I Have Kept the Faith and the Faith Has Kept Me: Part Four
II Timothy 4: 6 – 8
The expression “kept the faith” means I have competed in life’s marathon according to the rules. The athletes of the era in which this was written took a solemn oath before the games that they would compete honorably and honestly.
When you accept Christ as Savior, He makes a commitment to you. He commits Himself to forgive your sins, to be your constant companion through life, and to receive you unto Himself in heaven. He keeps His word.
In coming to Christ you, too, make a commitment to Him. In summary, it is to give Him your life. That means you will keep your vision focused on Him and strive to please Him in all you do. Keep the faith contract.
It was a fog-shrouded morning, July 4, 1952, when a young woman named Florence Chadwick waded into the water off Catalina Island. Her goal was to swim the channel from the island to the California coast. Long-distance swimming wasn’t new to her. She was the first woman to swim the English Channel in both directions.
The water was numbing cold that day, but that would not deter her from her goal. Several times intimidating sharks had to be scared away by rifle fire. They would not cause her to miss her goal. A fog so thick she could hardly see the boats accompanying her shrouded the area.
After 15 hours of swimming, she asked to be taken out of the water. Her trainer pleaded with her to continue since her goal was so close. All Florence could see was the fog. She quit … only one-half mile from her goal.
Many times we too fail, not because of peer pressure or because of anything other than the fact we lose sight of our goal. That is why Paul later described himself by saying, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 3: 14)
Well-conditioned runners come to the moment of competition to extend themselves. As they near the finish line with muscles on the verge of cramping, their lungs on fire begging for air, their nostrils strutted, their eyes straining, and their jaws open, they stretch out to the finish line.
Does that depict the extent to which you are willing to compete in the moral, ethical, and spiritual competition to reach your goal of pleasing Christ?
Two months after her failure, once again Florence Chadwick walked off the same beach into the same cold shark-infested channel and heroically swam the distance, setting a new speed record because she could see the land, her goal, all the way. One of these hopefully distant days when your life reaches its conclusion, may you be able to happily say, “I have kept the faith.”
If you keep your faith in Christ, the Christ of your faith will keep you.
Whose That Swinger in Your Family Tree? 10/24/99
JESUS CHRIST spoke of a future time and said, “For in those days there will be tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of creation which God created until this time, nor ever shall be” (Mark 13: 19).
Jesus believed in creation and was emphatic in saying “creation which God has created.”
Disciples of Charles Darwin “Amen” his statement, defining evolution as “the belief that all animals and plants are descended from some single primordial form.”1
This has led an unknown poet of less lyrical ability than Poe to write:
Once I was a tadpole beginning to begin.
Then I was a frog with my tail tucked in.
Soon I was a monkey swinging from a tree.
Now I am a doctor with a PhD.
The theories of evolution and creation have different roots. One is as much of a science as the other. Without anyone to have historically observed evolution, with no fossil evidence to confirm it, with Mendel’s Laws of heredity to refute it, with no observable evolution now in progress, being unable to devise scientific experiments to demonstrate the process, and with God’s Word to dispute it, evolution isn’t much of a science.
A classical absurdity is the belief that the doctrine of special creation is a religious belief because it is based on faith in the Bible account and the theory of mega-evolution is scientific because it is based on facts. Both can ONLY be accepted by faith.
Consider WHAT IF?
What IF evolution is true and all life forms evolved over millions of years from a single primordial swamp. Why aren’t various stages still observable today? Suppose man was a tadpole 250 million years ago, an ape 100 million years ago, and an ape/man 75 million years ago. All of those creatures are around today. Why don’t we find the same process in action today. Why are there no living intermediate stages? Why aren’t there any specimen of tadpole-apes or ape-men today? Even the kind of primordial swamp we supposedly came from exists today. Why aren’t earlier life forms still evolving into near men? Why are there no fossil evidences that it once happened?
The fruit-fly, Drosophilia, multiplies very rapidly and has been used in countless experiments to try to achieve evolution. Because many generation can be observed in a few years it is a “fast motion” example of what would have been required for there to have been evolution. It has been bred in lavatories for thousands of successive generations. Radiation bombardment of the insect has produced a great variety of mutational deformities, but it always emerges as a fruit-fly.
