God and the Cosmos

Does such a universe as ours require a master Creator? Astronomer Hugh Ross explains that there have been many nay-sayers:

• In the days before the telescopes, when an observer could count a few thousand stars in the night sky, many considered the universe too small and unimpressive to be the work of an almighty, all-knowing Creator.

However, now with our monster telescopes and the knowledge of fifty billion trillion stars alone, the atheists now complain that a Creator God would never have been so wasteful. Victor Stegner writes,

• If God created the universe as a special place for humanity, he seems to have wasted an awfully large amount of space. (God: The Failed Hypothesis)

Stephen Hawking agrees about the wastefulness:

• Our solar system certainly is a prerequisite for our existence…But there does not seem to be any need for all these other galaxies. (A Brief History of Time)

Consequently, if the universe is small, there can’t be a God. If it’s huge, there can’t be a God. Heads I win; tails you loose! In opposition to the “wastefulness” hypothesis, Ross argues that every last spoonful of matter is vital to the life-supporting nature of our universe:

• The mass of the universe must be fine-tuned to produce the just-right abundance and diversity of elements essential for life…the mass density must be precisely fixed to allow for the just-right rates of expansion throughout cosmic history so that the just-right kinds of stars and planets will form at the just-right times and in the just-right locations for life. The combination of these astronomical improbabilities clearly defies any explanation other than transcendent intentionality. (Salvo Magazine, Issue 20, 48)

Ross’ conclusions depend upon the acceptance of Big-Bang cosmology, accepted by perhaps 98% of astronomers. If these conclusions are so certain, then there shouldn’t be atheists but just a God. They inescapably reflect “transcendent intentionality”- intelligent design. These conclusions require that a Super-intelligence both created and now maintains this glorious universe.

If this is the case, then nothing has changed for three thousand years since the Psalmist proclaimed:

• The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. (Psalm 19:1)

The heavens still make the same declaration, but now with statistics and formulae. Ross understandably concludes:

• This degree of cosmic fine-tuning also declares the worth of human beings. It tells us that the Creator of the universe considered humans to be of such value that he willingly and meticulously crafted a universe of fifty billion trillion stars, and a hundred times more mass besides, just to produce an appropriate planet to be their home.

Do you feel loved? I do!

Propaganda, Silencing the Opposition and Control

If you can control the university, then you can educate the media. If you can educate the media, then you can educate the masses. Politicians have long understand this:

• The most striking success of the revolution of a view of life will always be won whenever the new view of life is, if possible, taught to all people, and, if necessary, is later forced upon them, while…the movement has to embrace only so many people as absolutely necessary for the occupation of the nerve centers of the state involved.

• In every great revolutionary movement propaganda will first have to spread the idea of this movement. Thus, it will untiringly try to make clear to the others the new train of thought, to draw them over to its own ground, or at least to make them doubtful of their own previous conviction. (Mein Kampf)

When “the occupation of the nerve centers of the state” is secured, so too is control. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) understands this and “is launching a new effort today to target 36commentators who speak out against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people”:

• The Commentator Accountability Project (CAP) "aims to educate the media about the extreme rhetoric of over three dozen activists who are often given a platform to speak in opposition to LGBT people and the issues that affect their lives," the media monitoring organization said in a press release. Among those activists are Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council; Bob Vander Platts, the president of The Family Leader; Candi Cushman, an education analyst at Focus on the Family; and Bill Donahue, the head of the Catholic League.

Is GLAAD’s real goal to altruistically educate the public or to control the public by silencing any criticism? One of the 36 commentators on GLAAD’s black-list responded:

• I find it ironic that GLAAD's exclusive goal in all of this seems to be the idea that shutting people's voices down--who oppose them--will somehow make their arguments more sound.

 Sadly, the Mainstream Media has consistently shown itself more than ready to be “educated.” Even now, Facebook has banned me from posting my essays on other groups or sites.

The writer, George Orwell, had proclaimed:

• During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.

In this case, please join me in the revolution!

Presuppositions: Our Lens through which we See the World

If you wear a red-tinted lens, the world will appear red. If your lens is faith-in-Christ and in His Word, then, when confronted with an apparent contradiction, you are convinced that there is a resolution, and you seek it out. If your lens is atheism, then this apparent contradiction becomes your confirmation that the Bible is conflicted and not divine. This is called a “confirmation bias.”

