Reaching out to a lost church

The Character of God As Seen in Creation

2011-04-27T09:35:00.000-07:00

“What I believe about God is the most important thing about me.” A.W. Tozer

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Romans 1:18-20

Knowing Jesus intimately is singularly one of the greatest privileges we have as a believer. It is also one of the most crucial aspects of our eternal life. Jesus said in Matthew 7:18-23, "A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy Name? and in Thy Name have cast out devils? and in Thy Name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity."

With that in mind, I want to propose an examination of the two most prevalent creation models being presented as truth considering the character of God. Only one can be true. Either the world is 4.5 billion years old or roughly 10,000 years old give or take. Either God created the world in six literal twenty-four hour days or six eras. Both uses of the word "yom" from Hebrew would be correct. But only one of these declares who God really is.

It has been my observation that the created world has caused many people to give up their faith based on a faulty understanding of the character of God. Richard Dawkins did just that. He noted the created world through the lens of science and he also read the Word of God and He saw a God he didn't know. Where was the God he knew who was easy on sin, all gentle at all times and never ever angry? Why did the created world portray something entirely different?

Instead of realizing that God was revealing something to him about Himself, Dawkins dropped the ball and attacked the Bible. Because so many people misunderstand the attributes of God and cannot reconcile these things with the created world as seen from its beginning, they conclude that the whole thing is a sham.

Further, there are folks such as Ellen White and Rob Bell who were led to conclude that hell's fire is metaphorical or a momentary experience at best. They can't reconcile the all benevolent god easy on sin with eternal torment. Yet God says that His eternal attributes are clearly seen right from the beginning. If you look closely at His judgments, you can see that He is not easy on sin. Quite the contrary in fact. So let's compare the attributes of the YEC (young earth creationist) God with the OEC (old eath creationist) God and see which one most clearly portrays the God of the Bible.

Honesty
In creation one of the main attributes I would hope to see is absolute honesty. If there is one thing I know for a fact about God it is the fact that He doesn't lie ever! Now, YEC states that yes in fact the universe is immense and many objects are millions or billions of light years from earth. To the layman what that means is that we are seeing what happened to those galaxies millions of years ago. Yet, they would suggest that God only gave the universe an appearance of age to the average person. In other words, the universe appears old, but it is really very young.

There is no way to reconcile this with scientific evidence. The natural world does not coincide with this and when pressed, the knowledgeable YEC will admit this. So they fall back on something not clearly seen, which would be supernatural activity like someone waving a magic wand.

My question is does God do that typically? Does He work miraculously to bring about His will for us? Or does He work supernaturally naturally through the things He's created? It has been my experience that it is the latter 99.9% of the time. These things are still miracles, but they are happening so naturally that to the man without faith, they seem to be happening without the hand of God. That is how God operates the majority of the time. That is His character. Our faith works through that to cause these natural things to work for us.

Another point is that Psalm 19:1-3 tells us, "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard." What that means is that anyone on the planet regardless of mental status can look up and understand what they see.

With that in mind, a faction of YEC propose an intense mathematical formula that they believe reconciles this problem. http://www.reasons.org/unraveling-starlight-and-time-0 Very few people would be able to decipher this formula. Not to mention, it has been refuted and proven false. Yet many unsuspecting Christians loving the God of the YEC model have adopted this as proof even though it is not clearly seen by everyone on the planet regardless of language, mental capacity, or location so they they have no excuse.

Another problem is the sixth day of creation. I never considered this until I started listening to Reasons To Believe. Logistically, it would be impossible for Adam to name all the animals, realize they aren't compatible with him, have major surgery, and then wake up to meet Eve. The YEC knows this. And once again, we have to fall back on smoke screens and mirrors to explain this. What we clearly see, which is a time passing, is not what we actually see because once again, the YEC proposes that God did something supernatural like prolonging the day. Yet reality fits the God of the Bible.

He is honest and truthful. If He says we can clearly see this, you know what? I think we should be able to clearly see this and lo and behold, we do. Science has discovered that man traces back to one woman and one man. Granted, the man comes later. But that is exactly what we would expect if everything bottlenecks after the Flood with Noah.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3LLtZUdpvA

Hurry up, God!!!
Am I the only Christian on the planet that feels that God has no problem making me wait for something as in years and years and years....? What about how He made David wait until after he was dead for Solomon to build the temple that he planned? God doesn't ever seem to be in a hurry according to my timeline. But not the YEC god. He's in a big hurry to get this universe underway. Zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip. It's done. In comparison to infinity, that is like a microsecond for us.

The Bibles says in Daniel 7:13, "I was watching in the night visions, And behold, One like the Son of Man, Coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, And they brought Him near before Him."

Now, that to me sounds like a very long time. Plus, when God is presenting to us a picture of Himself through Abraham and his son Issac, we see that God has Abraham wait until he's 100 to have Issac. So as a human ancient man, Abraham has a son. Now compare that to infinity and you can see that God being a brief six days old is zero in comparison. Plus, this is a perfect picture of the Ancient of Days having a Son - Jesus.

Longsuffering
Psalm 86:15 says this about God's character, "But You, O Lord, are a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in mercy and truth."

If you look at the creation events in reality, it is apparent that God suffers in its creation. He creates animals that are dying. We know that He is aware of each of them.

Romans 8:22 tells us, "For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now." Creation has been declaring God's longsuffering from the beginning. And the purpose of this is exposed in the very next verse, "Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. ." The longsuffering isn't just sadism but it has a purpose.

The Terror of the Lord
Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are well known to God, and I also trust are well known in your consciences. 2 Corinthians 5:11

Where is this attribute in the YEC model? God would be completely disingenuous if He didn't include His terror in creation from the beginning. Yet in the YEC model, it doesn't exist because according to their point of view, these things are not apparent until after the fall of mankind. They believe that there is no death in the world at all except for perhaps plant life. This would mean that all animals are herbivores until man sins.

The problem with this is that many of these animals themselves are terrifying. And thank God they don't live today or we'd all live our lives in terror. If your neighbor were a family of tyrannosaurus rex, you would probably die of fear. But God in His wisdom created these things on the fifth day and then took their breath away. Then He created again and replenished the earth with carnivorous animals that would not be as difficult to abide with. Yet, it is apparent that many eras of man have discovered the remains of these animals and depicted them in art work as terrifying creatures.

The Mercy of the Lord
Now both models would support this loving attribute. The most prevalent place for this would be in babies. We see cute cuddly innocent babies and our hearts melt. See, everyone sees the benevolence of God in nature in the things that are made because they are more abundant than the things that are malevolent. Thank God for that or the world would be so destructive that we could not survive. Instead, we see fluffy bunnies and cuddly kittens all showing God's character.

God makes no apology for creating these chaotic things and in fact, says that He does in Isaiah 45:7, " I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the LORD, do all these things.’ " Since all creating stopped after the creation of man, we know these things were created before the fall.

Perfection
The real miracle of creation is in the fine tuning and ways in which this universe and in particular, this planet is sustained. Yet, God's means to achieve that is through these events that to us seem imperfect. Is the problem the creation or our perception of who God is? Perhaps we truly need to step back and see who this God is and accept that He is stating clearly in His Word the exact same things.

He rejoices over things like the KT boundary as is seen in Psalm 104:29-32. He sees the good in the works of His hands and how the things He is creating are formed through means of suffering. This planet has been suffering since its inception.

Do you know how Jesus, who is God Almighty was made perfect? For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. Hebrews 2:10 Shouldn't that modus operandi be clearly seen from the creation of the world? Is it?

From the point of view of reality, it is. From the point of view of the YEC, it isn't. From their perspective, everything was pristine until man fell and then a new creation came into play unlike the one before the fall. In this new place we find suffering, but not before.

Bugs
It is hard to imagine that a bug was in the thoughts of God. I find them to be disgusting. On the other hand, what is interesting to me is the way God has created these creatures that are soulless to portray parts of His character. He tells us one in Proverbs 6:6-8, "Go to the ant, you sluggard! Consider her ways and be wise, which, having no captain, overseer or ruler, provides her supplies in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest. "

Can you see that God is saying that an ant portrays a character quality of diligence? And shouldn't that quality be clearly seen from the creation of the world?

Of all the animals that men have filmed, I think we are all fascinated by insects the most. Nevertheless, we would hate to have them in our homes. They are not friendly for the most part because they do not bond with man.

These are just a few character attributes that I believe are imperative in terms of God revealing who He is to mankind from the creation of the world. God knew we would be in a faith based universe where we couldn't know Him by our physical senses. So He left us with a creation that would help us understand who He is. We have to see that from the point of view of reality to comprehend His invisible attributes. He is telling us in Romans that it is enough so that we are without excuse.

Interestingly, the atheists see it. They see that side of God. They see that He is angry with the wicked every day. They see those attributes in creation. That's why they are without excuse.

EVE'S SECRET TO GROWING YOUNGER

2010-05-18T12:12:00.000-07:00

EVE'S SECRET TO GROWING YOUNGER

This shows the discrepancy of why the dates for mankind are not the same as the fossil record.

Humans Interbreed with Neanderthals?

2010-05-09T14:06:00.000-07:00

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/humans-interbred-neanderthals/id265539001?i=82906057

Excellent podcast from RTB that totally shows that this is because of an inference that this is being proposed.

Vera

Liberty Bell rangers halt minister's speech

2010-05-02T13:08:00.001-07:00

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58062

A Righteousness by the Law or a Righteousness by Faith - A Fine Line

2010-05-01T06:37:00.000-07:00

Did the Jews achieve a measure of righteousness by the Law? According to Scripture, they did. They still sinned and fell short of the glory of God, but they were able to grasp some righteousness. (Luke 1:6, Phil 3, Galatians 2:15, Acts 17:30)

Grace is God's power to set us free and to do the work that He has called us to. This power is extended to us through faith.

It is actually easy to perform religious ceremonies and dress in religious outfits. It is impossible to be pure in heart, speak the truth in love, and be angry and sin not just to name a few ways that a true Christian should respond. Those responses are unpredictable. They must be manifest at the time they are needed. Sometimes, gentleness and compassion are the right approach. Sometimes the fear of the Lord is more appropriate. Jude 22-23. Nevertheless, with the Holy Spirit, we can do the right thing, at the right time in the right way.

One major confusion about the gospel message is our need for righteousness to be received into heaven. This requires grace. We need a full pardon for past sin through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. But we also need something else. We need to be freed from the sins of our flesh so that we can walk in the power of God's Spirit.

2 Tim. 3 describes people in these last times that have a form of godliness but deny the power of God. They are ever learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. I have experienced this type of believer. On the outside, they look holy. Unfortunately, this doesn't translate into genuine love toward the brethren, discernment toward those around us or an ability in general to judge righteously. Everything is judged based on one's ability to keep these standards of righteousness. Even our responses are preconditioned per the admonitions of the hierarchy. So for example, a tough approach would always be intolerable and sin their site.

Many that attempted this path found a dead end and some either turned to sin or turned to Reformed Theology as an answer. It is appealing because according to Reformed Theology, we don't do anything in Christ because God is doing everything for us. That isn't what grace is about.

The righteousness on this side of the cross is not about law. Christians try to make it law but it isn't law. It is fruit that comes from the Holy Spirit living in us - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self control - against such, there is no law. This leads to liberty but not liberty that gives us a license to the flesh. We are not free TO sin but free FROM sin.

Interestingly, both sets of people can seem the same on occasion. For example, a Spirit led person may not see a movie because of nudity, which the Holy Spirit directs them away from. Those that try to obtain righteousness by the Law will do the exact same thing. A man can't watch that type of thing without lusting. Lust is adultery. Adultery is sin for which one will be cast into hell. So the Holy Spirit would lead someone away from that type of movie.

What has happened in a segment of the church is that because of this doctrine of sin nature, we are led to believe that what's inside us to motivate us daily is irreparably sinful even after we are saved so that we are driven to sin against our will, but thank God for Jesus dying. In order to keep ourselves from sinning, this group has developed what they call "standards" to keep us from sinning and thus reconcile us to God.

To keep from sinning and offending God, they have established a law of sorts. When Ephesians 2 says that we are saved by grace and not by works, this is exactly what it is speaking against. We have to be righteous to enter heaven. But we can't obtain the kind of righteous that God is seeking by the works of the Law. That type of righteousness, as is seen in the Pharisees, falls short. Our righteousness has to EXCEED that.

There are many sobering Scriptures that support this conclusion. (Matthew 7:21, Hebrews 10, Galatians 5, 1 Cor. 5 and 6, Rev 2, 3, 21 and 22) When those Scriptures are understood properly, the admonition of Paul's to walk out our salvation with fear and trembling makes perfect sense.

I find this group not to walk in the fear of the Lord but falsely believe that God overlooks sin. Acts 17:30 says just the opposite. Their rationale for believing this is that there are so many standards to keep that they can't keep them all perfectly. So their ability to avoid sin is impossible. Can you see how these manmade ordinances have the potential to muddy the waters?

What you might hear from someone who has been into this for a while is a false humility declaring their sinfulness as though this brings glory to God. What it actually does is make Scripture, our faith, and the cross null and void and brings great reproach on the Lord. Why? Because younger believers assume that all sin is the same and then do the things that God specifically states will get them a one way ticket into hell's fire.

Our goal should be to know Jesus and for Him to know us. Sin, which is the thoughts and actions that we have done that have offended God, are in the way. The only way to deal with our sins committed in the past is to repent of specific things that we've done asking Jesus to cover our sin with His blood. "God forgive me of all my sins" doesn't cut it. God wants us to confess it all to Him. I learned that truth through Bill Gothard. I prayed that way and for the first time in my life, I was reconciled to God.

As to future sin, that is handled by grace through faith. We take in more faith through the Word of God, which gives us more grace. Suffering also brings more grace. This would be suffering that God brings as we suffer with Christ and not self inflicted suffering or suffering for doing wrong.

Some of us have experienced Christian law to make us righteous. In other words, if you wear dresses 24/7, dress in a particular style, wear a hat, never look at a movie, never listen to rock music, never participate in sports, and never associate with folks that don't keep your standards, you will be reconciled to God. This is a quote from Bill Gothard from one of his programs for youth. See if you can find the problem with this. It is very subtle.

**If your heart is filled with the carnal beliefs expressed in current music, philosophies, dress, movies, and activities, you will be carnally minded and will not be able to experience God’s presence or power. Loving the world separates you from the love of God. (See James 4:4 and I John 2:15.) Have you surrendered your body to the Lord and purposed to resist “the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life”? ***(These include music with a backbeat, sensual images, friendships that displease your parents, unwholesome movies, etc.)*****

Sensual images are porn. Porn precludes lust. Lust is adultery, which will get you thrown into hell. So yes, that would definitely be "the world." The rest in the list are so undefined as to leave the person with only one conclusion. There is nothing anyone can do outside their home without offending God. I know, because we tried to keep this type of thing meticulously and that became the only conclusion.

I have sat under this man's teaching for many years and can testify both personally and from observation that this ideology, which seems right on the surface, bears some really rotten fruit. It is saying that if you stop doing all these things that Bill Gothard has interpreted as "the world," you will be reconciled to God. Then it further admits that this cannot be done perfectly, hence, we are destined to sin every day. This has led some men to conclude that they can have incest, look at porn on the Internet or blatantly commit adultery without any ETERNAL recourse from God. The teaching does say that they will suffer here but not in regard to eternity because they believe the blood of Jesus covers their sin. And while it is true that we can be redeemed, God does not always grant repentance to such a person who is claiming to be saved but walking in gross reprobation. I have seen that too.

On the other end of the spectrum, some of these are so ambiguous that it leaves the person with only one conclusion. You can't do anything. What's an unwholesome movie? What activities? What music? Keith Green? If an unwholesome movie is a movie with violence, then what does that say about the stories depicted in Scripture? Some of these stories are more violent than any movie that I have ever seen such as a woman driving a peg through a man's head or a man cutting up his dead concubine into twelve pieces?

I have more problems with some Christian movies than I do with secular ones. Fireproof is a fine example. Although I appreciate the message of change and repentance, I did not like the way the journal gave this young man a promise that if he repented, he would have a great marriage. We do not repent to get a great marriage. We repent to be reconciled because we've offended a very Holy God. His wife may or may not repent herself and then what? The Jesus movies have never shown a Jesus that I know and love. We have the hip-hop cool Jesus, the sullen Jesus and the drop dead gorgeous Jesus.

What might not be fully realized is that these folks have something to boast about and more to judge than what Scripture speaks about. After all, I don't do these things and others do. We can compare standards to see who has the best ones. People are generally snubbed and considered unsaved if they don't keep the standards. So I am more reconciled to God than that other guy because I don't wear pants and I never enter a movie theater. Or worse, I am less than the guy who is keeping these things to perfection, which is depressing. In fact, the gospel message from this camp says that when you are saved, your spirit is perfected but it just takes time for your soul. Hence, one can see how this would further lead people to see the inner circle as higher up than the low man who isn't as saved. This leads some Christians to subtly inadvertently put certain people on a pedestal. The leadership become untouchable and unteachable.

One standard not mentioned involves money. There are many admonitions in Scripture for us to give and we should give cheerfully especially to the poor and needy, not to the fat cat preacher who is boiling over with money. That is what God wants us to do but not to twist God's arm on our finances. The teaching further says that you must handle your money perfectly to be blessed of God financially. If you are struggling financially, it is a sign of sin. Gain is therefore, a sign of godliness. Scripture specifically tells us to turn away from such people. Read the book of James if you want to see the correct perspective on money.

See, Jesus said if you don't know Him and He doesn't know you, you aren't getting into heaven. So reconciliation is paramount to salvation. The lust of the flesh are the things that God has specifically told us not to fulfill according to the flesh outside of His plans and purposes because they keep us separated from God. These would include sexual perversion or drunkenness. The lust of the eyes is covetousness, which is wanting things that others have and thus, idolatry. The pride of life is believing myself to be better than others or wanting to be God.

But see, this statement has rewritten this to include movies, a particular brand of music, activities and philosophies. The things of the world are attitudes of the heart and works of the flesh that mislead us in the wrong direction. And yes, we should be aware and be led of the Spirit and discern wrong philosophies. The more we know God's Word, the more faith we receive and the more we understand what God hates and we find no enjoyment in evil because we know the Lord. It doesn't make us righteous to stop doing these things. Our righteousness is being born out of this faith, grace, love relationship. So then, these decisions come after that point, not before because we are being led of His Spirit. In other words, my faith translates into making particular decisions. Movies are lawful for me but not all movies are edifying. Music is lawful for me, but not all music is beneficial.