The idea that man descended from an ape has had many scientific challenges. One has been made by Dr. Geoffrey Bourne, director of the Yerkes Regional Primate Center of Emory University in Atlanta. He is an Australian-born, Oxford educated, cell biologist, anatomist, and nationally respected primatologist. He advocates apes and monkeys are the evolutionary descendants of man.2
He based his “flip-flop” theory on the fact that some fossil evidences indicate that man pre- dated his supposed ape-like ancestors. Leakey’s discoveries reveal man to be older than the apes. This leaves man with no ape-like ancestors.3
If evolution is a fact your family tree should have some interesting personalities in it. Allegedly it does. One inevitable question relates to Adam and Eve. If God created them male and female and they had two sons, where did Cain get his wife?
WHERE DID CAIN GET HIS WIFE?
The Bible doesn’t say it but Cain was probably the oldest son of Adam and Eve. Genesis 14: 7 notes that after Cain killed his brother Abel he left home and went into the land of Nod and “Cain knew his wife, and she conceived, and bare Enoch…”
Adam was 130 years old when Cain was born (Genesis 5: 5). An obscure truth is often overlooked in Genesis 5: 4: “the days of Adam were eight hundred years; and he begot son and daughters.”
Adam lived to be 930 years old. Characteristic of people before the flood changed the atmospheric conditions people live longer lives and were very prolific. If very conservative birth rates are used it can be calculated that in the life time of Adam the earth’s population at the time of Adams death could well have been around twenty million.
There is only one explanation as to where Cain and a lot of his brothers got their wives. Initially they had to marry their own sisters. Remember, this was before disease and genetic disorder had developed as in the modern era and consequently feeblemindedness and deformity was not the rule of that day as it is ours. When created “God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good” (Genesis 1: 31). That means the genes of Adam and Eve were perfect. Later things began to degenerate.
The laws of incest did not originate until the days of Moses (Leviticus 18 – 20). Approximately 2,500 years lapsed between Adam and Moses. During this time gene degeneration had progressed to the point incest was forbidden.
If it takes faith to accept that account of creation and development, it takes more faith to accept the theory as proposed by evolution. The evolutionists has to answer how could man ever progress to higher forms by mutations, in light of that process being based on everyone’s children being deformed? Mutations which are required in the theory of evolution are genetic deformities. That would not result in higher forms resulting from lower forms.
WHERE DO CAVE MEN FIT IN?
Some suggest there is a cave man swinging somewhere in your family tree. Where does the cave man fit in?
First, there always have been and still are cave men today. In every period of history there have been persons to live in caves.
Most references to “cave-men” relate to Neanderthal man and Cro-Magnon man. A false picture has been painted of them. Reputable anthropologist now acknowledge they were true Homo Sapiens, human beings. They represent extinct tribes no different from present-day tribes.
Their fossil remains are found in the so-called Pleistocene of recently deposited strata. This indicates they lived after the flood.
Archaeological discoveries reveal they were not brutish ape/men. They did fine paintings in their caves, cultivated flowers (which many of us have difficulty doing), and buried their dead.4
We tend to see what we expect to see. Since Darwin postulated his theory of evolution secular anthropologists have been seeking evidence to confirm it. Physical anthropology has been dramatically influenced by subjective factors. Many present the evolution of man as a certainty without objective proof.
George F. Howe, Ohio State University PhD, wrote of our tendency to see what we want to see: “The only information available about each fossil man is the shape of the bones and any tools that may have been buried with the bones. The rest of the picture is merely a figment of the artists imagination. Depending on what the particular artist believes, it would be easy to make the same fossil look either intelligent or non-human.”5
Anthropologist E. A. Hooten says you can take the Neanderthal skull and by adding plaster in the right places you can make it look like “a chimpanzee… a philosopher… so put not your faith in reconstruction.”6
SOME ALLEGED SWINGERS IN YOUR FAMILY TREE
Some who allegedly predated us in the evolutionary process are worth considering.
JAVA MAN, Pitheocanthropus Erectus, was found in Java in 1891 and 1892. The discovery consisted of a skullcap, a fragment of a left thighbone and three molar teeth. They were found over a period of one year scattered over fifty feet in a river bed mingled with debris.
