How Could Jesus be God if He was Seen by Man? by Eric Lyons, M.Min.

http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=10&article=1404

How Could Jesus be God if He was Seen by Man?

by	Eric Lyons, M.Min.

According to Jehovah’s Witnesses, one of the reasons Jesus could not (and cannot) be God is because Jesus was seen by humankind. The official Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses (www.watchtower.org) indicates that “[a]s the Son of God, he [Jesus—EL] could not be God himself, for John 1:18 says: ‘No one has ever seen God’ ” (“What Does the Bible Say...,” 2000). The problem with such reasoning is two-fold.

First, it ignores the fact that man only saw Jesus (“the Word”—John 1:1) after “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). He came in a veiled form. No human has ever seen Jesus in His true image (i.e., as a spirit Being—John 4:24—in all His glory and splendor). In his letter to the church at Philippi, the apostle Paul mentioned that Christ—Who had existed in heaven “in the form of God”—“made Himself of no reputation,” and took on the “likeness of men” (Philippians 2:6-7). Men saw an embodiment of God as Jesus dwelt here in a fleshly form. Men saw “the Word” that “became flesh.” But no one has ever seen God’s true, complete image (as a spirit Being).

The second problem with Jehovah’s Witnesses’ denial of Jesus’ deity (based on the fact that “no one has ever seen God”) is that their argument crumbles when Jehovah God’s appearances to man are considered. Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Jehovah is God and “is the name of the true God only” (“Identifying...,” 2002). According to their doctrine, Jehovah, not Christ, is God Almighty. Yet, man has seen Jehovah. Genesis chapter 18 records an occasion when “Jehovah appeared” to Abraham near Mamre (vs. 1). Jehovah spoke directly to Abraham (vs. 13), and the faithful servant of God “stood before the Lord” (vs. 22). The final verse of Genesis 18 states: “And Jehovah went his way, as soon as he had left off communing with Abraham. And Abraham returned unto his place” (vs. 33). If Jehovah’s Witnesses were consistent with their argument, Jehovah could not be Almighty God because man has seen Jehovah. If John 1:18 somehow disqualifies Jesus from being God, it must also prohibit “Jehovah” from being God, because they both were seen. What Bible students must understand is that man has only seen manifestations of God (i.e, in human flesh, or in the midst of a burning bush—Exodus 3:2, etc.); he has never seen God (the Father or the Son) in His true spirit image.

[NOTE: If you would like to read further on the subject “Has Man Seen God?” and examine the alleged contradiction between such passages as John 1:18 and Exodus 33:11, click on the following link: http://www.apologeticspress.org/AllegedDiscrepancies.aspx?article=2682.] 

REFERENCES

“Identifying the True God Only,” (2002), [On-line], URL:http://www.watchtower.org/library/g/1999/2/8/article_04.htm, originally appeared in Awake!, February 8, 1999.

“What Does the Bible Say About God and Jesus?” (2002), [On-line], URL:http://www.watchtower.org/library/ti/index.htm.

“So We Make Up Stories” About Human Evolution by Kyle Butt, M.Div.

http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=9&article=2431

“So We Make Up Stories” About Human Evolution

by	Kyle Butt, M.Div.

Dr. Richard Lewontin is the Alexander Agassiz Research Professor at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. Harvard University Press describes him as one of their “most brilliant evolutionary biologists.” A Harvard professor since 1973, he has impeccable academic credentials, and has gained worldwide notoriety for authoring several books, including The Triple Helix, The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change, and Biology as Ideology.

During the week of February 14-18, Dr. Lewontin was invited to speak at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting held in Boston, Massachusetts. Michale Balter, writing for Science magazine, reported briefly on Lewontin’s comments that caused quite a stir in the evolutionary community. Balter titled his article “How Human Intelligence Evolved—Is It Science or ‘Paleofantasy’?” (2008). In the first paragraph, Balter quipped that Lewontin really “knows how to grab an audience’s attention.”

