Friday, February 15, 2013

THE GOOD versus THE EVIL chapter 7

                                                 The Religious History

                                                   Exodus 20:1-6

Of all of Satan's lies and machinations, by far the most subtle one that does the most damage to confuse the minds and hearts of men in making a clear distinction between good and evil, is his inventions of false systems of religion. Of all of the sins of ancient Israel and Judah, the one that God fought the hardest was idol worship. Most of the prophets constantly railed against idol worship. In I Kings 18:25-41, the prophet Elijah proved in a contest between two sacrifices that the Hebrew God Yahweh was the only God and that all other gods were false. God told Elijah to initiate this contest and had it recorded in His Word so that all of humanity could learn that He is the only God and that all forms of idol worship, which is all forms of false religion, is by far the most dangerous lie of the Devil meant to deceive the hearts of men.

False religion and idol worship are the same sins. The Bible records that God could easily handle any of the ordinary sins of any of His backslidden believers, but God always had a hard fight against false religion and idol worship because God knew that this sin, which stems from pride, had the potential to destroy the entire human race. The basis of this sin is that terrible pride which entered the heart of Lucifer when he rebelled against God. In some mysterious way, the emptiness that results from the false combination called pride, as opposed to the true basic feeling called pride, engendered within the heart of Lucifer a fierce determination to kill God and make himself a god. He had to try to fill that terrible emptiness. This same self-serving attitude constitutes the core of original sin and false religion within the hearts of men.

This strange false combination called pride actually exists as a contradiction. This false combination could be worded: "A desire to replace God with self." All idols and false religions represent extensions of the self. Each individual idea within this false combination remains real and useful in good combinations that honor God's Ideas, but when falsely combined, these ideas constitute false pride and false religion. All false combinations effect a nothingness which, in turn, conceals a nonexistence that could also be called an absolute nothingness. For this reason, pride engenders within the hearts of men an awful feeling of dread and emptiness even though we often deny this. Philosophers who have recognized this feeling in man have called it "alienation from self,"(Hegel) or "angst," (Kierkegaard) or "nausea" (Sartre). C.S. Lewis called it "the abolition of man." This "dread" is that part of his false pride which causes man to know, deep within himself, the impossibility of ever becoming his own self-serving god. Despite his deep fear of failure, man nevertheless persists in his fierce determination to succeed in his false endeavor, and at the same time, the contradiction of this fierce determination causes guilt and a deep yearning within man for a self-destruction that will eradicate both the sin and the self.

This contradiction called pride manifests itself in history in two ways, in religion and in dissipation. The pleasure seekers know that alcohol, drugs, illicit sex, gambling, crime and all other forms of excessive pleasure will eventually destroy them, but they secretly desire this destruction because of the emptiness effected by false combinations. Those who practice religion may be good citizens and moral people, but in their devotions to their false religions which may simply be a love of money or power or popularity, they display a secret desire to serve themselves. They believe that their religion or money or power will cause them to become their own little gods who do not need the Love of God. Yet at times, even religious and moral people deeply feel that secret emptiness that results from pride.

The contradiction within pride often manifests itself in religious ceremonies, even in Christian ceremonies. The Old Testament reveals this contradiction between a desire to become a god and an obsession with self-destruction when it recorded that parents would sometimes throw their own children into fires that burned before idols because they believed their gods would reward them with prosperity for doing this. A modern parallel to this practice adheres to the ideology that teaches women that they have the right to abort their unborn children if they have become a burden to them in any way. Man possesses only those rights that are given by God, and one of these is the right to life. The Devil has spread modern lies that humans have additional putative rights such as gay marriage and abortion, but these so-called rights are merely false combinations. They destroy rather than produce anything creative. Many Christians have been seduced into believing these lies. These are often the same kinds of Christians who treat worship of God as a mere ceremony that they must go through in order to please God so that He will reward them for enduring these ceremonies. This kind of perfunctory worship actually only displays idol worship because these putative Christians have treated a Holy God like their own little idol who will allow them to be their own little god.

