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.
Dwelling On Church Short-Comings
Consider the question. "What about all the things that are wrong with the Church?"
The fact that you could ask that question is an indication that you are seeing that there are things that are the Church and things that are not the Church. You are seeing that there are things that have come into the Church that are not of the Church. You can obviously see that these things don't belong there.
You are saying that you have some sense of the difference between right and wrong and the holy as opposed to the profane.
But the key is not in the answer to the question. The key is in your response. Will you just stand as a judge and reject Jesus Christ and His Church, or will you seek and find those who are moving on with Jesus to that Church that will be without spot or wrinkle?
The church is called to become what is right in the Earth. It is to be the salt of the earth, preserving that which has died and healing that which is infected. It is called to be the light of the world. Christ is to flow out through each member to believers and unbelievers alike. The love, which God is, is to be alive in every member. When the church becomes lukewarm, the unbeliever becomes confused and rightly asks, "What about all the things that are wrong with the Church?"
When a person becomes a member of the Church, they do not join. There is no way to join. They may join an organization, and that organization may call itself a church, but the real Church is something else. You must be born in. If you are born in, you are born as a baby. Maturity will come if you walk with God. Unfortunately, many Christians never mature because they never walk with God. Immaturity in Christians is confusing to unbelievers and they rightly ask, "What about all the things that are wrong with the Church?"
That being said, unbelievers need to realize the following:
If you believe in right and wrong, then you do not believe in materialism. Materialism has no basis for right or wrong. Relativism is the belief that there is no right or wrong. Post Modernism is really just a mental framework for Relativism. An evolutionist, relativist, materialist, naturalist, agnostic, post-modernist, Unitarian, or Emergent has no basis for any talk about right, wrong, error, correctness, morals, values, or any such thing. When they engage in talk about any of these subjects, implying that someone is doing something wrong, they are simply hypocrites.
If you are looking for a perfect church, it would be difficult to find such a thing. The very act of joining a church is an admission of a sin and short-coming. Every person who joins a Church is admitting a short-coming.
So, you are not going to find a perfect church until we come to an event that the Bible predicts, the manifestation of the sons of God.
If you are looking at the church in a way that is causing cynicism, the source of this judgmental attitude is not the Spirit of God. It is important to seek God that your calling will be sure. Look into the Word and see how to minister to your brother and sister in the church. When God reveals the order of the Body of Christ and the reality of the life that is available through Christ, this moves you toward God and toward your brother and sister in Christ. Satan only wants to destroy and take you away from Christ and His life.
What about the hypocrisy in the church?
There Is Hypocrisy. There Are Fakes, But the Fakes Don't Make the Real Less Real.
Some people blame hypocrisy in the Church for the fact that they reject Jesus Christ. God does not accept this excuse.
They should well consider that neither God nor Christ are hypocritical. These critics are, by this very excuse, being hypocrites themselves. The hypocrite claims to be better, but the hypocrite is just as bad, though perhaps not in the same way, as the persons he or she criticizes.
Some additional points to ponder:
-
There would be less hypocrisy among Christians if more Christians would get saved.
-
-
There would be even less hypocrisy among Christians if saved Christians would keep pressing on toward higher heights and deeper depths in Christ Jesus.
- Socialism is neither the Kingdom of God nor the mission of the Church.
- The Kingdom of God is established first in the heart, and it cannot be established by coercion.
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Questions and Answers
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Author/Compiler
Last updated: Nov, 2011
Meaning
