I have used sarcasm as a means to italicize my points, however, in this post, I want to strike a more serious tone. My recent conversations with my atheist friend Gene as well as observations of the world around me have got me thinking. Looking back on the last post for a moment, from Gene's perspective, the truth is founded in the fact that the scientific community accepts the findings that the Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old. Therefore, it is the scientific community that has authority in his mind and not the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. It's the idea that the scientific community is the source of authority and the Scriptures are only correct in the areas they agree with the scientific community, and even then the authority is in the scientific community and not the Scriptures.
ESV
An article in Christianity Today presents four proposals for harmonizing Genesis and Evolution. The article describes how young people have been leaving the faith in increasing numbers for decades, and one of the main reasons is the perceived anti-science mindset of the church. In other words, what we have is the scientific community standing before our youth with academia in hand and alongside, the monkey is standing with the Bible in hand. It seems no one wants to agree with a monkey!
So there stands our monkey with Bible in hand, when he is asked to explain what he holds in his hand, he shrugs his shoulders and looks to the scientific community to ask what he should say!
The Apostle Paul describes this in Romans Chapter one.
(10) Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.
(11) Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.
Gene does not believe there is a God, he does not believe the Scriptures have any authority. If you give him a statement from the Scriptures that absolutely cannot be refuted, he will not recognize its truth as having any authority resulting solely from the Scriptures. In his view, if the Scriptures were to present any truth whatsoever, that truth would have to come from some other authority other than God and His Word.
For someone like Gene to come to the knowledge of the truth today, it will have to be God who saves them by His own Sovereign Will. That is not to say one is saved differently today than men have always been saved, let me explain what I mean.
So, the monkey wants to put on glasses and pretend to be smart and show how he agrees with the scientific community. In doing so, he demonstrates, that though he has Bible in hand, the real authority is in the scientific community. Is that not what Gene is saying? Could we be seeing the end of Christendom? It seems this is simply an effort to save Christianity, yet, is a Christianity without the authority of Scripture a Christianity at all? Without the absolute authority of the Scriptures, Christianity is nothing more than another myth of men's minds. Again, is that not what Gene is saying?
In a recent study by the Barna Group, a high majority of Parents of pre-teens surveyed said they were Christians and attended church regularly. However, when questioned about their beliefs, only 1 in 50 held an orthodox understanding of God, the Bible, and truth. In Exodus 32, God had brought out his people to serve Him, however, they quickly had Aaron fashion a molten image of a golden calf, Exodus 32:5 ESV "When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD." They fashioned an image of gold that pleased themselves, then they place the name of God upon it and worshiped it. When we call ourselves Christians, and fashion a form of worship and religion from our own imagination, it matters not we put the name Jesus upon it, we are not Christians.
So there stands our monkey with Bible in hand, when he is asked to explain what he holds in his hand, he shrugs his shoulders and looks to the scientific community to ask what he should say!
Something is happening that is changing what has been true in western history for 1700 years. We have come to a time of dramatic change in the West, we are experiencing the end of Christendom. That being said we need to make a distinction between Christendom and Christianity.
Christendom is akin to the word kingdom. A kingdom is what a king rules over, he has lordship over a realm. Christendom is the idea that Christ rules in the political and cultural sphere, a rule that is acknowledged in our law and has cultural dominance. That idea we have experienced here in America for most of its history. However, we are now living in a time when that is changing right before our eyes.
Robert Godfrey suggests Christendom ended in America in 2015. That is when the United Supreme Court declared Same-Sex Marriage Legal in all 50 States. Godfrey suggests it was not the decision of the Court that marked the end of Christendom in America, but the response of the American people. Consider how quickly this change has come about, in thousands of years of human history no nation had ever recognized same-sex marriage until 2001. It took only 14 more years for the nation that is known to be wrapped with what we call the Bible Belt to decide it no longer needed the belt to hold up its pants and simply and quietly unbuckled. What has happened since? Is there great outrage among the people? Among the Churches? Among the political pundits?