I think a better exhortation is to fast from these things for a while and let the Holy Spirit speak to you about them. Part of the problem in America is we spend hours of time on the TV and a mere fraction of time with the Lord each day.

Now according to Romans 14, if something causes you to sin because you are weak in faith, you are to cut it off and I am called to respect that. So if movies cause you to sin and walk away from God, then don't watch them ever again and I will respect that and not judge you over it. It doesn't make you righteous but perhaps those things are a stumbling block.

Let's take pants on women for an example. The right attitude is to dress modestly out of love for my brothers as the Holy Spirit leads me, not to make myself holy or be saved through it. I like dresses and wear them most of the time. However, there are times when loose fitting pants on a woman are more modest than a dress because the dress could fly up in the air. To be dogmatic on this is to be under the law. It doesn't give the Holy Spirit an opportunity to lead the person where He wants them to go.

Philosophies, mentioned above, too are very ambiguous. To separate yourself from every wrong philosophy is a lesson in futility. You can't go anywhere or do anything because every non-Christian and many so called Christians have a place where they are missing the mark. You certainly could never witness to a lost sinner because they would make you take on their wrong philosophy. Hence, nobody who is under this type of Law would dare go to a sinner as is seen in the Pharisees. They wouldn't dare hang out with sinners to lead them to repentance. And again I observed that phenomenon through this teaching. There was a fear factor built into it that said, "Don't go to where the lost are because they will make you sin and cause your children to sin." In addition, there are very few Christians that one can associate with because few people keep every single standard the same.

That is normal. God may give a person liberty to do something that, as I said, is a stumbling block for someone else. That is why our convictions are often varied. What Scripture teaches is that when I am with you, I should keep your convictions as not to put a stumbling block before you. If your conscience isn't clear on something, then I must honor that.

What we observed as a family, was just the opposite of success. When we tried to walk meticulously in these standards, we drove one of our daughters and one of our sons out of the door. He couldn't deal with it anymore. But when we did what God said to do and we began to understand faith, our younger children began to grasp what it means to be saved. We saw a dynamic difference in these younger children to be led of the Spirit.

I think the Calvinistic philosophy misses the mark, for example. But listening to what they have to say doesn't force me to anything. We've heard arguments on creationism, sin, science and all sorts of things. What has happened is that God, through His Spirit, has given us more and more answers.

Our righteousness has to exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees and it comes by faith. FAITH. That is the key to receiving God's grace. That's why the poor in spirit can receive it and it doesn't lead to boasting because we know that it is Christ in us, the hope of glory. Apart from Him, we can do nothing. This is the total confusion that the Calvinists miss. They are taking passages of Scripture related to this aspect of salvation and putting them inside the other aspect of salvation, which is that pardon.

The law is attractive. Jesus had to use a spiritual jackhammer to get through to the Pharisees and explain to them as directly as He could that their righteousness didn't cut it. They were not clean on the inside but only on the outside and that caused pride in their lives. They didn't like that message. That's why they crucified Him.

Making outward changes is easy. Changing our hearts is pert near impossible. God convicts me of attitudes that nobody can see and I have been cleansed on the inside because of that work of grace. It is real genuine righteousness.

Doug, more so than me, talks to many people out on the streets. The most difficult people to witness to are the sinners that come out of this camp. They are so full of pride that they can't see where they really truly stand before God and trying to tell them that they need to change only conjures up their past experiences of trying to be righteous by the Law. Bar none, they top the list in my book on the most difficult people to witness to.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Blessings,
Vera

But doesn't Scripture teach us that death is our enemy?

2010-03-26T10:02:00.000-07:00

One thing that is imperative for us to realize is who we are and how we were created. Many people believe that being human is sin, wretchedness, ugliness and awful. The teaching is that men are sin, are guilty of Adam's sin and therefore need a Savior, not that men commit sin and therefore need a Savior. They would further see themselves as wicked and evil by nature without any hope on this earth of ever making a righteous choice. The flip side of this or extreme are those who refuse to accept that their goodness is flawed by their own freewill choice to sin. We all sin, not because we don't have an inner voice saying not to, but because we are weak without the Holy Spirit's power to help us.

Sin is a choice that Adam and Eve made. James 1:14 tells us that we sin when we are enticed by our own lusts. That is what happened to both Adam and Eve. She wanted more than what she had and he didn't want to let go of her. Before that, Lucifer made a choice to sin against a Holy God. Sin did not begin with Adam and Eve, but with Satan.

Sin entered the world through Adam and Eve. This Scripture in Romans 5 doesn't mention animals receiving death at this point but people and that is important. We are not overcome with remorse when a baby animal is eaten in the wilds of Africa. But we would not feel the same if that same lion were running after a human toddler. That is because we are special in God's sight. Everything in our being proclaims that truth.

I don't believe that God was taken unaware by Lucifer's temptation of Adam and Eve. It was a means to challenge God, which God allowed. Satan wanted to be ruler of God through these creatures created in His image. But God had a plan to remove Satan from His presence permanently using these same creatures created in the image of God and a process called death and in so doing, He would destroy sin. Scripture tells us that God had this in mind from the foundation of the world. Revelations 13:8

1 John 3:5-9 says,

"And ye know that He was manifested to take away our sins; and in Him is no sin. Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen Him, neither known Him. Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous. He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for His seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God."

He is telling us here that the purpose that God had in mind, which we know occurred from the foundation of the world, was to destroy the works of the devil. 1 John 3 explains how this is accomplished through us. We have the potential to make this enemy God's footstool by grace (God's divine nature imparted to us) through faith by the very fact that we are created in the image of God and are therefore, like Him.

Now I personally see that Satan's interaction with God in Job is significant because a) he's in the presence of God b) they are having a debate of sorts concerning the integrity of a human c) God is defending Job's integrity and d) Satan is given freedom to tempt Job through illness, the death of his children and financial ruin. Interestingly, Job passed the test. Clearly, Adam and Eve didn't and they were not nearly in the state that Job was in of suffering. This proves that we can choose.

According to 1 Corinthians 15:21-26 says, "For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at His coming. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."

Death is our enemy because we are created in the image of God. We are a little lower than the angels (Psalm 8:5) and of much greater value than animals (Luke 12:7). Jesus tells us in John 10 that we are like gods. This is because we are so much like Him. We make freewill choices. We have every attribute of God including the knowledge of good and evil, which was the final aspect making us like God. Genesis 3:22

Psalm 104:29-31 tells us that God allowed animals to die during the creation process. This is partly because of His ultimate goal that would be accomplished through His own death, burial and resurrection, which is what 1 Corinthians 15 is expressly explaining. Without that resurrection to life, we are undone and wasting our time. This is the only thing that can get us back to where we need to be.

Romans 8:20-22 tells us that God subjected the creation to these sufferings in hope. That hope is the "glorious liberty of the children of God." Our suffering cannot come close to being compared to this final event.

Jesus was perfected through suffering. We know that He was without sin and so this was not a consequence of wrong doing. There is something about suffering that helps us personally to be perfected. I can often see that in my own life. A situation of suffering seems to add a greater understanding to us and a greater power according to Paul. It increases grace in our lives if we endure that suffering in the right way. God created that type of trial for that reason.

This is in contrast to the consequences of sin, however. This type of suffering does not prefect us in the same way because we are suffering for evil. Peter explains that here:

But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled; But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing. For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: 1 Peter 3:14-18

One day death will be gone. It will be completely defeated. Will this happen during the Millennial reign of Christ? According to Scripture in Revelation, (Revelation 20:7-9) a host of people are going to rise up against Jesus in the end and be destroyed. So the answer is, "No."

It will be a while before death is completely gone for those who remain on this earth. For those of us who are resurrected, we will enjoy eternal life with Jesus after our death and experience all His goodness. That is our hope. He is truly a God of life, not death. Yet He created death for a good purpose. A new day will dawn and God will begin creating again in a new heavens and a new earth without decay.

Could a loving God create death before man sinned?

2010-03-20T07:02:00.001-07:00

It is obvious that this world is created for a purpose. The Creator cannot be known at all in this universe by our five natural senses of touch, taste, smell, sight and sound except for His Word. This is the only place on Planet Earth that God reveals the most important aspects of Himself to those created in His image. In fact, Scripture teaches us that the natural man cannot know God. (1 Corinthians 2:14)

Now through the ages, He has used other means such as oral traditions. He also used people that He gave power to such as the prophets and preachers. He also used the descendants of Abraham to reveal more of Himself to the world. This all culminated in these last times in Jesus Christ and the final canonization of His Word. At one time, God did overlook this ignorance in man, but now commands all men everywhere to repent. (Acts 17:30)

Further God has an enemy and that enemy has been sinning for some time before creation. So the first sin to enter God's realm was not man's sin, but satan's sin.

It is evident from the fact that Scripture tells us that Jesus was slain from the foundation of the world, (Revelation 13:8) that God was aware of satan's sin issues and the fact that he could deceive us to sin. Consequently, God devised a strategy to create beings with the ability to choose and He allowed them to be tempted by satan knowing the potential that they could fall. Yet their failure is actually the basis of God's success in removing this wicked evil being from His presence for eternity in hell's fire.

Jesus tells us this here: Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, “You are gods”’? If He called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him. John 10:34-38

I believe what Jesus is saying here is that it is possible for God to be made man because man is like God. We are like little images of God walking around here. He says we are gods. This is not in the sense that we should be worshipped or be God, but that we are like miniatures of God. (Genesis 3:22)

This is important because God used us to defeat His enemy. Our failure may have seemed like a huge mistake, but it wasn't. God was able to use us, in the Person of Jesus Christ, by using the likeness of sinful human flesh and by living a normal human life under the same conditions any other human would live, be tempted in the same ways any other human would be tempted, but without capitulating to sin in His heart; and then He laid down His life for us by dying on a Roman cross. He was without sin. He was a fully blameless human being. In that way, He was a Lamb without spot or blemish.

This is a key point to being a Christian. If you believe that Jesus came here with omnipotence and omniscience, then you have a false understanding of what it is that He did. The central part of His being remained in heaven so that while He was here, He lived as a human would live praying to His Father in heaven. Both the Son and the Spirit were on this planet at the same time in the Person of Jesus Christ. Further, the Spirit was working through John the Baptist at that time. He was also working in Mary, Joseph, Anna and Simeon and several others.

This cannot be overemphasized. John said twice that if you do not believe that Jesus came in the flesh, you are antichrist. (1 John 4:3, 2 John 1:7) Every form of false religion, besides the fact that they exude rotten fruit, demonstrates that they have this commonality: they do not believe that Jesus Christ came fully human. Jehovah's Witnesses and Islam have that same basis. They do not believe that God Almighty could come to this earth as a man. Mormons have a twisted view on this as well in that they do not believe that God Almighty came to this earth fully man. Now some that you might not have considered that also fall prey to this are Calvinists and Catholics. You may ask how I could say that. The reason is because their doctrinal position is that being a man is sin. We are all born with Adam's sin. Thus, they would say that Jesus had God as His Father and did not have that sin. The Bible says that Jesus was of the seed of David and goes to great lengths to list His sordid lineage. (Romans 1:3, 2 Timothy 2:8, Luke 3:23-38) Not to mention that Ezekiel 18 totally tosses out the idea that we are held accountable for anyone else's sin but our own.

How does this relate to death? The laws of physics necessary to cause death had to be in play from the creation of the world as is clearly seen there, for God's plans and purposes to be fulfilled. It was His plan all along to defeat satan personally through a man. Romans 8 tells us that the whole creation has been suffering since the beginning because God subjected it to suffering.

This all happens too so that we can be redeemed. We are still responsible for the choices we made all along. Hence, God also loved the whole world and died for us to make a way for us to spend eternity with Him.

Oh the depths of the riches and wisdom of God!

God's Character in Nature

2010-03-18T06:24:00.000-07:00

I listened to a debate recently between Dr. William Lane Craig and Dr. Francisco Ayala.

Both of these men are supposed Christians. Dr. Craig, a philosopher and theologian, was trying to demonstrate that God is seen in nature through intelligent design. Dr. Ayala is an evolutionary biologist who believes in natural evolution. Dr. Ayala's kingpin argument was the character of God. He used this to speak against intelligent design.

You see, Dr. Ayala too believes that God is solely benevolent. He cannot agree that these malevolent designs in nature are a display of God's character. Isaiah 45:7 tells us something different. The word create in this passage is bara. So this is part of God's initial creation from the beginning, not from the fall of mankind and God is taking responsibility for it and declares in Romans 1:20 that His invisible attributes are seen here.

Dr. Ayala falls back on naturalistic evolution to explain what he sees because under His comprehension of God's character, God must have left the scene, be no longer present in nature, and nature was left to formulate without God's presence after the initial creation event. This is the only way he can reconcile his fallacious impression of God with reality.

The problem with this is that God would have had to be absent throughout the course of history even to the creation of man and that is not what the Bible tells us. The Bible tells us that God was intimately involved in creation throughout its course and that He personally oversaw the creation of Adam and Eve. If I understand Dr. Ayala correctly, he would disagree with this. He believes that man evolved from apes. There are so many ramifications to that assertion until it is mind boggling. Keep in mind too that there was no sin in the world at this time, so why has God left the building?

This argument has been made before by various Christians who see the implications of human evolution, but it is worth repeating here. If man is simply an intelligent animal, then animalistic behavior in man is acceptable. Can you see how that one little idea at the vertex of a proposition or philosophical hypothesis can lead to deception? This denies the conscience of man and allows for a great latitude with sin, in particular, in the sexual realm. Is it any wonder under this false doctrine that we are now including practicing homosexuals, fornicators and adulterers into churches and calling them saved?

Almost anything is acceptable as long as the two participating people are consenting. After all, animals do it. Love is tolerance of sin under this teaching and being salt and light is hate. Guaranteed in the future that little by little, this philosophy will chip away at the core of our morality until we are accepting sin at a magnitude unheard of in these civilized times because we have to be all tolerant of what others are doing. We are under a strict moral code to mind our own business. That is what it means today to be loving.

The only place at this point where we draw the line is under mutual consent. If those who are into perversion can prove that these victims are consenting, then they can take more ground and society will accept it as right and good. Since many of these folks deny God, their definition of right and wrong is based on whatever society deems as right and good. That is how these heinous practices become socially acceptable.

For example, abortion is a heinous crime against the voiceless innocent. Yet the bulk of society turns a blind eye to this wicked evil in the name of a lack of prosperity due to overpopulation.

In the end, they will wish that all those children had survived. It is only when they see the effect it has on the ladies who participated and the adverse problems, generated by killing off parts of our society necessary to support the elderly, that the tide will turn. Then they will look back and gasp in horror at what our society did. There isn't a doubt in my mind too that somehow this will become something that "Christians" participated in and so therefore, Christianity is the problem. They are twisting the history on slavery in the same manner and the Nazi regime. Forget the fact that those who sincerely were Christians refused to participate in those things.

I was a little disappointed that Dr. Craig did not see that the logical conclusion is that we are misunderstanding God's character. Regrettably, Dr. Craig is probably tainted with the same formulation concerning God's character.

There is no way of getting around this. We either have to take the position that everything we see is an illusion and that God is not seen in these things or we have to take the stand that God isn't here at all to make this idea of God's all-loving character work. What if neither of these positions is true? What if the truth is that reality is true, God is intimately involved in creation and His invisible attributes are clearly seen here from the creation of the world?

The truth is that God is love. The difficulty is with our definition of the word love. We have so skewed this interpretation that it is no wonder that there is an enormous confusion over God's character and creation.

A loving God sent His Son here to die a brutal death for the sins of the world to satisfy the just requirements necessary to pardon us from sin. That was His just requirement. Let that sink in. That is what God designed to make a way for us from the moment of creation. Hebrews 9:26 He took that upon Himself and came to this earth as a man to accomplish this. Nevertheless, it was still a rather gruesome means necessary to help us. If you ask me, from the impression of the singularly benevolent character of God that people have built in their minds, God would have never allowed this to happen in the first place.

A loving God judged the Jews on more than one occasion and certainly eliminated the people in that region who were diabolical. Why? Because they were not people who cared about others, they loved their money, they were full of pride and they were full of sexual perversions. Ezekiel 16:49 They had gone so far into this corruption that there was nothing that could redeem them. Society is heading that way again today and Romans 1:18 and the book of Revelation tells us that God is going to react the same way.

If those characteristics were not evidenced in nature, then Romans 1:20 would be null and void of effect to anyone who does not believe and everyone on this planet would have plenty of excuses not to believe. Instead, it is the very fact that we see both beautiful, gentle and loving creatures here and ones that are terrifying that causes God's judgment to be just.

The most significant part of that, in my mind, is that the most terrifying creatures to have ever lived are separated from us by God through a cataclysmic event that wiped them out. Yet we can see that they did exist and we have a little fun imagining what it would be like if we had a zoo full of them in the movie Jurassic Park. It would obviously not be a good time and we would be in panic mode. These folks are genuinely terrified and rightfully so because there is an aspect of God that is terrifying as well and it is directed toward those people who refuse to obey His commandments.

2 Samuel 22:22-27 demonstrates this duel character of God based on our lives and hearts. He shows Himself loving and merciful to those who are loving and merciful. On the other hand, He is shrewd to the devious. This is actually a Hebrew play on words. The first word means crooked or perverse. The second one means to be twisted or to wrestle. The implication is that God twists the perverted. That is how He will appear to them. These attributes of God must be evidenced in nature or people will fail to see that He has righteous indignation.

He is a God that would beat up a bunch of merchants who are selling for the purpose of profiting off of Him in His church and so, He messed up their business day. I have heard people gloss over this display of anger by Jesus in saying that He is God and so He can do what He wants, but this would be sin to us. The clear implication is that this is wrong behavior that we can't do because we aren't God. How ridiculous. If it is sin to us, then God in the flesh would be sinning too. The entire objective here was for Jesus, who is God Almighty, to live the life of a man without sin. So anything that falls under the category of sin for us is sin for Jesus.

When these folks with their false impression of God see us out on the streets confronting people on their sin, they are grossly offended because of this doctrinal error. Their entire view of God is one of benevolence and gentle kindness. They have no idea what these folks need nor do they realize that these sin filled perverts are overflowing with the love message that has led them to where they are.

In conclusion, this suggests only two logical possibilities. Either we are wrong about the character of God or Jesus is a sinner. If Jesus is a sinner, that negates the entire message. Since all of these attributes are clearly seen from the creation of the world when it is viewed in reality, I say that we are missing the mark in understanding who God really is. He is not the mealy mouthed namby pamby transexual god that people are imagining in their heads. Jesus was never like that. That is not God Almighty and His entire creation and Word declares that to everyone.

