2012 Plans for study

Study is work, treat it honorably

This year many of your have decided to settle in and gain a greater knowledge of the things of God. I wanted to offer some helpful hints that help me in the evenings when I settle in to begin reading or study of Languages, Theology or Apologetics. It takes dedication and a vision for prolonged self-education. For those of you who need some encouragement I have some to offer.

God cares that we study, he loves us and hovers over us. Some of us know God see's all, but in some sense its always negative, where God knows your sin, my sin, our thoughts and temptations. But God knows too that we sit down to read his precious word, to pray and seek him and to avail ourselves in opening the pages of sacred books to read men and women who God has gifted to minister to the body of Christ. I believe God is pleased by such study, I believe God is pleased in the sacrifice of time, expense and the effort to discipline ourselves to shut out the entertainment-minded culture and immerse ourselves in Godly thinking.
I believe God will reward his disciples with understanding, wisdom, education and insight that the Spirit of God will draw upon at a later time in order to glorify Christ with Godly speaking, praying, witnessing, evangelism, apologetics, compassion and obedience. The human mind is made to glorify God in knowing and loving. Lets be about our Father's business and do it with peace, knowing the Spirit of God will empower us to accomplish his will in our lives.

Here are some bullet points that help me. 

·        Pray often, pray in the morning, spend time getting away at your prayer site and seek God to worship him, love him and let him speak to you.

·        Be at peace with yourself, guard yourself from sins that will distract you, get your mind in a state of concern for what is eternal and what is important to Jesus Christ.

·        Be disciplined, mix your studies, and don’t overdo Greek or Latin at the expense of bible reading or reading theological works without getting in your language exercises. Scripture is priority over all other readings.

·        Believe that God loves your diligence, your study and your effort to gain understanding of him and his word. It is highly honorable what you’re doing, therefore accept this honor with care to hold on to it with diligence; do not let your sacrifice become trivial or second class.

·        Focus on the goal at hand, which is the salvation of the lost. Make your studies a sacrifice and service to the body of Christ in which you are training in order to training, learning in order to teach, hearing in order to speak, and loving in order to show compassion.

·        God is glorified in your dependence. Depend upon God to lead you through your studies, reveal to you what he wants you to be and then do in time.

·        Do not procrastinate, it causes you uneasiness in your spirit and it leads you away from diligence, not for lack of doing, but robs your heart of willingness because it steals your hope of change.

·        Be practical, dress comfortably, don’t allow yourself that fire-fighter mentality where you are always ready to jump up and leave the house. Have a drink of tea or wine with you, settle in and make this time a time with you and God together. 

Your investment in scripture study as well as language, theology, apologetics or maybe something altogether different will yield its fruit in time. 

Enjoy yourself and enjoy God's provision whereby you can grow in Christ.

The Motive of God in Salvation

The Motive of God.

EZEKIEL 36:16-32

Eze 36:22  "Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came.

Eze 36:23  And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Lord GOD, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes.

• In preaching the gospel to the Filipinos, the question is asked, “how do you contextualize the gospel to them, seeing they are not of the same culture, nor do they have the same understandings of religion, ethics, and morals that Americans have”?
• The answer is simple, I proclaim the universal truth about all men, That all men are sinners, that all men attempt to appease their conscience by means of religious works and in doing so they are dead in sins and trespasses against God because they have not glorified Him.

·         In order to bring the gospel message that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, they must believe they are sinners that need saving.

In Romans 3 Paul says…
Paul said that the man who sins thinking he can do evil that good may come deserves condemnation. But the sinner who sins for his own pleasure is no better off.

Rom 3:9  What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin,

Rom 3:10  as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one;

Rom 3:11  no one understands; no one seeks for God.

Rom 3:12  All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one."

Rom 3:13  "Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive." "The venom of asps is under their lips."

Rom 3:14  "Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness."

Rom 3:15  "Their feet are swift to shed blood;

Rom 3:16  in their paths are ruin and misery,

Rom 3:17  and the way of peace they have not known.",

Rom 3:18  "There is no fear of God before their eyes."

