Vision

Do you remember Alice? No, not the one that worked at Mel’s Diner. I’m talking about the little girl that fell into the rabbit hole in Lewis Carrols’ most famous story. Okay, if you’re like me then you probably don’t know much about it because we’re males and we don’t read stories like that. But maybe you saw the Disney movie. Either way, I have heard that somewhere in the story Alice has a short, although profound, dialogue with a large smiling cat. It went like this…

Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?

The Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.

Alice: I don't much care where.

The Cat: Then it doesn't much matter which way you go.

The Cat is right, and is not just speaking to Alice but to you and I as well. As fathers, God has given to us the humbling privilege to lead our homes and our homeschools. He has placed in our hands the duty to direct and disciple our wives and our children.

So where am I going? Actually, the question is much more specific than that. It is Alice’s question. At the beginning of this new “school year” which way should I go? We must all ask ourselves this question. The answer is one of vision. It does indeed depend a good deal on where I want to get to but, more than that, it depends on where does God want my wife and children “to get to”? What is His vision for my family? Have I sought it out? I must ask all of these questions of myself, as must you. In the midst of asking and answering these questions I find many wonderful truths.

The first is that God does have a plan, a vision, for my family. I don’t have to make this stuff up and try to lead my family by my own wisdom and ingenuity. This truth is wonderfully reassuring for if it were up to me my family would be falling into large holes like that poor little girl!

Second, it is God’s vision for my family. In other words, God’s vision is different for every family. Every family is unique, each one has different needs. We do not all need to look alike. There is a wondrous beauty in this because then we do not have to judge ourselves by what other families are doing. Usually all that comparing ourselves with others will bring us is a lot of condemnation. But God’s vision for your family is different than His vision for my family and from the Johnsons down the street.

So how do we get this vision and begin to implement it in our homes? I have found a few steps helpful in my journey.

Begin by seeking God for a family vision statement. For what reason does your family exist? Your family was ordained from all eternity by the perfect and all-wise counsel of God. He had a purpose in creating it, so what is that purpose? A vision statement will help you to clarify what it is you are striving for. To give you an example, my family’s vision statement is, “The Churchill’s are a family striving together to live as the people of God, through the instruction of the Word of God, for many generations.” I have heard vision statements that are much briefer than this, and others that are much more detailed. Some families simply use a Bible verse that is very meaningful to them. Again, it is what works for you, and it is God’s vision for your family.

Next, seek out what your short term goals are for each member of your family in light of this vision. Ask yourself, “What are the spiritual goals I want my children to attain this school year?” “What are the academic goals?” Each answer will be unique to your child, but it gives you something to measure their growth by and helps you to know if they are growing in the way God wants them to. In my home the academics is merely one of many ways of developing the spiritual goals. We teach what we teach in order to develop their character and to help them to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ.

And most important, establish a time that the family gets together to worship God and learn from His Word. For my family we do a devotional and read from God’s Word at the dinner table. Then we discuss what we have read and attempt to apply it to what we learned throughout the day (whether during homeschool or at work). This seems to be what works best for us, yet I have been with many families as they worship God, and every one of them is different. The point though, is that each of them set aside a time to learn God’s truths together and to honor Him as a family unit.

These are three steps that have helped me in this great privilege of leading my family. I hope they are helpful to you. Just remember, God loves you and your family, and gave you everyone in your family out of His’ perfectly wise and loving counsel! Praise God!

New Blog

If anyone has not caught my new blog, it is a dialogue with my great friend, a metaphysical naturalist. We are having some great discussions, so feel free to come visit and even comment! The site is www.dialogueontruth.blogspot.com.

Letters from a Skeptic

My father and I have had a few dialogues lately concerning our different faiths. I thought I would reproduce much of what was written just for different approaches in apologetics. So here is one such correspondence.


Bud; I sincerely appreciate your offer of dialogue and debate. Only problem is, old dogs don't learn new tricks easily. You see, I was born into the world of evolution. There was never any hint at any other alternative form of thinking until I was well into college years. And by then, I was finally, laughlingly, admitting that some quacks from the back woods . . . those unfortunate enough to be raised in the piney woods where formal education never quite reached, had derrived the opinion they called creationism.

It was like the early "priests" (those who called themselves priests for lack of any better title) started shouting that the thunder and lightening, earthquakes and wind storms were actually Gods. That everyone should fall down on their knees and worship. Don't stop to think that any of these were natural events, occurring as the earth turned. And, if you paid a few alms to one of these "priests" they would give you a name that you and you alone could use when praying to these Gods . . . getting you special favors, of course.

At some point I learned that my own son, whose education I had obviously ignored . . . taking for granted that he would receive the same well grounded education (in evolution) I had, had somehow become a "Creationist." He was one of those who when faced with the fact that the Universe we know, and the multi-universes we imagine denies their existence. Who, when confronted by stacks of dinosaur bones, denies their existence. And all for the sake of being able to go to a "priest" to give him the name to call his God, to obtain special favors. Unthinkable!

That's why I won't debate or discuss Creationism vs Evolution with you. It is unimagin-able to me that anyone with any intelligence at all could deny the reality of the world we live in. It's no wonder you won't send your kiddos to public school, where they could possibly learn the reality of Evolution. Rather than kindle the flames of intolerance (which my attitude toward Creationism is), I'd rather set any such discussion aside . . . I do hope you can understand this. Your father is intolerant of very few things in this world. Possibly the only thing is STUPIDITY. And Creationism is, in my estimation, STUPIDITY!!

Dad,
Thanks you so much for sharing both your journey and your belief with me. It helps me to much better know you and where you are coming from. I will share with you my journey and my beliefs so that you might know more about who and what I am, for I fear that many of the ideas you think creationists have do not reflect my beliefs. You may think more of me, you may think less of me, but at least you will know what I believe and how I came to believe it.

I, like yourself, grew up only knowing one belief, and that was evolution. From earliest grade school through college, the public school system achieved their goal, and that was that all of my schooling was purely evolutionary. Their indoctrination was complete. As you so well put it, "There was never any hint at any other alternative form of thinking." I grew up believing it not just because my teachers taught it but because you believed it and taught it to me also. It was all I knew and therefore what I believed.

Then in 1987 God saved me. To tell you the truth, when I became a Christian there wasn't a huge revolution in my thinking though. At that point I just believed that God was the cause of evolution, that there was a supernatural force behind the natural. In one sense this was a new thought, in another it wasn't, because you and I both believe in non-physical (aka supernatural) forces that direct nature such as the laws of nature and the laws of logic. These cannot be felt, touched, tasted, heard, or seen, yet we both know that they exist and govern the natural universe.
I held to theistic evolution well into college, yet in the college arena this was a bigger issue of discussion. I heard about it in several talks as well as radio programs, people challenging the theory of evolution. Somewhere in the midst of this I had a huge realization, and that was that the theory of evolution was not a scientific theory but a historical one. This was important because I had always thought that evolution was scientific and science has to do with the real world and it can be tested and proven. What my teachers in my younger years had failed to do was to point out the distinction between "evolution" as a theory of origins and "evolution" as adaptation. The latter is a scientifically observed phenomenon. This is what Darwin saw on his voyages. We see small changes within species, and can test and observe them. This is science and is fact. The former cannot be observed or tested scientifically and is therefore a historical theory. Evolution as a theory of the origin of different species is beyond the scope of the scientific method. It is in the same class as Creationism. Science is based on observation, on testing the natural phenomena around us. Well, since the theory of the origin of species is, by definition, something that happened a long time ago, it therefore cannot be tested in a laboratory and observed. It is not, therefore, a scientific theory but a historical one. All science can do, if we assume uniformitarianism, is show us whether evolution was possible, not whether or not it actually happened.

Now, being your son, I really got into all of the intellectual aspects of what I believed about science and religion. I always wanted to be like you in that way. And so I began to delve into all of the science books I could, books that gave the other side of the story. I still had all of my evolutionary things I was reading because I was in college Biology and Anthropology, my English class had it, as did my Sociology and Psychology classes. It was at this point that I came to realize that what the public schools were teaching was extremely biased information. I won't bore you with all the details, but I will give you one example in light of what you said in your letter. In public school I learned about scientists like Kepler, Francis and Roger Bacon, Copernicus, Galileo, Robert Boyle, Pasteur, Maxwell, Faraday, Lord Kelvin, Joule, Mendel, Agassiz, Pascal, Linnaeus, and, of course, Isaac Newton. I am sure you also recognize most, if not all, of these names. All of them are considered some of the greatest scientists who ever lived and have given us science as we know it today. The problem? Well, my public school textbook (and obviously yours too) never mentioned that every one of these men were dogmatic Biblical Creationists, the ones you mentioned that were from the back woods. Biblical Creationism existed long before Darwin or Wallace ever posited their theory. It obviously existed long before you and I ever heard about it in our college years, but you and I never heard about it because of biased sources presenting what they wanted us to believe about science, not giving us the whole truth. And, by the way, lest we think that they were creationists simply because they were not yet acquainted with modern philosophies, many of them (Agassiz, Kelvin, Maxwell, Pasteur) were opponents of Darwinism. (This is one of the many reasons that we homeschool our children, they will learn a lot more information than the public schools will ever give them.)

Needless to say, I soon became a Creationist. I found the arguments and interpretations of evidence from the Creationists far more convincing, but I do suppose that this is because I was predisposed to that position (just like everyone else who has ever lived). Just as creationists believe in creationism because their beliefs predispose them to, so evolutionists believe in evolution because their religious beliefs predispose them to. Just as creationism is the story of origins for Christianity, so evolution is the story of origins for secular humanism/naturalism/atheism. So I do understand why you believe what you do and also why you despise creationism so much.