What did Lewontin say that was so noteworthy and attention-grabbing? Lewontin “led off a session titled ‘The Mind of a Toolmaker’ by announcing that scientists know next to nothing about how humans got so smart. ‘We are missing the fossil record of human cognition,’ Lewontin said at the meeting. ‘So we make up stories’” (Balter, 2008, emp. added). While Balter spent the rest of his article scrambling to show that Lewontin’s conclusions are not recognized by all in the scientific community, Lewontin’s devastating blow to evolution’s long-cherished scenario of human development could not be papered over so easily.

James Randerson, science correspondent for the United Kingdom’s Guardian, wrote an article titled “We Know Nothing About Brain Evolution” in which he, too, reported on Lewontin’s speech. Lewontin titled his speech, “Why We Know Nothing About the Evolution of Cognition.” Randerson reported that, in the lecture, the eminent Harvard professor “systematically dismissed every assumption about the evolution of human thought, reaching the conclusion that scientists are still completely in the darkabout how natural selection prompted the massive hike in human brain size in the human line” (2008, emp. added).

Lewontin then turned his attention to the fossil record. Randerson summarized Dr. Lewontin’s statements by saying: “The main problem is the poor fossil record. Despite a handful of hominid fossils stretching back 4m [million—KB] years or so, we can’t be sure that any of them are on the main ancestral line to us. Many or all of them could have been evolutionary side branches” (2008). Randerson continued, stating: “Worse, the fossils we do have are difficult to interpret. ‘I don’t have the faintest idea what the cranial capacity [of a fossil hominid] means,’ Lewontin confessed. What does a particular brain size tell us about the capabilities of the animal attached to it?” (2008).

Of course, Lewontin’s comments fly in the face of everything the general population has been led to believe about human evolution. The beautiful drawings showing ape-like creatures gradually evolving in a straight line into humans have been plastered on science-lab walls, in science textbooks, and in popular science magazines for the last five decades. We have been told that the hominid fossil record is so complete that it provides irrefutable evidence verifying human evolution. We have been told that our “ancestral” fossils indicate exactly when our ancient great-grandparents began to walk upright, when they evolved greater cognitive skills, and when they evolved into us.

Lewontin was not finished tearing into the standard evolutionary party line about hominid fossils. Randerson noted that Lewontin “is even skeptical that palaeoanthropologists can be sure which species walked upright and which dragged their knuckles. Upright posture is crucial for freeing up the hands to do other useful things” (2008).

What, then, did Lewontin conclude regarding the prevailing status of ignorance that pervades the scientific community regarding the supposed evolution of humans? He said: “We are in very serious difficulties in trying to reconstruct the evolution of cognition. I’m not even sure what we mean by the problem” (as quoted in Randerson, 2008).

The bombshell that Lewontin dropped on the 2008 AAAS annual meeting will leave devastating and lasting carnage in its wake in the evolutionary community. He debunked 50 years of orchestrated evolutionary propaganda. Randerson concluded his summary of Lewontin’s statements by observing: “All in all, despite thousands of scientific papers and countless National Geographic front covers, we have not made much progress in understanding how our most complicated and mysterious organ [brain—KB] came about” (2008).

After reviewing Lewontin’s statements and the various journal articles describing them, the writers ofCreation/Evolution Headlines appropriately admonished the reader:

Remember this entry the next time you get a National Geographic cover story of a hominid with a philosopher’s gaze. Remember it when you are told stories about hominids walking upright, their hands now freed to scratch their chins and think. Remember it when you are shown a chimpanzee on NOVA performing memory tricks for a banana or smashing bugs with a rock. Remember it when a stack of erudite scientific papers on human evolution is placed on the witness table at a trial over whether students should be allowed to think critically about evolution in science class (“Paleofantasy...,” 2008).

REFERENCES

Balter, Michael (2008), “How Human Intelligence Evolved—Is It Science or ‘Paleofantasy’?” Science, 319 [5866]:1028, [On-line], URL: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/319/5866/1028a.