                                              Matthew 22:37-38

True Christians worship God with an absolute love and devotion and with a complete submission to His Will no matter what His Will might be. True Christians also display an absolute faith in God's Word, and never allow themselves to compromise His Word under any circumstances. These are the Christians who have been spiritually born into the family of God because they humbly admitted to God that they were lost sinners who could only be saved by being washed in the blood of Jesus which He shed for them on the cross. These are the Christians who have been born of the Spirit, and who have the Holy Spirit within them; He who gives them the ability to "worship Him in spirit and in truth."Read John 4:24.

Throughout history, the Devil has tried to destroy mankind by using ever more subtle lies. He has invented idol worship, false philosophies, a false science and false political systems to lure mankind away from trusting in the true and living Word of God. Satan has even infiltrated Christianity with the lies of false doctrine and subtle forms of idol worship. Yet, God has miraculously preserved His true gospel even at the heart of those churches that are riddled with the lies of the Devil. For example, no mere man has the power to turn wine into the blood of Jesus, but the fact that the congregation drinks this wine demonstrates that God has preserved the core doctrine within Catholicism that only the blood of Jesus can cleanse one from sin. Those who receive this wine as a mere ceremony practice idol worship, but some may actually believe that the blood of Jesus has washed away their sins. Who has the right to say that those who so believe have not been saved? Does not this judgment belong solely to a compassionate God? Jesus gave Christians no right to judge eternal matters. Read Matthew 7:1-2. This judgment belongs solely to God. Jesus gives Christians the right to judge evil and goodness when they see it, but not the person doing the good or evil. Read Matthew 7:15-20. The trees to which Jesus refers in this teaching are not the persons, but is simply the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that is within every person. Christians may speculate as to whether a particular person is saved or not, but never judge. Is it not possible that our Holy God of infinite compassion and understanding would accept such weak faith even though falsities are attached to it? The Bible relates in II Chronicles 30:15-22 that God answered the prayer of King Hezekiah and pardoned the people who committed some false practices while observing the passover. In addition, God may accept this weak faith even though those who drink this wine believe that they must come again and again to the altar to receive it, when God's Word teaches that a repentent sinner needs but once to be washed in the blood of Jesus in order to be permanently born into the family of God. Read Hebrews 10:14-18.

Through the centuries from the time of Christ, the Devil has succeeded in infiltrating the church with false doctrines, false teachers, false Bibles and false leaders so that many modern denominations have compromised with evil and denied the true Word of God, which is the King James Bible in English. At the beginning of Christianity, the Devil raised up many cults which claimed to be Christian, such as the Gnostics and the Arians, in his attempt to destroy Christianity through a direct attack against its doctrines. The Devil still has many cults in the modern world, such as the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnessess. The central doctrine of all cults is that they deny the Deity of Christ or His Oneness with His Father. The Devil has also tried to destroy Christianity directly through severe persecutions inflicted by false religions; the Roman pagans and the phony hierarchy of the Roman church in the past, and the Muslims, Nazis and Communists in the past and present. The Devil has introduced the sins of racism and anti-semitism into the church in order to try to corrupt it from within. The Devil has used some false leaders of some churches to compromise with the false science called the theory of evolution in order to try to slowly strangle Christianity to death. The Jewish people may have suffered more from direct persecution, but Christianity has suffered greatly from direct persecution and the Devil has used every trick in his book in his attempts to destroy it. Despite all of these persecutions and false systems from the Devil, God has miraculously preserved His true Word and His true gospel right down to the present day.
 

Friday, February 8, 2013

THE GOOD versus THE EVIL chapter 6

                                              The Scientific History

                                           Read I Corinthians 1: 22

Throughout the history of mankind, certain philosophers and scientists have taken the atheistic and materialistic view of life. Other philosophers and scientists have taken the theistic and idealistic view of life. Most of the realists have taken the theistic view, and most of the skeptics have taken the atheistic view. Many of the early philosophers and scientists resided in Europe, some in Greece. Some of the theistic philosophers and scientists professed to believe in the gods, but the greatest of them, such as Plato and Aristotle, intimated in their writings that they actually believed in One God. This was no accident. God used the writings of Plato and Aristotle to prepare the minds of the Europeans for the future spread of Christianity.