So I guess that is my story. There is, of course, much much more that could be said. A few more thoughts that I wanted to clarify before leaving you: 1)I do believe in the physical universe, I do not deny its existence.2)I do believe in Dinosaurs, and so does every creationist I know of. In fact the Bible taught about dinosaurs thousands of years before the first dinosaur fossil was ever discovered.
So again, I hope that no matter what your feelings are, that at least you understand a little more clearly what I believe and how I came to believe it. I hope you don't think this is me trying to teach you new tricks but just explaining to you more about me and my life.
Thanks again for sharing your story. I'm sorry mine was so much longer.

Another Display of Religious Scientists

Once again I was having a discussion with my evolutionary coworker, this time about the moon. I appealed to him about several different facts about the moon that would lead us to believe that the moon and earth are only about 6,000 years old.

The next day he told me he had looked up stuff on the moon the previous evening. He told me that there were six theories about how we got our moon and the age of the moon. So I asked him if any of the six theories was that God created the moon and that it was young. None of the six theories posited the possibility of divine intervention.

This once again demonstrates the religious bias of "scientists". They are able to form theories, taking this data to substantiate their theory, yet all of the theories are atheistic theories. There is one place they cannot go in the interpretation of the data, and that is to God and a creation. Why? Because their religious presuppositions rule out this possibility. They are obligated by their religious beliefs to not even acknowledge the possibility of one theory (creation) while not having enough data to substantiate any of their own theories. Yet if a creationist took all of the evidence I bet all of it would fit perfectly into a young creation model. But thats not allowed. Why? Is it science or religion that prevents it? Well, science would allow all theories and then the theory which best explains all of the evidence would be "the most scientific". Yet to disallow a theory because it is not a naturalistic theory, because it appeals to something beyond what your religious beliefs will allow, well that isn't science, its religious intolerance. And such intolerance is vibrantly displayed on "scintific" websites such as the one my coworker visited.

Religious Rock Dating

I have much enjoyed a new found way of approaching the religious tenets of evolutionary thinking this week. The approach came from a simple chart that I saw last week. It simply showed that both evolutionists and creationists had a piece of data (fact), an unchanging assumption, and then a variable conclusion.

Now when I first looked at this it really didn’t impact me, but when I began to really think about its implications and how it could be used to illustrate presuppositions it was great. I have since used it several times in illustrating to evolutionists that their evolutionism is just as religious as creationism and Christianity. Let me explain.

First, we see that there is an observed fact, something both camps and scientists see. In this case it is a rock with an observed amount of an isotope in it. We agree about how mush of the isotope is in the rock. This is the fact. But it is at this point that we part ways, because now our religious presuppositions enter into the equation.

The next part of the chart is labeled the “unchanging assumption”. For creationists the unchanging assumption is the age of the earth. We believe the earth to be about 6,000 years old, based upon the Bible. This is an assumption that we bring to the table, and this is static, it doesn’t change. This is what we assume to be true, and therefore we examine the rock with the isotope in light of this assumption. Doing the math we then come to the conclusion about the rate of decay and starting isotope level within this rock.

Now the evolutionist uses exactly the same method but changes the assumption and conclusion. He believes that the rate of decay and the amount of isotopes that the rock began with are unchanging and then dates the rock according to the math.
What we need to see here is that both camps use unprovable assumptions. These are presuppositions that they believe to be true but cannot prove to be true. Take the evolutionists assumption about the unchanging rate of decay. Now lets say that he has found from scientific research that it takes 10 years to create .0001 milligrams of this particular isotope. This is then his rate of decay. So then he finds that the rock contains 100 milligrams of the isotope. Well, doing the math, this means that the rock is 1,000,000 years old. Pretty simple and straight forward. Or is it? Do you see all of the assumptions that have taken place? Here are a few.

1) The scientist has assumed that the rate of decay is the same now as it was a thousand years ago. Does he know it is the same? No! He wasn’t there and there weren’t scientists back then that studied the rate of decay. It is an assumption that he cannot prove.

2) The scientist has also assumed that there was none of this isotope existing in the rock when it was formed. He has assumed that there was 0 of this particular isotope and now there is 100 milligrams. How does he know there wasn’t 10 milligrams when it was created? 20? 99? He doesn’t. It is also an assumption.

3) He has also assumed that there was no contamination. This means that there was not some outer force that contributed some more of the isotope into the rock apart from the decay within the rock. Was he there a thousand years ago to know that there wasn’t something that contaminated this rock? Has he been able to observe the rock every moment the last thousand years to make sure there is no contamination? No. His belief that the rock has not been altered by contamination is also an assumption.

All of this is to say that both evolutionists and creationists base their interpretation of data upon assumptions, assumptions that are determined by their preexisting beliefs about the world (aka worldview).
Using this I simply ask my evolutionary friends how their assumption is scientific. Why is one set of assumptions scientific while another is not. There is, of course, no answer. And so once again we have another demonstration of the fact that evolutionists operate as much upon their religious assumptions as creationists do.

Some May Trust in Horses...

Some may trust in horses, some may trust in chariots but we will trust… in homeschooling. “Okay, so that’s not how the verse goes. It really ends with “but we will trust in our curriculums.” No? How about, “But we will trust in our formulas”? Hmmm. “Rules?”
What exactly do we trust in? If you are anything like me then you (or I) am always looking for the silver bullet. You know, that thing that will guarantee my desired outcome for my children, my marriage, my relationship with God, my job, my (put whatever you want here). I want the quick fix, the ‘this is how you do it’ formula that, if I carry it out to the letter, assures me of the result I want. We do it in almost everything, don’t we? If I can only find the right history curriculum (I think we’re on our third now, and looking for a fourth) then my children will have a biblical view of the world. If only there were a certain type of math, literature, science, or Bible curriculum. We just want something we know will give our children a biblical worldview. No, let me rephrase that. We all want something we know will make our children Christians.
This isn’t limited to just curriculum. It’s in everything we do. If I only keep them from this TV program or from watching certain kinds of movies, or playing video games or certain types of music. Maybe if we go to a certain kind of church or keep them from certain kinds of kids, then my kids will come out the way I want them to be.
You see, we are all legalists at heart. Just like the Israelites, we acquire a set of laws or rules and then think that we can do it ourselves. We think we can attain godliness or at least achieve it in our children through certain prescribed methods or practices. Israel thought the same way. Though the law was never given to them so that they could earn salvation, they took certain practices and Scriptures and turned them into the formula for “godliness” and salvation. But the law could not save then, nor can tradition or a particular lifestyle save our children today. The truth is that there is no Christian panacea. There is only One that can save our children and give them correct worldviews and morals and Christian virtues: Jesus Christ.
We must trust and depend on Him to do this. We must trust and depend on Him to open their eyes and give them understanding. We must trust and depend on Him because it is what we are supposed to do. Anything else is idolatry. The point of the law was for the Israelites to trust and depend on God, not themselves! The Christian life is all about this one thing: trusting and depending on God in Jesus Christ. We must trust Him for our salvation and our children’s. We must trust Him for our daily food and for our intellect and for the sun. When we disciple (school) our children both the goal and the means to the goal are the same, and that is to trust in God.
I write this because I know my own propensity to lock myself into trusting just about everything but God, especially as a homeschooler. I have to realize that just because something worked one day that it doesn’t mean that I then trust it instead of God. We should not homeschool because it’s “the proven method”, but because we trust in God. Homeschooling works not because it is homeschooling but because of the sheer grace and power of God. “Some may trust in horses, some may trust in chariots, but we will trust in the name of the LORD our God!”

Why No One Really Believes in Evolution pt1

Have you heard of the madman that stood at the busy street corner announcing through his bull-horn, “I have discovered the truth that no one can know truth!”? Or the professor that proclaimed in his philosophy class, “I have logically proven that there is no logic.” Or the university lecturer that said, “All words are meaningless.” What do these three have in common? None of them really believed what they were professing to believe. The one who believed that words have no meaning was using “meaningful words” to attempt to communicate his belief. The madman believed that he knew the “truth” that he was teaching. And the professor was dependent upon the logic which he was trying to destroy. Each of these men might have thought that what they were saying was true, but they really didn’t believe it. Like so many others across the face of this vast planet, these men suffered from a sort of “intellectual schizophrenia”. Though they professed to believe one thing, their deeds acted contrary to their profession.

We are no strangers to this idea. One of the favorite mudslingers of our day is to call someone a “hypocrite”. When this charge is leveled, it is because people are seen acting contrary to their professed belief. We yearn for peoples actions to be consistent with their words. Now you may have noticed the usage of the term “words” and “professed beliefs”. This is intentional, because there is often a vast difference between a profession of belief and true belief. The profession is what someone thinks they believe, but true belief is in how they act. In others words, what you do is what you believe, not what you say. The professors words said, “There is no logic!” while his actions proclaimed “I believe in logic!” This disparity between profession and belief is also found in modern evolutionary thought, for though evolutionists proclaim one belief they deny that very belief in the way they think. Why??? See the next blog.

Why No One Really Believes in Evolution pt2

First, a brief definition will be helpful to understand who and what we are talking about when we talk about evolution and evolutionists. There are a myriad of definitions for evolution, but what I am specifically addressing here is the belief of evolution “as a comprehensive model of origins”. In other words evolution is the belief that everything generally, and man specifically, have arisen by purely natural processes through millions or billions of years to become what we are today. As Carl Sagan says, “It is the universe that made us. We are creatures of the cosmos.” This is the evolution of which millions profess and yet none truly believe.