One pastor and Oxford professor of New Testament preached that Jesus was only a man. His proof merely consisted in the Biblical “evidence” that Jesus had been mistaken and had changed His mind. The Prof cited the account of a Gentile woman who had asked Jesus to free her demon-possessed daughter. At first, Jesus seemingly refused but then changed His mind after He perceived the woman’s uncanny wisdom.

However, I approach the text with a different lens – one which perhaps elucidates what might have been made blurred to the Prof. After the woman had initially made her request, Jesus remained silent for while, giving His status-conscious disciples an opportunity to verbally hang themselves. Finally they did:

·        Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us." (Matthew 15:23)

How callous! Even if they thought her beneath them, they could have, at least, asked Jesus to grant her request so that they could move on to other things. However, in their minds, she wasn’t worthy of anything from Jesus, while they certainly were!

Jesus, fully understanding his class-conscious disciples, acted out their presuppositions to show them how they would play out – if this presupposition represented wisdom or not:

·        He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said. He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs." (Matthew 15:24-26)

His disciples regarded the Gentiles as dogs and refused to even eat with them. I can hear His disciples cheering, “Yes!” These words represented the Jewish understanding of the day, not Jesus’ understanding. He had reminded the Jewish leadership at Nazareth that the God of Israel had often been particularly gracious to Gentiles:

   

·        I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed--only Naaman the Syrian." (Luke 4:25-27)

There was nothing prohibiting Jesus from doing likewise, apart from Jewish censure. Interestingly, Jesus’ seeming denial of the woman’s request elicited a revelation of her surpassing wisdom and humility:

·        "Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." (Matthew 15:27)

Jesus received the response that He knew He would get – a response that would contradict the class-ism of His arrogant disciples.

·        Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed from that very hour. (Matthew 15:28)

Jesus used this as an object lesson to teach His disciples that their faith, wisdom, and humility couldn’t match that of this lowly Gentile woman. Jesus hadn’t at all changed His mind. Instead, this account serves as a revelation of Jesus’ profound wisdom, according to my lens.

Additionally, this interpretation accords with the rest of the Gospels’ portraits of Jesus and not with a confused Jesus who was struggling, like we do, to learn some of God’s lessons.

Our lens is everything. It constitutes such a coercive force that we are unable to merely lay it aside. In most cases, we are even unaware of its presence. No wonder Jesus taught His disciples one step at a time! And no wonder we must be born again with a new lens.

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Compromise Kills

 The church is quickly abandoning the Gospel – the Word of God. In many cases, the church’s beliefs have become indistinguishable from those of their society. According to LifeSiteNews.com, Lesley Pilkington, a persecuted Christian psychotherapist in the UK, has stated that:

• “Our churches have become extremely worldly. It is supposed to be that the churches influence the nation, but now the nation is influencing the church”…

• Churches “very rarely talk about sin and refuse ever to say that homosexual behaviour is a sin.” Only a minority of people in the churches in Britain, “speak out the word of God. And they get a lot of aggression for it…they are blind guides leading others into a ditch of destruction.”

• “The established churches don’t accept the way I’ve spoken today, which is a biblical way. The word of God is being marginalized… 

The church has had a long history of compromise, extending back to the 1^st century. Regarding this, Paul wrote:

• I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel-- which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! (Galatians 1:6-9)

A perverted or compromised Gospel is so lethal and offensive to God, that it would be preferable that false teachers be “eternally condemned.” Sadly, we have often proved ourselves ripe for compromise even in the absence of the preaching of “an angel from heaven.” Even those chosen by God to deliver His Word have succumbed! God had chosen an unnamed prophet to bring a warning to his chosen but idolatrous king, King Jeroboam of Israel. The prophet’s divine warning came with signs:

• That same day the man of God gave a sign: "This is the sign the Lord has declared: The altar will be split apart and the ashes on it will be poured out." (1 Kings 13:3)

Jeroboam tried to have the prophet arrested, but immediately his hand was frozen, and therefore he cried to the prophet to have the Lord heal him. After being healed, he changed gears and now wanted to reward the prophet. However, the prophet explained:

• "Even if you were to give me half your possessions, I would not go with you, nor would I eat bread or drink water here. For I was commanded by the word of the Lord: 'You must not eat bread or drink water or return by the way you came.' " (1 Kings 13:8-9)

True to the Word, the prophet left only to later succumb to the word of a false prophet who claimed that he had received a corrective word from God instructing the prophet to go to his house and eat. Well, why shouldn’t the prophet take some refreshment? He deserved it! Besides, the false prophet seemed to be one of his own kind. The real, but now compromised prophet, ate but, upon leaving, was killed by a lion, who proved to be more obedient to God’s instructions – contrary to his nature, the lion did not eat the prophet – than had been the prophet.

