By the Numbers

Monday, December 16, 2013

Earth's Heavenly Visitor!

                                   Earth's Heavenly Visitor!
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#Earth'sVisitor  #Jesus
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Don't be deceived by science fiction travel through a wormhole! Space travel  would require a spaceship like the Enterprise of the Star Trek TV series. It must be huge with many decks, have hundreds of personnel of various skills and duties, and travel at warp speed. Besides unknown dangers, it must avoid multiple known ones  such as comets, asteroids, wondering planets, gamma rays, gravity, solar flairs, black holes, magnetic forces, and space junk as even a speeding pebble can penetrate and destroy the ship.  But unknown to much of the world's population, our earth has been visited by One greater than any possible alien we can imagine. Let's investigate this matter.
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Who is this visitor? Jesus, speaking of himself to Nicodemus said, "No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is the Son of Man who is in heaven (John 3:13)." There can be no  doubt Jesus was a real man who once lived in Israel. While three contemporary accounts are accepted as historical fact, the  four Gospels, Acts, and the Epistles are six independent historical accounts of Jesus' life. Non-Christian critics mention details of his life contained in the Gospel accounts. More is said of Jesus than of Tiberius Caesar his contemporary. Even calendar dating of the Western World verify his existence from B.C. to A.D. 
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Yes, Jesus was the Son of Man,  but more than that, he gave clear evidence of being the Son of God who came down from heaven even while still in heaven. How can this be? The Bible gives us the answer. "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14). See also Jn. 1:1-3; Col. 1:16-17).
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Scientists today generally admit that everything we know depends for its existence on something prior, and that we can't trace existence back eternally. So the material universe had a beginning and its  cause must be immaterial, eternal, unchanging, and of immense power. Such a cause is not so different from what the Bible describes as the Great Eternal I Am who spoke to Moses out of the burning  bush and that Jesus claimed many times and ways to be.  See John 6:35; 8:12, 58; 11:25.
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Does anyone know enough to show the cause of the universe cannot be the personal ethical, loving triune God of the Bible who made us in His image? Or, that the Almighty could not take on a human body and nature? And wouldn't the cause of  all intelligent life forms have to be an intelligent person?
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The Apostle Peter said, "Men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know--Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it (Acts 2:22-23).
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Thousands of persons close at hand, including skeptical disciples and hostile critics for over three years, witnessed Jesus do things only God's power could do. All the while he claimed to be God and asked  others to believe in him. Jesus walked on water, stilled a storm, changed water to wine, immediately healed blindness, lameness, skin diseases, and even raised the dead. Now that's good honest evidence he's God for persons with an open mind willing to look at the evidence. Who would preach to Israel what Peter preached, unless it be true and the hearers knew it?
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Of course we have a problem understanding how Jesus could be God and man in the same person. That is by no means easy and it took the church centuries to figure it out. It required a careful and logical appraisal of all the Bible said about him even then not pretending to understand it all. There's no contradiction since person, essence or nature are used in different senses. In being man, Jesus for our sake laid aside his glory with the Father becoming a servant and our example. I can't cite a lot of evidence trying to keep my articles simple and limited to 3 pages.
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The Bible teaches only one God in essence as three Persons known as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the Incarnation the eternal God did not become a man--that's impossible. But as the second Person of the Trinity, he added a human body and nature to his divine Person. Jesus' human nature has limitations of knowledge, power, and presence while his divine nature has no such limitations. Sometimes the Person Jesus Christ speaks from his limited human nature and at other times through his divine nature without such limitations. Theologians call Jesus the theanthropic Person or God-man, and the two natures together in the one Person as the hypostatic union.  
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Consider these amazing things about Jesus. While lying as helpless baby in an animal feed trough, he yet was the Almighty upholding the universe. As real man he was tempted at all points as we are who can identify with us, but as God could not be tempted and can be the Savior of sinners. While limited to a human body and nature, as God he is with us always and is even in Heaven. Being man he didn't know the time of his return, but as God He knows all things even our thoughts.
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Isaac Watts wrote these precious words:

Joy to the world! the Lord is come; Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room, And heaven and nature sing.
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Can the joyless troubled world be because it's not willing to receive the Lord as its King? Heaven and earth doesn't sing about Santa Clause. Jesus came unto his own and his own rejected him. Are we any different today? Xmas is not Christmas. Do we teach our children the myth of Santa Clause and ignore or lie about the Lord who walked among us. I'm not saying we can't have a Christmas tree or give gifts. I am saying telling others about the Savior is the greatest thing we can do for loved ones and friends. It's what will count when we see Jesus and will be rewarded in eternity when other things will not. Jesus' death and resurrection is the proof He's our God and all He taught is God's truth and the world's only hope. No other religion can give us such assurance. Do U know Him? Won't U trust Him and tell loved ones and friends about Him?
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Please link to articles & share others on right side or scrole down to those below. God bless.
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Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Are Bible Teachings Incredible, Or Just Not Understood?

                         Are Bible Teachings Incredible, Or Just Not Understood?
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Jim learned his new friend John was a Bible believing Christian. Surprised, he asked John how he could believe a book teaching such absurd things. "What absurd things?" John inquired. Jim said, "I've heard the Bible says that the earth is flat with four corners, that a guy named Jonah swallowed a whale, that an Ark of the Covenant landed on Mt. Judi, and that Bible characters lived immoral lives. Ha! Ha! If that's what I thought the Bible said, I wouldn't believe it either, Jim.
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Unfortunately, people today who know little if anything about the Bible hear biased misinformation about what it really says. Only if they seriously study it for themselves with an open mind in its historical, grammatical, cultural context can they get a true understanding and find that its teaching is most reasonable. Let me clarify a few people's misunderstandings.
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That the Bible opposes science and modern thought. Persons in Bible times didn't give scientific explanations for natural phenomena but spoke in language of appearances--we still do today. The  Bible does say God created the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:1), but doesn't say the earth is the center of the universe. The four corners of the earth  (Rev. 7:1) doesn't mean the world is flat and we can fall off.--it means the four directions of the compass. Isaiah even  called the earth a circle and said God spread out the heavens centuries before we found these things out (Isa. 40:22). The sun rises and sets  and was still for a whole day (Joshua 10:12-14). We know the earth rotates on its axes and goes around the sun but that's not the way it appears to the naked eye. Joshua's long day could be a tremendous display of God's creative power, but more likely was some kind of aerial condition God caused as perhaps reflected sunlight to insure the Israelites victory.
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God is not required to give us a scientific explanation of everything that may even be beyond our understanding anyway. The universe seems designed for human habitation (anthropic principle). Even as the unique position of earth in the arms of our galaxy that allows for cosmic exploration. The universe's origin shows the glory of God's eternal creative power. Remember, Bible interpreters can make mistakes and today's assured scientific facts may be tomorrow's science fiction. When all the facts are in and correctly understood God's Word and God's world will agree. 
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That God was evil to command destruction of the Amalekites, men, women, children, everything (1 Samuel 15:3). Many people today say this makes the Bible God guilty of genocide, a moral monster, and totally unbelievable. Let's consider this in its biblical framework. If there is no personal moral sovereign God, what ethical standard is there but each persons own personal opinion? And if conflicting human opinions are all we have, anything is permitted and whoever gets the biggest stick controls and beats us into submission to their opinion--throughout history this has destroyed human dignity, equality, freedom and many lives and property.
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Only our Creator, Life-giver, and Judge can serve as humanity's standard of ethical behavior. No impersonal force, limited tribal god, or atheism can serve as a basis of human dignity, morality, love, and hope.  Critics who accuse Christian faith of intolerance must borrow from the Bible ethic even to have an ethic, and show hypocrisy themselves in being intolerant of biblical Christianity.