What evolutionists are claiming by “purely natural processes” is that there was no supernatural intervention in the creation of man. This means that there is no design to the human being, no purpose to any of his organs, and no intent behind his existence. Christians often claim that what evolutionists are saying is that we, the human race, are a mistake. This is not true, for “mistake” assumes original intent. There is no intent, no purpose, or thought, or meaning or plan. According to evolutionary theory you are just a random conglomeration of time, chance, matter, energy and chemical combustion. You do not exist to survive, to thrive, to think or to do anything else. There is no “meaning” or purpose behind you, your senses, or your brain. It is at this very point that the problem arises for evolutionists. Let me explain.

On the one hand the evolutionists are asserting that their minds are the product of random, meaningless, non-logical, purposeless forces and yet, on the other hand, are trying to reason, think and use logic. Therein lays the contradiction. If you believe that your mind is the product of random, purposeless forces, that it was not meant to think or to reason, that intelligence and logic are mere concoctions of this hodgepodge of chemicals, and that your senses are not designed to sense, then why would you attempt to use reason, to understand data, and to use the laws of logic? How could any evolutionists think that they can think coherently and that their minds can rationally understand reality?

Lets picture this another way. According to evolution our minds are just the random happenstance of time plus energy plus matter. They were not designed to think or to reason, to know or to interpret data. In fact they came about for no reason whatsoever. This being the case there is no difference between a brain and a rock in their design to reason. Or for that matter milk bubbles, Franks Hot Sauce (that’s good stuff!!), intestinal gas or grass. Each of these was designed to think in the same way, it wasn’t. They are all just random non-intelligent chemicals that happened to have come together through time.

to be continued...

Why No One Really Believes in Evolution pt3

Now we all trust our minds and the thoughts that arise from them because we believe our minds to be logical, reasonable, rational, intelligent and coherent. Each of these traits is central to knowing anything, to positing any truth, to making any kind of a rational decision, to science, to math, and more specifically to thought itself. And yet if, as evolution maintains, the brain is the accumulation of millions of years of unguided, unintended chemical processes, if it is merely the composition of matter plus energy, then where does reason, logic, rationality and intelligence arise from?

Just the other day I was conversing with an evolutionist about his beliefs. I asked him why he believed in evolution, to which he responded, “Logic.” I found the answer quite interesting. I then asked him, “Is matter intelligent?”
He answered, “No.”
“Is energy intelligent?”
Again, “No.”
“Hmmm...” I continued. “Did you ever take math in school?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me then, what is 0+0?”
“Zero.”, he replied.
“All the time?”
“Yes, all the time”.
I then queried, “So if I take zero intelligence and add zero intelligence to it, how much intelligence do we get?”
“Ummm, zero.”
“And if we add zero plus zero for a thousand years? A million? A billion? How much intelligence do we get by adding another factor without intelligence?”
Silence.
I then pressed the dialogue, “The same is true of logic, of reason, of rationality, of knowledge. If you add a zillion non-logical chemicals together how much logic do you get? Zero. Where then did intelligence, logic and reason come from?”

Zero intelligence plus zero intelligence equals zero intelligence. Zero logic plus zero logic equals zero logic. Where, then, does intelligence arise from (in the human brain or anywhere else for that matter) when there is no intelligent source or origin? Is “intelligence” just a combination of certain chemicals? Is logic a different chemical combination? And reason a third? And if so, how does any combination of non-intelligent chemicals make intelligence? And Logic? And Reason? The answer, of course, is that they don’t. Zero plus zero still equals zero.

In evolution thought is simply the gaseous excretions of the chemical combustions of the goo in your head. These excretions are no different from any other excretions from any other part of your body, or any other “living” thing. They are all just chemicals interacting and combusting. So what makes the gaseous excretions in a skull intelligent or meaningful while the random gaseous excretions from intestines are not? So what in the world would cause an evolutionist to think that his mind is a reliable guide that gives meaningful insights and has accurate interpretations of laws of logic and physical phenomena? If he really believed evolution how could he possibly believe that this mass of random chemical goo called his “brain” is intelligent or rational? How is his conglomeration of random chemicals (brain), or anyone else’s, any different from any other conglomeration of random chemicals such as Alka-Seltzer, soda-pop or dirt?

To be continued...

Why No One Really Believes in Evolution pt4

In evolution thought is simply the gaseous excretions of the chemical combustions of the goo in your head. These excretions are no different from any other excretions from any other part of your body, or any other “living” thing. They are all just chemicals interacting and combusting. So what makes the gaseous excretions in a skull intelligent or meaningful while the random gaseous excretions from intestines are not? So what in the world would cause an evolutionist to think that his mind is a reliable guide that gives meaningful insights and has accurate interpretations of laws of logic and physical phenomena? If he really believed evolution how could he possibly believe that this mass of random chemical goo called his “brain” is intelligent or rational? How is his conglomeration of random chemicals (brain), or anyone else’s, any different from any other conglomeration of random chemicals such as Alka-Seltzer, soda-pop or dirt?

To this problem a friend of mine answered, “Some day they may find the difference between thought and non-thought and give us an answer, it’s just not known yet.” To which I responded, “Don’t you see that their “answers” are just the gaseous excretions of the goo in their heads?” In other words, we can postulate an “answer”, but the “answer” is just the unorganized haphazard excretions of yet another unorganized haphazard mass of chemicals that we call a human being. How then can we trust their “answer”? We may postulate all we want that someday someone might find some quantitative difference between cognition, flatulation, and what rocks dream about, but the point is that they are all still non-rational matter. It is just nature taking its course. Any combination of any number of non-rational chemicals does not and cannot create rationality or intelligence. No matter how many chemicals we add or what combinations we use, they are still non-intelligent non-rational chemicals, and nothing plus nothing equals…

There is, therefore, no reason to believe that our minds and thoughts correspond to reality, or, for that matter, our senses. (In fact, we can’t even know if we have senses, for though the random chemicals in our skulls are “telling” us this through their random combustions, how can we truly trust that those random combustions are in any way reflecting reality?) How can an unordered chaotic mass of goo create or find order in an unordered chaotic universe? We must remember that our minds are not trying to decide truth or discern truth, they are not attempting to make sense out of the world, they are not endeavoring to gather data, but our minds are merely chemicals purposelessly doing what they do. It’s simply nature doing what nature does.

Have you ever been asked the question, “What were you thinking??” Well, in an evolutionary world the basic answer is, “I wasn’t. It was just nature taking its course in my head!” There is no thinking “intelligently”, “logically” or “rationally” but only naturally, and that kind of thought we have no control over . The evolutionist often fails to realize this truth. There is therefore no distinction between rationality and irrationality in an evolutionary world, because it is just nature taking its course. There is neither logical thinking nor illogical thinking, for all thinking is not thinking at all but nature simply doing what it does. Therefore any reference to “being logical” or “being intelligent” is nonsense.

We therefore see that the evolutionary worldview, by its very definition, destroys all possibility of objective knowledge, logic, reason and intelligence. It undermines all academic study and subverts the possibility of coherent thought. Yet I have yet to meet or ever hear of any evolutionist who rejects his own reason or the laws of logic. They all continue to uphold their intelligence though they know that evolution cannot explain or produce it.

to be continued...

Why No One Really Believes in Evolution pt5

I remember the time that my essay “Of Evolution and Alka-Seltzer” got posted on an atheist/evolutionist website, which prompted dozens of responses. Not surprisingly every one of these responses made appeal to laws of logic and reason and evidence, only further validating the argument presented in the essay. What these fellows failed to realize was that their attempt to make a distinction between what was logical and illogical, their attempt to make a distinction between right and wrong ideas and reasonable and unreasonable thoughts completely destroyed the foundation of their evolutionism. The more they appealed to such concepts the more they denied the reality of their belief. They cannot appeal to any standard of logic, reason, rationality or truth because evolution undermines the possibility of logic, reason, rationality and truth. If they really believed evolution they would realize there is no distinction between what is logical and what is not, but that their mind just does what it does because it is natural for it to do so.

And yet they continue to believe that they are capable of making choices. They continue to believe that there are objective standards of logic and rationality. They continue to believe that they have meaningful thoughts, that their ideas correspond to reality, that they are capable of intelligence and are themselves intelligent beings. They believe that they do have senses, and that what those senses intake correspond to reality, and that the transfer of the data from those senses to their brains is an accurate transmission, and that the brains interpretation of the data is accurate, and that they make reasonable choices in accordance with all of that data. In so doing they fail treat their minds as products of evolution.

And so, just like the madmen mentioned at the beginning, there stands the evolutionist declaring, “With my reason, logic, intellect, knowledge and rationality I believe in evolution.” In other words, “Logically, there is no logic! With my rational mind I have determined that there are no rational minds! With my reason I have ascertained that there is no reason! From all of the knowledge that I have obtained I have determined that there is no knowledge! From the depths of my intelligence I have concluded that there is no intelligence in the universe!” Why? Because they really believe that they are far more than just random, impersonal, unintelligent, non-rational, non-logical combinations of matter and energy. In the end, they do not really believe in evolution. They might shout it from the rooftops and write it in their books and live it in their moral choices, but they flatly deny it in the way they think.

Why No One Really Believes in Evolution (the whole thing and its long, believe me!)

Have you heard of the madman that stood at the busy street corner announcing through his bull-horn, “I have discovered the truth that no one can know truth!”? Or the professor that proclaimed in his philosophy class, “I have logically proven that there is no logic.” Or the university lecturer that said, “All words are meaningless.” What do these three have in common? None of them really believed what they were professing to believe. The one who believed that words have no meaning was using “meaningful words” to attempt to communicate his belief. The madman believed that he knew the “truth” that he was teaching. And the professor was dependent upon the logic which he was trying to destroy. Each of these men might have thought that what they were saying was true, but they really didn’t believe it. Like so many others across the face of this vast planet, these men suffered from a sort of “intellectual schizophrenia”. Though they professed to believe one thing, their deeds acted contrary to their profession.

