Monthly Archives: July 2022

DID YOU KNOW (12)…THAT THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION IS A LIE

Christian Life, ,

DID YOU KNOW (12)

…THAT THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION IS A LIE

Now that will get some of your heckles up!

The theory of evolution fits perfectly into Satan’s modus operandi to drive a wedge between God and His children by creating suspicion and destroying trust. Satan’s success story began in the Garden of Eden when he persuaded Adam and Eve to mistrust God by defaming God’s character, and they believed Him. His accusation that God’s word was not to be trusted was an exposure of his own false nature. (Strange, isn’t it that the accusations we level at others are often a revelation of our own hearts)!

Jesus accurately diagnosed the devil as a liar and the father of lies. He is the source of every lie that has even been told. According to Jesus, lies are his mother tongue (John 8:44).

He has two effective ways of turning people against God.

  1. He lies about God to us. He discredits God by casting doubt on His character and His word. Either God does not exist, and any idea of God is just a figment of human imaginations, or God is not to be trusted.

“Look at the mess the world is in, and God does nothing about it. Why does He not protect little children from suffering; why does He allow criminals to get away with their crimes; why didn’t He heal my mother, father, brother, or sister when I prayed? Why did He let my child die?” The list goes on and on.

The conclusion we come to is that God is not to be trusted. Why should we believe the Bible? We might as well throw the idea of God out of the window and believe the scientists who tell us that the universe just “happened”. 

  • He lies to us about ourselves. Since God doesn’t exist, we might as well live as we like because there are no moral absolutes. He degrades human beings by luring them into sin and then accusing them of being worthless by drowning them in guilt and shame.

One thing God-haters and God-blamers are ignorant of, forget, or choose to ignore is that we made the mess in the world. God never withdrew the freedom of choice from the first pair, and He still honours that freedom, even if we make the wrong choices. When a young girl sleeps around and faces an unwanted pregnancy, she cannot hold God responsible for what she did. It was her choice, and she must accept the consequences, not blame God for letting it happen!

Despite our erroneous conclusion that there is no God or, if there is, He doesn’t care about us, we cannot stop the consequences or silence our conscience when we have transgressed His law which He has written on our hearts. Of course, we instinctively know when we have done wrong. From where does that come?

Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them (Rom. 2:14-15).

David wrote a psalm from his observation of the natural world. Instead of concluding that everything just happened by chance, he penned these words:

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon, and the stars which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than God (Elohim in Hebrew) and crowned them with glory and honour. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: all flocks and herds and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the sea (Psa. 8:3-8)

Evolutionists insist that human beings evolved upwards from animals; in other words, humans are just a little higher than animals. The Bible declares that God made us a little lower than Himself. We become what we choose to believe.

Now David did not say that God created little gods. What he did say perfectly harmonises with the Genesis account of creation. God designed and fashioned man from the elements of the earth and blew His own breath into his nostrils. Hidden in the original Hebrew account of creation is His reason for creating humans. God made mankind to resemble Himself so that He could have fellowship with people and so that they would manage the earth and its creatures for Him.   

Within the circle of the love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit for each other, God intended that we live and share in that love and work as a team with God to care for the earth. What a destiny!

“Oh,” but you might say, “of course, you will defend the Bible if you believe it is true.” I would respond by saying, “Bring me the proof, not the theory, that everything just happened by chance, and I will believe you.”

Is it possible that, without intelligence and design, the entire universe functions as a unit by chance; those animals, birds, reptiles, and insects just happen to be perfectly suited for their habitat and diet? How can a creature evolve into something else by choice? What if one individual in a species decided this and another that?

What do you make of this verse?

Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life (Matt. 6:25)?

How do they survive in the interim when their bodies are evolving? How can cells function perfectly if even an element is missing or “changing”?

Has any human made something without a pattern or design? What if aircraft engineers decided to put a mass of aircraft components together randomly without a design? Will it fly? Would a book be readable if the author strung together all the words in the dictionary without a plot and without constructing grammatically correct sentences?

As ludicrous as this all sounds, is there any logical reason for thinking people to believe that, at some point in the past (billions of years ago, and who created time?), a burst of energy (from where did the energy come?) produced a fully functional universe.

The implications of accepting this unproven theory of evolution as fact are huge. We’ll chat about it tomorrow. 

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

DID YOU KNOW (11)…THAT THE WORLD IS AN ORPHANAGE?

Christian Life

DID YOU KNOW (11)

…THAT THE WORLD IS AN ORPHANAGE?

How do we know that the world is an orphanage? Jesus spoke about it on the eve of His death. His disciples were distressed because He kept telling them that He was going away. After three years with Him, they could not imagine what life would be without Him. They had thought that He would be with them for a very long time. After all, were they not His disciples? They had committed their lives to Him, not just a few years.