Rom 3:19  Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

The problem with Filipinos and Americans are that they are very religious. He has worshipped many kinds of gods, attended in some cases different kinds of churches, served religious traditions, sacrificed, money, effort, time, food, wages, children, and wives, all for the sake of appeasing the conscience that is fearful that their gods are not pleased, nor have they kept their own code of morals or religious instructions. They have failed in all these attempts as well.

A) They have sinned against the Creator God

B) They have sinful consciences because they fail their own indigenous religions.

·         The job of the Evangelist is to present to them their own sinful character, their own sins, their own deceptions that keep them in bondage to falsehoods and therefore ever-increasing sinful lives. In short, I come to proclaim to them the complete failure of religious work-systems and self-approval religious systems. I come to proclaim God is judge, God alone is Holy and He vindicates His holiness with Salvation.

·         I am preaching against sins that religious people do not consider sins which are religious pride, selfishness, humanism.

This is not a joking, story telling time of sharing a few anecdotes about Christianity, this is a time where they are literally being told that God has come to remove from them all that they have formerly believed about themselves, because they cannot save themselves. If God is going to save them, He will do so without their help. He refuses to admit into heaven the Christian or the heathen that is on a religious self-saving career.
It must be understood that the American is no different. There are multitudes of ways to enlist in self-saving religious activities; every one of these ways is false, it’s a lie and the followers of these religious activities are dead even while they live.
There is no fundamental difference between the Filipino, the African, Japanese, Thai, American, European sinner.

·         The question is then asked “But this doesn’t sound like good news, it sounds like horrible news, as bad as it gets. Youre telling them they are all under wrath and that they are doomed”?

The answer is Yes,
The sinful heart of man is a chameleon, it will form many shapes and colors to blend itself into what will benefit the carnal nature but still stay alienated from God. Israel was happy to serve Baal and God both. God forthwith cast them out. 
This same judgment will occur to any congregation that combines the worship of false gods, self-saving religious hearts and religious activities that are formed to earn a good standing in their own estimation of God’s good graces. The sinful heart of man is predisposed to continually look for ways to earn from God what will only be given by free unmerited grace.

·         The Sinner must know that God refuses all human effort in outward actions by good works or morality so that the sinner thinks he has a part to play in being reconciled to God.

·         The Evangelist must depend upon the Spirit of God to bring conviction of sin, righteousness and judgment. He must depend upon the Spirit to regenerate the spirit of man and create a new creation in Christ.

·         The Evangelist must put his full dependence upon the grace and mercy of God to be poured out upon the people to whom he was sent.

·         Insofar as you find Churches that are full of followers who serve God based on a works-earn-salvation system, you can rest assured they do not have the gospel preached to them. They are listening to lies.

The confident expectation of the gospel.
God has called an Elect people to himself, he has chosen them in Christ Eph 1:4 before the foundation of the World. God determined to save a numberless multitude of people by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ his own Son. Satisfaction has been made to God in order that the Law of God would be honored, God vindicated himself in demanding such a high and holy standard for men; finally in due time
God’s righteousness to forgive sinners and birth them into God’s own kingdom could be proclaimed through-out the whole world.
TEXTS THAT INITIATE FAITH.

A) 1Co 1:21  For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.

1Co 1:22  For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom,

1Co 1:23  but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,

1Co 1:24  but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

1Co 1:25  For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

  

B) 1Co 1:26  For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.

1Co 1:27  But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;

1Co 1:28  God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are,

1Co 1:29  so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

1Co 1:30  He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

1Co 1:31  Therefore, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord."

Important points   What the World despises, God chose. 

God chose 4 different times to express to the Christian their weakness is the way in which God will obtain glory.

1. Their foolishness-God shames the wise for his glory
2. Their weakness-God shames the strong for his glory
3. Their lowliness and despised condition-God brings down the proud for his glory.
4. Their nothingness-God will bring to nothing what is supposedly something in our eyes to his glory. God is the source of our Life in Christ.

·         Because of this Atoning work of Christ, the Evangelist can look forward to God answering him in validating the gospel message by regenerating the human heart and turning men towards God in faith and repentance.

·         Jesus Christ died and was raised again to purchase a people for himself, God has sent us with the gospel message to harvest like wheat the many peoples whom God has determined to save.

