"Acquaint Now Thyself With Him"

Why know God?  To know Him is to love Him.  When studying Him we are drawn to emulate Him and reflect His nature in our lives as a testimony that we know Him.  Plato said, "If I want to know how to live in reality, I must know what God is really like."  A. W. Tozer said, "What we believe about God is the most important thing about us."

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

"But the people who know their God, shall be strong and do exploits"  (Daniel 11:32, KJV).

"For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings"  (Hosea 6:6, ESV).

"... There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land"  (Hosea 4:1, ESV).

Title ("... and be at peace") taken from Job 22:21.  We need to turn our knowledge about God into an active, working knowledge of Him.  How do we accomplish this as we study God and are led to God? God blows us away and boggles our minds as our wits our expanded to new dimensions of thought. God truly is the greatest thought we can have and we are meant to study and worship Him.  God-study is an exercise in mental gymnastics. We apply our knowledge by doing good deeds ("... doing good works and increasing in the knowledge of God," says Col. 1:10);  praying and meditating, which is just focused thought or thought with a purpose instead of random and aimless daydreaming or drifting. We best make use of our knowledge by the unnatural act of worship and this can only be done in the Spirit to please God ("God is Spirit, and seeks those who worship Him in Spirit and in truth," according to John 4:24).  Our ultimate goal should be to see that God is indeed worthy of our trust, obedience, and worship.   Don't be content just to be theologically correct or orthodox, but practice orthopraxy or right behavior and know God and demonstrate it in your life---what is the gospel according to you?

Without God in the picture of life, life makes no sense and "if we are considered without reference to God we become a useless passion," according to Jean-Paul Sartre.  Without God in the equation, or having a secular worldview or belief system, everything becomes relevant and there is no absolute truth--what standard can you rely on or refer to?  Many people are practical atheists, that is, they claim adherence to a faith, but they live contrary to it or ignore God in their life.  Psalm 10:4 says they have no place for God in their thoughts.   We cannot know how to live without absolutes of right and wrong and we need God to show us the way:  "If we knew what God is like, we would know how to live," said Plato.

God is a personal God and is obviously a person, not a blind, aimless, or purposeless force or influence.  He is no impersonal force and doesn't have a "dark side" as in Star Wars.  Satan is not the counterpart of God, but only a fallen angel who at one time was (per Ezek. 28) "full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty."  We have to first acknowledge how little we know of God and that we need His guidance and illumination to know Him.  But it is not that we know Him, that saves us, but that He knows us (cf. Gal. 4:9).  There is a consequence of not knowing Him (to believe in Jesus is to know Him at sufficient level): "In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God..."  (2 Thess. 1:8).  Romans 1 reveals what man is like when he leaves God out of the reckoning.

And so, what is God like?  He is multifaceted like a diamond!  Can we describe Him? Thales the ancient Greek philosopher couldn't come up with a definition, but the Greeks eventually concluded that God must be immaterial, immutable, and eternal and as such is the only necessary being or thing in existence. Being eternal means He has no cause and is, therefore, the first or primary cause and unmoved mover of the cosmos.  We describe God in terms of His eminence, affirmation, and negation.  His holiness or purity regulates all the other attributes and His moral purity is unequaled. There are communicable and incommunicable attributes--for instance, only God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.  God is perfect:  "He cannot change for the better, for he is already perfect; and being perfect, he cannot change for the worse"  (A. W. Pink)  God so perfect he needs no repentance--i.e., His nature never changes, though He does relent per a change in circumstance (e.g., Jonah's prediction of the destruction of Nineveh).

Luther told Erasmus that his thoughts of God were too human:  He put Him in a box.  We put God in a box when we describe him as the man upstairs, father time, cosmic killjoy, mean judge, doting or permissive grandfather, or spirit in the sky, without reference to His other attributes.  ("O, I like to think of God just as my Father.")  God is infinite and cannot be defined adequately to our satisfaction. We will be studying Him forever.  His glory, majesty, sovereignty, and Trinity are incomprehensible to us and God has to speak to us in baby talk or lisping to relate to us. J. B. Phillips wrote a book Your God Is Too Small; consequently, our comprehension of God affects our actions.  God is the incomprehensible one and His nature has profundity--we can never analyze Him, peg Him, nor figure Him out--"Canst thou by searching find out God?" says Job 11:7.  All we need to know about God's nature is given in the person of Christ, who is the incarnation of God and the perfect God-man, or perfect God, perfect man, very God of very God, and very man of very man--fully God, fully man.

God wants to authenticate Himself to you and is no man's debtor; any honest seeker will find Him. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. "Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good!"  (Psalm 34:8a, ESV).  The person who knows God has experienced Him personally and the Spirit bears witness with His Spirit that he is a child of God.  God has made Himself known through the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the God-man, who is the personification of everything God wants us to know of Himself.  His unprecedented conduct, unparalleled claims, unique character, and unequaled credentials (as one scholar points out) prove that He is the living and the one and only-begotten Son of God made flesh on our behalf.  Everything we need to know of God is revealed in the second person of the Godhead, who is Jesus, the icon or image of God.   Soli Deo Gloria!

Where's Your Faith, Peter?

Peter saw Jesus walking on the water but doubted it was Him, even after Jesus announced:  "I AM." Jesus reaffirmed His identity but Peter wanted to put Him to the test and see if he could walk on water as evidence.  Now, it is easy to look at Peter's weaknesses, but often he stood as the spokesman of the group or the point man.  He showed that he wasn't afraid of an apparition or ghost, as the others did and took up Jesus at His challenge to "come" to Him on the water.  Peter did step out, which proves he took the leap of faith that is required for salvation, no matter how weak our faith, we need to step out!  Peter knew this was no great challenge to the Lord and showed great faith in even venturing out, though he did falter.

When Peter walked on water he didn't debate the pros and cons of obeying the Lord or the consequences of his act of faith, he just did it.  It is the same with us, just do it!  God will give you the faith if you step out keeping your eyes on Him.  Peter knew nothing of Newton's laws of gravitation and even though he had no idea of its formulation he knew that water couldn't hold him up and that something was supernatural in his act of walking on water.  In correspondence to our walk, God asks us to step out unto the water and storms of life in faith and to "walk on water," as it were, or do the impossible.  With God all things are possible and we know the one who made the rules and can suspend them at will or overrule them according to His will and plan.  If we are walking with Christ we are able to walk on water and do whatever God requires of us, no matter how unrealistic it seems to us at the time, because God makes all things beautiful in His time.

When we have faith in God's power, He can work His power in us and there is no such thing as a small task to ask God to do or a small favor, because they are all small to Him, because He is so big. Peter did take a few successful steps into the unknown in spite of the storm and waves on the lake, but he failed to follow through on his faith.  Hebrews 12:1 exhorts us to keep our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith-- this is where he failed and we need to learn a lesson.  The moment Peter took his eyes off the Lord he began to sink. He focused on the circumstances and not on the power of God and His providence and care.  When we get sidetracked by the cares of this world we can't walk toward Jesus as our goal to come to Him in faith.

This story is analogous to our salvation experience when we first experience God.  Isaiah 45:22 exhorts us:  "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth...."  Hebrews 2:9 says:  "But we see Him...."  Jesus bids us come to Him! He is the great  Pursuer of our souls. Even if we start to sink Jesus will lend His hand to rescue us so that we won't utterly drown in the evils of the world and our flesh once we have made the decision to come to Him in faith.  Just like in the story Jesus is coming after us as He foresees our predicament and destiny. We don't have to know all the rules of engagement to come to Him, but just know that it is Him who is calling us and putting our faith in Him, not in our ability to adjust or cope with the call. In other words, it is not how much faith we have, but the object of our faith that saves--faith doesn't save, Jesus does!  When the Hound of Heaven chases you, be ready to respond in due faith. Remember, without faith, it is impossible to please God according to Hebrews 11:6.  Note that Peter cried out, "Lord, save me!"  Our faith must be directed towards Him and, if it is sincere, He will save us.

Doubt is not the opposite of faith, but an element of it; no one has perfect faith, but only sincere and unfeigned faith.  The problem with most Christians is that they refuse to admit their doubts and fears and to thereby get healed of them. Just like Jesus asked Peter why he doubted, it is vital that we confront our doubts and resolve them rather than run from them.  People are ashamed to doubt and don't know that God can answer their questions and can give them great faith. We don't need great faith to do great things, for having faith the size of a mustard seed can even move mountains. We never do great things, says Mother Teresa of Calcutta, we only do things with great love.  God is the one who makes our labors great and we have nothing to boast about. "...[Y]ou have done for us all our works" (Isaiah 26:12 ESV).

Peter did a great thing is attempting to walk on water and God may call us to do some great and even unusual or questionable task that takes faith in our walk with Him. We cannot look down on or judge Peter because he sank, because we have never even made one step on the water ourselves.  It is too easy to criticize when you've never tried it yourself.  "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me"  (Phil. 4:13).  "For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me..." (Rom. 15:18).   Soli Deo Gloria!

How Are You Celebrating Christmas?

As a history lesson, Christmas wasn't celebrated until the fifth century about A.D. 450 to commemorate the Feast of the Nativity.  The day was chosen as Mithra's (the god of the Roman soldiers) birthday on the 25th of December because the Romans gave presents during the Sol Invictus  (the unconquerable sun), and the Saturnalia from December 17-24.  It is not mentioned or documented that the early Christians even celebrated Christ's birth, or even that Christ did--that's why we don't have a precise date.

In the spirit of greetings, you don't have to be Christian to wish someone a Merry Christmas any more than you have to celebrate New Years to wish one a happy New Year, Irish to wish someone happy St. Patrick's Day or a Jew to wish one happy Hanukkah.  It is a simple courtesy, not political correctness, and expressing pleasantries.   Whether one believes or not one can be a well-wisher.

There is more to the meaning of Christmas than the story of the nativity and the wise men.  Of course, the spirit of giving was especially inspired by the gold, frankincense, and myrrh, but we all must not only celebrate the birth of the Son of God or His incarnation but the celebration of the birth of God in our spirits. I identify with the little drummer boy who had no gift fit to give a king.  The wise men sought out the Lord, and wise men still seek him; this shows that Christ came for all mankind and not just to redeem Israel as its king, though He was born the rightful heir apparent to the throne of David.