Evolution and the Age of the Earth

2010-03-17T06:17:00.000-07:00

Another thing that I want to point out is that evolution and the age of the earth are not synonymous terms. In a very deceptive manner, the YEC will make a sarcastic remark in passing equating these two things as though believing the facts of the age of the earth means that one has to believe in the whole package deal of naturalistic evolution. That is just downright deceptive and evil.

Now that I know the truth, I sit back in amazement at how these Christians do not question what they are being taught and how these people manipulate their audience. I personally believe that the YEC do not capitulate over these things, that they know because they do investigate what is being said, because of money. These people have mega-ministries that bring in a lot of income for the YEC.

Christians flock to these organizations for support because they do believe in the Word of God. They further need proof that what they believe is true. So they come to these folks for the answers they need to share with the people they are trying to win to the Lord and most importantly, with their children. All the while, they have no idea that what they are actually doing is building up a case that the atheists can come in and use as a means to point out the lies and deceptions of YEC and another atheist is born.

Here again, we have a very disingenuous matter because in reality, everyone believes in evolution. The YEC believes in evolution. All the models include evolution and when these folks finally get down to brass tacks, they tell you this fact. But before that, in passing, they will make this remark to set the stage so that most Christians will easily fall prey to their lies.

Let's take the dog, for example, because I think that canines exemplify evolution. All dogs are related to a wolf type dog. Then they "evolve" to be poodles, dalmatians, great danes, and chihuahuas. Obviously, there does come a point where a couple of these can no longer logistically mate. But it is still a dog. The species did not grow a new organ or become more complex. In fact, animals lose complexity through evolution.

The YEC claims that all the animals that have ever been were on Noah's Ark. Then after this, they diversified. This takes evolution to a whole new level because there are billions of animals that have lived over the course of this earth's history. Did you know that 99% of all animals that have ever lived are extinct? According to the YEC model, all these animals super evolved from a "common ancestor" after Noah's flood. They will even show you a picture of the two dogs believed to be on Noah's Ark. What the unsuspecting Christian doesn't realize is the incredible amount of evolution that would have had to take place in 6000 years to create all this diversity.

Do you see how deceptive they are being at explaining these facts to the average Christian who has no clue what the whole YEC model looks like? They falsely accuse the OEC of believing in evolution, when their version of evolution leaves everyone else's version in the dust.

The naturalist does the exact same thing. They say that even Christians believe in evolution. And my response is that everyone believes in these microevolutionary changes over time such as we see in the dog. This is very evident in nature. Natural pressures can cause DNA changes so that new generations of a particular animal will survive. It is more proof of a Creator God in creation who has built into us an ability to adapt.

There are two areas where evolution is not remotely evident. One is the idea that non-living substances can self-organize to become living cells. The primordial earth was very harsh. There were cataclysmic events including a deluge of asteroids that seeded our planet with a rich assortment of minerals. As soon as life could exist on this planet, it exists. There is not enough time for a self-organization and there is certainly no reason to assume that these elements could organize under these conditions. The experiments done to show that life could be created in this way only further show the necessity for God.

Then we are led to believe that animals became more and more complex. No experiment has ever validated that assertion and the fossil record doesn't show this either. What we see is long periods of stasis and then a new ecosystem comes into play unlike the one before. This fits perfectly with what we are told in Psalm 104:29-31.

What is happening is that microevolution is assumed to have caused these huge leaps incrementally over time. They would suggest that these tiny changes accumulatively could create something entirely new that couldn't mate with the original. Only this gradualism is not demonstrated in the fossil record.

Now as I've already pointed out, we do see microevolution and atheists will show you that all kinds of animals can evolve like this. But they have never been able to prove that these built in mechanisms to ensure the survivability of animals could produce more complexity.

In both cases, talking to the YEC or the atheist, I feel like I'm talking in circles of mass confusion. Both groups share their points leaving out pertinent details and they mislead the public. Is it any wonder that our young people walk into these colleges and universities and are quickly evangelized to atheism with ease? Christian young people sit in classrooms listening to these professors give their anti-Christian messages, but the young Christian has no ammunition to tear down the arguments. Couple this scenario with the hypocrisy of the modern day church and it is a recipe for tragedy. These young people begin to cling to science as their only source of truth. Science becomes their Bible and man becomes their god. This then leads them to homosexuality, just as the Bible tells us in Romans 1.

Because the Christians have dogmatically told these people that the only way that Genesis can be understood is the way they understand it, these young people now doubt the authenticity of the Bible and they are full of mocking and sin. They approach Christians from the perspective of a total lack of respect because they see them as people who do not think through these issues. Have we lost our ability to be Bereans? Have we really gone that far?

Many Christian parents will not send their children to college because they have seen that most young people that attend college lose their faith. My son, with the knowledge that he has, effectively stood up against the atheists at his college. So what a dilemma we have here. We have few young Christians coming up in the ranks of these higher education fields. This further makes Christians look as though we are the less educated people of the world or the bumpkins. It is tragic.

I'm not saying that education is good or evil. What I'm saying is that we are losing the skeptics to the devil because we refuse to be Bereans.

Continuing on with creation

2010-03-17T05:44:00.000-07:00

In the book, A Matter of Days, Dr. Hugh Ross gives examples of the early church fathers taking a less dogmatic view of this issue in terms of whether those days were earth days or God days. This is important because many people are misled, once again, by YEC that teaches that the early church fathers were emphatic on this point, when in fact, they weren't.

In addition, the YEC will bring up some pieces of scientific evidence as well that they believe are inconsistent with an old earth model. They are things such as whether or not the Oort Cloud exists or whether all the layers of rock can be explained by a global flood. The Oort Cloud is not a misty cloud. It is apparent because of the way comets enter our solar system.

Also, YEC mislead people by telling them that the reason the geologic record has dinosaurs on the bottom and other animals on top was because of their weight. That is the most ludicrous argument and so easy to tear down by any atheist.

Firstly, there are plenty of small animals in the geologic record where we find dinosaurs and there are a whole slew of large animals found above it such as mammoths. Secondly, there is a layer of iridium that separates the dinosaurs from these mammals. Along with this, they have found shocked quartz, which is only found in our time at nuclear test sights.

Iridium is a heavy metal. If we were to believe what the YEC is telling us, we would have to assume that iridium floated above some of the layers that were much lighter. No dinosaur is found above this layer and for the most part, there are no placental mammals such as cattle or rabbits found below it.

This fits perfectly with the Genesis account where birds, sea serpents and dinosaurs, and ocean dwelling creatures are found on Day #5 and cattle and man are found on Day #6. It is remarkable how these creatures were killed in a day and then a whole new set of ecosystems and animals comes to life directly after this leading to mankind.

It is only when you start investigating this topic, that you begin to understand how many lies and deceptions are being taught to Christians to encourage them in this belief of 6 literal twenty-four hour days. Most evangelical Christians do not want to know the truth on this matter. They are very comfortable believing what they consider is the "plain reading of the text." The problem with this is that there have been plenty of times in church history where we misunderstood what the Bible was saying in regard to our natural world.

Psalm 19 is a classic example. If you read it closely, firstly it tells you that there is knowledge in the heavens. So this idea that everything is illusory does not fit that passage. Then it also tells us that the sun has a circuit around the heavens. Well, the early church thought this meant that the sun was traveling around the earth. Certainly, from our perspective, it seems that way. Galileo, who was a Christian, was deemed a heretic for suggesting that the earth was traveling around the sun because it went against what we thought the Bible was telling us. Remarkably, the fact that the sun does have a circuit around the heavens in the Milky Way is an incredible proof that the Bible is true. But many people totally miss that point.

This is the same mistake we are making with the age of the earth. And the most discouraging part of this is that it clouds our understanding of who God is. If we believe that God is an all-loving God who is always gentle or we have a misconception about His character, we then act on that belief, just like Eve, that God would never follow-through on His judgments.

We live in a universe where God is not seen outright. It is clear that Eve and Adam, when they fell, were not looking at the face of God. They were in the same parameters we are in. They allowed sin to enter the world and thus death by sin to beings who were so far above the animals because we are created in the image of God. They were expelled from the beautiful garden that God had built for them into the harsh elements of this world to fend for themselves.

They were now like Him because they had the knowledge of good and evil and they also gave some authority here to satan. Had they stood against satan, it would have been good. Nevertheless, Jesus was slain from the foundation of the world. Death was in place to accomplish this and the whole point of this was to defeat satan once and for all. It is finished. He did it!!

What Wiped Out the Dinosaurs? Part 1: The Cause | Reasons To Believe

2010-03-15T07:33:00.001-07:00

What Wiped Out the Dinosaurs? Part 1: The Cause | Reasons To Believe

Posted using ShareThis

Is God clearly seen in this world from the start of creation?

2010-03-15T06:14:00.000-07:00

When we first enter salvation, we come to the Lord with joy and enthusiasm believing that we know everything there is to know about Him. But then life hits some bumps and we find that we don't know Him at all. There is this aspect of Jesus that is kind and gentle. There is another that is full of joy. There is another that is shocking, terrifying and just.

Remember, Paul said that all of God's attributes are clearly seen in the things that God made from the creation of the world. YEC proposes that once upon a time, the world was good and pristine, but then man fell and the world became a land of sin. They would argue that the fluffy bunny and soft cuddly kitten were a part of the original creation but certainly not the great white shark. They take this to mean that animals at the point of sin entering the world began to die and further began to be carnivorous.

The problem that I have with this is twofold. One is that all of God's attributes, including the parts that are not so pleasant to the sinner, are supposed to be seen in the things that are made before the fall of man. If those things are not apparent from the creation of the world, then God is being disingenuous to us about who He is.

There is also a massive evolution that would be necessary to turn vegetarian animals into carnivores. This evolution would leave any other scenario that the atheistic model could conjure up in the dust. It is also a form of creation and since God is resting from that activity at this point, there is no Biblical indication that He started creating again. The whole digestive tract would have to be reworked for an animal to begin eating meat. I also want to point out that after the resurrection, Jesus ate a fish. If He were going to make a point about the connection between sin and carnivorous activity, He would have eaten a celery stick.

Similarly, the naturalist's model of whale evolution does not take into account the necessary changes in the respiratory system of these animals. I have worked with neonates and even small changes in their ability to take in oxygen would have killed them had we not been diligently intervening. Yet, we are led to believe that this all happened in nature while it was still new and unstable.

Can you see how both evolutions are problematic? And neither scenario fits the evidence. The naturalist is building on extrapolation and imposing a point of view on what he believes happened. The YEC denies reality and believes in faith that their version of what happened is what happened.

The second problem that I have with that is in Psalm 104:28-31 which says:

What You give them they gather in; You open Your hand, they are filled with good.
You hide Your face, they are troubled; You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust; You send forth Your Spirit, they are created; And You renew the face of the earth. May the glory of the LORD endure forever; May the LORD rejoice in His works.

Psalm 104 is a creation passage of Scripture. Two things of note are in this small passage. One is that God claims responsibility for taking these animals' breath away; and second, God sends forth His Spirit to create again after this. He also rejoices in this work. He is not upset by it at all. Not only is this evidenced in the fossil record, but it fits everything that we know about our natural world. The word create in this passage is "bara." This is the word the Hebrews used to indicate a creating of something new. Since nothing new was created after man was created, we know that this event took place before the fall of man.

As ecosystems were no longer suitable for the climate of the early earth, God would kill them off and replace them with new ecosystems. Each ecosystem needed carnivores, herbivores, plant life to feed the herbivores and parasites. Without the delicate balance of these things, the habitat would not survive. God also built into the animal's DNA an ability to adapt to their surroundings by giving them future generations that could survive. This is important because 99% of all animals that have ever lived are extinct.

When I have watched programs on the event, some 65 million years ago, that killed the remaining dinosaurs on this planet, I marvel at the way this Scripture describes the reaction of the animals. The computer simulations portray animals that are troubled by their world super heating before their eyes. My favorite of these came from a series called Jurassic Fight Club. Their last episode on the Chicxulub Crater was very educational.

I was particularly excited to hear this from "Dinosaur George" Blasing concerning the site of the crash. He said, "If you had to choose the worst possible place on earth for an asteroid to strike, it would be the exact spot where the Bapistina Asteroid struck in the Yucatán because lying beneath the sea floor directly under the spot where the asteroid struck, were layers upon layers of anhydrite and limestone. Now normally these minerals are harmless, but something very nasty happens when you add the intense heat and pressure and mix that with water. And trust me, a one hundred million megaton explosion caused a heck of a lot of heat and a huge amount of pressure. The end result was a deadly acid that rained down on the earth."

This was a further confirmation to me that God was behind this event because this asteroid hit in the exact spot needed to accomplish this worldwide annihilation of animals. Less than 1% of the globe contains these exact elements. The remarkable thing is that life came back in abundance in a new way in just a few million years. There certainly isn't enough time for life to have naturalistically evolved and according to experts, all dinosaurs were killed in that event. However, this does fit Day #5 of the creation account closing off and the dawning of a new day #6 beginning. The evidence again fits the Biblical account of creation.

Some accounts of these event also tell us that all the vegetation burned on the planet. In other words, anything that could burn did burn. Yet some animals made it through this catastrophe. If you ask me, that is nothing short of a miracle.

Another part of God's character that I want to illuminate is the way that He is meticulous, careful and slow. It has rarely been my experience for God to hurry up and change something that is bothering me. Even in Scripture, we see that David had a vision to build a temple that was never even realized in his lifetime. That is because God had a plan and a purpose that was accomplished carefully. God kept Moses on a mountain for 80 days to outline and obtain the Law. That is a long time without food. God made Joseph wait 20 years to see the fulfillment of his dream. God made Sara wait until she was 100 to see the fulfillment of His prophecy for her. Most importantly, if God is a God that is in a hurry and He knew that He would be slain from the foundation of the world, why didn't He come through Eve and get it over with? For that matter, why did He wait over 2000 years after Abraham to bring Jesus into the world? He waited many thousands of years before He accomplished this because God is never hasty. He takes His time and is careful in His plans. And all of reality in the things that are made screams forth this truth.

God is a magnificent God. He is so full of glory. Psalm 19 tells us this too.

The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork; Day unto day utters speech, And night unto night reveals knowledge. Psalm 19:1-2

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained, What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him? Psalm 8:3-4

YEC tells us that all of the heavens are an illusion. Psalm 19 tells us that the heavens reveal knowledge. Who are we supposed to believe?

YEC has God slapping together a universe in a McDonald's drive-thru style. I am sure our present day mentality has a lot to do with why this explication sounds so appealing. What is six 24 hour days to God? I mean if a thousand years is as a day, one can only imagine how quickly such a brief time period would be to an infinite God. What is 13.73 billion years to an infinite God for that matter? It is still nothing. However, a YEC point of view leaves us believing that God's character is such that He does things hastily and I know after 36 years of being His child that He never does anything hastily. In fact, it is nothing for Him to wait years to bring about the fulfillment of a vision.

To summarize, we need to step back and look at the character of God and see if the things that we believe concerning creation are consistent with His whole character and are evidenced right from the start of the creation of this planet. Because if it doesn't match, then something is very wrong with what we believe.

Many blessings,

Vera

Creation: OEC vs. YEC

2010-03-14T15:50:00.000-07:00

Since God started with the creation account, I believe that I should start with the creation account. In a sense, Genesis 1 always eluded me. For example, God says "let their be light" and the effect is day and night. This makes no sense from a YEC (young earth creation) point of view but makes perfect sense if we are seeing the creation unfold from the surface of the earth.

Some YEC propose that this is God's Shekinah glory just as is mentioned in Revelation. That is fine except according to Revelation, when God's Shekinah glory illuminates the world, there is no night. That actually makes sense because if God is lighting something, what could escape His light? Revelation 22:5

What could cause day and night to occur on the earth? It just so happens that the beginning of the formation of the moon, in an occurrence that caused a large Mars sized rock to hit our planet, dissipated the heavy gases from the earth. Now light could penetrate and day and night began on Planet Earth.

I sincerely always held my understanding of this passage in reserve. I wondered if those days were longer periods of time.

I had listened to a great many messages by Kent Hovind concerning the YEC point of view because the majority of my friends held to this position. I admit that Kent Hovind's charisma has a way of making him sound extremely convincing. I, too, was swayed by his persuasiveness even though I could see that some of his teaching on church doctrine was in error.

Now that I have investigated this topic more thoroughly and gone back and listened to Dr. Hovind, I realize that he never honestly makes any scientific points in his messages. He sets the stage to be the knowledgeable scientist through a rubber-band trick, but he never gives the audience any real evidence to support his position. Moreover, when he does finally make a point, what the unsuspecting Christians do not realize is that these points are easily torn down through reality.

Many Christians are being taught that the only possibly way to understand Genesis 1 is by six literal 24 hour days. They further explain that anyone disbelieving this interpretation of this passage is a heretic and a Bible hater. So it is no wonder that many Christians are fearful of hearing any other point of view. They are comfortable believing in faith that the world is 6000 years old no matter what the evidence shows. They don't care. It is nearly impossible to get one of these believers to even consider the possibility that the earth is old because of the way this is presented to them.

Another argument they give is that God created man as an adult. Actually, to be precise, the text does not say this. Adam could have been three years old when he was created or 12 years old or 60 years old, but even in that type of body, he was brand new. We simply do not have any specifics on the size or shape of Adam's body. At any rate, the argument would say that if God created man old, then He could create the universe old.

Here's the problem with this point: In Romans 1:18-21, God says this,

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. "

This is important because God is saying that His character that is not seen by our human eyes is clearly seen in the things that He made from the creation of the world, not from the fall of mankind. With that in mind, God cannot lie. God's honesty and faithfulness are key to everything about Him. Therefore, if Andromeda is 2.5 million light years from here meaning that the light takes 2.5 million years to reach earth, then only two possibilities exist. God is giving us the illusion of age, which does not fit His invisible attributes that are supposed to be evident in the things that are made or reality is true and the earth and this universe are a lot older than 6000 years.

Man's age from his creation is not perfectly evident but what is evident is that when we test the mitochondrial DNA of man, it leads back to one woman out of East Africa. When we test y-chromosomal DNA, it points back to one man that came later. They know that other men were living at the time, but only this man's genes made it through. This is exactly what the Bible tells us happened in the Flood. Only Noah's seed made it through. Everyone else died.

This is a National Geographic article that demonstrates this fact. I love it when I see these sorts of secular articles because they show that the Bible is true. Most Christians wouldn't even look at something like this because of the fears they have concerning reality. I am so excited to see the Bible unfold before my eyes. The more I learn, the greater my understanding is to know when they are imposing their point of view on the evidence and when they are reporting the facts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3LLtZUdpvA

So the question arises, could we have misunderstood the time line of Genesis 1? And the answer is a resounding, "Yes!"

