Creationists Go Round And Round

[ykickamoocow 0]

Here is a video i found while exploring youtube

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Id like to say that those people are incredibly stupid. I know im not being PC here but anyone who believes in creationism these days should be forced to have a vasectomy or hysterectomy so they cannot reproduce. Creationism is a very old and outdated concept which completely ignores all scientific FACT and peole who believe in it are either very stupid or very gullible.

[Quiet One 15]

Here is a video i found while exploring youtube

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Id like to say that those people are incredibly stupid. I know im not being PC here but anyone who believes in creationism these days should be forced to have a vasectomy or hysterectomy so they cannot reproduce. Creationism is a very old and outdated concept which completely ignores all scientific FACT and peole who believe in it are either very stupid or very gullible.

Creationism is not an outdated concept. Is a belief. The problem arises when people starts mixing evolutionism (a scientific theory) with creationism (a belief).

Neutering people you don't agree with, that is an outdated concept.

[ykickamoocow 0]

Neutering people you don't agree with, that is an outdated concept.

Well im bringing it back as it would be a great way of population control and would weed out the bad apples in the tree

[Max Mosley 2]

Cheers Ykick - that made me laugh. What's the J-word? Jackass! God, those people are dumb. They use long words to fool those less articulate than themselves.

More seriously, I never understand why Christians are so insecure in their beliefs as to have to convince themselves that the Bible is literally true in every detail, despite the fact that there are more internal inconsistencies in it than there are words in the New Testament; despite the fact that God changes his morality at the drop of a hat; despite every area of science showing it's not literally true. You can still be a Christian and believe in evolution - like the Pope, or the head of the Anglican church.

[pumpdoc 2]

Dads sperm met moms egg, I was created.

[Quiet One 15]

@ Bruce. Best theory ever.

[Medilloni 6]

Dads sperm met moms egg, I was created.

What, no snogging, foreplay, out for a romantic meal around the lower intestine? No making sure that was THE tadpole for her? How crude

[Medilloni 6]

[quote name='Murray Walker' post='244813' date='Mar 25 2008, 12:05 PM']Cheers Ykick - that made me laugh. What's the J-word? Jackass! God, those people are dumb. They use long words to fool those less articulate than themselves.

More seriously, I never understand why Christians are so insecure in their beliefs as to have to convince themselves that the Bible is literally true in every detail, despite the fact that there are more internal inconsistencies in it than there are words in the New Testament; despite the fact that God changes his morality at the drop of a hat; despite every area of science showing it's not literally true. [b]You can still be a Christian and believe in evolution[/b] - like the Pope, or the head of the Anglican church.[/quote]

You know, I have the Devil in me today. It's nice. Is the Devil religious by the way? Will I get bar b Q'd for saying that?

Murray, the bit in bold is written as though you ARE a Christian, is it so old chap? Have you seen the light?
How can science prove or disprove any religion without any doubt?
How do you [i]know[/i] you can still believe in evolution if you're a Christian? Or not?
Is butter still bad for me, or has science changed its mind (again) yet.
Are sperm religious, and does the egg give a toss?











All of the above was merely to give the thread a good 'ol stir.

[Rainmaster 7]

Dads sperm met moms egg, I was created.

Same way it happened for me, what a coincidence.

Forget about religion, worship me (I accept cheques).

[dribbler 6]

All the words i want to say are fighting with each other to get out first. A little like the natural occurence of sperm racing for that egg. My brain will not compute the magnitude of dealing with the subject. It is muddled by a lack of willingness from some parties to accept consistent science whilst standing strong next to a religious belief. Belief is difficult to dilute and change. It is sometimes based on a philosophy that does not encourage change or acceptance of dissproving.

Religion is an institution for people who do no have a clear and confident understanding of the difference between right and wrong and the correct way to apply those lessons. My interpretation is that some people need the discipline of a set of rules in order to keep them living by what they believe to be the correct set of rules. A kind of army of the mind.

If you grasp that it is probably better to make someone feel good rather than make them feel bad, to love someone rather than hate them and to sort out your differences rather than kill them then you are probably a pretty decent human. If you are then open to the notion that maybe we evolved and are prepared to investigate that rather than ignore or discredit it, you are a pretty decent human who is also open minded.

A pretty decent, open minded human being. That's what i think i am. That's what i think most peole are. It's when you get closed minded or pretty horrible human beings that you have problems. When you have both, you have big problems indeed.

I don't need a book, I don't need a God and i don't need science.

I need a beer.

[Eric 0]

Forget about religion, worship me (I accept cheques).

Do you accept checks, though? I think it's mean to discriminate against Americans.

Anyway, I think it's all dumb. If you want to believe in some sort of god, go for it, but I find it to be a lot more sensible to keep it personal. I agree with Emerson for the fact it should be about your personal relationship with God, not some organized religion s##t. Personally, I'm an athiest, don't believe in it, I believe in the power of humans and individuals, but still, many people do believe in God etc, and that's cool too, just keep quiet about it. I don't think anyone should care about it or talk about it. Honestly, what difference does it make? Accept others for what they are, allow everyone to be what they want to be, and end it there. They can make their own choices and keep to themselves about it. Religion should be personal, it should be something that affects you and only you powerfully. Believe what you want, but don't force it on others, don't tell everyone else they're wrong, and please be flexible to modify your beliefs. Don't stick to the textbook. Humans have potential, a whole hell of a lot of it, there's no real reason to let something dominate you when you are more than capable of doing good things without it. I can see why people want a religion, and it's fine if they do, but don't let some book dictate your life to you. It's just not right, and it's a waste of human potential.

But I'm not going to say that someone is wrong if they do, just misguided. And it's a shame, but it's a fact, and not much I can do about that.

Anyway, seeing kids get brainwashed sucks. The kids will never even know if they are happy or not, because they will never be exposed to different things, and then they'll never get to live their lives to the fullest. That sucks.

[Max Mosley 2]

Murray, the bit in bold is written as though you ARE a Christian, is it so old chap? Have you seen the light?

I'm a born-again atheist! I come from a Christian family so I have a lot of interest in and respect for Christians, as well as strongly held opinions on their views. Your questions are good, and I always appreciate someone stirring the pot. Saves me the effort.

How can science prove or disprove any religion without any doubt?

No. I wouldn't take anything science says as fact. But some types of explanations are more rational than others.

How do you know you can still believe in evolution if you're a Christian? Or not?

Well I suppose it depends on your definition of all the terms involved. But if a Christian is someone who believes in God, the resurrection of Christ and the underlying ideas of right and wrong in the New Testament then it seems silly to insist that the Genesis story is literally true. Why not take it as a myth that God gave us thousands of years ago, expecting us to use our God-given brains to discover better explanations when we are ready? That seems more plausible than God creating the world in 6 days, but making it look in every respect like it took 4.5 billion years, just to keep us on our toes.

Is butter still bad for me, or has science changed its mind (again) yet.

Empirical research tells us that it all depends on how you take your butter. On toast it's bad for you, but elsewhere it really does stop the chafing.

Are sperm religious, and does the egg give a toss?

Sperm certainly have plenty of blind enthusiasm.

All the words i want to say are fighting with each other to get out first. A little like the natural occurence of sperm racing for that egg. My brain will not compute the magnitude of dealing with the subject. It is muddled by a lack of willingness from some parties to accept consistent science whilst standing strong next to a religious belief. Belief is difficult to dilute and change. It is sometimes based on a philosophy that does not encourage change or acceptance of dissproving.

Religion is an institution for people who do no have a clear and confident understanding of the difference between right and wrong and the correct way to apply those lessons. My interpretation is that some people need the discipline of a set of rules in order to keep them living by what they believe to be the correct set of rules. A kind of army of the mind.

If you grasp that it is probably better to make someone feel good rather than make them feel bad, to love someone rather than hate them and to sort out your differences rather than kill them then you are probably a pretty decent human. If you are then open to the notion that maybe we evolved and are prepared to investigate that rather than ignore or discredit it, you are a pretty decent human who is also open minded.

A pretty decent, open minded human being. That's what i think i am. That's what i think most peole are. It's when you get closed minded or pretty horrible human beings that you have problems. When you have both, you have big problems indeed.

I don't need a book, I don't need a God and i don't need science.

I need a beer.

My favourite bit of Church is when they bring the elevenses round. If you fancy some wine on sunday morning go along. They can be very generous, these Christians. They're good people.

[Rainmaster 7]

I think it's mean to discriminate against Americans.

Well I think it's fun. Good post though Eric, that's pretty much how I see it.

[Eric 0]

Well I think it's fun. Good post though Eric, that's pretty much how I see it.

I think it was a terrible post, personally. My views could not be anymore clashing with what I said in that post.

[pumpdoc 2]

What, no snogging, foreplay, out for a romantic meal around the lower intestine? No making sure that was THE tadpole for her? How crude

Wham bam thank you mam'

[Null 0]

Creationists and Evolutionists have equal rights to correctness. They are both theories. NO ONE is in a position to judge who is right, because the answer is simply that we don't know. Liberal, secular society (which, even if a country proclaims a state religion - like England is Church of England etc, is still liberal and secular) tells us creationism is silly and evolution is right. Liberalism eliminates competing views so we can all live in a happy society where we all hold hands and make daisy chains - that will never happen. Religion, at the minute, is one of the main things liberalism wants to eliminate. Condemning those who believe in creationism as being "wrong" because it's based on pure faith that that theory is correct, is EQUALLY as wrong as YOU having pure faith in the theory of evolution. And don't say it's based on facts - it's not, it's based on possibilities - it would not be a theory otherwise.

So to sum up - If you believe only in the possibility of creationism, you are a d#ck. If you believe in only the possibility of evolution, you are a d#ck. Contemplating both options is FAR more interesting and worthy of attention, instead of two groups arguing and condemning each other.

[Quiet One 15]

Mmmh...nope.