“Paleofantasy: Brain Evolution is Mere Storytelling” (2008), Creation/Evolution Headlines, February 22, [On-line], URL: http://www.creationsafaris.com/crev200802.htm.

Randerson, James (2008), “We Know Nothing About Brain Evolution,” Guardian, [On-line], URL:http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/02/the_distinguished_biologist _pr.html.

Abortion and the Twin Towers by Dave Miller, Ph.D.

http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=7&article=1228

Abortion and the Twin Towers

by	Dave Miller, Ph.D.

Undoubtedly, every American who was old enough to be aware of life’s circumstances, will forever remember where he or she was when news spread that first one, and then a second, airliner had crashed into the World Trade Center, followed by a third collision into the Pentagon. The images and the scenes that followed for days, weeks, and months are forever imprinted into our thoughts and seared into our memories. So are the feelings and the impressions: disbelief, fear, uncertainty, anger, disgust, sadness, and sympathy.

The spectrum of emotions, thoughts, and attitudes that most Americans felt are so diverse and complex that putting them into words may not be easy or adequate. The average American surely felt a great sense of outrage at the injustice of what had been perpetrated upon large numbers of innocent people. The American sense of patriotism was offended, which elicited a corresponding desire for vengeance and due retribution. One of the most heart-rending features of the collapse of the twin towers was the original estimate of anticipated dead: 5,000. However, in time, the final tallies—though terribly tragic—were much lower: 266 died in the ill-fated hijacked airliners while 2,823 died in the twin towers—a total death toll of 3,089 (Feldner, 2002).

Many other horrifying spectacles riddle human history in which thousands, even millions, of people have been slaughtered by their fellowman. The human mind has difficulty in grasping the Jewish holocaust of Hitler’s Nazi regime, which resulted in the extermination of a staggering estimated six million men, women, and children. Reflect upon the torture and killing of multiplied thousands by dictators like Stalin or Saddam Hussein, not to mention the killing fields of Cambodia. How can man’s inhumanity to man possibly be so extensive in its magnitude?

Is the repulsion and revulsion that is evoked by these travesties due simply to the loss of life? Or is humanity’s outrage due to the fact that lives were snuffed out unjustly and unfairly—that those lives were “innocent” of any wrongdoing that their persecutors alleged as justification to terminate their lives? If the former is true, why is no great issue made of the death toll that takes place in the United States everyday? That figure stands at 6,674 (Sutton, 2003)—more than two and a half times as many people as those who died on 9-11. That’s how many people die every day in America—not to mention the thousands who die every day around the world. Why do we feel no great heartache for these multitudes—akin to that which we felt on the occasion of 9-11?

If the latter is true, i.e., that we are outraged, not at the mere loss of life, but at the fact that innocent human beings had their lives taken from them unfairly, and that they had done nothing to deserve such, then where is the outrage concerning the termination of innocent babies by means of abortion? We view with great indignation those “terrorists” who dared to attack and destroy the unsuspecting objects of their callous brutality. Yet, since 1973, abortion clinics and doctors have been slaughtering the unborn population of the United States to an extent that makes the perpetration of previous atrocities in all of human history seem trivial. In the United States alone, more than 43 million babies have been aborted! In 2000 alone, more children died from abortion than Americans who died in the American Revolution, the Civil War, World Wars 1 and II, the Korean War, Vietnam, and the Gulf Wars combined (“Abortion,” 2003). In fact, one American baby was killed by abortion every 24 seconds.

The number of adults who died on 9-11 is surely tragic. But the number of innocent, unsuspecting children who never are permitted to complete their development, to proceed with their lives, to make their own choices, and to pursue their potential as human beings created in the image of God, is more than tragic. At least the terrorists thought they were pleasing their god and achieving his will against what were perceived to be Western degradation and spiritual corruption. But to snuff out the lives of innocent children for the economic and social convenience of mothers is despicable and inexcusable. Those who extinguish these innocent lives are without justification.

