Monday, June 22, 2009
Face The Music
If you've never heard or read "Sinners in the hands of an angry God", then I suggest you read that first.
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2009.06.21.PreciousFaith.9
Face the Music
(was: Sinners in the hands of an angry God, but someone already got that title)
Associated Press
Posted: 06/17/2009 09:16:07 AM PDT
LOS ANGELES
After nearly being caught for stealing copper wire from a San Fernando Valley warehouse, a burglary suspect tried to evade police by hiding in a narrow storm drain under a busy freeway for 12 hours. The suspect resisted multiple applications of tear gas, a police dog, negotiators, an improvised plunger and a professional urban search & rescue firefighter. Finally, wedged in the storm drain 18 inches wide, 80 feet long and 30 feet under ground, he called his girlfriend, and she called Channel 7 news.
KABC-TV news reporter, Leo Stallworth was granted an interview over the phone with him which went like this:
Stallworth asked, "The question is, why won't you come out?"
"'Cause I hate leaving my freedom," the man said from inside the pipe.
"You're in a storm drain. Is there any freedom in there?" Stallworth asked. "At some point you're going to have to face the music."
Isn't that true? At some point, everyone's going to have to face the music. At some point, we're all going to die and face a holy and just God.
When some people hear the term, "the wrath of God", the image that immediately leaps to mind is a big all-powerful hammer of an angry God coming down to violently smoot those rebels who don't do what they ought to. But the Scriptures describe a much deeper concept of this part of who God is. The Bible describes the wrath of God as the act of his moral integrity. God's wrath is just; it's right; it's His prerogative and, if I may, his duty as a Holy and perfectly good God.
Leonardo da Vinci said it this way, "He who does not punish evil, commands it to be done."
You see, God formed the stars from nothing and told them to swirl in their galaxies until He tells them to do something else. God formed the Earth by speaking it into existence and told it to circle around the Sun along with the other planets, and they do. He created the ocean and told the waters exactly how far they could come up to shore, and it obeys. He created every animal and every plant, and they went forth and multiplied and carried out the perfect will of God. And He created man, and told him how *he* ought to behave, and man said, "No!".
That's a problem. That's why we're here. We're not here to get as much stuff as we can get and squirrel it away in the biggest house we can get our hands on and drive around in the biggest SUV that we can't afford in the first place. But I'm not against those things if you want them. We're here for one reason and one reason only. To know and do the will of God who created us, but our time to do so is precious short.
There's been a lot of talk lately about birthdays - about getting older. Pastor just turned 40. Brother Morris is about to turn 30. Miss Roy just turned something, and most of us have had a birthday in the past 365 days. So, I started thinking about why there was all this fear and trepidation about getting older. We're all getting older at the same rate. But then I thought that some may be thinking that they aren't where they thought they'd be when they turned whatever age they are.
Life may or may not turn out the way you thought it would, but what about the eternity of time after this life? Is that going to turn out the way you're hoping? Eternity's going to last a lot longer than some 100 years down here.
I want you all to know that it is my earnest prayer that the will of God is for you to find the mate He has for you. In this brief time of life, you may or may not get married though. You may or may not have 10 kids. I had 10 kids just this last week. All boys. I don't think I'll be having 10 kids - all boys, but I may or may not. You may or may not do and be a lot of things while you put time behind you in your walk through this life, but it is my hope that above all of that, you will enter in the narrow gate when all is said and done. Everything else that you see and do and experience and are and all the minutia that you're going to go through during this lifetime is nothing save the cause of Christ. Everything else is vapor. It doesn't matter when compared to the eternity that you're going to spend in one of two places.
We're going through the book of 2 Peter, so open your Bibles with me to 2 Peter 2:9.
"The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished."
Everyone has ahead of them, an appointment with God. There is going to be a day of judgment, a day or reckoning. When we think about the subject of judgment in the Bible, we must consider the judgment of sin. When Christ died for us, He took our sins in His own body on that tree, and God judged our sins in the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. End of lesson.
But...
So many millions - billions of people are living as is that day will never come. They are living as if there will be no judgment, but be assured, there is a meeting in your future. If we are truly children of God, we have a holy obligation - a holy command to tell people about this appointment that they're going to keep. But, I also need to ensure that you know as well that that day is coming.
The Bible speaks of the judgment of sin. When the Lord Jesus went to the cross, He paid our sin debt in full. God took the sin debt of the whole world and laid it on Jesus Christ. When Jesus Christ became sin for us, a holy, righteous God punished sin in the body of His own Son. He who knew no sin died, "... that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." (1 Cor 5:21).