We are no strangers to this idea. One of the favorite mudslingers of our day is to call someone a “hypocrite”. When this charge is leveled, it is because people are seen acting contrary to their professed belief. We yearn for peoples actions to be consistent with their words. Now you may have noticed the usage of the term “words” and “professed beliefs”. This is intentional, because there is often a vast difference between a profession of belief and true belief. The profession is what someone thinks they believe, but true belief is in how they act. In others words, what you do is what you believe, not what you say. The professors words said, “There is no logic!” while his actions proclaimed “I believe in logic!” This disparity between profession and belief is also found in modern evolutionary thought, for though evolutionists proclaim one belief they deny that very belief in the way they think. Here is why…

First, a brief definition will be helpful to understand who and what we are talking about when we talk about evolution and evolutionists. There are a myriad of definitions for evolution, but what I am specifically addressing here is the belief of evolution “as a comprehensive model of origins”. In other words evolution is the belief that everything generally, and man specifically, have arisen by purely natural processes through millions or billions of years to become what we are today. As Carl Sagan says, “It is the universe that made us. We are creatures of the cosmos.” This is the evolution of which millions profess and yet none truly believe.

What evolutionists are claiming by “purely natural processes” is that there was no supernatural intervention in the creation of man. This means that there is no design to the human being, no purpose to any of his organs, and no intent behind his existence. Christians often claim that what evolutionists are saying is that we, the human race, are a mistake. This is not true, for “mistake” assumes original intent. There is no intent, no purpose, or thought, or meaning or plan. According to evolutionary theory you are just a random conglomeration of time, chance, matter, energy and chemical combustion. You do not exist to survive, to thrive, to think or to do anything else. There is no “meaning” or purpose behind you, your senses, or your brain. It is at this very point that the problem arises for evolutionists. Let me explain.

On the one hand the evolutionists are asserting that their minds are the product of random, meaningless, non-logical, purposeless forces and yet, on the other hand, are trying to reason, think and use logic. Therein lays the contradiction. If you believe that your mind is the product of random, purposeless forces, that it was not meant to think or to reason, that intelligence and logic are mere concoctions of this hodgepodge of chemicals, and that your senses are not designed to sense, then why would you attempt to use reason, to understand data, and to use the laws of logic? How could any evolutionists think that they can think coherently and that their minds can rationally understand reality?

Lets picture this another way. According to evolution our minds are just the random happenstance of time plus energy plus matter. They were not designed to think or to reason, to know or to interpret data. In fact they came about for no reason whatsoever. This being the case there is no difference between a brain and a rock in their design to reason. Or for that matter milk bubbles, Franks Hot Sauce (that’s good stuff!!), intestinal gas or grass. Each of these was designed to think in the same way, it wasn’t. They are all just random non-intelligent chemicals that happened to have come together through time.

Now we all trust our minds and the thoughts that arise from them because we believe our minds to be logical, reasonable, rational, intelligent and coherent. Each of these traits is central to knowing anything, to positing any truth, to making any kind of a rational decision, to science, to math, and more specifically to thought itself. And yet if, as evolution maintains, the brain is the accumulation of millions of years of unguided, unintended chemical processes, if it is merely the composition of matter plus energy, then where does reason, logic, rationality and intelligence arise from?

Just the other day I was conversing with an evolutionist about his beliefs. I asked him why he believed in evolution, to which he responded, “Logic.” I found the answer quite interesting. I then asked him, “Is matter intelligent?”
He answered, “No.”
“Is energy intelligent?”
Again, “No.”
“Hmmm...” I continued. “Did you ever take math in school?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me then, what is 0+0?”
“Zero.”, he replied.
“All the time?”
“Yes, all the time”.
I then queried, “So if I take zero intelligence and add zero intelligence to it, how much intelligence do we get?”
“Ummm, zero.”
“And if we add zero plus zero for a thousand years? A million? A billion? How much intelligence do we get by adding another factor without intelligence?”
Silence.
I then pressed the dialogue, “The same is true of logic, of reason, of rationality, of knowledge. If you add a zillion non-logical chemicals together how much logic do you get? Zero. Where then did intelligence, logic and reason come from?”

Zero intelligence plus zero intelligence equals zero intelligence. Zero logic plus zero logic equals zero logic. Where, then, does intelligence arise from (in the human brain or anywhere else for that matter) when there is no intelligent source or origin? Is “intelligence” just a combination of certain chemicals? Is logic a different chemical combination? And reason a third? And if so, how does any combination of non-intelligent chemicals make intelligence? And Logic? And Reason? The answer, of course, is that they don’t. Zero plus zero still equals zero.

In evolution thought is simply the gaseous excretions of the chemical combustions of the goo in your head. These excretions are no different from any other excretions from any other part of your body, or any other “living” thing. They are all just chemicals interacting and combusting. So what makes the gaseous excretions in a skull intelligent or meaningful while the random gaseous excretions from intestines are not? So what in the world would cause an evolutionist to think that his mind is a reliable guide that gives meaningful insights and has accurate interpretations of laws of logic and physical phenomena? If he really believed evolution how could he possibly believe that this mass of random chemical goo called his “brain” is intelligent or rational? How is his conglomeration of random chemicals (brain), or anyone else’s, any different from any other conglomeration of random chemicals such as Alka-Seltzer, soda-pop or dirt?

To this problem a friend of mine answered, “Some day they may find the difference between thought and non-thought and give us an answer, it’s just not known yet.” To which I responded, “Don’t you see that their “answers” are just the gaseous excretions of the goo in their heads?” In other words, we can postulate an “answer”, but the “answer” is just the unorganized haphazard excretions of yet another unorganized haphazard mass of chemicals that we call a human being. How then can we trust their “answer”? We may postulate all we want that someday someone might find some quantitative difference between cognition, flatulation, and what rocks dream about, but the point is that they are all still non-rational matter. It is just nature taking its course. Any combination of any number of non-rational chemicals does not and cannot create rationality or intelligence. No matter how many chemicals we add or what combinations we use, they are still non-intelligent non-rational chemicals, and nothing plus nothing equals…

There is, therefore, no reason to believe that our minds and thoughts correspond to reality, or, for that matter, our senses. (In fact, we can’t even know if we have senses, for though the random chemicals in our skulls are “telling” us this through their random combustions, how can we truly trust that those random combustions are in any way reflecting reality?) How can an unordered chaotic mass of goo create or find order in an unordered chaotic universe? We must remember that our minds are not trying to decide truth or discern truth, they are not attempting to make sense out of the world, they are not endeavoring to gather data, but our minds are merely chemicals purposelessly doing what they do. It’s simply nature doing what nature does.

Have you ever been asked the question, “What were you thinking??” Well, in an evolutionary world the basic answer is, “I wasn’t. It was just nature taking its course in my head!” There is no thinking “intelligently”, “logically” or “rationally” but only naturally, and that kind of thought we have no control over . The evolutionist often fails to realize this truth. There is therefore no distinction between rationality and irrationality in an evolutionary world, because it is just nature taking its course. There is neither logical thinking nor illogical thinking, for all thinking is not thinking at all but nature simply doing what it does. Therefore any reference to “being logical” or “being intelligent” is nonsense.

We therefore see that the evolutionary worldview, by its very definition, destroys all possibility of objective knowledge, logic, reason and intelligence. It undermines all academic study and subverts the possibility of coherent thought. Yet I have yet to meet or ever hear of any evolutionist who rejects his own reason or the laws of logic. They all continue to uphold their intelligence though they know that evolution cannot explain or produce it.

I remember the time that my essay “Of Evolution and Alka-Seltzer” got posted on an atheist/evolutionist website, which prompted dozens of responses. Not surprisingly every one of these responses made appeal to laws of logic and reason and evidence, only further validating the argument presented in the essay. What these fellows failed to realize was that their attempt to make a distinction between what was logical and illogical, their attempt to make a distinction between right and wrong ideas and reasonable and unreasonable thoughts completely destroyed the foundation of their evolutionism. The more they appealed to such concepts the more they denied the reality of their belief. They cannot appeal to any standard of logic, reason, rationality or truth because evolution undermines the possibility of logic, reason, rationality and truth. If they really believed evolution they would realize there is no distinction between what is logical and what is not, but that their mind just does what it does because it is natural for it to do so.

And yet they continue to believe that they are capable of making choices. They continue to believe that there are objective standards of logic and rationality. They continue to believe that they have meaningful thoughts, that their ideas correspond to reality, that they are capable of intelligence and are themselves intelligent beings. They believe that they do have senses, and that what those senses intake correspond to reality, and that the transfer of the data from those senses to their brains is an accurate transmission, and that the brains interpretation of the data is accurate, and that they make reasonable choices in accordance with all of that data. In so doing they fail treat their minds as products of evolution.

And so, just like the madmen mentioned at the beginning, there stands the evolutionist declaring, “With my reason, logic, intellect, knowledge and rationality I believe in evolution.” In other words, “Logically, there is no logic! With my rational mind I have determined that there are no rational minds! With my reason I have ascertained that there is no reason! From all of the knowledge that I have obtained I have determined that there is no knowledge! From the depths of my intelligence I have concluded that there is no intelligence in the universe!” Why? Because they really believe that they are far more than just random, impersonal, unintelligent, non-rational, non-logical combinations of matter and energy. In the end, they do not really believe in evolution. They might shout it from the rooftops and write it in their books and live it in their moral choices, but they flatly deny it in the way they think.

