Jan 30 2015

The Voice

I’ve watched the TV show The Voice a few times and the visual impact of the contestants singing to the backs of four large red chairs is quite powerful. In the Australian version of this franchised reality show, four judges are seated with their backs to aspiring singers, while they listen carefully to the performances of each contestant during a blind audition.

Throughout the auditions the judges must decide, simply on the sound of each voice, which contestants they will select to join their team and be coached by them for the duration of the contest. If the singer meets with their approval, the judges turn their chairs around to see the performer for the first time. If more than one judge turns their chair around it is then up to the performer to decide whose team they want to join.

The set for this show provides strong visual imagery and it caused me to think about how we listen to others. This set is a potent reminder of just how much our present culture is influenced by appearances. It is always interesting to watch the faces of the judges as they turn their chairs around and see just what the person they may be coaching looks like. The blind audition is also a powerful reminder to me of the way we judge the God who has revealed Himself to us from the beginning of time.

Many people sit in judgement with their backs to God, but they generally do not listen intently as these judges do. The Voice judges make it their business to listen carefully. However, more often than not, people pass judgement on God without ever taking the time to listen to Him. Instead, they listen to the audience’s opinion of God. Their attention is focused on what is in front of them, not on God.

Sadly, some people who actually do turn around and look at God don’t see what they want to see, so they give up and turn away again. They can’t make God into what they think He should be so they reject Him, without ever understanding His plan for humanity. Rather than taking the time to discover who God really is, they inform the God they claim they don’t believe exists that He doesn’t run His universe according to the way they believe it should be run. This attitude, although rather astounding when you really think about it, is becoming a very prominent part of our modern culture.

I could not count the number of times I’ve heard someone say, “If there was a God how could he allow so much suffering?”

This is a fair question, but in reality the majority of the people who ask it are not really asking a question, they are telling us that the God they believe the Christian world is presenting is not someone they are interested in getting to know. The problem with this attitude is that the so-called “Christian world” is not God.

There have been many people throughout history who have presented themselves to the world as representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ, but they have quite clearly demonstrated by their actions that they are not in fact what they claim to be. John’s first letter (1 John) explains how Christians can discern true followers of Jesus Christ. We can know a person is a fellow believer by their ethics, by their declaration that Jesus is indeed God incarnate and by their love. Through the presence of these indicators we can clearly recognise a true believer.

adolf_hitler-secular-schools-quote-480x270

From the net

The most famous of the great pretenders would have to be Adolf Hitler. Although at times he called himself a Christian, Hitler was actually anything but a Christian. In 1937 a number of Protestant churches issued a manifesto objecting to Nazi policies, and the Nazis retaliated by arresting 700 pastors. No matter what he claimed, the truth is that Hitler and his henchmen were actually set on destroying the Christian church.

Although history is littered with pretenders, it’s not difficult to make a list of people who have been remarkable Christians. Some have even changed the course of history. But these people are still simply that, they are people, and they had or have their faults and failings.

Great Christians

When Jesus walked the earth He gathered to Himself a small group of men and women who spent hours listening to Him. He then selected from amongst His apostles an even smaller group who would commit His teachings to writing. It was through the power of the Holy Spirit that this select group recorded God’s Word or personally passed on their knowledge to be recorded by a disciple. In due time the Father used another group of people to ensure these writings were preserved and collected together so that He can speak to us today and inform us of His plan for humanity. We will never understand why God has allowed suffering to be part of the human reality unless we learn to listen to Him through His Word.

God does not communicate to the people of the world with a loudspeaker. He tells us in His Word that He uses a calm, small voice or a gentle whisper to speak to us. When He was speaking with the prophet Elijah we find:

And God said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by and a great, strong wind tore the mountains and broke the rocks into pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. But after the fire there came a calm, small voice.

And when Elijah heard it he covered his face with his robe and went out and stood in the entrance to the cave. Now the voice came to him saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1Ki 19:11-13)

People have to listen intently to hear the voice of God speaking to them. Listening quietly is not something people do well these days. The world is filled with noise, but God is not to be found in all this noise. God has not been silent but people want Him to dance to their tune. However, God has chosen to communicate to us through His Word and we need the Holy Spirit to enable us to hear Him as we study His scriptures (2 Peter 1:20).

The viewing audience would not be impressed if the judges on The Voice simply listened to the audience and judged the aspiring competitors by what the audience thought. Nor would the judges be doing much of a job if they never actually listened to the competitors at all but just listened to what they were told about the performances. But this is often how people make up their minds about God.

When a person tells me they believe God is a masochistic, genocidal maniac, it is as though that person is sharing a degrading, slanderous story about someone they have never met, when the individual they are talking about is actually my best friend and I know the opinion of the gossip is all lies. It’s a sad situation that the majority of people who sit in judgment on the God of The Bible have never really taken the time to listen to Him, they simply listen to the audience’s opinion of God, and in reality, this opinion comes from other people who don’t know God.