Modern anthropologist now consider him to be essentially identical to modern man. The skull is believed to be that of a small woman. The femur is conceded to be completely human. The teeth were concluded not to belong to the other remains.7
PILTDOWN MAN was discovered in the southern part of England by Charles Dawson in 1912 and long called “Eoranthropus” (dawn man). He reputedly lived 100,000 to 500,000 years ago. When found, publicity flooded the world classifying him as being second only to Pithecanthropus Erectus. It was all a hoax. The Smithsonian Institute of Washington, D.C. gives this detail account in “The Great Piltdown Hoax.”
“Careful ‘detective’ work done by Dr. J.S. Weiner, and others, revealed that ‘the lower jaw and canine tooth are actually those of a modern anthropoid ape, deliberately altered (filed down by a joker) so as to resemble fossil specimens.’ The faker had cunningly ‘fossilized’ the jaw and teeth by staining them a mahogany color with an iron salt and bichromate!”8
Piltdown Man was actually an ape that had died 50 years earlier. Yet, today there are still 300 reproductions of him in museums. It is estimated that annually more than one million people visit the American Museum of National History in New York to view Piltdown Man as an ancestor of modern man.
It is worth noting that the entire reconstruction of Piltdown Man was based on one single part of the anatomy, a jaw bone. It was not a complete fossilized skeleton.
Many proponents of evolution live by the philosophy, “Give us a tooth and we will construct the entire anatomy.” Though many fossil remains of complete human beings and apes have been found, not one complete fossil has been found of a supposed lower species of man. All models are based on a few fragments assumed to have looked a certain way.
NEANDERTHAL MAN was found near Dusseldorf on the limestone cliffs of the Dussel River. Since then other skeletal remains have been found across Europe. These are now known to be members of the Neanderthal race of human beings, suffering from rickets caused by a vitamin D deficiency. X-rays of the bones show characteristic rickets rings.9
Two scientists, Straus, and Cave, contend that if Neanderthal Man could be reincarnated and placed in a New York subway — provided that he was bathed, shaved, and dressed in modern clothes — it is doubtful whether he would attract any more attention than some present citizens.10
Living concurrently with the Neanderthal race in Europe was the Cro-Magnon race. They were superior to modern man in size and brain cavity capacity.
NEBRASKA MAN, Hesperopithecus, was fashioned around only a tooth. The tooth was introduced as evidence in the famous “Scopes Monkey Trial” in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925 as proof of evolution. Professor H.H. Newman of the University of Chicago made a monkey out of defense attorney, William Jennings Bryan, with this find. The popularity of this tooth was world wide. The “Illustrated London News” sent reporters over and they published pictures of the male and female of the race.
At a time when a million dollars was a lot of money, Dr. William K. Gregory, curator of the American Museum of Natural History, called it “the million dollar find.”
America’s greatest paleontologist of the day, Dr. William Osborn, placed Nebraska Man at the very bottom of the tree depicting man’s ancestors. At the Scopes trial, William Jennings Brian, with no scientific way to disprove the evidence mused that some day it might even be proven to be a pigs tooth.
Though it was part of the evidence that resulted in evolution being popularized in American education it was two years later determined to be the tooth of an extinct pig. Bryan proved to be a prophet, but the damage was done. The myth of evolution was given creditability.
Much scientific evidence reveals man has basically been degenerating rather than evolving to higher forms. The “Law of Morpholysis” (meaning loosing structure) indicates entropy universally tends to move downward not upward. The principal of deterioration can better be evidenced by facts than evolution.
Every physical characteristic found in the fragments from which man’s alleged ancestors have been constructed can be found in modern human beings. For example, there are many tribes which today resemble the Neanderthal race.
EAST AFRICAN MAN, skull 1470, “Zinjanthropus” was found by Richard Leakey in the Laetolil beds near the shore of Lake Rudolf in Kenya.
This revolutionary find prompted an article in “Science News” to herald, “Because of him (1470) every single book on anthropology, every article on the evolution of man, every drawing of man’s family tree will have to be junked. They are apparently wrong.”11
SKULL 1470 is now accepted as an extinct African ape, (Australopithecus). An evolutionary date of two million has been assigned the skull. “Tiny Lucy” as she was known was supposed to be one of our ancestors.