He assured them that, despite His imminent departure, He would return. How could that be?

I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you (John 14:18).

These words assume that they were already orphans, or perhaps that they felt like orphans.

It was never God’s intention for humans to be fatherless. He created Adam and Eve to be His children, the beginning of an eternal family of all their offspring in an intimate relationship with Him as their heavenly Father.

However, something went terribly wrong. Adam was influenced by Satan posing as a serpent to believe that God was someone less than a perfect Father. He tricked him into thinking that God’s instruction not to break ties with Him by disobeying His one single prohibition was a less-than-loving way of cheating him of something important in his life. The moment Adam doubted the character of God as perfect love, he was on the road to betrayal. Instead of holding fast to what he already knew about his Creator, he swallowed the lie and broke ties with the source of his life.

That one act of foolishness cost him and the human race that would come from him, the only way he would ever know his true identity and the security of trust and fellowship with his Father. From that moment, Adam and Eve were fatherless, orphans, and alone, left to make their way through life without the comfort of their Father’s strength, wisdom, and protection.

Why would the devil target and destroy the relationship of the Father and His children? He knows that fatherless children have no identity and no security in life and are open to fear which they will do anything to suppress. Without the love and protection of a father, children do anything just to survive. They have no one to model and teach them the real values or life. They live by their wits, without boundaries, and eventually without a conscience.

The world is indeed an orphanage. The sexual revolution has deceived people into believing that sexual pleasure is an end in itself and does no psychological damage when it is misused. There are millions of “orphans” without a father figure. living with single mothers who can never replace the role of a father in their lives.

The gay agenda targets legitimate relationships between husbands and wives in a monogamous union.  So-called “free sex” and the “condomising” of the world as a solution to infection, has left a trail of death and destruction through AIDS and STDs. Paedophiles have destroyed the lives of thousands, if not millions of children by destroying their innocence and robbing them of a healthy relationship with a father figure, to say nothing of the murders which accompany the actions of sexual predators.

Rape is a worldwide phenomenon – sexual violence against women as a vent for male anger. What about prostitution and all the evils associated with so called “sex workers”?

All these evils are directed towards one thing – the distortion of the father image so that people, both adults and children have no idea what a real father is like. The world is an angry place, and Satan makes sure that the anger is directed at fathers who have failed to fulfil their role in the family as protectors and providers, and families that are the victims of father’s failure.  

As Malachi wrote, in the last verse of the last book of the Old Testament, a major role of the “Elijah” who was to introduce Messiah to God’s people and to the world was to .…

“…turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.” Malachi 4:6

One of Jesus’ primary purposes was to reveal the true nature of the Father, to wipe the face of our fathers off the face of God so that we can know Him through Jesus.

In response to Philip’s request, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us,” Jesus responded, “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:8-9a).

He came to reconcile us to the Father and to take us to the Father so that we can once again be a part of His forever family. Without this connection with the Father, we will always be orphans, nameless, homeless and without security for the present and the future.

No, we are no longer orphans because Jesus has restored us to the Father and to His family.  

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

DID YOU KNOW (11)…THAT THE WORLD IS AN ORPHANAGE?

Christian Life, ,

DID YOU KNOW (11)

…THAT THE WORLD IS AN ORPHANAGE?

How do we know that the world is an orphanage? Jesus spoke about it on the eve of His death. His disciples were distressed because He kept telling them that He was going away. After three years with Him, they could not imagine what life would be without Him. They had thought that He would be with them for a very long time. After all, were they not His disciples? They had committed their lives to Him, not just a few years.

He assured them that, despite His imminent departure, He would return. How could that be?

I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you (John 14:18).

These words assume that they were already orphans, or perhaps that they felt like orphans.

It was never God’s intention for humans to be fatherless. He created Adam and Eve to be His children, the beginning of an eternal family of all their offspring in an intimate relationship with Him as their heavenly Father.

However, something went terribly wrong. Adam was influenced by Satan posing as a serpent to believe that God was someone less than a perfect Father. He tricked him into thinking that God’s instruction not to break ties with Him by disobeying His one single prohibition was a less-than-loving way of cheating him of something important in his life. The moment Adam doubted the character of God as perfect love, he was on the road to betrayal. Instead of holding fast to what he already knew about his Creator, he swallowed the lie and broke ties with the source of his life.

That one act of foolishness cost him and the human race that would come from him, the only way he would ever know his true identity and the security of trust and fellowship with his Father. From that moment, Adam and Eve were fatherless, orphans, and alone, left to make their way through life without the comfort of their Father’s strength, wisdom, and protection.