This account is deeply troubling in its severity. For seemingly one lapse, God had his servant killed! However, this severity should be a lesson for us. How crucial to our very welfare is it to hold the Word of our God as preeminent and uncompromised! And how much more severely will our God punish those to whom more has been given.

Jesus had issued the same warning:

• If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you… If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. (John 15:7, 10)

What are our 30 pieces of silver which we derive for our compromise? The prophet sold out for a meal. Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of soup. Israel often pursued idols instead of the God who had redeemed them. We compromise for social and professional respectability, rejecting the Word of God in favor of the idolatrous bondage to the opinions of others.

Nevertheless, our Lord's arms are still reaching out. He explains:

• “On your clothes men find the lifeblood of the innocent poor, though you did not catch them breaking in. Yet in spite of all this you say, 'I am innocent; he [God] is not angry with me.' But I will pass judgment on you because you say, 'I have not sinned.'” (Jeremiah 2:34-35)

If only we would implore our God to show us the truth, to examine us (Psalm 139:23-24)! If only we would admit that we have sinned and would confess before Him! However, we are too self-deluded by our own self-justifications and self-righteousness and therefore proclaim “I have not sinned!” This is our biggest problem!

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Dogs, “Junk” DNA and Design

Intra-species variation doesn’t mean evolution. To put it another way, even though we find tremendous variation among dogs – this includes wolves, coyotes and foxes – it doesn’t mean that all of the assembly information (DNA) evolved through random mutation. In fact it couldn’t have! Bruce Malone, Search for the Truth Ministries (TRUTH@SEARCHFORTHETRUTH.NET), writes in his newsletter:

• All biologists and geneticists now know that every dog on the planet originated less than 10,000 years ago as a result of the selection of information contained within the genetic code of a wild grey wolf…Absolutely no evolution of information has happened – just a sorting of the many characteristics needed to produce the various breeds of dogs and wild canines of today.

This means that the great variation noted within various emerging sub-species does not require a lengthy process and a macro-evolutionary explanation. Instead, variation – as in the case of the canine family – can be explained as a product of the design and genetic inheritance of the original wolf. If so much information can be packed into one genome, perhaps Noah’s Ark was big enough!

Within the same newsletter (Winter 2012) Malone writes about the fallacy of “junk DNA”:

• For over twenty years, it has been widely reported that less than 2% of the coded information on the human DNA molecule is used to produce proteins…Thus 98% of the DNA sequence was assumed to be useless leftover junk from our evolutionary past. This was accepted evolutionary dogma for many years…Even within the last 5 years, Dr. Francis Collins (head of the human genome project), stated in his book, The Language of God, that roughly 45% of the human genome is made up of repetitive flotsam and jetsam and that this junk provides “compelling” evidence for the evolutionary origin of humanity. Yet we can now conclusively show that essentially all the DNA’s coded sequence (including repetitive sections) serves multiple purposes and functions.

If the presence of “junk” DNA – leftover non-functioning DNA from ancestral life-forms – argues in favor of evolution, then the lack of such should argue against evolution! This absence of junk DNA should also argue that we aren’t the result of a mindless, purposeless process but of Intelligent design!

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Our Pain and His Promises: How to Bridge the Gap

Have you experienced that seemingly impassable divide between your present circumstances and God’s promises of love, joy, peace, healing and deliverance? I certainly have. For years, I was unable to experience any of my Savior’s promises. Depression and panic attacks tore so violently at me that going to church was a torment.

It seemed to me that everyone else was a spiritual winner and I was the biggest looser. They were realizing God’s blessings in their lives and I wasn’t, or so it seemed. Compounding my problems, I was convinced that there was something horribly the matter with me.

Similarly, a friend informed me that he had been experiencing the unceasing torment of same-sex attraction. He had become a sex-addict and found himself unable to escape the cycle of shame and guilt followed by praying for the Lord’s deliverance. His life was entirely removed from God’s unreachable promises of deliverance.

