The Lie

Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. (Romans 01:24-25, NKJV).

It is interesting that Paul uses a definite article to refer to a singular falsehood that humankind has exchanged for the truth of God. Whatever outward form of that lie was prevalent 2000 years ago, I believe its essential nature has been the same since shortly after the Fall of Man. It's this: God is not the Sovereign Ruler and Author of Life and Creation.

Today that falsehood is encapsulated in the Theory of Evolution and it has powerful deceptive properties and ramifications. For me, it was the single most significant obstacle to my becoming a believer. Evolution, along with its corollary of Long Ages directly opposed the plain truth of Scripture, especially the foundational book of Genesis.

Do not think that Evolution was invented by Darwin. The first recorded instance of it was by the ancient Greeks centuries before the birth of Christ, and the bedrock of its appeal then and now is Materialism, and Naturalism. Its seductive delusion is that nothing exists that is not material (meaning there is no spiritual realm and therefore no life after death), and the only things that can exist come from Nature (and thus nothing Supernatural – like Deity – is allowed in the picture).

I have discovered in life that these two basic premises, Materialism and Naturalism, actually underpin the unspoken philosophy of many who consider themselves religious. By this I mean that many people who claim to believe in God, hold a kind of unexamined belief, based on their own imaginations and largely materialistic upbringings, that conceives of God as having invented the Universe and then having mostly sat back and let things unwind.

This is Deistic thinking at heart, along the lines of Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, with a token mixture thrown in of conditional Supernatural favoritism bestowed by “the man upstairs” upon those He favors. This is not Christianity, and for most purposes of living, is not very far removed from purely Naturalistic Evolution.

And the pervasive Lie, is the same: God is not the God revealed in the Bible, who is the Creator, Judge and Sovereign Ruler over all that is.

Today, most professional scientists are atheistic Evolutionists. It is a virtual prerequisite. And the vast majority of College graduates are, as well. This is in large part due to the fact that The Lie of Evolution is the only thing allowed to be taught in government schools.

Make no mistake, Evolution, with its insistence on Long Ages and Survival of the Fittest, is a philosophy that enables unspeakable evil. It views Life, including human life made in the image of God, as an accident of chance over time, and thus no different in value from any other life.

It facilitates genocide and ethnic cleansing, and what the Nazi's termed “Life Not Worthy of Life”. It makes abortion not only acceptable, but despairingly logical. It gives permission for any and all human behavior because it removes God's transcendent authority completely from all moral equations.

Evolution is a brilliant and effective scheme of the enemy, and plays right into mankind's inherent rebellious hatred of God, and self-justifying pride.

I have heard the following said by “highly educated” men. “The problem with the world is all these religions and all the violence associated with people trying to impose their religious beliefs on others.”

This is demonstrably and historically false, especially within the last 100 years. In reality, far more people have been killed – millions more – by atheistic communist states than all the “religious wars” throughout history combined. Furthermore, in the world today there is only one “religion” that proclaims conversion or death (the ultimate imposition), and that religion is most emphatically NOT true Biblical Christianity.

We will see what this reductionist view of human life leads to more thoroughly in subsequent posts, but know this, it is impossible to logically and consistently believe in the salvation offered through Jesus Christ unless the book of Genesis is understood to be literal history.

To many this is an utterly shocking statement, instantly relegating me to a lunatic fringe of religious fundamentalism, but do not read into my words in the previous paragraph more than their literal meaning. I am not saying that those who deny Genesis but believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior are doomed to Hell.

I am saying that their belief in Jesus and the need for Him as Savior is inconsistent with a non-literal view of the origins of the Universe, humankind, and sin as recounted in Genesis. Thankfully, consistency is not a requirement for salvation, only sincere faith in the Person of Jesus Christ.

But consider this as well. It is obvious that Jesus viewed Genesis as actual history. Examine His statements in the gospels about Creation, Adam and Eve, sin and marriage. Consider also the fact of His Deity (a necessary tenet of true Christianity).

If the Lord Jesus rejected The Lie of Evolution, and embraced Special Creation, then so should we.

Foolish Wisdom

Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man--and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. (Romans 01:22-23, NKJV).

There was a time in Western history when Biblical truth and principles served as the foundation of civilized society. In fact, Christianity was the driving force behind the societal, philosophical, humanitarian, and scientific advances of Western civilization for the past 19 centuries.

This is incontrovertible reality, despite screeching cries of protest from modern academia. And the current climate of rebellion against such statements is of no importance, aside from it being a showcase for the tortured reasoning put forth to support such anti-Christian foolishness.

Multi-degreed scholars from once-Christian institutions of higher learning, like Harvard, Yale and Oxford, are often the poster-boys (and girls) of this revisionist movement, standing at the forefront of what the Bible describes here as those who professing to be wise...became fools.

