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.
You may hear something like this: "All paths lead to God!" or "Christianity is only one path to God out of many!" This message has infiltrated the church as well as the cults. Some Christian denominations even advertise with this kind of message implied.
Before we deal with this lie, we should cover some of the basics of dealing with unbelievers. There are different kinds of unbelievers. Those who have given much thought to spiritual things and yet persist in error are usually of the kind that have a hard heart toward God. The reason that their heart is hard is because they want to do what they want to do. They don't want to do God's will. Jesus tells us: "If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from Me." "He who hears you hears Me; and he who despises you despises Me; and he who despises Me despises Him Who sent Me." "There is a judge for the one who rejects Me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day" "For God did not send His Son into the ordered system to separate the ordered system for judgment; but that the ordered system through Him might be rescued from destruction. He who believes into Him is not separated: but he who believes not is separated already, because he has not believed into the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the separation, that Light has come into the ordered system, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, neither comes to the light, lest his deeds should be corrected. But he who does Truth comes to the Light, that his deeds may be made visible, that they are acquired through God." John 7:17, Luke 10:16, John 12:48, John 3:17-21 The fact is that the human mind does not work correctly unless it is flowing in the Anointing of the Holy Spirit in submission to the Holy Spirit.
All paths do not lead to God. To say that all ways lead to God is to call Jesus a liar. Jesus said, "He who believes into Him is not separated [for judgment]: but he who believes not is separated [for judgment] already, because he has not believed into the name of the only begotten Son of God." John 3:18 Jesus also said, "He who believes on the Son has eonian life: and he who believes not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him." John 3:36 Jesus also said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." John 14:6 God gave His utterance through His holy apostles: Neither is there salvation in any other [other than Jesus, that is]: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." Acts 4:12