Even people who know God can never know everything about Him. People will always be flawed and therefore there is no one who can truly reveal God apart from His Son. God had a reason for allowing people to become murders and terrorists, rapists and tyrants, but He has assured us that this situation will only endure for a season. He has revealed His program for change and His rescue plan for humanity and those who know Him also know He will bring pain and suffering to an end.

The incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ was the turning point in humanity’s sad history. Those of us who know Him know we will be with Him in eternity and this time of sorrows will be put into a new perspective. Jesus said this can be compared to how a new mother feels about her labour when her baby is in her arms (John 16:21). Our Father is birthing a whole new creation where the pain of this present world will pale into insignificance in the light of the glory ahead.

Without knowing Jesus we can never know God. This is the way God has chosen to reveal Himself to humanity. He sent His Son to show us His Way and make it possible for us to come into His presence. Through Jesus we have a mediator who can take us into the presence of our awesome Creator. Because He lived a human life Jesus understands our weaknesses and can help us through life’s difficulties. He is always knocking at our door asking to be allowed in. He says:

Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with them, and they with me. (Rev 3:20)

From the net

In this verse Jesus tells us that we must hear His voice; it is truly the only voice that will make any difference to us eternally. Our eternal destiny is dependent upon hearing this voice and it is virtually impossible to hear Him if we don’t take the time to listen to Him. From The Bible we know that Jesus is God’s Word or Logos (John1:1). This Greek word, Logos, means expression or communication and so we understand that Jesus is God’s expression in human form, it is through Him that we can hear God.

Many people who have refused to listen to God have a sort of twisted theology. In their view, the God of The Bible has done a terrible job by allowing pain and suffering into this present creation and they would rather not have anything to do with Him. This is a sort of negative theology. It’s the theology you have when you refuse to have a theology because you refuse to listen to the God you refuse to believe in.

I think of this as tantrum theology. I have an image of people standing before God on the Day of Judgment stamping their feet and yelling, “You did such a rotten job why should I have taken the time to listen to you?” And the Father will simply reply, “I died for you and constantly reached out to you, but you never ever took the time to listen to me. How could you possibly make such a judgment, you don’t know anything about me?”

Jan 20 2015

Tinkering With Truth

Sojourner Truth was a woman one can only admire. The youngest of 12 children, Sojourner was born into slavery in 1797 in Ulster County, New York State and given the name Isabella Baumfree by her African-American parents. Like most of her siblings, Isabella was sold and separated from her family at the age of nine; then sold again and again, until, in 1826, she took her baby daughter and walked away from her life as a slave and into a life of challenging the status quo.

Sojourner Truth

Isabella, or Belle, appears to have had a questioning mind and not only did she question the establishment of her day, she spoke out boldly for truth and justice, matching her words with actions. Isabella was a woman with passion. She passionately believed in her Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and she passionately believed He had made all people equal, no matter what colour they happened to be. When addressing a predominantly white crowd in Battle Creek, Michigan she once said:

Children, who made your skin white? Was it not God? Who made mine black? Was it not the same God? Am I to blame, therefore, because my skin is black? Does it not cast a reproach on our Maker to despise a part of His children, because He has been pleased to give them a black skin? Indeed, children, it does; and your teachers ought to tell you so, and root up, if possible, the great sin of prejudice against colour from your minds…..Does not God love coloured children as well as white children? And did not the same Saviour die to save the one as well as the other? (2)

Sugar Fields in Montego Bay Jamaica 1900

Women working in a sugar field

In her narrative she recounts an experience that occurred in 1843, on the day of Pentecost, when she was called by the spirit, who instructed her to leave New York, a “second Sodom,” and travel east under the name Sojourner Truth. Sojourner based her new first name on the biblical verse:

We are here for only a moment, strangers and sojourners in the land as our ancestors were before us. Our days on earth are like a passing shadow, gone so soon without a trace. (1Ch 29:15)

In her narrative we also find:

Truth adamantly believed that all humans are sojourners waiting for the second-coming of the Lord who will welcome all into eternal life. She took her responsibility as a Christian disciple and prophet seriously, dedicating her life to spreading the word of the gospel alongside her messages of racial equality and women’s rights. The surname Truth is somewhat self-explanatory for a born-again Christian and street preacher, but Truth has published various accounts of how she chose her last name. (1)

One of these accounts is recorded in her narrative where she explains:

…… her surname had always been the name of her master. Now that she served only God, she served the Truth, and took that as her last name.” (1)

Under the name Sojourner Truth, Isabella set out to travel east of New York, through Connecticut and Massachusetts and as an itinerant preacher she determined to tell the truth and work against injustice. She saw her mission as teaching people “to embrace Jesus, and refrain from sin.” And she saw quite clearly that enslavement was a terrible sin. Selling fellow human beings as though they were nothing more than a flock of sheep was a sin against their Maker, who had created them in His own image.

