The Truth Debate Archives - STRATEGIES FOR LIVING

A Hint of the Divine

Atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell was once asked what he would say if he found himself standing before God on judgment day and God asked him, “Why didn’t you believe in Me?” Russell replied, “I would say, ‘Not enough evidence, God! Not enough evidence!'”

I will grant undeniable proof of God’s existence is hard to come by, and Russell was not alone. Astronomer and planetary scientist Carl Sagan is also known to have said, “The cosmos is all there is or was or ever will be.”
The Bible, however, gives us a different perspective. “The heavens declare the glory of God,” wrote King David of Israel, “the skies proclaim the works of his hands.”

And King David knew nothing of the Whirlpool Galaxy, thirty million light-years away. It is only one of an estimated 100 million galaxies, all of which give evidence of how long our universe has been around and hint at the genius of our creator God.

Nor was he aware that the cosmos is expanding and therefore had a beginning. If, indeed, the universe had a beginning, popularly known as the “big bang,” then it had a beginner, and it is that Beginner we call God. Does that prove the existence of a divine being? Not at all … but it is a strong hint.

The crown jewel of God’s creation, however, is not found in the cosmos. In the words again of King David, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful. (Psalm 139:14).

Indeed, you need go no further than our own existence to find evidence of design from the hand of the living God. One cell from your father merged with one from your mother, each one carrying 23 chromosomes, and ½ of your DNA. Your DNA is like tightly wound beads on a string controlling the activity of a gene, and it is thousands of genes that make up each chromosome. Your chromosomes merged into one single cell and formed a new DNA code. In time, 75 trillion cells joined together to make you one-of-a-kind.

Does all of this stand as proof? Perhaps not, but even though the evidence is overwhelming, some refuse to believe. Despite his knowledge of the New Testament message, Dr. Sagan wrote, “I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. … But as much as I want to believe that … I have nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking.”

Wishful thinking? You are left with that point of view only if you reject the evidence God has provided. God’s proof, if proof you need, has been given us. Analyze the facts of Jesus’ life, study the evidence of His resurrection, and the hint of God’s existence has been verified – in the Person of His Son, Jesus.

This, then, is life’s most important decision. As it has been for Bertrand Russell and Carl Sagan and will be for you and me, our eternal future hangs in the balance. What will you do with Jesus Christ?

The De-Christianization of America

It is not an exaggeration to claim the Equality Act, currently under study by the U. S. Congress, would have a devastating impact not only on the Christian community, but on America as well. The bill, which would add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as protected classes under federal civil rights law, would impact public facilities, sports, the medical profession, and the business community.

The Equality Act is forcing Christian businesses and, they would hope, churches, to give gay Americans the same benefits given to the heterosexual community. This is serious business, America. The secularization, the de-Christianization of our national lifestyle, establishes the precedent for further moves away from the religious heritage and moral foundation that made America great.

Where this is headed can be seen in an article posted by Action Alert on Mon, Feb. 22, quoting Chai Feldblum, the former commissioner of the Obama administration’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. “I’m having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win. … in almost all cases the sexual liberty should win because that’s the only way that the dignity of gay people can be affirmed in any realistic manner.”

This legislation, if passed, would make business owners subject to a radical LGBT agenda. If the Act were fully implemented, 1). Public facilities would be desegregated; 2). Women’s sports would be devastated with the participation of transgender men; 3). Health care providers would be required to perform sex changes; 4). Adoption and foster care agencies would be forced to place children into same sex households. And that is to say nothing of the impact the Act would have on religious colleges and universities, church schools, and faith-based hospitals.

I realize many will not want to hear this, but the Scriptures are clear. In a day much like our own, when homosexuality was rampant and socially acceptable, the Apostle Paul wrote, “No … homosexual … will inherit the Kingdom of God.” I didn’t say that; the Apostle Paul said that. You either accept it for what it says, or you don’t. And once you have chosen to re-chart the Scriptures to square with twenty-first-century thought, you have destroyed the Bible as a standard of ethics and moral responsibility.

There are some who believe present trends in America may well precipitate an act of divine judgment. Frankly, I don’t believe God needs to do anything. The directives He has given were given because He knows that, left to ourselves, we are prone to self-destruct. All He needs to do in this case is leave us to our own devices.

I realize that at first glance it would seem I am overstating my case, fear-mongering to make a point. But hold steady, America; we aren’t through this thing yet and the pandemic may, indeed, be but the tip of an iceberg. History has shown repeatedly you cannot turn your back on God and survive intact. In the words of the Apostle Paul, “Be not deceived; God cannot be mocked. Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” That is a law of life and ignoring it will not make it go away!

I cannot imagine facing the future without my faith in His promise that “all things work together for good to them that love God, who are called according to His purpose.” If you have not already done so I invite you to turn your life and your future over to the only One who knows what lies ahead, to the One who can give purpose to your journey and bring sunshine out of rain: His Name is Jesus.

