What the Devil is Really After

There is a popular the refrain oft repeated, especially in the Black church, that the devil wants to rob us of our praise. While that maybe true in some instances, that is not what the devil is really after. Jesus said it best when He quoted the prophet Isaiah in Mark 7:6, "these people honor Me with their lips but their hearts are far from me." You can praise all day Sunday and still leave church as full of hell as you did when you came in.  It's not really about praise. God is definitely praiseworthy, but this is deeper than praise.  Praise can be fabricated, praise can be faked, praise can be duplicated - we have all seen babies in church imitating a grown ups.  Many times what we think is praise is simply an emotional release that is not necessarily guided by the Spirit of God. 

What Satan is really after, is our faith.  Hebrews 11:6 says it as plain as it can be said, without faith it is impossible to please God.  There is a reason Jesus said what He said to Peter in Luke 22:31. He told Peter that the devil demanded permission to sift him (and the rest of the disciples) as wheat. He also said to Peter in verse 32, "but I have prayed for you, so that your faith will not fail..." Sentence structure indicates that Jesus was saying, because I have prayed for you, your faith will not fail.  Jesus knew that once Peter got onto sifter that Satan would be ruthless and relentless.  In the gospels, we only catch a glimpse of the temptation of Christ, but Satan was with Him for 40 days in the wilderness.  That's forty days of listening to Satan lie and tempt Him, all without the benefit of having eaten or drank anything.  Jesus understood how withering the attacks of Satan could be because he endured them.

Fastforward to Peter's epistle, 1 Peter 1:6,7 says "In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials,,so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ."  This is coming from the older, wiser Peter who knew something about faith being tested as he wrote to strengthen Christians that were in various places.  This is the same Peter that denied Jesus three times and then presided over the greatest evangelistic moment in the history of Christianity.  If gold, as precious as it is, must be tested and found to be true...and we were redeemed with the precious blood of Jesus, which is much more expensive than gold, then it stands to reason that our faith must also be tested and found to be genuine.

Faith in Christ is the only way that we are saved.  Satan is cunning and he knows what to attack.   Faith is the way that we communicate with God.  It is what God requires of us.  If Satan can steal that, we are finished.  Genuine faith is a faith that endures until the end. It is not a Hebrews 6:1-5 faith which crucifies Christ all over again and gives up the blessings of God's eternal grace. Genuine faith is not a 1 John 2:19  faith in which John said " they went out from us, but they were never apart of us..." Genuine faith is a Matthew 24:13, 1 Corinthians 15:2 type of faith where the one who endures to the end shall be saved.

If you are in a situation where your faith in Christ is being tested, speak aloud and remind yourself of how good God has been, what Jesus did for you at Calvary and how far you have progressed in Christ.  Pray this prayer, "Jesus, please intercede for me.  Seal my faith so that I may see you in glory when you return.  In Jesus' name, Amen.  Grace and peace.

The White Man's Religion?

Many African-Americans have an aversion to Jesus and to the Bible claiming that Christianity is the “white man’s religion”.  They also have beef with the Bible saying that it supports or condones slavery.  The slavery aspect is an interesting one because every civilization had slaves in some form or fashion.  The Egyptians, who many African-Americans turn to as their alternative when seeking to discredit Christianity, enslaved the Israelites!  Many turn to Egyptology or other mystery religions because of this perception that the Bible condoned slavery and that whites used it to keep Africans in America enslaved.

That is partially true.  Whites did indeed use the Bible, fear and intimidation and violence to keep slaves subservient.  But what no one seems to mention is that they were wrong.  As a Christian, I have no problem in honestly saying that many of those men who owned slaves were not real Christians nor did they use the Bible for its intended purpose.  Rather than being transformed by it, they manipulated its words and played on the fact that many slaves were illiterate.

As for the Bible condoning slavery, as I mentioned before every civilization held slaves.  Slavery is a reality that existed throughout the history of mankind.  What we need to understand is this: The Bible HUMANIZED slaves and their treatment.  Those who were enslaved to the Israelites were not treated as animals.  God mandated in the book of Leviticus that they must be treated fairly and not harmed or abused.  The American concept of slavery was ghastly.  Lynching, beating, rape, torture and death were all components of the American system of slavery.  Freedom was not a reality for most slaves.  However, the Bible in the Old Testament pronounces that every 50th year was considered the year of Jubilee and all slaves, whether indentured or not had to be set free (Leviticus 25:10).  Many sold themselves into slavery to pay off debts.  American slaves were captured in Africa or sold from Africa, often against their will.  No one could have predicted the horrors of American slavery and the utter dehumanization of the African people when the first slave ships landed here.