The Bible says in Hebrews 2:9 that the Lord Jesus tasted death for every man. I understand this to mean that every filthy, ungodly sin that has ever been committed in humanity was paid for by Christ on Calvary. The wrath of a holy and just God was unleashed on the Son of God and God judged sin when Christ died for our sins on that cross... My cross.
In 1 Corinthians 11:31, the Bible speaks about the judgment of self. Let's all turn there and read what it says.
"For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged."
How do we know we're Christians? How do we know that we're saved? Are you saved because you walked down and aisle one Sunday morning and someone walked you through a few verses in the Bible and you nodded in agreement but inside there was no transformation? Are you saved because there was a time in your life that you wrote a date in the cover of your Bible to remind you that you prayed a prayer one time? Does your life bare out that day? Does your life bare out that promise from God?
Turn over a few pages to 2 Corinthians 13:5:
"Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?"
A Christian is called to examine themselves. Compare your life with Scripture to see if you are saved. A Christian is called to judge themselves when they sin and immediately confess that sin to God alone - according to Scripture. As David said, "against God and God alone have I sinned." That confession can't save you, but if you find your prayer life as one of continually confessing and apologizing to God for a sinful life that you just can't shake, you need to take some serious time to examine yourself. Examine your life. Unfortunately, I won't have time to develop this subject of repentance this morning, but repentance is a key component of your salvation.
Romans 6:1
"What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?"
Romans 8:6-8
"For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God."
Galatians 6:8
"For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting."
James 4:4
"Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God."
Can you be saved and still be an friend to this world? I don't know how many enemies of God are going to be in heaven, but I don't think it could be that many, and I know I don't want to be one of them. [hyperbole]
[THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST]
Switching back into today's lesson for Christians, the Bible speaks of the Judgment Seat of Christ, where Christians will stand before Jesus. This is not a judgment to determine where we're going for eternity. That will have already been determined by what you've done with Christ in this life.
1 Corinthians 3:9-15
For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building.
According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.
For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.
If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
I still hold that this passage is telling me that when all is said and done and every work and every good deed be it either helping an old lady across the street or gifting a million dollars to this church for the building project, everything - EVERYTHING will burn away and all that will be left are my motives. Verse 13, "... and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is."
[The Great White Throne]
The Bible also speaks of the Great White Throne Judgment. Jesus Christ will sit on the Great White Throne - His holy and pure throne - and judge every unsaved person who has ever lived and died. They will be brought before Christ, not to determine whether they are going to heaven or hell, but to determine how severe they will be punished.
Luke 12:48:
"But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more."
The Great White Throne is discussed and described further in Rev 20:11-15.
So, all of that was introduction. First in our outline this morning, I want you to notice in our verse the power of our sovereign God. When we come to 2 Peter 2:9, we find the Spirit of God giving Peter the words to summarize verses 4 through 8. We see here the power of our sovereign God.
The Bible says in verse 9, "The Lord knoweth..." Have you ever worked with someone who did something they shouldn't have done, and you wondered if the person in charge knew about it? We serve a sovereign God who knows all things. Nothing has ever escaped Him. Not only have the words and deeds not escaped God, but no thoughts we have ever had can escape Him either.
What do you think it's going to be like when the thoughts of men are made public in the day of judgment? Our God is sovereign, all mighty, all-powerful, and all knowing.
In Psalm 1:1-6, the Bible says:
1Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
2But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
3And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
4The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.
5Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
6For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.
I know that I can get worked up when I see that things are not being done the way they ought to be done. I know how I feel in my flesh when I see someone cheating at life and getting away with something. I ask myself, "How can they be getting away with that?" But when my thoughts clear I realize that nobody is getting away with anything. Our confidence and faith must be in the God who is all-powerful and all-knowing. It is 100% under His control.
I find that I get along much better with other people on the road when I realize that God is in control. He knows what he's doing and He is going to take care of business with everyone on the 101. But a freeway example is so benign. How about when someone gets the promotion in front of you, even though you were clearly the best qualified? How about when someone takes something that is clearly yours? I've had some first hand experience with people taking and boasting about what they got away with from me. People who call themselves Christian, but people who will ultimately not answer to me. I've had to live with the consequences of the decisions made by others, but ultimately, they are not answerable to me. My job is to forgive them, and that's not always easy, but forgive we must. The problem is then not between you and them, but between them and God.
In Amos 4:12, the Bible says, "Prepare to meet thy God". Have you prepared to meet God? The only way to do this is to trust in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, as your Savior and yield your life to Him by asking Him to forgive your sin and come into your life. But when you ask, you can't do it with your mouth only.