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Now the Amalekites were terrorists who sought to destroy Israel. Their behaviors were everything God told Israel not to do or allow--idolatry, adultery, nakedness, homosexuality, sex with animals, sexuality transmitted diseases, child sacrifice, filthy surroundings (Lev 18). A merciful forgiving God told Abram they had 400 years (rounded number) to turn from their evil ways, but knew they would only grow worse (Gen. 15:13-16). Because they were not totally destroyed they were always a thorn in Israel's side. They sought to prevent God's covenant plan with Abraham to be the means of bringing about human redemption through the Messiah (Gen. 12:1-3; Gal. 4:4-5). A moral God knows our beliefs and behaviors whether good or evil and had to take out a moral cancer that would infect everyone's life and hope. He will one day destroy the devil and his forces (Rev. 20:7-10). He allows them now to test our faith, love, and obedience to His truth, goodness, and will. If He destroyed every sinner, none of us would be left. Who we obey is our choice and has serious consequences.
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As for innocent children, we are all born in sin  and deserve death (Psalm 51:5; Romans 5:12). Our Maker is our Owner who gives us our every breath and has the right to take life anytime, and once did to the whole evil world (Gen. 6:5; 7:23). Children who die before the age of belief or accountability go to be with God (Deut. 1:39; Isa. 7:15; Mk.10:14; John. 9:41).
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That Adam and Eve are just myths.  Modern scholarship, assuming evolutionary naturalism,  considers the Adam and Eve account as myth, not history (Gen.1:27; 2-3). It's true the Bible tells their events in story form for all peoples to understand. But the Bible everywhere represents them as real persons in real history. Events of their lives are mentioned, they get married, have children, family problems, and are referred to throughout the Bible as our first parents. God's plan of redemption is based upon their being real people who brought sin into the world for which the prophets spoke of a one day coming Messiah and Savior. 
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And yes, the Bible does record miraculous acts of God. But not that the prophet Jonah swallowed a whale, but that God prepared a great fish that swallowed Jonah and carried him to the destination in God's plan that his preaching could result in people in the city of Nineveh turning to God.
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Miracles seem incredible only if one assumes a naturalistic philosophy supposedly supported by science. But does science show that no existence can explode into everything, that mindless molecules can arrange themselves into all our present life forms? Wouldn't plants and animals have to be complete and functional from the start? Can things exist with only partially developed systems and organs? Are there missing links, or a whole missing chain?  What scientific experiment can demonstrate biological evolution? What seems incredible to me is that some persons would rather assume connected universes exist in order to deny a Creator who loves them, offers them a life of purpose and rewards them with Heaven.
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That Bible characters are immoral examples of bad lives. Jesus is the only One without sin with power to be a Savior of us sinners. No other Bible character and no person is said to be without sin or morally perfect. Yes, bad actions along with good ones are openly discussed in the Bible even of God's prophets and apostles. But everything recorded in the Bible is not approved as Abraham's lie, David's sin with Bathsheba, Solomon's polygamy.  The Bible gives us both good and bad behavior's as examples to learn what God approves and disapproves (2 Tim. 3:16). As God gives us the human dignity of free will, anything becomes possible. The alternative is that we be robots dishonoring to God and without dignity ourselves. Justice is not always achieved in this life, but an all-knowing God assures us it will be one day.  We have the choice to believe that an omnipotent, omniscient, holy and loving Triune God knows what's best for us, or to reject God which is fatal.  
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That James contradicts Paul about how to be right with God. There is no contradiction as both are true at different times before different persons. Faith before God is the root and good works before man is the fruit. Paul says we are justified or made right before God  by faith alone (Romans 4:5-6; Titus 3:5). James says true faith is made known to men only by our good works, otherwise its seen as dead or not real faith (James 2:18-23). When Abraham believed God it was counted to him for righteousness, but it was shown real to men when he offered Isaac in sacrifice. "For by grace (God's undeserved favor) you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them" (Eph. 2:8-10).
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We can trust God for the fuller life of truth, purpose, love, and hope and grow in knowing His life in us. His goodness and love can't force Himself on us---what is your decision? This may be God's call to you. Won't U say, Lord Jesus I trust You as paying for my sin on your cross and with your help I'll live for You and share my new faith with my friends.
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See my note about the Ark below. Couldn't fit it into the article.