Eph 1:3  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,

Eph 1:4  even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love

Eph 1:5  he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,

Eph 1:6  to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

Eph 1:7  In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,

God chose a people for Himself “IN Christ” before the foundation of the world….God has a people that will hear the Evangelist.
God has chosen what He will make of this people, a Holy People, a blameless people.

God has predestined this same people to be adopted through Christ….according to the purpose of His Will.
This Sovereign declaration of God is the foundation upon which effective evangelism is performed.
Salvation declared in Election, promised in Gods faithfulness, secured by Gods indwelling Spirit creates the operative faith for the evangelist to faithfully proclaim the message, entreat his hearers, lay down his life in love to God and men without fear of failure.
Evangelism is a Theological construct, not an institutional construct. Evangelism is done where ever the message of the gospel is proclaimed, the street, home, diner, church or special meeting. But Evangelism is seen in scripture as a proclamation of the gospel of Christ and not consisting of special songs, meetings, miracle prayers and an altar call of financial giving.
Therefore the gospel message will accomplish what God has designed it to do, it will save those who come to God by it. The American sinner is just the same. God has determined to save many from this people and culture that we live in and we must be diligent to proclaim that same gospel, that same testimony of God that mans heart is wicked and must be removed by God and he must receive a new heart and a new spirit.
Paul calls the preaching of the gospel the preaching of the Cross. Many men claim to be preaching the cross of Christ, but they do not reveal the purpose of the cross is bound together with preaching about the sinful condition of men. Their treatment of the subject of sin within men and the holiness of God is so poor a great disconnection is made between Christ crucified and sinful mans condition that required Christ be crucified upon that cross.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. Isa chapt 53

Isa 53:2  For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.

Isa 53:3  He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

This is sinful mans attitude towards the Son of God. He was despised by sinful men because they couldn’t recognize God at all. His death was due to mans inability to distinguish God, to believe God and to accept God’s way of living.

Isa 53:4  Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

Isa 53:5  But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.

Isa 53:6  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

God revealed Himself through His Son. But more than send His Son, God sent His Son to a cross to reconcile Him to sinful men; Jesus Christ bore our punishment, He was made a sin sacrifice for us. God crushed His own Son in order to bring us peace.

Isa 53:7  He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

Isa 53:8  By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?

Isa 53:9  And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Jesus Christ was put to death. Not by the artifice of skillful tormentors, not by the false claims of Jewish leaders, but by the determinate plan of God. It is God’s plan to redeem men, it was men’s plan to kill the redeemer. Mans greatest sin of murdering the Son of God was used by God to put to death the power of sin and justify God to acquit the guilty who were under the penalty of sin.

 Isa 53:10  Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

Isa 53:11  Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.

Isa 53:12  Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

Gods will was the crushing of His own Son, putting Him to grief, yet out of that intense grief Jesus Christ saw the spoil, He was joyful to obtain the salvation of transgressors by being numbered with the transgressors. His joy is the redeemed sinner, His joy was the reconciliation of man with God. His enemies will now become his devoted followers, his crucifiers will become like himself, dying to self and living unto God for the sake of others. 

So How do I preach to the other Nations?

1.      By proclamation of the truth about themselves, by proclaiming the truth about Gods holiness and his absolute refusal to admit sinful men into relationship with Himself without first applying the blood of His Son to their sins and reconciling them to himself.

2.      By proclaiming that God justifies a man through faith in Jesus Christ.

3.      By proclaiming that God gifts sinful men with righteousness, pure holy perfect righteousness that is Christ’s righteousness.

4.      By proclaiming that Jesus Christ has purchased with his own blood everything that is necessary to secure a mans relationship with God.

5.      By proclaiming that God births a man into His kingdom and thereby slays the enmity within man and fills that same man with the Holy Spirit of God so that he is now able to cry out to God Abba-Father.

THE MOTIVE OF GOD

1. Is the revelation of Jesus Christ as the final goal and great reward of those whom he saves. Eze 44:28  And it shall be unto them for an inheritance: I am their inheritance: and ye shall give them no possession in Israel: I am their possession.

2. The revelation that God shows His glory in saving those who cannot save themselves because of the power of sin has mastered their will and holds them in bondage to darkness. In love Eph 1:5  he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ,

3. The revelation that holiness unto God is for fellowship and unbroken abiding love and joy, experienced daily in the believers life. Heb 10:14  For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

Heb 10:15  And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,

Heb 10:16  "This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,"

Heb 10:17  then he adds, "I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more."