SKULL KNMR 1470 has now been found by Leakey. It is essentially the same as modern human beings. The skull wall is thin, its general conformation is human, and it is devoid of heavy brow ridges, supra-mastoid crests, and other ape like features.12
The problem is Leakey dates Skull KNMR as being over three million years old. That means this human being predates what have previously been considered man’s ancestors. Maybe the “flip-flop” theory is right! In reality it isn’t. However, these finds refute the idea that we have ape like ancestors in our family tree.
Professor Anthony Ostric of St. Mary’s College, South Bend, Indiana, said in an address to the Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, “To say there were pre human ape ancestors transformed into humans is speculative…Man’ unique biophysical and socio-cultural nature appears now to represent an unbridgeable abyss separating him from all other animals, even his closest ‘anthropoid relatives.’
“It is not possible to see how biological, social or cultural forces or processes could transform any kind of prehuman anthropoid or ‘near- man’ into homo sapiens.”13
In your family tree you will find no near-humans. You will find a great variety of human beings each in keeping with his own “kind.”
Jesus’ question is relevant today: “Have you not read, that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife…” (Matthew 19: 3 – 6.)
1 Origin of the Species, Charles Darwin, p. 253.
2 “Modern People,” Geoffrey Bourne, Vol. 8, April 18, 1976, p. 11.
3 “Christian Life,” “A Case for Scientific Creation,” David A. Kaufmann, June 1977, p. 69.
4 The Remarkable Birth of Planet Earth, Henry M. Morris, Creation- Life Publishers, San Diego, Calif. 1978, p. 46.
5 The Bible, Science, and Creation, Maxwell Coder and George F. Howe, p. 61.
6 Up From the Ape, E.A. Hooten, p. 332.
7 The Bible and Modern Science, Henry M. Morris, Moody Press, Chicago, 1968, p. 48.
8 Genesis and Evolution, M.R. Dehann, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Mich. 1978, p. 87.
9 “Nature,” Francis Ivanhoe, August 8, 1970, p. 35.
10 “The Quarterly Review of Biology,” W. L. Straus, Jr. and A.J.E. Cave, December 1957, pp. 358, 359.
11 “Science News,” Vol. 102, 1972, p. 324.
12 “National Geographic,” R.E.F. Leakey, Vol. 143, 1973, p. 819.
13 “Los Angeles Times,” October 24, 1973, Part 1-A, p. 5.
I Have Kept the Faith and the Faith Has Kept Me: Part Three
II Timothy 4: 6 – 8
With anticipation the Apostle Paul wrote of the approaching end of life: “I have finished the race.”
The arena in Barcelona was filled with nearly 70,000 spectators awaiting the start of the men’s 400 meter race. The outstanding British runner Derick Redford, along with other competitors, awaited the starter’s gun. Streams of dreams of a lifetime were in that moment flowing into the pond of reality. Redford was running well when an athlete’s dream turned into a nightmare. He pulled a hamstring muscle. Pain of unimaginable extent caused this stalwart man to grimace and grab his leg as agony painted itself on his now tear-flooded face. Every move sent shock waves of pain through his leg. Nevertheless he hopped and hobbled toward the finish line. He fought off would-be medics who pleaded with him to quit and lie down. When it became apparent he couldn’t make it to the finish line alone, his dad rushed to his aid and putting his arm around him, helped his crippled son go those last yards to the finish line. He finished the race.
He did so because long before he even went to Barcelona he had his eye on that goal. Nothing could keep him from his goal. That is the will needed to follow Christ. When you have your mind set on pleasing Him, nothing will cause you to give up and quit.
The term used in our text does not speak of winning, but finishing. Marathoners know only one person will win. That is great, but there is honor and valor in finishing. You may not be a heralded “winner” in life’s race for Jesus, but be sure you are faithful and complete what you have begun.
Few who enter the great Peachtree Road Race have any thought of winning. With pride all of them wear their peach-colored T-shirts symbolizing they had finished the race. Doing so gives a sense of fulfillment and joy. The same should be ours each day as we conclude it having been faithful to Christ.
Write out your lifetime goal statement. Engrave it in the corridor of your mind through which all thoughts must pass and let them be influenced thereby. Such a goal statement is neither magic nor a cosmic exercise in clairvoyance. It is a Bible-based understanding of what our Lord wants of you. Resolve to finish the race.
