A Short Course on the Significance of Suffering – Part One
“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.” James 1: 2, 3
Jesus suffered the pain of loneliness, the agony of ostracism, the anguish of isolation, the craving of hunger, the anxiety of betrayal, the dilemma of denial, the humiliation of public rejection, and the torture of the cross.
You gotta problem? He can relate. The issue is whether you will relate to Him in your time of suffering.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.”
There are times when we can’t see. That is, things happen that we can’t understand. It is then we must exercise faith in what is unseen.
It is then we can relate to Isaiah 50: 10, “Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the word of His servant? Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God.”
Put this in the warehouse of your memories: “Joy isn’t the absence of pain and problems, it’s the presence of Jesus Christ.”
When you come to the point of realizing all you need is Jesus, then Jesus provides all you need. That is a clever cliche, but I know personally it is a good biblical worldview.
Play that over and over on the soundtrack of your mind until you can repeat it in your sleep — or in your hours of sleepless agony.
Our sovereign Creator, the Lord God, made a choice to give human beings a free will. With that came the choice between good and evil; good and bad. A paraphrase of a statement by Augustine says it well”, “God thought it better to bring good out of bad than not let the bad exist.”
God is not out to bring about bad things for us, but to bring the good out of the bad things that happen to us.
Consider that in light of Isaiah’s comment regarding walking in the dark when there is no light. Some things can only be seen in the dark. For example, the darker the night the brighter the stars. The more difficult the circumstances, the more precious is our Lord. It is when we can’t see we must “trust in the name of the Lord, and rely on… God.”
Then your adversities become your advantages.
Tribulation can result in triumph.
Hear Emerson again, “All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.”
Follow the beloved Lord, He sees around the curve in the road.
Heaven or Hell? You Choose
They have done it again. Two women, one in America and one in Ecuador, allege they have gone to heaven and/or hell, and come back to tell about it.
Charlotte Holmes, in America, says she died for 11 minutes and went to heaven where she saw beautiful colors, scenic landscapes, and heard beautiful music. She also states she visited hell which smelled of rotten flesh.
In Ecuador, Angelica Zambrano was dead for 23 hours and visited both extremes. She did so four times. For her visit to hell she was escorted by Jesus. The devil and demons were tormenting a former popular singer/dancer while he was being forced to dance amid flames. She saw one former Christian who is there for refusing to tithe. There is a new twist.
Persons who claim to have died and gone to heaven and returned discredit themselves for the Bible says, “It is appointed unto man once to die, and after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9: 27).
She said she saw babies and infants in heaven. Heaven is eternal so there will be no ages in heaven. We will all be a heavenly age which is beyond our description.
Have these and others before them who claim similar experiences really had what they claim? Before explaining, I will answer that question. NO! I will give reasons for such an emphatic answer, but first I want to give persons who claim to have visited heaven and/or hell the benefit of the doubt.
Have you ever had a dream so real that when you awakened it took a bit of time to determine if that was really true? When in a deep dream state the brain is as active as when awake. Your mind dreams it and emotionally your body experiences the surreal happening.
Certain medicines, and doubtless illicit drugs, heighten such experiences. When in the hospital for five weeks I was administered some medicines that caused me to have hallucinations. They were so real, these virtual experiences were frightening. I begged to be taken off those medicines.
Some who profess to have been to heaven/hell have been proven to be charlatans, liars. I heard a destiny traveler give his testimony in a local church. It was so phrased it seemed to be true. He was internationally acclaimed and broadly publicized in America. A movie was made of the experience. Shortly thereafter he admitted he made up the story.
Now, how can it be said professed destination travelers have not been to heaven and/or hell. When measured against Bible texts on the subjects they don’t align. First, the devil does not torment, he is tormented. Scripture says hell was created for the devil and his rebellious demons (Matthew 25: 41).
Scripture notes: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him (I Corinthians 2: 9).”
Overall heaven is not just an earth of steroids. It is unexplainably different. All the description we need is in the Bible. The best we can do in explaining it is to say of certain features is “it is like,” that is, illustrated by a likeness to what we know.
Those who claim to have been to heaven talk about how wonderful they felt, how joyful they were, how blissful, and comfortable they were. Their testimonies usually reveal how narcissistic they are. Little or nothing is said about the majesty and glory of God that fills the place. None have spoken of a state of holy awe.
The clincher defining disproving factor is found in II Corinthians 5: 8: “We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.” If an American teen were translating the Greek text it would read, “The moment a believer dies he or she is eyeball to eyeball with God.” The point is an encounter with God is immediate. Most who claim to have been there talk about taking a walking tour without mentioning God.
Heaven and hell are real and we determine where we spend eternity.
Commitment to, obedience to His word and will, and faithful loyalty comprise a ticket to heaven. Make sure you have it.
God – Part Three
Design argues–there is a God. Where there is design there must be a designer. A watch operates by design. Logically it can be concluded there was a designer of the watch. The earth operates by design, the rotation and tilt of the earth causes the seasons showing design. Earth is tilted 23 degrees. This allows a turning, allowing all parts exposure to the sun. If there were no tilt the poles would accumulate masses of ice and the center part become unbearably hot and life impossible. This operates by design. Therefore, there must be a Designer.
The authors of “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist” offer an argument for the existence that goes something like this.
A young boy wakes up one morning and goes down for breakfast to find his mom has left for work. He notices on the breakfast table a box of cereal has fallen over and pieces have spelled out on the table reading, “God loves you.” He assumes when the box fell over, the cereal formed the design.
He hurried down to the beach in hopes of seeing a girl named Sue he liked. There in the sand was drawn a large heart with an arrow through it and the message “Sue loves John.” He assumed the waves just washed up and made it.