Even in the New Testament, although slavery still existed, the humanity of slaves was evident.  Paul writes the following in his epistles:

1.       Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven (Colossians 4:1).

2.       Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.  Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. (Colossians 3:22-24).

Paul writes these things with the understanding that the slaves would be treated fairly by their masters.  He also warns those who own slaves to provide them with what is right and fair.  In American slavery, there was no such thing as right and fair because masters did not regard their slaves as human beings but as chattel.  They did not heed this warning because of the racism and the hatred in their hearts for the slaves that they owned.  It’s appalling but we cannot blame the Bible for their misdeeds.  I blame them.  The instructions in the Bible are clear.

In another place, Paul tells those who are enslaved- who were probably more indentured servants than slaves because many sold themselves into slavery to cover debts- to be free if you are able to be free.

1 Corinthians 7:17-24 “Nevertheless, each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches. Was a man already circumcised when he was called? He should not become uncircumcised. Was a man uncircumcised when he was called? He should not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God’s commands is what counts. Each person should remain in the situation they were in when God called them.

Were you a slave when you were called? Don’t let it trouble you—although if you can gain your freedom, do so. For the one who was a slave when called to faith in the Lord is the Lord’s freed person; similarly, the one who was free when called is Christ’s slave. You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of human beings. Brothers and sisters, each person, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation they were in when God called them.”    
                                                                                                               

Clearly, the Bible is not advocating for slavery or even condoning the harsh treatment of slaves while it does recognize the existence of slavery.  Paul is telling slaves here that if they could gain their freedom they should absolutely do so.  He is also, in the same thought, telling men to be content with their standing in life.  How is that possible?  Because Paul understood that God can work through our situations but there are also some situations that warrant release i.e. slavery.  This does not sound like a justification of inhumane treatment to me.  What is sounds like is a secret that American slaves were not privy to because of their inability to access true Christianity.  What they experienced was a tainted version of the truth and therefore many are turned off by it.  The same thing happens all the time in the church.  People get turned off by inauthenticity!  I don’t like it.  But much credit belongs to those slaves who endured the horrors of slavery and still believed in God because they did indeed find the TRUE God and He brought them through!  They sang about Him, they prayed to Him and they knew that massa’ was not in the least bit representative of Him.

I don’t subscribe to the notion that because of the evil inflicted by slavery that Christianity somehow should be discredited.  What men do in the name of God is not always what God has called them to do.  God did not call for Africans in America to be brutalized and dehumanized.  Men chose to do that and use God as a cover.  Christianity did not start in America!  There were Christian churches in Ethiopia long before colonial times (Ethiopia).  There were Christians all over the world before whites got into the slave trade.  Christianity is not the "white man's religion".  It can't be because it was started by a Jew named Jesus who was born in Bethlehem, hid out in Egypt, raised in Nazareth and was the Light of the WORLD, not just a select few.  Don't be snowed over by these claims of Christianity being white.  Do your research.  Those images of a milky skinned Jesus are not accurate [What did Jesus look like?]. Those depictions are just that, depictions.  No one has an accurate depiction of Jesus but the Bible says that his feet were like burnished bronze (Revelation 1:15) and his hair was white like wool not His skin. 

We must also understand that regardless of what color Jesus was (not race because he was clearly not African nor was He Caucasian), the main issue is that His blood ran red!  It is His blood that breaks down every dividing wall of race or class.  His blood ensures that we understand that both male and female are equal in His sight.  He broke down the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile (See Galatians 3).  Here is where our focus should be, not on the color of His skin!  What is most important is that Jesus died for the sins of the WHOLE WORLD!  Every race, color, creed, ethnicity or whatever box you want to check.  That's more important than someone's perceived superiority complex.  I thank God that He is not as shortsighted as men are!  Grace and peace be with you all.

What I Learned from VBS Last Night

Vacation Bible School has been a blast.  The Cave Quest theme deals with man being in darkness and Jesus being the light of the world.  The church has been transformed into a cave, especially the upstairs!  The workers have been phenomenal.  Last night, I was sitting outside observing the outdoor activity.  It involved two people having to walk through a gauntlet and cross over three hurdles all while being pelted by wet sponged, shot at by assailants carrying super soaker water guns and having buckets of water dumped on them at various points along the path.  It was a real eye-opening experience.  Without consultation from the coordinators, I quickly figured out what this event was representative of. 

