The Strongest Bulwark

Faith in God is the strongest bulwark of a free society.  Human freedom began when men became conscious that over and above society and nature there is a God who created them...who fashioned them in His likeness, and that they are, therefore, possessed of intrinsic and independent significance and are endowed, as individuals, with original and irrevocable rights and authority.
                                  Abba Hillel Silver
All societies around the world believe in an afterlife, weather their governments or the intellectuals of their society believe it or not. Likewise the majority of people believe in God. Some in many god’s.
I wonder without God would mankind even be around today?
Think about it. In order to exist mankind needs a set of morals to live up to. A set of guidelines to live by.
I grew up in the “do your own thing” era. As long as is didn’t hurt anyone you could just do what you wanted.
Still even those who espoused this kind of lifestyle realized there was a basic of rules we had to live by. Do not murder for example, don’t bare false witness. Be honest in all you do.
Which begs the question where did our morals come from?
Was it possible for the cave man to write a universal set of morals? A moral code that even the most ardent atheist follows today thousands of years on?
It seems to me that the basic moral code all people live by is with us from the moment we are born. Perhaps proving it is part of our very make up as human beings. Psalm 139:13 hints at just such a thing,
“For you created my inmost being;you knit me together in my mother’s womb”
For me I cannot believe that all of what we have today is by chance or random acts in the universe that just happened to result in us. There has to be a creator.
As I look at what Atheist and many scientist believe I wonder who has the greater faith, them, or me?
I think it takes greater faith to believe there is no God or Creator of the universe than it does to believe.
I see the world as carefully crafted. Very much in the same way an engineer would build it.
Just looking into something as common as a tree leaf fills me with amazement knowing that beyond what I can see with my naked eye are intricate arrangements of cells. All of which work together to make the leaf what it is.
Such structure to me cannot be mere chance. There has to be a God.
It is my firm belief that given enough time and provided scientist keep an open mind they will one day prove there is a creator. That the universe is not just chaos and random chance.
I see such proof coming to light as scientist study fractals. Its something that has been around for several centuries but only recently, with the advent of modern computer capacity has it started to be studied in depth.
I have a definition of Fractal’s that comes from, what is .com, it states,
“The term "fractal" was coined by Benoit Mandelbrot in 1975. It comes from the Latin fractus , meaning an irregular surface like that of a broken stone. Fractals are non-regular geometric shapes that have the same degree of non-regularity on all scales. Just as a stone at the base of a foothill can resemble in miniature the mountain from which it originally tumbled down, so are fractals self-similar whether you view them from close up or very far away. Fractals are the kind of shapes we see in nature. ...
We find trees, mountains, rocks and cloud formations in nature, but what is the geometrical formula for a cloud? How can we determine the shape of a dollop of cream in a cup of coffee? Fractal geometry, chaos theory, and complex mathematics attempt to answer questions like these. Science continues to discover an amazingly consistent order behind the universe's most seemingly chaotic phenomena.”
I like that last sentence “Science continues to discover an amazingly consistent order behind the universe's most seemingly chaotic phenomena.”
Science is an on going process. It is not complete. All good scientist are continually asking questions searching for answers.
Much of humanity is looking for answers this is most prominent when they are near death or someone close to them is near death.
Sadly today all to many people are looking for the answer to life in all the wrong places.
They need to turn to the Bible and learn about Almighty God and the saving power of His Son Jesus Christ.

Eternal Consequences

Read Titus 2

But as for you, 

speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine:

that the older men

 be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, in patience;

the older women likewise,

 that they be reverent in behaviour,

 not slanderers, not given to much wine,

 teachers of good things–

that they admonish the young women to 

love their husbands, 

to love their children.

To be discreet,

 chaste, homemaker’s, good, 

obedient to their own husbands, 

that the Word of God may not be blasphemed.

Likewise, exhort the young men to be sober-minded,

in all things showing yourself 

to be a pattern of good works: in doctrine

 showing 

integrity, reverence, incorruptibility,”

sound speech that cannot be condemned, 

that one who is an opponent maybe ashamed, 

having nothing evil to say of you.”