Slave auction in New Orleans

Sojourner’s strong faith and relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ gave her the power to rise “above the battlements of fear” as she stood against slave masters and other slaves who counselled her to accept her lot and submissively pray for good masters. She saw the inhumanity of slavery for what it was; an evil that followers of Jesus must work to eradicate. At the end of her narrative she takes great joy from hearing that one of her slave masters had also reached this conclusion.

Although Sojourner was illiterate, she had a clear and incisive mind and she often sat for hours discussing topics with fellow believers. As she could not explore ideas through her own reading, she took advantage of her time travelling and when she found groups who held differing views she would spend time discussing The Bible with them. Her narrative tells us she had:

….. no preference for one sect more than another, but being well satisfied with all who gave her evidence of having known or loved the Saviour.(1)

She also had people read to her from The Bible, but she preferred that children perform this task, as adults tended to add their own commentary. She said:

Children, as soon as they could read distinctly, would re-read the same sentence to her, as often as she wished, and without comment;—and in that way she was enabled to see what her own mind could make out of the record, and that, she said, was what she wanted, and not what others thought it to mean. She wished to compare the teachings of the Bible with the witness within her” (1)

Rather than submitting to the prevailing worldview of the people around her, Sojourner spoke out against racism and sexism with Jesus as her “soul-protecting fortress.” Although she spoke English as her second language, her first language being Dutch, she was able to hold the attention of English speaking audiences with her ability to cut to the point, her strong voice and her powerful songs.

It is remarkable to find that despite the fact that she was an illiterate, female slave, on October 29, 1864 she had an audience with President Abraham Lincoln at the White House and later met President Ulysses S. Grant. Even today this would be an amazing feat for any person of such humble origins. But Sojourner believed she had a mission and she gave her life to work for those things she felt the Lord had put on her heart to change. She lived her life working tirelessly for truth and justice and ended her life with the words “be a follower of the Lord Jesus.” She believed that this meant following Jesus’ teachings and I believe she would acknowledge that it was through His power and strength that she was able to accomplish all that she did.

If an illiterate slave woman of the 19th century could live out her faith and fight for truth and justice, despite the dreadful situation she found herself in, surely believers today who claim to follow the Lord Jesus Christ can do the same. However, I believe God’s people are hamstrung by one terrible doctrinal error. The prevailing opinion of Sojourner’s day amongst the ruling class was that slavery was acceptable and slaves were commodities. Even people who claimed to be Christians held to this age old idea. Sojourner refused to look at life in that way because she knew it was not God’s truth. The Bible taught that:

There cannot be Jew nor Greek, there is no slave nor freeman, there is no male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal 3:28)

Sojourner could see no reason why this truth should not be acted upon. Even though Paul had taught caution to the slaves of his day (Eph 6:5), Sojourner understood that the inhuman slavery practiced in her time was not something her Lord would allow to continue. She once admitted to an audience that she had at one time hated white people, but she went on to say that when she met her final master, Jesus, she was filled with love for everyone. When slaves were finally emancipated she knew her prayers had been answered.

Emancipated slaves

Today, there are many people who claim The Bible teaches the doctrine of eternal torment. These people look to tradition and suggest that those who see The Bible as teaching a different destiny for the unsaved are not following the clear teachings of the church. This horrific doctrine has never appeared to be biblical to me, no matter how long the church has held to this view. There are many theologians today who have also changed their minds on this issue after a closer look at God’s Word.

I believe we are tinkering with the truth when we refuse to look at the overall teachings of The Bible concerning this issue and we are also slandering our Father, who has declared He is Love (1 John 4:8). It is my contention that people who accept this doctrine have a warped understanding of the nature and character of our Creator. They believe Him to be vindictive, whereas He is working to save as many as possible from the destruction that will come on our present creation. This destruction will be the outpouring of God’s wrath on sin and its consequences, death, pain and suffering and its entire purpose will be to eliminate these corruptions of God’s original creation.

Had Sojourner Truth and William Wilberforce simply accepted that one verse told the whole story (Eph 6:5), without taking the overall teachings of The Bible into consideration – as many people do with a particular understanding of Matthew 25:46 – the church might still be championing the cause of the slave holder. But we know better than to base our understanding of the nature of God on one word in The Bible. We have many verses in both the Old and New Testaments that declare the ultimate destiny of the unbeliever is that they will perish, or be eternally destroyed.