Of the two people walking, one of them was blindfolded and the other was not.  The un-blindfolded person was to act as the guide for the blindfolded person.  They helped them maneuver through the gauntlet and all the while they were also taking the exact same punishment.  My spiritual eyes were opened immediately and I thought "Wow, that is the exact same way that Christ walks with us!"

What did I learn?  Here are my thoughts about that event and how we can apply it to our lives:

1. We NEED a guide in the Christian life.  None of us are equipped to walk the narrow path alone.  We have Jesus and we have the Holy Spirit to assist us.

2. We WILL be attacked along the way.  The water guns and the sponges were indicative of the fact that the Christian life is not a perfect life.  We will face challenges every day of our walk.

3. At NO POINT does Jesus leave our side.  Through the obstacle course the guide and the blindfolded person were joined at the hip and the guide could not leave them.  It is the exact same way in the Christian life.  Jesus said in Matthew 28 that He would be with us even to the ends of the earth.  The Moses said to Joshua, "Be strong and courageous...He will never leave you nor forsake you." (Deut 31:6)

4. There is an END to the attacks.  The obstacle course had an end point.  So do troubles in our lives.  David said that weeping endures for a night but joy comes in the morning.  We know that God can bring good out of bad and therefore we endure until the good comes.

5. We MUST walk by faith and not by sight.  We will not always know what is coming around every corner of our lives.  We must have faith in Christ to see us through our difficult moments.  Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.  Faith is not blind, it is based on God's promises.  We must hold on to those promises even if we do not see them at the moment.

I believe that VBS this year will have a transformative effect on our church and on the youth that we are reaching.  I pray that God would illuminate the minds of everyone involved.  I know that He definitely illuminated my mind last night.  God's grace and peace be with you. 

How Do I Know that Jesus is Real?

Our Vacation Bible School opened with a question to the first group of children.  “How do you know that Jesus is real?”  I was sitting in my office but the presenter was loud enough for me to hear.  The silence was too.  That’s a hard question for a child.  Some adults still struggle with this question!  Atheists stake their eternal future on the supposition that He is not real.  The wheels in my head started turning because this is a question that an apologist must answer succinctly and honestly.  How would I answer this question if someone asked me?  The presenter answered from the perspective of looking at creation and understanding that the things that we see didn’t create themselves.  We know that the Bible tells us that all things were created FOR Christ and BY Christ.

We know that Jesus is real from what the Word of God tells us.  If the Word of God is the truth and God cannot lie ever then when His Word says that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, raised in Nazareth, performed miracles to validate His identity as the Messiah, died at Calvary and rose again on the third day, we believe it to be the truth.  That is called faith.  The Word of God is not a set of books thrown together but the message within it is cohesive and the authority comes from God, not from the people who compiled the books.

Contrary to what many believe, faith is not blind.  Much of what we believe from the Bible has been archaeologically and historically verified.  The birth of Jesus was not recorded as a story but as a historical event because the book of Luke has been verified and trusted as a historical document.  The same can be said for the book of Acts that clearly depicts Jesus walking with His disciples after His resurrection.  His crucifixion and His impact on the world has not only been written about in the Bible but in other non-Christian sources.  Namely, the Jewish historian Josephus wrote about Jesus and discussed how His movement, what we now call Christianity, did not die after Jesus no longer walked the earth.  That is the true test of whether Christ worked for God or whether He was simply a figment of people’s imagination.  Thousands of years later, people are still following Him and the numbers are being added to daily.  

As with any supernatural reality, He must also be experienced.  There is no way to quantify experience but that does not make it any less real.  You can’t bottle experience in a flask or measure it with a ruler any more than you can count the number of bubbles in a bar of soap.  There is an old song that says that God is real because I can feel Him in my soul.  Many a skeptic turned Christian will attest to this.  Lee Stroebel (The Case for Christ), Antony Flew (There is a God) and Frank Morrison (Who Moved the Stone?) are notable former atheists who converted to Christianity after some experience that they had.  For Stroebel, it was his quest to find out if Jesus was real; for Flew, it was an epiphany after years of staunch atheism; for Morrison it was a sudden realization that as he sought to disprove the gospels, he couldn't.