As Christians, those of us who have come to Him need to be living lives of obedience to Him. One thing that disturbs me greatly is that so many people professing to be Christians seem insincere about their faith. Does God ever deal with you? Does God ever chasten you? Are you ever convicted? If I could not answer 'yes' to these things, I would seriously doubt that I had been born again.
In America, we have developed such a casual Christianity. We do just enough to say, "I go to church. I have the right Bible. I go to Sunday School." All across America though, there are people who are professing this, but in the last days, what will Christ say to them?
But there's good news in this morning's lesson. God delivers the godly and reserves the unjust for punishment. So secondly, notice the Promise to Deliver. "The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished."
God performs a dual work for Christians. He begins by saying He will deliver you out of temptations. I want you to think about that promise. Remember, [1 Cor 10:12-13] "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." God makes a way of escape from temptation for us by the indwelling Holy Spirit. He gives us power to say, "Lord, help me in this moment to have victory and not yield to this." There's a secular saying, "Lead me not into temptation, I can find it myself." Sin involves a conscious, willing choice. Sin is not something that sneaks up on you and says, "Ha! I got you! You sinned!" That's not how it works at all. If sin catches you by surprise, you need to take another serious look at some things in your life to see why you're not on the lookout for seeing it a long way off. Or better still, you should be resting in the general will of God, and it will become very easy to see sin sneaking up on you.
Lastly, we see the Punishment of sin. God says, "...and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished." I knew a man in junior college who was actually never tempted by sin. Do you believe that? Never tempted by sin. In fact, whenever he saw temptation a long way off, he'd run toward it and jump headlong right into sin. While he may not have experienced any of the heartache or suffering that his sin would result in immediately, you can bet that God's going to deal with him eventually. Unfortunately, I was too young a Christian in junior college to understand what I needed to do, but I suspect that if I had shared the gospel with him, he would be in more trouble for hearing it. That's because in Luke 12:47, the Bible says:
47And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.
48But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.
49I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?
Those who hear and know, but do not obey, get many stripes. Those who do not know and do not obey are still going to be punished, but with fewer stripes. It would appear in this line of Scripture that there are different levels of punishment in hell. The book of Matthew in chapter 11, verse 20-24 also seems to indicate this by saying that it would be "more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee."
There are lots of places out there that don't have the Gospel yet. In many countries, the Word has not yet reached them by missionaries. In contrast, most of us own more than one Bible. Jesus taught that it was going to be a horrible thing to go to hell if you're from Capernaum and unsaved. And of all the nations in the world today, I believe the worst place to go to hell from is America because we have so much Bible, so much light, so much opportunity to know God and for Him to know us. But the devil has made a nest here. He's on t.v. peddling prosperity gospel and using leather bound books with gold letters that say "Bible" on them. The devil is trying to get you to gloss over your salvation. I believe in my heart that the devil goes to every church service and preys on the weak ones afterward.
That's why we're here. We're not here to punch our ticket. We're not here because we're expected to be here. We're not here because our parents are here. We're here for one reason and one reason only. To know and do the will of God who created us, but our time to do so is precious short. Know that you're in the will of God. Know that you're saved - examine yourself, examine Scripture and see if you are saved.
"Why call me Lord, Lord and do not the things I say?" "Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'"
Labels: faith bible
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Are there gaps in your "religion"?
Question posed to me: "Why does it matter what religion you belong to, if you believe in God is that not enough? I am interested to know how religious believers justify the gaps in various doctrine."
My Answer (from a scientists perspective):
Satan believes in God. Is that enough? And enough for what? I'll presume you're asking what is enough to go to heaven, but that's a bit selfish, isn't it? "Just give me enough details so I can escape this 'hell' that everyone is talking about (if one even exists)."
That's called "fire insurance" and is not real salvation. That's the kind of religion with holes and gaps in doctrine. True salvation is whole and complete and complements itself throughout what we call the Word of God; the Bible. We need not add anything to it, and we dare not take anything away from it.
There are basic fundamental truths that are out there, that so many in the world reject because they contradict their thinking. But why should the universe conform to our way of thinking? Why should our finite brains have any power over the power of God (or god)? But that's exactly what most of religion has done - attempted to explain or ignore basic universal truths in order to make people feel good about where they are. Mostly by giving them a vague promise of what is to come (heaven, reincarnation, 70 virgins, etc.).
So, what is truth? What is the truth without gaps and without holes and without man made rules? For any truth to be known, it has to be tested and evaluated and it needs to come out unblemished and just as complete and whole on the way out as it did on the way in.