In future blog posts, I am going to delve in deeper into why this is so important.

Vera

Introduction to the next phase of this blog. . .

2010-03-13T19:42:00.001-08:00

I haven't been much of a blogger mainly because I wonder if anyone actually reads my blog and if they do, how in the world did they find it anyway?

My greatest burden is for the church. I think some of the current state of affairs of the church warrant me to write down what the Lord has shown us in its entirety through a series of questions and answers. I am hoping that this blog will last a long time into the future and be a reference to some weary souls looking for answers.

Many of the modern day churches are in such sin as to be worse than the Pharisees. And the sad part of it is that they sincerely believe that this is acceptable to God.

I have been a Christian for 36 years. I have been under many teachers and ideologies. Consequently, I have hit one brick wall after the next in my walk with God. At times, I felt drained of life from the disappointments that I encountered. At other times, I have known the joy of finding the truth. And it is that one point that has kept me going through the years because it is the truth that set me free from sin. That freedom led me to be reconciled to God and that is what I wish for anyone who ends up here.

I am grateful for the trials that God has brought my way. Were it not for those difficult times in my life, I would never have thought to begin again. But that's what I did on more than one occasion. I took a mental arm and swept away all that I thought was true and began again at the beginning. My foundation was Jesus Christ and Him crucified and from there I added the Biblical and natural truths that I found to be true. In this way, I could take a moment and examine each piece of truth. Some points I knew were absolutely true. Other points I put on the back burner with a question mark and labeled them "unknown."

See, we build truth on past truth and this leads us in a particular direction. For example, if you believe that God is strictly a benevolent God, you will then believe that He is gentle in all cases. This will lead you to believe that He is gentle on judgment of all sinners. This will effect the way you conduct your life choices. You might not be able to imagine that a gentle loving God could create death and dying and so even your account of creation would have to coincide with the idea that God is strictly a benevolent God.

One single idea leads a person to add more evidence to support that impression much like an angle has two rays. One is heading toward the target and the other is heading away. The wayward ray need only be slightly off at the vertex to totally miss the target in the end. In Scripture, sin means missing the mark. This is a key point to almost everything God has shown us. If you see a person caught up in a lifestyle that you know is sinful or off the mark, you can literally trace that ideology back to the vertex of the angle. That has helped me on many occasions.

Some doctrines seem so good at the vertex; but then in the end, they are death. There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death. Proverbs 14:12. This is a very important piece of wisdom.

Over the years, I have learned to examine many of the things that I have been taught as truth through the reading of the Bible on a daily basis. By being in the Word for so many years, I am able to compare what people say to what's there. That, plus my relationship to the Lord, has helped me to wade through the myriad of lies that are invading our churches today. For the reader, it is imperative that you too get in the Word daily even if it means setting aside the Internet.

So I hope you enjoy what I am writing here and that it will bless you and help you in your walk with the Lord.

In His Love,

Vera

A Biblical Perspective on Homosexuality

2010-02-25T10:43:00.000-08:00

If you believe you were born a homosexual, please watch this. I believe it is the answer.

Atheist at Mardi Gras

2010-02-20T15:13:00.000-08:00

A Skull That Rewrites the History of Man

2010-02-17T05:10:00.000-08:00

A Skull That Rewrites the History of Man

This is the RTB podcast that gives the counter argument concerning the "human" skull was found 200,000 years ago. It is a free podcast that lasts 20 minutes. You can listen to these in your car. That's what I do.

Vera

Poplar trees, Jacob and hormones

2009-10-24T08:05:00.000-07:00

Transient expression of goat growth hormone gene in poplar (Populus alba L.) protoplasts:

This is one article I found on the way that these plants can effect hormones. I am not totally sure of the details. The documentation that I read on this was years ago and I am not sure I can locate the reference. I just Googled and found this one.

Vera

Preaching at GSU

2009-10-23T14:03:00.000-07:00

Eve's Secret to Growing Younger

2009-10-08T06:14:00.000-07:00

Eve's Secret to Growing Younger

This will show why there is an apparent discrepancy in age for the DNA studies done in the National Geographic article I just sent in.

Vera

Biblical Genealogies

2009-10-08T05:39:00.000-07:00

Biblical Genealogies and how they work.

A man named Arch Bishop Ussher, about 300 years ago, wrote down the genealogies and claimed that he had traced back mankind to 6000 years ago. Ever since then people have been holding to a young earth creationist point of view. This article tells you how the Hebrews thought and why these genealogies were written the way they are.

Vera

Eve, the mother of all living

2009-10-08T05:14:00.000-07:00

And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. Genesis 3:20. You know what's neat about this secular NG video? It shows that the Bible is true. There are certain mutations that are not taken into account in this video so that they are giving you the oldest possible dates. When those variations are taken into account, the dates are moved to about 50,000 years, which fits the Biblical account. Why does the man's lineage appear to be way after the woman's? Because of Noah and his sons. The girls at that time were from different families. But Noah and his sons were from one lineage. Kind of neat, eh?

Soft Tissue in Tyrannosaurus Rex

2009-08-25T06:29:00.000-07:00

Scientists Question Dinosaur Soft Tissue Find

What the early church believed about creation

2009-08-18T06:32:00.000-07:00

http://www.robibrad.demon.co.uk/Contents.htm

Did Neanderthals evolve into humans?

2009-07-28T07:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.reasons.org/you-want-date-neanderthal-absolutely-not

Can a Christian sin and be saved?

2009-07-07T09:33:00.000-07:00

I believe this is one of the most important questions that every evangelist and prophet should ask. I personally believe that when those original apostles brought someone into the fold, the objective was for the new convert to be baptized in the Holy Spirit to be freed from sin. Perhaps this expectation was progressively understood, but it is clear that over time, they had zero tolerance for sin unto death in their midst because "a little leaven leavens the whole lump."

Now there may have been a window of time that they gave a new convert to make the transition from their old way of life to the new. You see that in people. For example, a woman who is living with a married man gets saved. What do you do about the relationship she's in? I have noticed that God has patience with this situation to turn it around. However, the time is not indefinite. Ultimately, if she throws caution to the wind, she either ends up leaving the church or tainting everyone she touches in the church. Next thing you know, someone else is pregnant out of marriage and we all wonder what went wrong.

Jesus made radical statements such as this:
Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh! Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire. Matthew 18:7-9

This passage technically does not fit our righteousness by faith theology. Jesus is saying, basically, to do whatever it takes to stop sinning because sinners aren't getting into heaven. Thus someone with a conviction to keep themselves from sinning is perfectly acceptable to God. If the TV causes you to sin, cut it off. If the computer causes you to sin, cut it off. If rock music causes you to sin, cut it off. Some people can't go to Mardi Gras and try to lead those folks to repentance because they simply do not have the faith to achieve that level of grace to keep themselves from lusting.

When we talk about a salvation by works, I believe what Paul is explaining is righteousness by works as opposed to a righteousness by faith. In other words, we could look at the above example and say that anyone who does not own a TV is righteous. That is not the point though. Having a TV or not having a TV does not bring this level of righteousness that God is working in us. It can't. If it did, then man could boast that he was more righteous than his neighbor that owned a TV, as many in my homeschooling organization used to do.

The problem described in 2 Timothy 3 is that they can't grasp the magnitude of power that is in God to achieve freedom from sin. So they deny it. Hence, they have numerous sins that are offending God. These are they that creep into houses leading silly women laden with sin astray. They are ever learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

The Pharisees are not what we imagine them to be. By American Christian standards, they were exemplary. By appearance, there is no indication that they were in adultery unless you want to assume that this is what Jesus wrote in the sand when he got them to all walk away. They would have nothing to do with people who were sinning by carousing or living in open wickedness. They were ultra legal about the Sabbath and judged Jesus on more than one occasion for healing on the Sabbath. They couldn't imagine that anyone of God would be healing on the Sabbath. Jesus said that our righteousness had to exceed that kind of righteousness.

For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in **no case** enter into the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:20

The problem with their brand of righteousness was that it was all done by their own efforts and it was a means of boasting. They boasted of their fasting, their long prayers, their giving, their outer garments, and their meticulous keeping of the Sabbath. That is salvation by works, not the removal of these sins unto death. This type of righteousness leads to pride.

This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.

There is a twofold deception that satan loves to lead men into. On the one hand, you have folks that love to walk in the flesh and then on the other, you have people that want righteousness and try to obtain it by their own means instead of by the fruit of the Spirit. Either of these two extremes cause a man to miss the mark.

It is so difficult to describe this walk that comes by faith, but it is absolutely necessary to inherit the kingdom. Without the Holy Spirit's power, one cannot be freed from sin. It is this impartation of God's character into our lives, which is called "grace," that gives us that power. Grace doesn't mean "favor." It means an influence on the heart. It was more than what we understand it to be. I believe it is Jesus' divine nature imparted to us as is described in 2 Peter 1:4.

Not everyone has the level of faith in God's Spirit that some have. So they do things because of their weak faith to keep themselves from sinning.

Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations. Romans 14:1

But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if someone sees you, who have knowledge, dining in an idol's temple, will not his conscience, if he is weak, be strengthened to eat things sacrificed to idols? 1 Cor 8:9-13.

We are to walk in liberty and not under the Law. That is because rules and regulations cannot achieve righteousness in us. So with that in mind, I want to present Ephesians 2 in a different light:

For by grace (Jesus' divine nature imparted to us in the Holy Spirit with super spiritual nuclear fusion) are ye saved (we are saved from God's wrath and hell's fire) through faith; (we are believing and trusting in God's nature in us to free us from sin by this grace and to give us a full and complete pardon from sin) and that not of yourselves: (we aren't looking to ourselves or our own abilities to sweat it out to keep ourselves from sinning or offending God, which would be a completely tiring and arduous task) it is the gift of God: (technically, we do not deserve this gift of grace. We deserve death. But God imparts His nature to us thanks to Jesus' death on the cross and what He did for us to extend us the gift of freedom from sin) Not of works, (nothing we do can give us this level or righteousness. We can't keep the Sabbath, fast many days, wear the perfect clothing, give $10, be burned at the stake, you name it, it can't give us this level of righteousness that comes by grace through faith, which is ultimately the love of God poured out into our hearts) lest any man should boast. (Otherwise, someone could say, "I did it without God. I managed to keep myself from sinning without any help from God. It is all about me. I am great. Then someone who is entangled by sin would feel that there was no hope for them.) For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, (Thus our faith in God gives us the fruit of the Spirit in grace to do good works. We begin DOING things naturally, without really thinking about it because Jesus' burden is easy and light and there is life and peace in the Spirit. Out of our bellies flow rivers of living water and it is nearly effortless. God shows us something to DO and we simply walk through the open door to do it because we are so motivated to do it) which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

For example, how much effort does it take for you to do something to serve the Lord? Do you have to force yourself to do it or do the good works simply flow from you? Did you do it to prove your righteousness or to make yourself righteous or did you do it out of love and compassion for that person that seemed to naturally flow from your spirit? That is grace!!! God's grace was flowing from you to this person and it was all sufficient beyond your own abilities so that you can't boast. His grace was made perfect in your weakness. It is a perfect picture of what Ephesians 2 is describing.

You do not sin every day. You walk in the grace of God by faith to be freed from sin and it is a gift. That is what salvation is all about. And that, my friend, is what God has saved us from so that we can be presented unblameable and unreproveable in His sight. I don't believe that a sinning Christian who willfully sins will inherit the kingdom. There is an urgency in Jesus' message to do whatever it takes to stop sinning. If time is irrelevant, there would be no need to do anything radical stop sinning.

So we have a so called Christian who is at Mardi Gras or the porn convention participating fully in the madness of the event. He sincerely believes that God will forgive him at the end of the day. I say that he is grossly deceived according to everything the Bible teaches. If anything, he should walk in a conviction to steer clear of Mardi Gras if his faith is so weak. But the last thing he should do is throw caution to the wind and go and expect God to forgive him at the end of the day. That is absolutely not the message. As far as I can see Scripture teaching, if he happened to die on the way home, he will not inherit the kingdom unless by some miracle he repented in his last hour like the thief on the cross next to Jesus. My bottom line point is that freedom from sin is a necessary part of salvation. That is what grace is all about. God's commandments are not grievous to keep.

Many blessings!

Vera

HISTORIC AGE DEBATE: DEPENDENCE ON TRANSLATIONS

2009-07-07T06:47:00.000-07:00

This is a 5 part series by Dr. Millam that reconciles the apparent contradictions of Genesis 1 with the reality that we've learned through science. I think they are excellent!
Vera

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

4300 year old genetically altered corn

2009-07-01T05:30:00.000-07:00

Prehistoric Farming

Pretty good for goat herders.
Vera

The Message

2009-06-29T11:35:00.000-07:00

I put together this little cartoon to share my faith with anyone who wishes to know the truth. May it bless you and help you.

In His Love,

Vera

Death and Dying and Future Events

2009-06-12T06:19:00.000-07:00

weemaryanne

When you give me your imaginary friend's messages, Vera dear, you're just blowin' smoke. No superentity has told me anything at any time.

I can assure you, weemaryanne, that God is not imaginary. He is quite real. The reason that you consider Him imaginary is your pride. I think I've told you this before. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. He resists you because of your mocking pride. You will never come to know Him as long as you are a mocker. God does have His ways and means committee to strip you of that pride. It is my hope that He will love you enough to accomplish that in your life one day.

The evidence for God's existence is overwhelming. He has designed this universe the way it is for good reasons. There are some great podcasts on this topic in iTunes under More Than a Theory and Why the Universe is the Way it Is.

But, what's this? Ah, a news story comes to the notice of Weemaryanne the News Junkie. This woman's imaginary friend seems to be sending her messages that are -- um, mixed to say the very least:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6479203.ece

Howzabout you interpret this one for me, V? I think it deserves its own blog post. Just please quote me correctly this time, hokay?

(sits back and gets comfortable, this is gonna be good)

You are funny. The article you sent didn't mention anything about God from the lady's perspective. Was there another article concerning this? I am going to assume that at some point in time before she died, Mrs. Ganthaler thanked God that she wasn't on this plane and that she was specially spared?

We are all going to die. You are going to experience death one day. I will experience death one day. You could miss death like she did and the next day you could die. No question. So what of it? Babies die sometimes. Some people live to be very old. But one thing is for sure. They all eventually die. I, for one, do not want to be one of those folks that is around until I am blubbering like a baby. If I died today, my friend, it would be the best day of my life because I'm going home to be with my Lord.

To live is to Christ, to die is to gain. So if I live, I live to Christ. If I die, it is even better. I do not fear death at all. I don't find death to be the worst thing that could happen to me. It is hard when someone that I love dies because I will miss them. It would also be hard to lose a child. But knowing that those people are with the Lord gives me great comfort. The only time I am sad is when someone I love dies without knowing Him. Those folks will be separated from me for eternity by their own freewill choice.

I'm going to tell you something that you are not going to understand today. But if it does work out the way I think it might work out, I want someone who won't be going to remember what I said. I want you to be the evangelist of that day.

I believe that the righteous are going to be taken away before the antichrist comes on the scene and the Great Tribuation begins.

The Bible says this:

The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come. Isaiah 57:1

And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back. Remember Lot's wife. Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it. I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together. Luke 17:26-37

I think what Jesus is saying here is that just like today where it appears that nothing is happening that is adverse and everything is status quo, that suddenly the church will be called to "lose their lives." The disciples ask where these folks will be taken and it is clear that they are dead. There will be another time when all those left will be caught up with the Lord before He touches down on the Mount of Olives. That is why there has always been a confusion about when this will occur. There are two events that God is relating.

If this never happens, I have misunderstood what is being communicated. But if my husband and I die on the same day for no apparent reason and some others like Ray etc die at the same time, do you think you might be able to remember this conversation? Prophecy is hard to interpret sometimes. It is a lot easier to see once it is in the past. How this plays out is not going to be apparent until it is in the past. There are other passages that would indicate that this "taking away" results in death as opposed to a lot of people disappearing. Since few Christians today walk in holiness with the Spirit of God, it will appear that there is no connection. Many (probably most) church goers and "Christians" will still be here because they do not have the Spirit of God and they walk in gross sin every day. There will be no change in attendance at any church. Ray says that 150,000 people die every day. So we might be considered one of the mix that happened to contract something that nobody is aware of.

Many in the church might think that God judged us for being "haters." The remarkable thing will be that every single Spirit-filled Christian will be taken away through death.

These tribulation times will be like WW2, but hundreds of times worse. Take care that you care for those people that are refusing to worship this man. There were Germans in WW2 that appeared to be on Hitler's side but gave to the needs of others. Give them food and clothing if you have the means to do so. And whatever you do, don't worship him. You are a skeptic. Skeptics don't worship people even for food, amen? Once you go down that rabbit trail, it is the path of no return. So don't do it. Why give up your resolve for a crumb of bread? If you have the means to buy or sell, give to those who can't.

I don't know when the timing of all this will be. But I thought if my words were written somewhere, that someone might see them one day and realize what happened even if it is 50 years down the road or more.

May God give you grace and understanding in that day.

Vera

I am now officially ACLS certified

2009-06-08T05:40:00.000-07:00

I made 100%. Thanks for your prayers. It was really not an easy course.

You know how in the movies you will see someone in cardiac arrest with a flat line and the actors will defibrillate the patient? Well guess what? That is the absolute opposite of what a person is supposed to do. The object of defibrillation is to reboot the computer of the heart so to speak. IOW, you are stopping the heart on purpose to hopefully get it firing properly again. So if a person has a flat line, they are already in that state. Then they pump the person full of drugs and do vigorous CPR. It was quite educational. I learned so much.

I must say that if anyone does not believe in God after taking that course, I would be amazed. The heart is such an amazing little machine. When it doesn't conduct electricity properly, the person is in a heap big trouble. The majority of people who lose their ability to pump their heart properly in some of these more life threatening situations like ventricular tachycardia or ventricular fibrillation do not recover.

Anyway, thank you for your prayers!! I will now go tomorrow to this interview with one more credential.

In His Love,
Vera

Probability that life could evolve from a single cell to us is zero

2009-06-03T08:38:00.000-07:00

From pg. 153 of Who was Adam?

While paleoanthropologists struggle to discern evolutionary connections among the hominds in the fossil record, astrophysicists (attempting to quantify the likelihood that intelligent life exists in the universe beyond Earth) have identified another series of problems for human evolution. According to various calculations based on physical conditions, it is extremely improbable that modern humans evolved from baceteria through natural means, given the brief time window of Earth's habitability.