Christmas is an opportune time to recount the biblical narrative and the believer never grows tired of hearing its simple, straightforward message in a new light.  It is especially the time to relate the story in simple terms so the children can apprehend the meaning and significance of this birth. Children understand what adults have lost the sense of--the awe and magic of the story so poignant and touching to the heart, even melting the stony one because there is power in the Word if one gives it a chance to work in his heart. We need this chance to relive our childhood.   But we have to honor tradition in its own right (there's nothing wrong with tradition as long as it bows to the Word of God and doesn't have equal authority), and to make traditions we can call all our own--for instance, every family has its own Christmas tree decorum and present exchange rigmarole.

Christmas has more than religious significance but also an outreach to the unsaved (reach out and touch someone, as they say), and this is the time for bringing families and coworkers or friends together, which wouldn't otherwise be done.  It's the time to show the testimony and witness of the love of Christ, and in a way, Santa shows kids this caring and saintly love that we let them believe, as we let kids be kids and develop their power of imagination.  I can find myself almost believing in Frosty the Snowman and Rudolf the Red-nosed reindeer myself after hearing so many carols over the radio stations--music has its magical influence and makes you believe on a level of consciousness whether one admits it or not--I can believe in my heart because I relate and identify.

It's the idea of the fairy tale that has impact and kids love a story, even if they know it's make-believe.  At a young enough age, children will insist on believing in Santa:  "Mom and Dad don't believe in Santa, but I still believe and here's why."  Santa is a kind of a man who stands in loco Dei or in the place of God in their eyes, and believing in him is equated with believing in God.  Why? Because of their innocence and imagination--they can think they know more than their parents.  I find myself becoming a "believer" in the "Santa spirit" after watching "Miracle on 34th Street."  I'm with Kris Kringle and see the world through his eyes in the small screen.  We must preserve the ideals this teaches and the lessons we can learn:  We see life through the eyes of kids once a year in a special way, and relate to them on their level.  We get the opportunity to be kids for a season. It is vicarious, I know, but everyone should experience life through the eyes of a child.

Another good fruit of Christmas is all the caroling and the "fun" songs that the season has.  Virtually every major musician, including Paul McCartney and Paul Lennon, have made Christmas songs that are really moving and pique the senses in a special and even maudlin way ("Simply having a wonderful Christmas time" and "So this is Christmas").  Even Lennon admits there's a feeling that only comes this time of year.  I hardly ever get sentimental but some of these songs really are tearjerkers and some bring joy to the heart.

Now, we don't want to forget the spiritual and religious hymns and carols, because part of Christmas is also having fun and singing for the fun of it--I don't know of any other time of year when so many people know so many of the songs being played and recognize many more than at Christmas.  God wants us to have fun too and not always be serious and sober, but to enjoy ourselves with celebration and laughter, and sharing the festivities.  Even the secular stations playing Christmas carols do not fail to give the truth of the nativity story its due and allow "religious" lyrics.  And finally:  What is the most wonderful time of the year without caroling--it wouldn't be complete!  Whether you are a participant or a spectator it is a natural.  It has become part of the culture of Christendom.  Viva la Christmas carols!

To some most people, Christmas has degenerated into a consumer frenzy and especially kids just interested in what they get under the tree.  It is family time and kids learn their values here--this is the time to show them.  We don't want them to grow up becoming greedy, covetous, or materialistic, but also we want them to learn to enjoy God's blessings and to be thankful for what He has bestowed.  The biggest lesson is what Jesus said:  "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35).   Unfortunately, our nation's economy is consumer-oriented and dependent on consumer spending and commercialism, and especially the power of advertising to lure the shopper to get the latest big thing.  I didn't get much from my brothers for Christmas, but to me, it is the thought that counts and I am glad to be remembered sent something of themselves that makes it personal, and I'm glad they know I appreciate it and don't expect anything.

For some folks, Christmas ranks right up there with Thanksgiving as the day of the big fellowship dinner or feast, and people make a big to-do about what they traditionally feast on.  I love to reminisce about old times eating rice pudding and mince-meat or pumpkin pie and of course turkey with all the "fixin's."  Getting the wishbone was my preoccupation and it only made the dinner complete after a cup of coffee and family fellowship and sharing of the latest news.  I'll bet I learned how to eat like a gentlemen going to all those family get-togethers and/or reunions of extended families.

For me, one of the most important events is the receiving of edifying and beautiful cards (especially the Courier and Ives prints), and I take the opportunity to post them on my wall or door to behold the artwork and handicraft. To me, the most important part of a greeting card is the beauty to behold, because God is an artist and the most beautiful, collectible ones are by the late Thomas Kinkade.  It takes more effort to send a meaningful card that has a message than just making a comment on Facebook.  Somehow Christmas seems too formal and holy or sacrosanct to just send emails or text a greeting.  Christmas cards are really an institution in my book and are a gesture not to be forsaken.

Most of all Christmas is a truly intimate family holiday that offers itself to individual family traditions to have a personal character all its own.  For me, I get to hear from my brothers, as I have no family of my own and if it wasn't for Christmas we'd probably drift further and further apart to the point of no longer knowing each other.   It is a time of family ties and to renew them, to bury all hatchets and to make peace--WWI had a Christmas ceasefire at the trenches of the front lines.  It's time to live out the gospel message of Christ bringing peace to all men of good will.  The world is especially watching the believer during this special time of year and it may give the opportunity to witness like no other one time can.  God opens doors that are rarely opened at other times and we are to seize the day, so to speak!  Take and conquer the promised land for Jesus!

Finally, in the spirit of Christmas, let's emphasize that the real thing God wants for Christmas is us. Love is spelled T-I-M-E.  Spending time with someone is the surest way to show love and to give of yourself.  Notice that the believers in the Bible first gave of themselves to the Lord. I want you to realize that Christmas is for kids from 1 to 92!  We can wish Jesus a happy birthday by giving Him our heart and following Him more nearly, knowing Him more clearly, and loving Him more dearly, as Richard of Chichester first said.    Soli Deo Gloria!

The Greatest Messianic Prophecy/...

If you've ever heard Handel's Messiah, you know that it is based on this verse (Isaiah 9:6):

"For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

This says it all and is no understatement of the job description, as it were, of our Lord and Savior. There is utmost significance to each title rendered (actually Jesus has 118 titles mentioned in the Word).  Indeed, His name is Wonderful and in one sense He has no name, but only descriptions to make Him known, for God cannot be labeled, defined, or analyzed by man to fit in a box for our convenience--this is only to condescend to us and it is like God lisping or speaking baby talk to us, as it were. He is born a child in the flesh in His incarnation but is a son given in His deity, which was preexistent.

He was the eternal Son of God before His incarnation and quite ironically He is also called the Everlasting Father because He is the eternal Father who created time and is the Alpha and Omega. Jesus is a Father to us:  "... Behold, I and the children God has given me"  (Heb. 2:13 ESV), quoting Isaiah 8:18. This title is often cited by those who deny the Trinity.

He is a Counselor because He identifies with our plight as mankind, can explain God's ways to man, and has been touched with our infirmities and weaknesses as a compassionate human being personally on earth in all its suffering and joy.  He is the mediator or middleman or daysman betwixt us and God the Father and knows both sides of the story so that we can relate to him as the icon of God Himself.

He is not just called Mighty God, but is God in the flesh, as "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." His deity is attested to by signs, miracles, the Holy Spirit Himself, and Scripture.

Why is He the Prince of Peace?  Because they were expecting a liberator from Rome, but only true and lasting peace can be found in Him (to know Him is to know peace, and having no Jesus, there is no peace).  "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee"  (Isaiah 26;3).  Only the infinite sacrifice of God Almighty could be an adequate sacrifice on our behalf.

One of the significant points of His wonderful name is that we can aspire to emulate Him:  We can be counselors with the power of the Spirit; we can be peacemakers in Christ; we can be father-figures with Christ in our hearts and submit to His authority as a subordinate, even as He was to the Father. We are not God, but God lives in us and will make His glory manifest in us and through us as His vessels of honor to bring Him glory, which is why we are here (cf. Isaiah 43:7).

Why were the Pharisees so upset when He claimed equality with the Father, because the prophecy said He'd be called the "Mighty God" (not just in the power or Spirit of God)--they should've known this and most likely some did.  They despised the fact that He assumed the divine prerogatives of God Almighty, such as the authority to forgive sins and to usher in the kingdom of God with his Messianic Manifesto.

They also despised Him for profaning the Sabbath Day, which was a fetish with them and their favorite commandment and center of their legalism and control of the people. Even more, they despised His charisma and that the people flocked to Him and listened to Him, thus invading their turf and job security and threatening the future of the nation of Israel as a people. They complained about Him because "[He is] a mere man that makes Himself out to be God."

The problem was that they didn't quite visualize the Messiah as being God Himself, but only a martial hero to liberate them from the yoke of Rome and grant international utopia for the Jewish state, and when this dream didn't materialize their hopes were shattered:  They got a pacifist instead who was to reign over hearts not nations.

Jesus will indeed reign over the entire world in His Millennial Kingdom and bring world peace, but that will be another age. Before He could come to reign He must come to suffer, but they couldn't visualize two advents. The cross had to precede the crown and it is the same with us!  Soli Deo Gloria!

The Appearance Of Wisdom

It would seem that "holy" men like Mahatma (Mohandas) Gandhi or the Dali Lama of Tibet have reached a level unattainable by the average person.  But religiosity is not what God seeks.  Asceticism is condemned by Paul in Col. 2:23 and its show of holiness because the person thinks he is giving up something for God and doing Him a favor by impressing Him of his holiness--these types have a "holier-than-thou" attitude condemned in Isaiah 65:5.  Severe denial of pleasures or the good things in life is not the answer--God has given us richly all things to enjoy (cf. 1 Tim. 6:17) and we are not to refuse anything if received with thanksgiving--God is the source of all good things and blessings.

We are not any better because we give up something.  But fasting is a temporary abstinence of something for the sole purpose of humbling oneself to God and seeking His guidance or deliverance in a trial or difficult time or decision time--not to be practiced for its own sake as a measure of spirituality.  The purpose is to learn and practice self-control in all things, not just our eating habits as some allege.  Martin Luther practiced extreme self-flagellation, and if anyone could've benefited by such a lifestyle it would have been him--he took it to its logical conclusion and found out it didn't work nor impress God.