Remember Roe vs. Wade, we are still fighting over that one, much effort has been exerted against it and rightly so, the politicians have rallied for its demise. That has not been the case since the 2015 ruling, a lady made the news by refusing to issue a same-sex license, one lady out of a whole nation. Where is Christendom in America? America does not care what Christendom says, it has fashioned its own god and called it personal freedom, and in religious circles placed the name Jesus upon it.
America worships personal freedom, its creed says everyone should be free to do whatever they please as long as they don't hurt anyone else. The monkey is free to hold out his Bible, as long as he admits it has no authority over our lives. As long as it doesn't infringe upon our pleasures and pursuits. Society has no problem with you being a Christian, as long as you don't insist Christianity has any authority in the rule and governance of our lives. It must not be looked upon as a source of authority, for man is his own ruler and his own authority living by his ever-evolving understanding of society. He envisions a time when the world is free from all religions, and that desire is unfolding right before our eyes. One of our own Founding Fathers once pondered concerning our nation, if men were this bad with religion, how corrupt will they be without it? May we all enjoy this brave new world!
Romans 1:17-32 ISV
Now that Christendom is gone, what is the Church to do? This is an epic time for the Church, a wonderful time to be a Christian! We must remember why we are Christians. We are not Christians because the scientific community held out to us academia, we are Christians because God opened our understanding of the truth of the Scriptures, and the truth of the Gospel entered our hearts and gave us life. In God's grace, he gave us faith and we believed.
(17) For in the gospel God's righteousness is being revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, "The righteous will live by faith."
(18) For God's wrath is being revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and wickedness of those who in their wickedness suppress the truth.
(19) For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God himself has made it plain to them.
(20) For since the creation of the world God's invisible attributes—his eternal power and divine nature—have been understood and observed by what he made, so that people are without excuse.
(21) For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him. Instead, their thoughts turned to worthless things, and their senseless hearts were darkened.
(22) Though claiming to be wise, they became fools
(23) and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images that looked like mortal human beings, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.
(24) For this reason, God delivered them to sexual impurity as they followed the lusts of their hearts and dishonored their bodies with one another.
(25) They exchanged God's truth for a lie and worshipped and served the creation rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
(26) For this reason, God delivered them to degrading passions as their females exchanged their natural sexual function for one that is unnatural.
(27) In the same way, their males also abandoned their natural sexual function toward females and burned with lust toward one another. Males committed indecent acts with males, and received within themselves the appropriate penalty for their perversion.
(28) Furthermore, because they did not think it worthwhile to keep knowing God fully, God delivered them to degraded minds to perform acts that should not be done.
(29) They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, quarreling, deceit, and viciousness. They are gossips,
(30) slanderers, God-haters, haughty, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to their parents,
(31) foolish, faithless, heartless, and ruthless.
(32) Although they know God's just requirement—that those who practice such things deserve to die—they not only do these things but even applaud others who practice them.
Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV
(8) For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
(9) not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
For those who receive this faith and believe, academia will not be able to provide anything to rival the truth that is understood. To academia what we believe is foolishness to them, I understand that. Others are constantly demanding us to show them a sign, then they will believe. No, they will believe only when God gives them faith. The church, therefore, does not depend upon Christendom, or any other external means to be the church.
1 Corinthians 1:21-24 ESV
(21) For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.
(22) For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom,
(23) but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,
(24) but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
Christendom has fooled us, it deceived us into thinking the church was popular, and it seemed the whole country was Christian. Now Christendom has gone and we are told it is over. We are told our children are leaving the church by the droves. What we must understand is people of faith do not leave the church, professors of faith do, but not those who have truly received faith. The more the scientific community presents its evidence the more they convince me of the truth I find in the Scriptures. It seems everything they discover I find its source already explained in the Scriptures. Everything they offer as evidence there is no God, when examined, their evidence is only explained with myths and imaginations. I may be a monkey, but I refuse to put on the glasses.
David
1 Corinthians 15:1-6 ESV
(1) Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand,
(2) and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
(3) For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,
(4) that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
(5) and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
(6) Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.
This is Gene, the one David refers to in his blog,
ReplyDelete"The Authority of Science and Monkey."
Please see my response at:
godlessamericanpatriot.org/scientific-theory-vs-scripture