Just for Fun

Homeschooling and the Resurrection

Over the past few weeks I have been given the opportunity to work alongside a Jehovah’s Witness. You can probably imagine the conversations we have engaged in during this time. Several of our talks have revolved around celebrating holidays, including Easter. For those of you that are unaware, Jehovah’s Witnesses do not celebrate holidays, including Easter. The reasons that my friend gave me for their abstaining from these celebrations were many, including that the days were originally pagan holidays and that they are full of pagan traditions. “Why, as a Christian, would I want to celebrate these things?” he asked. I responded, “Why, as a Christian, would I not want to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ?” The “Easter” holiday can be filled with many non-Christian concepts, if we allow it to. Yet, it can also be the most meaningful celebration of the year for us and our families if our focus is on the right things.

As homeschoolers we are attempting to disciple our children in the ways of the LORD. We are doing this through educating them in many different subjects and tying all of these subjects into the grand theme of Christianity. Well, Christianity is about the three days that we usually celebrate around the Easter weekend each year. In my home we make a big deal about the entire weekend because I believe that the events we are celebrating are the most important events in all of history. In fact, all of history centers on these events. Everything that ever happened before these three days pointed forward to them, and every moment since then points back at them. These three days are the climax of history, and not only history but also of science, of math, of literature, of thought. The very meaning of our existence is to glorify and enjoy God, yet this cannot be done apart from belief and trust in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This, therefore, is the unifying factor of all education, or at least it should be. Every subject is meant to point us to trusting in the Creator and Savior of all things: Jesus Christ. After all, what good is a knowledge of math apart from relationship with its Creator, and how can one have a saving relationship with math’s Creator apart from the crucifixion and resurrection? Science is the study and enjoyment of creation, but what good is the enjoyment of creation if our ultimate enjoyment is not found in creation’s Creator, which comes by way of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ? All of creation is given to us that we might make much of the Creator, that we would worship Him, yet for us to be able to do so me must go through the Way, Jesus Christ and him crucified. As Paul taught, “For I resolved not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”(1 Cor 2:2) It doesn’t mean he didn’t know anything else, but that this truth was the unifying factor of everything else he knew. Its what gave everything else meaning and was the ultimate purpose of all that he did. No wonder he proclaimed, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Gal 6:14)

This Easter season let us be reminded that the events which we celebrate are what bring meaning to homeschooling. As we commemorate Easter lets remember its centrality to our curriculum, to how we teach and what we teach, and ever glorify the wisdom and power of God displayed in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

First Things First

The story is told of Muhammed Ali that once, during the prime of his career, he was taking a flight over the Atlantic Ocean. During the flight the plane encountered some turbulence and the seatbelt lights came on. Everyone returned to their seats except for Ali, who continued to walk around the plane. A small female stewardess approached him and said, “Sir, you need to return to your seat and put on your seat belt for safety.” Ali, in his inimitable style, replied “Superman don’t need no seat belt!” To which the petite stewardess responded, “Superman don’t need no airplane either, so sit down and get buckled!”

I have only flown overseas one time in my life, and that when I was much younger, but I have heard it said that during the preflight safety instructions that are given to all the passengers that there are some specific instructions given to passengers flying with children. One of these instructions is that if the plane depressurizes and the oxygen masks are deployed, that the adult is to place their oxygen mask on themselves before attempting to help anyone else put theirs on, even their own children! I was shocked! I know I can go without oxygen for longer than my kids. They need it more than I do. That is our paternal instinct, to give to them first. Yet when I heard the explanation as to why this is done, it all made sense. You see, those little ones are dependent upon you and if you run out of oxygen then neither you nor they will get any oxygen in the end. You must be able to breathe and think coherently in order to help them breathe. They are helpless without you and you are helpless without oxygen, so therefore you must first get air in order to rightly care for them.

As homeschooling fathers, we have undoubtedly read the words of Deuteronomy 6 on how we are to raise our children. Most of us can probably even recite some of the words. “Teach them to your children when you sit at home, when you walk along the road…”. But what immediately precedes these instructions on teaching Gods Word to our children? Here is the passage:
“Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”

What immediately precedes how we are to teach our children is the admonition that first, we must love and worship the Lord ourselves. First, we must breathe. We are to love God with all of our heart and soul and strength. We are to impress his commandments upon our hearts first. It becomes very easy to replace our own relationship with God with our children’s relationship with God. We put our efforts into seeing where they are, into leading them to God and yet we often neglect our own relationship with Him. We often judge how well we are doing in our relationship with God by looking at our children’s relationship with Him, We mistake this for personal closeness when in reality we are ignoring our own relationship and never giving full weight to our closeness with God.

Perhaps the largest stumbling block in my own life has been to make my children into idols, in the sense that I work so diligently and think so often about where they are heading and yet neglect my own relationship with God Himself. In essence, I am starving myself of oxygen. How can my children truly worship God if I am not? Men, our most important practice in life is worshipping God. It is what we were made for. We must grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ because He is our God and we are His people. First we must strive to love Him with all of our heart and soul and mind and strength because He is our Savior. When this is done then we will naturally teach and manifest to our children the true love of God.

Christmas Gifts

What is the measure of the goodness of a gift? How do we assess the value or goodness of the gifts that we give and are given? Is it the amount of money spent on the gift? Is it the amount of thought put into the gift? Is it the amount of time exhausted in the making or acquiring of the gift? Is it in how much the recipient wanted the gift? Is it how much time they will spend using it? All of these are factors but none of them determine the true value of a gift.

In the movie The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe there is a scene where Peter, Susan and Lucy meet Father Christmas. As they finish their time together Father Christmas gives each of them gifts, but the gifts seemed to me very unusual. He gives Lucy a dagger and a healing potion, Susan a bow and arrow and Peter a sword. These are probably not the gifts they were expecting from Father Christmas. Maybe the newest Barbie or a CD player, a Playstation or the latest thing to enter the market is what they were thinking and what they wanted. But he gives them these gifts. Why? Because these gifts were extremely useful in their love for and service to Aslan. They were gifts that equipped and aided them in making much of their King.

The true value of a gift is measured by how much that gift will help and support the recipient in making much of our King, Jesus Christ, forever. That, after all, is the highest, the greatest good and most valuable end in the entire world. When we think of the greatest gift ever given, what do we think of? The death of Christ. And what was the goal of this gift? “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.” (I Pet 3:18) The ultimate goal of this most precious above all gifts was “to bring us to God”. So, too, with our gifts.
So what are these gifts? Are they swords and daggers? Maybe, maybe not. I did hear of something that we can give (and receive) that is so valuable that its “proceeds are better than the profits of silver, and her gain than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies, and all the things you may desire cannot compare with her. Length of days is in her right hand, in her left hand riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her, and happy are all who retain her.” Sadly, we can’t run down to the nearest Stuff-Mart or Get-a-Lot to buy her. On the bright side, with prayer we can buy gifts that either contain her or at least can impart a lot of her. She, of course, is wisdom.

As I examine Scripture it is apparent that wisdom is the most useful asset for bringing people to God. It is, therefore, the most important asset for life and we are implored to get it and to give it to our wives and children. “Get wisdom! Get understanding! Do not forget, nor turn away from the words of my mouth. Do not forsake her, and she will preserve you; love her, and she will keep you. Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding.” (Prov. 4:5-7)

So how? And what? Well, we must first know what aspects of wisdom we are most wanting our children to obtain, and then pick gifts that will develop this area of wisdom through engaging each child’s unique characteristics, thus developing them into godly adults. Therefore, gift giving will be different for everyone, but the key, in the end, is that our giving of gifts be a bestowal of wisdom, an imparting of the fear and love of God. These are the most valuable gifts of all.

A Key Ingredient

Candy, glorious candy. As a child there were few things that ranked higher on my list of “things to do” than to eat candy. I remember vividly on one occasion I was rummaging through the kitchen drawers and cupboards when I saw, in the baking drawer, an entire bar of chocolate. I couldn’t believe my eyes! Being as wise as I was, I thought it best not to eat the chocolate bar right away, for my parents might be using it to make something for dinner during the week. So I sat back (rather impatiently) and waited. Days went by and then a couple of weeks. What fortune! They had forgotten about the candy bar in the drawer! I couldn’t just leave it there to go bad, so one day when I was craving something sweet I decided to put the chocolate bar out of its misery. Oh, how I carefully unwrapped it, savoring each tear of the packaging, I broke off the first chunk of chocolate goodness and delicately put it into my mouth…

Have you ever tasted unsweetened chocolate? ..........If you haven’t, then take my advice and don’t. It’s…well, it’s…not good. Why? Well, it isn’t because it’s not chocolate, because it is. The problem with unsweetened chocolate is that it is missing a key ingredient, without which it is truly dissatisfying and altogether disappointing.

The point is this, you can have everything it takes to make something wonderful, but if you leave out one key ingredient it might turn into something “not good”.

The same is true of homeschooling. There are thousands of households around Colorado and the nation that are homeschooling but many of these families are missing one of the key ingredients to make it a successful homeschool:FATHERS; fathers that are an active part of the discipleship of their children. Moms are doing a fantastic job of teaching their children and instructing them in righteousness, but if fathers are not a part of this instruction then the children in that home are missing a vital piece of their training. God has clearly stated in His Word that fathers are to play a major role in the discipleship of children, that they are to be the prophets (those who communicate God’s Word) of their homes, and that the father playing this role is a key ingredient to the success of those children.

So are you? I’m not asking if you come home every night, or if you even eat dinner with your family. These are great, but just being physically present is not enough. Are you spending time interacting with your children? What does this interaction look like? It could be spending 15 minutes doing math or grammar with the kids or reading a book to them. The practical outworking of this is different for everyone but what is common is that time is being spent connecting with your children, discussing with them the things that they are learning, asking them questions and teaching them the truth of God. The hours spent between the time you get home and the time your children go to bed are the most important hours of the homeschool day. How are they being spent?