Certainly, Christ can be experienced.  Every believer has experienced Christ at least at the moment of their conversion which is evidence that points to His reality.  Paul’s experience was different from Peter’s.  Peter’s was different from Levi’s.  The woman at the well experienced Jesus in a different way than those whom she went to tell but they all experienced Jesus!  Which brings up another point, we cannot discount the witness of others.  A witness in a courtroom is used to corroborate a story through their testimony.  Witnesses are credible and necessary to establish facts.  The woman at the well, after experiencing Jesus ran and told her fellow Samaritans, "Come see a man who told me everything about myself!  Could this be the Christ?"  We must witness to others as to the “realness” of Jesus!  We are witnesses to His realness and we must tell others.  This is how the Gospel is spread and proliferated, by word of mouth.  We have evidence that Christ is real and we have to convey that evidence to others. 

Just Skip the Beginning

There are times in life when we just want to get to the good stuff.  Sometimes, we eat dessert before dinner.  Sometimes we rush people through their conversations to get to the meat.  Sometimes we are not interested in the details because they may get in the way of our conscience.  Or, they may remind us of some uncomfortable truth that turns our ideas on their heads.  For instance, if I found a million dollars on the side of the road, I have two choices.  I could say I have no idea where it came from and keep it or recognize that it came from somewhere, it's not mine and therefore I should seek out the owner.  If I dismiss the fact that it's not mine that gives me a clear conscience to keep it.  Who cares about the details of where it came from?  I am only interested in spending it.  The origin of the million dollars is just as important as my possession of it.  I know it did not simply materialize out of thin air and I know it belonged to someone else before I found it on the side of the road. 

In a debate with a Darwinist, this is the exact dilemma that they face when they begin discussing evolution.  They want to discuss diversity without considering origins.  Darwinism stems from Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.  The theory of evolution at its core states that every living species is derived from the same common ancestor, a single celled organism.  Natural selection is another Darwinian concept that says that extant species genetically develop specific traits and characteristics that allow them to survive in their environments.  These traits are developed by mutations in the genes of a given organism. 

According to those who support evolution, they say that it has nothing to do with origins.  That is another subject, a totally different area of study known as abiogenesis.  They contend that you can skip the beginning and go directly to discussing the diversity and complexity of life and that evolution allows us to explain this diversity.  Here is a gaping hole in evolutionary theory.  How can we skip the beginning?  Doesn't it matter where the species that we are describing came from?  Apparently not. 

Many also argue that evolution itself is not random. I beg to differ.  Absent a creator, the origin of all species had to occur randomly.  If the belief among evolutionists is that there is no God and therefore nothing to guide the process, then how else do we classify it?  Further, if abiogenesis is really how the first organism came into being, then that would mean that every organism randomly evolved from that first organism before natural selection could ever occur. 

How is this random?  If abiogenesis is how the first organism came into existence then the chemicals that made that organism up had to have randomly combined to even form one amino acid let alone the proteins or DNA which codes amino acids for proteins.  Sure, the chemical elements can be found on asteroids and meteors but amino acids aren't nor are proteins.  The elements are there but the parts are not assembled.  If there is no assembler, then how else, other than random, do we classify the process of the elements becoming molecules with specific bonding and structures?  Not to mention, where did the life of the first organism come from?  There is no evidence of life evolving from non-living material, anywhere.  Scientists have tried to duplicate/simulate conditions and only got a few amino acids; hardly a living being or even a bacterium (Prebiotic Chemicals?).  Glycine found on a comet (Rosetta Comet) won't cut it when we have to answer the fundamental question of where life begins or how extremely complex and purposeful molecules are derived through random collisions of atoms.  To have the ingredients for life but no life is not enough.  I cannot put the ingredients for five star meal in my kitchen, blow the kitchen up and expect that a desirous meal would come from that process!  Unguided processes are random.  Point blank.  The lottery is a random process- unless it's rigged.  The probabilities for winning are extremely low which is why you see 2-3 winners out of millions of players.

If this random process of making amino acids, proteins, peptides or even DNA, which is a totally different type of chemical from proteins, was successful, now that single celled organism would have to become every single species on the planet.  This would necessitate inter-species evolution i.e. one organism becoming something totally other than itself!  How so?  How else could every species originate from one common organism?  Evolutionists say that this is an aberration and that this is not how evolution works.  However, in order to discuss how evolution (speciation and diversity) does work, we cannot dismiss this fact. 

The formation of different species from the original organism too must be random because there would be nothing guiding the genetic mutations necessary for the original organism to become some other organism.  That's to say there is nothing to tell the original organism what to become.  Random, unguided mutations is the language that even evolutionists use yet they contend that the process itself is not random.  Really?  Here is another hole, evolutionists will not dare say that multiple species occurred at the same time, but rather that they each evolved slowly over time; they also contend that from each of the new species, variations of that species were derived.