But to fully explain the differences between evolutionism and creationism we will have to delve into episthemology, theories about truth and so much more. And I don't feel qualified nor have the patience to explain all that because some will still think the language of religion and the language of science are the same and thus both are comparable.

Many religious authorities and scientist have long ago accepted that both realms could co exist peacefully. The rebirth of fundamentalism (and not only the Muslim fundamentalism) is what brought back the war of religion against science. Since Velikovsky's idiotic books trying to prove that all the miracles in the bible could be explained by some kind of cosmic billiard with planet Venus as a ball, more and more people have wasted useful time and energyt trying to prove these sort of things. What is even worse, they turned into a belligerant mood where science and religion are at war and only one could win.

Different theories within science are abundant. Discussions are heated, many times no final consense can be attained. But they all share a common language. That is why you never heard of a war between the supporters of the corpuscular and ondulatory theories of light. Religion wars, though, were more common. That is why we "atheist liberals" are wary of these advances.

[Max Mosley 2]

If you believe in only the possibility of evolution, you are a d#ck.

Well, I think you summed me up pretty well, to a first approximation.

But to fully explain the differences between evolutionism and creationism we will have to delve into episthemology, theories about truth and so much more. And I don't feel qualified nor have the patience to explain all that because some will still think the language of religion and the language of science are the same and thus both are comparable.

Yeah we need a philosopher to properly explain it! But a simple explanation can maybe be given by us lay-men. Either way, I would like an excuse to read up on this. No doubt you can correct me if necessary.

Science is based on inductive (and abductive) reasoning. That means we look at what has happened in our past experience, and then we come up with the most likely predictions (and explanations). This is different to deductive reasoning, where a conclusion is proved with logical certainty from the starting point, as in maths for example. Inductive reasoning in science does have weaknesses (eg it's hard to say what makes something "likely") but I've never heard of anyone who didn't accept the basic methodology in practice. An example of inductive reasoning in science is: the Sun has risen in the East on every morning that anyone has ever noticed it rising (past experience), therefore it is more likely to rise in the East tomorrow than the West (most likely prediction).

Religious belief is generally based on "faith", which means something like "belief founded on trust or feeling or choice, rather than primarily on evidence or argument". It is very different. Many Christians argue that it has to be different. If God's existence could be proved logically then, they argue, a Christian's love for Him would be less worthy because they are no longer making a free choice to love Him and what He stands for. None of this means that religion and science are incompatible though - personally I think it is very reasonable to choose to believe in God because you want to. For example belief can be reassuring in difficult situations; it can also give deeper meaning to your life. What you shouldn't do, however, is abdicate moral and intellectual responsibility to anyone. You can believe in God, but your morality should always be your own, not what some preacher tells you to do.

An example of the difference between religious and scientific explanations can be seen when religions offer creationism as an explanation for our existence. When scientists use the word "explanation" they mean: an account of how things happened, and some evidence suggesting that their account is more plausible than any other account. When religions use the word "explanation" they mean: an account of how things (might have?) happened. Their "explanation" for life is roughly: God made the Earth, then He made the seas, then He made the fish, then He made everything else, then He had a rest. I'm paraphrasing loosely, but I think I am including all the relevant logical structure. The scientists' explanation is roughly: first self-replicating molecules developed, then single-celled organisms developed, then etc etc, and we think all this because [insert all the evidence].

[Quiet One 15]

Thank you! That was one heck of a first approximation!

And no, I can't correct you as I am no expert at all. I just don't think both types of "explanations" (sceintific and religious) can be comparable. You summed up very well the differences between the two.

[Ash1 0]

The historic Christian faith is built upon the confidence that this Book is God-breathed. It is infallible. That is, it does not lead to error. It does not lead to wrong conclusions. It does not teach erroneous doctrine. It is also inerrant. That means in the smallest part, each word, there is no error in the original manuscript. And it is authoritative. That means what it says is binding on the lives of all.

And I'd like to add to that that it is trustworthy. The Bible is believable. The strongest objective support for Biblical inspiration and authority is the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. That's the strongest objective testimony. The greatest witness to the truth of the Bible that ever lived was Jesus Christ. If Jesus said it's true, it's true. That's the greatest support. There can be no more reliable witness to the nature of Scripture than the one who died and rose to be the Savior, Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ rules His church by His Spirit and by His Word. This is the divine authority. He Himself has said so.

And recently, though, there has been a rather destructive heresy that has crept into Christianity, and that is the heresy that says the Bible contains errors. If something is taught in Scripture, they tell us, it may or may not be true. It may be true, but, then again, it may not be true. In other words, Scripture isn't really a basis for believing anything. It just might be a basis. And, as we've said in the last several weeks, if you say that there are some things that aren't true, then who judges what is and what isn't? And once you've let the cat out of the bag, you're finished, because then men become the arbitrary deciders of what's in and what's out.

You see, in history past, we had an interesting thing. You study the history of the church, for the most part, and you find this, that in the history of the church in the past years, it was the skeptics versus the Christians. I mean, it was pretty clearly drawn. The skeptics said, "The Bible's not true. It contains errors." The Christians said, "It is true. It does not contain errors."

But recently it's the Christians against the Christians. And I use the word "Christian" in one sense, at least, advisedly. It's the so-called Christians against the true Christians. And maybe some critics of Biblical inerrancy are really born again. That even adds greater dimension to the miracle of the new birth. But today we not only have to fight the skeptics outside theology, we've got to fight people who call themselves Christians and go around propagating the fact that the Bible has errors.

The very integrity of Jesus Christ rests on the doctrine of plenary verbal inspiration, that is, that in total, this is the inspired Word of God, and in every word it is the inspired Word of God. That is the doctrine that Jesus believed in. And if Jesus believed it, His integrity is at stake. We either have a divine Savior and an infallible Bible, or neither. Not a divine Savior and an errant Bible, because He said it was without error.

Now, the critics of inspiration usually bring up three areas of problems, and we're going to look at the Word of God and see if we can answer them. Number one, they say the Bible is not inspired because it disclaims inspiration. In other words, at places in the Scripture it denies that it is inspired. They say there are passages which clearly disdain inspiration.

You say, "What passage?" The one they always point to is I Corinthians 7. Let's look at it, and let's see whether it disclaims inspiration. I Corinthians, chapter 7. Now, here, Paul the apostle distinguishes between his instruction and the Lord's instruction. And, at first glance, he seems to be perhaps saying that some of his writings are not inspired. But as you look closer, you're going to find that just the reverse is true. Look at I Corinthians 7, verse 6.

I Corinthians 7:6, and here's one of the disclaimers that the critics and modernists use. Paul says, "But I speak this by permission, not by commandment." They say, "Now, you see, there Paul is saying that this is not something that comes authoritatively from God, that here he's giving his opinion. It's just a matter of his opinion. It is not anything that's inspired of God." Is that what he's saying?

Well, look what he's saying. "I speak this by way of permission," is the literal translation, "not by commandment." Now, what he's saying is simply this. "I am permitting you to do something, but I am not," what? "Commanding you to do it." Now, that seems very simple. "I am speaking to you by way of permission, not of commandment. I am not commanding you to do something. I am simply allowing you to do it." What is the something? Being married is the something.

Now, he's talking here about marriage. He says in verse 2, "Let every man have his own wife and every woman have her own husband." Now, if it stopped there, we'd be in trouble, because all the single people in the church would be living in open disobedience. So he says a little further down, "Now, folks, I want you to know that God wants to permit you to be married, but it isn't something that you have to do."

In fact, he kind of even backs off of it a little ways. It's kind of interesting. He says, "I would that all men were even like I am, but every man has his proper gift of God, one after this manner and another after that. I say, therefore, to the unmarried and widows, it's good for them if they abide even as I."

And Paul was single. You know, for him it was an advantage. Can you imagine if he had a wife at this point? He may have at one time, but the poor woman would've been driven to distraction by his absence. I mean, and she would have been worried to death, because he was forever in a particularly difficult problem.

So he said, "If you're unmarried or a widow, that's great. Stay that way. But if they can't have self-control, let them marry. For it's better to marry than to burn." Now, you can argue about what the "burn" means. I think the interpretation is to burn with passion. Some of us have to get married, or we get in trouble. In other words, we're made with needs that demand a partner.

So all Paul is saying in this passage is, "Look, when I said in verse 2, 'Let every man have his own wife,' and then went on to talk about marriage, I am merely saying that this God allows, but it is not that I am commanding this, because if you're single and God has that gift for you, terrific. You can be like I am, and you won't have the encumbrances of life that a married person has. But, if you can't have self-control, get married." That's practical. But if you look at it in the context, is it a disclaimer to inspiration? It has nothing to do with that.

They pull another one out of here, too. I Corinthians 7:10, "And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord." Now look at verse 12. "But to the rest speak I, not the Lord." Now the critics say, "You see? In one verse he says it's the Lord. In another verse he says it's not the Lord, it's just plain old me talking. So, you see, there are parts of Scripture that are not inspired."

Now, if Paul laid a disclaimer on inspiration in verse 12, how do we know that that isn't true of other places where he just gives his opinion? Now, do you want to know why it is that, for example, in major denominations they can bypass all of the passages about women elders? There is no such thing as a woman elder, incidentally, because an elder has to be the husband of one wife, so there couldn't be a woman elder. But there are in some churches. You say, "Well, how do they allow for a woman elder?" It's very simple. That was Paul's opinion.

I mean, if Paul gave his opinion in I Corinthians 7, he gave his opinion somewhere else, we'll just take it as opinion and chuck it. Now, you see how convenient that is? You see, once you give in the ground here and agree that this is an opinion and not a commandment of God, or that this is something less than inspiration, then you've really opened the door, and every time they don't want to buy something, they just say it's an opinion.

Why is it that in some of the major denominations you have some of the greatest movements of women to try to usurp authority in the church? Women priests, arguing and hassling about whether they have the right to preach and perform communion, etc., etc. You say, "Well, what do they do with the passages that say that that's for a man, and a woman is not to usurp authority?" "That's an opinion. That's Paul's opinion."