Faith is what pleases God, not religiosity--He tests our faith as if by fire and brings trials our way to force action.  There are plenty of athletes who have a lot of bodily self-discipline but aren't even saved.  Jesus didn't come to make us good people who have good habits, but to make dead people alive who enjoy the more abundant life He promised.  Abstinence of pleasure or the good things in life is not taught (I'm not talking of sin); for instance, there is no case for teetotalism.  Soli Deo Gloria!

When You Fast

Matt. 6:16 says that our fasting should be in secret to be rewarded.  We are not to be as the hypocrites who make a show of it and try to impress others with our self-flagellation, or self-discipline.  True fasting is self-control in all things in Spirit, not just skipping a meal and thinking that pleases God. The goal is to maintain discipline in every facet of life according to 1 Cor. 9:25.  Isaiah 58 says that only spiritually motivated fasting pleases the Lord and we shouldn't think we can force God to favor us on account of it, but it is done to humble ourselves as we see a need.

Isaiah 65:5 says that we should never think like we have a holier-than-thou attitude, especially that we have a spiritual strength and others have a weakness (cf. Heb. 12:1-2).  We all have our easily besetting sin and Satan knows us well enough to attack us at our area of weakness.  True fasting sets the prisoner free and puts the person in a more spiritual mood, if the person already has that he doesn't fast for the sake of fasting, thinking that it is the means of sanctification.  Self-control is a fruit of the Spirit, and like all fruits, they must be cultivated and grown;  everyone is at a different level of growth and maturity and we are not to look down on our brother or even condescend to him, but see him as our equal in Christ--we are all one in Christ.

The Pharisees were especially guilty of drawing attention to themselves and practicing their piety before men, to be seen by them and this is forbidden in Matt. 6:1.  We shouldn't brag about our spirituality either or toot our own horn as to our piety, but let another praise us.  Religiosity is no sign of spirituality and if an unbeliever can duplicate it or fake it, it isn't of God.  There is a time to fast and a time to celebrate, but never to indulge.

There is always a danger of going overboard, but Christians should know that moderation in all things is a principle and never to go the extreme.  The Bible neither teaches nor endorses asceticism, abstinence, nor indulgence as lifestyles.  Fasting isn't just giving up food but can be many things the person "enjoys" and has the discipline to carry it out faithfully, such as skipping needed rest or entertainment. Soli Deo Gloria!

What Is Unpardonable?

Jesus prayed for those who blasphemed Him in ignorance, but those who were enlightened and maintained their blasphemous spirit were unforgivable. Christians, because of the restraining grace of God working in them cannot commit this sin.  By definition, blasphemy involves words, not thoughts, and is like making a smear campaign against the Lord.  Even in the occult they may curse Jesus out of ignorance and be forgiven--this is a deliberate and known, unrepentant sin.  This sin is clearly an assault on the very nature and good character of God and brings it into question.

Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is said to be unforgivable in Matt. 12:32, but what does it entail? Is there a point of no return?  Today evangelicals all say that Jesus died for all our sins except rejecting Christ, which would make him consigned to hell as a consequence.  If this is true, how can pagans go to hell that has never heard of Jesus?  It is a proven fact that the average convert doesn't accept Christ until he "rejects" Him seven or eight times (even making a "no decision" is reckoned as rejection).  If rejecting Christ was so serious, why did God continue to convict and work in the person and woo them to Christ repeatedly? Why are people with hardened hearts given a second chance to repent?  God is able to make people with hearts of stone become ones with hearts of flesh (cf. Ezekiel 36:26).

Jesus was addressing and referring to the Pharisees, who regarded His deeds as done by the power of Satan, and attributed His works to be in cahoots with the prince of demons himself--they blasphemed the Holy Spirit's ministry through Him.  The Pharisees actually said, "He has an evil spirit." This is an extremely hard (and is very rare) sin to commit in today's age; nevertheless, it is possible to be so hardened to absolutely and finally to see Christ as a demon or in league with them, and to use the tongue (to speak or write using words) to spread this doctrine perniciously and viciously to do harm to the kingdom of God (false teachers are specifically vulnerable to this type of sin since they are in a position of influence). You can find people of all faiths saying things about Jesus, but they don't go so far as to say he was evil. Even the Muslims admit He was without sin in the Qua'ran and don't attribute His miracles to the devil. Few infidels ever regard Jesus as "evil" but as a good man in their way of thinking, of course.

There are people who have worried about whether they've committed this sin, but if they are concerned they  aren't guilty of it, because it implies a certain unrepentant hardness of heart that seeks to harm the cause of Christ (determinedly, willingly, and knowingly and not flippantly or casually), and not just misunderstand it. There is no sin that cannot be forgiven or sinner too bad to be saved if they repent. No one will be able to tell God they wanted to believe and repent but couldn't.  There is no lack of evidence, so no one has an excuse!  If you think you've committed this sin and are concerned, you haven't and God is still working in you.  However, if someone hardens his heart, God is able to confirm that hardening in judgment (cf. Isaiah 6:10; 63:17).  God hardened Pharaoh's heart after he rejected God's offer and request to let His people go.

We all have to realize that we are at the mercy of God and must sue God for mercy and throw in the towel, humbling ourselves before Him knowing that He is in control of our destiny, not us.  The unpardonable sin is more of a character (it is not just loosely saying something that one might regret or change his mind about) and it is of the Antichrist and not a specific one-time sin or act. The person knowingly and willingly does it without repentance, and has no desire for the things of God or seeking His kingdom.  Soli Deo Gloria!

The Bema Of Christ

"Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death unto life"  (John 5:24, ESV, emphasis added).

Paul said, "For each of us shall give account of himself to God" in Rom. 14:12.   Before that in the context, he says, "For we all shall stand before the judgment seat of God [Christ]."  For the Father has given all judgment to the Son.  Note that there are two judgments:  One for the believer and one for the unbeliever. 1 Cor. 3:13ff describes how a believer's works are judged as to their due reward--they must remain after being tested by fire!  He has appointed a day to judge the world (this is the Great White Throne Judgment mentioned in Revelation 20:11). That refers to the lost and the "books" will be opened to judge their works.  By their own words, they will be condemned--they are all hypocrites. Christians have nothing to fear of a judgment day because there is no condemnation for the believer (cf. Rom. 8:1). Our words will justify us and not condemn us!

"I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words, you will be condemned"  (Matt. 12:36-37).
The so-called "day of judgment" is the one appointed by God at the last day and is called the Great White Throne Judgment.  Christians will not be present here but at the Bema.  Note that Christians will be justified by their own words (testimony and witness) and unbelievers will be condemned by their own words and testimony.

Bema is the same as tribunal or judgment seat in Greek and Christ will judge our works and test them by fire whether they are silver and gold, or wood, hay, and stubble which will burn up (NB: There is no double jeopardy).  Our sins have been forgiven past, [present, and future, and we fear no future embarrassment of reprimand, but God is able to present us blameless before His throne with great joy (cf. Jude 24).  Many Christians try to put the fear of God in their brothers by telling them they will be judged, but God has already judged our sins and they are deleted from His memory bank, never to be brought up again.  The judgment we face as believers is to how much reward we are worthy of and how much we glorified Christ with the opportunities, resources, talents, gifts, and time that God conferred on us by grace.     Soli Deo Gloria!

Biblical Theory Of Relativity

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the German author of Faust:  "Tell me your certainties, I have enough doubts of my own." 

Albert Einstein, who got the Nobel Prize in physics in 1921, was noted for his special theory of relativity, in which he claimed there was a time-space continuum:  They are not absolute then but depend upon the motion of the person measuring it or the observer. He also formulated the general theory of relativity claiming gravity can bend and influence both time and space, which is like a continuous fabric.

In Postmodern thought, in which they despise Truth with a capital T, they say all truth is relative: One prof said, "You can know nothing for certain!"  A student quipped, "Are you sure?"  "Yes," he replied, "I am certain." Dr. Allan Bloom of the University of Chicago, in his book The Closing of the American Mind, said that saying all truth is relative is a nonsense statement and has no truth value. This is ultimately irrational; however, it is the governing epistemology of academia.  Wouldn't this statement also be relative?  The dual problem of believing truth is relative is that of absolutism in which you are claiming this as an absolute and thus contradicting yourself, and of relativism, in which you must admit this statement is only relative, too.  Without God, all truth is indeed relative but knowing truth would be impossible to determine or ascertain.  We would live in a world of "I don't know!"  George Lucas has concluded that all religions are "true."  To say everyone is right is equal to saying no one is right--logically, they can all be wrong, but not all right without violating the law of noncontradiction.  Religious Pluralism is the belief that no faith is completely true, thus they should all; be regarded equally. Postmodernism likes to say:  "That may be  true for you."  But there is an objective truth that is true, whether one believes it or not!

In Postmodernism and other contemporary worldviews, they really only believe the truths relating to the Christian worldview are relative and their metanarrative or grand narrative (or outlook) is absolutely correct.  They have made many presuppositions, including that there is no God or Higher Mind and that matter precedes mind and has the power to create it and has some life-force within inherent to it like a cosmic energy.  In their methodology of reasoning, they call "inference to the best explanation," they formulate all possibilities of solutions or hypotheses to their problem or question. And it should be noted that they have a preconceived notion that there is no God or supernatural and have ruled out Him of the equation.  In one extreme they say in New Age thinking:  "If it feels right to you, it is."  They have no place for God in their worldview--He isn't even considered a possibility because they do not want to let a divine foot in the door, so to speak.

A Greek sage of antiquity said, "To begin learning you must admit your ignorance." In science, we have to be willing to admit we could be wrong to be able to arrive at the truth.  There are only four kinds of minds according to Jesus: There is the shallow mind that doesn't think things through and is apathetic; there is the distracted mind that has too much on its mind, and the closed mind that has its mind made up and doesn't want to be confused with the facts, and finally an open and receptive mind.