I love non-word words. That is, words you won’t find in a dictionary but once you hear them you know what they mean. The Greek text translated “press toward the mark” means with all “stretchoutedness” I press toward the finish tape.
You determine your lifestyle. With Christ as your pattern, your goal, stick to the Jesus’ standard that it might please Him. Don’t neglect to obey the truth you claim to believe. Doing so will enable you to finish the good fight.
I Have Kept the Faith and the Faith Has Kept Me: Part Two
II Timothy 4: 6 – 8
The Apostle Paul wrote of his life as a competitor for Jesus saying: “I have fought the good fight.”
The word translated “fight” is the Greek word “agon.” It is the root from which we get our word agony. It did not necessarily refer to a boxing match, but any athletic contest and the agony of preparation and participation involved. The Olympic Oath says in part: “The most important thing in life is not the triumph, but the struggle…Not to have conquered but to have fought well.”
This expression often is thought to mean he fought well — and he did. However, what it means is the fight he chose to fight was worth the effort.
A bulldog can beat a skunk, but is it worth the fight?
Oliver Wendell Holmes, one of our nation’s greatest former Supreme Court jurists, said, “The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving.”
What is your direction in life? Where is it going?
Like Paul I want to be able to say, “I fought,” not “I sat in the bleachers.”
British minister Martin Luther said: “If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however fondly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steadfast on all the battle-front besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.”
For what are you fighting? Bumper stickers reveal persons who are fighting for whales, seals, eagles, owls, etc.
All of us fight battles. Have you chosen a good one to fight? Does it honor Christ?
Again a philosophical source with which I have little in common provides us wisdom. Victor Frankl said, “Life only has meaning if there is a task, and the more difficult the task, the more meaningful the life.”
If your task, that is your goal, is to please Christ, you have chosen a worthy and difficult one. It is deserving of your optimum effort — your best.
A lesson of unpreparedness and resultant frustration came from a recent Olympics in the boxing arena. The pity on the face of the boxer who came to the ring pointing to his ungloved fists and pleading with his coach to find his gloves will long be remembered. They gave him three minutes to find his gloves. After years of training he couldn’t find his gloves and was declared the loser.
If you intend to “fight the good fight,” don’t forget the necessities of a vital
Bible knowledge, a viable prayer life, and a virtuous lifestyle.
I Have Kept the Faith and the Faith Has Kept Me: Part One
II Timothy 4: 6 – 8
JESUS CHRIST gives life a purpose, power, and propulsion. He wants your life to have meaning. He knows that no individual can live a full and meaningful life without a goal.
We are a goal-oriented society. Clinics, conferences, and seminars are held on goal setting. Yet, few people envision their life as having an overall goal.
Take you, for example. Have you ever written out your overall goal for life regardless of your age? Let’s be a bit more specific. In life who do you seek to please in every decision you make and every deed you do? Jesus Christ is our worthy standard.
Defined goals result in refined lives.
French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre said, “You will never find peace and happiness until you are ready to commit yourself to something worth dying for.”
The Apostle Paul wrote II Timothy 4: 6 – 8 in retrospect of His life.
He wrote of his life and death in beautiful symbolism that can help our understanding of death.
He spoke of life as being “poured out as a drink offering.” This graphic translates the Greek word “spendo.” In the temple priests often dedicated various liquids to God. The ceremony involved pouring the liquid on the altar. That was the purpose for which the liquid existed. Is your life being “poured out” for Jesus?
It was natural for Paul to speak of his forthcoming martyrdom as a sacrifice, for God’s word appeals to each of us to make our life a “living sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable sacrifice.” (Romans 12:1)
Another expression is used to describe destiny: “the time of my departure is at hand.” The New Testament Greek word so translated is “analusis.” It was used in several ways that help our comprehension of death.
* It was used to describe a yoke being taken off a beast of burden.
* It was used to depict ropes being removed from a person who had been tied up.
* It was used to picture a ship that had been loosened from its mooring. Set free to sail.
In every sense of the word it depicts being set free for fuller use. Are you confidently heading toward such a destiny?
Is there something restricting your service to the Lord from which you can be set free, and should be? If so, make this your moment of being poured out. Grant yourself that perpetual joyous victory.