Can One Believe in Science and God? - Part 1

By Tom Rose

We live in an age in which people all but worship the word 'science.’  In essence, science enables us to explain and understand how the universe, and the world in which we live, works and operates.  Yet because of this knowledge many have come to believe that science has made a belief in God unnecessary or obsolete.  Some think that one no longer needs to believe that God is behind the origin of life since many of its operations can be understood and explained by modern scientific inquiry and analysis.  Is such thinking valid?  What would you think if someone told you that airplanes did not have to be made by anyone, because we can understand and explain how they work and operate?

When one considers the topic of evolution, it is important to establish the meaning of several words.  Micro-evolution (also termed specialization) is easy to envision as a part of the natural world.  Varieties of flowers or domestic animals account for diversity within their kind.  For example, a breeder’s new rose creates a new species, but it is still a rose!  Macro-evolution, on the other hand, is a theory that all of the varieties of creatures we observe today developed by a gradual set of changes, over a very long time, from common ancestors.  Usually this theory includes the concept of life itself having developed from lifeless chemicals.  Micro-evolution is often mistakenly used as evidence for macro-evolution, but these are two vastly different concepts. There is no evidence that large changes above the “family” level (a taxonomy term) could occur or have ever occurred (e.g. the cat family with lions and tigers are distinct from the horse family with family with asses and zebras).

When Curt Sewel, a respected scientist, read The Genesis Flood, by John Whitcomb and Henry Morris, he stated, “It made the entire Genesis account reasonable, in terms that were compatible with my knowledge of science .”  He then added, “I saw that the problem wasn’t with any kind of scientific measurement; the basic problem was the set of assumptions behind the theories.”  To illustrate, a foundation stone of modem science proclaims that everything in nature has always followed the laws of nature, and that these laws have always behaved in the same ways they do now.  This is known as the “Law of Uniformity.”  Implicit in this assumption, though seldom stated, is the belief that a supernatural event never took place.  Arguing that any such supernatural action, such as creation or a Noah flood, would have been a “singular event” that obviously could not be repeated in a scientific experiment, it must be placed outside the domain of science. In this way, the Genesis account is put aside as a non-scientific story, and is automatically ruled out of any scientific explanation.

(To Be Continued)

Jesus Knew What Was in Man

By Paul Earnhart

From the very beginning of His ministry, Jesus made a great impression on the people who met Him.  Some were impressed negatively.  He did not fit their expectations of the Messiah, and they refused to consider the evidence of His divinity.  Others, who were not prejudiced, saw in Him those qualities which set Him apart from all other men.

This was the result when He first visited Jerusalem after His baptism and the beginning of His personal ministry.  John 2:23 says, “Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed on His name, beholding the signs which He did.”

But this early faith was not a deep faith.  Jesus knew full well that some of those early believers would turn against Him.  And so the next verses say, “But Jesus did not trust Himself unto them, for He knew all men, and because He needed not that any one should bear witness concerning man; for He knew what was in a man.”  (John 2:24-25)

Two things are evident from these verses.  First: Jesus was divine.  Ordinary men simply do not know what other men are thinking.  Only God can read a man’s mind; so if Jesus knew what men were thinking, He must have been divine.  His ability to know what men were thinking was demonstrated again and again during His lifetime.  It must have been a frustration to His enemies.

Second: If Jesus knew what the people of His day were thinking, He must know what is in our hearts as well.  We can fool our neighbors and the people at church.  We may even fool our families.  But the Lord knows what is in our heart; He knows our motives and what we really think, regardless of what we say.  And He is the one who will judge us.  Eccl. 12:14 says that "God will bring every work into judgment, and every secret thing, whether it be good or evil."  Are you ready for such judgment?

Faith Not Form

By Tom Rose

I’m not sure that Edward Gibbon had our generation in mind when in 1788 he finished his classic work on the fall of the Roman Empire, but his words are timely for life in these times. (The History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon) He proposed five major reasons why the Roman civilization crumbled, and at the top of his list was the decay of religion.  In that society "faith faded into mere form and lost its touch with life and the power to guide its citizens to a higher level."  In other words, faith became empty, artificial, and even contemptible.

As we shake our heads and ponder how these things came to be, listen to a modern sociologist, Os Guinness, as he looks at our current culture.  He observes, "Look at it from the point of view of the religious believers.  Religion to them was once life’s central mystery, its worship, life’s broadest canopy of meaning as well as its deepest guarantee of belonging.  Yet today, where religion still survives in the modern world, no matter how passionate or 'committed' the individual believer may be, it amounts to little more than a private preference, a spare-time hobby, a leisure pursuit."  Secularization, working from within the system, has accomplished its goal of neutralizing Christianity and is quickly becoming the dominant world view of the West.