There is an element of truth in every religion; it is that margin of error that makes it evil because evil is not the opposite of truth but its distortion.  People today like to say, "That may be true for you, but it isn't for me!"  Or they say, "It works for me!"  If something is true it is true and not relative. Someone has called this phenomenon true truth.  Truth is not relative or it wouldn't be truth it would be a subjective opinion and not objective fact.  Objective truth doesn't exist from our point of view--we are all biased.  But God is objective and has revealed truth to us:  Jesus came to bear witness of the truth and claimed to be the personification or embodiment of it. If one says truth is relative, then he has to admit he could be wrong:  Then he must admit the possibility of God's existence and ergo the existence of absolute truth based on His divine nature.

Opinions are relative to a person's worldview--one sees reality not as it is, but as he is. And some things are workable for some and not for others, but this doesn't lead to the erroneous conclusion that truth is relative.  If they insist truth is relative, then ask them, "Relative to what?" That statement must only be relatively true!" "In the absence of God everything becomes relative [there is nothing to measure it by as a standard]," according to William Lane Craig; however, there is absolute truth and morality, ergo a God!  Without God, we cannot even account for truth or knowledge, but all truth "claims" become mere nonsense and relative to the thinker in a subjective manner.

John Dewey, along with Jonathan Edwards (Christian influence) and Horace Mann (Unitarian influence) was one of the fathers of American education and was a founder of the Secular Humanist movement co-writing the so-called  Humanist Manifesto,  and A Common Faith, said that the test of an idea is not whether it's true, but whether it works--just consider the consequences--results matter!  Today students are taught an ethic that just considers giving well-thought-out and valid reasons for one's behavior (responsible decision making), without regard to an absolute value system of right and wrong (be true to yourself)--for without God there is no such system and all is permissible.  In the New Morality, also referred to as "situational ethics," the only thing that matters is motive which should be love, or in the utilitarian view the one that does the least harm and/or most good. Without absolute truth (this implies there is no God and without God, all is permissible accordingly, as a corollary) our society loses its mores and standards and will disintegrate and self-destruct socially.

We must posit that there is truth because it has been revealed in Christ and we can know it if we have an open mind, willing spirit,  needy heart, be teachable, receptive and ready for the truth, and willing to obey it if known or obedient in spirit.  Jesus said in John 7:17 (ESV) that "If if anyone's will is to do God's will, he shall know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority." The problem mentioned in John 12:37 is that although they saw miracles they would not (not could not) believe.

Note this:  Only the Bible is called "truth" and only Jesus claimed to be the incarnation or personification of truth ("I am the ... truth," says John 14:6).  There is a difference between being true and truth.  Truth alone changes your life and transforms your soul.  You can read science manuals that are true, but they won't change your life.  Truth is that which is unchanging or immutable, while something considered true may change over time, and is in a state of flux--the opinions of science, for example, have changed throughout history.

Being accepted as true, then, doesn't make something true.  One witness in court said, "If I knew the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, I'd be God!" And so no one has all the truth or a monopoly on it and in that sense all of our revelations and illuminations or intuitions are relative--we can only be sure of what God has revealed to us supernaturally and propositionally in Scripture.  Thus the only way to separate the wheat from the chaff, or truth from fiction is the canon, measuring rod, and standard of Scripture as absolute revealed and divine truth--you have to start somewhere.

We can rely on the Word of truth and Jesus even said, "And you will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free" (cf. John 8:32).  The Bible is the only source that tells it like it is and gives us the truth about ourselves.  Our natural response is to worship Him in spirit and in truth (cf. John 4:24).  In His priestly prayer in John 17 Jesus called His Father "the only true God"--other gods have elements of truth but just enough error to be deceptive and evil (evil is not the opposite of truth, but the perversion, distortion, and twisting of truth).  Paul says unbelievers have "exchanged the truth of God for a lie" (cf. Romans 1:25).

In summation:  Thomas Aquinas was right that all truth is God's truth and all truth meets at the top." All truth is only truth if it corresponds with God and His nature who is the measure and standard of reality, and is relevant to Scripture as that which is revealed to us from the Almighty (not per the correspondence theory of truth that something is true when conforming with reality--whose reality then, because this is highly subjective?). Ipso facto, the Bible is the standard by which we judge all truth claims then.  Man's problem is not knowing the truth, but not obeying the truth he does know.
Soli Deo Gloria!

Faith In Faith

"I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge" (Rom. 10:2,     ESV).  
"Desire without knowledge is not good..." (Prov. 19:2, ESV).


You can have a lot of faith and have misdirected zeal ("They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge" was Paul's wording in Romans 10), or you can have faith the grain of a mustard seed and be saved and serving God. Who has faith? One boldly steps on the thin ice and another timorous step on the thick ice.  God doesn't countenance halfhearted, lackadaisical, or lukewarm discipleship, but only when one serves God with gusto.  You don't have to have perfect faith, but sincere faith!  Don't be "out on a limb" but have substantive faith that is based on sound doctrine and applied to your life.

But it isn't the faith that saves, it is only the instrumental means of salvation given as a gift of God to exercise and take the leap of faith.  It is the object of the faith that saves, not the faith.  Likewise, you must be sincere, but sincerity alone doesn't qualify for salvation, because you can be sincerely wrong and misguided as a fanatic who doesn't know what he is doing.  As an example, Catholics have a lot of faith in their priest, nuns, Church, and Pope but it is misdirected.

Parenthetically, I must mention the kind of faith that saves:  It is manifest in obedience only just like Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, "Only he who is obedient believes, and only he who believes is obedient." We are indeed saved by faith alone, but not a faith that is alone (or dead faith without works). Without fruit our faith is suspect, but works are no substitute for faith, but only its fruit--we are fruit inspectors!  Viva la difference between professing faith and exercising faith!

It is only faith "in Christ alone" that saves (soli Christo in Latin). You can have a lot of faith in your pastor but if it doesn't get personal to a relationship with Christ Himself, you are lost.  Faith isn't the reason we are saved, though people say we should be defenders of the faith, or worse yet, defenders of faith per se.  We should be apologists where necessarily and gifted, but God is looking for the simple, not simplistic, and childlike, not childish faith to be saved.

We don't achieve faith, we receive it (2 Peter 1:1 says that they have received a faith).  Faith is "granted" according to Philippians 1:29 and we "believe through grace" per Acts 18:27.  We don't just believe, we believe in someone and put it into action and practice our belief--turning or converting creeds into deeds!   We don't just have a faith, but a growing and living faith that is not static, but founded in the truth (truth does matter--you can't be a heretic, no matter how sincere, and the vital doctrine is the person and work of Christ on our behalf and methodology of salvation to appropriate it.

The righteousness we have is not our gift to God, but His gift to us. Faith is God's work in us, but we make use of it and exercise it in a leap of faith.  He kindles or quickens faith within us and makes believers out of the most stubborn and unbelieving.  It is not the condition of salvation, but the means of it, because regeneration precedes faith ("through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth [in that order, the order of salvation, or ordo salutis in Latin]" according to 2 Thess. 2:13, ESV).  If we have to do something for our salvation we are bound to fail!  If left to ourselves, none of us would believe ("Apart from Me you can do nothing" according to John 15:5).   We don't have a righteousness of our own, but our righteousness is as filthy rags per Isaiah 64:6 in the well-known verse.

We don't just have faith in a crucified Christ, but a living Christ.  We believe not only that He died for our sins but rose again to proclaim His victory and our assured glorification and resurrection. There is no saving faith without genuine repentance, known as believing repentance or penitent faith (they are the flip side of each other).  Having faith is being fully assured and certain, not just making a guess or a bet that you might be right--you are willing to bet your life and risk or bet your life that He is alive and victorious.  "Measure yourself by the amount of faith God has given you" (Rom. 12:3).  Note that faith, not feelings or experiences please God and we must earnestly seek Him to find Him.  He will authenticate Himself to you because God is no man's debtor!

In conclusion, faith is a gift of God, however, we make a choice of the will--we decide to have faith. The Jews saw many miracles yet they "would no believe [not could not]"  (John 12:37).  We don't just have faith for its own sake, it must have an object or we'd be saved by sincerity.  The only valid object is the person and work of Christ on our behalf.  Faith also has legs, it must be put into action because dead faith doesn't save.  Faith without works is suspect and we show our faith by our works or deeds. We are not saved by our works but unto works.  If we had the complete revelation about God we wouldn't call it faith, but knowledge and it is faith that pleases God, not knowledge.  We must all take that leap of faith with incomplete knowledge or evidence. Some of us may indeed say:  "... I believe, help thou mine unbelief"  (cf. Mark 9:24).   Soli Deo Gloria!

Blinded By The Light

God is light and those who deny Him live in darkness or chaos without His guidance.  The Word exhorts us to "walk in the light, even as He is in the light."  The Word itself is a "light to our path and a lamp to our feet." Isaiah 9 talks of those who dwell in darkness seeing a great light (Matt. 4:16a, ESV).  The blind man testified: "This one thing I know, I was blind, but now I see."


You may not recall the precise moment your eyes were opened, but cannot deny that they are opened now and that you see: "Unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God."  If you reject the light you have you will suffer darkness, not more light.  If you are responsive to the light given you will be given more light--this is God's economy.  Saying, "I see the light" is a great testimony.

People have wondered why they can't see God, who is invisible but dwells in great light that we cannot behold.  Try looking into the sun;  if you say it would blind you, then realize that you would be destroyed by looking into the source of all light, God Himself is light and no darkness dwells with Him--neither does He cast a shadow.  Do you see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ?  We are to be lights in the world and let our lights shine so that men will see them and give glory to God: "Let your light so shine before men..." (cf. Matt. 5:16). Jesus said in Matt. 5:14 that we are the light of the world--don't put your light under a basket where no one can behold its glory!

Isaiah 60:1 (ESV) says: "Arise, shine, for your light has come...."  God saves us to be a blessing (cf. Zech. 8:13) and to bring Him glory by reflecting Jesus or being the icons of God (cf. Isaiah 43:7). We are created for God's glory according to The Westminster Shorter Catechism:  "The chief end of man  is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever."  We must be faithful to the light we have and bring forth fruit worthy of our calling to enjoy more light--when you pass along insights from God, you are given more insight.  Jesus came to open the eyes of the blind so they can see the light (he's not necessarily talking about healing blind men), but the one in the worst state is he who thinks he sees the light but is blind.  The song "Blinded By The Light" is relevant because we cannot behold God until we are in a glorified and holy state and if we saw Him now we would be rendered blind--to close for comfort!