Why would the devil target and destroy the relationship of the Father and His children? He knows that fatherless children have no identity and no security in life and are open to fear which they will do anything to suppress. Without the love and protection of a father, children do anything just to survive. They have no one to model and teach them the real values or life. They live by their wits, without boundaries, and eventually without a conscience.

The world is indeed an orphanage. The sexual revolution has deceived people into believing that sexual pleasure is an end in itself and does no psychological damage when it is misused. There are millions of “orphans” without a father figure. living with single mothers who can never replace the role of a father in their lives.

The gay agenda targets legitimate relationships between husbands and wives in a monogamous union.  So-called “free sex” and the “condomising” of the world as a solution to infection, has left a trail of death and destruction through AIDS and STDs. Paedophiles have destroyed the lives of thousands, if not millions of children by destroying their innocence and robbing them of a healthy relationship with a father figure, to say nothing of the murders which accompany the actions of sexual predators.

Rape is a worldwide phenomenon – sexual violence against women as a vent for male anger. What about prostitution and all the evils associated with so called “sex workers”?

All these evils are directed towards one thing – the distortion of the father image so that people, both adults and children have no idea what a real father is like. The world is an angry place, and Satan makes sure that the anger is directed at fathers who have failed to fulfil their role in the family as protectors and providers, and families that are the victims of father’s failure.  

As Malachi wrote, in the last verse of the last book of the Old Testament, a major role of the “Elijah” who was to introduce Messiah to God’s people and to the world was to .…

“…turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.” Malachi 4:6

One of Jesus’ primary purposes was to reveal the true nature of the Father, to wipe the face of our fathers off the face of God so that we can know Him through Jesus.

In response to Philip’s request, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us,” Jesus responded, “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:8-9a).

He came to reconcile us to the Father and to take us to the Father so that we can once again be a part of His forever family. Without this connection with the Father, we will always be orphans, nameless, homeless and without security for the present and the future.

No, we are no longer orphans because Jesus has restored us to the Father and to His family.  

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

DID YOU KNOW (10)…THAT REVELATION FOLLOWS GENEROSITY

Christian Life, ,

DID YOU KNOW (10)

…THAT REVELATION FOLLOWS GENEROSITY

0 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. Malachi 3:10

So far, we have discovered from God’s instruction to His people under the old covenant, that householders have an obligation to care for certain groups of people over and above their own families. These groups were those who had no land of their own and, therefore, depended on the generosity of God’s people to provide for them.

The first two groups were those of the tribe of Levi whom God had chosen to be the priestly tribe. They would serve Him exclusively from the high priest to those who ministered in the temple daily. Without the support and generosity of the people, they would have nothing with which to take care of their families.

The third group for which the people were responsible was the family unit. God did not neglect them in His economic system. The farmer was to set aside one tenth, called the second or family tithe, of the remainder of his harvest for the family – the equivalent of a retirement policy or emergency fund. In Israelite life, they were to take this portion to the temple or, if they lived too far away, they could sell it and take the money to the temple where they could buy food and have a celebration as a family. In real terms, it was an extra portion of their provision to use for whatever purpose they needed it.

Translated into today’s terms, this portion of our income would form our retirement savings. Although it is not much in monthly terms, over the period of one’s working life, it would represent a more-than-adequate investment to take care of one’s old age. It would also be a nest-egg for any emergency not covered by one’s monthly income.

In God’s wisdom, He recognised the need to make provision for the time when one can no longer work. It is foolishness to suppose that, if we spend everything we earn now and make no provision for the future that “God will provide”. Yes, He does provide, but He does it in the form of a “tithe” to oneself to save for the future.

Lastly, there was the third tithe – provision for the poor, the widow, the orphan and the alien. Every third year, the householder was to give his family tithe to the poor. He was to take this portion to the temple where it was stored and from which the needy were fed. In this way, there should have been no one in Israel for whom no provision was made. 

To recap, Israelite families who had the land given to their ancestors when they conquered the Promised Land under Joshua, were to make provision for four groups of people from their annual harvests; the first-fruits of their crops to the high priest which was calculated as one fortieth of their crop – called the terumah offering; one tenth of the balance to the storehouse for the priests and Levites – called the first tithe; one tenth of the balance again to be set aside for the family – called the second tithe; and finally, every third year the family tithe was given to the poor – called the third tithe. The balance of their harvests was theirs to enjoy.

Now we come to the exciting bit. Included in God’s indictment against Israel for failure to fulfil their responsibility was a promise.

“Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord. But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’

“Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me.” But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’

“In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse – the whole nation of you – because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house… (Mal.3:7b-10a).