See, once you allow for that, then it's gone. And then you can say, "Well, that's his opinion. Well, that's his opinion." Pretty soon you've opinionized the Bible away. And then all you've got left is the words of Jesus, and when He offers an opinion, it's binding.

But what does it say? You say, "You keep talking, MacArthur, but you don't tell me what it means." All right, I'll tell you what it means. I Corinthians 7:10, "Unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, let not the wife depart from her husband." What is he referring to? He's saying that, "I am telling you something that didn't originate with me, it originated with the Lord. I'm quoting Jesus." And he quotes right out of Matthew 5:31-32. "Unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, let not the wife depart from her husband."

And, of course, the statement of Jesus in Matthew 5:31-32 is what he refers to. And what is the statement? I'll read it to you. Jesus simply said, "It hath been said, whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement, but I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife except for the cause of fornication causes her to commit adultery," etc. In other words, Jesus said, "Stay together." And apparently it even was broader than that. And Paul is saying here, "I'm not telling you anything new. I'm merely restating to you what Jesus said. Stay married."

You see, in the Old Testament, a divorce was relatively easy. And Jesus came along and said, "I'm telling you that if you allow for a divorce under any other grounds than adultery, you cause the wife to commit adultery," and so forth. And Paul's saying, "Now, when I say to you, 'Stay married,' it's not just me, but it's the Lord who commanded it." Do you see what he's saying?

Now, when you go to verse 12, "The rest speak I, not the Lord." Now he says, "I'm no longer quoting Jesus. I'm speaking." It is not that he's saying, "I'm not inspired." He is just saying, "I'm not quoting Jesus." Jesus had already taught that marriage was to be permanent. Divorce was permitted only for adultery. And now, beginning in verse 12, Paul adds his own inspired teaching to the teaching that Jesus had already given. He doesn't say, "I'm just gonna throw in my opinion." He says, "No, the Lord taught that. Now, let me add to what the Lord said."

Friends, not only is he not minimizing his teaching. He's putting it on an equal basis with the teaching of whom? Of Jesus Himself. Paul said, "The Lord commanded that. Now I'm gonna tell you something. This isn't something the Lord said. This is new revelation." "If a brother has a wife that believes not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. And the woman who hath an husband that believeth not, if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him." This is something Jesus never talked about.

What happens when one member of the family gets saved? Paul says, "Stay together." "For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband. Else were your children unclean, but now they're holy. But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or sister is not under bondage in such cases."

Now, there's a potent statement. Jesus said, "You will not be allowed to be divorced on any other grounds than," what? Adultery. Did you realize that Paul added another ground? If an unbeliever wants out, let him what? Depart. You're not in bondage in such cases.

You say, "You mean Paul added to the words of Jesus? You mean Jesus made a qualification and Paul added to it another qualification on an equal basis?" Absolutely. There are two grounds for divorce in the New Testament, adultery and an unbeliever who will not live with a believer, who wants out. He has the freedom to go, and you're not under bondage in such cases. Because God has called us to peace. God knows that if you're a Christian and there's no way that that partner is going to come to Christ, and he makes your life brutally miserable, that it's better for you to be separated, because God has called you to what? Peace. And so Paul actually adds a word to the word of Christ Himself.

And, incidentally, I'll say something else. Do you know that in the Old Testament, in Ezra 10:11, in Ezra 10:11, the Scripture said, "Separate yourselves from foreign wives"? Did you know that it said that in Ezra 10:11? That the Jews were commanded at that point to separate from foreign wives? Now, Paul, here, is stating something totally opposite, isn't he? It's a new dispensation. It's progressive revelation. And Paul is saying, "I'm telling you, stay with an unbeliever unless that unbeliever absolutely rejects and wants out of the relationship. If he departs, let him go." So Paul actually reverses a statement in the Old Testament and adds to a statement of Jesus.

Friends, this is not...this is not minimizing Paul's opinion. This is putting his opinion on an equal basis with all Scripture, Old Testament and the word of Christ Himself. So rather than disclaiming divine authority, he actually places his own commands on an equal basis with Old Testament Scripture and equal to the words of Jesus. And you have to remember that things are qualified as we go through the Scripture. It's progressively revealed.

Let me give you another one. Look at verse 25. And here again they say the same thing. "Well, see, here's his opinion." "Now, concerning virgins, I have no commandment of the Lord, yet I give my judgment." And you say, "See, he's just giving his opinion again." That is not his opinion. He is simply saying, "Jesus didn't say anything about this area, but I will speak. I don't hesitate to speak. Though Jesus never said a word about it, I hasten to give my judgment."

You say, "It's just your opinion." Look at verse 40, the end of the verse. He concludes this whole discussion with this statement. "I think also that I have," what? "The Spirit of God." This is not opinion, friends. This is divine revelation. Paul does not give his opinion. He reveals the will and the mind of the Holy Spirit. And he concludes the whole section with that statement.

So the disclaimers are not disclaimers at all. They are actually the opposite. And instead of disclaiming inspiration, Paul puts his own statements on an equal level with Old Testament Scripture, even superseding the principle of the Old Testament in Ezra 10:11 and on equal basis with Jesus Christ, even adding to the qualifications for divorce that our Lord Himself gave.

Let me give you a second area. The critics secondly say, "Well, the Bible is full of errors because of transmission trouble." Now, some of you know about transmission trouble, but it isn't this kind. "The Bible has problems in its transmission. You see," they might say, "well, you fundamentalists are right, that the original autographs maybe were perfect." And that's what we're saying. When we say the Bible is verbally inspired and without error in its words, in every detail, we mean in the original autographs, the original copies.

And so they say, "You see, that's fine if you want to say that in the original. But do you realize that the original was written thousands of years ago, and all down through the years people copied, copied, copied, copied, copied, copied, and there are all kinds of mistakes in there, and we don't know what we've got in this Bible? I mean, this thing is so far away from the original, it's ridiculous. What gives us the idea that this is accurate, like the original was?"

And, incidentally, there are no original manuscripts left. Do you know why? Because somebody'd put them up somewhere and bow down to them, believe me. They're gone. So the critics say, "We have no accurate manuscripts." This was a hue and cry a few years back. "The preservation and circulation of Scriptures cannot be guaranteed. We don't know whether they are accurate. How do we know that this Bible we hold in our hands that's written in English has any relationship to the original thousands of years of ago? Scribes may have messed it up all the way down the line." That's a good, fair criticism, if it's a criticism, indeed.

Let me just add a few thoughts to that. The Bible was written originally by its writers. Then a process of copying began. The original scrolls were copied by scribes. That's what scribes were. Copiers. And scribes believed that they were copying the Word of God, and they were super-careful. They had specially trained and dedicated men, who took on them the copying process. They had principles of checking and rechecking. Long and painful work, a demanding, extreme care was their lot for their lifetime. And they were lifetime scribes.

It is said of Ezra, who was a scribe, that he could recite the Old Testament word perfect from beginning to end. And they knew it as God's Holy Word, and they wanted it reproduced as such. Christian scholars even in the Christian era have taken to the study of manuscripts with as great an intensity, perhaps, in many cases. The scribes were careful because they believed the very words they dealt with were the words of God.

Let me add this. It is exciting to realize that, in the opinion of most scholars today, aside from a few skeptics who haven't checked it out, in the opinion of most scholars, the text that you hold in your hands right now is practically identical to the original. That's no problem for me. If God is powerful enough and intelligent enough to write it, He certainly can take care of it.

Do you realize that your Bible that you hold in your hand, though it is an ancient book, has been established with greater certainty than any other ancient book in existence? The Bible has more manuscript evidence, and by that I mean this, they have found copies of the Bible on scrolls and parchments and papers all over the place, and the more they find, the more agreement they find.

And they have a scribe over here in one century cranking it all out, and they find that parchment. Here's another one over here in another parchment. And they bring them together, and they're identical, and out of two different cultures in two different time periods by two different men who never met. And they say somewhere the source has maintained its purity, because everybody's coming up with the same copies. That's a powerful point.

A.T. Robertson, who's a great scholar, said this, and I quote, "There are some 8,000 manuscripts of the Latin, and at least 1,000 for the other early versions. Add to that 4,000 Greek manuscripts, and we have 13,000 manuscript copies of the New Testament. And all 13,000 essentially agree." That's exciting. God has preserved it. This shows the pure preservation of Scripture. Thirteen thousand manuscripts written in different periods, different origins, from all different areas and by all different men in all different periods of time, agree.

In the New Testament, for example, textual scholars who study all these manuscripts find there are certain areas of human errata. That means error, mistakes. And the scribe copying may get a letter wrong, or there may be some kind of an inverted word order or something like that. They have found that there are certain things. But it is less than one word in every thousand. In fact, one out of every 1,580 words in the Old Testament has any kind of configuration that varies with another one in another manuscript.

Listen to this, quoting from Morris, "Although there are varying readings in the manuscripts, over 99 percent of the variations are spelling." Spelling. I mean, we can understand if a guy didn't spell too well. Over 99 percent of all the errors are spelling mistakes. Friends, that's exciting. Less than 1 percent of anything in here is a true error. And that's after centuries and centuries and centuries.

What about Old Testament manuscripts? Why, for the Old Testament, we have the Masoretic text, a group of scribes who lived around 500 A.D. We have the Septuagint. Incidentally, the Septuagint is a Greek translation of the Old Testament that was done before Christ. And it's quoted frequently by, particularly, the writer of Hebrews. We have the Latin Vulgate by Jerome. We have the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Syriac version, and then the greatest discovery of all is what? The Dead Sea Scrolls.

You know, I can't help but go to Israel and go in that Dead Sea Scroll place and just get goose bumps all over me. You know, and if you don't know what's going on, you say, "This is really a musty old thing. What is all this?" And you just look up there, and there is the Dead Sea Scrolls, and it's exciting.