God said in the beginning, "Let there be light" and the light and darkness were severed permanently. God is the source of light and created it so we can see and it was good;  we are to do likewise and shed light on the subject so others can see the light through our works that speak for themselves and bear witness of the light.  Soli Deo Gloria!

What Christianity Is Not

It may be more conducive to comprehending our faith by delineating what it is not.  Religion is a do-it-yourself proposition, a lifting up of yourself by your own bootstraps (i.e., God helps those who help themselves), a believing in yourself, and having self-esteem and self-actualization (achieving the good life or finding fulfillment, meaning, or purpose in life), a search for God, a reaching out to God (in our faith God reached down to man--this stooping or condescension is called grace).  We are not saved by good works, philosophy, and ritual, legalism, morality, or good behavior--we aren't on probation! (God didn't come to make bad people good, but dead people alive!)

In religion, you don't know God but are just demonstrating religiosity and going through the motions, and memorizing the Dance of the Piousa s it were. However, Christianity is a matter of knowing a personal God through a living and growing relationship and fellowship. In religion, you have to do it to please God, in Christianity you want to do it because you are grateful and want to bless God.  In religion, since it is always based on good works, not grace, you never have assurance and can never be sure how much is enough.  Religion is essentially probation and being on your best behavior, never sure of your status; however, Christianity is knowing for sure your position in Christ and your future status. In Christianity your past is forgiven (solves the problem of guilt via the cross of Christ), your present is given meaning, and your future is secured in heaven--so salvation in Christ is past, present, and pending--Christianity is not living for the here and now nor living for yourself, it is living in light of eternity and dying to self.  It is not just a changed life but an exchanged life! Religion does works in your own strength;  but we are led by the Spirit and empowered by God--"Apart from Me you can do nothing." You will see that it is not a list of don'ts or taboos (we're not afraid God will hurt us, but that we'll hurt Him), but our faith is a list of dos that you want to do--you yearn to know and obey God because of your new nature. Religion is the best man can achieve; Christianity is the best God can accomplish,  Note that religion is based on wise sayings, traditions, myth, supposed, assumed, or claimed Scripture, but Christianity is based on first-hand evidence, verifiable historical and circumstantial evidence and genuine accounts of miracles (in fact it is based on the miracle of the resurrection). Christianity is based on the person and work of Christ (He is known for who He is, rather than what He said), it is not a system of ethics or behavioral expectations. Take Christ out of Christianity and you disembowel it; however, you can remove other key religious figures from their faith and it remains essentially intact.   Christianity is not religion by any of these definitions then.

We are not saved by what we know (this is intellectualism or Gnosticism thinking there is some secret knowledge or enlightenment to attain to like in Buddhism). We are not saved by what we feel either: this would be emotionalism or sentimentality--some people are stoical and others demonstrative. We are not saved by what we do:  this would be legalism. morality, or ritual. We are not saved by good works, neither without good works--faith must result in good works!  We are not saved by faith in faith either because it is the object of faith that saves, not the faith (which is the instrumental means and a gift of God to be exercised in a leap of faith).  We don't believe despite the evidence, God respects our minds and reasoning faculties and gives us a sound reason to believe.  We are not saved by our innocence or ignorance, for God puts no premium on ignorance, and ignorance is not bliss--we are accountable to God for all that we could have known.  We are not saved by mysticism, which is having religious experiences or revelations that others don't have either.  We are not saved by asceticism or abstention either since we don't punish our bodies, Christ took the punishment on our behalf and died for us.  We are not saved by any effort, it isn't how hard we try, but whether we trust! Sincerity doesn't save either (you can be sincerely wrong!); it is a requisite but not everything--you must be serious in your quest for God and seek Him with your whole heart to find Him.

What is the formula then?  We know God through Jesus our Lord (must accept Him as Lord of your life in a moment of surrender); by virtue of His cross or passion; on the basis of His Word and promise; and by the power or renewal of the Holy Spirit; via a personal exercise of faith or leap of faith that God has given us (faith is not a work or something we conjure up or catch by being around the right crowd).  It is faith, not emotionalism, knowledge, wisdom, works, that pleases God and we are rewarded for the works He has ordained and predestined beforehand for us to follow in His steps.

The formula of the Reformation was that we are saved by grace alone (sola gratia), through faith alone (sola fide), in Christ alone (soli Christo), by the authority of Scripture alone (sola Scriptura), and giving God alone the glory (Soli Deo Gloria!).   These are known as the five only's and formed the foundation of all Protestant thought and dogma as opposed to Romanism or Roman Catholicism. You must realize salvation as the gift of God by grace and that means you didn't earn it, cannot repay it, and don't deserve it--we all deserve hell if God were only just and not merciful. We don't mix works and faith, grace and merit, or assurance and conjecture.  These are all mutually exclusive in God's economy!  Where is the place of works then?  We are indeed saved by faith alone, they said, but not by a faith that is alone.  We are not saved by good works, but unto good works--they are the logical consequence of love in action.  It is not mere belief, but belief lived out; not merely faith, but faith acted upon and bringing forth fruit.

The new life (putting on the new man being renewed in the image and glory of Christ) was described by Thomas a Kempis:  "Without the way there is no going, without the life, there is no living, and without the truth, there is no knowing (cf. John 14:6)  Jesus promised an abundant life to be found in a relationship with Him and knowing true joy compared to temporal happiness (depends on happenings) that religion offers.  Christianity offers the only worldview that gives dignity to man and solves all man's problems and dilemmas, having a perspective on every academic discipline that is consistent and fulfilling.

To sum up: Christianity is not "pie-in-the-sky" thinking, but about "the God who is there" according to apologist Francis Schaeffer. Christianity is not self-esteem, but God-esteem; not self-help but God-helped. Only Christianity deals with the sin and guilt questions and issues--and offers salvation. But the qualification to be saved is that you stop trying to save yourself and realize you aren't qualified to be saved! What is so unique about Christianity then?  It is based on grace (a foreign word to religion) and on God achieving the divine atonement to bridge the gap between the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man. Religion says do, do, do!  Christianity says done,  finis, fait accompli, tetelestai! That is to say, it is the ultimate done deal.  In the final analysis, we are not just forgiven for what we've done, but delivered from who we are!    Soli Deo Gloria! 

An Apologetics Cakewalk...

"If I am interested in reality, I must know what God is really like"  (Plato).

This is apologetics for dummies or made easy for those who admit they don't know all the answers. No one has a monopoly on wisdom or knowledge (per Job 15:8).   Even though Sir Francis Bacon said, "Knowledge is power," per Prove. 24:5: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing! Education is actually going from an unconscious to a conscious awareness of your ignorance.  Knowledge can be dangerous--some know just enough to lead astray and cause harm or create more heat than light. We don't have to know all the answers, but know the Answerer!  All of us became believers apart from knowing all the answers--we simply took the leap of faith going in the way the evidence was leading like in a jury that goes with the preponderance of the evidence and makes an educated, informed decision based on that and goes with it.

God demands faith no matter what level we are.  It takes faith to be an atheist too, and God doesn't believe in atheists for certain!  It isn't a matter of faith vs. reason, but faith versus faith; it matters about which set of assumptions you accept. It takes more faith to deny the obvious than to accept it by simple faith. God makes no apologies for Himself and the Bible assumes God and never tries to prove Him to the reader:  "In the beginning God...."  The best apologetic is no apologetic or excuse for God, but to boldly proclaim, not defend the gospel.  Apologetics is more about attitude and approach than intellect and learning--don't ever think that you know something apart from God's revelation, for only that which is "revealed belongs to us" according to Deut. 29:29.

Our mission is the Great Commission, not to start arguments or be contentious. As soon as you see the door open to witness, use your testimony and make a beeline for the gospel truth.  We must rely on the Word of God and quote Scripture as we are planting seeds and trusting God to make the increase and cause growth.  Faith only comes by hearing and by hearing of the Word of God according to Romans 10:17 and the Word never comes back void according to Isaiah 55:11 and it will accomplish God's pleasure and will. 

You cannot argue someone into the kingdom. One cannot dispute someone's testimony:  "This one thing I know, that I was blind, but now I see!"  This may seem subjective like one saying an egg on his head gives him euphoria, but our experience is based on objective, historical fact--the resurrection of Christ, which is arguably the most attested fact in antiquity.

The uneducated, but welll-versed believer can get further with the skeptic than the one who relies on his power of persuasion.  We don't want someone's faith to rest on the power of persuasion but on the rock-solid Word of God (per 1 Cor. 2:5).  Witnessing in the power of the Holy Spirit is a more powerful testimony and witness than sheer brilliance and scholarly arguments.  We must learn to be led by the Spirit and when we know God we can be a better witness for Him.  The best defense is a good offense and our only offensive weapon is the Sword of the Spirit or the Word of God;  the Bible can defend itself just like a caged lion can defend itself.  

If they say, "Prove the Bible!"  You should reply, "No, you prove it!  All you have to do is read it and witness its convicting and illuminating powers."  That's why we say Scripture is self-attesting. it authenticates itself by changing lives not educating us. It's not meant to increase our knowledge but to renew our lives. If the Bible appealed to science, for instance, then science would be the final arbiter of truth; the God of truth must have the final say on truth. 

Now 1 Peter 3:15 says to have an answer and what this means is that we can defend our faith and show that we haven't kissed our brains goodbye in accepting Christ and have sound and valid reasons to believe.  We must do it in a spirit of love speaking the truth in love (cf. Eph. 4:15) and patience. We should have a natural desire to know why we believe as well as what we believe and a thirst for the truth, but witnessing isn't a battle of wits to put Christ on trial and test God.  Man is on trial, not God! We answer to God, He doesn't answer to us.

This is a command, and not a suggestion, to be prepared to give a reason for the hope (have your testimony prepared and know what you want to say) so that we may know as many answers to their inquiries as possible--it seems like they all ask the same basic questions, so this turns out to be a cakewalk of answering objections if we are put in this position. No one is going to come up with some evidence that will make Christianity falter after two millennia of success and growth.   Soli Deo Gloria!  