Many people claim Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians supports the case for eternal torment, but this verse tells us quite clearly that eternal destruction – which means a final, eternal separation from the Creator by this destruction – awaits those who refuse God’s rescue plan. Paul tells the Thessalonians not to worry about the people who are persecuting them. God is not going to allow people to inflict pain on other people forever, He will bring this world and all it’s pain and suffering to an end. Paul writes:

And to you that are troubled, be at ease like us, because when the Lord Jesus comes from heaven with the angels of power and with flaming fire, He will bring forth punishment on them that do not see God, and do not listen attentively to the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will themselves be punished with eternal destruction, and removed from the face of the Lord and from the worship of His might. (2 Th 1:7-9)

Indeed the punishment for those who refuse to listen to the gospel, and therefore cannot see God, will have dire eternal consequences. Unbelievers will be eternally removed from the Lord’s presence by the eternal destruction (or the eternal punishment mentioned in Mat 25:46) awaiting this present creation. The Father wants to save everyone from His final elimination of death, pain and suffering (2 Peter 3:9), but there will be those who have refused to listen to Him and accept His rescue plan. These will suffer the final punishment, which is the second death in the lake of fire (Rev 20:15).

Statue of Sojourner Truth in Florence MA

As Sojourner reminds us:

Our days on earth are like a passing shadow, gone so soon without a trace. (1Ch 29:15)

Like so many other people who had not been subjected to traditional teachings, Sojourner rejected the concept of eternal torment, stating that:

I have found out and know that God’s brightness and goodness and glory is hot enough to scorch all the sinners in the world. (2)

God is probably not going to send an angel declaring the imminence of the destruction of this present creation until the very end (Rev 14:6), so people need to start listening now if they want to be part of His new creation. Have you taken the time to examine God’s message to you? He sent His only Son to proclaim the Good News. He is going to destroy death, pain and suffering, but to do that He will need to destroy all that is outside of His rule and reign. There is only one way to be part of the new creation He will bring into existence after the final destruction of this corrupted creation and that is to accept Jesus Christ as your Saviour and Redeemer.

(1) Truth, Sojourner (2004-07-01). The Narrative of Sojourner Truth [with Biographical Introduction] . Neeland Media LLC. Kindle Edition.

(2) http://www.sojournertruth.org/Library/Speeches/

Jan 14 2015

Choice Is a Fine Thing

Our ability to make choices is a powerful part of what it is to be human. Every day each one of us makes numerous choices about a range of different issues, some are relatively trivial, while others can have far reaching ramifications. Raising children is an area in which we must make momentous choices, as the alternatives we examine and select, can – and often do – affect the sort of person they will become.

Teaching children how to make wise choices for themselves is also a vital part of good parenting and part of this process is helping them to understand that it is always prudent to examine a range of alternative positions, so that they can have a full picture of just what they are choosing between.

The very concept of choice presupposes this process of analysis. Without examining alternative possibilities we are actually forfeiting our ability to choose. We are simply either selecting the dominant or most widely used choice in the culture surrounding us or defaulting to something that happens to take our fancy at the time, and admittedly, in many situations this is all that is needed.

Image from web

These less important choices might involve food, clothing, or even aesthetic taste and for these choices many of us would simply go with our gut feelings or individual predilections. Historically, for many people, availability of alternatives or the dominant culture of their geographical location dictated many of their personal choices for them. However, in today’s world, our dominant culture is shaped by new processes. We live in the era of the sound bite and the newspaper headline. Many people go no deeper in thinking about the more important choices they make than basing their beliefs on 30 seconds of on-line video or a half hour TV program that presents a neat, no-questions-needed package.

With the advent of world media and ease of travel, the formation of a dominant culture has taken a new direction. Instead of traditions and military might being the most powerful drivers of national culture, we now have new forces in play. We have international media empires and political parties, controlled by strong philosophical biases and economic theories, working to narrow our range of perceived choices to those that will benefit their own set of preferred options.

Apart from all the choices we each must consider as we make day to day decisions, we also have one life-changing choice to take into account that will affect many of our other choices. This choice is not bound by personal preferences or national culture, it is something that is relevant to every human being on the planet and it is the most important choice any person will ever make. This is the only choice we will ever face that doesn’t just affect the time we have in this life. This choice will reach out beyond death and the grave; it will not only impinge upon how we live our lives in the here and now, it will also have a powerful influence on our eternal destiny.

The Creator had a plan and a purpose when He designed and produced the universe and all of the life-forms within it. One of His most powerful gifts to humanity was allowing us to choose whether we accept this truth, or whether we reject it and choose to believe the rather simplistic alternative, that is, that the universe created itself and it has no true purpose, it simply exists. This would mean that all of the intricate, clearly designed systems that make up our cosmos merely bear the appearance of detailed design and our brains are nothing more than the product of unplanned chemical reactions.