And you go down to Qumran and they tell you about a little kid who was trying to chase a sheep out of a cave, and he threw a rock in there and he heard a piece of pottery break, and he went in and found the whole thing. You say, "What was it?" It's a manuscript of the Old Testament. You say, "What's so important about it?" Those Dead Sea Scrolls go back past the New Testament, past the time of Christ, past, way back, and they slide right up against the Old Testament.

You know, there's 400 years between the end of the Old and the beginning of the New, and the Dead Sea Scrolls slide right up to the end of the Old Testament. That's exciting, folks, because they're the whole Old Testament, almost. And you know what's really exciting? The manuscripts that were put together in 500 A.D. are essentially identical to the Dead Sea Scrolls of perhaps as much as 800 or 900 years before. I mean, that's exciting. I stand there and look at those Dead Sea Scrolls and realize, those very scrolls were being read by people who wanted to discover the Messiah before the Messiah even came.

And what really thrills you is, we've been having a Bible in our hands that came from some scrolls and some manuscripts that were put together in 500 A.D., and they found some nearly a thousand years older that agree exactly with them. Now, if God can preserve it through that period of time, He can preserve it for all the time, can't He? That's why the Dead Sea Scrolls are so important.

When the Dead Sea Scrolls showed up, a whole lot of critics should've gone right back into the caves that the Dead Sea Scrolls came out of. It is practically the entire text of the Old Testament. The scholars tell us, any variation in the Dead Sea Scrolls from the Masoretic text is so minute it isn't worth any significance. God has preserved His Word.

No, when somebody comes along and says, "We've got transmission problems," I say, "Forget it. The same God who put it together preserved it." Yes, Jesus said, "My words shall not," what? "Pass away." And, listen, friend, part of the fulfillment of that prophecy is that the manuscripts stayed true. Now, there are some manuscripts that are really faulty, but it's obvious. We can tell. Because we have the good ones, the true ones.

All right. A third area. The critics attack on the area of the fact that the Bible makes disclaimers to inspiration, and, secondly, on the area of transmission. Thirdly, they attack on the area of difficulties. I call it difficulties. They call it errors. But I like difficulties better. They say that, "If you're going to say the Bible is inspired, how do you account for all the mistakes in the Bible? I mean, there are mistakes every place."

Paul Rader, you remember him? Paul Rader, back in 1930, offered $1,000 to anybody who could come up with one single proof that the Bible contradicts itself. He said anything in history, geology, archaeology, astronomy, physics, chemistry, ethnology, etc. Nobody ever claimed the $1,000. The errors in the Bible are very elusive. They aren't errors. You know what they are? They are difficulties masquerading as errors.

You say, "Well, why did God allow difficulties? I mean, why are there parts of the Scripture that are hard to harmonize?" And there are. Why isn't it just easy? I know why it's hard to harmonize. I can give you some reasons.

Number one, it disproves collusion. You know, the critics would like to push all the dates of the Bible way up and have all the Bible writers sort of in the same little glob writing, and that way they could explain how come they all said the same thing. But the very fact that there are difficulties to harmonize shows that they didn't really get together, that it isn't a forgery.

Because if the Bible is a fraud and it was forged and it was cranked out of collusion, it's going to agree with itself, right? I mean, if you want to write a book that would be believable, man, you'd make everything wrap together, wouldn't you? And the fact that there are any difficulties at all is a good indication there wasn't any collusion in the writing.

Let me give you another reason for difficulties. I think there are difficulties here because it forces you to do what? You got it. Study. And I think that there are difficulties in the Bible because we have to close so many gaps. "What do you mean by that?" I mean there are gaps. For example, some things are difficult to us because we don't understand culture. Right? We don't understand the culture in which it was said. Other things, we don't understand the geography. We don't understand the history of the times. We have a terrible language problem. We're trying to figure out what Hebrews meant when they used Hebrew words several thousand years ago. You see, by having to face all these huge gaps, there is difficulty.

One other thing. Difficulty is always the product of brevity and summary. You know, when you get a whole historical incident reduced to five verses, man, you've got a lot left out. Right? And when there's anything left out in summary or brevity, it's difficult.

So I believe that God allowed these difficulties to disprove collusion, to force us to study, and that they are there because there's just difficulty in closing all the gaps, and that they are there because they're the products of brevity and summary.

One other thing. I'm glad there are some totally insurmountable, absolutely beyond conquest kind of problems, because that means God's ways are higher than man's ways. And it speaks of a divine author.

In 1800, the French Institute in Paris issued a list of 82 errors in the Bible, and the French Institute announced that this would destroy Christianity. Today, none of the 82 remain. Neither does the French Institute. The critics claimed a host of errors in 1850, and they were all recanted in 1930.

II Peter 3:16 is interesting. It says, in all of Paul's epistles, speaking in them of these things "in which are some things hard to be understood." The Bible agrees. It isn't easy. II Peter 3:16, "in which are some things hard to be understood." Peter's kind of...it's really kind of cute to hear Peter say this. He says, "You know that Paul. He's awful hard to understand." Peter is a lot easier than Paul. But there are abbreviated stories. There are gaps of culture, gaps of language, gaps of geography, gaps of history and gaps of custom. And it's difficult. It's not error, it's difficulty.

Well, let me give you some of the things they say, and I'll try to answer them. Number one is, "Where did Cain get his wife?" That is so easy to answer. He married his sister. You say, "But that's not right." But the definition of that came later. I mean, if you're going to have everybody coming from one family, somebody's got to marry somebody in the family.

In fact, did you know that in Genesis 5:3-4, it says that Adam lived 930 years and begat many sons and daughters? And over a period of 930 years, you'd better believe that those sons and daughters also begat many other sons and daughters. In fact, one man figured out that Cain could have chosen his wife from 35,000 people.

Now, let me show you another one that they bring up. Joshua 10, the battle of Gibeon. Remember this one? And this is where they criticize the Scripture as being unscientific. The Lord won the battle, verse 10 says. But verse 12, "Then spoke Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said, in the sight of Israel, 'Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon, and thou moon in the valley of Aijalon.' And the sun stood still and the moon stayed until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven and hastened not to go down about a whole day. And there was no day like that before or after it."

Now, you see, the people say, "Oh, isn't that funny? You see, they had the idea that the sun went around the earth. You see, they were erroneous scientific information here. They thought the sun was going around the earth. Oh, isn't that terrific? 'Sun, stand still.' Technically, he should've said, 'Earth, stop revolving,' if he was a scientist."

But, friends, the Bible is written from the human perspective. It is written in not scientific language, but human language. You get up in the morning, you throw your curtain up and you look out and you say, "Oh, what a lovely earth revolving." No, that is a sunrise. You say, "Oh, that isn't very scientific." Of course it isn't. You're looking at it from the human viewpoint. In the evening, when you look out to the west and you see above the layer of ground the...the layer of red, and you say, "What a lovely earth revolving." No, it's a sunset.

We talk about the four corners of the earth. We don't believe it's square. We talk about the fact that the North Pole is on the top, and we say Australia is down under. And the old scientists used to laugh when somebody said the earth was round, because they said, "Isn't that stupid, to imagine men going around hanging like some sort of suspended creatures by their feet?" You see, they couldn't think those thoughts.

When the Bible gets into scientific areas, it speaks from the human viewpoint. It is not intended to be a textbook on science. It is just as accurate for Joshua to say what he said as it would be for you to say that it's a lovely sunrise, because in his view that's exactly what happened. The sun stayed right where it was. And that's the simplest way to describe it. And we still do it.

You know, I could give you some other illustrations. If Daniel escaped the lions' den, he didn't escape the critics' den. The critics have always taken liberties with Daniel. They call the whole book a forgery. They did it for a long time, you know. They said his whole thing was a forgery, and then somebody discovered the Elephantine Papyri, which was a particular archaeological discovery that historically makes Daniel totally credible, and all the critics' mouths were shut.

Let me give you another illustration. II Kings 18, and here's another one that they used to criticize. II Kings 18:14, Now, the great king of Assyria was a man named Sennacherib, and the king of Israel was a fine man by the name of Hezekiah. And there was a war. And I want you to notice, as we look at verse 14, "And Hezekiah, king of Judah, sent to the king of Assyria, to Lachish, saying, 'I have offended. Withdraw from me. That which thou puttest on me will I bear.' And the king of Assyria appointed unto Hezekiah, king of Judah, 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold."

Now, Hezekiah was commanded by Sennacherib to pay 300 talents of silver, 30 talents of gold. Archaeologists digging found most interesting information in regard to this very battle. In fact, they found the records of the transaction between Sennacherib and Hezekiah. But what was interesting was, it was Sennacherib's own official account that they found. And when the archaeologists found it, Sennacherib's account said, "800 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold."

So there was a discrepancy, and so they said, "See, here again, the Bible is in error." They never thought Sennacherib could make a mistake. Plus the fact they were dealing with later manuscripts and they did find the original record of Sennacherib.

Want to know something interesting? Archaeologists continued to dig, and the more they dug about Assyrian life, the more they found out. And recently they have discovered that the standard of calculation for gold in Judea and Assyria was the same. So 30 talents of gold in Judea, that would be the way they would say it. Thirty talents of gold in Assyria, that's the way they would say it. But the standard for calculating silver was different. And, in fact, they have discovered that it took exactly 800 Assyrian talents to make 300 Jewish talents. The Scripture was right to the very number.

You see, folks? These aren't mistakes. It's just that we need further information. Do you understand that? Further insights.

Well, what about theology? Well, they're always saying that Paul and James disagreed. Look at Romans 4. In Romans 4, Paul talks about Abraham. They say, "The Bible not only makes mistakes numerically, scientifically, etc., etc.," and, as I've showed you, all of them are not mistakes at all, but they say, "Theologically it makes mistakes."

It says in chapter 4 of Romans, verse 1, "What shall we say, then, that Abraham, our father, as pertaining to the flesh hath found?" In other words, what particular works were beneficial to him? "For if Abraham were justified by works, he had something of which to glory, but not before God. For what sayeth the Scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness." Now, in verse 4, he says, "To him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt." So here it says Abraham didn't get his salvation by what? By works. He got it by faith.