Looking up he sees puffy white clouds spelling, “Eat More Chicken.” Immediately he assumes the wind blew them in such a design.
It never occurred to him the message on the table had a design and his mom must have designed it.
The message in the sand had a design. Sue and John must have designed it.
The message in the sky had a design. There must be a designer. Sure enough, there is a skywriting plane.
All of the effects had design. That required a Designer.
All the designs in the universe have a Designer.
Law is an evidence. Where there is a law such as the 55 mile speed limit, there must be a lawmaker. There are laws of science at work in the universe; thus, there must be a Lawmaker. The existence of law evidences His existence.
Without Him there can be no binding moral law, no absolutes. There can be subjective law, laws made by individuals, but no objective law, law made by an objective source, God. Subjective law allows for every individual to make his or her own standard law. Where individuals set all the law there are no absolutes. Hence, man is god.
Evil, such as the holocaust, is absolute. Everyone agrees such is evil. For there to be such an absolute law there must be an object, God, who established the standard.
However, if morality is merely subjective, then moral choices are simply personal preferences. For example one likes war, one likes peace, one likes hate, and one likes love. However objective law requires an object, God who sets the standard.
Love, mercy, optimism, hate, and hope can’t be put in a test tube and proven by scientific method; but by faith we believe in them.
The law of cause and effect argues for the existence of God. For every effect there must be an equal or greater cause. The effect is the universe, the cause has to be greater… He is.
Scientists concur that the universe is running down. This is known as the law of entropy. If it is not self-sustaining, neither was it self-creating. It has a beginning. The answer, “In the beginning God…”
Anthropology reveals a universal God consciousness among all people. Yet, there are some people who do not believe in God. People in general do, however. Their disbelief doesn’t discredit the general rule of God consciousness, any more than the fact that some people have only one leg disproves the general principle that people have two legs.
God – Part Two
The teleological argument for the existence of God, comes from the word “telos” meaning “the end.” It argues everything has an end, a purpose. Amidst the marvels of science indicating order is the human brain. Sir Henry Fairfield Osborn said, “…the human brain is the most mysterious object in the universe.” The human brain weighs approximately 3.3 pounds. It can perform what 500 tons of electrical and electronic equipment cannot do. It consists of 10 to 15 billion neurons, each a living unit in itself. Together they perform unimaginable feats.
Yet, “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting.” (Romans 1: 28)
To believe in Him is good, but not good enough. We must obey Him.
God has given us clues of His existence, but still He can’t be proven by scientific method. This is simply true because history can’t be rerun. However, His fingerprints are everywhere.
To say there is a God and not obey Him is little better than saying there is no God. Only when you can say, “He is my God and I love Him, and seek to obey Him” is there a difference. Then, “Keep seeking the things above…set your mind on things above; not on the things that are on earth.” (Colossians 3:12)
Faith is not static, it is growing and vibrant. Knowledge of the word of God is a stimulant to faith. Knowing more of what God promotes and provides is an encouragement to faith. A blend of knowledge with experience is a catalyst to faith. God becomes more trustworthy when trusted.
Likewise, it should be kept in mind that one of the laws of logic is that you can’t prove a negative. Start with the question regarding the existence of God. Non-believers should start by asking themselves what percentage of all knowledge they considered themselves to have: 10%, 25%, 50%, 75%, or maybe 98%. It just might be that 10% would be high for most folks. Could there be that in the unknown 90% there just might be a God? You don’t know what you don’t know, you know. Thus, to prove there is no God, you would have to be greater than and know more than God. Then you would be god; and therefore, there would be a god — you. That is what some people make of themselves.
Therefore, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Rom. 15: 13)
God – Part One
“The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God….’” (Psalm 53: 1)
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1: 1)
You don’t know what you don’t know, you know.
In one generation, Americans doubting the existence of God has doubled from 31% to 61%. Two-thirds of Millennials question His existence. Most churches teach from the basic assumption He exists, and are offering little evidence He does. This leaves God with few advocates. It is expedient that evidences of His existence be taught. This is the first of several Posts on the subject. Consider sharing them with others and saving all of them for further reference.
Persons who have a viable faith in God that governs their life are often criticized. Pragmatists demand proof before action. Yet, they will drive 75 miles an hour in heavy traffic and they have no proof their brakes will work the next time applied. That takes faith.
The first form of elemental faith is simply belief that “He is….” This is the starting point for all Christian faith.
Pierre Simon de La Place, considered one of the most outstanding astronomers, said it was infinitely more probable that a set of writing implements thrown promiscuously against parchment would produce Homer’s “Iliad,” than that creation was organized by any cause other than God. The effect, the universe, demands a cause, God.
One of the most outstanding writings on science is entitled “Cosmos, Bios and Theos” in English. “The Universe, Life, and God” is a compilation of the writings of sixty notable scientists, twenty-four were Nobel prize winners. Nobel prize winner Professor Henry Margenau was the editor. He concluded that “there is only one convincing answer” for the intricate laws that exist in nature. He concluded the answer is “creation by an omnipotent omniscient God.”
Indeed, “The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork.” (Psalm 19: 1)
The cosmological argument for the existence of God is viable. Cosmos means “universe.” It speaks of “order and beauty.” Consider the beauty and function of our moon. Without our moon life on earth would be impossible. If the moon were deflected from its orbit all life on earth would cease. God has made the moon to serve as an orderly to clean land and seas. Without the tides which are controlled by the moon all of our ports and shores would become vast cesspools. Life could not exist near them. The waves breaking on shores serve to aerate the oceans providing oxygen for plankton, which is the foundation of the food chain of earth. Without plankton there would be no oxygen and life would be impossible.
God created the moon the right size and placed it the proper distance from earth, making life possible. It’s a wonderful earth – – – and moon.