Fear of God

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Should we fear God? Often we think of Him as a benign being, incapable of doing anything at all. Most of the time we think of God as some kind of concept and not consequential. In Bible School we were taught that we weren’t to fear God in the sense of dread type fear, but more like a fatherly figure.

It is the thought that God will not harm us that I am convinced has caused the most damage to both the church, and as an extension society itself. We now believe that we can do what ever we like and God will not touch us. Is this true? Is that evidenced by what we see around us? War, Crime, Disease, Injustice, Hurricanes, Fire.

Proverbs 1:7 “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge…” What does it mean to fear the LORD? Why is fear of God the beginning of knowledge?

Jesus says in Matthew 10:28″And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” So Jesus is telling His disciples not to be afraid of men who are able to kill them, and want to kill them. Those men are only capable of killing the body, but can’t harm the soul. God on the other hand is able to destroy both the body and the soul in hell.

Jesus is instructing us to not fear even a murderous person seeking to take our lives. No instead God is much more to be feared, He, God, can destroy us for all eternity. God can and does take lives, He does destroy countries and cities. The bible is full of his deeds laid bare for us to understand and to learn from. There are six things that the Lord hates and seven that are an abomination Proverbs 6:16-19: 1. A proud look, 2. A lying tongue, 3. Hands that shed innocent blood, 4. a heart that devises evil plans, 5. Feet that are swift in running to evil, 6. A false witness who speaks lies, 7. And one who sows discord among brethren.

Hate is a strong word. Many times in the bible God is said to hate one thing or the other. This is where knowledge comes in. If we know what God hates, we don’t do those things. If we know what God likes us to do, we do those things.

We have allowed studious men and women to make serving God seem difficult to understand and do. To walk with God, to serve God is not difficult. He has given us a written record of what He expects of us.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge. He will destroy those who do not fear him!

The book of Proverbs tells us that if we follow wisdom, God will protect us, proverbs tells us that if we follow knowledge we will have peace, proverbs tells us that if we follow knowledge God will provide for us.

All the opposite is true for those who do not follow knowledge. They are called simple ones, scoffers, foolish. These will be destroyed, both in this life and in eternity.

Proverbs tells us: Wisdom is the principal thing: Therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding. Exalt her(wisdom), and she will promote you; She will bring you honor, when you embrace her.

So yes, to fear God means to have dread for Him. It is a dangerous thing to make light of Him or His commandments. He could destroy fools and scoffers in this life and he will destroy fools and scoffers in life after death.

Zacharias Faithful Servant, with Doubts

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Luke 1:5 introduces Zacharias, an aging priest. He has served God as a priest all of his adult life. The passage goes on to explain that he and his wife are blameless before God. In other words they were both faithful servants of God, living life in obedience to God, keeping His law faithfully. We learn from the passage that Zacharias and his wife had never had children, and clearly they had passed the years in which they could have children. They were both old! We also learn in the passage that they had prayed for their whole life to be blessed with a child, but that had never happened, and now was not possible. Still Zacharias served God in the Temple. I can imagine that just like us Zacharias was going through the hum-drum daily grind of life, doing the daily routines, almost subconsciously, automatically going through the days. He was not ready for what God was going to bring loudly into his life.

It would seem that the priests took turns to perform the various temple rituals. It was now Zacharias’ turn to burn incense before God in the Temple. From the passage we can see that typically the priest would go into the temple burn the incense at the altar of incense, then come out to deliver a message to the attendees of the temple service. He would not dwell in he temple, that part of the ritual is short, only long enough to set up and get the incense burning.

Zacharias’ life would now be turned upside-down! In the process of doing his duties an angel of God suddenly stands to the right hand side of the altar of incense. Finding himself in fear, the angel announces to Zacharias that his prayers for a child would be answered. Not only would Zacharias be blessed with a son, but he will be a great servant of God. Wow, his lifelong prayer is going to be answered! but his reaction was not so. I and my wife are too old he said to the angel.