In one study, astrophysicists John Barrow, Brandon Carter, and Frank Tipler comment on the surprisingly large number of highly improbable steps in the supposed natural evolution of an intelligent species on Earth. Moreover, the number of such steps merely represents a lower limit; evolutionary biology has not yet advanced sufficiently to determine their actual number. Restricting the count to just the known problem steps (which are statistically independent) in the evolution of Homo sapien sapiens, the trio produced a probability figure for the emergence of humans from a suite of bacterial species in 10 billion years or less: 10^-24,000,000. (In other words, a decimal point 24 million places to the left of the 1.)

An independent calculation done by evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala places the probablility for humans arising from single-celled organisms at 10^-10,000,000. As Ayala and others pointed out, animals on ancient Earth did not know they were supposed to evolve in such a way that human beings could later appear. Natural selection operates only during an animal's lifetime. It cannot select a portion of a genome with the intent of using that genome protion 1, 2, or 3 billion years later.

To put the calculated probabilities for humans arising from single-celled organisms into perspective, if every proton and neutron in the universe were a planet, and if each of these planets contained as many single-celled organisms as Earth does today (a trillion quadrillion single-celled organisms ) the probability that humans could have arisen once in the universe would be 10^-999,921, according to Ayala's calculations. According to Barrow, Carter, and Tipler's calculation the number would be 10^-23,999,921.

Such incredibly tiny probabilities warrant the conclusion that, from a natural perspective, no physical intelligent life should exist at all --anywhere in the universe.

Brandon Carter, "The Anthropic Principle and Its Implications for Biological Evolution," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Astronomical Society A 370 (1983): 347-360
John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 510-573 and 557-566

Frank J. Tipler in "Intelligent Life in Cosmology," International Journal of Astrobiology 2 (2003): 142

A real problem for Darwinian theory

2009-06-01T05:38:00.000-07:00

Origin of Soulish Animals

I saw this this morning and thought it demonstrates how the origin of species fits a Biblical model better than a naturalistic one.

Vera

I PASSED THE NCLEX!!!!!!

2009-05-29T05:22:00.000-07:00

I am officially a nurse once again. This was a huge hurdle for me. But I want to testify that God helped me through that test to trust what I knew to be true. It was a test to prioritize and how to put my thoughts together coupled with knowing some facts. I passed with flying colors.

Thanks for all the prayers!!
Vera

The Gospel House in Jamaica

2009-05-18T11:04:00.000-07:00

I worked on helping Preacher717 get this up on youtube. May God bless what they are doing!!
Click on it and watch it on Youtube in HD.
Vera

Exxxotica convention and Craig Gross from the xxxchurch

2009-05-14T07:19:00.000-07:00

This is where I've been for the last few days. I have been conversing with the xxxchurch on the ideologies of Craig Gross. Craig not only disagrees with us but takes a rather forceful position on the matter. So we put up this video to expose why we do what we do and why his theology really doesn't match sound Biblical teaching.

Please check out the two video responses.

Vera

Historic Day Age Debate

2009-05-07T07:46:00.000-07:00

Part one
Part two

This paper demonstrates how the early church did not hold to a young earth creationist view in a doctrinally exact way.

Vera

Probability for Life on Earth

2009-05-07T07:25:00.000-07:00

Probability for Life on Earth

The bottom line of these parameters is this:

Probability for occurrence of all 322 parameters ≈ 10^-388

dependency factors estimate ≈ 10^-96

longevity requirements estimate ≈ 10^14

Probability for occurrence of all 322 parameters ≈ 10^-304

Maximum possible number of life support bodies in universe ≈ 10^22

Thus, less than 1 chance in 10^282(million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion) exists that even one such life-support body would occur anywhere in the universe without invoking divine miracles.

Monkey serum related to AIDS

2009-05-06T12:32:00.000-07:00

Transmission of the Monkey AIDS Virus to a Human

The Origin of AIDS

This two articles demonstrate the relationship between HIV and SIV.

Vera

From Discovery Institute

2009-05-02T07:40:00.000-07:00

200 Years After Darwin

I found this on another web site. I thought it demonstrates in 15 minutes, the problems with the Theory of Evolution.
Vera

2009-04-24T04:45:00.000-07:00

weemaryanne It's the other way around: You start with the evidence and figure out what it means. Often you can't figure it out completely, like Darwin who knew there had to be a mechanism driving the process of evolution but was unable to find it himself because he couldn't get his hands on an electron microscope. Incompleteness doesn't make a theory wrong, merely incomplete.

The only mechanism that Steven or Maragon ever proposed was mutation. Mutations cause deleterious effects 99.9% of the time. Extinction is the norm. Creation is not. 99% of all animals that have ever lived have gone extinct. These creation events did not happen gradually according to the fossil record. There isn't enough time to go through 10,000 generations of Pakicetus to get a whole new species called a whale out of this common ancestor. If you do the math, there isn't enough time. The only way this works is if there is unlimited time. Steven has never given anything but the mechanisms that are given to us for our survivability and tried to impose them on this idea that one animal can eventually become another over many generations. There was an excellent paper today on RTB about the enzymes that are utilized to create survivability in bacteria.

http://www.reasons.org/Evolvability-AGoodDesignPrinciple

I love the way science is finally admitting the obvious truth that so far there is no other planet like ours. We are it where it comes to life and there is a reason for that. The absurdity of not seeing God's hand in this amazes me. It absolutely astounds me at how blind this world is to the obviousness of God.

Vera

2009-04-17T05:58:00.000-07:00

Placing the Genesis summary over what we know

I have grown more in my knowledge of the subject of Genesis and how it outlines the creation account. So I removed my post from a long time ago that took one of the atheists I had talked to and his account of creation because I got a few points wrong and I am going to demonstrate how the Biblical account fits the scientific evidence.

The beginning - the big bang if that is what you want to call it.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

This was actually a singularity that began spreading out, which is exactly what the Bible describes as well. This spreading out is a part of big bang cosmology and points back to a beginning of this universe from things not seen. Job 9:8 is one such passage. There are several more. Psalm 104 also touches on several of the creation events as does Job 38, 39, and 40. Hebrews 11:3 speaks of this beginning as one that is ex nihilo.

Then we move forward in time after this. Moses then describes the initial conditions of the Earth. From this point forward, all that is described is coming from the position of one standing on the surface of the Earth.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

If you note the movie, How the Earth was Made, it uses these same exact words to describe the initial conditions of the Earth. It is without life and a water world.

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

This demonstrates that the primordial gases of the Earth dissipated so that it was no longer completely dark and light could penetrate creating the day and night. This occurred with the creating of the moon. The impact of a large Mars sized asteroid hit this planet at the just right angle and at the just right speed to create our moon, which created day and night.

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

This impact also allowed the water to exist in all three states - liquid, ice and vapor. The very next thing that occurs is that there is the building of water vapor. Apparently, this caused a great deal of rain.

The remarkable thing about this is the life had come into being at this point in the microbial forms. We are discovering now that the clouds are seeded with these microbes and probably cannot exist without them. The minutes these things can exist, they do exist.

And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day.

Land begins to emerge and the plate tectonics that are so necessary for life here begin to form. The microbes are still doing a job on this planet transforming poisonous metals to usable ores.

Even though many of these trees did not actually come about until about 140 million years ago or at least it is assumed this is true, this process of photosynthesis began right here. Also, whenever life could exist, it did exist even if it went extinct for a period of time. This is when we see the first photosynthetic life called cyanobacteria doing the job of acclimating our atmosphere.

And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God (had) made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he (had) made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

According to astrophysics, the newer solar systems that they can view has a gaseous cloud around them. At this time that disipated completely and the earth was at a place where seasons etc could begin. Also the moon had slowed down the rotation of the Earth to a 23-24 hour day. And the Earth was able to circle the sun in one complete year. The moon and the sun had already been made. The word "made" in this text is translated correctly in the past tense. The sun was created on the first day. It had to be here for night and day to exist on the Earth.

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

This is what we see next in the fossil record. We see that animals began in the oceans and then dinosaurs and birds. The word "great whales" is the word tanniyn, which means dinosaur. See: http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H8577&t=KJV.

The birds are also created at this time. Then there is a huge cataclysmic event that destroys most everything on the planet including this huge sea dragons and creatures. This is seen in the geologic record as the KT boundary. There are no dinosaurs above this point and no placental mammals such as cattle below it.

And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Almost immediately after this explosive event, there is another radiation event where life springs forth and is created.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

That is what we see next - man created in the image of God with attributes far above the animals. Then God rest on the seventh day and hallowed our seventh day as a result to keep holy. There was never an evening and morning on the seventh day because we are still in that day of rest, which is why we can enter into His rest. See Hebrews 4. Of course, now that we are in a new dispensation, every day can be holy.

There is no new creating events after the point that man comes on the scene. This is just a rough draft of an outline that shows how Moses got all these points in the right order without the aid of modern technology. Only a Creator could know these things. The things we test in science of our natural world fit the Genesis account along with the other creation accounts in the Bible.

Vera

Luke Warm & Loving It by Francis Chan

2009-04-16T08:11:00.001-07:00

Please watch this.

Celebrity Atheist List

2009-04-16T05:24:00.000-07:00

http://www.celebatheists.com/?title=Main_Page

My new prayer list. Can someone get these folks to come to our blogs to chat for 24 hours?

Vera

God made each animal after his kind.

2009-04-13T17:14:00.000-07:00

DNA (to name just one) provides excellent support for the theory of evolution.

DNA only shows similarity in relationships but has not been proven to be linked in a lineage type fashion nor is there a mechanism that can support large changes such as pakicetids becoming a whale. It is still very much a hypothesis. The proof that is being imposed on the evidence is noting that a few things were tweaked here and there. However, there is no mechanism that can make these kinds of changes. No matter how much Steven and I went back and forth on this, he never produced an absolute example of such a thing or a reasonable explanation for the way things unfolded in the fossil record. There is no gradualism, which is why Stephen J. Gould came up with the term punctuated equilibrium. In addition, there are hundreds of examples where evolution supposedly repeats itself under totally different conditions. This was not supposed to happen. And last but not least, extinction is the norm, not creativity. 99% of all animals that have ever lived are extinct.

What RTB proposes is that God, being a good Engineer, reuses good designs. If, for example, ERVs work in the genome, then why not give it to other similar creatures that would need to fight off viruses. These were not implanted by viruses but were given by God to allow man and other mammals to fight off infection because they break the cycle within the virus.

To me, the atheist/evolutionists (definitely not all scientists) are like listening to a twisted lawyer present his case purposely leaving out details to support the conclusion and the whole of the courtroom believing it because they are sold out on the eloquent speech. In this case, it is because man likes to sin and he likes the idea that the Bible might not be true and God might not be real so that he can continue in his sin without eternal consequence. What a shocker to meet God face to face on the day of judgment.

Vera

Women in the Bible

2009-04-04T14:53:00.000-07:00

I think the most impressive thing in the Bible involving a woman was the story of Mary Magdeline and her walk with Jesus. She was such a good friend that many falsely believed that there was a romantic angle. However, this never shows up in any text. She looked at Him like every one else did, as a leader. But I think Mary's relationship with Jesus went a little deeper. She seemed to have an understanding of Him and the cross before anyone else did. One of the stories is when Jesus has come to her home for a meal. Apparently instead of doing girl-work, Mary wants to learn. So she is sitting at Jesus' feet learning and Martha her sister gets just a little upset and asks Jesus to please tell her sister to get in the kitchen. Jesus scolded Martha for being so busy and said that Mary had chosen the best choice. What an astounding response for Jesus to make. I guess it doesn't sound so astounding to us but for a woman to be there amongst the men being taught was unheard of. A woman's place is in the kitchen. She was the one that wiped Jesus feet with her hair and tears and she did it again with perfume. John 11:2. She knew what a great sinner she had been and now what a great Savior He was. But the neatest thing is that she was the first person on the whole planet to see Jesus after His resurrection. She got to be the first person to go spread the news. Of course, nobody believed her. What else is new? Thomas refused to believe unless the Lord appeared to him and showed him His nail-scarred hands. So Jesus did arrange a meeting for him. But the point is that it was a huge honor for Mary and something I think that few men realize. God doesn't hold men higher than women or women higher than men. He does give revelation to women.

There are other examples in the Bible of great women. Deborah, Huldah, Ruth, Hannah, and Esther are in the OT just to name a few. Elizabeth, Mary (the mother of Jesus), Anna, Priscilla and Phoebe are in the NT. All of these women did great things for God.

What Paul wanted to guard against was a woman-led church. See, church might not be considered a manly activity. Even today these men that seem to be a little too effeminate for my tastes seem to find their way into leadership in the church. So Paul had to encourage these women to let the real men lead and to stop chattering during the service. You know how girls are. We like to share with each other. But he also told them to allow the women to pray and prophesy with their heads covered. You can't do that publicly unless a) you have something to say and b) you speak it out in public. This became a fashion statement over the years instead of an admonition to protect the girls when they were to speak. But if you check out the overall picture, Paul would be going against his own teaching to suggest a new law called "headcoverings."

Many women sincerely believe that the right attitude is to be quiet never saying a word because Peter said that a quiet and gentle spirit was of great price. 1 Peter 3:4 This is a calm spirit. One that isn't agitated easily. Also a fearful woman is one that is highly strung and the opposite of this. The Bible admonishes women not to be contentious too. Proverbs 21:19 says, It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman. Proverbs 27:15 says, A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike.

In Christ there is neither male nor female and Jesus was one of the greatest liberators of women the world has ever seen. I love being my husband's helpmeet and a woman. It is the best!

Vera

Happy Atheists Day Aka April Fools

2009-04-01T13:36:00.000-07:00

Happy Atheists Day!!

May God change your heart today to wisdom.

Vera

When does the grieving process begin?

2009-03-28T06:16:00.000-07:00

Monika,

Before you wrote your rebuttal to me, I had been subscribed to a nursing blog. A girl had written in about a patient STILL ALIVE whose father was acting irrationally and in particular, angry. This is what I wrote her back. I will put a link to the blog site so that you can see that I didn't lie to you. I am not sure you can access it but just in case you can't, I will place my first comment here. If you read on, you will see that I continue to contend that the man is going through the grieving process typically associated with death even though his child is still alive. It is what I sincerely believe and this was written before you said anything just to assure you that I didn't put it up for the sake of a rebuttal. I can assure you that I am not a liar.

Vera

Nursing website

I was going to concur with some of this advice but make one other observation. I also did some home health many years ago. I took care of a child with Trisomy 22. She had multiple issues. One thing I recall vividly from that incident was the way these two young parents acted out. The mom regressed (sucked her thumb). The parents had many heated arguments. Talk about letting your psych nursing come into play.

Remember the loss of something doesn't have to be through death. These folks have never resolved the loss of the child that "would have been." That child is gone and in place is the one they have. When we get pregnant, we envision a little boy out in the field with a baseball glove throwing balls back and forth to daddy or a little girl playing with her dollies. We don't envision a sick child who will never be able to do those things. When we are blessed with a child such as this, who btw, can be a tremendous blessing to the family once these feelings are resolved, we have to work through the grieving process because the child that we envisioned is gone.

How can they admit that without feeling burdened beyond comprehension with guilt? Who would understand such a feeling? IOW, aren't we supposed to love this child just as he is? They are perfectly well aware of the fact that it is nobody's fault and that the child is certainly not at fault. They are angry with God sometimes. They are angry with themselves no matter how many times you tell them it isn't their fault. The drugs (pot) are to ease these symptoms. They are probably self-medicating. I don't know if any of you are aware of that kind of drug usage with illegal drugs. When they lash out in anger at you, it is probably because they are stuck in that state of grieving. Few people even recognize this because they are only trained to recognize these symptoms once the person has passed away.

It may seem at this point that the trust connection is non-existent. However... I wouldn't be surprised if these people do trust you because they feel comfortable enough that they can vent that anger on you. Unfortunately, it is like a viscous cycle right now. They probably feel even more guilt once they've lashed out of you and then rush off to smoke some pot to relieve the pain.

There are folks that have worked through these things and have been able to help others work through theirs. I have many friends who have.

Vera

Do you talk about all sin?

2009-03-26T05:51:00.000-07:00

Just to show Leigh, these are the signs we carry that cover many sins, not just sexual perversion, which is an abomination to God.

Vera

Francis Chan - Balance Beam

2009-03-09T06:35:00.001-07:00

Placental mammal diversification and the Cretaceous–Tertiary boundary

2009-03-08T20:25:00.000-07:00

Placental mammal diversification and the
Cretaceous–Tertiary boundary

The Problems with the Doctrine of "Sin Nature."

2009-03-06T05:52:00.000-08:00

Many centuries ago, a man named Augustine coined a phrase called "sin nature," which is not one place in Scripture. Sin nature was two words that were used to explain why man sins and falls short of the glory of God. The ideology was based on two passages of Scripture. One is Romans 5 and the other is Psalm 51 and of course, the passages that clearly state that all sin and fall short of the glory of God. The premise was that because Adam sinned, we inherited a sin nature so that we were inclined to sin. Many have explained that this was a dead spirit or an evil wicked heart inherited in Adam.

The problem is that this teaching gave man an excuse. This did not take into account the rest of the book of Romans because Romans 1 is also clear that man has no excuse. Romans 2:14 also would suggest that there are some that walk in the Law without having the Law with a clear conscience.

When we began to preach out on the streets, we began to note a phenomenon where many so called Christians were deceived into believing that they couldn't help but sin in flagrantly vile ways but thank God Jesus died for their sins. I have placed one of our youtubes in front of the abortion clinic in New Orleans to demonstrate this problem. This woman, like thousands of others, thinks she can ask for forgiveness at the end of the day. Homosexuals, in particular, constantly proclaim that they were "born sinners." This caused us to begin investigating these teachings.

People sincerely believe that God understands our plight and will excuse them on the day of judgment because they humbly admit how weak they are in their sin nature even after being saved. I know God fearing Christians that honestly believe that admitting that they sin every day is the right way to be as it is a profession of humility. That right there should throw up red flags. (1 John 3) Unfortunately, people like to sin because there is pleasure in it for a season. They don't like the message that says to "Go and sin no more". They want to believe that God's love, in part, has a sympathy toward sin. Nothing could be further from truth.

Let's think about this logically. We are created beings. Right? This means sin nature is a part of our created being especially since we can't help it according to this doctrine. God knows there is the possibility of sin when he created us. God isn't stupid. He knew very well that Adam and Eve could disobey the one law He had going and eat from this very beautiful advantageous tree. And please recall that they supposedly chose to disobey this law without a sin nature.

