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.
Often, the At Ease Christians will try to achieve ethics, values, and morals by self-effort rather than by yielding to the power of the Holy Ghost. Often, they don't realize that God wants to lead in every facet of our lives. They don't realize that every order of Scripture is still important to God--these are God's methods.
They may use many phrases to rationalize away Scripture: "That was for the apostolic age." That's a good one, you can get rid of any part of the Bible at all with that one. "Those Scriptures are no longer valid." "Tongues and prophecy are cessation gifts because 1 Corinthians 13 says that they will cease when that which is perfect is come and the Bible is perfect, so they have ceased."
And they teach many other extra-biblical things. They do this because they do not want to do God's will. They do not want a close, personal relationship with God, because they know that that relationship is a master-slave relationship. They would rather be under the law than under grace because grace requires that they die to self, listen to God, and obey God. Woe unto those who are at ease in Zion. Woe unto those who desire the day of the Lord, for it is a day of darkness and not light.
If you become a slave to Love, this is what you will be like: patient, kind, forgiving, stable in righteousness, enduring, knowing the difference between good and evil, truth and error, following God's patterns for life, and always choosing the good and the true, filled with the Spirit no matter what, and able to see God's vision of hope.
Then, you will not have pride, or be self-righteous. You will not boast, compare yourself to others, lie, covet, envy, steal, cheat, commit any sexual sin/perversion, have a disrespectful attitude toward God or any person, disobey God, or be rude, critical, demanding, irritable, unjust, resentful, or bitter.
You would never follow that which is demonic. You will not be drawn toward demonic, sensual/sexual, disorderly, disrespectful, or angry music or entertainment. If you become a slave of Jesus, which is a slave of Love, then you will hear His voice and yield to it, and the love of God will flow out through your heart by the Holy Ghost. This is a progressive experience where His voice becomes more clear over time and your ability to allow Love to flow through you and do God's work increases over time. You will see and discern the Kingdom of Heaven. You will see and discern the Body of Christ and have a deep respect and holy awe for the Christ in every member no matter how mature or immature they are in Christ. When people knowingly reject the idea of going deeper in Christ and walking in His patterns and precepts, they show that they do not want love. When people are driven toward all these things that are listed here, they show that they do not want Jesus.
How about you? If the Holy Spirit is making the orders of Scripture real to you, please feel free to write using the form further down on this page. There may be a Church that is meeting near you that is following the orders of Scripture. If not, perhaps you would be better off starting a small prayer group in your home rather than going to a disorderly Church under a hireling pastor. You can do this under the direction of the apostolic ministry. Perhaps you may be able to start a Church that follows the pattern in the Scripture.