The mind has difficulty even comprehending 43,000,000 murdered babies—let alone envisioning the lost potential for good for the entire human race. Make no mistake, the “hands that shed innocent blood” (Proverbs 6:17) will one day face the consequences of their actions (Ecclesiastes 12:14; Hebrew 9:27).

REFERENCES

“Abortion in the United States: Statistics and Trends” (2003), [On-line], URL: http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/facts/abortionstats.html.

Feldner, Emmitt (2002), “9/11: Search For Survivors Began Almost Immediately,” [On-line], URL: http://www.wisinfo.com/sheboyganpress/news/911/911_5775905.shtml.

Sutton, Paul (2003), “Births, Marriages, Divorces, and Deaths: Provisional Data for October-December, 2002,” [On-line], URL: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr51/nvsr51_10.pdf.

Did All of Saul’s House Die Together? by Eric Lyons, M.Min.

http://apologeticspress.org/AllegedDiscrepancies.aspx?article=5082&b=2%20Samuel

Did All of Saul’s House Die Together?

by Eric Lyons, M.Min.

Q:

According to 1 Chronicles 10:1,6, when “the Philistines fought against Israel…. Saul and his three sons died, and all his house died together.” Second Samuel 2:8-10, however, indicates that Saul’s son Ishbosheth was still alive after Saul’s death, and, in fact, reigned over Israel for the two years following the death of his father. How are these accounts not contradictory?

A:

The reason that some contend these passages are incompatible (e.g., Wells, 2014) is because they assume that the phrase “all his house” (Hebrew kaal beeytow) must include every one of Saul’s sons. However, such an assumption cannot be proven anymore than it can be proven that “all his house” included Saul’s daughters, Michal and Merab. (Most people understand that his daughters would not have been fighting the Philistines on the battlefield and would not have been included in “all” of Saul’s house.)

The parallel passage to 1 Chronicles 10:6 is 1 Samuel 31:6, which states: “So Saul, his three sons, his armorbearer, and all his men died together that same day” (emp. added). Saul actually had four sons (including Ishbosheth—2 Samuel 2:8), but the phrase “his three sons” is stated to specify the ones who were actually in the battle with their father against the Philistines. (We are not informed why Ishbosheth was not there.) Similarly, the phrase “all his men” obviously did not mean every servant of Saul’s in the Kingdom of Israel, but all of those servants who were with him in the battle at that time and place.

As is used “all the time” in 21^st-century America, the Bible writers often used hyperbole. For example, Luke wrote that prior to the birth of Christ “a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered…. So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city” (Luke 2:1,3, emp. added). It should be obvious that Luke did not literally mean that every single person in every country on Earth was expected to be registered, but that most people in the Roman Empire (with surely at least some exceptions) were registered.

If I told someone that “all” of the Apologetics Press employees and their families came to a fish fry this past summer, would anyone accuse me of lying if the “all” did not include one of our employees who works from an office three hours away from Montgomery? Most likely, “everyone” would understand and accept the truthfulness and sincere intention of such a statement. One wonders, then, why 2 Chronicles 10:6 is so difficult for some to accept as a truthful declaration.

Finally, even if it could be proven that the chronicler literally meant that every single person who lived in Saul’s physical house died on the same day Saul perished, such an interpretation still could not be proven to contradict the fact that Ishbosheth remained alive. Why? Because it could very well be that Ishbosheth, who was 40 years old at the time (2 Samuel 2:10), no longer lived in Saul’s “house.” If David’s sons Amnon and Absalom had their own “houses” during David’s reign as king (2 Samuel 13:7-8,20), could Ishbosheth not have had his own house during his father’s reign? To ask is to answer.

Once again, an alleged Bible contradiction is demonstrated to be merely an unproven, unfair accusation. Why not be as fair with what the Bible writers penned as we are with what people write and communicate in the 21^st century? One cannot legitimately charge the Bible with error when there are perfectly reasonable explanations for the alleged contradictions.