Goals

I recently read a letter written many years ago from a father to his children. The words are striking, convicting and, most of all, inspiring. I share some of them with you here.

“You cannot doubt, my children, that your parents love you. In all your recollections, we have a witness to this. We have, as you know, done everything to promote your welfare, and so far as was compatible with this object, your pleasure also. We have never denied you a gratification which our duty and ability allowed us to impart; and if at any time we have been severe in reproof, even this was an awful form of love. We have spared no expense in your education: in short, love, an intense love... has been the secret spring of all our conduct towards you; and, as the strongest proof and purest effort of our affection, we wish you to be partakers of true piety.

…Genuine love desires and seeks for the objects on which it is fixed the greatest benefits of which they are capable; and as you have the capacity to serve, and enjoy and glorify God by true religion, how can we love you in reality, if we do not covet for you this high and holy distinction? We should feel that our love had exhausted itself upon trifles, and had let go objects of immense, infinite, eternal consequence, if it were not to concentrate all its prayers, desires, and efforts in your personal religion.

Almost every parent has some one object, which he desires, above all others, on behalf of his children. Some are anxious that their offspring may shine as warriors; others, that theirs may be surrounded with the milder radiance of literary, scientific, and commercial fame. Our supreme ambition for you is, that whatever situation you occupy, you may adorn it with the beauties of holiness, and may discharge its duties under the influence of Christian principles. Much as we desire your respectability in life, yet we would rather see you in the most obscure, and even menial situation, provided you were partakers of true piety, than behold you on the loftiest pinnacle of the temple of fame, the objects of universal admiration, if, at the same time, your hearts were destitute of the fear of God....

You must be aware, my dear children, that all our conduct towards you has been conducted upon these principles. Before you were capable of receiving instruction, we presented ceaseless prayer to God for your personal piety. As soon as reason dawned, we poured the light of religious instruction upon your mind, by the aid of familiar poetry, catechisms, and conversation. How often have you retired with us, to become the subjects of our earnest supplications at the throne of grace! You have been witnesses of our agony for your eternal welfare. Have we not instructed, warned, admonished, encouraged you, as we laid open to your view the narrow path which leadeth to eternal life?” 1
What are the goals that we have set up in our home schools? What are the highest pursuits of our love for our children? True love for our children, and all true education, has as its ultimate end that we prepare and equip our children to be able to make much of Jesus Christ in word and deed.

1 John Angell James, The Christian Father’s Present to His Children

The #1 Subject

There were many subjects that we all learned in school, but, without a doubt, we all had our favorite subject, the one we looked forward to more than any other. Mine was math. That was the high point of the schooling day for me (other than recess, lunch, and going home). Even though we are “all grown-up” now, we probably haven’t changed much. I would bet we all still have our favorite subjects, the ones that we like to teach our children. I decided that in our homeschool I would teach…(you guessed it)… math. But as important as math is, this is not the most important time in school. Neither is history, nor science, nor English, and not even Bible.

There is a time in our home(school) that far outweighs any other: family worship. The high point of not only our homeschool, but the high point of our home, is the worship of God. Our children learn the acts of God (a.k.a. history) not just to have knowledge, but so that they might worship the God that has acted. Our children learn about the world that God has created (a.k.a. science) so that they will worship the God that created the world. So what could be more important, at the end of each day, as our families have learned all these things about God and His world, than to put flesh to this knowledge and to lead our families in the worship of the God that they have learned about?

Family worship is the time when the leader of the home brings all of those in the home together to say, “This is what today was about. We did what we did today, we learned what we learned today… so that we might make much of our King”. And then he bows his heart and worships at the feet of King Jesus. This is the leaders role. This is our role. We do not have to be a theologian, a philosopher or a mathematician. We do not have to have a complete knowledge of the Bible or have memorized the 23rd Psalm. All that is required for us to lead our families in this most-important of all activities is simple obedience. All we have to do is bow our heads and our hearts and worship a God Who loves us and our families more than we could ever know.

At the Center

The hummingbird whistles by, searching for its food as the fire crackles in the brisk morning air. Dew gathers slowly on the pine needles, and the steam rises silently from the slow-moving river as the sun crests the horizon. I take in a deep, refreshing breath of the new mountain air as the kids begin their day scampering up and down the wooded hills and my wonderful wife begins a soon-to-be tasty breakfast. What is this about? It’s about God.

I love camping. Actually, I love camping with my family. I love the sounds, the smells, and the smiles. I love rafting down the Platte, sleeping in a tent, and roasting marshmallows by the fire. Why do I love these things? I love them because through them my heart fills with awe and appreciation for God.

Over the last several years I have encountered a wide spectrum of experiences. I have spent many weekends enjoying the outdoors with my family and many weekdays hanging sheet metal from ceilings. I have spent hours upon hours contemplating the preconditions of thought, science and morality and then turned around and taken in the beauty of a Pikes Peak sunset with my family close by my side. I have listened to the glorious songs of praise from beloved saints and run the bases during an evening softball game. In the midst of all of this came this realization: None of these wondrous things are ends in themselves. Not a one. Not nature, nor fire, not food, not even family. All of these things are means, means to an end: worshipping God. It’s all about God. All of these experiences are gifts, echoes of the Excellency of God, given to delight myself in the One who gave them. It is so easy to turn gifts into idols and make them the ultimate objects of our affection, but only when those things serve to draw us nearer to God do they become all that they were meant to be. They all serve to give our souls greater satisfaction in the only truly satisfying thing: God Himself.

All of life must always be to this end. All that we do with our families and in our homeschools must have this as its ultimate goal: That God would be the final and ultimate object of our affections. That is what it means to be God-centered. Everything that we do should add to the awe and hunger of people for God as His’ majesty is more fully revealed. This summer make it a point to enjoy your family, creation, and, most of all, the God that gave them to you.
Soli Deo Gloria!

Christ in Christmas

I hope you and yours have a wonderful Christmas season with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ at the center of all of your activities. This will undoubtedly be another remarkable Christmas season. Remarkable in the sense that there will be many businesses and governmental institutions that will once again try to extricate Christ from Christmas as well as multitudes of Christians that will demand that we keep Him in.

I praise the Lord for the work that will be done this holiday season to return Christ to His rightful place in Christmas. As I pondered this work the thought occurred to me that perhaps the reason so many of us will rise up is because this is one of the last bastions for Christianity in a culture that has been secularized. I fear that the problem isn’t that the culture isn’t saying “Merry Christmas” or that the secularists are attempting to remove Christ from Christmas, but it’s the fact that they already have removed Christ from the rest of culture. America has already secularized most of reality, and so what’s left other than “holy days” like Christmas and Easter? From their viewpoint, if we as the Church have already surrendered Christ’s lordship over the rest of creation then at some point we will eventually yield on Christmas.

How have we surrendered to secularism everywhere else? By not proclaiming the Lordship of Christ over ALL things! Jesus is Lord of far more than Christmas and is the central focus of much more than a single holiday. Jesus is Lord of ALL, in him all things consist and find their meaning (Acts 17:28; Heb 1:3). But I have yet to hear the church rise up and proclaim “Keep Christ in Calculus!”, or to see a church billboard read: “Keep Christ in Chemistry”, or a Christian radio talk-show host declare, “Jesus is Lord of literature!”. Yet this is exactly what we have to do, and have not done. We need to shout it from the rooftops that Christ is the beginning of all wisdom and knowledge, (Col 2:2,3) that He is King over the entire universe and that Christ is as central to Calculus, Chemistry and Civics as He is to Christmas (Col 1:16,17).

Many years ago, before you and I were ever born, secularists like Rousseau, Voltaire and Dewey began to remove Christ from academia. Back then, when Christ was still understood to be central in all creation, they began the campaign to remove Christ from education, attempting to separate things created from their Creator. Well, needless to say, the church bought into it. We bought secularisms’ idea of “neutrality”, that there are subjects out there that are morally and religiously “neutral”. “Christ has nothing to do with math. You can know math apart from any mention of Christ”, said they…and we believed it! And then we began to parrot their words and train our children this way. Even now many homeschooling Christians teach their children subjects like math and English and many other subjects without any mention of Jesus. Yet, Jesus made math and language, science and government. If you believe the Bible then you must acknowledge that Christ is the reason not just for the season, but for everything that was, is or ever will be. He is the one that brings all things meaning, and all things were created by Him and for His glory (Prov. 16:4). How then can anything be religiously neutral or religiously free? It can’t. All things are by their very nature religious for these very reasons, and a right understanding and application of any and all subjects, holidays and events can only be found in reference to Christ.

So during this Christmas season let’s not just fight to keep Christmas, but let’s fight to recapture the territory that has been stolen. Let’s teach our children that through a simple mathematics equation or a complex calculus proof we can see the mind of God. Let’s teach them that history is the manifestation of God’s perfect providence. Let’s show them why science works, why logic is logical, and why the world operates in the manner that it does. Let’s proclaim to our dear little ones and to the world that “the earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains!” (I Cor 10:26). Let’s show the world that in Christ is hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge and that Christ is King of not only Christmas but of Civics, Chemistry and Calculus as well!

Youth Pastors Needed

EXTRA!!! EXTRA!!!
Huge shortage in Colorado!

I just heard that there is an enormous need in the state of Colorado and you might just be one of the people that can fill that position. The position that is open is that of Youth Pastor. STOP! Don’t walk away! I know you might not think you are qualified for this position, but that’s why there is such a shortage. You might actually be just the man for the job.