4. The revelation that God had determined to live with men forever in everlasting love. 

Rev 21:2  And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

Rev 21:3  And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.

Rev 21:4  He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."

The Evangelist proclaims the necessity of New Birth, the call to repentance, the gift of righteousness to those who believe. Those who believe by the working of Gods mighty power will obtain all that God has prepared for them in heaven. 

Book Review: CHRISTLESS CHRISTIANITY by Michael Horton

Christless Christianity

Author Michael Horton PhD.
Publisher Baker Books 270 pgs

I really enjoy the writings of Michael Horton. I'm in the middle or reading his Christian Faith single volume systematic theology. I find it full of great insights and solid theology. I found this book Christless Christianity to be enjoyable and maddening at the same time. I agree with much of what Dr. Horton says and at other times I am wondering if he was in a hurry or needed to just push through the topic, I don't know, but in some cases it read like a garbled message. What I mean by that is when Dr. Horton was finished with a tremendous explanation for the 'therapeutic deism' that he finds in evangelical circles, I cant tell if its a problem with the Church or maybe the lost, or maybe its just a watchmen giving alert to UN-seen but oncoming enemies? This and several other instances in Chapters Your own personal Jesus and Delivering Christ left me wondering why no balance. I didn't understand why Michael didn't pull back with those broad-brush statements to exclude teachers preaching error because they were in error and those who preached error because they were markedly not true sheep let alone true ministers of the gospel? I kept waiting for the balancing corrective to appear that biblically deals with the individual salvation of people. Dr. Horton doesn't subscribe to corporate election where the believers are elect simply because the Church is elect and thereby share the same title. No, according to Dr. Horton individuals are elected and called and regenerated, then converted and justified....as the Ordo Salutus states. Why then tear down the individuals relationship to God through Christ as if it doesn't appear in scripture or as if its a manufacture of errant doctrine? Its one thing to 'make a Jesus of my own' and another to imply that individual Christians should not relate to God on an individual level. I don't get it. Maybe I missed what Dr. Horton was saying and Ill be happy to hear a corrective if my conclusion is wrong.

I Thought Dr. Horton's teaching about the Legalism-lite errors of Joel Osteen to be spot on. I think that his evaluation of Joel's books and preaching to be very close to my own. I especially liked his sniffing out the Gnosticism that appears from time to time in evangelical circles. I appreciated that confirmation of my own 'sniffer' that has detected Gnostic influence under the well-meaning messages of teachers that I've listened to over the years.

In his chapter Turning good news into good advice, Dr. Horton very eloquently laid out how the gospel is back-staged for legalism lite to take center stage and turn the whole meeting into a self-improvement lesson.
Jesus becomes a therapist instead of redeemer, a coach instead of Lord, an adviser instead of the Word of life. I wanted to shout Amen Amen to such good insights about the travesty of taking  Jesus and demoting him before the eyes of the people and promoting human effort to effect transformation. What a shame and what a disgrace, but its out there and Dr. Horton as a faithful watchman see's it clearly and has sounded a clear alarm.

Overall the book is a great eye-opener to the current 'spiritual attacks' that the Church is facing. Dr. Horton is not squeemish about confronting the dangers facing pastors and congregation that are 'turning off their spiritual radar' and compromising with pragmatism in its various 'seeker sensitive' forms.
My Christian readers, you cannot read this book without watching out for Dr. Horton's overstating his case, or maybe another way of looking at it would be his un-willingness to sort through the 'Katrina' of Gnostic and moralism errors and guide the sheep while gospeling the lost. He seems to make no differentiation, or at least I wish he made some kind of caveat instead of folding in the lost and saved into the same lump. The leaven if I can state it that way is leaving the reader to broad-brush in the same manner. I think Dr. Horton can do better. I got the feeling along the way that Dr. Horton 'makes the whole world Presbyterian by instituting Presbyterian policies'. But the Body of Christ is not Presbyterian, his narrowness shows up as a kind of bias feeling toward those outside of his camp.