We know these brains are so incredibly complex that even after thousands of scientists have spent hundreds of thousands of hours working on designs to duplicate them, they have only managed to scratch the surface in creating a machine that can do what our brain does, let alone make one that can maintain and renew itself, while at times rerouting signals and neurological (digital) pathways when necessary. And our brain is only one component of a larger body that can, with the help of a uniquely designed sexually complementary partner, actually produce a new, but different version of itself.

Image from web

Using this ingeniously designed organ, we might choose to believe the universe made itself. If this is the case, then we must also choose to believe that each and every minute detail of everything that exists came into existence, from nothing, by pure, blind chance. This process would entail literally billions of incidents of blind, random chance miraculously working together to create this mind-bogglingly interrelated, interactive, interdependent system, which functions with precise timing and perfect order.

Any scientist worth his or her salt would have to admit the universe is a superbly fine tuned system, with incredible interdependencies that could never function as individual, independent applications. As more evidence comes to hand some scientists have actually been forced to admit just that. However, over the years evolutionists have created an elaborate set of just-so stories to explain the series of random happenings they claim worked together to produce our universe and the life forms that inhabit it. But these stories are actually just that, elaborate stories carefully crafted by carefully crafted human brains.

To accept that these billions of random incidents happened at exactly the right time in exactly the right order, by chance, involves nothing more than blind faith, because this belief system is based entirely on incidents people choose to assume happened millions or billions of years in the past which means, naturally, that no one has ever observed a single one of these incidents as they occurred.

What we have observed in the world today are catastrophic geological events rapidly reshaping the surface of our planet. The Mt St Helen’s volcano, which erupted in 1980, produced 7.6 meters of finely layered sediment in a single afternoon. Thus we realise that deep layers of rock sediment do not need millions of years to form. We have also observed life forms adapting to new environments, but this is not evolution, this is part of God’s original design that enabled creatures to fill new environmental niches as they filled the Earth (Gen 8:17).

We are told evolution involves natural selection acting on random mutations that have added new genetic information to an existing life-form. What we actually observe, over and over again, are mutations that decrease genetic information within organisms and reduce genetic variability within populations. We also know that the vast majority of mutations cause harm to organisms and even though a handful have benefited populations, they have also been the product of information loss, not gain.

In other words, we have only ever observed a reduction in genetic information. Therefore this mechanism has never been observed or proven to do what evolutionists claim it can do. It is simply pure speculation that lies behind this powerful modern myth.

Many well educated people consider a far more reasonable faith is founded on belief in the God who has continuously revealed Himself to humanity throughout history – through His people, His Spirit and His Word. This alternative story was brought to its climax when Jesus Christ was born into the human community to deliver His Good News and save humanity from destruction. It is also scientifically reasonable to accept His account of God’s special creation as the most viable explanation for the origin of the universe.
It appears many people never consider looking objectively at the choices they make concerning why we are here, where we came from and where we are going; that is, the choices we make about the very meaning of our lives. Instead, they take the path of least resistance; they simply accept the dominant cultural paradigm as though they were selecting a new pair of shoes. The latest fashion is to accept the evolution story of origins. This is incredibly short sighted, when one considers how much time some people spend deciding what to eat or what they should wear.

Indian Market

It takes a determined effort to objectively examine the popular belief that our gloriously complex universe simply created itself out of nothing. In our postmodern culture, progressive thinking outside the dominant cultural paradigm risks ridicule on a grand scale, as we have taken pseudo-intellectual arrogance to new heights when it comes to evolution. Almost everyone with a TV has seen David Attenborough, Stephen Fry or Professor Brian Cox describe how life came into existence and changed over time. We are brainwashed with philosophical naturalism and educated into blind acceptance of a theory that has well concealed, but gaping holes in its credibility. And despite the fact that naturalist scientists boast about their field being founded on questioning and examining evidence, we are actively discouraged from questioning evolution or examining the evidence for creation. They prefer us to believe there is no choice when it comes to the question of origins.

Although many people have been convinced by 21st century popular culture that there is no choice when it comes to the question of origins, and social and cultural pressures often steer people away from examining the evidence for creation, The Bible tells us there is yet another very powerful reason why people choose to believe in this questionable theory. From the pages of God’s Word we learn that ever since The Fall (Gen 3) humanity has had an innate tendency to oppose the Creator’s rule over their lives. For me, Stephen Fry is the epitome of a person who has taken this reality to new heights, as he broadcasts his version of truth to the four corners of the world. As Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans:

God shows His abhorrence from heaven against all the ungodliness and wrong things that people do. Their unrighteous lives hide the truth God has revealed to them; they have been clearly shown what He is like by their own existence. Yes, God has made it clear to them that He is their Creator. Although there are things about God that people cannot see – His eternal power and all that makes Him God – they really have no excuse for ignoring Him, because ever since the beginning of the world, those things have been easy for people to see and understand. They have been made clear in what God has created. So people have no excuse for their unrighteous lives.