“…Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates (windows) of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” says the Lord Almighty. “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land.” (Mal. 3:10b).

Can you see the promises wrapped up in being generous? God made three promises to His people if they would willingly share their bounty with those in need according to His instructions.

  1. He will open the windows of heaven and pour out more blessing than we can contain. Unfortunately, once again we interpret this to mean an abundance of the increase of material things – whatever that increase means to us; more crops, more money, more wealth. However, reading it from a Hebraic perspective, what do windows do? Windows let in light and air – i.e., breath, spirit, or revelation.

When we obey God by providing for those who cannot care for themselves, He promises us more revelation of spiritual truth and understanding than we can ever handle.  

  • He also promised His people that their crops would be protected from pests and crop failure. He would take care of their physical needs as well.
  • Thirdly, the nations around them would recognise that God was blessing them. They would be the objects of supernatural favour. This is, in the end, God’s purpose that His blessing on His people, both material and spiritual would shine the light back on Him and He would get the glory.

Generosity breaks the hold that money and possessions has on us. When our money no longer has power over us, we are free to receive and understand more of God and His ways than we ever dreamed possible, and we live in His favour, free from greed and selfishness because we focus on His glory, not on our needs and wants.

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

DID YOU KNOW (9)…THAT REVELATION FOLLOWS GENEROSITY

Christian life, ,

DID YOU KNOW (9)

…THAT REVELATION FOLLOWS GENEROSITY

Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. Malachi 3:10

Yesterday we began to explore the concept that God’s instructions for the way His people were to use their wealth is not “law” in the sense of a military command. It is His ageless wisdom which helps us to break out of our greed and selfishness to take responsibility for four groups of people who need our support. 

The first is our spiritual authority or “high priest”, the one who, according to Paul, teaches us the Word. To him must go the firstfruits of our increase. Since we are not farmers who gather in an annual harvest, our increase is our monthly income of which we are to give one-fortieth to our spiritual leader.

Our second area of responsibility is called the “storehouse” which, in Bible times was the tabernacle and later the temple. Every householder was to bring one-tenth of the remainder of his harvest after terumah to the temple where it was stored and used to support the priests and Levites who served in the temple. They, too, had no land of their own and depended on the annual tithe of the people’s crops, including the oil and wine, to take care of their families.

We know that the physical building which accommodates the church whenever it meets, i.e., the people of God, needs money to maintain the property and those who work in it. There are staff members who work there, cleaners, gardeners, maintenance, and office staff who also earn their living by functioning in and around the building. From the income of tithes, the church also supports missionaries and other Christian workers and ministries.

As new believers, we were taught to “tithe”, if our church leader taught us to be “legalistic”. If not, we learned that we must give “as the Spirit leads us”. This sounds spiritual but the problem lies with our natural tendency towards selfishness and greed. What we hear, supposedly from the Holy Spirit, is not generosity but need – our need. We give less and less as our “needs” become more. We justify our failure to give by the age-old I-cannot-afford-to-give excuse.

God taught His people to give by percentage under the old covenant. This principle makes sense because it does not matter how much or how little we earn. Giving by percentage means that we will always have the same percentage of what we earn to live on. By being obedient to God, we become participators in His supernatural supply.

It may appal us to know that God’s percentage of giving was twenty-one percent! No, not just a tithe as some of us were taught, but 21.5% of our monthly income. God instructed His people to live in a circle on a square. Let me explain. 

When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges (or corners) of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your harvest a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the Lord your God (Lev.19:9-10).

This is the principle of living in a circle on a square. If you have a field that is 100m x 100m, the area of that field would be 10,000 square meters. A circle with the diameter of 100m, which would fit exactly into the square, would have an area of 7,850 square meters. The area of the corners of the square which are outside the circle would be 2,150 square metres which is 21.5% of the area of the square. All this is to say that God asks His people to give away 21.5% of their income to those who need it and for them to live on the balance of 78.5% without guilt.

So far, we have identified two areas for which God’s people are responsible – our spiritual authority (i.e., our pastor or spiritual leader) and the storehouse where we worship with God’s people and are fed God’s Word.

Malachi recorded God’s complaint against His people.

“Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord. But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’

“Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me.” But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’

“In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse – the whole nation of you – because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house…(Mal.3:7b-10a).

The Hebrew word for tithes and offerings are masher and terumah, two different words meaning two different things. The first, masher, refers to the tithe to be brought to the storehouse, and the second, terumah, refers to the portion that belongs to God and is given to the high priest. When we fail to give God what belongs to Him and to the storehouse which also belongs to God, He regards it as theft! Ouch! How many of God’s people are guilty of theft?

Please stay with me because we are going somewhere. Tomorrow we will discover the significance of generosity.

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.