You want to talk about it? Hit me up at [email protected]

WHEN TRUTH IS ON TRIAL

Canvassing door to door as a young preacher launching a new church, I interrupted a finely dressed gentleman one morning just as he was about to leave for work. As I introduced myself, he politely but firmly interrupted me. “Look, Reverend, I thank you for the invitation,” he said, “but I’m really not interested. I live a good life. Everything is going well. Frankly, Mr. Scott, I don’t need God.” Pausing for just a moment, I said, “Mr., I suggest that within fifty years you will see things differently.” “Not at all,” he responded, “I won’t be here fifty years from now.” “Precisely!” I said and walked away.

America has likewise dismissed Jesus Christ as a religious figure that has little relevance to the day in which we live. The principles He taught, we are told, are no longer valid for twentieth-century America. That is America’s choice, and the further we get away from God, the more popular and accepted will be that evil segment of our society determined to destroy the American way of life. No longer satisfied with a secular mind-set, they have now turned their sights on our Constitution, our national heroes, and our institutions of law and order. Wake up, America!

I am well aware the warnings proffered by the Christian community come across as fear-mongering and taken as just so much hot air. But the Bible says, “Be not deceived, God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction.” One can turn a blind eye to what is taking place for only so long; sooner or later, there will be hell to pay.

I have no clue whether the Covid-19 pandemic is of divine origin. The present crisis has shown, however, we have no warrant to blame the Almighty for the fix we are in. The pandemic is something we have done to ourselves, and one can only imagine what lies ahead. But we have opted God out of our national life and have no recourse but to face the future alone and without divine help.

I cannot imagine facing the future without my faith in God. And it is not a faith based on tradition or belief inherited from my family. It is a faith supported by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, proof positive that He was, indeed, the Son of God. His perspective on life and my eternal destiny is one on which I can rest, confident that however difficult life becomes here on earth, there is a light at the end of my tunnel. In Jesus’ words, “Let not your heart be troubled. … I go to prepare a place for you … that where I am, there you may be also.” And Mr. … it doesn’t get any better than that!

Faith or Disbelief? Your Choice!

The year was 1949 and two young evangelists were about to launch a crusade, this time in Los Angeles, California, that was to have a historic and deeply personal impact on them and on the church.

Charles Templeton (pictured above), who had been alternating preaching with his best friend, Billy Graham, was in the throes of a major, personal crisis. Some time before he had read an article in Life Magazine featuring a mother in drought-stricken Africa carrying her dead baby in her arms. To quote from Lee Strobel, in his book The Case for Faith, page 14, Templeton thought,

“Is it possible to believe that there is a loving or caring Creator when all this woman needed was rain?” That point of view obviously influenced Templeton’s faith in the Bible and he made no secret of his feelings. As Graham recounts in his autobiography Just As I Am, Templeton challenged him. “Billy,” he said, “you’re fifty years out of date. People no longer accept the Bible as being inspired the way you do. Your faith is too simple” ( p. 138).

Billy Graham, who had enormous respect for his friend, could not dismiss Templeton’s argument out of hand. “If I was not exactly doubtful,” he recalls, “I was certainly disturbed.” Things finally came to a head for him during a quiet walk in the San Bernardino mountains. “Dropping to my knees there in the woods, I opened the Bible at random on a tree stump in front of me” and prayed, “Father, I am going to accept this as Thy Word – by faith! I’m going to allow faith to go beyond my intellectual questions and doubts, and I will believe this to be Your inspired Word” (Just As I Am, p. 139).

Little did Billy Graham realize what a profound influence that simple prayer was to have on his personal life. Charles Templeton was soon to withdraw from the ministry, move to Canada, and became a writer and commentator. For Billy Graham, however, the Los Angeles crusade launched a ministry that was to enable thousands of people to discover a new relationship with the God Templeton had rejected. Amazingly, it all came down to a matter of personal choice.

Living by faith is, indeed, no “cakewalk” and it does demand that we accept the truth that God has chosen to reveal, yes, by faith. The evidence is there for anyone who is willing to study the record and judge it for what it says. In the final analysis, however, it is an act of faith. There is no other way.

The choice to believe, it seems, is most generally a personal issue rather than an intellectual one. God and the revelation He has given us demands that we accept His Lordship over our lives. That is a tough call for most people. We don’t want to live under God’s control.

It is a matter we each must settle in our own lives. The choice we make will inevitably impact the life we live and, whether we want to face it or not, our eternal destiny. But do not fear; God is no man’s debtor. He never takes more than He gives in return. It is, indeed, a privilege to serve the Living God!

A DEAD GOD … IS NOT GOOD!

German Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), writing in The Gay Science, declared that, “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers” (Sect. 125, The Madman).