People know God, but they do not honour Him as God, and are not thankful towards Him. Their ideas are useless as they have left the path of wisdom. There is not one good thought left in their foolish minds. They claim to be wise, but they became fools. Instead of honouring the divine greatness of God, who lives forever, some of them traded it for the worship of idols – things made to look like humans, who get sick and die, or like birds, animals, and snakes. Some people wanted only to follow their own lusts so God left them and let them go their own sinful ways. And so they became completely immoral and used their bodies in shameful ways with each other. They traded the truth of God for a lie. They bowed down and worshiped the things God made instead of worshiping the God who made those things. He is the one who should be praised forever. Amen. (Rom 1:18-25)

Paul has put his finger on the reason people deny creation right here. The creation story reveals the reality of a Creator. People who deny God need to have an explanation, not only for the miracle of their own lives, but for the very existence of the universe. The explanation that it all made itself was just one of many ideas the Greek philosophers toyed with well before Jesus was born. The modern theory of evolution is just another version of this ancient myth.

Despite our innate tendency to reject God’s way, a growing number of people in the world today are realising we do have a choice when it comes to the scientific evidence for origins. There is a constantly expanding body of robust scientific evidence that can be examined and analysed, and once we strip away the philosophical naturalism and look objectively at the data, the evidence reveals a very strong case for special creation. And if creation is a reality, then the next choice we need to make is whether we want to listen to our Creator and follow His guidance. He has given us choice and He won’t take this gift away. It was because of this great gift that mortality and suffering entered our world, but He also tells us that they are not a permanent part of His great creation project. He has a plan to eliminate them.

Image from web

God allowed death, pain and suffering to enter His creation at the very beginning of human history and we can only speculate on why He did so. Although one reason that has been put forward is that He did so for there to be the possibility of true love between the Creator and the people He made in His own image. Humankind was created with free will; God gave us the ability to make our own choices and He does not manipulate our choices, but He has prescribed the consequences of those choices.

We can actually reject God’s love, but this will mean we will never have a relationship with Him. True love is only possible if this is the case. Love that is not voluntary is not love at all and as God has determined that love will be the foundation of the relationship we have with Him now and throughout eternity, only those who choose to love Him and accept Him as their Creator and Redeemer are given the gift of eternal life and can be part of the new creation the Father has described in the final chapters of His great revelation to humanity.

God is constantly reaching out to those who have not as yet seen and understood His great love for them. People who open-mindedly take the time to think through the issues and examine the alternative choices fully, often choose to become part of God’s eternal family, but even when Jesus walked the streets of Jerusalem He warned His listeners that few were finding the path to life. He said:

“You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The road to destruction is broad, its gate is wide and many people are choosing that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few are finding it. (Mat 7:13-14)

The Father wants to pour out His Spirit into each human life (2 Peter 3:9) so that everyone might receive the gift of eternal life. However, unless we make the choice to accept His truth we will remain mortal and be destined for the final destruction that is coming upon this broken, fallen world. He has revealed to us that it is the simple minded who scorn His Word and choose the path to destruction. As Solomon said:

How long will you love simplicity, simple ones? And will scorners delight in their scorning? And will fools hate knowledge? Turn at my warning; behold, I will pour out my Spirit to you; I will make my words known to you. But I called and they refused; I stretched out my hand and no one paid attention; instead they have despised all my advice and would have none of my warning. Therefore I also will sneer at their trouble and I will scorn their fear; when their fear comes as a wasting away and their ruin comes like a tempest, when trouble and pain come upon them, then they will call upon me and I will not answer; they will seek me early, but will not find me. They have hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. They would have none of my counsel; they despised all my correction, and so they will eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own desires. For the turning away of the simple kills them, and the prosperity of fools destroys them. But whoever listens to me will dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil. (Pro 1:22-33)

This crucial choice is in our own hands and the Creator God has clearly explained what this choice involves. Will you be part of the new creation God is going to bring into existence when He destroys death, pain and suffering and the broken creation we now inhabit? It may not be tomorrow, it may not be in the next 100 years, but it will happen, and when it does, all those who have ever lived in this fallen world will have had the opportunity to be part of an eternal creation where there will be no more pain, suffering or death. God’s righteousness will reign supreme in this new creation (Rev 21).

It seems like a no brainer to me, but I know many extremely intelligent and compassionate people who appear to believe they have made the right choice in rejecting God’s Way to eternal life. What I always wonder is whether they have actually made any choice at all, or whether they have simply accepted the dominant cultural paradigm and gone with the popular notion of reality, instead of taking the time to examine the alternative, who is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life and He wants to give eternal life to each and every person on His planet. He died to make this possible but He has left it in our own hands to choose which road we take.