Is there microevolution i.e. can there be advantageous changes within a species?  Absolutely.  There is no denying the evidence that there were and still are different humans who walked the planet at the same time.  Every one of us came from somewhere.  I believe that we came from Adam's seed but that's another issue.  The fossil evidence is there to suggest that human beings have indeed changed over time.  So has our environment and our living conditions which, according to evolutionists, have everything to do with evolution. 

But  Is it possible from one species to become another?  I don't think so and this has not been proven experimentally, ever.    But this is precisely what had to have happened in order for the diverse array of species that we currently see to exist, if evolution is taken to its logical conclusion.  There is debate over the whole man from ape theory as well as the common ancestor between men and apes.  Apes have 48 pairs of chromosomes  and humans have 46 pairs.  The debate rages over whether or not telomeres were somehow (no real explanation) fused together which evolutionists use to argue for how apes evolved into humans (Telomeres) and how the two chromosomes pairs are somehow missing from humans. There is no way around this unobserved inter-species evolution and this is where the Darwinian concept breaks down in the eyes of many scientists (for arguments against the theory of evolution, see "Icons of Evolution by Johnathan Wells" "I don't have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek" "Darwin's Black Box by Michael Behe" or "Signature in the Cell b Stephen C. Meyer"). 

We can't just skip over the beginning and not have an answer for it.  That presents a major challenge for Darwinists but according to them, the origins don't matter.  We can indeed skip the beginning and start discussing diversity.  How is that possible when there is a 400lb gorilla in the room screaming "where did all life come from in the first place?"

There is an answer.  He is an inconvenient truth and a thorn in the side of many who do not agree that there is a creator.  God created everything that we see.  While many do not accept this or claim that He is a bigger mystery than evolution, He is indeed a knowable mystery.  He cannot be studied empirically in a lab, he cannot be proven using science but He can definitely be experienced.  He also left His calling card throughout this orderly universe.  He gave the species the ability to adapt.  He designed the genetic switches that allow DNA to code for different proteins within a particular species.  He made human beings in His image, not from apes.  He made each animal, bird, creeping thing etc. after its own kind.  That those things are able to "evolve" is no mystery and that's something I do not disagree with.  But to say that without answering or even entertaining the vital question of where they came from is quite disingenuous.  The impossibility of a random unguided process leading to the vast array of complex organisms, humanity with all of its own complexities and don't forget our intellectual complexity and everything else that we see is mind-boggling.  It takes a lot more faith to believe in an unguided random process than it does to believe that God created everything in my humble opinion.  But, we don't need those details getting in the way of our theories, now do we? 

When an Atheist is Confused about the Nature of God

You know, atheists are a very lively bunch.  They are filled with excuse after excuse as to why God cannot exist.  If evil exists, then God cannot exist; if death is real, then God is not real; if babies die, then God is not real.  You've heard them all before and what all of their consternation comes from is a faulty view of who God is from the beginning.  Some atheists have a presupposition that the happiness of mankind is God's greatest concern and therefore since mankind has times of unhappiness, there cannot be a God.  Other atheists in the area of science believe that since they can see bacteria mutate and evolve that everything must have come from evolution and therefore there cannot be a God.  Darwinism is a religion in itself, but the hardcore Darwinists will never admit that they worship at the altar of evolution.  Atheistic scientists can be a notoriously stubborn and even arrogant lot when it comes to questions about God.

One particular atheist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, who is also a noted astrophysicist, has an interesting take on why there cannot be a God.  According to him, the universe is so violent and is always trying to kill humans and therefore since the universe is not benevolent then it could not have been created by a benevolent being.  There are several problems with this argument, one being where did the universe come from to begin with?  If it has an age then it has a beginning and we cannot be so naïve to think that it sprang from nothing.  Physical laws don't allow for the creation of matter ex nihilo sans some external operator.  This type of creation from nothing would have to be a supernatural event.  According to Tyson the meanness of the universe tells us point blank that there is no God.  I beg to differ.  My argument is simple, the meanness and chaos of the universe has an ultimate purpose.

Degrasse Tyson says that because there are elements within the universe and events that could kill us and “want to kill us and don’t have our health and well-being in mind” that there cannot be a God.  On its face, this is a very weak argument.

1. To personify the events that occur within the universe means that Tyson believes that these occurrences have a mind of their own. 

