WE ARE RICH

The longer that I walk with the Lord, the more I am finding out how frail and needy I am of Him. Jesus had even warned us that without Him we can do nothing (John 15:4-5). However, along with the knowledge of our neediness also comes the knowledge of His love, riches, and compassion, as David had written:

Psalm 103:11-18 (NASB) For as high as the heavens are above the earth, So great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him.

12  As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.

13  Just as a father has compassion on his children, So the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him.

14  For He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust.

15  As for man, his days are like grass; As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.

16  When the wind has passed over it, it is no more, And its place acknowledges it no longer.

17  But the lovingkindness of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, And His righteousness to children's children,

18  To those who keep His covenant And remember His precepts to do them.

I am not saying that I can grasp the depth of His lovingkindness (11 above). We cannot get our minds around it (Ephesians 3:19). However, we do know that if He loved us so much that He died for us while we were His enemies, how much more now after we have become His adoring friends (Romans 5:8-10)!

He gives us another indication of the extent of His love. Unbelievably, the Cross was the time of His greatest glory (John 12:23-24), not when He would ascend into heaven or when He would defeat His enemies and set up His everlasting kingdom. It was by the Cross that He gave us a picture of true love and proved to skeptics like me that He wasn’t a machine or a sadist who enjoys watching suffering. Sadists do not die the most painful and humiliating death even for their friends or to deceive.

He has forgiven us completely for our grievous sins, which had nailed Him to the Cross (12). He has compassion for those who fear Him (13, 17). What does it mean to fear Him? It means to place Him ahead of all of our interests (Matthew 6:33) and to abide obediently in His Word (18). However, many preach a false hope that we can live as we please and be saved. No! Forgiveness is for those who fear Him and perform His Word:

·       If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. (1 John 1:6-7)

This doesn’t mean that obedience or law-keeping saves us. However, it is the fruit of a living faith, the indwelling Spirit, and of a regenerated heart. If obedience is not present, neither is faith or the Spirit.

Apart from God, “we are but dust” (14) and grass that withers (15). This might sound strange or demeaning in a world where we are taught to believe in ourselves. However, this truth is very liberating. It teaches us that we no longer have to impress others or to continually prove to ourselves that we have worth and have the ability to be admired and successful. We no longer need to compete for these limited commodities, because we are already beloved and exalted by the only One who matters. Therefore, the struggling Psalmist had proclaimed:

·       Nevertheless I am continually with You; You have taken hold of my right hand. With Your counsel You will guide me, And afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (Psalm 73:23-26)

The Psalmist had been angry and jealous of the successes of the wicked. He had been comparing his negligible fortunes with theirs. However, after God had opened his eyes up to see the bigger picture, he understood that he was complete. He had everything that he needed. This is what we too need to see (Colossians 2:8-10).

PATIENTLY ENDURING

Missionaries are my heroes, and I want to read more biographies about them. I am reading a highly touching one about Adoniram Judson, the missionary to Burma, 1813 to 1852.

I am struck by the loss and suffering he had to endure. I shudder tearfully thinking that if our Lord didn’t answer many of his prayers, why should he answer mine! However, Judson’s experience shouldn’t throw us for a loop. God had promised that the Apostle Paul would have to suffer grievously for Him (Acts 9:16) to prepare him for service (2 Corinthians 1:8-9; 4:10-11).

And then there is the case of Job, the most righteous of men, whom God held in the highest esteem and who suffered the loss of all things. We are also warned about the great persecution accompanying the end of the age:

·       and some of the wise shall stumble, so that they may be refined, purified, and made white, until the time of the end, for it still awaits the appointed time. (Daniel 11:35)

But why must the wise of the Lord - the most godly - be refined through suffering? For the same reason that the Lord had allowed Paul to be afflicted by Satan:

·       So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. (2 Corinthians 12:7; Job 33)

I was also perplexed by what was written to the godly Church of Smyrna. Some would be required to die as martyrs (Revelation 2:10). How disturbing! Should not the Lord have instead chosen some lukewarm Christians for martyrdom? However, these accounts remind me that my ways are not His ways:

·       “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)

This was a lesson Job had to learn. He had thought that he understood enough about God to bring charges of injustice against Him. However, he subsequently repented of such arrogance and was restored (Job 42).