Here are the qualifications…
1) You must be the father of at least one child.
2) You must love your child/children.
3) You must own a Bible and must know how to read.
4) You must live in your house.

If you meet these qualifications then you are perfect for the position.
Here is the job description:
1) You are to teach your children about God. That’s right. That God that you worship, talk about Him with those kids and do it whenever you get a chance.
2) Teach these children God’s ways. Yep, open up that Book filled with Gods instructions to us and to them and say, “This is what God says”.
3) Now this is key…teach these children what you believe.

Okay, that’s about it. Oh, one last thing…this is to be done with your children. Don’t let someone else do it for you.

The pay… the eternal reward of knowing that you invested in your children, that you taught them about God and how to worship God. Knowing that you had a hand in who they have become and in what they believe is a greater reward than any amount of money.

Oh, and by the way, you don’t need to sign up for the position because you already have the job. If you are a father then you are a youth pastor. God has called every father to pastor his children because their father is far more qualified than anyone else!

Are They Worth It?

I recently had a conversation with a father who was thinking about placing his children back into the public school system. The reason he gave was that homeschooling was very draining on he and his wife. I believe what he was saying. The homeschooling choice is not an easy one because it comes at great expense. There is the financial expense of the different curriculums that we use, and there is the enormous cost of our time. And then there are the emotions, the emotions that might drain us the most because relationships are messy and hard and we are forced into those relationships with our children because of all that time spent with them. So my friend was right. Homeschooling takes a toll on all of us (especially our wives), yet I have found that with great expense comes greater reward. How often have you gotten something truly worth keeping without it coming at a great expense? It reminds me of the parable of the pearl merchant. “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” (Matt 13:45-46)

Yes, homeschooling is costly, but look at the pearl…the hearts and souls of our children. If you are anything like me, then there is nothing you want more than to see your children love God, to walk with Him and to see them keep unspotted from the world. Yet this pearl requires that they know Who God is, What He has done, how they are to love Him, and how His truth permeates every aspect of reality so that they, in turn, can love God in every aspect of reality. And what parent doesn’t want their children to honor them, to respect them and most of all to love them?

Yet how will this occur if a majority of their waking hours are spent with peers in a system that teaches anything but a love for God? The beauty of homeschooling is that we can teach our children the whole truth of God as we sit at home and as we walk along the road, as we lie down and as we rise up. We can show them how the truth of God affects all of reality and how they can love God in every part of life because we are there to walk with them through it. Yes, it takes time, and a lot of it. Yes, it is emotionally draining. But aren’t our children worth it?

The Principal

When I was a kid there was nothing that brought more terror to my heart than the thought of having to go to the principal’s office. If that happened I knew I was in trouble and something terrible was going to happen to me. In my eyes the principal was the enforcer, the cop, judge, and jury, the end-of–the-line. Believe it or not, this was not the principal’s primary role in the school. The principal was the leader. His job was to provide the vision of what the school was trying to achieve and then to ensure that everything that happened within the walls of the school worked toward those goals. But we homeschool. We don’t have a principal, or do we?

Dads, we are called by God to be the leaders of our home, and, therefore, our homeschool. In other words, we are called to be the principal. We are the ones that are to decide what the goal of our homeschool is. What end are we trying to accomplish through our children’s instruction? What do we want our children to become? In a word, what is our vision? Our wonderful wives labor hour after hour, day after day, but to what end? What is the final product that we are trying to achieve through our school? Our job as the leader of our home is to provide this vision, God’s vision for our children.

We must provide a clear picture of what our homeschool is for, of what God is wanting our children to become. Is the goal having well-informed, godly children that will impact the world for the kingdom of Christ? Is the goal to equip our children with the tools they need to enter the mission field? Or maybe it is teaching how to love God, how to love their neighbors as themselves, and how to keep themselves pure and undefiled from the world. Whatever the vision is, you and I must grab hold of the vision that we believe God has for our children and communicate it to them and to our wives. They must know where they are going if they are ever going to get there. We all must have a goal in sight to know if what we are doing is moving us toward the goal or away from it.

How do we do this? We get on our faces before God and pray and read His Word, and ask Him for vision. He might lead some of us to a particular verse, and for others He might cause a purpose statement to pop into our heads. It is different for all of us, but what we have in common is that God wants us to know and to communicate this vision to our families. Catch the vision, unite your home around it and watch the mighty work that God does!

Unity

I remember the first time I discovered that my wife and I disagreed about something. Actually, I don’t remember what it was that we disagreed about, but what I do remember was that I was crushed. We were already married and only now had I discovered that she didn’t believe something that I did, and furthermore, that she still wouldn’t believe it even after we discussed it at length! What was to be done? Well, get a divorce of course. Isn’t that what we are supposed to do when we discover that we have differences in thought or in practice from others? Isn’t that what people in the church do every time they have a disagreement that they cannot ultimately resolve?

Through the centuries Christians have divided over a multitude of issues, from differing ideas on communion, the millennium, the rapture, tongues, and even the amount of water that should be used in baptism, to what television programs they watch (or if they watch any at all)! And because of these disagreements many of those within the church have either broken fellowship with those they disagreed with or worse. Worse? One such instance was the disagreement over the mode of baptism that raged in the Church of Scotland many years ago. One side passionately held to the belief that baptism is to be done by immersion, while the other side believed, just as passionately, that it was to be done by sprinkling. The disagreement in the church elevated to the point where they began to shoot one another over the issue! They were willing to murder their brother in Christ over their disagreement with them on how much water to use in baptism!

Now don’t get me wrong. It is rare that brothers go to blows over disagreements anymore, but how common is it for brothers to stop fellowshipping with others because they disagree with them doctrinally (and by “doctrinally” I am not meaning essential issues of the Christian faith like the deity of Christ, the virgin birth or salvation by faith alone). The differences in doctrine that cause this division can be, and often are, relatively minor issues. Now I certainly believe that most of these people think that they are defending the truth. Most of these people think that they are worshipping God the way He has commanded. Most of these people have a high regard for the truth of Scripture and its application in life, as every Christian ought to. But, I believe, the divisions that occur do not do so because of differences in doctrine or in practice, but because of lack of character in the ones holding those doctrines. Division and discord occur within the body of Christ because of our lack of love, our lack of kindness, our lack of goodness and faithfulness and our inability to be long-suffering. We divide ultimately because our desire to be right is greater than our desire to love our brother.

Let me illustrate…
Shortly after I was saved I became aware of the fact that many of the things I believed about Christianity were not true. I was full of all kinds of misconceptions and ideas about God and salvation and the rest. It took me several years of studying and learning before I assured myself that everything I believed about Christianity was right. I had studied it all and knew what was true, what was false and how to lead others to the truth. The problem was that not everyone was compelled to change their minds by my astounding intellect, knowledge of the Scriptures and persuasive argumentation. Of course it then became impossible for me to worship with such arrogant, prideful people who refused to change their views when they were so obviously wrong. After all, ones beliefs affect their worship and their maturity, and if they did not have right doctrine, like I did, then their worship was impure and they were terribly immature.
Then one day my eyes were opened to see that part of what I had believed about the rapture was wrong, and so I, being humble as I was, changed my belief and then assured myself that now I possessed the whole Christian truth. Then shortly after that I discovered that what I believed about predestination was wrong, and after that I realized that much of what I perceived the love of God to be like was incorrect, but all along I knew, even though I was oftentimes wrong, that I was always right.

It seems strange now, I must admit, that even though everything I believed was right that I was continuing to revise and change my belief system. Yet the one thing that never changed was that I was absolutely persuaded that I possessed the whole truth of Christianity and that anyone that did not hold to what I believed was wrong.

Though doctrine is about truth, how we deal with others over doctrine is about character, and our character affects our worship of God as much as our doctrine does. Did it ever occur to us that walking in mercy and humility rather than in self-righteousness and arrogance is the very point behind these doctrines and practices that we cling to?

It appears that we have forgotten that these doctrines which we hold to so tenaciously are given to us so that we will love the Lord our God with all our heart and love our neighbor as ourselves. But rather than standing upon them to do this we use them as a platform to not associate with our neighbor, to look down on them, and to gossip about how ungodly they are for not believing what we do, which in turn affects our worship of God. If I then approach the altar of God with the satisfaction of knowing that I used the correct amount of water in baptism, and yet have ought in my heart against my brother, will my worship be acceptable? Will I be able to boast before God that I was right and that my brother was wrong about this one thing? Will the Almighty applaud my correct doctrine and yet ignore my arrogant self-righteous boasting about my being right? Will He delight in the fact that my being right about this issue has caused me to dislike and disassociate with my brother? Or perhaps God wants me to love my brother despite our differences. Isn’t the way of Christ to lay down our lives for our brothers, not to lay down our brother’s life for the justification of our beliefs?

You see, our worship of God is not limited to a couple of hours on Sunday mornings. All of life is worship. Therefore, the way I worship God moment by moment is by striving to do his will moment by moment in all of the details of life. My life is an act of worship, and when I love my wife as Christ loved the church I am worshipping God, I am pursuing God, I am glorifying God. Our primary worship of God is then done in the context of our relationships with others, be it our wives, our children, our parents or siblings, unbelievers and our brothers and sisters in Christ. This is why loving our neighbors is so important. It is how we manifest our love for God in the details of life.

True doctrine has one purpose and one purpose alone, and that is for us to love God. Our tendency is to love our doctrine of God more than we love God Himself, and to boast in (what we think is) our right doctrine of God, forgetting that the truest manifestations of these doctrines are humility and loving our neighbors as ourselves. True doctrine manifests itself in righteous living, and a fruit of righteous living is living in unity with the brothers that we disagree with. Therefore, true doctrine lived-out manifests itself not in division but in unity, not in malice but in love.