We know that the weather and comets and stars are not autonomous, thinking beings.  On the contrary, they are simply material objects that do not have the capacity to  do anything other than exist.  If one believes that these natural, physical phenomena are personified, are they gods?  If so, then the one who believes this is not an atheist but a polytheist.  The bigger question is, what's keeping those things from killing us?  Has he considered this?  He is still alive and his health and well-being have not been affected by these chaotic events of the universe.  I wonder if he has considered his life as proof of divine benevolence? 

2. The chaotic state of the universe is NECESSARY!  

If not for the chaos, the periodic table, as we know it, would not exist; the elements necessary for life would not exist; the natural resources that we use every day would not exist.  The fact that those things DO exist and that we are able to harness them and use them says something.  It speaks volumes about a benevolent God who gave us everything that we needed to survive (see Genesis 1-3).  The earth itself, according to Isaiah 45:18, was created to be inhabited and not to be a "waste place". 

Three different processes exist within stars to make elements.  These are violent and high energy processes. Without these violent processes, a violence that Tyson uses to indict/dismiss God, the heavier atoms on the periodic table would not exist- without which there would be no iron (or steel, an alloy containing iron) to build massive university buildings for astrophysicists to sit in and doubt the existence of the One who gave the elements for the construction of said academic buildings!  Without the higher energy, more violent processes, then we would have been doomed to remain in thatch huts with none of the grandiose infrastructure that we have become so accustomed to.  That controlled chaos had to be controlled by someone.  There would be no silicon or boron to make glass for telescopes for astrophysicists, cosmologists and astronomers to peer into the wonder of God's vast interstellar creation. 

The fact that the temperatures, violence and energy necessary to arrange neutrons, protons and electrons into atoms all coexisted to bring about the elements, is a testament to some guiding principle within the universe.  Just as a simple aside, Think about the fact that alone Na or Cl are both poisonous to humans but together they are an essential nutrient to the body!  Think about this for one second: carbon combines with other carbon and oxygen atoms to make cellulose which, along with hemicellulose and lignin in various combinations, gives wood or corn or cotton or other cellulosic natural products!  But the carbon had to come from somewhere and astrophysicists agree that stars are where the elements were generated.  God used the violence within stars to give us every element that we know of and the starting points for ever element that man has created.  To me that is a huge piece of evidence for God.

3. Tyson has a one-dimensional view of God.

 

To say that he only knows God as benevolent is a misconception that must be corrected.  We don't serve a God of our own creation, He has no creator.  To ask "how can a benevolent God be responsible for such chaos" is almost an elementary question when the chaos clearly served a magnificent purpose (see above).  One must also understand that the nature of God is not one-dimensional but multi-faceted.  God is simultaneously love and wrath. 

Let’s take the argument from a different angle.  The fact that we live on earth and extinction level event (ELE) asteroids and meteorites are not pelting this planet daily is a testament to God's beneficence.  The mere notion that we survive within the chaotic framework of the Universe is a miracle!  None of us should be here at all, period.  Entropy says that everything should head towards disorder and yes, we are  slowly headed to disorder, our bodies break down and eventually the planet will too, but the fact that there was/is any order, in the midst of the chaos of the universe, is mind boggling!  From where did the order originate? 

The fact that one planet, out of billions of proposed galaxies that no one has ever been to, has the potential to support life and does support BILLIONS of human beings is a miracle.  The evidence of God’s benevolence is the breath that we breathe every day and the sun being at the perfect distance to heat the planet and the seasons changing when they do and the crops sprouting in their own time without prompting.

Even the natural disasters that we witness can also be taken as a sign of His benevolence.  How?  Yes we mourn the dead but do we ever ponder what goes through the minds of those who survive?  Do we consider the fact that babies buried in the rubble of an earthquake have survived unharmed amid mass death and destruction? What of the ones who rush in to assist during those disasters?  From where does their benevolence originate?  The fact that there is ANY benevolence in the universe at all means that benevolence has an origin.  What or Who is the origin?  Christians know the answer, non-believers choose to ignore it.

4. The corruption of sin and the consequences of sin on the planet seems to escape his notice.

The calamities of the earth happen because the earth itself us under the curse of sin.  Not individual sin but the sinful state of the earth and the universe for that matter.  However, I expect this to be lost on someone who does not acknowledge God.  If one does not acknowledge God then surely  they will not consider the concept of sin.  Adam's sin brought wrath onto the planet, a wrath that the planet had never seen before.  William Dembski, a noted mathematician and Christian, wrote a wonderful theodicy in his book "The End of Christianity" which took man's sin into account as the true reason for the calamity that we currently see in the earth.  This is why a "new heaven and a new earth" is the ultimate result of Christ's return (See Revelation 21).  Perfection will be re-established when Jesus returns to set everything right.