God chose not to use the teachings of philosophers and scientists to inform the minds of His chosen people, the Hebrews. He chose prophets and priests instead. God provided His prophets with powers to perform miracles and predict the future. God knew that His people had the types of minds that would not be interested in abstract reasoning, but who would respond to the powers and signs of God revealed through His chosen prophets. God provided the spiritual leadership for His people through His prophets and priests from Abraham to John the Baptist. These prophets and priests had to battle continuously against the tendencies of some of the Hebrews to resort to idol worship. Even though many times these prophets and priests and their followers were in the minority, nevertheless, they successfully preserved the Word of God through scribes who wrote it down for centuries, right down to the present day, and even though evil men fought mightily to destroy it. This fact, in-itself, has to be a miracle of God.

                                                     Hebrews 1: 1-3

From the time of Jesus the Messiah, God has combined both methods, the signs of miracles and the love of wisdom, to spread the gospel message of Christ throughout the whole world. God has used the record of the miracles performed by Jesus and the Apostles as well as the great wisdom of Jesus, the Apostle Paul and the other Apostles, to appeal to the minds and hearts of all people everywhere who hear the gospel in order to convince them that they are lost sinners in need of a Savior. Christianity began as a very small group of Jewish believers in Jerusalem, but because of the miracle of the resurrection of Christ, Christianity has succeeded in spreading the gospel to the whole world. This fact must also be a miracle from God.

                                                      John 12: 32

History demonstrates that God has used miracles and a love of wisdom to maintain a strict balance between good and evil so that a fair test of His Love will always prevail wherever His gospel may be preached. Modern materialistic science has tried to redefine science as being synonymous with atheism, but history has always defined science as the love of wisdom which means a love of the truth wherever it may be found. The fair test of God's love adheres to the free will of mankind. The Holy Spirit brings conviction to the hearts of all who hear or read the gospel that they are lost sinners in need of a Savior. God has allowed evil to remain in the world so that those who read or hear the gospel will have a free and fair choice to either accept it by faith and be saved, or to reject it and remain within the destructive effects of evil. Love is absolutely fair and God proves the great value of His Love by His sacrifice and His fairness. God gives faith to those who cry out to Him for the salvation that Christ has already provided for them through His sacrifice and resurrection. God thus proves that His Love possesses the greatest possible value when He freely gives His forgiveness, His eternal life and a glorious eternal future to anyone who accepts His grace by faith. Yet, those who reject God's grace also prove the greatness of God's Love because He will not force them to believe, but allows them freely to choose their pride and an obsession with self-destruction over the beautiful and glorious salvation which Love would have freely given them. Force cannot be love and modern materialistic science has tried to force mankind to accept its atheistic definition of science when history has always defined science as the love of wisdom.

                                                      Psalm 147: 5

God's Word does not concern itself with science directly because God's most important revelation is that His Son has proven that Love has the greatest value through His sacrifice and resurrection for the salvation of a fallen race, and that God will freely give this salvation to all who will choose to believe. Yet, God's Word always proves to be accurate whenever it mentions a scientific fact. Isaiah 40:22 refers to the earth as being a sphere when it mentions "the circle of the earth," and it also refers to the expansion of the universe when it mentions that God "stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain." Job 26:7 refers to a great emptiness in space north of the earth that modern science has now discovered when it states: "He stretcheth out the north over the empty place....." This verse goes on to state: " and hangeth the earth upon nothing." "Hangeth" refers to the force of gravity and "upon nothing" indicates outer space. The first verse of the Bible states that: "God created the heaven and the earth." The atheistic scientists have long asserted that the universe came into being on its own, that it evolved in a natural way so that life, in some undiscoverd way, comes into being on any planet where this is possible; and that through a process of macoevolution, bacteria became fish which became amphibians which became reptiles which became mammals which eventually became man. Although modern science has some good evidence that the universe began with a big bang, it has no evidence that this could have happened by accident or by any known force. In fact, all of the evidence indicates that the big bang was completely impossible. Although modern science has some evidence that the universe evolved into stars and galaxies and planets, it also has evidence that the universe was fine-tuned so that life could survive only on planets where conditions were just right. Modern science has no evidence whatsoever that life can come into being by accident. In fact, the best mathematical evidence indicates that this too is impossible. Modern science has no good evidence that macroevolution ever happened. In fact, science has discovered that the existence of life, as well as the existence of the non-living part of the universe, requires a third component called "specific information" in addition to that of matter and energy. Specific information is essentially the same kind of entity as language or mathematics. The only possible source of specific information is a Mind.