This is where I find myself often, and I don’t think I’m alone. I know what God says He will do. I know what God expects of me. But I get in the daily grind. The hum-drum of life, and I think, God will not do those things that He says He’ll do. I doubt! Our lives as believers, followers of Christ are not that different from the life of Zacharias. We know what we are supposed to do as believers, we do our best to walk in integrity, in the will of God, but doubt creeps in, that is at least how it goes in my life, in my walk with God. Pay attention, God will bring things, circumstances, people into our lives to bring us back on track. For Zacharias it was a bit drastic. He was made to not be able to speak until the baby was born. It was a statement not only to Zacharias that God had done a thing in his life, but this sudden inability to speak was meant to alert the temple goers that day that God was about to do something. After all to fulfill his duties that day Zacharias needed to deliver a speech to those temple goers. The passage tells us that he tried to speak to the people, I suppose if you think about it, once again doubting what the angel had told him. He tried to speak! The passage tells us that all the people in attendance knew that God had communicated with Zacharias through a vision. God had communicated that something was about to happen through a man that could not speak.

God’s will is not dependent on us, His believers, His followers. Even though Zacharias doubted what the angel had said to him, God did that miracle, Zacharais and his wife would have a son. Thank God that he is not dependent on us, or on our perfect execution of His will. If God’s will depended on our carrying it out, it would fail. We would fail. God cannot fail! His will is going to happen, and there is no way to stop it. God does His work in spite of us, and still involves us in that work. Oh how great He is, how gracious He is. To Him be all gory, honor, and power!

Pay attention to God’s working in life. He is active in our lives, I think we need to make an effort to be aware of His working in us. Look for it. Trust Him, as He guides us. When doubt creeps in look for his working to strengthen us.

Signs of the Times

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I saw something advertised on TV the other day that shocked me profoundly! I suppose it shows that I am disconnected from the times.

There was a commercial, the subject matter of the commercial was to be sure to get your annual STD checkup.

Annual STD checkup! The thought that a commercial could be targeting a set of people needing to be checked annually for STDs is quite amazing to me, and is indicative of where society has come. As we remove God more and more from our society, His guidelines for living are dismissed more and more as old fashioned, and outdated.

God calls sex outside of marriage sin. God’s plan for us sexually is for one man to marry one woman, and for that marriage to be honored until death. In fact the bible teaches that to have sexual relations makes the couple one flesh. Through sex a couple is bonded. God regards sex outside of these parameters as sin.

Sin has consequences! Eternal consequences and consequences that are evident in our daily lives. The consequences that come from sexual sin, show up in the form of STDs. The eternal consequences are much more severe! To be on the wrong side of God when He judges will lead to eternal separation from Him. He will send all people who have not followed His way to the place we call hell.

There are many who have lived a life of great sexual sin. Having had many sexual partners. Some of you have contracted some STD, or multiple STDs. You now also stand on the wrong side of God, as a sinner, an enemy even. An Enemy that He will judge guilty.

Hope

There is always hope. Jesus Christ, God’s own son died a terrible death. He was sacrificed for all of us. He was sacrificed for all our sins. We have to accept that Jesus died in our place, taking all the sin we have committed against God, and paying for that sin for us, in our place. Believe that that sacrifice is sufficient, that Jesus’ death is sufficient to erase that sin. God will accept the death of Jesus as sufficient payment for the sins we have done. Then after that forgiveness of the great debt of sin, God will accept us as His own children. That is called Grace!

After accepting Jesus’ payment of our debts, abstain from sexual immorality. Thank God everyday for His great grace toward us.

Three Lessons From The Temptation of Jesus

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Jesus had just been introduced by John the Baptizer as the Christ, God on earth, and the savior of mankind. The one that John had been telling everyone was to come. People had been flocking to John to hear his message, that all must repent because the kingdom of God was near at hand. John was considered a profit of God, or to put it another way, a messenger of God.

After John had declared Jesus to be the coming Christ, the book of Mathew states in chapter 4 verse 1: Then Jesus was let by the Spirit (the Holy Spirit) into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. The temptation of Christ was then intentional, for our benefit. This temptation is not merely written of so that we can not only see the reactions that Jesus had to these temptations, but where our minds should be when we experience the same temptations.

We are told that Jesus after fasting for 40 days and nights experienced these temptations. We can assume then that He was in a state of great need, and great weakness, desperate even.