I don't claim to be as intelligent as Dr. Tyson but fallacious arguments, no matter how worldly-wise the speaker is, must be refuted with truth.  His argument against God is a human attempt to hold on to his notion that God is only benevolent rather than accepting the evidence of God's existence and His wrath.  He is not ready to step out of his comfort zone and seeks to contain God within a box that he can understand.  Scientists are sometimes unwilling to step into realms that cannot be controlled but for the Christian (scientist or not) that's called faith.  Many times people are afraid to engage scholars.  We believe that because they are scholars they are above reproach.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  If they are in error, they need to be corrected.  If they are being myopic then they need to be enlightened such that their worldview may be expanded.  I pray that Dr. Tyson would know the Lord Jesus Christ in the pardoning of his sins before it is too late.  Paul asks in 1 Corinthians 1:20 "Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?"  This is the beauty of the Lord.  He confounds the wise and brings their arguments to nothing.  May God bless and keep each of you who are reading this.

The Emmaus Road: What Can We Learn From Jesus and these Two Men?

The Emmaus Road experience is a story that Mark cut short, Matthew and John don't report but Luke captures with great detail.  In Luke 24 beginning at verse 13, he paints a vivid picture of two men whom Jesus mysteriously joins on their way to Emmaus shortly after his resurrection.  The Bible says that Jesus was not recognizable to the men.  The way that it is worded, it's almost as if there was a hand being held over the eyes of these men.  It is my belief that He hid His identity because their hearts were not prepared to receive Jesus and therefore He had to prepare them before He revealed Himself to them.  Why am I saying this?  It's obvious from the text that the men did not understand who the Son of Man really was and what He came to do.  In Mark's gospel, Jesus prophesied His death and resurrection three times (See Mark 9:30-32; Mark 10:32-34 and Mark 14:8) so there was no mystery around His purpose.  However, these men were looking for something different. 

As Jesus was walking along with them, he asked them what they were discussing to which they replied (paraphrasing) "Are you the ONLY person here who has not heard what just happened?"  With great incredulity they interrogated Jesus, sensing some ignorance on His part.  Jesus pressed them further for an answer and they began recounting the entire scenario of His crucifixion.  Here is how I know that they were not ready or had different aspirations for the Messiah.  First of all, when Jesus asked them what happened, they were standing and looking sad.  Secondly, Luke 24:21 gives us a view into their mindset:

Luke 24:21 ""But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, it is the third day since these things happened."

So these men's hope was dashed by the fact that Jesus was murdered on the cross and that nothing had happened by the third day.  The third day is crucial because in Jewish culture, it was believed that after three days of being dead, there was no coming back from that.   They did not understand the prophecies about Him or the Scriptures telling of His death, one for all.   However, they also said something else that was crucial to our understanding but overlooked in their own assessment.  They said that the women who went to the tomb told them that it was empty and that Jesus was alive!  Therefore, whether they knew it or not, Israel had indeed been redeemed and their King was alive and well!  The whole word had been redeemed for that matter.  Death had been conquered by the Messiah!  Why were they sad?  I guess they did not believe what the women had said, not unlike the other disciples who also did not believe at first when they saw the resurrected Jesus.

What can we learn from these men and this experience?

1. When we have doubts about what God is doing, we should not seek an experience, we should search the scriptures and pray for understanding.

Verses 25-27 (NASB): "25And He said to them, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! 26“Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” 27Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures."

Jesus did not give them some ecstatic experience or some powerful new revelation from heaven, he took them back to the Word of God.  The Word stands forever.  The Word will remain even when the flower fades and the grass withers.  It is the Word of God by which the universe was created  (genesis 1:3) and upon which the universe holds together (Hebrews 1:3; Colossians 1:17).  The Word of God is objective, honest and true and it has the answers that we seek.  The Word of God shapes our worldview and therefore Jesus took them to the Scriptures and showed them WHY He had to die and WHAT His ministry was truly about.  He did not come as a military conqueror, as they suspected that the Messiah would, He came as the Lamb without spot or blemish to take away the sins of the world.  John the Baptist knew this when he said "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29).  Here is a great example of what we must do as Christians when we are in doubt about anything, we consult the Word of God and pray for the Spirit of God to explain or open the Word up to us!