Unfulfilled hope grows faint, and many seek greener pastures elsewhere. How, then, can we grasp hold of the reality of God’s promises when they seem so far off – so ephemeral like a desert mirage? First, we need to realize that we are not alone:

·        No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. (1 Cor. 10:13)

In fact, the burdens that we bare are the same ones with which the Psalmists also struggled. In a typical lament, the Psalmist lays out the problem. He begins by citing the promises of God in God’s own words:

·        I will maintain my love to him [David] forever, and my covenant with him will never fail… I will not violate my covenant or alter what my lips have uttered…that his line will continue forever and his throne endure before me like the sun; it will be established forever like the moon, the faithful witness in the sky." (Psalm 89:28-37)

Once the Psalmist recaps God’s glory, faithfulness and promises, he then brings his angry indictments against God:

·        But you have rejected, you have spurned, you have been very angry with your anointed one. You have renounced the covenant with your servant and have defiled his crown in the dust. You have broken through all his walls and reduced his strongholds to ruins… O Lord, where is your former great love, which in your faithfulness you swore to David? (Psalm 89:38-40)

He charged that God has failed to fulfill His promises – that Israel is now in ruins, seemingly contradicting God’s promises of unabated future glory. This raises a related problem. Is there a contradiction in God’s Word? Is it therefore untrustworthy? Are the Psalms no more than an expression of the human struggle and not completely the Word of God?

Indeed, we are faced with what appears to be a bold-faced contradiction: The Psalmist cites God as saying, “I will not violate my covenant or alter what my lips have uttered,” but the Psalmist charges, “You have renounced the covenant!” Contradiction, right?

Not necessarily! Scripture often contains errant human statements to make its point. Job’s three friends had stated many things that were wrong. Besides, when God appeared to correct Job, He charged that Job had stated many things wrong about God!

Does this mean that we can no longer trust Scripture? Well, no! However, we first have to determine the overall purpose of the book. The Book of Job demonstrated that we all have our breaking point, even the most righteous of men. In Job’s case, his suffering brought his self-righteousness to the surface. He eventually repented of his wild charges against God.

Likewise, in the Psalms, in an inerrant manner, God brings to the surface human errant sentiments and statements. In the case of Psalm 89, the Psalmist concluded his indictments with a simple statement of trust: “Praise be to the Lord forever! Amen and Amen.”

This is perplexing! How can the Psalmist conclude with praise to a God who he knows to be unfaithful? He can’t! Instead, at the end of his diatribe, the Psalmist reaffirmed his faith in God despite the tremendous chasm between God’s promises and Israel’s present disappointing reality.

However, despite the apparent contradiction, the Psalmist reasserts his faith in the God of Israel and reassures himself that there is a resolution to the tension, albeit obscured by his God.

In another Psalm, the Psalmist receives the answer to his dilemma – a divine revelation. He too had experienced the seemingly impassable chasm. While Scripture clearly taught the blessedness of those who followed their God, the Psalmist perceived that it was the other way around – that the evil were receiving all of the blessings! He temporarily concluded that he was wasting his time serving God:

·        Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence. (Psalm 73:13) 

However, after God had bridged the impassable chasm between reality and promise, by way of revelation, everything was then changed for the Psalmist. He was enabled to see the big picture in which God resolved everything - the puzzle fit together and every mountain and impassable chasm became a highway into His presence:

·        I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you. Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (Psalm 73:22-26)

We are all ‘brute beasts” before God. We are all so undeserving of His mercy. Our Lord uses the tension between our painful and humbling present reality and His promises of glory to reveal this to us. He uses this protracted waiting period to kindle within us a knowledge and a longing for Him alone:

·        Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. (1 Peter 4:12-13)

If life is too comfortable here – if there is no tension between reality and promise – we will not “be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.” Instead, we would probably apply for a time extension – “Come back in a couple of months. I’m not ready yet!”

My friend had to persevere in faith for years, but finally he was delivered from the torments of same-sex attraction. Sadly, many have not persevered. Perhaps they had the false expectation that reality and promise would immediately come together and therefore became overly discouraged.

In the midst of my many-year struggle with depression and panic attacks, I had forsaken any hope of deliverance. It just didn’t seem that the gulf between my reality and His promises could ever be breached. Fortunately, I had tried everything else out, and everything had proved an unmitigated disappointment. Therefore, I had nowhere else to go and continued to camp out at God’s doorstep. The door was closed but perhaps it might open. It wasn’t much of a hope, but it was my only hope. Meanwhile, the Psalmist counsels, “wait!”

·        I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. (Psalm 27:13-14)

How then do we bridge the gap? Sometimes, the only thing we can do is wait. (But sometimes, it might also be “Repent, and follow Me!”)

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The Closing of the Western Mind and Mouth

According to LifeSiteNews.com, Lesley Pilkington, apsychotherapist in the UK has stated that:

• “Our churches have become extremely worldly. It is supposed to be that the churches influence the nation, but now the nation is influencing the church.”