I recommend the book, and I believe it will offer the discerning reader a great deal of information on how to spot the 'counter-biblical' influences upon the message and the ministers of Christ.
Though I disagree strongly with some of Dr. Horton's statements and I dislike even more what I believe will cause addition im-balance to un-learned readers; I take great pleasure in reading and evaluating book such as this one. I am greatly blessed and edified by its existence and even more-so that God see's fit to give me understanding of spiritual truth.

D 3
P 3

Summa Contra Saeculum Mundum

I agree with RC Sproul when he said that we don't need another Summa Theologica (contra gentiles), we need a work against the secularism that has stepped in to fill the void left by the Christians. Now its unfortunate that I have to say that but it appears that is exactly the case.

Due to Dispensationism or Rapture teaching or wrong teachings on the Christians role in his community or maybe misguided attempts at sanctifying government through electing born-again leaders, Im not sure, but this and alot more from earlier decades has left a void in the political landscape. Now, the Christian has little voice in public matters and when we do speak up its handled like its an 'inconvenient truth' that religious people can speak on matters that affect them too.
The Spirit behind it all is what I call "Secularism" which is an ideology that proposes solutions to the needs of people by vacuuming out anything that requires faith, belief in God, dependence upon Divine providence or trust in scriptural decrees. To fill the void it injects humanism, naturalism, the current trendy philosophy of the day admixed with a contempt for anyone that would question the concoction. So, I know that the human heart that is devoid of the Spirit can only offer these things and I know that when I read of the leading scientists claiming this or the Dr. So-and-so prescribing that, I don't need to get myself uptight because it has happened.

I think that maybe you're alot like me, its not that you don't expect the ungodly to offer solutions that openly reject biblical truth; its the fact that when all is said and done the ramifications of their solutions will damage more people and they will make the problem worse if not fatal in all cases. Its only when God providentially intervenes to steer the hearts of these leaders toward some kind of goodness that any real beneficial effect is obtained.

To me, its all too clear that when the Christians of decades past determined to abandon the political arena, the university teaching podium the scientist post, the editor at the newspaper and more that the Christian worldview was abandoned with it. The influence of Christian morals, Christian spiritual thinking, Christian truths, Christian ethics, Christian attitude were all flushed down the proverbial toilet. I remember the call to revival, the prayers and the necessity for long hours interceding for America, long prayers for leaders, pastors and congregants to be helped by God with the election of 'hero's of the faith that would lead America out of its dismal economic, criminal, greedy self into a welcoming open-armed Church just waiting to pray sinners-prayers with them. Well, as of now, that didn't get answered like we thought.

In different countries or different governments it may not be possible for the common citizen to affect the outcome of their community by means of political activism, or entering a career that has no hope of speaking because that voice has been silenced by laws. But this government and this country is not like that yet, this country is not without opportunity or hope that many of our young people can enter fields that were abandoned by Christians of the past because they were considered "secular" and therefore were untouchable by the Christian lest he become corrupt and unclean by it.

This is just one little way that the Christian can affect positively the course of this country. This positive apologetic, one that lives, breathes and can be touched by the hands of others aught to be considered by some of you. The negative apologetic which I have been investing in now for years has its good and valuable characteristics which I believe God can and will use to edify Christians and offer the world a reason for the faith we cling to....even unto death. But negative apologetic is defensive and it cannot really be made positive and offensive (a first-strike) without the declaration and promotion of gospel truth. Without the aid of those in fields of service that are not enclosed in seminaries or chapel walls the Christian cannot positively offer the gospel and cannot offer a "positive apologetic" that contains the plans for a future and a hope simultaneously for the Church and for the nation. I say those outside the wall of the Chapel, because its in the court room, the board room, the kitchen, the senate floor, the oval office that needs to hear the "Christian hope" that God does have plans for sinful nations that don't demand fire and brimstone. Lets recognize that kind of judgment will be the default for rejecting truth and light, but lets not go down without a fight of faith, a passionate plea from within the university halls and within the governmental offices that there another way to approach the problems we face....and it excludes the secularism that demands God be omitted. Its a fight to speak and declare God has rational thinking without rationalism, he has evidence without demanding empiricism, he has
philosophy without giving place to debunked myths.