Our Immediate Need

Our physical needs are the needs that we are most aware of. The pain of hunger is true and present. When we have not eaten for a while, we know without doubt that we have a need. In fact that need becomes actual physical pain. A gnawing pain, a constant reminder of our immediate need. This need becomes desperate, and people will be driven to do all sorts of things to satisfy this need. Finally this need if not satisfied will lead to death, it’s quite final.

Jesus says that this need is real, but there is another real need that we face, but more important than the need for food. He said people will not, future, live only by filling his belly. Jesus looks beyond the immediate, beyond the importance of this life, to the eternal life. What good is it to fill your belly for the moment without the word of God? Food will fill the momentary need, but only God can fill the eternal need.

The lesson is that we need to look to God in order to truly live.

Faith in God

We are continually testing. Testing our relationships. Testing ourselves. Testing God. We all do it. Oh Lord if you get me out of this situation, I’ll do thus and such. There are those who test God by handling of poisonous snakes. Some test God by doing quests. Some of us test God by comparing ourselves with others. At times we say to God, if you’re real why is this happening?

The devil quoted scripture to Jesus, saying didn’t God say that He would always protect you? If God said He would protect you, jump off this high point and let’s watch Him do what He said He’d do.

Jesus’ response, quoting scripture, it is written, you shall not tempt the Lord your God.

Don’t test God. Believe what He has said. This very emphatic statement is really strong. We are not to try to force God to prove himself to us. We are the created, we need to simply believe what He says to be true.

The lesson: we need to have faith in God to truly live.

Worship God

The devil is looking to Jesus to worship him. He is trying to buy the worship of the Christ. Is this not what he does to us? Worship the devil and you will be rich, he will give you the world! We have all heard the phrase “to sell ones soul to the devil.” That is exactly what he is always doing, bribing us to forget God and to worship him instead.

Jesus makes two statements in one here. He said “you shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.” The use of the two words worship, and serve are no mistake. You see, to worship is to serve. In other words the work you do is your worship. If your work is to achieve riches, then the worship is of the riches. If your work is to please God, then it is worship of God.

The lesson: Worship God by what you do.

There’s Good and Evil, So What?

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What difference does it make to me if there is good and evil?

Well, we all stand on one side or the other. There are some who have earned the reputation of being evil, Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson… Society as a general rule regard these men as evil, because of what they have done. (their works)

Humanism has made the argument that “all people are basically good.” This argument has prevailed for the most part and is accepted as true. But is it true?

Jesus and the Law

A question was put to Jesus one day. “What is the greatest, or more important law?” It’s funny, this is the question that we all want answered. What is the least that I need to do to be considered good before God?

Jesus’ answer as usual was not as easy as we would like, in fact His answer was quite impossible because it encompassed the entirety of the law. The greatest law he said is to love the Lord your God with all your heart mind and soul, and the second is just like it, equal to it, to love your neighbor as yourself.

Well that put the kibosh on being good easy!

The first part of His answer is impossible. We can’t love God with all our hearts minds and souls because that is the way we love ourselves. We take the position of love and adoration in our own minds, the position of love and adoration that God wants, that He deserves. We are our own number one, and God wants to be, needs to be, our number one.

The second part of His answer, simply makes evident our position on the first part of the answer. It is impossible to love God with your everything if you don’t love all that He created as well. We can’t love God and hate our cousin Joe because he is an idiot. That would be a contradiction, a violation of the Law according to the teachings of Jesus. We can’t love God and ignore the suffering of children in need of food and clothing. We can’t love God and ignore the murder of babies. We can’t love God and ignore injustice in whatever form it takes.

The Human Evil

Despite the teachings of humanism, we as people are by default evil. We are born sinners, evil, and we look for excuses, and ways to dismiss what we know, that we are bad, rotten to the core. Late at night when all is quiet we know deep inside our failures, our wrongs, our evil actions. You need no convincing of that. The next morning, though we build a facade of righteousness, of all is well. We convince ourselves that we are good, and we go about our lives, putting on the lies.

All the noise and distractions of our modern society aid us in forgetting that we are inside, evil, bad, lost. So at times when we are forced to slow down all these realities can be harsh, we can be laid bare to ourselves, and we don’t like what we see. That is why there is so much despair in these days, we have been made to be more still than we are used to. We have been made to slow down. We have time to think.