The Bible reveals that God created the expansion of the universe along with the force of gravity, and He created life on earth. John 1:1-5 also relates that God accomplished His creations by using finite copies of His Infinite Specific Information also called the Word of God, and that His Word is One with His Being which is Love. Genesis reveals that God created the universe and life in six periods of time that He called "days," beginning with His creation of light which reflects the eternal existence of the Light which is His Son. He created the earth in two of His "days" from the point of view of someone looking up to the heavens. On the fourth "day," God simply cleared the clouds from the sky so that the sun and stars could be seen from the earth. On the fifth "day," God created animal life in the seas and the birds. On the sixth "day," God created the land animals and mankind. These were six "days" in God's measure of time, and God holds the power to compress or expand time as He sees fit. Psalm 90:4 and II Peter 3:8 reveals this fact. Thus, the billions of years of existence from man's point of view were only six "days" within God's control of time.

The atheistic scientists enjoy pretending that science suffered great persecution at the hands of Christianity. But their only example is that of Galileo who was put under house arrest for a while because he had discovered that the earth orbits the sun. This was paltry persecution compared to the millions of Jews and Christians that have been killed and enslaved by political philosophies based on atheistic science.

In addition, Galileo was never actually persecuted by any Christians, but was arrested by a political hierarchy that had infiltrated and had taken control of the Roman Catholic Church for the purpose of advancing their own political agenda. These were ignorant men who knew little about the Bible. They based their authority for arresting Galileo on Joshua 10:12-13 where Joshua commanded the sun and moon to stand still in the sky so that he would have daylight long enough to defeat the enemies of Israel in battle. These priests reasoned that Galileo had contradicted this passage of scripture when he had said that the earth moves. But these priests failed to consider the simple fact that the Bible only referred to the apparent movement of the sun and moon from Joshua's view from earth. Nowhere does the Bible teach that the earth stands still with the sun orbiting it.

History clearly shows that atheistic science has never been persecuted by Christians or Jews. In fact, when modern science first appeared and began to advance in sixteenth century Europe, most of these early scientists were Christians, including Galileo and Newton. The atheists only began to take control of modern science when an amateur scientist named Charles Darwin published a purely speculative, and even metaphysical, book which advanced the theory that life originated by accident and evolved solely by chance and natural selection from one species to another until man evolved from the apes. This theory completely pushed God's creation out of the picture, and the atheists seized this view to advance their idea that God does not exist because He is not needed. But the atheists adopted this theory solely by faith because there exists no good evidence either then or now that this theory is true. Despite all this, this solely mechanistic theory gained great success in the minds of many people, so much so that it allowed the atheists to take control of modern science. To this day, the atheists seldom try to defend their theory with any real scientific evidence, but maintain their total control, even totalitarian control, over science by ridiculing anyone who disagrees with them as being as ignorant as those who arrested Galileo. The atheists know that most people fear ridicule, and because of this ridicule, even some Christians have tried to find a compromise between this atheistic theory and the truth of God's Word, even though such a compromise is tantamount to a compromise with the Devil.

The atheistic scientists also ridicule Christians who criticize the theory of evolution by claiming that they hold only a God-of -the-gaps objection to it. By this, they mean that the theory of evolution is held up by pillars of solid scientific evidence, and that Christians can only criticize it within the gaps between these pillars. The atheists claim that in time all of these gaps will be filled in by new scientific evidence so that the theory of evolution will finally rest on a solid foundation that cannot be criticized. But the real truth of the matter is that there exists no pillars of evidence for the theory of evolution whatsoever. The whole theory equals one huge gap. The theory of evolution actually equals nothing, which is typical of all false combinations.

History proves that the Devil originated this evil theory because it has spawned two atheistic political philosophies, Fascism and Communism, which have employed war, genocide, enslavement, and even forced starvation to inflict untold suffering and agony on the human race. It is quite ironic that the atheists who so ridicule Christians for their faith, have accepted a purely mechanistic and metaphysical theory solely by faith, for which there exists no scientific evidence whatsoever.