2. We must invite Jesus into our personal lives.

Verses 28-29 "And they approached the village where they were going, and He acted as though He were going farther. 29But they urged Him, saying, “Stay with us, for it is getting toward evening, and the day is now nearly over.” So He went in to stay with them."

They wanted Jesus to stay with them.  This is crucial to the profound occurrence that happened in the next verse.  They urged (begged) Him to stay.  This is the same attitude that we must have.  We ought to be praying for Christ to dwell with us and we ought to be dwelling with Him.  The Bible says that he acted as if He would go further.  This was possibly a test to see if these men really wanted Him or if they were satisfied with what they had received already.  They were taught the Scriptures on the road but was that enough or did they want more?  Obviously, they wanted more.  We cannot remain complacent or stagnant in our walk with Jesus.  We must desire more of Him each and every day.  They urged Him to stay and He went in to stay with them.  Interestingly, the word used for stay is the same word Jesus used when He instructed His disciples in John 15:4 to abide in Him.  This abiding is a long-lasting, fruitful and joyous interaction between God and man!

3. We must surrender to Jesus.

Verses 30-31 "30When He had reclined at the table with them, He took the bread and blessed it, and breaking it, He began giving it to them. 31Then their eyes were opened and they recognized Him; and He vanished from their sight."

Look at this verse carefully.  Jesus comes in and dines with them.  Revelation 3:20 says that Jesus is standing at the door knocking and if ANYONE opens the door, He will come in and dine with them.  Dining is an intimate experience.  It was even more intimate in this culture.  This was not a traditional American meal where we sit separated in chairs around a table; reclining means that they were leaning on one elbow, lying on their sides.  This was a way more relaxed and intimate setting.  Consider also that there were no electric lights and it was getting towards evening so they probably had candles or lamps flickering in the background.  Notice what happens, Jesus comes into their home and He is the one who breaks the bread!  It was not customary for the guest to break the bread but in this case, when Jesus was the guest of honor, things were a little different!  Here is the nugget from this: they surrendered their bread to Jesus!  We must surrender our bread to Jesus.  He can do more with it than we can!  We must surrender totally to Him.  Let Him into our lives, give Him charge over our bread, the rooms in our homes, cluttered or uncluttered must be turned over to Him!  We have to show Him the parts of the house that we wouldn't normally show anyone and give Him free reign! 

Look at what happened when they surrendered: verse 31 says that their eyes were opened!  The verb is in the passive voice indicating that their eyes were opened by an external force operating on them.  We know that it was God who opened their eyes!  Once their eyes were opened they recognized Jesus for who He was.  This verb, recognized, is in the active voice therefore it was their own action.  However, this would not have happened had not God given them the understanding.  Do you see the importance of surrender?  If we surrender, if we make ourselves vulnerable to God, He will reveal things to us that we would otherwise not understand.

4. Do not reject the Holy Spirit's work in preparing our witness.

Verses 32-35 "32They said to one another, “Were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the Scriptures to us?” 33And they got up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem, and found gathered together the eleven and those who were with them, 34saying, “The Lord has really risen and has appeared to Simon.” 35They began to relate their experiences on the road and how He was recognized by them in the breaking of the bread."

The Bible says their hearts were burning while Jesus was teaching them.  He was explaining or literally opening up the Scriptures to them.  The word for explaining  brings to mind a womb being opened or something being cut across.  The verb for burning again in the passive voice.  There was someone or something causing the burning while Jesus was teaching.  That someone was the Spirit of God!  He convicts us, He teaches us and He prepares us.  They were now ready because they understood what was happening.  They understood that Christ had to die but also that He would not stay dead.  Here is the lesson for us: We cannot let our fire go down to a flicker!  We must stay close to God through prayer and supplication, continually asking for the fire of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.  They walked seven miles back to Jerusalem and told the disciples everything that had just happened!  They were witnesses but they had to first be prepared by Jesus! 

What we see is a glorious transformation of two men who were sad when they did not fully understand what they were experiencing but who became powerful witnesses for Jesus after He showed Himself to them.  They were not ready but He made them ready.  They were sad but Jesus filled them with joy!  Let the Word of God dwell richly in each and every one of you so that you will be well equipped for every good work, able to give an answer to anyone for the hope that lies within you!  We should not be sad, we should lift our heads up and know that our redemption draws near.  Jesus is alive and well and He is still teaching us, by His Spirit, even from His seat in heaven.  I pray that this was a blessing to you and that it edifies and nourishes you to the glory of God!  Grace and peace be upon you!