Now go to James 2:21. And in James 2:21, it says, "Was not Abraham, our father, justified by works when he had offered Isaac, his son, upon the altar?" Now, you see, they say you have right here a disagreement, an absolute contradiction. You have justified by grace and faith in Romans 4, in James 2 justified by works.

But, friends, if you study the passage, you find something very interesting. Paul is referring to Genesis 15. James is referring to Genesis 22. Paul is referring to the time that Abraham actually was redeemed, actually was termed righteous, in Genesis 15, when he believed God. James is referring to the time when Abraham offered Isaac as a visible indication of the reality of his faith.

Paul is saying, "You're saved by faith." James is saying, "And your true salvation will become visible by what you do." There is no disagreement. One is a corollary to the other. Yes, Abraham was justified by faith, but his faith validated his salvation in chapter 22 when he showed how he really believed God, and that's all James is saying. He's saying, "Of course you're saved by faith, but I'll you one thing. If your life doesn't reveal your faith, there's no faith there." Right? That isn't a contradiction at all.

So, you see, with careful study, with any kind of scholarship, with the findings of archaeology, the difficulties melt away, and the Bible stands under all the assaults. That's defense. The Bible can defend itself.

What about offense? Let me just give you some quick thoughts, and this is just a brief thought or two. Can the Bible positively testify to its authority? As well as defending itself, can it attack? It's got a good defense. What's its offense like? Let me give you several thoughts.

I think the Bible...the Bible is trustworthy because of its uniqueness. I mean, let's face it, folks. There's no book like this in existence. And, as I said last time, if you don't believe God wrote it, you have a problem. Who did?

Professor Monier Williams, the former Boden professor of Sanskrit, spent 42 years studying Eastern books, and this is what he said. "Pile them, if you will, on the left side of your study table, but place your own Holy Bible on the right side, all by itself, all alone, and with a wide gap between them. For there is a gulf between it and the so-called sacred books of the East which severs the one from the other utterly, hopelessly and forever." He said after 42 years of studying Eastern sacred books they don't belong in the same place with the Bible.

For example, just take the Hindu bible. In the sacred writings of the Hindus, you find such fantastic nonsense as this. "The moon is 50,000 leagues higher than the sun, and shines by its own light. Night is caused by the sun setting behind a huge mountain several thousand feet high located in the center of the earth. This world is flat and triangular and is composed of seven stages, one of honey, another of sugar, a third of butter and another of wine. And the whole mass is borne on the heads of countless elephants which, in shaking, produce earthquakes." That's the sacred writing of the Hindus.

You read the Koran and you'll find out that the stars are nothing but torches in the lower heavens and that men are made out of baked clay. The most gross kind of errors abound. Errors regarding the material world are common in...mostly common in Homer, in Greek and Roman mythology, in the wild, disordered books of the Hindus, the traditions of the Buddhists and the Muslims. The greatest geniuses even of ancient philosophy, such as Aristotle, Plato, Pliny, Plutarch, Lucretius and others, wrote such absurdities that, if one such absurdity was found in the Bible, it would totally and forever discredit its inspiration. But there's not one of them in the Bible. Not one.

James Orr, speaking of the Moslem, Zoroastrian and Buddhist scriptures, said this, and I quote, "It is the simple fact that there is nothing that can be properly called history in these other sacred books of the world. They are, as every student of them knows, for the most part, jumbles of heterogeneous material loosely placed together without order, continuity or unity of any kind."

The Bible is unique. It has been read by more people, published in more languages, at least 1,280-plus languages, studied, criticized more than any other book. God wants it circulated, and it's getting circulated. The first major book ever published was the Bible, wasn't it? On Gutenberg's press. By 1932, the London Bible Society says there were one and a half billion Bibles in print...1932. And nobody knows how many billion there are now.

It's the only book that gives the account of special creation. It's the only book that gives a continuous historical record from the first man to the present era to the future. It's the only book of ancient history that gives history a purpose. It is by far the purest religious literature, with the highest moral standards. It is the only book of antiquity containing detailed prophecies of events to come accurately. And it is the only book which has proven to convict men of sin and lead them to salvation. There is no book in the world like the Bible, its uniqueness.

Second, I think the Bible is true because of its unity. Whenever you see the unity of the Bible, you have to see one author. Sixty-six books, 40-plus human writers, nearly 1,600 years, all the way from Moses, who wrote the first one in your Bible, to John, who wrote the last one, and you've got unity through the whole thing.

One man wrote in Syria, another in Arabia, another in Italy and Greece. They wrote in the desert of Sinai, the wilderness of Judea, the cave of Adullam, the prison at Rome, the barren island of Patmos, the palaces of Zion and Shushin, the rivers of Babylon, etc., etc., in three languages, different lifestyles, different occupations, locations, events. Poetry, history, theology, proverbs, parables, allegory, and on it goes. And every bit of it is one harmonious whole. A master mind controlled it all. It's not pell-mell. It's not scattered.

Have you ever thought about the Bible? It's a fantastic book. Do you realize that just if you lay out the pattern of the Bible, there are four themes in the Bible: revelation, history, devotion and prophecy? And both Old and New Testament follow those themes.

In the Old Testament, what are the books of revelation that God reveals? The Pentateuch. Then comes history, Joshua to Esther. Then comes devotion, Job to Song of Solomon. Then comes prophecy, Isaiah to Malachi. The New Testament, revelation, the disclosure of God, the Gospels, history, the Book of Acts, devotion, the epistles, prophecy, the Book of Revelation. The same format.

Just to show you how the Bible is done, let me show you this. In the Old Testament, you have salvation prepared. In the Gospels, salvation effected. In the Acts, salvation preached. In the epistles, salvation explained. In the Revelation, salvation fulfilled. Perfect historical continuity. It's going from somewhere to somewhere else, and it gets there.

One of the most beautiful tributes to the Bible was paid by Billy Sunday. This is what he said, and I want to read you this. It's really beautiful. "Twenty-nine years ago, with the Holy Spirit as my guide, I entered at the portico of Genesis. I walked down the corridor of the Old Testament, in the art gallery where pictures of Noah and Abraham and Moses and Joseph and Isaac and Jacob and Daniel hung on the wall.

"I passed into the music room of the Psalms, where the Spirit sweeps the keyboard of nature until it seems that every reed and pipe in God's great organ response to the harp of David, the sweet singer of Israel. I entered the chamber of Ecclesiastes, where the voice of the preacher is heard, and into the conservatory of Sharon and the lily of the valley, where sweet spices filled and perfumed my life.

"I entered the business office of Proverbs and on into the observatory of the prophets, where I saw telescopes of various sizes pointing to far-off events, concentrating mostly on the bright and morning star which was to arise above the moonlit hills of Judea for our salvation and redemption. I entered the audience room of the King of Kings, catching a vision written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Then into the correspondence room, with Paul and Peter and James and John and Jude writing their epistles.

"I stepped into the throne room of Revelation, where tower the glittering peaks where sits the King of Kings upon his throne of glory. And I cried out, 'All hail the power of Jesus' name. Let angels prostrate fall. Bring forth the royal diadem and crown Him Lord of all.'" The Bible is unique, and it is united.

Lastly, I think the Bible vindicates itself by its indestructibility. You see, the Bible is God's Word, and because it is God's Word it partakes of God's nature. Right? And God is eternal, so it is what? Eternal. Psalm 119:89. "Forever, oh Lord, thy word," what? "Is settled in heaven." You know, throughout history, Satan has attacked the Bible. Selsis tried with his brilliant genius and failed. Horphree tried with the hammer of philosophy and failed.

Diocletian, the Roman emperor, tried the most concerted attack ever against the Bible. He tried to destroy Christians. That's right. He was a real killer of Christians. But he also attacked the Scripture. In 303 A.D., 300 years after Christ, he brought to bear against the Bible all the military and political power of Rome.

He issued proclamations that every Bible had to be burned, every manuscript. Naturally, Christians didn't do it. So the imperial government then demanded that the Scriptures be given up, and anybody who didn't give them up would be executed. Murdered. That failed. He killed a whole lot of Christians, burned a whole lot of Scripture manuscripts. The penalty of death was carried out. Many Christians died.

In fact, he burned so many Christians, and burned so many manuscripts, that he finally erected a column. You know, they used to...whenever they'd get a great victory, they'd put up a big triumph arc. You know how many arcs of triumphs there are, and how many great columns of victory there are in ruins around the world? Well, he put up a great, huge triumph column, and it was called Extincto Nominium Christianorium, which means "the name of Christians has been extinguished." And they built this huge thing.

You know something? Twenty-two years later, the first church council met at Nicea and enthroned the Bible as the only infallible judge of truth in the world, 22 years after he erected his column.

Pseudoscience has tried to laugh the Bible out of existence. Two hundred years ago, Voltaire said, "Fifty years from now, the world will hear no more of the Bible." In that very year that I'm going to mention in a minute, the British Museum paid the Russian government a half a million dollars for one copy of one Greek manuscript. And in that very year, the first edition of Voltaire's book sold on a Paris bookstore counter for less than eight cents. It wasn't very many years until his book was worth eight cents and one New Testament manuscript, one, Sinaiticus, was worth a half a million.

Thomas Paine, in The Age of Reason, 200 years ago, presented his genius. And, I mean, he was smart. He was one of the geniuses of his age. And he presented his genius as an attack on Christianity, and, boy, he really went after it. He felt his arguments would destroy forever the Bible. He predicted that in a few years the Bible would be out of print.

On returning to America, he boasted, and I quote, "When I get through, there will not be five Bibles left in America." Fifteen hundred years after Herodotus wrote his history, there was only one copy. Twelve hundred years after Plato wrote his books, there was only one copy. We've got 13,000 manuscripts of the Bible. Oh, by the way, going back to Voltaire, 50 years after his death, the Geneva Bible Society used his house and his press to print Bibles.