                                        Titus 2:1-8
Take a good look at the words above in
* all things showing yourself
* to be a pattern of good works in doctrine showing
* showing integrity,
* sound speech that cannot be condemned
* having nothing evil to say of you.”
All too often, people do have evil to say of Christians, because the example they have seen is negative.
Some groups of people don’t feel welcome in our churches.  They feel they are being condemned.  As a result, they run the other way, when asked to come.
     The world sees self-appointed Christian leaders and speakers, pointing fingers in judgment at various groups. As a result they call all Christians hypocrites, and hate mongers or worse.
The world sees Christian businesses as a Christian version of the secular world.  They see no difference between us and the world.  How sad.
“Judge not” said Jesus.
While Paul here, tells us we should be an example of integrity, reverence, incorruptibility and sound speech that cannot be condemned.  (Titus 2:7)
Something to think about
  I think the key in all of this is that we should be vigilant in what we say and do. We should be very different from the world.
Our churches should be a place where all are welcome regardless of who they are or their lifestyle.
Our Christian leaders should be held to a much higher standard than that of the world. And we should be willing to stand up to those leaders who are in error and correct them in accordance to scriptural principles.
All to often this does not happen but it must.
For if we do not live up to the standards of God. If we do not make our leaders both in the churches and in the media live up to the standards God has ordained for them it will have eternal consequences.
Eternal Consequences for those who don’t live up to the standard and those who were turned from Christ because of them.
Think about it.

Think about it.

“He spreads out the northern  skies  over empty space; 

he suspends the earth over nothing.” 

                                                                                                        Job 26:7
You can think of the Bible what you want. I have always maintained that it is not a science book. It is a book calling people to have faith in the one true God.
Job obviously believed that God created the heavens and the earth as to do I. And  it matters little to me weather the world was formed in six days or six millennium or six trillion years. It does not affect my faith.
Throughout the bible however God reveals Himself to us. He takes a man like Job and inspires him to write the above statement.
On Christmas of 1968 as someone has put it “Apollo 8 discovers the earth,” taking the first ever photograph of earth from space as they orbit the moon.
God is very real and he shows himself in a myriad of different ways to us.
The Psalmist writes,

"The heavens declare the glory of God; 

the skies proclaim the work of his hands." 

                                                            Psalm 19:1                          Astronomers have a place they call the Goldilocks zone. It is the place they look for around distant stars. The place where the right conditions exist for possible life.
The place is like where we are located around the sun.

Our planet is exactly the right distance from the sun. It is exactly the right temperature, (a few degrees either way and we couldn’t live on earth). It has exactly the right balance of gasses, liquids and everything else we need to exist.
That is one of the reasons I firmly believe God exists and that he made the earth the heavens and everything in them.
I firmly believe it takes more faith to be an atheist than it does to be a Christian. I also believe that given time man will see that everything is connected and that connection leads to God.
One just has to look at the complexity of something as simple and everyday as a tree, a blade of grass or an ant climbing on them.
Intricately detailed bio-mechanisms that point to a divine creator.
                                                                                 Think about it.

Dust in the Wind

Kerry Livgren of the group Kansas wrote,

I close my eyes

Only for a moment and the moment's gone

All my dreams

Pass before my eyes with curiosity

Dust in the wind

All they are is dust in the wind.

Are we that, just dust in the wind?
Isaiah the prophet wrote,

A voice says, “Cry out.” And I said, “What shall I cry?” 

“All men are like grass,and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. 

The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the LORD blows on them. Surely the people are grass. 

The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.” 

                                                                                                           Isaiah 40:6-8.

If you listen to an atheist I’m sure they would give you that impression. To their mind we are born we procreate and die ending in oblivion. I can’t believe that.
I believe there is in every man, woman and child that has ever walked the face of the earth, a piece of eternity.
I believe inside every human being there is at the very least a knowledge that there is something awaiting us after death.
Throughout history we have whole civilizations that made elaborate preparations for a journey to the after life.
There is not one civilization known to man that hasn’t believed in some kind of life after death.
I believe sadly that men claiming to be wise. Possessing a wealth of knowledge of this life have become blind to what happens after death. They are blind because they only understand what they see, feel and hear. They many times see faith as a crutch and dismiss it.
We are made in the image of God and when this life is through we will meet Him as our saviour or our judge.
We I strongly believe we will be given every opportunity in this life to come to a saving knowledge that only comes through Christ Jesus.
In order to do that however a leap of faith is required and that is hard. And to me it seems to be made harder with the more knowledge one possesses.
Many point and say the Bible contradicts science. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Firstly the Bible is a book of faith not science. And if it seems to contradict science it is the interpreter that is in error.
Science I believe should God tarry will one day prove the existence of God.
In the mean time Jesus calls out through the Bible.  

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” 

                                                                                                        Matthew 11:28-30
Will you turn your life over to Jesus today?
Think about it.