God recognizes that He is slain from the foundation of the world. This is important because God knows how much it will cost Him if Adam and Eve do disobey. So God in His infinite wisdom builds within His creation a computer software virus called "sin nature." Now whenever this first created man rebels, the switch on the sin nature program goes into effect so that now all the rest of his offspring will be born with a sin nature doing the heinous things that God hates per God's design so that He must cast everyone into hell's fire and hate them. I hope this is sinking in because this was what got to me to help me see past all the teaching I had ever gotten on this topic. I fought this tooth and nail because I was so conditioned to believe that we are born sinning.

I began to ask myself, "Are there examples in Scripture of people that lived righteously before Jesus died on the cross?" (Romans 2:14) Many folks were declared by God as righteous before Jesus died on the cross. Zacharias and Elizabeth, for example in Luke 1:6. Daniel is another. Abel is another. Even Paul said that he was blameless under the Law. Phil 3. But then in Romans 7, he shares how impossible it was to keep the Law in his heart. The more Law he understood, the more that sin raged in him to where he was brought into captivity to it. He cries out to be delivered from this situation and then declares that he can, thank God, through Jesus Christ.

If you read Romans 5 closely, you will see that sin didn't pass to all men but death did because all had sinned. It is the body of this death that is the problem. We inherited death, not sin. Our problem is referred to as the "flesh." It is apparently the selfish self gratification of this flesh that we desire and are deceived into believing we have a right to.

As to Psalm 51, instead of David declaring that he was born sinning, could he be sharing some infidelity in his conception? Sex is not sin. So he can't be saying that the act of sex conceived him in sin. Is he suggesting that he was conceived in sin because he is human? Was Jesus then "conceived in sin" because he was also created exactly like we are with the "seed of David?" (Hebrews 2:16-18, 2 Timothy 2:8) The parameters had to be the same for the victory to be a real victory over this flesh. Jesus denied His flesh 100% of the time and chose to walk obedient to the Spirit. He gave up heaven to accomplish this.

In terms of child rearing, I had been told through child experts that children have a sin nature and that they should be spanked young to whack that sin nature out of them. Although I didn't follow that admonition, I was conditioned to expect sin from my children so that even when I could clearly see that there was the possibility of them being innocent, I expected the opposite. Without even realizing it, I was encouraging my children to sin. Then I noted that Corrie ten Boom's parents didn't spank their children. They are the most successful family that I can think of.

Fast forward to the 21st century, we are in a heap big trouble with a very Holy God. We have people sinning left and right because they falsely believe that they can't help it. They are supposed Christians on a fast track to hell. Can you imagine living your whole life as a worker of iniquity thinking all that sin is covered because you asked for forgiveness at the end of the day? Matthew 7:21 Actually, that would follow logically because you would have to accuse God for giving you a sin nature should the subject come up during this confrontation. The way I understood it was that I would be different than the heathen because I would plead the blood of Jesus. Unfortunately, that is not what the disciples were teaching. Colossians 1 speaks of being presented "unblameable and unreproveable." 1 John 3 clearly states that the way to tell the difference between someone who is saved and one who is not is whether they are sinning or not.

Some believe these sinning Christians are "false converts." I believe that if Adam could know God and sin then anyone can choose to sin and when we do, our relationship to God is severed until we repent. While we are sinning, should we die and not repent, we will not inherit the kingdom. It is a deception to think otherwise. (1 Cor. 6:9-11, Gal. 5) Paul made that distinction in 1 Cor. 5 by stating that we are not to eat with someone who calls themselves a brother and is sinning.

Some men of God proposed that sin was unacceptable to God but only in terms of repercussions here on this earth. One taught that initially your spirit gets saved but it just takes time for your soul to be saved meaning that you will continue to sin until you stop eventually. Regrettably, this still came at the problem from the foundational doctrine of sin nature. To battle sin nature, instead of seeking the power of God to be set free, (2 Timothy 3) he gave people tangible ways to stop sinning and in essence presented his own law. Those who did not uphold the "law" were shunned and ostracized. Some people, it would seem, were able to make a better show than others. Others, who were not so good at acting, did not fair as well.

Can we stop sinning? If you recognize that the problem is your flesh and a weakened spirit, you realize that there is real hope through the power of God and His divine nature imparted to us called grace. We are not born sinning but innocent and we have been given a conscience. Most children do not sin. They tell the truth. They love their mommies and daddies. Crying babies are not sinning as we have been led to believe. This is why Jesus said to become like a little child for of such is the kingdom of heaven. When we sin it is usually because we are between a rock and hard place and we CHOOSE to do the opposite of what our conscience is telling us is the right thing. We also have an adversary, the devil, who deceives us. The other reason is to give us some sort of physical pleasure. James says that we are enticed by our own lusts. Apparently, this happened to Adam and Eve as well. When we sin, the guilt is overwhelming especially as a child. I remember those things as though they happened yesterday. Once you give into sin, you become a child of wrath and are by nature then evil. It is a path of no end until it is broken by repentance and pardon through the blood of Jesus who creates a clean heart in us and then we are set free from sin by His power. It is the only way to get into heaven.

See if you understand the problem, then there is a solution to the problem and we can be set free by His power without any law. We can actually be around hard core sin and not feel the least bit enticed to do it. I have lived that.

There was so much fear built into this teaching because it is the law and with the law there must be consequences when the law is not upheld. So there was fear of reprisal and humiliation but there was also fear in being around anyone else that didn't uphold these standards. When parents would come to these folks disparagingly because of a rebellious son or daughter, these people would direct their attention to a place where they did not keep this law. For example, they might say, "Did you ever listen to rock music?" Unfortunately, in this day and time, rock music is virtually impossible to stay away from. Another question that might be asked was, "Does the mom ever feel the the husband is not living up to his spiritual responsibilities and let him know? If so, she encouraged the child to be rebellious." Thus the child's sin is now the mom's fault for not upholding the typical sinning husband. God is not going to excuse their rebellious son on the day of Judgement because the parents happened to be a particular way. That child's sin is not the fault of the parents, which explains why God does not distinguish which parents should be honored and which shouldn't.

People were encouraged to pull away completely from the world and cloister themselves for this reason and to shun any other believer that was not like they were mainly out of fear of being dragged into sin. Sin equals not keeping standards. So there was no multiplication of talents, which is a hell-bound offense. Matthew 25 Let that one sink in. Jesus said (not Vera) that if you don't multiply your talents, He's casting you into hell's fire. See, there was never a distinction made between who was literally sinning and not going to heaven anyway and someone who might not, for example, wear dresses. I don't think they even realized what they were doing at the time because I think they were genuinely trying to keep people from falling into sin because they knew sin offends God. It is only folks that have a weak faith in the power of God that need standards to keep from sinning. (Romans 14) If rock music causes you to sin, then by all means, cut it off and I as your brother or sister in Christ will uphold your conviction.

I am not suggesting that we shouldn't have standards or convictions. I know there are things that offend God and so I don't participate in them. I have a dress style that I believe is modest. But those things can't make me righteous and they won't save me. They may or may not indicate that I am holy. My holiness is dependent on what is going on on the inside which will translate in my actions. I have seen nuns that look so holy in their habits. But that dress does not make them holy. They could be practicing evil in their hearts in privacy and still be wearing this outfit.

I see that God has used many men even when they were wrong to keep people from offending Him. And even though I would argue that rock music isn't an excuse, I would agree that it can have a negative effect on one's spirit. I definitely do not like it for worship because it does not reflect the holiness of God.

Take this new movie called Fireproof. In it, the mom is writing this journal and she basically says concerning the pornography that this fellow is into that to have a fine marriage, he must give up the pornography. Do you see a problem with this advice to help this person to repent?

While it is true that he might have a restored relationship, his turnaround may or may not fix his marriage. What if the wife decided to run off with the rich doctor? Since things did not go as planned, does the husband go back to his porn addiction because the promised result didn't happen? What would stop him at that point? Let's face it. In a movie, we imagine that the wife would be remiss for rejecting Kirk Cameron. But in real life, she's not on camera and the sinning husband is Joe Nobody. What about that he is offending a Holy God and she is too and they're both going to bust hell wide open if they don't repent?

This was the kind of advice and focus that these folks promoted all the time. If you do this, God will do that. But what if our actions or repentance do not bring about the promised change especially because the promise would have to come through someone that is either sinning or somehow says yes or no to the promptings of the Holy Spirit? Where does that leave us with God? I tell you where it left me. I felt that somehow God must not have liked me as much as the other guy that got the blessing.

For the first time in my life, I feel that I am on the right track. Just by pulling that one teaching from the mix of teachings along with "once saved; always saved" and recognizing that God has done much to keep me from sinning and yet I chose to sin anyway entrapping myself in the devil's web by my own freewill choice, I know now how to help others out of their sin by grace through faith. I chose to sin. I chose to repent.

I found what I was looking for in Christ by His Spirit leading me in the way. I found genuine righteousness by grace through faith and this not of myself, it was the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast.

Vera

Pics from Mardi Gras

2009-03-05T06:05:00.000-08:00

2009-03-01T06:33:00.000-08:00

My husband was at Mardi Gras this last week street preaching, when lo and behold, he ran into a disciple of Richard's. At first, he thought my husband was the stupidest idiot most ignoramus person in the entire universe. But then, my husband started to tear down his evolutionary atheist argument and they had a good conversation. Most Christians believe what the Bible says literally as in God created the heavens and the earth in 6 twenty-four hour days. Instead of digging into the Scriptures, as the Lord commands us to do, they superficially look at it. When my husband began to explain that we dig into the Scripture, scientifically, prophetically, historically, he shed some light on how we're able to speak clearly to the evolution/atheist.

Just thought you'd like to know.

Vera

Extremophiles

2009-02-11T09:47:00.000-08:00

Extremophiles

The above article explains why extremophiles could not evolve around hot air vents.

Vera

Speaking to a lost soul

2009-02-08T14:31:00.000-08:00

Pics from Superbowl

2009-02-04T12:47:00.001-08:00

Why do Christians spend so much time on evolution?

2009-02-04T11:55:00.000-08:00

The experts of evolution are not preachers or televangelists. The experts are biologists, and they are nearly unanimous in their support of TOE. Why do you suppose it is that whenever you see or hear somebody bashing evolutionary theory, there's always an evangelical behind it? I mean, if TOE is really as flawed as you say it is, then why is it that Christians can see the flaws but biologists can't?

That is an excellent question, CH. I have tried to explain this on Ray's list several times now but it somehow doesn't sink in.

I want to say first of all that the ToE is not the problem. I fully recognize now which parts Darwin got right and the ones he got wrong. Unfortunately, the part that is wrong is only assumed these days and imposed on the evidence. I uphold science as well. I believe that science, if done correctly, can bring us closer to the truth. And isn't that what we want? The truth. I do.

I believe one of the worst mistakes the church ever did was to be too quick to respond to the evidence as it was coming in and try to rule science. I never saw science as a jurisdiction until I started talking to this group. I believe that God ordained authority and it is important to allow those in authority to do their job. If the church had any input in science it should be the same input they have in government and that is to be salt and light to preserve these things from evil while at the same time not telling them how to do their job. Instead of self correcting, the church stood firm in the belief of a young earth and have brought great reproach on the church as a result. What I find so frustrating about that is that the real evidence fits a biblical model.

When we begin an ideology and base our truth on it, we have a tendency to make choices based on that ideology. I believe in God. I believe that God has personal expectations for each individual and expects his creation to uphold His righteous standard. I do not believe that God created us with sin nature software so that when the wheel rolled off with the initial two that somehow the sin nature software kicked in and man was destined to sin 24/7. Common sense, once again, tells us that this is not the case. People are actually given many advantages not to sin. Our conscience is one. Authority is another. Even for an out and out heathen, for example, a lie is unacceptable and called into question. What generally happens to people is that they are in a suffering situation and instead of having the ability to do what is right, they do what is wrong to get around the suffering. Jesus explained this to Peter when Peter would be faced with the temptation to deny Him in such a horrible situation. He said the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. IOW, you need something more to get over those hurdles. That is the transition that Jesus created in His blood so that we could have His Spirit to be led of Him.

I believe that there are eternal consequences to our actions and we will stand before God one day and give an account. Although I was told differently from various Christian teachers (including Ray) I find nothing in Scripture to support the idea that somehow real Christians are exempt from this judgment or that they cannot deceptively fall prey to the world and start sinning. Ray would argue that they are "false converts." I see many passages in Scripture that stand against this and lay the entire responsibility on the person who is choosing. Matthew 7 is crystal clear that there are people in that day that think they are saved and call Jesus Lord but continue to sin and wind up in hell's fire because they never departed from their sin and got to know Him.

What does this have to do with the ToE? Everything. If the ToE were simply microevolutionary changes that occur within species, there would be no problem. Everyone across the board can see this. But, the ToE, as it is told from the atheistic perspective that dominates the public school curriculum that leaves God out, explains the creation scenario as purely naturalistic needing no God. The truth of the matter is that science itself does not support this. This recent experiment with RNA is a classic example of the fact that intelligence is needed in creation. Instead of stepping back and admitting this fact, the atheists pick this information up and try to hold it in the face of Christians as an explanation for abiogenesis. Were it not for these intelligent men on RTB, I doubt anyone would have an argument because from the layman's perspective, that evidence is very compelling. It is only when you hear how many meticulous steps had to be taken that you realize just how sophisticated and elegant this experiment really was.

Now, if the naturalistic point of view is true, then the person can conclude that there are problems with the Bible. There is absolutely no question that if the naturalistic ToE is true than the Bible is completely false. I know God is real so I don't doubt the Bible. But for those who don't know God, if they follow that line of thinking, the next phase will lead them to sin or to reject God completely. Since they have no fear of God, many things in this life are excluded within their choices. They think they are going to leave this world one day and that's it. It's lights out. No lie they told. No lust they participated in will have any consequence. No cruel mean action they had against the innocent will matter. What a shocker they are in for when they wake up before God.

I wouldn't wish that on anyone, CH. I try daily to convince you of the truth. God has made Himself real to me in more ways than I can tell you. I had a miracle happen today. I'll have to wait to share the whole story with you.

Bottom line: I uphold science. I love science. I believe that science is discovering God's invisible attributes. I believe that the Bible is the one true Word of God and that Jesus is exactly who He said He is - the Son of God. I believe that through the power of God, man can be set free from sin.

Vera

The Theory of Evolution is a Myth

2009-01-05T07:03:00.000-08:00

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five

This five part series should show anyone who is open to the truth, the very obvious reason that the Myth of Evolution is being imposed on the evidence, lacks falsifiability, and has become a part of the contemporary worldview.

Push the Rewind Button

2009-01-05T06:41:00.000-08:00

Flightless Birds
Flightless Birds Cause Evolution to Run Out of Options
Repeatable Evolution or Repeated Creation?

The Flesh contains DNA

2009-01-02T06:18:00.000-08:00

DNA in Homosexuals

Alcoholic Gene

One of my hypothesis concerning how sin works is that sin is passed down genetically giving a person a predisposition to the sin. The Bible states that we pass on our sins to our children even to the third and fourth generation. See Exodus 20. This does not mean that a person is destined to sin but that the weakness to sin is within his genome. I say this because Paul said that within his flesh dwelt no good thing. And that within our flesh is where sin dwells. Flesh is made up of cells which in turn are manufactured by a process using DNA. So it doesn't surprise me that scientists are discovering some interesting DNA alterations within those who sin.

I don't believe someone with a predisposition to alcoholism ever has to pick up a drink. But if they do, the weakness is picked up and taken to an extreme.

As I said, you can Google this topic and bring up a host of articles.

Vera

National Drug Policy: Sweden

2009-01-01T06:22:00.000-08:00

National Drug Policy: Sweden

The reason I am putting this government reaction to the drug problem in Sweden is to show that they are dealing with the same problems we are dealing with. And also to point out that by their own census, they are a Christian nation.

Vera

Junk DNA

2008-12-28T07:50:00.000-08:00

This is a new discovery on Junk DNA.

New information on Junk DNA

Interview with an atheist

2008-12-24T07:04:00.001-08:00

An atheist on what it means to be a Christian

Merry Christmas

2008-12-12T07:53:00.000-08:00

To all my atheist friends, may God show you the truth of His riches in this wonderful gift given to us many many years ago.

In His Love,
Vera

Timeline of Genesis

2008-11-22T05:26:00.000-08:00

Bible passages related to creation

2008-11-17T10:10:00.000-08:00

Bible passages related to Creation

Placental Mammals Originated On Earth 65 Million Years Ago, Researchers Assert

2008-11-14T05:19:00.000-08:00

Placental Mammals Originated On Earth 65 Million Years Ago, Researchers Assert

This is important because it marks in scientific terms the KT boundary but in biblical terms day 5 ends and day 6 begins.

Vera

Dinosaurs were hot

2008-11-14T05:09:00.001-08:00

Large Dinosaurs Were Extremely Hot In Their Day, Study Finds

The point that this makes it is explains the functional aspect of having hollow bones.

Vera

Homosexuals turn violent

2008-11-14T04:37:00.000-08:00

Lesbians, condoms go wild in attack on Christian church
Making out at pulpit, shouting blasphemies in front of children

Homosexual 15 year old shoots classmate for being jilted

When the church was attacked about twenty years ago and their freedom of speech was taken away within the public school, please note that no violence occurred. Homosexuality, according to the Bible, is a violent mentality. Once again, the Bible said it first.

Vera

Conservative Blacks vote for Obama

2008-11-13T04:26:00.000-08:00

Obama gains Ground with Black Christian Leaders

Obama and Black Christians

Both Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hanity said that 34% of the conservatives voted for Obama.

Sean Hannity statistics

I probably won't leave this post up. It is just to prove to dale that I was not making up what I said. Imvho, this is what tipped the scale in this election and is a travesty because we now have 4 more years and possibly many more of the wicked evil practice of abortion.

Vera

A Norwegian's view of America

2008-11-04T04:29:00.000-08:00

It is so much to say about this case that it would take to much time to bring the right perspectives on the Judgment of God, Comparing USA with Norway.

It is amazing how little understanding Americans in general have about their nation's history and role in world past, present and future. And thereby no understanding of “God dealing with them”. It would be wrong to compare USA with Norway, without bringing the history and facts on the table.

Norway have 4500000 inhabitants, USA have about 300000000 inhabitants. You are about 66,6 times as many as us

Norway is a nation that got its independence from Sweden in 1905. America has had their independence for a lot longer.