Oh, incidentally, going back to Diocletian, 25 years after his efforts, Constantine commission Eusebius to prepare 50 copies of the Bible at the expense of the Roman government. H.L. Hastings says, "Infidels, with all their attacks, make about as much impression on this book as a man with a tack hammer would on the pyramids of Egypt." When the French monarch proposed the persecution of Christians, says Hastings, in his Dominion, an old statesman said to him, "Sire, the church of God is an anvil that has worn out many hammers."

So the hammers of infidels have been pecking away at this book for ages, but the hammers are worn out, and the anvil still endures. Praise the Lord for His Word. Amen? What a book, united, unique, indestructible. The grass withers. The flower fades. The Word of God abides forever.

- John Macarthur

[Ash1 0]

Here is a video i found while exploring youtube

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Id like to say that those people are incredibly stupid. I know im not being PC here but anyone who believes in creationism these days should be forced to have a vasectomy or hysterectomy so they cannot reproduce. Creationism is a very old and outdated concept which completely ignores all scientific FACT and peole who believe in it are either very stupid or very gullible.

Apostates, Be Warned, Pt. 1

Jude 5

We return in our study of the Word of God to the book of Jude. And as I said at the very outset, though this is a rather short epistle as biblical books go, it is deep and high and wide. There is much here to absorb. This epistle is about contending for the faith. Verse 3 is the key verse. "I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith." The Christian faith which was once by means of inspiration delivered to the saints. We are in a war to protect the truth.

This epistle looks particularly at those who assault the truth from inside the church. This is not about attacks from the outside, but the inside, the much more devastating, the much more subtle, the much more destructive assault on the truth from those who profess to know the truth. We have to battle inside. It's as if we are in a fortress and ready to defend that fortress and its contents from those who would attack from the outside, all the while having to face an insidious eruption of rebellion on the inside so that we are always fighting on two fronts.

There will always be, according to the Word of God, assaults on the truth from the inside and the Bible calls this, at least in one aspect, apostasy, that is a departure from the faith among those who have professed it, who have known it. We know that in the last days, as we are certainly in the last days, there will be the apostasy. Second Thessalonians 2 verse 3 says, "The day of the Lord will not come until the apostasy comes." Jesus even predicted at the end of the age that there would be a falling away from the faith. As we know as well, the Apostle Paul warned about this departure from the faith. The Apostle John warned about this defection and this departure from the faith. And John went to great lengths, as we learned in the three epistles, to help us discern our own true spiritual condition and recognize spirits that are not of God, but are rather the spirit of error, not the Spirit of truth. Apostasy is characterized by denial of the truth. It can be a denial, for example, of God's reality. It can be a denial of the true nature of God. It can start there. Anyone who calls himself a Christian and denies the true nature of God has defected from the truth. They are those, according to 2 Timothy 3:5, who hold to a form of godliness but deny its power. They want you to believe that they belong within the realm of the true faith, but in reality they have denied true godliness and its power. They are, in fact, not at all lovers of God, writes Paul in that same passage.

It can also be a denial of Christ, an attack on the person of Christ. Second Peter 2 says, "Denying the Master or the Lord, who bought them." It then may be a defective theology. It may be a defective Christology. It can be a denial even of the coming of Christ, such as those scoffers and mockers in 2 Peter 3 who say, "Where is the promise of His coming?" A denial of the person, a denial of the work, a denial of the return of Christ. This too constitutes a kind of apostasy.

It can be a denial of the Christian faith at any point and we are reminded that we should expect this. The Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 4 says the Spirit explicitly tells us that in later times some will fall away from the faith. That is the content of the Christian gospel. So it may be an attack on God. It may be an attack on Christ. It may be an attack on the gospel, the way of salvation. And in its place comes doctrines of demons propagated by deceitful spirits by means of the hypocrisy of liars who are unconscionable. It is then always to be understood as a denial of sound doctrine. That's why in 2 Timothy 4 we read, "The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. They will turn away their ears from the truth, turn aside to myths." It always includes a denial of holy living. These who deny the true faith are lovers of self, lovers of money, 2 Timothy 3, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God who again have a form of godliness but without power.

This apostasy, this denial of the true God. or the true Christ, or the true gospel, or the true faith, sound doctrine, shows up in their lives because apart from the work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration, the flesh cannot e controlled. And so people who deny the Christian gospel do so not because of intellectual reasons, but because of moral reasons. Men love darkness rather than light, so look closely and by their fruits you will know them and their fruits will always be corrupt. Sometimes this corruption takes the form of a superficial kind of righteousness, a superficial kind of spirituality, an external kind of spirituality in which holiness is equated with as 1 Timothy 4 says, forbidding marriage, holiness is equated with celibacy such as we see in the Catholic Church and are learning that celibacy is no holy posture to take. Or as among the Jews, holiness may be equated as 1 Timothy 4:3 says with abstaining from certain foods. That is to say there are legalistic approaches to this kind of apostasy in which men on the surface appear to be more holy and therefore truer in embracing the Christian faith, when the fact of the matter is, those external things are no evidence of holiness at all but rather of a misguided legalism.

But on the other hand, apostasy sometimes takes the form of outright, blatant iniquity. Apostates, it says, in the eighteenth verse of Jude are those who walk or follow after their own ungodly lusts.

So, apostasy takes the form of denial. Denial of the true God, denial of the true Christ, denial of the true gospel, denial of the true doctrine, denial of holy living, denial of morality. And we would certainly conclude that they in the end deny necessarily the authority of Scripture in their lives. Such people are not eager to have the Word of God imposed upon them.

This apostasy rises up inside the church. We have people in the church today who deny the true God and have created a God of their own whom they call the true God. We have those within the framework of Christianity in the...mark this carefully...the visible church, not the invisible church, within the visible church who deny the character and nature of Christ, who deny salvation by grace alone through faith alone and Christ alone, who deny sound doctrine, who deny the true and biblical doctrine of sanctification, who deny true spirituality, who live lives filled with ungodly lust and who do not submit to the Word of God.

Now, this is nothing new. This is very old. There have always been apostates and they've been a part of the visible people of God. As with regard to the nation Israel, not all Israel is Israel, remember? Paul says in Romans 2:28 and 29, "He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, he is one who is one inwardly." And there was a difference between redeemed Israel and natural Israel, or physical Israel. And there is a great difference between the visible church, the church you can see, the church that is identified as such, and the invisible church. That is a distinction that theologians have always made. Those who are true believers make up the invisible church. That is to say that the world cannot see when they look at the congregation of the church or those who call themselves Christians, they cannot see who is the real church and who is not. They can see only the visible church, not the invisible church. It does not yet appear what we shall be. The glorious manifestation of the true sons of God has not yet appeared. So mingled with the visible church, hidden as it were in the visible church is the invisible church. And if we have a difficult time sorting out the wheat from the tares, we could well nigh be sure that the world couldn't do it. And that's why it makes being a Christian so difficult because we have to explain away things that the visible church does that the invisible church would never do. So apostasy has always been around, there's absolutely nothing new about it.

Now, let's go back to Jude. Going back to Jude we remember that he began with a greeting, "Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are the called, beloved of God and kept for Jesus Christ." In the opening then he identifies the invisible church, the called, the loved and the kept. And to them he says, "May mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you." He affirms then in verses 1 and 2 the true believers. And then in verse 3 he speaks of his very important mission in this letter. "I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write you, appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints." He calls upon the invisible church, the true and living church, to go to war for the truth because, verse 4, "Certain persons have crept in unnoticed." They are in the church, inside the visible church. "They have come in unnoticed, they were those long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, they are ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ."

You have seen a very clear illustration of that in the ordination of the Episcopalian Bishop Robinson who is a blatant and outspoken homosexual who is a licentious, lascivious, ungodly man denying our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ who has come into the church, the unwitting, stupid and ignorant visible church has ordained him to Christian ministry. And he is a man marked out for condemnation by God. Not everybody in the visible church is as blatant as that. That's fairly easy to spot. It's the subtleties that we sometimes miss. It's the nuances on the person of God, or the person of Christ, or the gospel that we can't really discern because the church has such a deficient immune system.

And so, we have seen a greeting and a warning and a description of the problem, the subtle infiltration of apostasy and their strategy. We come now to verses 5 to 7 and in verse 4 it says, "These apostates are marked out for condemnation because they are ungodly," that is they do not know God and there are moral overtones to the term "ungodly." It is not just what they don't believe, it's how they behave. "Because they turn the grace of God into licentiousness, as it were, believing that they have been given grace by God they can live anyway they want. And they blatantly deny truly our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ because they are absolutely disobedient to His Word." So we have...we have seen this pronouncement that the apostates are going to be condemned.

And then in verses 5 to 7 we move into a section on their destruction. It's interesting to me that Jude starts the letter with this treatment of the condemnation and the destruction of apostates. Why does he do that? Because this entire letter is not only written to call us all to war to defend the faith, but it constitutes the most direct warning to apostates sitting in the church. And there's no sense in waiting to the end to get the earning out. That's why immediately after calling us to war in verse 3, in verse 4 he talks about the condemnation of these ungodly apostates. And to make that warning clear, Jude selects three incidents from history in verses 5 through 7, three incidents. One involving the Jews, one involving the Gentiles and one involving the angels in the order of the Jews, the angels and the Gentiles. Here you have three historic accounts of God dealing with apostasy which demonstrates how God reacts to it no matter who it is, whether it is Israel, chosen people, whether it is angels, or whether it is Gentiles, apostates are doomed.