The scripture has salt in it to preserve the sinful nations that are sprinkled with it. We are salt, we are light, let us preserve, let us shine, let us declare that God is not the irrational crutch of unenlightened citizens, He is the one who can and will offer a way of escape from the bondage's and corruptions that we as a nation have made for ourselves. We have forged our own chains and we have made our plow-shears into prison bars. We didn't realize it was God that was going to throw us into that prison and connect us to those chains so that we might recognize our pride and arrogance. The Church is relevant and so relevant that it cannot be overstated. Without the Christian politician, businessman, CEO, professor, teacher, principle, sheriff I believe it will be a long time coming before any lasting changes are made. I hope that God raises up his people to take America toward freedom and loose us from oppression in all its various forms. My prayer is that God will not just raise up another Jonathan Edwards, but 10.000 with the same zeal for God where they influence their generation outside the walls of the seminary or the chapel.

May God make it so.

Sundry thoughts on Evolution and science

Over the last few months I have been doing a lot of reading in the apologetic s area. My Christian faith is grounded in the word of God and because of that, I am free to investigate many areas that are attacked by non-Christian thinkers. One of those hot-beds has been the Genesis account. Genesis chapters 1-11 seem to be the front lines in terms of where the enemy of our faith seeks to undermine the validity of scripture testimony and scripture itself indirectly.

After reading Total Truth by Nancy Pearcy, Creation is six days by James B. Jordan and now reading
Creation and change by Douglas F. Kelly. Its easy to see that our evolutionist adversaries on both sides of the fence (saved and unsaved) must constantly reach into the bank-book of faith to hold to their beliefs.

I've had many a conversation over the internet with various atheist and Christian proponents of evolution. Each of these conversations usually runs a-foul when their boats cannot navigate the channels of their own under-lying philosophies. Meaning that these proponents usually don't see that their own scientific claims are not resting upon the empirical evidence they claim supports their theories. Instead it rests much more steadily upon the Philosophical naturalism that drives their claims. When the Christians (self professed) try to validate evolution and offer exegesis from Genesis 1 that the earth itself is the creating agent for plants and animals, I realize that I am not dealing with people who are proponents of truth, but instead are proponents of a deception that fits Deism into their evolutionary assertions. It appears they are so invested in removing the creative acts of God within the time-frame of 6 days that any theory, any assertion or any interpretation of scripture that mangles YEC in favor of Old Earth belief is to be preferred.

As I read Douglas Kelly's book, I find so much to laugh at, many of the scientific assertions are just so much extrapolation and guess work, you must dig deep into the check book of faith to write out large leaps of blind faith to hold such views. But, the adversaries would never word it as I do. These crafty unbelievers pile loads of science jargon on top of everything they assert so that in the end one must wade through many chapters and paragraphs of tedium to get to the conclusions that read like a bet at the horse races.

Look at this for a laugh. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15006647
Now the science community wants to back out of that asteroid claim, well, make sure to back out of the myriads of text books, colleges and high schools too. Should I ask for an apology for the travesty of poor and ignoramus speculation under the guise of 'science'? No, I wont bother asking.

Please allow me a caveat. I love science and Ive been an armchair science buff every since I was 6. I do not quarrel with men who investigate, observe and experiment in order to understand the creation of God and all of God's wonders in nature. What I do quarrel with is those who pretend to offer science as a way to get rid of God. Namely those Darwinists and God-hating atheists that believe man has the answers for the ills of the world. More than that, those of us Christians who offer Christ and the Scriptures as the answer are spit upon intellectually and pushed back into the closet's of "feeling", "preference", "myth", "values", "ethics" etc etc These Darwinists and atheists pretend to offer "facts" when in fact they offer the blind faith of their own presumptions, then they use science as their validation.

Next time you hear from some evolutionist or Darwinist on how the earth and matter are eternal and that all life just "began" from this eternal matter, ask them to stop plagerizing Plato. Plato offered this philosophy approx 2300 years ago, what they are giving you is regurgitated Platonic philosophy modernized with 21st century terminologies.. The devil is just reusing the old ploy he used in times past to remove God from his creation. The difference of course is Plato was more honest about it, these pretenders to fact wont even concede their eternal matter theory is not even their own.

Please comment if you like.