"He [the Antichrist] shall seduce with flattery those who violate the covenant, but the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action ["will firmly resist him," NIV; "shall be strong, and do exploits," KJV]" (Daniel 11:32, ESV).
Man is the only religious creature; i.e., monkeys don't build chapels! He has been called Homo religiosus (man the religious) or Homo divinus (man the divine) by scholars because of this tendency. Only man has the will to obey God, the heart to love God, and the mind to know God--as creatures in His image. Dostoevsky said, "Man cannot live without worshiping something." It's our nature and what makes us uniquely human. We are hard-wired or designed for God and can only be happy and fulfilled in God. Bertrand Russell said, "Unless you assume a God, the question of life's purpose is meaningless." Without God, we have no dignity or purpose and we can only find meaning in Him. There's a void or "God-shaped vacuum" in man's heart that "only God can fill," according to Blaise Pascal, philosopher-mathematician. And St. Augustine said, "You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts find no peace until they rest in You."
Conventional wisdom would tell you that the more gods you have the better off you are, and this was the assumption of ancient man, who worshiped a pantheon of gods and goddesses. The Israelites had resorted to henotheism, or that there are many so-called gods, but the LORD is the Most High. They believed, for instance, that Baal was the fertility God, (flocks, field, and family) but the LORD was the God of their army and of victory in war (the Lord of Hosts). But the Bible tells us that if we have God we have all we need and are complete in Him.
Man is empty without God and cannot live abundantly apart from His plan for our lives. Jesus came to give us this complete and abundant life of fulfillment. Man has always believed in a higher power and archeology proves this as fact, the belief in God is not mere superstition but universal--even to the point of having some sort of Creator-God or unknown God--and that man's concept of God has devolved, not evolved through the ages. But we are to have no other gods before Him and acknowledge no other Savior (cf. Hos. 13:4).
Psychologists have tried to rationalize our faith in God as fear of the unknown, a throwback to our need for a father-figure, a method of evolutionary advantage, a mental virus, or as a system of contentment in hard times. They think we invented God, as Voltaire said, "Man created God in his own image." God is, by definition, the highest Being that can be (imagined or real). There can be no other so-called "necessary being," uncaused cause, or unmoved mover--someone began the chain link of cause and effect ad infinitum, since eternal regression is mathematically and philosophically inconceivable and impossible. It has been proved now that man's earliest worship of God was of a monotheistic tradition, and not polytheistic, as first thought. Man originally entertained the idea of the one true God, as Scripture unequivocally posits and depicts.
It should be noted that man is the only creature capable of being bored with himself and unable to entertain himself when he is down in spirits. Boredom is meant for a reason, to show us we need God and to find purpose in life-- with purpose you seldom get bored! This is only to show us that we need God in our lives for completion.
It is a fact that you can be religious without subscribing to a religion; Secular Humanism is a kind of religion without God, trying to be good without God's help or for the glory of God. It is a proven fact psychologically that religious people tend to be happier than those who are not, and when we're not grounded in the truth we become highly superstitious and make up our own religion! We all need to be set free by the truth and only the Son can do this (cf. John 8:32, 36).
It is a proven fact that society needs religion to maintain law and order and a precept of morality: George Bernard Shaw said that no nation has survived the loss of its gods. Cicero saw religion's value in keeping public morals. John Adams said, "... Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people...." G. K Chesterton said our nation has the "soul of a church!" Eisenhower recognized the need of religion to maintain our way of life, and any religion would do--the point is that man needs religious and moral guidance to keep evil at bay. The Pax Romana (200-year peace of Rome) worked for this purpose until Christianity changed its moral roots.
Real worship is the offering of ourselves to God; however, when we surrender our resources and ourselves to anything or anyone else in devotion, it's a form of idolatry, taking from God what is His due, for He alone is worthy. True worship of our Lord is defined as being Christ-centered, God-focused, Spirit-controlled-and-led when we get our eyes off ourselves and onto Jesus who alone is the worthy Lamb of God, our Savior--we must draw the line at homage like Daniel!