For Nietzsche, the decline of religion, the absence of an objective moral authority and the rise of atheism would plunge the world into chaos. Belief in God had given order to society and meaning to life for thousands of years. Nietzsche feared that God’s absence from the public arena and His demotion to the mundane would threaten society to a life that is without objective meaning or purpose. And he was right.
Christopher Panza, writing in Existentialism For Dummies, comments.

“Does his death mean life is meaningless? The answer to the question is simple. It’s yes. Well, and no, actually. ‘God’ … has been the source and keeper of all value and meaning in the world. When you ‘kill God’ you lose this. As Nietzsche says, you ‘wipe away the entire horizon.’ When you remove this heavenly horizon, you’re left in a world without meaning” (p. 25).

Nietzsche was a contributing voice in the rise of existentialism, the “philosophy of existence … the philosophy that makes an authentically human life possible in a meaningless and absurd world. … Existentialists reject not only traditional religious systems that attempt to systematically provide pat answers, but also the possibility of any ultimate answers. … For the existentialists, life is absurd; it makes no sense and has no meaning or ultimate purpose, but human beings need it to make sense, to have meaning and purpose. … Only after the death of God can you face the meaninglessness of the world and realize it’s up to you to take responsibility for the direction of your own life” (Existentialism, pp. 1, 9, 12, 25).

And that is what is happening in America today. Although we may not follow existentialism as a formal philosophy, we have become existentialist in thought and practice. God, as an effective force, has been put out of existence. He has been expelled from our educational institutions, banished from government, and compromised by the institutional church.

As a result, we have inherited a generation of godless brats. Educated without an objective standard of right and wrong, and for whom God is, indeed, dead, we claim to be surprised at the evil and mayhem they can create. And yet with every wake-up call, while Washington agonizes over solutions that might stem the tide of evil, few are the voices that call for America to get back to God.

And what, may I ask, about life after death? There are only two ways you can go with this. You can take the position that you’re “good enough … if anyone can make it I’ll be just fine.” Or you can believe, with Carl Sagan, that “the Cosmos is all there is or was or ever will be” and that there is no life after death. But the Bible says, and Carl Sagan now knows, you are wrong — on both counts.

But God has not abandoned us. When life has lost its meaning, when our actions have brought devastating consequences, when we know instinctively we aren’t ready to meet God, He has given us a perfect solution: His Name is Jesus. If He is trying to get your attention … don’t shut Him out

AN HONEST CONFESSION

“I don’t want there to be a God,” wrote Thomas Nagel in The Last Word. “It isn’t that I don’t believe in God and naturally hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God.… I don’t want the universe to be like that.”

I appreciate Nagel’s honesty for he states, without apology, a sentiment not often admitted to by my non-religious friends. It isn’t that they don’t believe in God; everyone claims to believe in God. It is Jesus that is the object of their disdain.

My friends, almost without exception, know little about Jesus Christ. They admit they have never read the New Testament, know nothing of his life or the purpose for which he lived. And, tragically, they have no interest in checking things out.

I cannot tell you how this saddens me. Jesus’ life and ministry has been at the center of my research since my youth. What I have discovered has revolutionized my thinking. I hurt for those who have chosen to remain ignorant. I am baffled but believe I understand. They fear a sincere look at his message will demand changes they are not ready to make.

And with reason. An honest look at the record forces each of us to decide: what will you do with Jesus Christ? Lee Strobel’s journey of faith is a classic case in point.

“Recently I was chatting with a former colleague from my days as an atheist and legal editor at the Chicago Tribune. ‘You were the last person I ever thought would give up your journalism to go tell people about Jesus,’ he said. ‘You were one of the most skeptical people I knew.’… Ironically, it was my skepticism that ultimately drove me to faith in Jesus.

“That’s because my wife Leslie’s newfound belief in Christ provoked me to investigate the historical underpinnings of Christianity.… To my dismay, the data of science (from cosmology and physics to biochemistry and human consciousness) convinced me there was a supernatural Creator, while the evidence from history satisfied me that Jesus of Nazareth was resurrected from the dead, confirming his identity as the unique Son of God,” (Miracles, p. 23).

All truth, truth that is consistent with reality, begins with Jesus Christ. Those who, like Thomas Nagel, believe the here and now is all there is to life, need to evaluate the Gospel record. The meaning and purpose of life, the strength to live responsibly, and the state of our life after death, all find their fulfillment in our Lord.

I am not writing here about a new faith; I am heralding a new relationship. Review the Gospels; note what God did for those who accepted Jesus as Lord. One cannot encounter Jesus Christ and remain unchanged. In the words of the Apostle Paul, “What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.”

I know that, along with what the Apostle Paul has to say, we come across as fanatics, out of touch with reality. Believe me, however, when I tell you there is a reason for our commitment. He has changed everything. We cannot imagine what our lives — past, present, and future — would be like were it not for Jesus Christ.