don’t see them able to really “prove” that God did create the world in six literal days, though I do believe that He did. More on this will come in the next chapter.
Would you like something in the way of proof? Here is proof no geologist can dispute. During the early 1990’s, shortly after the various communist governments of eastern Europe fell in rapid succession, a number of Christian groups went in as quick as they could to teach the message of God’s love in giving Jesus to die for the sins of the world. At one meeting in one of those countries a man stood up to give his testimony. “You all know who I am”, he said to the audience. He was the former head of the secret police in that country. He went on to tell a little of his life story, focusing in on the fact that he had been an alcoholic and then he finished with “what atheism, evolution and communism could not do in 50 years, Jesus Christ did in one week”. This story was personally told to me by the speaker of that meeting, a Christian Pastor named Louis Torres.
That’s proof of creation. Psalm 51:10 says “Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.” Hebrews 11:6 says, ”But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” Those who have traveled the world for the last 150 plus years and found reasons to reject God in their search through geology, archaeology and history found those reasons because they chose to look for them in the first place.
Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution do represent the great divide from which science and faith departed. However that gap had already been widening. The French Revolution was the first time in history anyone anywhere ever attempted to build an atheist state. On November 17th, 1793, the leaders of the revolution held a symbolic event at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. It was meant as an act in bold defiance of God, the Church and anything religious. In essence what they were saying was “from now on, worship no god but reason”. What did they mean? They made no difference between good and bad religious faith after more than 1200 years of superstition and oppression by the church. They ignored the fact that God had been working since the days of Martin Luther to eradicate those errors. They decided instead that by simply thinking long enough, using logic and deduction, they could solve every problem man has ever had.
Once the Bible had been made illegal and the Ten Commandments were fully voided by the French legislature, the horrors that followed caused historians to refer to this time period in France as the “reign of terror”, one of the most unreasonable times in history that there ever was. Did you know this event was actually predicted in Daniel 11:38? “But in their place he shall honor a god of fortresses; and a god which his fathers did not know he shall honor with gold and silver, with precious stones and pleasant things” (emphasis supplied). God knows the future. He knew what the issues of our day would be and He knows what the real solution is.
Notice carefully the words of Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the Lord, “Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool.” The Lord Himself asks us to reason, not with ourselves, not with the world around us from which science has drawn all the knowledge it has gained so far, but with Him! The one promise science cannot keep, no matter how far and wide it searches for answers to life’s questions, the one thing we humans cannot do in our own power and strength; is clear our own consciences. Only be accepting Jesus’ death on the cross in our place can anyone truly have peace inside. Only by the hope that since Jesus rose from the dead to new life can we have life inside our hearts. When you know the Lord, there’s a quality and a peace to your life that you can’t even put into words. You just know it’s there. People who don’t have this peace will tell you plainly, “I’m really not living, I’m just existing”. The despair they feel cannot be filled with gadgets no matter how many new ones are invented.
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