Now in 2 Peter chapter 2, before we look at these specifically, I want you to turn over to verses 4 to 8 because in that particular section of 2 Peter you have a very similar text and you'll certainly want to compare the two. In 2 Peter 2 verses 4 through 8, Peter also speaks of the destruction of apostates. Chapter 2 verse 1, it says they are bringing swift destruction upon themselves, these false teachers who secretly introduce destructive heresies and deny the Master who bought them. That is an echo of Jude verse 4. Peter was writing of the same matter and because of them Peter writes in verse 2, "Many follow their sensuality," always they're driven by sensuality. People reject the gospel because they do not want to give up their sin. And because of them the way of the truth is maligned. That is true. You have people inside the church, apostates inside the church who call themselves true teachers, who call themselves representatives of Christianity who bring terrible, terrible criticism upon Christianity. They exploit people, it says in verse 3, but their judgment from long ago is not idle and their destruction is not asleep. They're going to be destroyed. So Peter says the same thing Jude says.

And then, Peter gives three illustrations. God didn't spare angels when they sinned, when they apostatized, defected, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness reserved for judgment. Second illustration, He didn't spare the ancient world. That is the world before Noah, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly. And thirdly, He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly thereafter. Peter says there are three historic judgments of apostasy, those who knew the truth and defected from it, the angels, the human race up to the Flood, and Sodom and Gomorrah.

Now let's turn to Jude. Jude uses three illustrations and two of them are the same. Verses 5 through 7, "Now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that the Lord after saving a people out of the land of Egypt subsequently destroyed those who did not believe, and angels who did not keep their own domain but abandoned their proper abode He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day; just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire." These are three illustrations...the Jews, the angels and the Gentiles of Sodom and Gomorrah. And in each case there was destruction, judgment and the punishment of eternal fire, illustrations of God's inevitable and inexorable judgment on apostasy.

And the warning needs to be made very clear. There is a hell, it is forever, it is a burning place of horrific torment, and you will go there forever if you defect from the faith. And the more you know of the Christian faith, the hotter your hell will be when you reject it, as we will see. Better you never heard the gospel than to have heard it and rejected it. Better you never were taught the Word of God than to have been taught it and rejected it.

Now these three illustrations are well known to us and to the readers, and that's why in verse 5 Jude begins by saying, "I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all." It isn't as if he has to go into a lot of detail, these are very familiar stories. And we know them well, as Jude's readers knew them well. But there is somehow a penchant for forgetfulness among us, is it not so? There is a rather continuous decay of our knowledge, demanding reminders especially when we're talking about apostasy, we need to be reminded of its seriousness.

Illustration number one is with regard to Israel in verse 5. "I desire to remind you though you know all things once for all that the Lord after saving a people out of the land of Egypt subsequently destroyed those who did not believe." That little phrase "now I desire to remind you," tells us they had information about this. They had certainly the Old Testament account which was very, very familiar to them, to all who came out of Jewish background. The most familiar of all stories in the Old Testament was the story of God delivering the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt. It was the most frequently told story. It was the story marked out by the Passover which was the highest occasion in the Jewish year. God's redemption of His people out of Egyptian slavery and bondage was the greatest of all stories. He says, "I desire to remind you." This is just to put you in memory. The word actually is to remind, but surely they had not only the knowledge from their Jewish background, but the Apostles and whoever had taught them certainly had reiterated this as well. It was Jesus Himself who transformed the Passover into the Lord's table and that transition must have been taught to them. They were very, very familiar with this story but how important it is to be reminded since, as I said, we are prone to forgetfulness. Drop down to verse 17 and you'll see a reminder of that again, "But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ." And there again Jude is calling upon them to go back and to remember something that they had previously heard. In 2 Peter chapter 1, Peter follows that same pattern. Look at 2 Peter 1:12, "Therefore I shall always be ready to remind you of these things even though you already know them and have been established in the truth which is present with you, but I consider it right as long as I am in this earthly dwelling to stir you up by way of reminder."

Any teacher knows that. Any teacher knows that. Though you know all things once for all...better yet...though you knew it all once. Now since it is a reminder, that's important, there's no need to get extensively involved in the record. Just jog the memory. All of us who teach do this. And Jude is simply refreshing them about two basic facts...the fact of deliverance and the fact of destruction. "The Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who didn't believe." Some manuscripts read, "Jesus." But the Lord is the best attested manuscript. "The Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, destroyed the very people He had saved."

Let's go back and think about that story just briefly. It's told in Exodus 6 through 14, that section, you don't need to look at it, just remind you of what it is.

And you remember what happened, the children of Israel were in bondage in Egypt. They had been there by the time they left for 400 years. They were out in a section called Goshen. Life was very difficult for them, became more difficult for them as time went on. They were asked to make bricks without straw and it was a very, very difficult time. God raised up Moses in Pharaoh's court. God brought him to prominence. Moses had to flee after he killed an Egyptian who was harming one of his people. He fled to Median, he was there in Median. God put him back together in the scene of the burning bush, called him to go back, lead his people out. He confronted Pharaoh. Pharaoh hardened his heart and eventually God hardened Pharaoh's heart. A series of plagues took place. Finally the last plague was the death of the firstborn and the only way you could avoid having the firstborn in your house killed was to put blood on the doorpost and the lintel and offer the sacrifice and eat the Passover. Then there was the Exodus as the people went out of the land, as the Red Sea opened they passed through the Red Sea, the army of Pharaoh followed and the sea closed in and drowned them all. An entire nation of people out of Egypt were moved, up to two million of them headed for the promised land that God had originally pledged to Abraham, reiterated to Isaac and to Jacob.

Now at the time of the Passover, those people believed God. When God said to them, "You put the blood on the door and I'll pass by and you'll live," they did it. They did it. And they kept that Passover. And God rescued them out of Egypt. God's mighty power fulfilled God's great promise and led Israel out of Egypt, headed north toward the promised land of Canaan after 400 years of being out of their land, the land where Abraham had originally come when God had first called him. But the very same Lord who delivered Israel, it says, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe. Subsequently in the Greek is deuteron from which we get Deuteronomy, it means second. The first time He delivered them, the second time He destroyed them. The first time He came to save, the second time He came to destroy. That parallels Jesus Christ. The first time He comes to save, the second time He comes to destroy. And, of course, the story of Israel's unbelief is told in Numbers chapter 14 and you will remember that once they got out in the wilderness, they began to complain and to grumble and to murmur and they began to call upon Moses even to take them back to Egypt. They were an unfaithful people. Numbers chapter 14 they said, "Let's appoint a leader and return to Egypt." They did so many sinful things in doubting God, they even worshiped the golden calf, you know all those terrible stories of their defection.

In verse 22 of Numbers 14, God says this, "Surely all the men who have seen My glory and My signs, you were all there in Egypt. You saw, you saw the plagues, you saw all ten of the plagues which I performed in Egypt in the wilderness. Yet you have put Me to the test these ten times." And if you follow the record since they left Egypt, I listed in the MacArthur Study Bible ten different events that demonstrated their unbelief. God's counting and ten times you've put Me to the test and not listened to My voice. "Therefore shall...you shall by no means see the land which I swore to their fathers nor shall any of those who spurned Me see it."

Now what was the event that triggered this? They got right to the edge of the promised land, to Kadesh. They sent the spies into the land. The spies came out, said, "We can't conquer that land, they're giants in there." There were only two of the spies that said, "Let's go, God's on our side." They were Joshua and Caleb, right? And so God says, down in verse 28, "As I live, this is what I'm going to do to you, your corpses shall fall in this wilderness, even all your numbered men according to your complete number from 20 years old and upward who have grumbled against Me." Everybody 20 and up, and I think I could calculate about one-point-two, or three million people were going to die in the wilderness, the rest would have been under that age. You will not come into the land which I swore to settle you.

Verse 32, "Your corpses shall fall in this wilderness and your sons are going to be shepherds for 40 years in this wilderness and it's going to take 40 years for all of you to die out according to the number...verse 34...of the days which you spied out the land, 40 days for every day you'll bear your guilt a year." Forty years for forty days and you're going to die out and none of you will go into the land except for two, Joshua and Caleb. And Aaron because of his sin died in the wilderness and Moses because of his sin of disobedience, striking the rock rather than speaking to the rock, never went into the land either. Because of unbelief, God destroyed them all in the wilderness. They all died. They never saw the promised land.

Well what is the point here? It's just an illustration of the fact that people who were given spiritual opportunity who are called to believe the truth about God, to trust in God, to put their faith in God, who know enough to do that, who see enough to do that and defect will find the same God that gave them that opportunity will be the same God who destroys them. The historical illustration makes it clear here that Jude is describing people who are outwardly identified with the people of God, who professed the knowledge of God, who have some knowledge of God, who showed some interest in Him, who professed to know Him, belong to Him. But abandoned their confidence in God, abandoned their trust in God, became unbelieving and were therefore destroyed rather than ever entering the place of blessing.

This is a terrifying warning, folks, to apostates, to people today, those of you who come all the way to the edge of the truth, who see it and understand it, who experience it in the lives of the people around you, and you do not believe. God's judgment on Israel at this point is a model for His judgment on apostates in the visible church. And well over a million bodies died in the wilderness, never to see the land of milk and honey, the land of blessing. And it says there in verse 5, "God subsequently destroyed those who did not believe." That's the issue always. They came all the way up to the edge, but didn't really believe. And again I say, visible Israel was not the true Israel and the visible church is not the invisible church. And many, many people will go to hell from a pew, some of you, no doubt, as well. The analogy is sobering, if not frightening.

For a further understanding of that analogy, turn to Hebrews chapter 3...Hebrews chapter 3. And this is one that cannot be avoided because it strengthens this same truth. And we can look down at verse 7...well, verse 6 is a good place to start. "We belong to Christ...he says...Christ is faithful as a Son over his house whose house we are, we belong to Christ, we're the invisible church, the true church, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our home firm till the end," if you don't defect. "Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me as in the day of trial in the wilderness where your fathers tried Me by testing Me and saw My works for 40 years, therefore I was angry with this generation and said they always go astray in their heart and they did not know My ways as I swore in My wrath they shall not enter My rest. Take care, brethren...Jewish brethren in this case, written to the Hebrews...lest there should be in any of you an evil unbelieving heart in falling away from the living God."