We keep ourselves so busy that we cannot or will not take the time to understand life from a Christian perspective or integrate Christian principles into our daily lives.  Our journey through life becomes increasingly fragmented and out of control, which in turn produces mega-stress. Alexander Whyte summed up our problem when he said, "We cannot look seriously in one another’s faces and say it is want of time. It is want of intention. It is want of determination. It is want of method. It is want of motive. It is want of conscience. It is want of heart. It is want of anything and everything but time."

Busyness, the curse of our culture, robs us of the things that are of the greatest importance, including our souls.  If we are too busy to study the Bible, attend church, encourage and pray for others, and enjoy the simple things of God’s creation, then we are simply too busy!  Indeed, Satan has taken us captive and has us just where he wants us.  The more we struggle and the faster we go, the tighter the snare becomes.

Anytime our relationship with Christ does not go beyond the superficial level, we are in serious trouble.  Christianity is a religion of the heart, based on a personal relationship with the Creator of this universe. It is between us and God – one on one.  Worship of an impersonal God is little more than idol worship. Yet familiarity with religious things and concepts by no means constitutes a relationship.  Note carefully the words of the prophet Isaiah as restated by Christ in Mt. 13:14-15.  “You will be ever hearing, but never understanding; you will be ever seeing, but never perceiving.  For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes.  Otherwise, they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.”

Jesus is the single most complex character who has ever marched across the stage of human history. Indeed, the Jesus of the Gospels is a living, vibrant, dynamic, forceful personality, and the world has never experienced any other individual like Him. Today, gather your courage to go beyond the superficial and begin to find the rewards that an intimate relationship with Christ can offer. Consider your familiarity with Christianity as a blessing, not a curse, for the study and pursuit of Christ should yield growth and allegiance, not contempt and indifference. While you have time and opportunity, seek the sacred scriptures and allow His Word to sink into your being and breed contentment, for in them you have eternal life (Jn. 5:39).

Jesus Cleanses the Temple

By Paul Earnhart

When Jesus went to Jerusalem for the first time after the beginning of His personal ministry, we are told that He visited the temple and found merchants who were selling oxen, sheep and doves.  There were also money changers exchanging the money which the people ordinarily used into the kind of money that was accepted for offerings in the temple.

Jesus was greatly disturbed by what He saw.  John tells us that “He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables; and to those who were selling the doves He said, ‘Take these things away; stop making My Father’s house a house of merchandise.’  His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for Thy house will consume Me.’” (John 2:15-17)

God does not have a material house today, such as the temple was in those days.  But the church is His house as Peter wrote to Christians in 1 Peter 2:5 saying, “You also, as living stones, are built up as a spiritual house.”

But most churches today have virtually lost their spiritual emphasis.  In some cases, they have again become houses of merchandise; they seem to exist to make money.  In some other cases they have become country clubs with all kinds of recreation equipment and dining facilities.  Church funds are used more for social purposes than for spiritual activities, and more emphasis is placed on entertainment than on worship and Bible teaching.

I wonder what Jesus would do if He should visit a modern church.  I wonder if He would not again engage in a general house-cleaning.  If we are like Jesus “consumed with zeal for our Father’s house” (John 2:17), we will look again at God’s plan for His house and make certain that the church of which we are a part is what God intends for it to be, not what men want it to be.

Did Jesus Approve of Drinking?

By Paul Earnhart

According to John 2:1-11, the first miracle that Jesus performed was turning water into wine.  Many people have used this fact to defend the practice of drinking alcoholic beverages.

Wine, in the Bible, was not necessarily alcoholic.  It refers to all grape juice, whether fermented or unfermented.  Isaiah 65:8 refers to the wine while it is still in the cluster.  At that point, grape juice is certainly not alcoholic, yet the Bible calls it wine.

They used the word wine in those days in much the same way that we use the word cider.  Cider may be either freshly squeezed apple juice, or it may be fermented hard cider.

What did Jesus make?  The word wine does not tell us.  It is a fact that the headwaiter called the wine that Jesus made the “best” wine.  But there is evidence that people in those days did not judge wine by its potency, but by its sweet taste.  Obviously unfermented grape juice is the sweetest of all.

The Bible clearly condemns drunkenness.  Galatians 5:21 states that those who practice drunkenness cannot inherit the kingdom of God.  If the wine that Jesus made was intoxicating, He made enough of it to make everybody at the feast drunk.  Who can believe that Jesus actually did that?

When is a person drunk?  One of the first effects of even a small amount of alcohol is to impair one’s moral judgment.  This is the most serious consequence of alcohol, and it occurs long before one begins to stagger or speak with slurred speech.  The best policy for a true disciple of Jesus is to avoid alcoholic beverages altogether.

By all means, Jesus must not be cited to encourage drunkenness or even the use of strong drink.  The Bible universally condemns them both.