There is hope! But hope is not in ourselves, it is in God. Seek Him. We are not whole without Him. We are in fact evil without Him. We all know this to be true!

The Battle of Good and Evil, for the Souls of Men

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Is there good and evil? Is there right and wrong? For years academia and the world of science has been telling us that there is no such thing as good and evil, no such thing as wright or wrong. They have been telling us that right and wrong is simply religious dogma designed to control us.

Now all of a sudden academia, and science are all a buzz talking of social justice, and the evils perpetrated on certain groups in our society. I find this really interesting since they have been trying for so long to convince us that there is no good or evil, no right or wrong. You see without right or wrong, there is no justice! Without good or evil, there is no Justice!

We all know deep within our being that there is right and wrong. We feel it whenever we do something good, that welling up of good unexplainable feeling in our chest. When we do wrong, just the opposite feeling occurs. Why is that? Gods word says that He has written His Law on our hearts. In other words, He has given us a conscience. An inner guide.

When we try to ignore this inner guide bad things begin to happen. For one thing there is a nagging thought always that we are not doing good, but in fact we are doing evil. You see, there is no middle ground. The bible teaches that if we do not do good, we in fact do evil.

This is why so many of our young people today are depressed and suicidal. They have been lied to, bamboozled! They have been taught to violate their own conscience. That conscience is always there to remind us of right and wrong. To remind us that we didn’t do good. This reminder comes especially strongly when we are quiet, when all the noise of the day has dissipated, and we lay down to sleep. There is no peace, the battle rages.

So what is this battle of good and evil?

God is battling for our souls, wanting us to do life His way. Satan is battling to keep us away from God and His way. Good vs. Evil.

Doing life God’s way leads to peace, joy, unity. These things come because when we follow God’s way because there are basically two laws that govern our being. 1. Love God above all. and 2. Love everyone else like you love yourself.

Evil says, you are different to me, so I will hate you. Evil starts by hating God, then hating others. We blame God for our troubles, then we blame others and lash out looking for revenge, but calling it justice.

God created all men equally. We are not different in His mind, no matter color, race, status, or location.

Do you want peace?

Peace begins by listening to the conscience, that law that God has put in our hearts. Most of us know what is right and wrong.

Real peace comes when we realize that God has already served justice on His own son, on our behalf. You see Jesus died a terrible death, in our place, so that our wrongs can be righted in God’s eyes.

God Creates All Things

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God is very specific about the time frame in which all things were created. He specifies the order in which things were made and the the time in which things were made. He is also specific of the fact that He created all things.

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

The Time Line By Day of Creation

  1. Day one God Created Time, Earth and Space, Light and Darkness, Night and Day.
  2. Day two God created the atmosphere of Earth
  3. Day Three God separated the seas from the dry land, He created the grass, herbs, and fruit trees.
  4. Day four God Created the Sun, Moon and Stars. He made them to mark time and seasons.
  5. Day five God created all the sea creatures, mammals, reptilians and fish, and all the birds.
  6. Day six God created all the land based animals, animals of all classes. And He created man like Himself. God put mankind over all the other created things, to rule over them and dominate them.
  7. Day Seven God rested from all that He did. He set the seventh day as special because He rested.

We learn from God’s account of the beginning of all things that He is able to do whatever He wants. He is all powerful, there is no end to his power.

Everything exists because God wants it to exist, His will is final and irrefutable.

Everything that God Created is Good, was perfect and without flaw.

God Created mankind with special attention, with special purpose, and completely different from all the rest of creation.

God The Creator

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God introduces Himself in the first chapters of the book of Genesis as the creator of all things. This includes all that we see and experience around us, including the great expanse of space and all that is in it.

This has several implications.

The first is that before the beginning of the creation that we observe around us, both near and far, only God existed! There was no time, no earth, no life, no space, no stars, not even light or darkness. Just God and God alone.

Everything that exists was made, created by God. So without God there is no life, no matter, no light and no darkness, not even time.

Everything created is His to do with as He wants. He can keep creation as it is with no changes or He can decide to change things up. For example a big subject today is “global warming.” God if He wishes can heat things up, or cool them off, and there is nothing that can be done about it. If God decides to change the temperature of the climate, or anything else for that matter, the result will be God’s desired result. That means that we, mankind, can’t change the workings of creation or destroy it either.