This is also a lesson that I need to learn, especially when I suffer and speak out angrily against God. But I’ve been left wondering, “Can I trust a God who wants me to accept His claim that His ways are so above my understanding?”

Moses often had to deal with this very charge coming from the Israelites. He reminded them that they could trust God, not because they understood Him comprehensively, but because of all He had done for them:

·       “Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live? Or has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of which the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? To you it was shown, that you might know that the Lord is God; there is no other besides him.” (Deuteronomy 4:33-35)

I am also reminded of the many things that God has done for me. Consequently, what I know about my Savior enables me to trust Him despite the many things I don’t understand about His ways. Although this is no assurance that I too will not have to suffer (2 Corinthians 4:10-11), I am assured that He will deliver me (1 Corinthians 10:12-13) and use the suffering for a blessed purpose (Romans 8:28).

This was also the conclusion that Judson embraced after losing his dear wife Ann and their children. I pray that I will not have to endure such loss. However, I am trusting that my Savior will give me what I need to endure, perhaps even with joy and peace.

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF JUSTICE, TRUTH, AND WHATEVER GLUE HAD ONCE HELD US TOGETHER

The big tent is shrinking almost to the point of disappearing. When we were able to think our own thoughts, believe our own beliefs, and speak pronouns according to our convictions, we were able to live with one another with mutual respect, because we did not fear coercion and felt safe and protected. Now, we no longer feel safe, and so we have retreated to our own safe places where we can speak freely because everyone thinks as we do. This has created division, antagonism, and distrust of the system.

California has just passed another resolution which can only serve to heighten distrust and division:

·       Lawmakers in California have passed a resolution that singles out the state’s religious communities and forces them to fully support LGBT individuals. https://www.christianheadlines.com/contributors/will-maule/california-lawmakers-pass-resolution-blaming-religious-people-for-high-suicide-rates-in-the-lgbt-community.html

The resolution reads:

·       “the Legislature calls upon all Californians to embrace the individual and social benefits of family and community acceptance” of LGBT people. The document unapologetically pins blame on people of faith for being contributors to the sky-rocketing suicide rates among the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.

The bill further reads:

·       “The stigma associated with being LGBT often created by groups in society, including therapists and religious groups, has caused disproportionately high rates of suicide, attempted suicide, depression, rejection, and isolation amongst LGBT and questioning individuals…”

While the bill expresses concern for the marginalization and stigmatization of the LGBT communities, it doesn’t seem to be at all concerned that it is stigmatizing “religious” communities.

But are these groups stigmatizing LGBTs? According to Christian theory, we all have the responsibility to turn from our sins, and none of us are sinless. Is this stigmatization? Hardly! Instead, the bill isn’t calling-out Islam for actually murdering LGBTs. Without this, we are left wondering whether the bill is truly concerned about the welfare of LGBTs.

Another aspect of this bill also causes us to wonder. The negative consequences associated with LGBT lifestyles are being attributed to “religious groups” without supportive evidences. Are these groups also responsible for homosexual domestic violence and their attenuated lifespans? Hardly!  These costs, among others, cannot possibly be attributed to those “religious groups.” Such blame represents the height of injustice. Where is the evidence that indicates “probable cause” to indict entire groups of innocent people? If anything, the evidence indicates that these alternative lifestyles are inherently self-destructive. Numerous ex-gays have even confessed that they knew that what they had been doing was wrong and felt ashamed. Consequently, the high rates of mental health and substance abuse issues!

Instead of blaming Christian teachings on sexual behavior for LGBT outcomes, it would be more fruitful to investigate the possible connection between our human nature and the shame we experience when we violate it. This connection shouldn’t seem far-fetched. After all, it is obvious that our nature causes us to feel guilty when we wrong someone and good when we help them. It’s called “conscience.”

Instead, it is the Christians and ex-gays who are being systematically stigmatized and victimized. However, they are not jumping off bridges and OD-ing on substances. This might seem like crude language, but the stakes are high and straight-forward language is scarce.

If these California legislators are truly concerned about the welfare of LGBTs, they should encourage impartial research to ascertain the real causes of suicide and the many other costs of alternative sexual lifestyles.

Instead, this bill will further silence any real discussion of the issues, even at the expense of our 1st Amendment rights and create a new class of the disenfranchised.