Jan 9 2015

Wilful Ignorance Is No Excuse

In our postmodern world, many non-Christian people view Christianity as a religion that is obsessed with sin. Numerous modern media presentations have depicted the Christian faith as a cold, kill-joy, moralising institution, while the church is regularly referred to as the haunt of hypocrites, who prey on the vulnerable, as they preach moral standards that are no longer considered necessary by large portions of contemporary society. It is not unusual to find Christian leaders caricatured as twisted or corrupt characters in modern dramas on television or in books and movies. But perhaps believers have nurtured this understanding. The reality of sin is frequently presented by institutional churches as simply the things we do that do not line up with a particular set of moral standards, and sadly, many people who claim to be followers of Jesus do anything but follow His teachings.

The prophet Isaiah summarised the reality of sin by telling us:

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, each one to his own way; and Jehovah has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6)

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From God’s perspective, sin is a momentous problem. I can say this with absolute authority, because God has revealed this truth in His Word. But what is sin? Isaiah spelled it out – sin is “each one” going his or her “own way”. This concept presupposes that there is a God and that He has revealed He has a particular way He wants us, His creatures, to live. And indeed this is the core of the Christian gospel.

The Christian faith is not an inherited set of ideas and ideals, it is a belief system based on God’s revelation of Himself through His Son and His Word by His Holy Spirit. The Creator has given us this revelation so that we can be informed about His Way and Truth. Through His Word God tells us that we have all inherited a tendency to do our own thing.

If God had not created this universe with specific intentions this might not be a problem, but the Father has revealed a very definite plan and purpose for His universe and it is incumbent upon us to make ourselves aware of His revelation to us. God gave us intelligence and He reaches out to us through His Son, His Spirit and His Word. Wilful ignorance will be no excuse when it comes to our eternal destiny.

When Jesus came into the world the Father had carefully prepared for His incarnation, He came with a message and a specific plan and purpose. God had called out a nation of people to live according to His way and it was into this nation that Jesus was born. Today we live in a world where His message has, for centuries, been broadcast, published and spoken out into towns, villages and cities all over the world. If we choose to ignore or ridicule this message we seal our own fate. As Jesus put it, we are condemned already, because we choose to do our own thing and reject God’s way by choosing not to believe in the only begotten Son of God (John 3:18), who is the Way (John 14:6).

The Father sent the Son into the world to save humankind from the condemnation we are each under because of sin. This condemnation will eventually result in the total destruction of this present creation, which is plagued by sin and its consequences – pain, suffering, death and decay. Christians call the time when Adam and Eve chose to do their own thing rather than follow God’s clear directions, The Fall. It was because of this historical event that humanity was set on a path to destruction.

From the first human couple that God created we inherited our mortal condition (1 Corinthians 15:22) and a sinful nature (Romans 5:12). If we choose to ignore God’s message to us concerning these historic truths and turn away from His Word, we will not only miss our Creator’s clear communication to us, we will also find it increasingly difficult to discern His Truth.

Ever since The Fall pain, suffering and death have been part of the human condition and the universal presence of the hereditary sin nature meant that the entire human population would always fall short of God’s eternal, holy standards (Romans 3:23). Since the first humans made their devastating choice, the mutations that entered the human race have been inherited by all subsequent generations and every individual born of our race has been subject to death. The other dreadful consequence from that earth-shattering decision was that humanity gained a new master. Instead of submitting to God’s guidance, sin now masters us (Romans 6:13-18).

In His Word God has revealed He has a rescue plan for humanity. He wants to save us from the final destruction that is coming upon His corrupted creation. He is going to create a new heaven and a new Earth filled with God’s righteousness (2 Peter 3:13), where there will be no sin, pain, suffering or death (Rev 21:1-4), but only those people who are prepared to accept God’s Way can be part of His new creation. We cannot be part of the eternal, holy family God is preparing without His Holy Spirit, and we cannot be filled with His Spirit without accepting Jesus Christ as our Master and Saviour. It is only then that we can receive the gift of eternal life and can live our lives according to God’s plan, rather than going our own way and doing what is right in our own eyes (Prov 21:2-3).

The reality of sin is all around us, but sin is our problem, not God’s. The Creator could simply wipe out all that He created if He chose to do so. He had the power and ability to bring the universe into being from nothing and He could reduce it to nothing in an instant.

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Thankfully, He has revealed to us that this is not His intention. Human history is interwoven with God’s merciful outworking of His rescue plan. From the moment after Adam and Eve rejected God’s way He set that plan in motion and at the right time He came to Earth to deal with the problem humanity had created, the problem of sin. He did this by taking upon Himself the penalty for the sin of all humanity (1 John 2:2; 1 Tim 2:6; Heb 2:9).