Doctrinal and practical differences will always arise in the church. It is inevitable. We will all eventually find something to disagree about. Yet if we think about it, true biblical unity never included the idea of perfect doctrinal agreement, because if it did then we have never had true biblical unity in the history of the church! Rather true unity was, and is, brothers and sisters in Christ that love one another, that carry one another’s burdens, that comfort and exhort one another, and that lay down their lives for one another in spite of their differences, be they few or many.

Most of the time we consciously avoid building relationships where these conflicts will occur, and we are the worse off for it. We in the church have followed after the culture of selfishness and pride, and so we enter into relationships keeping a fixed distance between us, and when conflict arises, no matter how insignificant, we break those relationships. We avoid and/or break fellowship with other believers for just about every conceivable reason and intentionally keep from building relationships with brothers that differ from us in thought or in practice. Because of this we are a shallow people, a people of little patience, a judgmental people, a people of pride. Rather than displaying the fruit of the Spirit through working hard on relationships and struggling to love one another through conflict, we simply go the other way, and, in so doing, affirm ourselves in our unbiblical, unloving pride. Why do we do this? Because we lack character, we lack the fruit of the Spirit.

Doctrine that does not manifest itself in the fruit of the spirit is practically useless. If we want a true test of our doctrines, the best test might be in placing ourselves in the midst of people that disagree with us. Then we will see whether these beliefs produce love, joy, peace, long-suffering, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control or whether they breed pride, contentions, anger, jealousies, and fits of rage.

If we live out right biblical doctrine we will find ourselves in strong biblical relationships where our love for one another surpasses our differences. Our doctrine lived-out will produce deep, intimate relationships with our brothers, where we are open to change, where we accept reproof and correction, and where we sharpen one another. These relationships will address difficult issues of lifestyle and of doctrine. They will produce in depth biblical discussions where both brothers will vehemently defend their beliefs and then patiently and humbly listen to their brothers defense of theirs. And at the end of such conversations the brothers will love one another and be more dedicasted to one another than before the conversation began, even if, in the end, they had to agree to disagree. In the end, true doctrine will cause you to love your brother more than your need to be right. In the end, true doctrine will produce humility, it will produce love, it will produce trust around our common Savior and God, and it will draw everyone involved to love God more.

Paul put it aptly, “And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.”

Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility

It has often been said that people who teach that God is sovereign and that man is still responsible for his actions are sending mixed signals. To tell you the truth, sometimes I feel that way too, yet I believe that this is due to our inability to communicate or understand clearly rather than that the two positions are mutually exclusive.
What is the relationship between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility? Well, it is to a large part a mystery, for the secret things belong to God (Deut 29:29), and yet the part that is not a mystery is what has been revealed to us in Scripture. Here is my understanding of what the Scriptures teach us about the subject, as best as I can explain it.

Truth #1 – God has complete power over all things in creation.
The Bible teaches us that God is all-powerful or sovereign. This means that nothing comes to pass that He does not allow to come to pass. Nothing is beyond His power. All things happen according to what He has determined beforehand should happen.

Isa 43:1313 "Indeed before the day was, I am He; and there is no one who can deliver out of My hand; I work, and who will reverse it?"

Isa 46:9-11 “Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure,' Calling a bird of prey from the east, the man who executes My counsel, from a far country. Indeed I have spoken it; I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it; I will also do it."

Isa 45:77 - "I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the LORD, do all these things.'

Isa 48:3- "I have declared the former things from the beginning; they went forth from My mouth, and I caused them to hear it. Suddenly I did them, and they came to pass."

Isa 14:24 -“The LORD of hosts has sworn, saying, "Surely, as I have thought, so it shall come to pass, and as I have purposed, so it shall stand:”

Prov 19:21- “There are many plans in a man's heart, nevertheless the LORD'S counsel-- that will stand.

Prov 16:33 -“The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.”

Ps 135:5-7 - “For I know that the LORD is great, and our Lord is above all gods. Whatever the LORD pleases He does, in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deep places.”

Ps 115:3 -“But our God is in heaven; he does whatever He pleases.”

Ps 33:10-11 -“The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he makes the plans of the peoples of no effect. The counsel of the LORD stands forever, the plans of His heart to all generations.”

Dan 4:35 -“All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; he does according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain His hand or say to Him, "What have You done?"

Job 42:2- "I know that You can do everything, and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.”

Lam 3:37-38 -“Who is he who speaks and it comes to pass, when the Lord has not commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that woe and well-being proceed?”

1 Chr 29:11-12 -“Yours, O LORD, is the greatness, the power and the glory, the victory and the majesty; for all that is in heaven and in earth is Yours; yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and You are exalted as head over all. Both riches and honor come from You, and You reign over all. In Your hand is power and might; in Your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all.”

Eccl 3:14 “I know that whatever God does, it shall be forever. Nothing can be added to it, and nothing taken from it. God does it, that men should fear before Him.”

Eccl 7:13 -“Consider the work of God; for who can make straight what He has made crooked?”

Matt 10:29 -"Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father's will.”

Eph 1:11 -“In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will,”


Truth #2 - All men choose according to their own desires and are held accountable for those decisions.
The Bible also teaches us that all men are held accountable for the decisions that they make. Each of us will be judged according to our obedience to the revealed will of God (the law and gospel as revealed in the Scriptures). We are the ones that make our own decisions according to the greatest desires of our hearts and are therefore totally culpable for those decisions.

James 2:12 -“So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty.”

2 Thes 1:8 -“In flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Rom 2:12 -“For as many as have sinned without law will also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law.”

2 Cor 5:10 -“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”

Rev 22:12 -"And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work.”

Rev 20:12 -“And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books.”

Col 3:24-25 -“knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ. But he who does wrong will be repaid for what he has done, and there is no partiality.”

Rom 2:5-11 -“But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who "will render to each one according to his deeds": eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness-- indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God.

Matt 16:27 -"For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works”

Isa 3:10-11 -"Say to the righteous that it shall be well with them, for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Woe to the wicked! It shall be ill with him, for the reward of his hands shall be given him.”


Truth #3 – God is not the author of evil.
The Bible also teaches us about the holiness of God. God hates sin. He cannot look upon sin. He does not commit sin nor does He tempt anyone to sin.

Job 34:10 -"Therefore listen to me, you men of understanding: far be it from God to do wickedness, and from the Almighty to commit iniquity.” (Job 34:10)

Hab 1:13 -"You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on wickedness.”

Zeph 3:5 -“The LORD is righteous in her midst, he will do no unrighteousness. Every morning He brings His justice to light; he never fails, but the unjust knows no shame.”

Ps 34:15-16 -“The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry. The face of the LORD is against those who do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.”

Ps 5:4-5 -“For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, nor shall evil dwell with You. The boastful shall not stand in Your sight; you hate all workers of iniquity.”

James 1:13 -“Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone.”

1 Pet 1:15-16 -“but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, "Be holy, for I am holy."


Hence, we have three concurrent biblical truths. They are all true all the time and they are not mutually exclusive but coalesce perfectly with each other in God’s world. How do these truths coalesce? Some say that we cannot grasp how they work together and form one truth. They say by faith we must just accept them all as absolutely true because God’s Word teaches them and we are to live by faith in the belief of all of them. This may well be the case.For others that is not good enough. We all tend to long for some explanation of how these truths are in harmony with one another rather than contradictory. For these I proffer my best attempt at an answer:

God’s will is always perfectly accomplished in these various possible ways:

1) Since God knows each man perfectly, He directs all things so that we will choose to do exactly what God wants us to do. This way we are accountable, because we are choosing according to our own desires. We are acting on the intents of our own heart. God, knowing those intents and desires perfectly, then arranges the events of life so that we act on those intents in the given situations, thus fulfilling His perfect sovereign will. This way, in the end, His will is perfectly accomplished (sustaining His sovereignty), we make our choices alone (sustaining our responsibility), and God is wholly sinless (sustaining His holiness). One instance of this in Scripture is the story of Joseph and his' brothers. The familiar ending to the story is "But as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive." (Gen 50:20) Or…

2) Since our whole person is corrupted by sin, God graciously imparts new good desires within our hearts so that we make the right decision. God, in His great love and mercy, changes the inclinations of our hearts so that we desire to do good more than evil, and thus fulfill His sovereign decree when that sovereign decree is for us to do that good. This way, in the end, God’s good, pleasing and perfect will is still done (sustaining His sovereignty), we still choose according to the greatest desires and intents of our hearts (sustaining our responsibility), and God is wholly righteous (sustaining His holiness). One instance of this in Scripture is in Ezra.Ezra 1:1 – “Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put it in writing”. Here we see that God stirs the heart of a king so that His (Gods) will would be fulfilled. The king still chose according to His desires, yet it was Gods will that was perfectly accomplished by the stirring a mans heart.

The final and ultimate example of this truth is found at the cross.
Acts 2:23 - "Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death”
Acts 4:27-28 -"For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done.”

In these verses we see that the sinful actions of men, from those of Herod and Pilate, to those of the multitudes in the crowds, and Judas, were all to accomplish God’s purpose. All of these men sinned and will be held accountable for their sin (ie “lawless hands”), yet their sin was what God had “determined” beforehand to be done.”

How perfect and glorious is the unity of divine sovereignty and human responsibility! I do hope that this has clarified things a bit. God is great! He is the holy King of the universe. All authority in heaven and on earth are His. At the same time, we are accountable to this King for obeying His rule and submitting to His authority. In the end we can trust Him with absolute confidence because He will bring everything to pass that is His GOOD, PLEASING and PERFECT WILL, which is consequently good, pleasing, and, yes, perfect for us! Hallelujah and Amen!