Norway is a constitutional monarchy. The King has no judical power.

We have a Lutheran state church funded by the state.

The Government have a Church and education Minister.

We have a cross in our national flag, and so have Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, to symbolize Christainity

We have a social-democratic political system. with several different parties from communist wing to free traders. “Mixed system” The communist are only a couple present and I am not even sure if they have any representing in Parlament at this moment. The state takes cares of healthcare, pensions and welfare to a certain extent. Even we have to pay for pensions, healthcare through extra insurance. You Americans have also some things your state and government takes care of like us.

Norway has a great history of sending out missionaries to the whole world including former America.

The main thing to remember is that through history there has always been some great nation having dominion. And at this point that privilege and reponcibility belong to USA. God always deals direct to the head “ Chief in command”. Norway is only a servant to USA, and thereby lighter judged, but still judged according to the rigtheosness of God.

America sets the standard of World politics, economy, military, Spiritual life, technology, sports, fashion, trends, movie industry, porn industry.
What more of significance do you not control?

You are the government “The country “ due to God blessing and prospering you, What ever I go to the buy in Norway is mainly produced for the American market by your standards.

But now God is dealing with you due to your decline if keeping his commandments and good virtues. America has abanded their roots and belief and made them graven images, America has made themselves Modern Pagan Gods. America went by the broad way to destruction instead of the narrow path to life.

As a Norwegain and a European that has greatly been blessed by America, and yes you are the greatest nation so far on earth. I would have been proud to be an American, but I am still more proud to be an stranger and pilgrim on earth. America is the worlds big brother, and al us little brothers (nations) even if we do not like it to be so, we look up to you and want to be as you. Even if we may be anti-american , anti-Bush, we show by our choices that we covet your lifestyle. We read your books, se your films, look at your porn, buy your arms, and even import your phony Christian modern revival doctrines that bring the judgment even closer.

God is strategic, he knows ho far America has gone the wrong way in apostacy and evil. If the head of the world turns the rest of the world will turn.
At this point the whole western world is turning against God with their lifestyle What I believe is that you will not have any more Great awakenings, but a progressive growth in to lawlessness and evil ( like the days of Noah). What will happen is that God will start and has already started on “phase 2 America”. With that I mean that you are no more under God`s hand of prosperity but under his hand of decline and judgment. Eventually there will rise up other united nations like EU and others to be more equal to America to balance it out and to take the edge of Chritianity, thruth, belief and righteousness by even stronger secularisation and world order and unity, at the end we will reach the book of Revelation and end times.

Holy God Almighty is a strategic he knows hoe to play his mercies and judgments according to His divine laws of legislation. He is free to play His cards like He wants and to aloe the Devil to play his cards so that you can be punished. You may not se the Big picture always when playing chess, you might not know why that “horse” is there in that position, but at the end you will know and the “Chess Mate”, “Game Over”. You will know what you did not know before. God has always used nations and people to accomplish his divine prophetic destiny likewise America and in the future the rest of the world. For Christ to return there must be a manifestation of the Son of perdition “Satan”, for that to happen there must be one world order and unity, for that to happen USA must grow weaker and that is taking place now.

America is a nation founded on Christian beliefs, but now a nation full of sin and evil, but still have its remnant.
Norway is a nation founded on Christian beliefs, but now a nation full of sin and evil, but still have its remnant.
So what is the difference? Answer: America was raised by God for a certain task “world mission” that you abanded for the sake of comfort, wordly lusts and pleasure. You have actually been a tool for Satan in many areas and polluted the world. And now the foreign nations are invading you and natural disaters. Look also on Great Britain and Spain with their terror attacks. They are former great empires and leading positions in the western world. Norway is nothing compared to America but still have our responsibility mandated by God as everyone else has.

So what is Gods message to America? Repent and believe the Gopel and you will eat your bread in peace. And if not you will eat the crumbles that fall of the childrens table like the dogs use to eat. There is no shame to turn. But from an end time perspective I must say that America is a sinking Titanic of the world. You have still more to accomplish America, work while it is still daylight.

A sincere greeting to al Americans who are soldiers on the front of Righteousness and proclaiming the Gospel.
And a warning to all other to flee from the coming wrath of God that he one day will execute on all people who disobey Him.

Sincerely from Petar a Norwegian Sreet-Preacher who preaches both in Norway and in America, I love Norway and I love America.
I am what I am today due to Godly American brothers who helped me out in life and ministry, I owe God and America a lot.

Sincerely in Christ
Petar Keseljevic

HOX Gene argument

2008-10-31T08:43:00.000-07:00

HOX Gene

Brainwashing Children in homosexuality and lesbianism

2008-10-29T05:52:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons I am putting these here is to answer a question from one of the people on Ray's blog site concerning why I wouldn't hire a gay or lesbian if I were running a preschool. No matter how you try to twist the situation, eventually, they will want to use this teaching platform to try to persuade and brainwash children into believing that these lifestyles are "normal." The children are taught that the Bible and Christians are evil for speaking against homosexuality having no idea that all homosexuals will inherit hell's fire and that it is a mercy for any Christian to try and lead them to repentance.

Having orgasms is not a part of a person or who they are. It is a simple physical mechanism meant to create a oneness between a husband and wife. Anyone can turn tomorrow and start again fresh and put homosexuality and lesbianism behind them to walk holy with God.

Vera

Noah's Flood

2008-10-13T15:27:00.000-07:00

These are just a few sites that will give you the answers on Noah's Flood

Rapid Post-Flood Speciation:
A Critique of the Young-Earth Model

The Flood of Noah

Do a search at RTB for this realplayer talk. It explains these dates better than anything I've heard so far
A discussion about the date of Noah's Flood and early human migration

Starlight and Time

2008-10-10T19:24:00.000-07:00

Unraveling of Starlight and Time

This is a very technical article that exposes the reasons for the failed hypothesis of Dr. Humphreys that has been propagated by YEC as proof of a young universe.

Vera

Do normal Christians sin every day?

2008-10-04T17:04:00.001-07:00

CH

They were born sinful--at God's command. Christians still sin. They even admit it. So why aren't Christians going to hell too--if sinning is the reason people go to hell? If everybody sins, but only non-Christians go to hell, then sin isn't the reason people go to hell. Not being a Christian is the real reason. Being a member of the wrong religion is the real reason.

For now, I just want to set aside the complaint you have against God's judging and focus in on this part of your post. Because if this indeed were true, then it wouldn't be righteous or right to judge man when he could easily irradiate this "sin nature."

The term "sin nature" is not one place in Scripture. It was a term that Augustine, who was a very Godly man, came up with to describe man's problem with sin. I have been saved for 36 years and my understanding of this term from many teachings was that we were born with a wicked evil heart and that we can't help but sin. This is not exactly the truth.

The heart becomes wicked when we entertain sin and act on it. James said that when lust is conceived it brings forth sin and when sin is finished it brings for death. At this point, if by no other place than in the mind, we become a slave to sin. So you see, there is a beginning that can quickly be put down. The temptation to sin is not sin. That is why we are called to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

This one part of Scripture is the most misunderstood aspect of the message of salvation. We are not born sinning or with a sin nature. What we are born with is a conscience and innocent of evil. Jesus said that He lights every man that comes into the world. He said that unless we become as little children, we will not inherit the kingdom. We have to become pure like a child to enter the kingdom.

Also, 1 Cor. 6:9-11 states very clearly that not to be deceived that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom. God is not going to pollute heaven with our sin. We must be pardoned and set free.

Collecting convictions does not set us free. This freedom gives us a liberty to be in and around the world without being drawn back into the sin.

Romans 1 states that God is manifest in man and made known to him.

Romans 2:14 states that there are people outside the church or Judaism (aka Gentiles) who don't know the Law that walk in it BY NATURE and their conscience bears witness. And guess what? We are going to be judged against those kinds of people.

So then do all men sin and fall short of the glory of God? Yes. But the reason for this is not a sin nature but a very weak flesh. The thing that Adam traded for the love of his wife was a body of death. He decided to love her more than God. Bad idea. He failed to realize that she was deceived because he didn't know all the facts.

Paul explains the problems with sin in Romans 7 when he was under the Law. He said that he delighted after the law and wanted to do the law within himself but something else was bringing him into captivity and he said it was his flesh and that this is where sin dwells.

I personally believe that when God says that sin is passed down to our children it is because the DNA is effected by sin, which in turn effects our subsequent offspring. Our flesh is controlled by DNA. This has been proven at least through alcholoism. But... does each person with this propensity HAVE to start drinking and become an alcoholic? Absolutely not. We do not have to give into sin and take the first drink which is why we are accountable.

We usually give into sin when we are in a tough situation. Then we are more tempted to do the next wrong thing to bring us happiness and that is our failure. I know what it is like to make it through suffering with tears doing the next right thing. I give God the glory for that.

Now in Jesus, we can turn the tables on this and then be led of the Spirit of God instead of our flesh. See Romans 8. Romans explains how man is set free from sin by the power of God.

Now many people do not come to God with this knowledge. The teaching we receive is important but what is even more important is that we spend time in the Word daily because today there are so many teachings that are false teachings. The only reason I know more than many is because I have embraced that Book daily for the last 25 years because I was so hungry for God and embraced Him. Before that, my walk with God was shaky and I was sinning plenty and calling myself a Christian.

It wasn't until I repented and began to read the Word every day that my life changed radically. The grace, which is what this power is called, comes through faith and faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. So it is a duel dynamic. When I have this in my life, every decision that I am faced with has a biblical answer and I seem to walk through naturally without really thinking about it. It is unconscious for the most part until there is a suffering moment. Then I can be tempted to do the wrong thing. But the temptation isn't sin. I can dismiss the thought and do the next right thing.

Part of the confusion with this issue is the way people read the Bible. 1 John is a classic example that specifically says we are not Christians if we continue to sin. But he starts off by telling people that if you think you have no sin, you make Him to be a liar. So many folks read that only and nothing else and assume that then Christians who claim to be freed from sin are liars. That is not John's point and we can follow that logically because he tells us in chapter 3 that we are of the devil if we do. John therefore, I believe is prefacing his ultimate point with a sort of disclaimer just in case anyone would assume that, for example, their children are born without sin. He also wants people to know that repentance is a step away.

Hebrews is another book that few people touch on with the exception of the role call of the faithful. Hebrews contains some of the most profound pieces of Scripture that are hot to handle. It says that if you willfully sin, there remains no longer a sacrifice for sins.

Repentance is not an admission of evil and an "I'm sorry." It is a total change of mind about our actions in relation to God's holiness. It is a determination to do God's will while at the same time recognizing that it is His power because we ask for it. My prayers to God over my sin were sincere. I meant it. I wanted Him to cleanse my heart and soul from all unrighteousness and to change me and He did. I asked Him to take back the ground I had surrendered to satan. I confessed my sins and He was faithful and just to forgive me. The Truth set me free.

Please do not confuse this freedom with the term "sinless perfection." Sinless perfection implies something that I could never conjure up in a million years. God promises that we as Christians will suffer in this world. So a state of perfection is impossible. My car is getting old same as yours. My bones ache sometimes same as yours. But I am no longer inclined to covet other people's lives, belongings, money, friends. I don't want to have sex with anyone but my husband and him the same. I don't lie, cheat, steal. And the biggest one for me and the most insidious is that I forgave the people that had offended me and released them through my own forgiveness. That one act set me free of more sin than anything else. God can't forgive us if we don't forgive.

I know this is long but in truth, it is probably way too brief.

You are wrong about God. He is a loving God to those who love Him and keep His commandments and His commandments are not grievous or tough to keep especially when He pours out His Spirit into your heart.

Once a people group begins to tolerate sin more and more, CH, they ultimately become reprobate and heinously evil. America is headed in this direction. At that point, God will no longer suffer with them. He kills them and their kittens. The God I know is loving because I show Him my love toward Him by keeping His commandments. I am reconciled.

If you choose God, CH, we will stand with you and help you.

Vera

Building truth vs. deception

2008-10-01T07:08:00.000-07:00

Sye,

Thank you for writing me back.

I see truth like building blocks on a foundation. Everyone has a foundation and from there they build their truth one brick on top of another. If the foundation and the following bricks are not in place, the ones on top would not fit. Amen?

Take the atheist. His foundation is science. Even though he knows that science does not hold to the truth, he likes the way it attempts to self correct. Of course, he never acknowledges the bias in many conclusions and by leaving out God, he never really comes to the truth. The next brick is sin and on and on it goes.

A real true Christian builds his foundation on one thing and one thing only - Jesus Christ and Him crucified. He then sees himself the way God sees him and he is ashamed of his sin. He repents and asks God to take back the legal ground he's given to satan about specific things he's done. Then he asks (you have to ask) for the Holy Spirit to come into His life and create a clean heart in him and he begins embracing the Word of God and building up his faith. The combination is dynamite in his life and some serious power to be set free from sin. The old has passed away. He wants to tell everyone about what has happened in his life. Each of these sentences here are another brick laid on the foundation.

Some Christians get saved by believing that they are forgiven and that God loves them in their sin. They aren't ashamed of their sin at all but perhaps know that it is wrong. They flip flop back and forth over the years in their double mindedness and are as a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. They are ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth because they deny the power of God. The Bible speaks very clearly of this type of Christian that has the totally wrong foundation.

In my life, I have taken hold of truths and found them to be full of error. I was taught certain things and then held to them and when I got to the end, I hit a brick wall because the promised outcome did not occur. In fact, I was standing there with a huge mess on my hands that imvho, was not even in the ballpark of the will of God.

So guess what I did in that day? I took a mental arm and threw all the pieces off the table except my foundation - Jesus Christ and Him crucified and I began again to build truth looking at each piece to make sure it fit. Sometimes that took a while to accomplish.

How many times have I done this in life? A few. :-)

I can apply this to any point in my life. For example, there has been teachings over the years that would say that women should never ever ever ever teach in any regard but be silent because of that one Scripture and they should wear a headcovering as a sign of this. So you step back and look at that and wonder if this is the case. Is this what God is communicating to women on the whole? Doesn't the Word say that your sons and your daughters shall prophesy? Weren't there women of God commended for their ability to share truth in the OT and the NT? Do hats impart righteousness to a woman? Can't we step back and say, well then what was Paul trying to communicate here? See, communication when the person is not here to qualify it, can be a little tricky. That is why you have to see that Paul was a regular kind of guy full of the Holy Spirit. He knew he was getting a lot of revelation but he didn't see himself as the greatest apostle. He saw himself as the least. His writings from start to finish speak of being empowered by the Spirit and no longer under the Law of bondage and he is crystal clear that anyone can have what he has. Hmmmm? How does the above scenario of the silent head-covered woman fit the Law of bondage and fear that Paul was always speaking out against?

So I began to realize that teachers have a tendency to take a verse of Scripture and present it and not present the entire picture. For example, in 1 John 1 John says that it is deception to say that we do not sin. This is one of the key verses used to suggest that God doesn't free us from sin and that in normal Christianity, we sin every single day. But does that premise fit the entire picture? And see that was a huge revelation to me in a number of different areas. It is like quote mining by taking a piece of the words and leaving out the rest because the rest of 1 John certainly does not imply that people sin every day and at the end of the day are forgiven.

I noted this with Mofi. He went on and on for days and days suggesting that God will not throw people into hell's fire for all of eternity because He is all loving and wouldn't do that. To Mofi, they will die a second death, lights out and that is it. I believe that whatever punishment people get, it will be perfect to their situation and I personally want to lean and perhaps ere on the side of fearing the Lord. Jesus spoke more on hell's fire than any other topic including heaven.

If some folks get lights out, praise God. But that is not what I see happening. Anyway, to obtain this way of thinking, Mofi has to dismiss various Scriptures as irrelevant such as the rich man and Lazarus. He claims that Jesus is telling a fictitious story to make a point. I'm not sure what other point could be inferred but to fit his reasoning, he has to take that passage and dismiss it. That is why when people dismiss Psalms because it is poetry or Revelations because it contains metaphors, my red flags go up because I know once again that we have something going on that is going to lead us right down the path to deception. It is a brick that shouldn't be there, iow. And trust me, when you hit that brick wall, trying to figure out which brick shouldn't be there can take time.

So what does all this have to do with the price of tea in China? Well I'll tell you. Let's look at the God of the YEC for starters. The God of the YEC is one that likes to do things in a snap. Bang, bang, bang. It's done. Quickly, quickly, quickly. He throws this world together and then takes a break. The YEC God doesn't have a lot of time on His hands because He's only been around for about 6 days plus 6000 years. Whatever He was doing before that, we know not what but at least we know what He's been doing for 6000 years. If He is eternal, it surely isn't apparent through creation and does this aspect reflect His eternal Godhead?

I keep telling you that light travels at approx 186,287 miles per second. The fact that it is predictable points to a Creator. If there were no laws in this universe, it would point to chaos and then this group would have a leg to stand on. But they don't. If the laws of physics were not in place and in some areas just by a micron, this whole world would not be able to sustain life.

When we look at the stars, we can measure how far that star's light has had to travel to get here. And the biggest mind blowing thing is that we are looking back in time. That is a truth and there is no getting beyond it. They can literally see creation back to a millisecond of time, which to me is incredible.

The galaxy next door to us, Andromeda, is 2.3 million light years away and that is our next door neighbor! I mean there is flat out no getting around that.

There is no other possible Hebrew word to be used than yom for a time period. What you are suggesting when you see it in these other areas is that the readers of the time couldn't figure that out in context. Genesis 2:4 is an example of where yom is used as a time period.

This is from one of the RTB articles

Genesis 1:14-15 (NASB): Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of
the heavens to give light on the earth; and it was so. The verb translated “and it was so,” denotes a completed action. “This completed action phrase confirms that the sun and moon had performed each of the functions commanded in Genesis 1:14-15. It indicates that each of the functions of
signs, seasons, and years had completed at least one cycle. This is an additional indication that the ‘creative yom’ are long periods of time.”35 This cycle of “signs and seasons” could not be completed within the confines of a 24-hour
solar day.

To demonstrate this word phenomenon, I like to use the word "play."

I play with my toys
I play the piano
I wrote a play
I played the fool

I looked this up online to see which word in our language has the most definitions. Apparently the word "set" has 464 definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary.

So it is not unusual in any language to have words that have various meanings and sometimes that can be misunderstood. Peter said that a day in the Lord is AS a thousand years. That wasn't to say it was a thousand years but that it's like that. So I have no problem with these yoms being longer periods of time and God days.

I don't agree with everything RTB posits. For example, I disagree with them on the behemoth not being a description of a dinosaur. I think it is remarkable that anyone could describe that creature without seeing it. There have been some other things I don't agree with. I think they need to concentrate a little more on seeing people freed from sin. Actually, I think everyone needs to do that because we are about as far away from that goal as possible in this country.