This is not to say at all that formal education is, in and of itself, the cause of intellectual devolution. Rather, it is the corrupted heart behind those in academic power who decide what is, and is not, “accredited” and legitimate focus of study.

None of this is new, of course. There has always been a long human war against God, from Eden onward, but what is new is the pervasiveness of the anti-God propaganda put forth as scholastic wisdom – and the means to propagate that message through media, cyberspace, and popular culture.

It is virtually impossible to avoid being inundated by it, and the only effective remedy to all the vaunted deceit is to be inoculated with the truth. This means being so well-versed in Scripture that even diabolically subtle attacks on Biblical wisdom can be detected from a long ways off.

We are to be prepared to rationally, reasonably and comprehensively give an answer for the reason for the hope that is within us, and be able to do so with respect and consideration.

And all this intellectual opposition does not mean that we are to squirrel ourselves away in monastic cloisters, shunning confrontation or argument, and figuratively holding up the Bible in front of us as some talisman against evil thinking.

It means simply that we are to prepare our own hearts and minds daily in order to be equipped for the fight.

Later in Romans, Paul well tell us...

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. (Romans 12:2, NKJV).

That intellectual renewal is an inherent part of Biblical Christianity. Mindlessness has no place in a follower of Jesus. Neither does lock-step conformity to some outward appearance of righteousness.

Unity can only come from truth, properly understood and lived out. That is why the foolishness of the world is in such fragmented disarray, and cannot withstand the scrutiny of critical thinking.

Here are some examples of foolish wisdom:

The earth is billions of years old despite perfectly reasonable evidence to the contrary.

There was no global flood. (Ignore those marine fossils on the mountaintops of the Himalayans.)

God did not create the Universe with Intelligence and Design, it all just “happened” via a quantum singularity that simply exploded out of nothingness, and, well, here we all are. And while it is inarguably true that Causality seems to be organized around very granular principles of physics that are remarkably friendly to sustaining human life, that is all just a coincidence.

There is no absolute morality or truth, except for this one statement about there absolutely being no absolute morality or truth.

Human life does not begin at conception, meaning, I suppose, that until the moment of delivery we can never be sure just what species will emerge. Consequently, “products of conception” are disposable at anytime prior to birth for any reason as a human right. (That this makes abortion legal and acceptable is an abomination far surpassing the Nazi Death Camps of World War II.)

Tolerance of contradictory religions and philosophies is a sign of a mature society, except we cannot tolerate any religions or philosophies that claim to be sole proprietors of the truth; especially Biblical Christianity.

Heterosexual marriage is fundamentally a “cultural phenomena”, despite the obvious biophysical compatibility of the male and female of the species apparently perfect for just such a monogamous union.

All of this wisdom is currently popular and preached from the ivory towers of higher learning.

It is all equally foolish, and counter to common sense and observable evidence.

It is also diametrically opposed to the truth revealed in God's Word.

You will undoubtedly be bombarded with it (and worse) throughout your precious life, so be prepared.

But the outcome of this battle is not up to us. It is up to God.

And He has already won.

Love,

Dad.

Excuses

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. (Romans 01:20-21, NKJV).

Like deception, excuses abound in this world.

Yet, the God of the Bible has ensured that His existence - what this passage describes as His invisible attributes, eternal power and Godhead - has been undeniably revealed by the things that are made, so that everyone who disbelieves is without excuse.

Notice that – His existence is understood by the things that are made.

As a former evangelical evolutionist, someone religiously committed to debunking the need for Deity to explain anything, let alone my personal existence, I proclaimed Darwinian theology with enthusiasm and zeal.

It left me free to do whatever I wanted without fear of Judgment – and to believe that none of it mattered anyway, since I was just a product of random chance over time.

As I matured beyond infantile thinking, and was exposed to the latest “controversial mysteries of evolution”, I went along with whatever the latest revisionism called for because, as has been said, the only alternative was to allow a Divine foot in the door.

It was a philosophy of living embodied by a classic beer commercial: “you only go around once in this life so grab all the gusto you can!” What freedom!

Oh yes, freedom! Freedom from meaning and purpose. Freedom to self-destruct and destroy others without guilt. Freedom to realize that there was no ultimate point in any effort or cause. Freedom to come to the inevitable conclusion that there was no reason in living at all.

There is not enough beer in the Universe to prevent a thinking atheist from reaching that conclusion.

It is therefore unsurprising that youthful suicide has now increased to epidemic proportions. That euthanasia and abortion are seen as merciful acts in a merciless reality. That society in this post-Theistic era is disintegrating to the point where that beer commercial is the unsung mantra of the last three generations of humanity.

And it shows. Those of us in the West are seen as utterly debauched and evil by those who, in roughly half the rest of the world, have embraced a religion that glorifies death and martyrdom in reaction to the despair of modern godlessness.

Then I became a Christian, and it was if I had been blind, but now granted sight, and I looked at the evidence of Creation around me and was stunned – absolutely stunned – about what it said of God.