When I rhetorically ask my fellow scientists, "So one day, we had primordial goo, and the next day, we had goo that could think?" They shrug their shoulders at me. They don't have the answer, but they're sure that's how it worked. So, I put it through the test. A computer program to check the validity of chaos into order.
If you're not familiar with the "Infinite number of monkeys" thought experiment, it goes something like this. If you had an infinite number of monkeys all typing on an infinite number of typewriters for an infinite amount of time, eventually one of them would type the complete works of Shakespeare from start to finish without a single typo. So, take that principle and instead of applying it to writings, apply it to the human Genome. And instead of an infinite amount of time, you have what the scientists hold to; hydrogen turning into bonded hydrogen and having this conversation by pushing oxygen through meat in about 14 billion years. Kind of a neat trick if it works. So, how did I go about doing it?
I took 30 simple elements of hydrogen, oxygen and carbon and isolated them in a synthetic petre dish (this is a computer simulation) so they wouldn't be interfered with by other elements (a pristine situation), and I let time have its way - accelerated of course because I do not have 14 billions years to run this test. The best result I've had so far after running this several times is after 70.6 billion iterations of trying to randomly self assemble into a compound that I have predefined, they got 18 of the 30 letters in the right place. Mathematically, they would get all 30 correct a bit after the sun is expected to burn out. The other results were within 1% of each other, so this leads me to believe that this is a pretty common result.
Now, supposing we had an ideal situation where it actually finished (around the time the sun burns out) and I get a chain of 30 elements together at random into the exact shape needed (because the primordial goo didn't know what its final shape was going to be, right?). Now, I need to run that experiment sequentially and 100% successfully 246 million more times. That's right! That's about 246 million sun lifetimes. "O.K.", you're thinking, "So then what do you get? A Human?"
Sorry. After that, congratulations! You have 1/24th of the human genome. You still need to run THAT complete set of runs 100% successfully 24 more times in order to have the complete human genome come out the other end.
Now, if you're into math, you can figure this out on your own, but the odds of this happening even once is beyond astronomically rare. About 1,000 sun lifetimes - keep in mind that we are told by science that we live near a 3rd generation star (3 sun lifetimes).
But this doesn't even begin to approach the issue of "Why do we think?" or "Where is the kindness gene?" or "Why do we feel bad when we hurt others?"
14 billion years isn't enough time to make goo that can reproduce, but science would have you to believe that it's enough time for hydrogen to have emotion. That takes more faith than I have.
On the other hand, there is the spooky word "religion", which attempts to convince its followers that they have all the answers. Science mocks them. But there's something that can't be explained away when science and atheism look at it. While there are no scientists who were eyewitnesses of evolution (macro not micro), there are eyewitness accounts (Luke 1:1-4) in the Bible of those who saw the miracles performed by Jesus first hand. They saw him hang and die on a cross, and they saw him alive three days later. Eyewitness accounts!
So, are there gaps in my faith? No. Why? Because I know that I know that I know without a doubt that there isn't nearly enough time for hydrogen to become the tree you see outside your window. So, it must be something else. I know beyond a shadow of doubt that there is a higher reality beyond what you can see or touch or taste. That force, that power, that "creator" has a name, and we call Him, God.
Knowing that, there are further truths that I cannot ignore. God put on flesh and dwelt among us some 2,000 years ago. I know it because I have an eyewitness record of the events. But more than that, I know that I have deep rooted feelings that I can't explain with science or psychology. The miracle of life can't be answered by science, but it's explained in the Bible. The mystery of conscience can't be explained by psychology, but it's explained in the Bible. It's the universal law of man, what Einstein sought for his whole life. A single law that explains everything without gaps!
If evolution was the answer, then we would not have any conscience whatsoever, because conscience gets in the way of survival and advancement.
So, what's the problem? Why doesn't "religion" seem to work? Well, since I've already exposed that I'm a Christian, I'm also of the opinion that it's not working because 99% of Western Christianity is wrong. They rely on man made rules and ceremony and have trumped God's commands with their opinion. The Bible, when taken on its own merit, works! But it's men who have altered and skewed the Word of God to serve themselves. Joel Osteen and Benny Hinn are the examples in today's world. What's so wrong with how God wrote the Bible and how God says that we must live and how to be saved that we needed extra ceremony? Was Christ dying on the cross and coming back three days later enough or was it not enough? If it was enough, then it's enough for me. It's unfortunate that t.v. crazies and cults are the only representation of the Christian faith that many will ever see, because many people are too {lazy?} to actually go through their phone books to find an independent (not answerable to anyone except God), fundamental (Bible only) church.
If you're genuinely curious, try Googling "independent fundamental church" in your area.
