How can we know anything about anything
To try to explain truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation. George Macdonald
Do we have to make a choice between science and the Bible?
NO!
That is NOT where the problem is, but that is what everyone seems to want to talk about.
Take science as an example.
How can we know anything about the created material world around us?
How can we know anything from what we can see using natural sciences?
We all see the same things in the material world,
but we don't come to the same answers.
Why is that?
How can we know anything about the Bible and what it teaches?
Every person believes different things about the Bible and how it should be read.
Why is that?
Same scientific facts. Different answers.
Same Bible. Different answers.
Why is that?
The true question is this: How do we come to our answers that we get
from what we can see through science
or what we can read in the Bible?
How do we think about what we see using science or what we read in the Bible?
How do we analyze what we have seen and read?
How do we interpret what we have seen and read?
We use logic, but logic always has a foundation. Jesus talked about building on the Rock.
That Rock is Jesus Christ. He is the true foundation.
There are also the false foundations of the ungodly.
An example might help.
Question: Why do you believe in evolution?
Answer: Because my science teacher told me that evolution is scientific fact.
Question: Why do you believe your science teacher?
Answer: because he agrees with the textbook he assigned us to read.
Now, we have asked, "Why?" twice.
If we continued to ask, "Why?" we would come down to the foundation of this person's thoughts.
When we get down to the foundations, there are no more questions that can be answered.
So where to the foundations come from?
There are three possibilities.
- things that we make up, pulled from the air
- demonic lies
- divine revelation
Question: Why do you believe in creation?
Answer: Because God revealed this to me. He spoke to me through the Bible and gave me His faith
so that I could believe Him.
See how quickly we got to the foundation.
This is a belief that has a foundation that is solid and that cannot be moved.
In reality, the things that we make up, that are pulled from the air,
are actually from demons and all the lies of demons spring from the prince of demons, Satan.
So these are one and the same.
Divine revelation comes from the Almighty, Creator, God, Jesus Christ.
So there are only two choices, but how do we know there are only two choices?
Because God has revealed this truth to us.
The question then is how do we tell the difference between the revelation that comes from God
and the lies of Satan?
The answer is that everyone who sincerely wants to do the will of God will know.
Jesus said, "If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me"
The rejection of the revelation that comes from God is not an intellectual problem.
It is a moral problem.
Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you:
For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it shall be opened."
*
Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?
Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?
If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to those who ask him?
Matthew 7:7-11 *
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
You can set the truth before someone, but you can't make anyone believe
those things that they don't want to submit to.
They have to want to obey God.
How frequently it is brought to our attention that nothing good can be done if the will is wrong! Reason alone fails to justify itself. Richard M. Weaver
Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32)
"If we are not prepared to buy the truth at the cost of our own humbling we shall not receive it"
Lies appear to have no price upon them.
They seem cheap and they abound everywhere.
But for the truth there is always an obvious price to pay.
"[God] has set a day when He will judge all the world's people with fairness.
And He has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for Him.
God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death" (Acts 17:31).
"There is a judge for the one who rejects Me [Jesus] and does not accept My words;
that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day" (John 12:48)
That also stands for every person who speaks the utterances of Jesus.
When we hear them, we hear Jesus Christ, and we either accept or reject.
Every person who follows Jesus Christ is commanded to only speak His utterances and not their own.
"When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God" (1 John 3:19)
Ravi Zacharias did two open forums in a university.
On the second night, one man told him that he had brought two Atheists in the night before
who said that the arguments presented were so strong that they could not contend with them,
but they were going to remain Atheists because that is what they prefer to be true.
In another case of just listening to an unbeliever and drawing out his reasoning,
the unbeliever finally came to his foundations.
They turned out to be assumptions that were pulled from the air.
When asked why he believed his basic assumption,
the unbeliever looked startled and blurted out,
"I guess I'm making the whole thing up."
It was quite a revelation to him since he hadn't even known that he had any assumptions.
However, he decided to remain an Atheist because he didn't want God to rule over him.
The pressures of this current evil age have become very intense in trying to squeeze every person into their mold, and the ungodly are being quite successful in doing so. The entire tax-funded educational system is set up to proseletize. Because of the social pressure, many who go by the label, Christian, are living like Atheists. They live a lukewarm existence that has sa form of religion but denies the power of God for righteousness, holiness, and freedom from fleshly problems. The children, young adults, and older adults are expected avoid stepping across certain lines among the nominal Christians, at least for the time being. The taboos may include such things as sex outside of marriage, drugs, drinking, very early dating, ungodly music, using language that is disrespectful toward God and those in authority (who are set by God), wearing suggestive clothing, occult video games, and other occult entertainments, depending on the prevailing morals of the churches in the area and in the denomination. The tendency is to watch the Atheists and see how quickly they are sliding into oblivion and then to set the standard so that the nominal Christian slide is just slightly behind the curve from the Atheist slide. To make it more confusing, as the peer pressure for ungodliness increases, the rules change. The line that is used to change the rules is, "The churches are overprotective." When a certain parent is trying to walk in the Spirit, the more fleshly parents will bring pressure to bear using the same line: "You are way too overprotective." It may seem strange that the ungodly people who use the label, Christian, are the very ones who accuse those who walk with God of being judgmental. How are the godly judgmental? They are judgmental because they don't engage in the same level of evil as the ungodly in the organized religious organizations.
Of course, all of these things are outside of the realm of the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ consists of the those believers who have been called out of the current ungodly system of this age. They are those who do not respond to the demands of Satan and all his demons, the ungodly system and all their peer pressure, and their own sinful fleshly nature. They are those who respond to the leading of the Holy Spirit, gradually dying to the self life and coming alive to Christ in themselves. They are having Christ fully formed within themselves.
These called out believers are not under the law. They flow in the Anointing of the Holy Spirit. They hear Jesus Christ leading them. When they hear His voice, they respond. They acknowledge Him rather than acknowledging that which comes from the evil one. When they hear His voice, God's faith comes to them, and faith is the door to give access to God's grace, God's free gift of righteousness. So, God's free gift of righteousness flows through them. Their part is to simply hear and yield to the righteousness of God as God thinks His Thoughts, says His Utterances, and does His Acts through them. God does His works and never disobeys His laws. As they do the Works of God in this way, seeds are sown into their hearts. Those seeds change their hearts to become soft toward God and less open toward Satanic influences of their own sinful flesh, the order and system of this present eon, and demon voices. They are changed by degrees from glory to glory as they are brought into the image of Jesus Christ by the Spirit of the Lord. This is what holiness is: a change in the nature. In the process, they are set free from sin's appeal. This is what redemption is: a setting free from sin.
Unfortunately, the worldly churchy systems have become so corrupt and money-dependent that they try to draw people in by bowing to the demands of the current ungodly systems of this eon. They make one compromise after another. They no longer teach that it is wrong to sin. They change the message of sin to messages that fit in with the god of this ungodly system. Now, they preach against global warming, pollution, and righteousness. They bring in bands to play fleshly music, music that appeals to the fallen soul. They get rid of all spiritual music. They teach that light is darkness and that darkness is light, hoping to hold people in their organizations so that the money keeps coming in. If any godly people remain in their organizations, they make them feel guilty for their godliness by telling them that "they are over protective." This is the voice of the false prophet and of Babylon.
Yet, God will have a people who will walk in His ways. He is calling: "Come out, come out of her, my people that you be not partakers of her sins."