REFERENCE

Wells, Steve (2014), “Did All of Saul’s Family Die with Him?” The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible, http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/saul_fam.html.

From Roy Davison... Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given Isaiah 9:6

http://www.oldpaths.com/Archive/Davison/Roy/Allen/1940/018-childisborn.html

Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given
Isaiah 9:6

The birth of a child is a grand occasion. Each child is a gift from God with immense potential and an eternal destiny. Every child is special, but this Child would be unique!

“For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor,
Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of His government and peace
There will be no end,
Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,
To order it and establish it with judgment and justice
From that time forward, even forever.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this”
(Isaiah 9:6, 7).

This birth announcement was written rather early, more than 700 years before the birth!
This can refer to no other than the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Christ, the Great King predicted by the prophets. And there is only one person in history who has fulfilled these predictions, Jesus of Nazareth.
Isaiah had already written: “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).
The Hebrew word can mean either ‘virgin’ or ‘young woman’. In the Septuagint Greek translation of the Old Testament, made 300 years before Christ, Hebrew scholars translated this word with the Greek word for ‘virgin’ (παρθένος) that does not have another meaning. When this text is quoted in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit also used the Greek word for virgin (Matthew 1:23; Luke 1:31). The alternate meaning in Hebrew leaves room for a double fulfillment, one as a regular sign for king Ahaz, plus a deeper meaning relative to the Messiah. The Messiah would indeed be born of a virgin.
The virgin’s Child will be called ‘Immanuel’, which means ‘God with us’. His name will be called “Mighty God” (Isaiah 9:6), a designation that is used for Jehovah in Isaiah 10:21, “The remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the Mighty God.”
The titles of this Child are based on His deity.
The Child is called, ‘Wonderful, Counselor’. The Angel of the LORD said to Manoah, the father of Samson: “Why do you ask My name, seeing it is wonderful?” (Judges 13:18). In Isaiah 28:29 we read: “This also comes from the LORD of hosts, Who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in guidance.”
The Child is also called ‘Eternal Father’.
In what sense can the Messiah be called ‘Father’? A son can also be a father. The word does not always have exactly the same meaning. Joseph said, for example, that God had made him a father to Pharaoh (Genesis 45:8). The Messiah would be a Father for His followers. In Hebrews 2:13, Isaiah 8:18 is quoted and applied to the Messiah: “Here am I and the children whom God has given Me.” Jesus calls His followers ‘children’ (Mark 10:24; John 21:5) and ‘little children’ (John 13:33).
It will be a kingly Child, “the government will be upon His shoulder.” His name will be called ‘Prince of Peace’. Among the thousands of monarchs who have ruled, how many can be called ‘a prince of peace’?
“Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over His kingdom” because He will “establish it with judgment and justice.” How many rulers establish their kingdom with judgment and justice?
How long will His government last? “From that time forward, even forever.”
The farther we read, the more amazing it becomes! An eternal kingdom! How is such a thing possible? We receive the answer: “The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this” (Isaiah 9:6).
A hundred years later, king Nebuchadnezzar is informed by the prophet Daniel: “And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever” (Daniel 2:44). This would happen during the third great kingdom after the Babylonian kingdom, the Roman Empire.
In the New Testament we find the fulfillment of these remarkable predictions.
The Romans are in power. The angel Gabriel appears to a virgin and says: “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:30-33).
“Then Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I do not know a man?’ And the angel answered and said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God’” (Luke 1:34, 35).
“Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly. But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins’” (Matthew 1:18-21).
“Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife, and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son. And he called His name JESUS” (Matthew 1:24, 25).
“And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
“Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!’
“So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.’ And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger. Now when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child. And all those who heard it marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them” (Luke 2:1-20).
“So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: ‘Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel , which is translated, ‘God with us’” (Matthew 1:22, 23).

“For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor,
Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of His government and peace
There will be no end,
Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,
To order it and establish it with judgment and justice
From that time forward, even forever.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this”
(Isaiah 9:6, 7).
Amen.
Roy Davison

The Scripture quotations in this article are from
The New King James Version. ©1979,1980,1982, Thomas Nelson Inc., Publishers.
Permission for reference use has been granted.