Most of the things created by God were spoken into existence. This is important because there is one part of creation that is different to all the rest. When it comes to mankind, God teaches that He formed him from the dust of the earth and breathed life into him. God made man differently, He made man much more intimately, more personally. We are created differently in order to interact with God, to relate to God. All the rest of creation is created for mankind, while mankind is created for God. This is truly what sets man apart from all the “animal kingdom.” Not thumbs, not upright mobility. We, mankind, are created differently, with a different purpose, that is why we are different.

Because all things are created by God there is design and purpose in all things and beings. There are no accidents, every part of creation is planned and purposed. Things did not accidentally become the way they are, life did not evolve from one lower form to another. God created all things as they are.

God has no need for anything provided by our universe, our world. He exists completely independent of it and from it. The universe and all in it was created by God for God, and He has no need of it at all.

Because everything is created by God, He can and does determine what happens to everything in this created world. Because everything is His design, He has the right to determine how all things should function, how all things should act and react. God has the right to interfere in the daily functioning of all things. He also has the right to end this world when He desires. There is no fairness or unfairness where God’s dealings with His creation is concerned. How can anything that is made, complain to, or, about it’s maker that one thing is fair or unfair? God determines what is right, wrong, fair, or unfair.

God is Totally Unfair!

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I have heard many time from many people about the unfairness of God. Usually they are angry with God because something has happened to upset their normal daily lives. Perhaps someone close has died, or perhaps a job has been lost. As a result the question is, why is God doing this to me?

I have to agree. God is completely unfair in his dealing with mankind!

Purpose

I think we can all agree that there is purpose for everything, and everyone. For Example, a refrigerator. We purchase a refrigerator to keep our food fresh for longer and our drinks cold for more enjoyment. That is the purpose of the refrigerator.

We purchase a refrigerator and load it up with food stuff and drink. We expect that the food and drink will be kept cold or frozen while inside the box.

As long as the stuff stays cold or frozen inside the refrigerator it is fulfilling it’s purpose, and is deemed useful.

What about some day in the future when we open the door of that refrigerator, and we are met with a mildly unpleasant odor, reaching into the refrigerator we find it warm instead of cold. Not happy we open the Freezer part of the refrigerator to find it’s contents thawed and spoiling.

That refrigerator is no longer fulfilling it’s purpose! It is now worthless, and we need a new one.

Our Purpose

God also created us for a purpose. He created us to devote ourselves to Him, to worship Him and to look to Him for all our needs.

Rom 1:21 states that man though knowing God have decided not to acknowledge Him as God.

So we when we are not living acknowledging that all things come from God and not giving thanks to Him for all things, we have failed in our created purpose.

Fairness

So, if we know what fairness is, and when something in our lives does not fulfill it’s purpose, in fairness we discard that thing. If God were fair by our standards, we would all be discarded. We fail him in every aspect of our lives. This failure is called Sin. The book of Romans once again addresses this in Rom 3:23, stating that we, all of us have sinned against God. We have all failed Him.

Since we have all failed Him, by our standards we should be cast away, replaced! Being God who created the world and all in it, if God had our mindset, when Adam sinned against God, He would have destroyed it all and started again. Thus we would not be!

The Unfairness of God

So we are all failures and we deserve to be cast away!

But God being totally unfair as decided to buy us back, to make a way that we can be redeemable. That we can be useful once again, once and for all!

Rom 3:24-26 Go on to tell us that Jesus was given by God to make us acceptable again. He has sent Jesus to Justify us before God, making us useful and with purpose again.

That is the unfairness of God. He is willing to overlook all our faults, all our sins. Faith in Jesus covers up our faults before God. Gives us purpose again.

The unfairness of God justifies us without us having to give anything. We have nothing to give that could justify us.

So yes God is a totally unfair God who created us to look to him for all things. We have all failed God in all things. But He unfairly made us justified once again.

God has unfairly made us look completely sinless as far as He can see. That is unfair!