Even without the aid of telescope or formal astronomical training, it is clear from the night sky that the Universe is a vast place. Add to that perception all the technological advantages of current instrumentation, and that initial comprehension of size is increased a million-fold.

Life itself, once thought to be blobbish, nearly inanimate protoplasm magically melded together into functional form has been shown to be immeasurably complex. There is, in reality, no such thing as a “simple” life form. Even the most “primitive” living cell is a miniaturized city of organic self-replicating and self-repairing bio-mechanical factories beyond the scope of any possible “accidental” creation.

Of course these facts have not, and will not stop, the denial of those who hate God. Increasingly far-fetched, yet scientifically sounding theories will be proposed that attempt to explain the “appearance” of design as anything but, yet in the end, these are all feeble excuses that cannot stand scrutiny.

And those who promote these fantasies under the guise of scholarship and enlightened philosophy are, under all that multisyllabic sophistry, the same ones who know that God exists but refuse to acknowledge Him. They have become futile in theirs thought, and their foolish hearts are darkened.

Yet they are still without excuse.

Underneath their willful unbelief is a lack of thankfulness.

Paul is saying that ingratitude breeds ignorance.

In the end, what you come to know is founded upon what you come to believe. I thought I knew many things, but looking back, it is clear that I knew virtually nothing of the nature of reality, and even less about the God I claimed did not exist.

It is only by God's unfathomable grace that my worldview – previously built upon unregenerate selfishness and ingratitude – has been transformed by the knowledge of the truth of God as contained in His Word.

What Paul wrote to the Roman church 2000 years ago applies perfectly to the world today.

Love,
Dad

What May be Known of God

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. (Romans 01:18-19, NKJV).

The gods of most religions wrap themselves in mystery, and are said to be unknowable. The pantheon of gods in ancient Greece, Rome, and Scandinavia, and in modern Hindi, as well as other religions new and old, are not only mysterious, but changeable and unpredictable. New Age deities are likewise mysteries and riddle-ridden. And for those erroneous religious philosophies that preach that we humans are gods, the required quest is one of discovering one's own “inner avatar” through fruitless meditation and aimless (or even dangerous) thought experiments.

The God of the Bible is none of those things. He is knowable and unchanging, and most importantly, He desires us to know Him in the same way that one person knows another. That is why He sent His Son to become one of us, living life among us, and going steadfastly to the Cross to remove the barrier of sin between us and our Creator.

So then, what may be known of God?

Everything needful.

He is living,

He is eternal.

He is transcendent (present everywhere and living beyond time and space).

He is deserving of honor and glory.

He is all-powerful.

He is all-knowing.

He is a Person.

He is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

He loves us.

He is our Judge.

He cannot abide sin or unrighteousness.

He is merciful, gracious, and slow to anger.

He cares for us, and thinks innumerable thoughts about us that are good and not evil.

His ways are above our ways.

He knows everything about us.

He works all things together for good to those who love Him.

He provides for us through His goodness, a future and a hope.

These are just a few of the things He has revealed about Himself in His Word, and the truly beautiful aspect of this is that the more we study the Bible, the more we know God.

Notice that – it is not just the more we know of God.

Reading and studying His revelation to us in Scripture enables us to know Him personally. Like human beings come to know each other.

There can be no greater pursuit of knowledge.

Jesus said this, as recorded by John:

And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. (John 17:3, NKJV).

It is self-evident that there can be no loftier goal than seeking eternal life. This is every heart's innate desire whether admitted or not, for life, by its very nature, seeks to remain alive. This is clear in even the most “primitive” living cells, and is exponentially true in us, who are self-conscious beings made in the image of our Creator.

Ironically, we are made to be immortal, and will live into eternity no matter what, for God has made us so that we cannot be unmade. But where we spend that eternity, in Heaven with God, or in Hell forever separated from God, is the key issue of our existence.

And that key issue is resolved by what we do with our knowledge of God.

Hebrews summarizes it this way:

But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. (Hebrews 11:6, NKJV).

God's purpose in Creation is fellowship with us. He desires our company, and delights in giving us the desires of our hearts – hearts (emotion, intelligence and will) which He Himself designed and made.

It is likely that we may spend the rest of eternity in exploring the why of it all (why He wants to be with us, why He made the earth, the heavens and the Heaven of heavens for us), but that He did so is incontrovertible according to His Word.

He made us for His good pleasure. Attaining knowledge of Him is the most satisfying endeavor we can undertake, and unlike the gods of other religions, He is knowable and wants to be known. He does not change. His words are true. He is faithful.

Everything about us is primed to finding out what may be known of God, and it is that knowledge, and what we do with it, that will either save us, or leave us condemned.

Paul's prayer for the Ephesians (and for us) is...

that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, (Ephesians 1:17-20, NKJV).

Love,

Dad