Getting back to my point though, an old earth creation God is one that is meticulous and fine tunes things. He isn't in a hurry. He displays Himself as the ancient of days of over 13.5 billion years. He has a plan in mind and He takes His time in getting it done. He epitomizes the word "patience." He puts so much thought into each detail of the creation process bringing about these creatures that are like walking gods, us, created in His image. He went through great pains to ensure that this world was perfectly able to support life. Just water being in this planet in three different conditions causes it to sustain life. That is what I like about RTB. They share many exact parameters about this earth that make it so remarkable as to realize that nobody could do this but the hand of Almighty God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth.

Just a few things off the top of my head are the fact that bacteria were used to take away poisons from the environment and make them into usable raw materials. I mean it is incredible how many things we have in this life to be used as raw materials to make our lives so easy. And they know that if just one thing went wrong, the item wouldn't exist.

When I step back and take a look at creation, I marvel at the design and beauty of it all. I honestly can't understand how the atheist can't see this when it is so obvious down to the very last detail.

Their problem, if you ask me, is that they know that there is absolutely no way to reconcile the modern day god we have made up in our heads and the world of nature. They simply do not fit. We keep trying to make them do science according to our own understanding and they realize through testing nature that it doesn't fit. The only way to reconcile this is to declare that our God is longsuffering, righteous, holy, and pure and that his foolishness is wiser than man. He did a great job of creating our microdot of a planet and this universe.

Vera

Mt. Sinai is Jebel el Lawz

2008-09-30T17:49:00.000-07:00

Differences in humans and apes

2008-09-30T07:51:00.000-07:00

What I'm going to do here is to give some references requested by Dimensio. Each link will contain the demonstrated difference that is being requested.

1. Larger Brain size and mental capability
2. Unable to master complex language
3. Explains physical differences in humans and hominids
4. Some physical differences including some sexual differences
5. Under characteristics of Great Apes on Wikipedia

Why does man suffer?

2008-09-26T13:23:00.000-07:00

"They say of some temporal suffering, 'No future bliss can make up for it,' not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory."

One thing about talking to atheists is that I discovered that about 80% of them were at one time Christians. The one thing that bothered them was that God is not always "benevolent." He is not always benevolent in nature, the cosmos or in the sufferings of man and that bothered them because they had been presented with a God that was always loving and nothing else. When they discovered that this was obviously not true, they said that Christianity and God wasn't real. IOW, it was the suffering that got to them.

These are the kinds of questions that get your spiritual blood pumping because it forced me to find an answer and it made me think about what I had suffered in life. One thing I noted about my life in Christ was that each and every time I was obedient, it meant that I went further into a road of suffering. For example, I could have plenty of money at this moment. I could have the nicest car, the nicest house, take trips to Tahiti, and a vacation every single year with my husband for the last 23 years if only...... I hadn't chosen to be a stay-at-home mom, homeschool at my own expense and trust God for my family. See the more obedience, the more suffering I endured because I was obedient. I could trace my suffering back to my obedience. Jesus learned obedience through suffering. Doesn't that make sense? You can't learn obedience by doing things you like to do. That isn't a real test of obedience. The irony is that often we have to forfeit spiritual activities for the same reason - we don't have the money. For example, when some of the moms here have suffered financially, I have wished so much that I could send them some money. I would like to jump on a plane right now and go and help Cathie too. :-) I would love to give a $10,000 gift to Gideons. I want to go to the street preacher's conference coming up.

Now a lot of people would say that that was stupid. Why not just have the two children and enjoy your life? Why suffer? That got me to thinking about the possibly of an eternal purpose for suffering. Plus, I wouldn't have wanted more money had I not had more children and more needs and more things I would like to do spiritually speaking. IOW, many of the things I have suffered were as a result of wanting to do more for or with God but not being able to.

One other thing that we often talk about on this list is proof of God's existence. To me the proof is obvious in nature. The naturalist wants some other worldly proof. But once that proof exists in this universe, it has to live within the parameters God has set up made of mass and the elements here especially if man wants to see and know it. So supernatural proof is a dead end. God doesn't work that way. He works within His own creation to do things for us. To Him, the order, symmetry, symbiosis, and beauty is plenty enough "proof." We know that because how often has our faith produced something in the natural? Paul noted that God cannot be known in the natural. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Clearly God is not going to be known by being seen by the natural eye. We have to know Him by faith. So we have faith going and suffering at the same time and I think many people wonder at that moment, what is the purpose of all of this? Why not quit and stop suffering? All I have to do is to stop doing these things that God called me to and I will stop suffering.

Then the question came up of free will. Will we have free will in heaven or will we be automatons then? As you can see, they have many, many incredibly important questions that cannot be answered in a day. Studying nature has also caused me to conclude that God loves free will and applies it in thousands of different ways. If you really step back and note history and nature, it is obvious that God allows mankind and the animals to choose and then He uses His creation to nudge things in the direction He would have them go. So, I say that free will is something that God loves and it will be in heaven because we will be ruling and reigning with Christ and judging.

That is when the testing and trials really started to make perfect sense. To have the responsibility of ruling with free will, the One in authority has to know that you would be willing to do His will no matter what the circumstance.

The second reason too that we suffer is to identify with Him. God so much wants us to understand Him but you can never understand Him unless you can understand the pain that He has gone through. We might even note that in our own lives. We tell someone our trials and it feels like they have no clue what we are going through but one who has gone through it seems to understand perfectly.

Did you know that God's heart has been broken too over mankind and the angels that fell? Just do a word search for the word "broken." I believe this Psalm reflects the heart of God, "Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none."

When Lucifer fell, I believe it was so hard on God. What it took to reconcile that situation has caused God so much pain and He wants us to identify with Him in every way, not just His joy and love but in this pain. He is so holy and righteous and this sin has been totally grievous to Him. He is and has been and always will be. None of us would be here without Him. So He takes us through suffering where people let us down and betray us so that we can understand Him fully. He was betrayed many moons before Judas.

I honestly think He is perfectly well aware of the fact that when someone He loves goes through this, that there is the possibility that they are going to turn tail and run to begin rebelling against Him. But He does it because He has an idea of who He wants to spend eternity with and who He wants ruling and reigning with Him. So He allows the trial to occur to see if we will stay the course and keep His commandments.

God does have a qualification for love. His love isn't in question but ours is. To love Him means to obey Him and keep His commandments. That is so easy to do when life is easy but impossible to do when we are suffering. So we look to the Spirit of God once again to give us the grace, which is sufficient and His power which is made perfect in our weakness.

We think God has no feelings, which is so untrue. He has feelings and He is hurt and broken over sin. But there is great joy in heaven when just one sinner repents. That is amazing! It is my firm belief that the filthiest rottenest foulest sinner can repent, change and be set free from sin by His power. Like me. :-)

He is not one or the other. He is both benevolent to those who love Him and keep His commandments and angry at the wicked every day. I just thought I would share my heart on that because it has meant so much to me and just one of the few things God has been revealing to me.

Vera

Can God judge a Christian to hell's fire?

2008-09-25T17:52:00.000-07:00

Many of the things we believe to be Christian or doctrine are not. How do you know the difference?

When the men who wrote the Bible wrote their epistles in the NT, they were meant to be letters read in full. They each contain a message to encourage and to bring people to understanding of God's will. Although we can pull out verses at times that fit what we want to say, we have to be extremely careful that we do not build conclusions that do not fit the entire picture.

The problem between man and God is sin and God paid a terrible price for the redemption of mankind. When we as Christians sin willfully, we trample that gift under our feet and do despite to the Spirit of grace.

Now God is specific about what sin is and how He plans to deal with it. The problem is that we have confused our convictions with sins. Romans 14 warns us not to judge each other's convictions.

Then lastly the gospel message is twofold. It is to be forgiven in His blood and to be set free from sin.

When people repent in this day and time after doing these perverted things that are coming down the pike, the church needs to be prepared to pray them through it believing that there is no pit too deep that God is not deeper still, as Corrie ten Boom so richly said.

One thing that the apostle John wanted people to know is that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Then in the next chapter he lets us know that to be a Christians means to be free from sin. To be free doesn't mean that we sweat it out every day. It means making a conscious choice to do the next right thing and believing in faith that God will do the work in you through His Spirit and Word.

Feel free to speak your mind.
Vera

Places and Methods to Public Preach

2008-09-21T13:26:00.001-07:00

Why we need to preach on hell

2008-09-21T13:02:00.000-07:00

Hominid tools vs. Homo sapien sapien's tools

2008-09-19T07:35:00.001-07:00

This is a set of hominid tools. Note how they are like the modern day chimpanzee's tools in this article and crude. It would take a trained eye to distinguish these from rocks in the vicinity.

Chimp tools

This this is what homo sapien sapien tools looked like.

This is their art

Music

And their cloth making tools

Evolution vs. Naturalism

2008-09-19T07:35:00.000-07:00

Evolution vs. Naturalism

This is a well written article explaining some of the reasons that naturalism has a problem.

Vera

The Leap to Two Feet: The Sudden Appearance of Bipedalism

2008-09-16T17:09:00.000-07:00

The Leap to Two Feet: The Sudden Appearance of Bipedalism

Endogenous Retroviruses

2008-09-13T12:56:00.001-07:00

Reasons to Believe Source on HERVs

Please look down the page. It is under the heading-Today’s New Reason To Believe – Saturday, August 28, 2004

Retroelements and the human genome: New perspectives on an old relation

This is from the PNAS. Click on the full text there to the right.

Yet Another Use for “Junk” DNA

This is from RTB on Junk DNA

What I believe and why I believe it and how I got to where I am.

2008-09-13T11:23:00.000-07:00

I will tell you my little history. I would say for the most part, I could care less about creation/evolution. On the whole, it has no impact on my life whatsoever. If, for example, I stopped posting to my blog and Ray Comfort's site and laid aside science, it wouldn't make one iota bit of difference in terms of how I live my life. I hope that makes sense. Actually, that isn't altogether true because studying these things has opened up my understanding of God in a way that I never thought possible. But I just mean, I could live and die without delving into this and probably wouldn't have to think about it.

With all that said, I am a home educator. My only understanding of creation came through homeschool materials and some tapes that were given to me by my bil from Kent Hovind's ministry. They spoke of things like a vapor canopy covering the earth to protect it from ultra violet radiation so that our dating techniques were not accurate. They were heavy duty on the Flood and how this reconciles these misconceptions of science. They spoke of the stars perhaps having a faster speed of light at one point to direct their light here and so what appears to be millions of light years away was brought here supernaturally. They explained that if God could create man whole in a day, He can do anything.

To be honest, there was always a ?? in the back of my mind but I didn't have a clue why. The majority of my friends were under the impression that this was truth and I wasn't really offered any other alternatives.

Even before this, I was given a copy of Hugh Ross's testimony. I loved it! I thought it was great the way he had attempted to disprove all holy books scientifically, historically, prophetically based on the realities of what we know. I loved the way the verse in Job on the Pleiades star cluster being bound was remarkable to him because we didn't actually know that until after the Hubble telescope brought this to light. He was also impressed with the way Moses got all the creation events in the right order. Of course, he was coming at this from a scientific perspective not even realizing there was controversy over these things and that others had interpreted those days as actual 24 hour days.

I was given a YEC book at one time. I opened it up and the first chapter was a slam on Hugh Ross. I closed the book because I simply think that if you are going to make a point about truth, a character attack is unnecessary. Just make your point.

So that was about all the input on creation that I had for many, many years and I lived my life just fine with that aspect of truth on the back burner.

Then my husband and I, through Ray Comfort, began to see that our entire understanding of the gospel message was not even in the ballpark. To be honest, I think Ray's understanding is growing as well even now. Anyway, we got really excited about the message. See, we are not rich people - on purpose. We could have a lot of money if I worked outside our home. But I don't. So we are constantly under the financial gun. Thus when we would give a message that says, "God has a plan for your life," it seemed like a rather ridiculous point. So we never shared our faith. It is funny how bad teaching muddies the waters so that you can't really see clearly what the message actually is. When your perspective is skewed, it is easy to feel that God has let you down. But when you see this thing properly, it's like every single puzzle piece fits!

Anyway, I felt God wanted me to start talking to atheists. I met a young man on Jed Smock's message board who called himself FIU student. He hammered me day and night on evolution etc for three solid months. I began looking for the answers to his questions. I bought a debate at that point from Answers in Genesis - Hugh Ross vs. Ken Ham and I have to tell you, that was a pivotal point for me. Once again, it was obvious that we were getting much bogus information and it made me mad to say the least. The point that knocked it over the centerfield fence for both Doug and me was that if this earth is only 6000 years old, then God is deceiving us when we test it as old because those stars are billions of light years away indicating billions of years. And see, I knew God. And I knew God doesn't deceive.

I began to see how many young people were walking away from God by the droves because when they innocently tried to defend their faith through YEC, they were easily shot down and made to look the fool. What made me the angriest was the fact that Ken Ham knew that his theories were full of holes where Hugh Ross was easily reconciling the biblical text to the truth of science and yet, Dr. Ham continues to talk to congregations of people about YEC as though we are crazy heretics for not believing the Bible. Hugh Ross made it clear that he believes in the Bible's inerrant truth but apparently, this point is deceitfully withheld from the general Christian public. The only way anyone could know that fact though is if they actually checked it out.

But most Christians are too afraid to see things any other way. They are scared to death of what they will find because basically, they are comfortable believing in YEC. As I said, in the grand scheme of things it doesn't make a hill o' beans difference in terms of their apparent happiness. Now I say that but actually knowing these things does make a world of difference in understanding who God is and why we are here but to them, it is not worth it to check it out because status quo is working just fine for them. That is until their children go out and try to share their faith.

The fear of science is built into the entire system. We see people leaving the faith and the assumption is that it is these mean ole scientists who are doing this. The reason they are leaving is because the scientists are holding pieces of obvious irrefutable truth that they can easily show as truth through research and repeatable testing that absolutely proves that YEC is not true. For example, the big bang was yet another thing that was held up as bogus teaching. But we were never told from science that there were other dimensions involved and we were never told from a Christian perspective the absolute accuracy that this moment produced nor that it pointed to a beginning through general relativity. "Let there be light." If scientists have a flaw it is believing that the rest of us common folk could never understand their superior teaching. So they give us a basic truth without any of the rest of the story like say gravity. And if the modern day apostate church has a flaw is that it does not uphold but about a fourth of what the Bible teaches per their favorite verses.

Creation makes a difference though in how we perceive God. Why? Because think about it. If YEC is true, then the animals didn't die before the fall, T-Rex, velociraptor, and megalodon are the result of sin and all that God created here was pleasant and happy before man sinned. But if old earth creationism is true, then perhaps God was trying to send us a clear message such as that He is terrifying at times and soft and gentle at other times since His invisible attributes are evidenced in nature through creation. Perhaps with that perspective people would see that God can and will wipe out entire races of people whom He can no longer tolerate after much patience and slowness to anger giving chance after chance to change.

I said this the other day but when we see these events in the Bible such as the wiping out of the Midianites, instead of stepping back and declaring the Book a lie because now God is not this all loving benevolent God according to Pastor All-Loving-and-No-Substance, maybe He is showing the same attributes He has shown right from the beginning in T-Rex, megalodon and velociraptor. Now these attributes are clearly seen.

See, that is one of the aspects of our lives here that is so important. God cannot reveal Himself to us overtly for several reasons. Firstly, our rebellion toward Him would assure us a place in hell's fire like it did the angels. It would no doubt force us to accept Him whether we want to or not. With faith coupled with our conscience and the power of His Spirit and our own free will choice, there is always the possibility of repentance and reconciliation to Him. Secondly, He says that His invisible attributes are clearly seen in creation so that man is without excuse. And He says in Thessalonians to test all things. So if we test something within creation, which is apparently clearly seen and it doesn't fit what we thought was being communicated through the Bible, we can't come up with a supernatural idea to make our preconceived understanding fit. See it isn't that God can't work outside of the natural world that He created as much as that He won't. He wants you to test these things to see if they are so. That is such an important aspect of why things are the way they are. The folks that do that testing are called scientists. And the Bible is the only Holy Book that contains many pages of testable truth. No other holy book comes close.

I am not sorry that the YEC movement exists only because I think we had to exhaust that hypothesis for the sake of some who would still believe, that the earth was young much like the small minority of flat earth believers in their day.

Vera

More proof of God in the formation of life

2008-09-13T08:52:00.000-07:00

Twisted by Design

There is work being done to produce life in the lab. Fuz Rana has done an excellent job here of putting in a nutshell from a scientific perspective how this once again points to God as our Creator. Excellent!!

Vera

Noah's Flood from Genesis

2008-09-12T12:19:00.000-07:00

Noah's Flood

This article explains Noah's Flood from an old earth perspective.

Book from the 1980s on Evolution

2008-09-06T09:31:00.000-07:00

1981 book called Origin and Evolution of Life - Implications for the Planets: A scientific Strategy for the 1980's
The importance of this book is to debunk the notion that science has never included abiogenesis in the Theory of Evolution. It took me a while, but I found a pdf copy of a 1981 science book. I graduated in 1974, so there were more before then.

Vera

Galactic Habitable Zones

2008-09-01T09:11:00.000-07:00

Galactic Habitable Zones

This just shows how perfectly designed this solar system is to support advanced life at this time.

Vera

Old Earth vs. Young Earth Creationism

2008-09-01T07:11:00.000-07:00

Old Earth vs. Young Earth Creationism

This is an article that explains the position of RTB in regards to the days of Genesis 1.

Vera

Human Evolution

2008-08-29T18:42:00.001-07:00

Human Evolution

Statistics on Teenage Pregnancy

2008-08-29T18:26:00.000-07:00

Statistics on Teenage Pregnancy

Further note the decline in morals overall and the high suicide rate after 1970.

Vera

The Bible and Slavery

2008-08-26T14:53:00.000-07:00

The Bible and Slavery

This is a link to a great article on slavery and the Bible's view of it.

Vera

Evolving” Robots Challenge Evolution

2008-08-22T13:52:00.000-07:00

Evolving” Robots Challenge Evolution

Inability to Repeat the Past Dooms Evolution

2008-08-20T20:14:00.000-07:00

Inability to Repeat the Past Dooms Evolution

Bird Evolution from RTB

2008-08-14T07:08:00.001-07:00

This is a small overview of a piece being studied on bird evolution. Fuz Rana explains the importance of this new discovery.

Birds Terrorize Evolutionary Biologists