Christ's Karma

Believing in karma (also called "What goes around, comes around") is one of the oldest traditions, in fact, Job's friends accused him of wrongdoing and asserted he was only getting what he deserved, maybe even less.  In antiquity, people assumed that God rewarded good and punished evil in an immediate payback or recompense.  Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote When Bad Things Happen to Good People and questioned God's goodness whether He was unjust in allowing evil to happen to good people.

His premise, of course, was that there are good people; the Bible says there is none good, no not one. Jesus said only God is good!  It turned out that God is too deep to explain Himself, too kind to be cruel, and to knowledgeable and wise to be wrong or make a mistake. God knows what He's doing and works all things together for our good.  These are coterminous events and not fortuitous at all, God's providence is able to superintend all events to His glory, which is His ultimate goal in all of history.

Why did Jesus suffer then?  He was suffering in our stead and on our behalf; He didn't deserve it and completely volunteered for it:  He said not to weep for Him but for ourselves (we are the sinners that need forgiveness!).  Mercy is not getting what we deserve and Christ paid the price so we wouldn't have to on a debt we couldn't pay.  Grace is when we get what we don't deserve, can't earn, and can never repay in all eternity.  The cross makes possible both mercy and grace as the ultimate expression of Christ's love and compassion for mankind.

If karma were true, why did Christ have to suffer?  He was innocent and certainly suffered more than anyone in history.  It wasn't the nails that kept Him on the cross--He could've come down at will or called 12 legions of angels--but the love in His heart that kept Him to the cross.  The weeping women on the Via Dolorosa (on the way to Calvary) were puzzled as to why Jesus told them to weep for themselves and not Him--He knew what He was getting into.

When Jesus was teaching they asked Him who sinned:  Was it the man born blind or his parents? Jesus had to explain that it was unto the glory of God.  God knows what He is doing and will turn evil into good.  He was able to turn and predestine the most diabolical act in history (cf. Acts 2:23; 4:28) into the crux of history or the most wonderful thing ever done on man's behalf--our salvation!  Joseph said in Gen. 50:20 that even though his brothers meant evil, God meant it for good.  We are all God's vessels, it's just that some of us are vessels of honor and some of dishonor.

In the Eastern traditions they also believe in karma and cannot reconcile the suffering in the world--they think that if someone is suffering, that is their karma and leave him alone to suffer what he deserves.  When the Khmer Rouge and the Pol Pot regime stranded 300,000 refugees in a no-man's--land (known as the "killing fields"), it was Christians who came to the rescue, not Buddhists or Hindus.  This is known as the exact-reward concept and that everyone gets what he deserves in life as payback. Buddha taught man to be an island unto himself. He said you are not to interfere with another person's karma.

But the Bible says, "he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities" in Psalm 103:10.  We too readily say to God when something happens:  "What did I do to deserve this?" But adversity, discipline, suffering, and trials will always come to believers and Christ was honest enough to warn us of the rough road ahead--it will be no bed of roses.

But adversity is meant to build character and Christlikeness:  In a proclamation of faith, Job said, "But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold" (Job 23:10, ESV).  We don't build character through an easy life but through challenges and experience.  It is not what happens to us but in us. The same trial affects different people in different ways: "The same sun melts the butter, hardens the clay."  We are not to question God and judge Him, but He us--we answer to Him!  Christ's passion debunks karma.   Soli Deo Gloria!

Proving God

Blaise Pascal said, "What can be seen on earth indicates neither the total absence of God nor his manifest presence, but rather the presence of a hidden God." Isaiah 45:15 (ESV) says, "Truly, you are a God who hides yourself."  Bertrand Russell, mathematician and philosopher wrote Why I Am Not a Christian and was asked what he would tell God if it turned out he was all wrong: "Why didn't you give more evidence?"  The evidence is everywhere, start by looking in the mirror.  Anyone who has witnessed a birth cannot deny the reality of miracles if they are in their right mind and morally upright.  Wherever we look we see the "fingerprints" of God and proof, like Francis Schaeffer said, "He is there and He is not silent."

There are about 5 percent atheists in America and 2 percent Jews, and about 81 percent who claim Christianity.  But people don't know that some atheists are intellectually honest, while some Christians are intellectually dishonest and bankrupt, not being able to defend their own beliefs, much less know what they are.  What we are witnessing is the age of the practical atheist or the person who lives like an atheist, without accountability to God, but adheres religiously to a faith in God that doesn't change is life. Who is he who has blind faith, but the one who doesn't know why he believes and doesn't have an answer for the doubter or skeptic?  The Bible commands us to be ready with the answers.

You cannot worship your way back to God, you cannot feel your way back to God, you cannot work your way back, or even rationalize your way back--the heart has to be prepared and the soil ready for the seed which is the Word of God to germinate and grow by God's power. This is why you cannot argue someone into the kingdom. Paul found this out at Mars Hill in Athens (Acts 17) when he preached about the "Unknown God."  Everyone has a basic knowledge that God exists for God has set eternity in the hearts of man (cf. Ecclesiastes. 3:11). Paul asserted in Romans 1 that the evil man has suppressed the truth and once knew God and has fallen and that no one has an excuse--not even the Aborigines in Australia.

Many great thinkers have offered so-called proofs for the existence of God, including the great Greek philosophers who posited a Supreme Good, or First Cause (the uncaused cause re the law of causality or cause and effect), Unmoved Mover, or Logos (logic or reasoning) behind the universe or the cosmos.  The great philosopher Thomas Aquinas tried to rationalize God with many proofs including the fact that there would be no justice without Him. If we are trusting someone's reasoning we are trusting in the finite and not infallible Word of God--all men are prone to error and God is bigger than our power of reason.  C. S. Lewis has said that we couldn't think without a Thinker intending us to think or designing our minds for thought.

That's philosophical (a little philosophy leads you away from God, but a lot brings you back to Him), and now I will present five scientific proofs of God:  DNA, the metabolic motor, and engine or machine of life itself (it can only be produced by life and is also necessary for life) is so complicated and stores so much information, that it suggests design and not accident or fluke and this design implies a Designer; biogenisis, or that life only comes from life, is the eternal regress that only God can solve and knows its origins--spontaneous generation or that life can arise from non-life was disproved 150 years ago by Louis Pasteur and now it is claimed that life couldn't have arisen by chance in The Intelligent Universe by Sir Fred Hoyle, renowned mathematician, and astronomer; the Second Law of Thermodynamics or Entropy states that the universe is running out of usable energy and must have had a beginning--things go from order to disorder and the orderly universe demonstrates some supernatural intervention; the Anthropic Principle of the nature of earth, perfectly suitable and designed in such a unique way for life on this planet suggests purpose in creation because there is a reason for everything, even the dust in the atmosphere that makes rain possible and the moon which makes the tides possible--the earth is fine-tuned for human habitation; and finally the Big Bang or the beginning of the universe implies there was a "Beginner" and it was so dialed with over 50 universal constants that it couldn't have been a fluke but a deliberate design by a designer or Supreme Being--who pulled the trigger? The theory of an eternal universe has been deemed untenable.

But why can't you prove God absolutely through science? God isn't audible, visible, nor tangible--He resides in another dimension unknown to us. You can't put God in a test tube! You can't make laboratory conditions to conduct an experiment because God is invisible and history is nonrepeatable. It would be like using a Geiger Counter to measure voltage. You cannot measure an infinite God or even define Him--we only know what is revealed because speculation is a fool's errand.  The scientific method is irrelevant to knowing God and when science attempts to make philosophical statements such as Carl Sagan said, "The cosmos is all there is, all there ever was, and all there ever will be." This is not science, but "scientism" because this is not in the domain or realm of science to make philosophical or religious assertions or proclamations.

The point is that you don't have to stoop to the fool's level by trying to prove God's existence; he knows it and suppresses the truth (Paul said that the sinner is one who rejects the truth). What is the greatest proof is our dynamic spiritual testimony that he cannot deny!  "I was blind, but now I see!" Don't engage the atheist in trying to level the playing field to his way of thinking, we don't have to defend God because He's not on trial--the atheist is!  Nothing speaks louder than the Word itself for God's Word will not come back void according to Isaiah 55:11. Don't waste your time trying to get to God, but reason from God and assume God, just like Scripture does ("In the beginning God...."): Don't be put on the defensive--use the Word as an offensive weapon (it is the Sword of the Spirit)! Why?  That their faith will not rest in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God--it is not our power of persuasion to convert, but the convicting power of the Holy Spirit.

His excuse for not believing is not because he is unintelligent or lacking proof (he has irrational doubt and skepticism for there is adequate proof if he wants to believe). He chooses not to believe and "will not believe" because he is unwilling to do God's will (cf. John 7:17).  Jesus performed many miracles but they "would not" believe--not "could not." He is merely feigning intellectual problems because of moral rebellion and is sending up smoke screens or false issue to get you off track and put you on the defensive with questions you aren't prepared for; but you don't have to know all the answers to believe or to witness and when he sees he's not shaking your faith it will convict him.

The real reason people don't believe, then, is sin and the sin nature or original sin in man that is stubborn and rebellious against God's order in the universe.  Second Timothy 2:25 says that repentance is the gift of God and He must grant it (cf. Acts 5:31; 11:18).  Without repentance, there can be no faith or acknowledgment of the truth.  This verse asserts that repentance precedes knowing the truth!  We don't prove God to someone, we let them find Him out for themselves, just like you don't defend a caged lion when you go into a cage--he can defend himself.  People react rather than respond to the gospel primarily out of conviction and then their hearts are hardened by God (cf. Isaiah 63:17; 6:10).

Jesus made is plain that it doesn't take brains to know God or believe in Him:  He praises the babes and infants for bringing Him praise!  Isaiah 35:8 says that even the fool will not go astray on the highway of salvation.  God is able to open anyone's eyes and do a miracle of grace--the problem is in the heart, not in the mind and we must focus on that.  The heart of the matter is a matter of the heart. Just ask them if they would worship God if you proved Him to them; they most likely won't for they have no intentions of believing, but in finding more reasons to be a skeptic and have animosity for Christ in particular.

We lower ourselves by thinking we have all the answers (we just know the Answerer!); we must depend on the Holy Spirit to convert (we can convert no one) and the seed of the Word.  If we won them by argument, their faith would be based on argument alone, and falter in light of more argument or evidence!   It isn't a matter of debating but in witnessing--our lives sometimes speak so loudly they don't hear what we say--we are a walking a living gospel narrative by our own lives. God has hidden these truths from the wise of the world and revealed them to babes (Matt. 21:16).


