Samuel Adams Quotes

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 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 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 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.

Quotes of Samuel Adams:

"First of all, I... rely upon the merits of Jesus Christ for a pardon of all my sins." ~ Samuel Adams' last will and testament.

" He who made all men hath made the truths necessary to human happiness obvious to all… Our forefathers opened the Bible to all." [Samuel Adams "American Independence," August 1, 1776. Speech delivered at the State House in Philadelphia]" Let divines and philosophers, statesmen and patriots, unite their endeavors to renovate the age by impressing the minds of men with the importance of educating their little boys and girls, inculcating in the minds of youth the fear and love of the Deity… and leading them in the study and practice of the exalted virtues of the Christian system." [Samuel Adams October 4, 1790]

"A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader." [Samuel Adams in a letter to James Warren dated February 12, 1779.]

"Liberty will not long survive the total extinction of morals." Cousins, Norman. ~ Samuel Adams, In God We Trust: The Religious Belief of Our Founding Fathers, Harper & Brothers, New York, 1958, p. 351.

"As long as the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.... If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security." ~ Samuel Adams, 1779

"Since private and public Vices, are in reality, though not always apparently, so nearly connected, of how much Importance, how necessary is it, that the utmost pains be taken by the public, to have the Principles of Virtue early inculcated on the minds even of children, and the moral sense kept alive, and that the wise institutions of our ancestors for these great purposes be encouraged by the government. For no people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when Knowledge is diffus'd and Virtue is preserv'd. On the contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauch'd in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders." ~ Samuel Adams, 4 Nov. 1775 Writings 3:235--37, The Writings of Samuel Adams. Edited by Harry Alonzo Cushing. 4 vols. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904--8.

He who is void of virtuous attachments in private life is, or very soon will be, void of all regard of his country. There is seldom an instance of a man guilty of betraying his country who had not before lost the feeling of moral obligations in his private connections… [P]rivate and public vices are in reality… connected… Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust be men of [exceptional] character. The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men. ~ Samuel Adams, The Writings of Samuel Adams, Harry Alonzo Cushing, ed., (NY: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1907), vol III, pp. 236-37, to James Warren on Nov. 4, 1775.

Quotes about Samuel Adams:

"... if 'unitarian' means 'denial of the Trinity' then in order to label someone a unitarian shouldn't we have evidence that they denied the trinity" ~ Tom Hall in a discussion on whether or not Samuel Adams was a Trinitarian or a Unitarian. It appears, from some documents, that Samuel Adams may have become a Unitarian late in his life, but there is no hard evidence of this. There is hard evidence that he was a Calvinist for most of his life. It should be noted that members of the Unitarian Universalist Church organization are mostly not Unitarians--they are mostly Atheists or New Age, although there was a time when most members of the Unitarian organization were Unitarians (this was before the merger with the Universalist organization. No knowledgeable person is asserting the Samuel Adams was a Unitarian Universalist as represented by the organization today. United Pentecostals are Unitarians. There are two other definitions of this word, Unitarian. One of them is represented by such denominations as Oneness Pentecostalism, United Pentecostal Church International and the True Jesus Church who believe that Jesus was the Father and the Holy Ghost all in one person. The other definition is found in many cults: it is the notion that Jesus is not God, but the Father only is God. With so much confusion around the meaning of the word and so little evidence that Samuel Adams ever considered any of the various Unitarian beliefs to be valid, along with the fact that there is a great deal of evidence that Samuel Adams was a Calvinist, it is a wonder that anyone anywhere is claiming that Samuel Adams was a Unitarian. Are they using equivocation to deceive? Are they jumping to conclusions because of confirmation bias? It would be hard to guess the motivations.

Samuel Adams Quotes

How can we know anything about anything

Quotes of Samuel Adams:

Quotes about Samuel Adams:

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