Published in The Old Paths Archive
(http://www.oldpaths.com)

From Gary... The art and the artist

This is a rainbow geode, I enjoyed the picture so much that I looked into it just a bit. You can too at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geode. I have seen many other geodes before, but none quite so colorful as this.  

Remember...

Psalm, Chapter 8 (WEB)

 1  Yahweh, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth,

who has set your glory above the heavens!

  2 From the lips of babes and infants you have established strength,

because of your adversaries, that you might silence the enemy and the avenger.

  3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars, which you have ordained;

  4 what is man, that you think of him?

What is the son of man, that you care for him?

  5 For you have made him a little lower than God,

and crowned him with glory and honor.

  6 You make him ruler over the works of your hands.

You have put all things under his feet:

  7 All sheep and cattle,

yes, and the animals of the field,

  8 The birds of the sky, the fish of the sea,

and whatever passes through the paths of the seas.

  9 Yahweh, our Lord,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

How anyone can think that everything in this world just happened by accident amazes me!!! God is the greatest artist- ever!!!!

From Gary... Restoring "normal"

Even upside down this picture makes sense.  Young children can recognize a "doggie" no matter whether the picture makes sense to us or not.  But, it does seem strange to my adult mind to look at it this way. You know, its supposed to be the other way round, isn't it?  Yet, in spite of all this, I still understand what is going on, but frankly, it is very unsettling to look at this picture for any length of time!!!  

Forget this picture for a moment (if you can) and think of what is going on in the world. All over this planet, evil is increasing. It is obvious that we are on the brink of some cataclysmic event that will destroy the human race. Doubt that; well, think about how many nations have nuclear weapons and remember that not all of them appear to be functioning rationally! And this revelation of evil is not just showing its character militarily. Killing unborn babies has become a way of life (no pun intended) in our country. Bad behavior and morals are now the norm as evidenced by our inundated penal system. And these things are "normal"??

Having said these things, take a few minutes and read the scriptures cited below...

Acts, Chapter 17 (WEB)

  1 Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue.  2 Paul, as was his custom, went in to them, and for three Sabbath days reasoned with them from the Scriptures,  3 explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.” 

  4  Some of them were persuaded, and joined Paul and Silas, of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and not a few of the chief women.  5 But the unpersuaded Jews took along some wicked men from the marketplace, and gathering a crowd, set the city in an uproar. Assaulting the house of Jason, they sought to bring them out to the people.  6 When they didn’t find them, they dragged Jason and certain brothers  before the rulers of the city, crying, “These who have turned the world upside down have come here also,  7 whom Jason has received. These all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus!”

Proverbs, Chapter 14 (WEB)

12 There is a way which seems right to a man,

but in the end it leads to death.

Proverbs, Chapter 16 (WEB)

25 There is a way which seems right to a man,

but in the end it leads to death.

The new testament was written during the heyday of the Roman Empire. It ruled most of the known world with an iron fist! Paganism was the norm and even the ruler of Rome, Caesar, was considered a "god".

Along come Paul and Silas and preach Jesus. This is upsetting to their pagan minds and violence naturally follows. Today is no different- at the preaching of Jesus, ungodly minds react the same way. Human beings have not changed; man "knows" what is good for him and nobody should even think of telling him anything different, or there will be "trouble". 

God's way is not man's way. Notice the quote from the book of Proverbs: two different verses from two separate chapters, saying the exact same thing. When God repeats himself, we had better listen!!!

Upside down or not, the world belongs to God and not us. And if we want to understand the truth, we need to actually listen to God and not ourselves. 

Humm, And who knows, perhaps if we become like little children, we just might "get" it!!! You know, I think I have heard that somewhere before?  

Mark, Chapter 10 (WEB)

 15  Most certainly I tell you, whoever will not receive the Kingdom of God like a little child, he will in no way enter into it.”