You may hear someone say, “Jesus' story is not unique. There are other documentations of "Gods" born of a virgin who died and were resurrected.

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 someone say, “Jesus' story is not unique. There are other documentations of "Gods" born of a virgin who died and were resurrected. Chrishna, Mithra, Horus, Buddha and so forth. What makes Jesus' story superior to these?”

This is the equivalent of saying, “The legal fifty-dollar bills are not the only fifty-dollar bills. There are counterfeit fifty-dollar bills. What makes a real fifty-dollar bill superior to these counterfeit fifties?

In fact, Jesus is unique. He is the unique Son of God. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost all testify this to us. There is no other man who was born of the Almighty Father. There is no other man who was born by Whom all things were created and without Whom nothing was created. There is no other name given among men by Whom we must be saved. There is no other head of His Body, the Church, which is growing up into Him in all things. There are many counterfeits, but only one true and genuine.

There are many throughout history who share some traits of Jesus Christ. Each story has some similarity to some part of the true Christ. We could examine Dionysus, Osiris, Adonis, Tammuz, Attis, and many other stories that were independent rather than being copied, but all we would show is that Satan is able to counterfeit what is real and that Satan is able to inspire lies in the minds of human beings. We already knew that Satan’s lies are always counterfeits of the truth, so what have we gained in knowledge? The gospels themselves speak of the false christs that came before the true Christ and that would come after Him. False christs to not make the real Christ less real. False prophets do not make the real prophets less real. False apostles do not make the real apostles less real.

Satan rarely invents. Satan perverts. Satan perverts the church. Satan perverts marriage. Satan perverts human government. Satan perverts economics. Satan perverts the family. Satan perverts humanity’s concept of God and Christ. Satan perverts service to God. People who would have no way of learning from each other have perverted the blood sacrifices. They have this by occult revelation from Satan.

This brings us to the question, “Why is Jesus superior?” Jesus is superior because He is truly the Almighty Creator God who created all things including every demon (fallen angel) who pretends to be the Christ. We know this because Jesus Christ has revealed Himself to us in many ways. He speaks to us through the Bible of course. He speaks to us through prophecy in our church services. He speaks to us through the prophetic songs in the Spirit in our weekly meetings. He speaks to us through the teachings of the apostles when they send them out in publications, when they come to the local assemblies, or when they teach at the various camp meetings throughout the year. He speaks to us through creation as we learn more about His creation through scientific inquiry. He speaks to us through the historical artifacts if we will open our ears to His voice.

As with a fifty-dollar bill, so with Jesus, you can always tell the difference between the genuine and the phony. Jesus said, "If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me" Jesus told us that whoever seeks Him finds Him. Jesus said that His sheep hear His voice and those who do not hear His voice are not His sheep, obviously, because they do not want Him to rule over them. Their condemnation is just.

On the other hand, the person who rejects Christ becomes blind to the truth and unable to receive it. They become hardened against God. It would have been far better for them had they never heard the truth because then they would have had an excuse. Now, they are without any excuse at all having rejected the living God.

“If one accepts a naturalistic and evolutionary account of the origin of religion, he will believe that Christianity can be explained naturally. His very approach has ruled out the possibility of the supernatural revelation of God in Jesus Christ” Bales

As with all questions, some come from genuine skeptics and some come from genuine seekers. A skeptic is hardened against God and in slavery to Satan. The skeptic is full of pride and lacks humility to know that he or she is lost and in need of Jesus Christ the Savior. “Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.” Proverbs 26:12

On the other hand, some are really searching for God. You will quickly know who you are dealing with. If they are open, you can minister. With skeptics, there is little hope for them.

You may hear someone say, “Jesus' story is not unique. There are other documentations of "Gods" born of a virgin who died and were resurrected.

How can we know anything about anything

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