In fact, verse 13 says, "You better encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called today, as long as you have a day lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, for we have become partakers of Christ if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance, sure to the end. While it is said, today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me. For who provoked Him when they had heard? Indeed, did not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses and with whom He was angry for 40 years, was it not with those who sinned whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they should not enter His rest? That is the land of Canaan, but to those who were disobedient." And verse 19, "And so we see they were not able to enter because of...what?...unbelief...unbelief."

And then in chapter 4 verses 1 and 2, "Let us fear therefore," you better be afraid, "while you still have a promise remaining of entering His rest, be afraid that any one of you should seem to have come short of it, for indeed we have had the good news preached to us, just as they also. But the word they heard didn't profit them because it was not united by faith in those who heard. For we who have believed enter that rest, just as He has said, as I swore in My wrath they shall not enter My rest." You'll never enter heaven unless you believe. And you only have today. Do not harden your hearts as those in the wilderness with whom God was angry, who died without ever entering the promised land. And their hearts grew harder and harder and harder as they continually resisted the truth.

The book of Hebrews is filled with such warnings. Turn back to chapter 2 verse 3, "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?" There is no way to escape the judgment of God. Verse 2 says, "Every transgression, every disobedience will receive a just reward, a just recompense and you will not escape if you neglect the salvation that is in Christ and Christ alone." You see it in verse 4 of chapter 6, "For in the case of those who have been enlightened, tasted the heavenly gift, and made partakers of the Holy Spirit, tasted the good Word of God, tasted the power of the age to come," and here we're referring to the apostolic power at the very ministry of Jesus, to those who were enlightened, their minds received the truth. They tasted the heavenly gift of salvation in Christ. It was there for them to taste. They tasted the power of the Holy Spirit working through Him, they tasted the good Word of God in His teaching. They tasted the power of the age to come in His miracles. Having tasted all that, experienced all that, been enlightened by all that, if they don't come all the way to faith but fall away, it's impossible to renew them again to repentance. They're damned.

There's another warning in chapter 10. This is the same, striking in its language. Verse 26, "If we go on sinning, it is the sin of unbelief in view, if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth..." How do you sin against the truth? By what? By not believing it. "If you go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there is no longer remaining a sacrifice for sin." There's no way then that you can be saved. All that is left, verse 27, is a certain terrifying expectation of judgment. If you do not believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, there is no other sacrifice for sin and all you can expect is the terrifying reality of judgment and the fury, verse 27, of a fire which will consume the adversaries. And then verse 29, "How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God and regarded as unclean the blood of the Covenant by which He was sanctified and has insulted the Spirit of grace."

One thing to be ignorant, it's something else to know the truth and trample it. It's something else to be exposed in some way being superficially cleansed by the presence of that truth as an unbeliever in a marriage is sanctified as God blesses the marriage. It's superficial, it's on the surface, but it's nonetheless an exposure to that. If you've had that exposure, and you insult the Spirit of grace, your punishment will be far worse than someone who never heard the truth. And verse 30 says, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay." And verse 31 says, "It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God." There are few passages in Scripture that are more sobering and frightening than that. You are already in a dire situation. You are here tonight, the potential of your eternal punishment has been elevated to a level of severity beyond what it wouldn't have been if you'd never come. To reject the gospel now when you understand it, and you know it and you've heard it in the waters of baptism and from me, to reject that gospel now will bring upon you a severer damnation then if you had never heard. If you are a part of the church, if you have been exposed to the gospel, if you have experienced its transforming power in the lives of people around you and you will not receive the truth but defect from the truth, if you are an invader in the church, a hypocrite, a phony, if you are here for the purpose of attacking the faith, attacking the truth, and I'm not talking just about this congregation tonight, but anyone who ever hears this message who was associated with Christianity, you are elevating the agony of your eternity immensely. You will never be in the land of promise. You will never know heavenly bliss. And your hell will be far more horrific.

This is Jude's warning to the apostates. You've had the privilege of knowing the truth and you now face a severer doom. Have you ever asked yourself what makes people do this? Why do people defect? Why do they come all the way up to the truth and walk away?

I think Jesus helped us with that in the parable of the soils, don't you? He said there was a certain kind of ground that was hard. The seed went in. There was a spouting up of life. But when the sun came out, it was burned and died. This is persecution. Some people just don't want to pay the cost. They're just not willing to suffer for Christ, they're not willing to take up their cross and deny themselves. In some cases, as Jesus said, in the weedy ground, it's the love of this world and the deceitfulness of riches. In some cases, it's just hardened unbelief. But always it's the love of iniquity. And again I go back to what Jesus said in John 3, "Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are...what?...evil." So hold your sin all the way to hell, but if you're holding it under the hearing of the gospel, your hell will be severer in proportion to your exposure to the truth.

There is no stronger warning in Scripture. If you are in the church visible and not the church invisible, you fit into this category. If you've come all the way to the edge and by love of your iniquity will not abandon your sin and embrace Christ, you are virtually an apostate in the church. You may not have teaching influence, you may not have ministry influence. You may not be the bishop of anything, but you are virtual apostate, a defector from the faith you know to be true the power of which and the truth of which you've seen. We will contend for the true faith. We will proclaim the true faith against the insidious invasion of error in the church. But we also know that there are people in the church who are in the category of defecting from the faith to which they've been exposed who are not dangers to the church, but are deadly dangerous to themselves.

To the Israelites were given this immense privilege, to be led out of bondage like so many of you, all the way to the place where they experienced the power of God, the wonder of God, the might of God, the goodness of God, the grace of God. They saw God's ability to deliver. They saw God's ability to destroy in the drowning of the Egyptian army. And they were headed to a land of promise. But their faith in God was superficial and shallow and self-protecting and dishonoring and at the first disappointment in their little plans, they no longer trusted God. And they all died in the wilderness and never entered the promised land.

If you have been exposed to the truth, the promised land awaits you, the glory of heaven awaits you. This is not...this is not a false offer, it's a true offer if you will come all the way to faith in Christ, Christ alone and do not defect and join those apostates who do have influence, who have subtle influence and who are responsible for the corruption that occurs in the visible church.

- John Macarthur

[dribbler 6]

You could have made that post double the length and it still would have proved nothing. It just angers me when i read things like "The bible was breathed on by God so it's infallible".

Well, Darwin wore knitted underpants and smoked Winston cigarettes so he must be infallible too.

[HandyNZL 1]

God said to Moses...thou shalt not kill. God drowns the Egyptian army.

Hypocrite.

[Medilloni 6]

I'm a born-again atheist! I come from a Christian family so I have a lot of interest in and respect for Christians, as well as strongly held opinions on their views. Your questions are good, and I always appreciate someone stirring the pot. Saves me the effort.

No. I wouldn't take anything science says as fact. But some types of explanations are more rational than others.

Sperm certainly have plenty of blind enthusiasm.

Hey Murray, as always an enjoyable reply!

I do wish people would grow up (in the nicest way!) with the whole religious package, earlier Steve put it so well...

Religion is an institution for people who do no have a clear and confident understanding of the difference between right and wrong and the correct way to apply those lessons. My interpretation is that some people need the discipline of a set of rules in order to keep them living by what they believe to be the correct set of rules. A kind of army of the mind.

Why can't we, people, take a serious look at what's important in life? Stop looking for reasons to lay blame, finger-point and run from our responsibilities. Sheessh it's not hard, most answers we need to get on with a good life stare us in the face if we just took the time to be brutally honest with ourselves. Some religions have wonderful stories, 'life lessons' or 'guides' on important stuff - but they're all too simplistic, and trying to live life to the letter of religion becomes an inner struggle sooner or later.

And Erik, this is gold, really enjoyed this.......

......I agree with Emerson for the fact it should be about your personal relationship with God, not some organized religion s##t. Personally, I'm an athiest, don't believe in it, I believe in the power of humans and individuals, but still, many people do believe in God etc, and that's cool too, just keep quiet about it. I don't think anyone should care about it or talk about it. Honestly, what difference does it make? Accept others for what they are, allow everyone to be what they want to be, and end it there........

.........Believe what you want, but don't force it on others, don't tell everyone else they're wrong, and please be flexible to modify your beliefs. Don't stick to the textbook. Humans have potential, a whole hell of a lot of it, there's no real reason to let something dominate you when you are more than capable of doing good things without it. I can see why people want a religion, and it's fine if they do, but don't let some book dictate your life to you. It's just not right, and it's a waste of human potential.........

They say that before a man dies he calls out for his mother. I really, really hate to say this, but I've been in situations to see this moment first hand - and the biggest shock of all was that the peace those great people sought was peace with themselves. Not God (or the name of their religion's Head Honcho), just life seen in the ultimate perspective. The sadness was completely overwhelming, especially so because we didn't have the time to wonder about it at that moment. But thinking about it later, the answers seemed so simple and uncomplicated.

The only thing this left me with is that no matter what anyone believes, the only thing that will matter is what you see when you take a close look at yourself, how you treat/treated others, how you treat/treated yourself well, with understanding, self respect and humility.

So I have nothing to offer here in terms of religious beliefs. I only know good people are a gazillion times more important than I previously imagined, and that's where the answers in life are for me. Each to their own.

Back to Steve again then...

A kind of army of the mind.

Perfect.

[Null 0]

I'm fully aware of what epistemology is, and the arguments of truth (see Plato's "cave" story - it's very interesting), since I have spent an entire module this year dedicated to philosophy. Science is NOT an account of how things happened - but it's an account of how people THINK things happened - it would be very foolish to claim absolute truth, since the only rational answer to any question is simply that we do not know. As my lecturer said - there is no right. There are just different levels of wrong. Scientific answers are just (most often) less wrong than, for example, theory X, or theory Y. But you can't discount the fact that it may be totally wrong, and religion could be totally right, or vice-versa, or neither could be right, or both could be wrong. We simply are not in a position to say what is absolute right, and what is absolute wrong.