• Churches “very rarely talk about sin and refuse ever to say that homosexual behaviour is a sin.” Only a minority of people in the churches in Britain, “speak out the word of God. And they get a lot of aggression for it. The church is doing a disservice to homosexuals by denying sinners their liberty in the lord Jesus Christ. They are blind guides leading others into a ditch of destruction.”

• “The established churches don’t accept the way I’ve spoken today, which is a biblical way. The word of God is being marginalised, as is the medical truth of homosexuality.”

• “Statistics for self-harm, self-hatred, psychological illness are horrendous and are getting more and more momentum as this acceptance grows,” she said. Homosexual behaviour is “incredibly bad for the individual, it is destructive to the person and to our nation.”

• “There is no way being gay-affirmative is helpful to individuals or to our nation,” she said. She admitted that in the UK, it is becoming “very close to illegal to say this.”

How could Pilkington get away with saying such inflammatory things? Well, she didn’t:

• The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy found her guilty of professional misconduct and ordered her to undergo re-training and “professional development.” These are to be completed in six to 12 months, or her membership will be revoked and she will be “struck off.”

• The BACP ruled that Pilkington’s approach was “reckless,” “dogmatic,” “disrespectful” and “unprofessional.” She was judged to have let her “personal preconceived views about gay lifestyle and sexual orientation … affect her professional relationship in a way that was prejudicial.”

This transpired because,

• Lesley Pilkington was the object of a sting operation by undercover journalist Patrick Strudwick, who approached her to ask her for help with his sexuality. He had told Pilkington that he wanted to leave the homosexual lifestyle and she informed him that she only worked within a Christian counseling framework.

• Strudwick, who went to two counseling sessions with Pilkington and published the transcript of the meetings in The Independent newspaper, was awarded journalist of the year by the homosexualist organization Stonewall for the sting. After the sessions, he lodged a complaint to the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy alleging that Pilkington had failed to respect the “fixed nature” of his homosexuality.

 Pilkington had explained,

• “He told me he was looking for a treatment for being gay. He said he was depressed and unhappy and would I give him some therapy. I told him I only work using a Christian biblical framework and he said that was exactly what he wanted.”

Had Strudwick only complained that he was depressed, Pilkington would have been held in contempt by her profession had she sent him away telling him to “learn to live with it!” Why the double standard? Certainly, the BACP would never stoop to political correctness by compromising truth and professionalism. Certainly, the BACP wouldn’t compromise the welfare of the public that they serve!

Commenting on the case, Conservative MEP Roger Helmer said,

• “Why is it OK for a surgeon to perform a sex-change operation, but not OK for a psychiatrist to try to ‘turn’ a consenting homosexual? If, for whatever reasons – moral, religious, personal – a homosexual man wants to have help to cure this, he should be allowed to seek treatment. I’m not being critical about homosexuality at all, but if we have people who want to change, why should they be prevented from that happening?”

Good question, but who cares about truth and logical consistency if the cost is criticism!

• During her discussions with the BACP she asked for a clear answer on their policy on clients seeking help to overcome same-sex attraction, but received no answer. But a document released by the UK Council for Psychotherapy, Ethical Principles and Code of Professional Conduct, says that even when a client specifically asks for help to eliminate homosexual tendencies, psychotherapists are obliged to refuse. The guidelines say that even in a case of a father with a family, who loves and wants to stay with his wife and children and wants to be rid of same-sex feelings, the counsellor is obliged to refuse to “pathologise” them and instead must “affirm” him in being a homosexual.

• “Agreeing to the client’s request for therapy for the reduction of same sex attraction is not in a client’s best interests,” the guidance says. Therapists who feel they do not have “sufficient competence” to adhere to this policy are obliged to refer clients to therapists who will only help them to accept homosexual inclinations.

In such a case, the BACP is convinced that the client doesn’t know what he is talking about. The BACP clearly knows what’s best for him, even if he is married and has children! After all, what’s the matter with having a dad or a husband if he wants a little extra sex on the side!

Pilkington insinuates the use of Nazi-like tactics:

• “It is extraordinary to me. People have lost the ability to genuinely look at what’s best for people. Political correctness and gay activists have generated a fear. People say, ‘I’m going to agree with this or I’m going to have a lot of aggression towards me’.”

It is even more extraordinary that the Western institutions that are supposed to safe-guard against aggression and coercion have capitulated!

(Video)

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