If they are truly concerned about stigmatization, why don’t they also include adulterers, incest practitioners, and pedophiles among their protected categories of people? Why not raise children for sexual predation? It seems that, for now, protecting these three groups isn’t yet PC.

The methods of the pro-LGBT advocates seem to be unhinged from any concerns about justice, equal protection under the law, truth, morality, and even concerns about the welfare and unity of the nation. These advocates resemble spoiled teenagers who will do whatever it takes to get what they want right now.

GENES, FOSSILS, AND EVOLUTION

Can genetic information be naturally (mindlessly) be produced? In Darwin’s Dilemma, Stephen Meyer has written that the construction of new life requires massive amounts of DNA information to direct the process. However, there is no evidence that natural unintelligent Darwinian means can account for such information:

·       Although we don’t know of a material cause that generates functioning digital code from physical or chemical precursors, we do know—based upon our uniform and repeated experience—of one type of cause that has demonstrated the power to produce this type of information. That cause is intelligence or mind. As information theorist Henry Quastler observed, “The creation of information is habitually associated with conscious activity.” Whenever we find functional information—whether embedded in a radio signal, carved in a stone monument, etched on a magnetic disc, or produced by an origin-of-life scientist attempting to engineer a self-replicating molecule—and we trace that information back to its ultimate source, invariably we come to a mind, not merely a material process.

Meyer insists that many evolutionary biologists now acknowledge that there is no explanation for the origin of the genetic code, but many still insist that once life exists, that the code can be meaningfully reshaped by mutations and natural selection to produce new structures. However, an increasing number are raising objections:

·       natural selection explains “only the survival of the fittest, not the arrival of the fittest.” The technical literature in biology is now replete with world-class biologists routinely expressing doubts about various aspects of neo-Darwinian theory, and especially about its central tenet, namely, the alleged creative power of the natural selection and mutation mechanism.

As a result, there is a growing chasm between the beliefs of the evolutionary professionals and those of the public, who are still nourished by outdated textbooks supporting the doubtful neo-Darwinian narrative. According to Meyer:

·       Today modern neo-Darwinism seems to enjoy almost universal acclaim among science journalists and bloggers, biology textbook writers, and other popular spokespersons for science as the great unifying theory of all biology. High-school and college textbooks present its tenets without qualification and do not acknowledge the existence of any significant scientific criticism of it.

According to Meyer, the acclaim for Darwinism is less than deserved, especially in the eyes of the professional evolutionists. Darwin also acknowledged a serious problem with his theory:

·       “The difficulty of understanding the absence of vast piles of fossiliferous strata [intermediate forms] which on my theory were no doubt somewhere accumulated before the Silurian [i.e., Cambrian] epoch, is very great,” he wrote. “I allude to the manner in which numbers of species of the same group suddenly appear in the lowest known fossiliferous rocks.”

Darwin expected that future finds would uncover vast troves of intermediate ancestral forms. Instead, these finds have only highlighted the same absence. How did Darwinists explain this utter lack of necessary transitional forms:

·       As Agassiz explained, Darwin’s theory “rests partly upon the assumption that, in the succession of ages, just those transition types have dropped out from the geological record which would have proved the Darwinian conclusions had these types been preserved.”

If you can’t find them, no need to worry about them! Darwin admitted that the fossil record failed to substantiate his theory, as many other evolutionists now admit. According to Meyer, many paleontologists have observed that the fossil finds, especially those of the Cambrian period, contradict Darwinian hopes in numerous ways:

·       the sudden appearance of Cambrian animal forms; (2) an absence of transitional intermediate fossils connecting the Cambrian animals to simpler Precambrian forms; (3) a startling array of completely novel animal forms with novel body plans; and (4) a pattern in which radical differences in form in the fossil record arise before more minor, small-scale diversification and variations.

However, to make the connection between one species and another (from a to q), a great assembly of transitional forms are necessary, even for a single anatomical structure. Their absence further intensifies Darwin’s initial dilemma. However, after Erasmus read his brother Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species, he boasted:

·       "In fact, the a priori reasoning [for evolution] is so entirely satisfactory to me that if the facts won’t fit in, why so much worse for the facts. [This] is my feeling." (The Journey, Os Guinness, 154)

This kind of reasoning is still appealing to many evolutionists.