The wisdom of the world is foolish to Him, said Paul in 1 Corinthians.  We are only responsible for what God reveals to us and people go to hell for rejecting what they do know and the God they believe in (their own known sin).  Deuteronomy 29:29 says that the secret things belong to God (we don't know all the answers and God wants faith, not knowledge), but those things that are revealed to us belong to us and to our children.  The only reason we know anything for certain is that God has revealed it to us and we are standing on the Rock of Truth, Jesus the epitome and personification of truth itself. The Christian faith is a revealed faith.

You must start somewhere:  In every truth claim you begin with some premise you can't prove but must accept.  Either start with man and explain the universe and God, or with God and explain the universe and man. We all have presuppositions that bias our thinking and always interpret our reality according to our worldview or totality of convictions.  Humanism dethrones God and puts him down while exalting man and putting him on a pedestal or throne as ultimate judge and jury of God when He is man's judge! The Greeks originated the idea of man as the measure of all things (homo mensura), and communists even believe that man is the highest being of man.  The Bible makes no apologies but only assumes this as fact!  The Bible starts with God and goes on from there: "In the beginning God...."

The problem is that man doesn't know his own sin, and we must show it to him, according to Martin Luther.  Sin has blinded the eyes of the unbeliever and his heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things (Jeremiah 17:9). Only God can open his eyes and make him see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.  Man's whole nature is deformed:  his heart or emotions and feelings, his intellect and thinking, and finally, his will which is stubborn and rebellious against God's authority and guidance.

God cares a lot about right and wrong as the moral center of the universe and morality is not nebulous, but as rigid as any law of nature; it is not agreed upon by consensus but exists in its own right--man has the law of God engraved in his heart according to Romans 2:15.  The problem with believing is repenting and likewise, the problem with repenting is believing--man has a dual dilemma!  These two go hand in hand and can be distinguished, but not separated--they are complementary and one is the flip side of the other!  We must have believing repentance, or penitent faith, in other words.   If we want to believe God will convict and convince us; but for those who don't want to believe, no amount of proof or evidence will convert them, for they have their minds made up and don't want to be confused with the facts!

The moral argument for God is one of the strongest for Fyodor Dostoyevsky, in The Brothers Karamazov, said that if there is no God, all is permissible.  Just like Albert Camus, the French atheist philosopher, said, "The absurd is sin without God."  Without God, we have no objective standard outside of ourselves ("If it feels good, do it") to base moral principles upon.  We are forced to resort to a subjective world, making up our own rules as we go along and just justifying ourselves in the process ("...[E]very man did what was right in his own eyes," Judges 21:25).  Truth and morality are not relative but absolute and exist in Christ.  Morality is not found out by consensus, majority vote, convention, or even tradition--it is based in the Holiness of God and His divine nature which never changes because God is immutable or unchanging.   Soli Deo Gloria!

Extreme Epistemology

According to the correspondence theory of truth (espoused by John Locke), truth is what relates to reality.

How do you know anything for certain?  The Eastern faiths and worldviews see all reality as Maya or illusion, i.e., reality cannot be perceived, and science and the scientific method never could have been developed under such a self-defeating system of knowledge, because we need an ordered, a consistent, and knowable universe that can be studied and made sense of.  Descartes reasoned that he could know he existed:  "I think, therefore I am."  Augustine had said, "If I err, I am." Actually, if you think there must be a thinker to make though, so you can't use thought to disprove your existence.  We need valid reasoning to prove our reasoning is valid:  Jesus is the Logos or reason and logic behind everything.

Only God is capable of giving sound reason, for man's knowledge, by definition, is fallible and error-prone. Even science changes its truth claims--it's a moving train of knowledge (the world is no longer flat!): In 1861 the French Academy of Science listed fifty-one so-called scientific facts that controverted the Bible! Today none of these "facts" are believed.  It is a principle of science and philosophy that to arrive at the truth you must admit you could be wrong--science today is biased!

It is self-defeating to say you cannot know anything (how can one ascertain that?) because then you are rejecting knowledge and knowledge begins with knowing God according to Proverbs 1:7  "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise instruction and learning." You don't know diddly squat without starting with God and Him as the reference point, without making yourself judge, jury, and ultimately God Himself.  If you say:  "I know I know nothing for certain," you have contradicted yourself, and this statement has no truth claim whatsoever.  How can you know for certain that you can know nothing for certain?

The unbeliever ultimately has to admit that he could be wrong, and his worldview comes tumbling down.  It is said that we can only know something from sources:  Reasoning ability and revelation from God.  Deuteronomy 29:29 (ESV) says that God has revealed the truth to us in the Bible and He still has secrets we cannot know:  "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law."

How does one account for knowledge and truth without God?  We don't try to reason to God but from God as the starting point, not finishing point.  Don't insult God by putting Him on trial by catering to the person's demand for evidence--we don't have to prove our God because God has made Himself known and this is evident--they are all without excuse.  Just how can you make sense of anything without God? Children's inquiries cannot be satisfied without bringing Him up, and you practically have to indoctrinate or brainwash them not to believe. You cannot prove A without it being true, known, and logical.  These three (truth, knowledge, and logic) assume and only make sense with God!  "...[A]s the truth is in Jesus" (cf. Eph. 4:20).

Everything we know is based on presupposition and faith because to know anything you must know everything.  Both the believer and the unbeliever have faith and is it evident unbelief takes more faith, due to the evidence.  God is not going to force one to believe, He desires faith to please Him. To know A you must know B, and to know B you must know C, and so forth ad infinitum.  All our knowledge is contingent then. This is called infinite regress and only God knows where it ends because He is omniscient.  The only way we can know anything is if it is revealed to us, and this is the Christian worldview--Jesus is the incarnation and personification or embodiment of truth and came to bear witness of the truth, as he answered Pilate who asked, "What is truth?"  People interpret their reality and information according to their worldview and presuppositions.

It is no use giving evidence to a person that doesn't want to believe because this makes him the judge of God. One gives evidence to a jury in a courtroom.  How can one make truth claims when denying the source of truth (Jesus, cf. Eph. 4:20).  "I don't know anything!" I can say: "How do you know this?  Are you certain?"  "Yes, I am certain I cannot be certain!" This kind of nonsense is what atheism leads to.   Don't assume the unbeliever knows anything because without God he can't.  But he does know something, and this is proof he knows or knew God. "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools." Fools are those who deny God and know better.

All of creation speaks of God:  They believe a lottery winner winning too often is the result of it being rigged, but the sunset isn't rigged.  The whole creation is rigged and couldn't exist without God. "In Him, we live and move and have our being."  They suppress the truth in unrighteousness, but how can they do this if they don't know the truth?  If you look in the mirror you are seeing a miracle!  Life is no fluke, it is rigged and couldn't have happened without God's intervention and creation.

Who is to say God can't use circular reasoning, because He is self-attesting or self-authenticating, and to appeal to some other authority would be to lose His ultimate authority.  You might say: "I use my reason to believe reasoning is the best way to arrive at knowledge because it sounds reasonable--that is circular.   But God is the Author of logic and we cannot "out-logic" or out-reason Him.  God, not Aristotle formulated the rules of logic.

People beg the question when they claim they know something apart from God:  I know I exist because of my own consciousness!    The fact remains, we can know something for certain:  All that God has revealed to us according to Deut. 29:29 "...[That] which is revealed belongs to us...." People use science to disprove Christianity when science depends on the Christian worldview.   When people reject God, they are making themselves God and setting up an outside moral authority above the Bible in their own reasoning.  If there was no intelligence behind the cosmos and consequently our brains were not designed for thought but are only the byproduct of atomic reactions how can we trust our own thinking?  C. S. Lewis said, "...[How] can I trust my own thinking to be true?  But if I can't trust my own thinking, of course, I can't trust the arguments leading to atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an atheist, or anything else.  Unless I believe in God, I can't believe in thought; so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God."

Pilate asked Jesus, "What is truth?" Jesus came to bear witness of it and he who is of the truth hears His voice.  "And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ.  This is the true God and eternal life"  (1 John 5:20, NASB).  Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life..." (John 14:6).  Soli Deo Gloria!

The Ultimate Red Flag

Polls show that only about five percent of people disbelieve in God and this has been consistent since Paul preached at Mars Hill about the Unknown God.  Man is an incurably religious being (Homo religiosus) and must worship something and theism of some kind is universal; there is a vacuum that only God can fill according to Blaise Pascal. There have always been atheists and agnostics, but today we have anti-theists who are militantly and vociferously against God and Christianity in particular and are embittered by some bad experience and on a mission. 

Atheists deny a righteous Judge, a supernatural Creator, and a divine Lawgiver.  However, life is no fluke of nature; God is the moral center of the universe and without a Judge, there is no justice; and God is holy and must judge sin according to His laws. The Bible clearly says that the "fool has said in his heart that there is no God."  Jesus said the Pharisees were "slow of heart to believe," (cf. Luke 24:25).    The Bible assumes and never attempts to prove God's existence: "In the beginning God..." and "In the beginning was the Word." Even the ancient Greeks believed (Heraclitus) that this ancient "logos" always existed and all things are through this "word" or "logic."

The point of creation is that it implies a Creator, and if there ever was nothing, then, said the Greeks, nothing could exist now--nothing comes from nothing!  There are only two possibilities then:  "In the beginning God," or "In the beginning matter/energy."  Science now affirms a beginning to our cosmos called the Big Bang but doesn't know who or what pulled the trigger to get everything in motion and dialed its some 50 universal constants. 

But according to the Second  Law of Thermodynamics (entropy) all matter and energy go from complex or order to simple and disorder and run out of energy in any usable form (we are headed for an ultimate heat death of the entire cosmos someday without any usable form of energy). If we figure out how to intelligibly create life in a "prebiotic or primordial soup" then it only proves that it takes intelligence to create it. Sir Fred Hoyle wrote The Intelligent Universe to demonstrate life couldn't have originated by chance.