In the final analysis, the only cure for the sin of idolatry is to have an adequate concept of God, not putting Him in a box or making Him one-dimensional, and knowing your God personally and not just second-hand. Soli Deo Gloria!
Man is the only religious creature; i.e., monkeys don't build chapels! He has been called Homo religiosus (man the religious) or Homo divinus (man the divine) by scholars because of this tendency. Only man has the will to obey God, the heart to love God, and the mind to know God--as creatures in His image. Dostoevsky said, "Man cannot live without worshiping something." It's our nature and what makes us uniquely human. We are hard-wired or designed for God and can only be happy and fulfilled in God. Bertrand Russell said, "Unless you assume a God, the question of life's purpose is meaningless." Without God, we have no dignity or purpose and we can only find meaning in Him. There's a void or "God-shaped vacuum" in man's heart that "only God can fill," according to Blaise Pascal, philosopher-mathematician. And St. Augustine said, "You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts find no peace until they rest in You."
Conventional wisdom would tell you that the more gods you have the better off you are, and this was the assumption of ancient man, who worshiped a pantheon of gods and goddesses. The Israelites had resorted to henotheism, or that there are many so-called gods, but the LORD is the Most High. They believed, for instance, that Baal was the fertility God, (flocks, field, and family) but the LORD was the God of their army and of victory in war (the Lord of Hosts). But the Bible tells us that if we have God we have all we need and are complete in Him.
Man is empty without God and cannot live abundantly apart from His plan for our lives. Jesus came to give us this complete and abundant life of fulfillment. Man has always believed in a higher power and archeology proves this as fact, the belief in God is not mere superstition but universal--even to the point of having some sort of Creator-God or unknown God--and that man's concept of God has devolved, not evolved through the ages. But we are to have no other gods before Him and acknowledge no other Savior (cf. Hos. 13:4).
Psychologists have tried to rationalize our faith in God as fear of the unknown, a throwback to our need for a father-figure, a method of evolutionary advantage, a mental virus, or as a system of contentment in hard times. They think we invented God, as Voltaire said, "Man created God in his own image." God is, by definition, the highest Being that can be (imagined or real). There can be no other so-called "necessary being," uncaused cause, or unmoved mover--someone began the chain link of cause and effect ad infinitum, since eternal regression is mathematically and philosophically inconceivable and impossible. It has been proved now that man's earliest worship of God was of a monotheistic tradition, and not polytheistic, as first thought. Man originally entertained the idea of the one true God, as Scripture unequivocally posits and depicts.
It should be noted that man is the only creature capable of being bored with himself and unable to entertain himself when he is down in spirits. Boredom is meant for a reason, to show us we need God and to find purpose in life-- with purpose you seldom get bored! This is only to show us that we need God in our lives for completion.
It is a fact that you can be religious without subscribing to a religion; Secular Humanism is a kind of religion without God, trying to be good without God's help or for the glory of God. It is a proven fact psychologically that religious people tend to be happier than those who are not, and when we're not grounded in the truth we become highly superstitious and make up our own religion! We all need to be set free by the truth and only the Son can do this (cf. John 8:32, 36).
It is a proven fact that society needs religion to maintain law and order and a precept of morality: George Bernard Shaw said that no nation has survived the loss of its gods. Cicero saw religion's value in keeping public morals. John Adams said, "... Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people...." G. K Chesterton said our nation has the "soul of a church!" Eisenhower recognized the need of religion to maintain our way of life, and any religion would do--the point is that man needs religious and moral guidance to keep evil at bay. The Pax Romana (200-year peace of Rome) worked for this purpose until Christianity changed its moral roots.
Real worship is the offering of ourselves to God; however, when we surrender our resources and ourselves to anything or anyone else in devotion, it's a form of idolatry, taking from God what is His due, for He alone is worthy. True worship of our Lord is defined as being Christ-centered, God-focused, Spirit-controlled-and-led when we get our eyes off ourselves and onto Jesus who alone is the worthy Lamb of God, our Savior--we must draw the line at homage like Daniel!
In the final analysis, the only cure for the sin of idolatry is to have an adequate concept of God, not putting Him in a box or making Him one-dimensional, and knowing your God personally and not just second-hand. Soli Deo Gloria!
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