Evolution Vs. The Bible

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We are being taught today that the universe and all that is in it happened by accident, and, that from that accident all life as we know it evolved. Those who hold to evolution also claim the Bible to be a fairy tale, a superstition advanced by a select group to deceive an manipulate the general population. We are being taught that science proves that evolution has occurred and therefore there is no God.

Is this all true?

Scientific Method

In order to understand what is going on in the world or universe around us there needs to be a method to gain that knowledge. With no method we can draw any kind of conclusion based on any reason which doesn’t have to be based in fact.

Wikipedia defines the scientific method this way. “The scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge.[2] To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry is commonly based on empirical or measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning.” click here for the full article.

Let’s make a simple definition for our purposes here. Science is a study of the world around us based on observable, measure-able evidence.

Evolution

For the purpose of this discussion I am more interested in the Evolutionary history of life, because this is where the scientific community most takes aim at the christian church.

Evolutionary History is defined in  Wikipedia as: “The evolutionary history of life on Earth traces the processes by which living and fossil organisms have evolved since life appeared on the planet, until the present day.” Complete article here.

For evolution to occur many years are required, and many accidents that cause change(evolution) to take place. The latest idea out there it seems is that several billion years ago stars exploded expelling stardust across the universe in which itself contained the basic elements for life. These elements then over billions of years established life in the universe as we know it, and possibly in other places unknown to us.

There are problems with any of this from the prospective of scientific method. First of all none of this is observable. There is also no way to measure either the explosion of the star or stars that “exploded” or the time needed for life to establish itself, or the accident needed to make the environment necessary to generate, then incubate life into existence. One quick thought on heat and life, don’t we use heat to destroy living organisms (sterilization)? Arn’t starts, by their very nature, Heat? In fact much greater heat that we would use for sterilization. We must then simply accept that this great accident actually happened. We must accept that out of the heat of a furnace protazoa emerged. We must accept that inspite of what we know of the destruction that occurs in an explosion, for the purpose of evolution, life emerged. Where did the stars that exploded come from? Did they evolve? According to evolutionists we must have “faith” in the scientific establishment, simply because they are smarter than us.

Radiometric dating is relied on for the establishment of the age of the earth and everything in it when it comes to evolution. The interesting thing with these methods is the sheer number of assumptions made in the theories used for these methods. The assumptions and exceptions by far out weigh the known facts when considering radiometric dating. After all we have at best a few thousand years of verifiable, datable, objects to test. Even when testing these verifiable objects multiple tests must be run to achieve the correct outcome. Who determines the correct outcome? There are papers on top of papers written concerning the fragility of these tests, and the ease of which the accuracy of these tests can be affected. So if we know the accuracy of a test done on an object of which we have a good idea of the age can be off, how can we be sure of the accuracy of a test done on an object that is unknown in origin? One must assume at that point that the tester must assume the basic age of an object then test to get the correct results. Bad science! Un measure-able. Un verifiable.

The fact of the matter is, you have to have great FAITH in the theory of evolution. Faith is the basis of religion. And so, I put to you that evolution is as much a faith based religion as any other faith based religion out there. It just so happens that many, not all, but many scientists are of the Evolutionist faith!

Defense of Evolution

In the history of mankind, religion has been used to force compliance of peoples all over this world. Most times the motive to force compliance of peoples is power/wealth. The religion of evolution is no different. The power struggle today is very evident. The pressures on our society are very evident. We are seeing evolution being taught in our schools as fact, not theory. In fact it’s interesting that Evolution is still described in articles as “The Theory of Evolution” but presented as if it is established as absolute truth. Dangerous!

Ridicule is heaped on any who dare express any other idea. Or even challenge simply the time evolution requires. Yet evolutionist wax eloquent on the idea of tolerance. Try to offer a differing view to any of them, and observe the “tolerance.” This is the same tactic used by many religions to force the community into compliance.

Conclusion

We have allowed this religion of Evolutionism to take our society, but there will be no taking it back. It’s up to you to decide for yourself if the religion of Evolution is for you, or not.

You must engage your mind. In the end you are responsible for your beliefs. Blind faith in anyone, or anything is a crap shoot at best. Information, knowledge is there for you to discover, don’t let others define you as a person. Don’t allow yourself to be carried away in a lie.

Your beliefs define you as a person!