We go from logic to confusion or from cosmos to chaos without the energetic input of a mind in action. There could be no science without cosmos and divine order.  You must appeal to some ultimate authority (God) or you are making your own reasoning the ultimate authority and this is per contra reason itself. The chief function of reason is to show that some things are beyond reason! Logic was in the beginning (logos) and is universal, immaterial, immutable, and eternal, of which God is and so you cannot use logic to disprove God.  If truth or the cosmos (the orderly scheme of nature in the entire universe) changed our world couldn't be studied as a science.

Modern science believes everything is mechanical and that matter/energy is all that exists--denying the mind or Higher Mind (God-hypothesis). We are not just a brain encased in a body, but soul, spirit, and body joined together, to be separated upon death, and have an immaterial element that cannot be destroyed.  We don't just have a brain, but a mind that is the real us, and this implies a Higher Mind--something beyond "Mother Nature," just like a person existing implies a higher personality from which it came (God cannot be of a lower nature than or inferior to His creatures). "Mother Nature has no inherent power contrary to the Gaia hypothesis of New Age thinking today.

We could not think, if there was no God, because He is the ultimate Thinker, because thinking requires a thinker:  "Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am." We can verify our own existence this way and that we are self-conscious individuals and aware of our surroundings.  The divine order of creation is as follows: Thinker, thought, action, matter/energy.  In the same vein:  Design implies designer and art implies artist.  William Paley, an Anglican apologist, said that if you found a watch in the forest you wouldn't assume it had made itself or had always been there--the analogy is that we are more complicated than watches.  You must begin with and assume reason and logic exist, to have a reasonable and logical conclusion. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (cf. John 1:1).

The weak point or Achilles' heel of believing in evolution is that you can't account for the origin of life itself:  They believe and understand its impossibility, but believe that somehow this miracle took place and despite the laws of nature it must have happened, because, God forbid, the opposite cannot and must not be true--that there is a Creator.  This is what is ironic in my opinion:  They believe in this monumental miracle of nature (spontaneous generation was disproved 150 years ago by Louis Pasteur and biogenesis is the principle that life only comes from life--this begs the question of where did the first life come from and back to our original dilemma of the origin of life without God), but, even though they posit evolutionary life as established and unquestionable, they deny that a resurrection of the dead could happen to the Son of God Himself, who is the Author of life!

There is another problem of evolution or denying God because you have to believe in "matter over mind" or that matter has some power or cosmic energy inherent to create life and design itself and give itself purpose and meaning.  We deny truth by denying God, because truth is what conforms to His mind, the Author.  Jesus claimed to be the Truth, so it is knowable, absolute truth and even Augustine said, "All truth is God's truth."  Christians have nothing to fear from scrutiny and the truth. There can be no knowledge, truth or logic without God because that is what God is to any system of proof--so you cannot prove anything without assuming God and that there are truth, knowledge, and logic. 

C. S. Lewis said, "Unless I believe in God, I can't believe in thought; so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God."   God is the originator and inventor of thought and logic. To claim something is nonsense, you have to believe in sense or absolute truth! You can't make sense of the cosmos without God.  Either you start with man and explain God or you start with God and explain man! The only system of thought that Christ will fit into is the one where He is the starting point and humanism tends to deify man and dethrone God and believes man is the "measure of all things" (Homo mensura).

Note that the burden of proof is on the infidel.  Don't believe you have to prove God:  It takes faith to be saved. We are not to attempt to prove God (God is not on trial, we are), but make Him known enough to take a leap of faith--we don't stoop to their level.  We go in the direction of the preponderance of the evidence like a jury that doesn't know all the facts to make a decision.  You don't need all the answers to have faith!  The evidence demands a verdict and the unbeliever should be challenged to realize that we haven't kissed our brains goodbye.  

For the person that doesn't want to repent and has moral objections, no amount of evidence will convince him, but for the person who is penitent and believing and wants to do God's will, a proof is necessary--it is a work of God.  "If any man wills to do His will, he shall know ..." God wants us to take the leap of faith to get saved, not become intellectually convinced--it is not belief in the mind, but in the heart.  Our faith must not rest on the power of persuasion, as Paul found out at Mars Hill, but in the power of the Holy Spirit as Paul strove to just know Christ and Christ crucified. We are not sold on an idea or way of life by a salesman!

It is true that Jesus is the Answer and Solution to all our dilemmas.  We don't know all the answers, but we know the Answerer.  "All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge"..."are hidden in Christ" (Colossians 2:2-3).  With Christ as the starting point and reference, everything is rational.  Christianity is not rationalism, but it is rational.  All thought was originated from the first thinker, God and we know that something besides matter and energy exists: Something immaterial and takes up no space, yet has power over our body to command it--thought. We should never answer a fool according to his folly (not acknowledging God),  but catch him off guard, lest we become like him (Prov. 26:4), and never attempt to prove God  (however, we demonstrate their folly or foolishness) or put God on trial,  but boldly proclaim the gospel, because it is what has power according to Paul in Romans 1:16:  "...[For] it is the power of salvation to everyone who believes...."  If we lose our fulcrum of the power of the gospel and stress our wits or cleverness in the persuasion, the Holy Spirit cannot work, for He uses the Word as a seed, not the wisdom of men.

The fulcrum or weak and pivotal point of advantage is the Bible itself as the ultimate authority and if they say prove its authority, you say, "No, you prove it: Read it and it will read you! God honors His Word.  A lion needs no defense, it can defend itself.  Well, they say:  "Prove God exists!" No, tell them, "No, prove God doesn't exist!"  If he doesn't have evidence, then he has blind faith, not knowing why he believes. They can't prove the designer of a watch never existed! "For what can be known of God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them" (Rom. 1:19, ESV).  You aren't always preaching to the choir:  You should realize the futility of trying to convince someone who doesn't want to believe in God or doesn't see his need of preaching--he just wants to get more reasons to disbelieve or thinks he's got it together. No, you prove He doesn't, the burden is on the unbeliever who is going against the grain and tide of humanity's common faith through the ages. You can't prove God doesn't exist and no one can cite any evidence for this. You cannot prove a universal negative, any more than you can assert there are no green men--you'd have to be everywhere simultaneously! In other words, you would have to be omniscient and omnipresent, knowing all and everywhere, or you would have to be God to disprove Him or be an atheist

For the person who claims he has intellectual problems or issues, pride is not absent (these are known as smokescreens to divert the real issue of Jesus Christ's relevance), he really has moral problems and doesn't want to alter his lifestyle or change his way of life, i.e., repent. John Stott said, "We must cater to intellectual integrity, but not pander to intellectual arrogance."  Mostly they don't want to believe but are just engaging in some power game or mind game to win an argument and make you feel bad.  No one is going to come up with some "smoking gun" evidence to make Christianity come tumbling down after two millennia. The trouble with people is not that they can't believe, but don't want to.  Mark 9:24 says that a doubter (doubt is an element of faith, and not its opposite) said, "I believe, help thou mine unbelief." God gives faith to us as a gift and, if we are honest and seek Him, He will increase it.  Faith comes by hearing of the Word of God according to Romans 10:17.

Scripture says there is no excuse to disbelieve in God because He has given this knowledge to all: You have to practically brainwash or indoctrinate a child to stop him from believing in God. "For when they knew God.." shows they once knew and stayed because they didn't acknowledge God or give Him thanks. and exchanged the "truth" about God for a lie. (Cf. Rom. 1: 18-28).

The Bible is the ultimate authority and only standard to appeal to; it is self-attesting or self-authenticating because if we appealed to any other authority it wouldn't be the ultimate authority anymore but our authority of verification would be.  We just say that "It is written" to answer Satan and to stop him in his tracks. If he says he doesn't believe the Bible, ask him why or if he's read it, and if he has, what its main point is (salvation through Christ) to make him realize the foolishness of his ignorance, for he cannot even account for the concept of knowledge without the necessity of God. Without God we wouldn't have such entities as love, justice, righteousness, fair play, trustworthiness, courage, mercy, grace, altruism, sacrifice, purpose, significance, meaning, good faith, goodness, hope, honesty, intuition, wisdom, or even truthfulness--where else would they come from and one must admit they have always existed and always will:  Does beauty remain after the rose fades? Note that God is love and also good, and the Word personifies Wisdom in Proverbs 8.  Ponder this: Whence rights?  As one secular humanist said, "When, one wonders, in evolutionary history did hominids first acquire natural rights?"  But we acknowledge God as conferring our rights as unalienable.

If the fool repents, God will convince him, for it is written in 2 Tim. 2:25 (ESV):  "...God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth."  Repentance leading to the truth is the gift of God.  This kind of proof the Bible refers to is ontological (we feel a tug towards God and have an innate knowledge of Him) and we don't have to convince the sheep, for they hear His voice, not necessarily our argumentation (John 10:27).

Our ultimate efficacy depends upon our dependence on the Holy Spirit and our testimony that he cannot refute, not our own brilliance--which may convince minds but not win over hearts.  If we just win an argument (and you cannot argue someone into the kingdom) then we will be able to boast that we converted them, not the Holy Spirit. God confirms Himself to us by our experience in Christ that is based upon the objective historical fact of the resurrection, not something mystical, and this is called a "properly basic belief" and is the verification of God:  "His Spirit bears witness with our spirit..." (Rom. 8:16).  Apart from a work of the Holy Spirit no one will believe, God must prepare their hearts for the gospel message.

By saying you don't believe in God is calling God a liar (because the Bible says so), and making yourself the authority and putting God on trial, rather than yourself.  God will judge man, not man God and man answers to God and not God to man.  We all have faith and have presuppositions to our knowledge (which couldn't exist without God), but it takes more faith to be an atheist than a believer and the evidence is stacked up against his disbelief; hence, it is harder to be an unbeliever than have faith as Norman Geisler said, "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist." Atheists begin with the existence of reason to use reason to disprove God--how ironic!  The Bible assumes God unapologetically, and we should follow suit in faith in the power of the Holy Spirit.

To conclude:  Paul wrote that "faith comes by hearing, and by hearing of the Word of God," not by argumentation: You cannot argue someone into the kingdom!  If you want to believe, you don't need evidence and if you are stubborn and don't want to, no amount will convince you.  There are positive, informative, telltale reasons to have faith and to be intellectually honest, and they fit the facts better than doubt.  We are not commissioned to win arguments but souls by speaking the truth in love, and witnessing for Jesus by our testimony and the gospel message itself--plant seeds not arguments or controversies!   Soli Deo Gloria!