God is holy and He sees sin for what it is, it is a corruption of His way and it leads to pain, suffering and death. Sin must attract a severe penalty to truly indicate just how destructive it really is. To dismiss it lightly would be to trivialise its consequences.

God decreed that death was the just penalty for sin (Gen 2:17; Romans 6:23). And as soon as Adam and Eve chose to do their own thing rather than obey God, corruption and death entered the world. In a very real sense this was a merciful act on God’s part. For a human being to live eternally with a corrupted nature would be unendurable.

The Father also made it possible for our penalty to be passed on to His Son (Romans 3:24-26). Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection we each have an opportunity to be saved from the just penalty we would otherwise rightly incur. When we have been redeemed by the only Saviour the world will ever know, we can be part of the new creation God will make after He destroys this present fallen one.

Giving our lives to the Lord Jesus Christ and accepting Him as our Saviour is only the beginning of the journey. We all know that Christian people are not perfect. Christians still sin. Until God changes us from mortal to immortal and from corruptible into incorruptible beings (1 Cor 15:53), we are still susceptible to our sinful tendencies rising up and overwhelming God’s Spirit within us. At times we still want to do our own thing rather than God’s. Christians can allow hate and revenge to take hold of them rather than love and forgiveness. As The Bible puts it, they can walk in the flesh rather than in the Spirit (Rom 7:5; 8:4-14). Many Christians get stuck on a particular doctrine or follow a particular church’s beliefs, refusing to budge from their position, even though The Bible clearly teaches a different way. Christians can still choose to be blind and do their own thing rather than submit to the authority of God’s Word.

However, those who are true followers of Jesus will be making every effort to walk in God’s Spirit and not follow their old ways (Romans 8:1; 13; Eph 4:24; Col 3:8-15). Jesus’ message is revolutionary, He commands us to love even those who hate us (Matt 5:44). He also expects us to live holy lives so that we might be fit to be God’s people in His new creation. Although we are still part of this fallen creation God has given us His Holy Spirit to empower us and His Word to guide and direct us, and His followers should make every effort to understand and walk in God’s way.

God fully intends to deal with the problem of sin and its consequences – pain, suffering and death – but to do this He has revealed He is going to start again (Rev 21). This is the message our Creator has clearly given to humanity. Why would anyone choose to remain ignorant of the message Jesus came to unveil? Our eternal destiny is in our own hands, but we must act, we must take the time to be properly informed and then we must make a choice. We must choose whether we want to be part of God’s eternal creation or perish along with the old one that will most definitely pass away.

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The Bible is filled with passages about the finite nature of this present creation. The apostle Peter wrote:

Most importantly, I want to remind you that in the last days scoffers will come, mocking the truth and following their own desires. They will say, “What happened to the promise that Jesus is coming again? From before the times of our ancestors, everything has remained the same since the world was first created.” They deliberately forget that God made the heavens by the word of His command, and He brought the Earth out from the water and surrounded it with water. Then He used the water to destroy the ancient world with a mighty flood. And by the same word, the present heavens and Earth have been stored up for fire. They are being kept for the Day of Judgment, when ungodly people will be destroyed.

But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. The Lord isn’t really being slow about His promise, as some people think. No, He is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. But the Day of the Lord will come as unexpectedly as a thief. Then the heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the Earth and everything on it will be found to deserve judgment. Since everything around us is going to be destroyed like this, what holy and godly lives you should live, looking forward to the day of God and hurrying it along. On that day, He will set the heavens on fire, and the elements will melt away in the flames. But we are looking forward to the new heavens and new Earth He has promised, a world filled with God’s righteousness. And so, dear friends, while you are waiting for these things to happen, make every effort to be found living peaceful lives that are pure and blameless in His sight. And remember, the Lord’s patience gives people time to be saved. (2 Peter 3:3-15a)

God is patient, but He won’t wait forever. The day is fast approaching. He has given us all the information we need to make a wise choice. We each have a personal philosophy on which we base our lives. Wilfully choosing to be ignorant of God’s clear message to us is a very bad choice, as is remaining blind to the fact that even those people who choose to reject the notion of God have their own set of biases, beliefs and base assumptions. Surprisingly, these beliefs and assumptions are often unexamined and unconsidered; they have simply been taken on because they are part of the dominant cultural paradigm. Wilful ignorance is often simply blind faith in a naturalist philosophy.

God has given us intelligence and He expects us to use it to examine His revelation to us. Unless we are prepared to carefully examine the evidence for Jesus’ worldview, we cannot make a wise choice and we may well find ourselves amongst those who are destined to perish rather than benefit from God’s gracious gift of eternal life (John 3:16).

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The Way & The Truth

Jesus said, I am the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6)

Monthly Archives: January 2015

The Voice

Tinkering With Truth

Choice Is a Fine Thing

Wilful Ignorance Is No Excuse