September 14 - The Forbidding Character of Jesus

We take up the account of Christ, in the New Testament, just as we would any other ancient writing, or as if it were a manuscript just brought to light in some ancient library. We open the book, and discover in it four biographies of a certain remarkable character, called Jesus Christ. He is miraculously born of Mary, a virgin of Galilee, and declares himself, without scruple, that he came out from God. Finding the supposed history made up, in great part, of his mighty acts, and not being disposed to believe in miracles and marvels, we should soon dismiss the book as a tissue of absurdities too extravagant for belief, were we not struck with the sense of something very peculiar in the character of this remarkable person.

Having our attention arrested thus by the impression made on our respect, we are put on inquiry, and the more we study it, the more wonderful, as a character, it appears. And before we have done, it becomes, in fact, the chief wonder of the story; lifting all the other wonders into order and intelligent proportion round it, and making one compact and glorious wonder of the whole picture; a picture shining in its own clear sunlight upon us, as the truest of all truths—Jesus, the Divine Word, coming out from God, to be incarnate with us, and be the vehicle of God and salvation to the race. 

Horace Bushnell (1802-1876) To read the first part of the section of his book The Character of Jesus Forbids His Possible Classification With Men look for the post Here

Read More

September 12 - The Intelligent Universe!

 

Sir Frederick Hoyle

There is not a shred of objective evidence to support the hypothesis that life began in an organic soup here on earth. Indeed, Francis Crick, who shared a Nobel Prize for the discovery of the structure of DNA, is one biophysicist who finds this theory unconvincing. So why do biologists indulge in unsubstantiated fantasies in order to deny what is so patently obvious, that 200,000 amino acid chains, and hence life, did not appear by chance.

The answer lies in a theory developed over a century ago, which sought to explain the development of life as an inevitable product of the purely local natural process. Its author, Charles Darwin, hesitated to challenge the churches doctrine on the creation, and publically, at least, did not trace the implications of his ideas back in their bearing on the origin of life. However, he privately suggested that life itself may have been produced in "some warm little pond, "and to this day his followers have sought to explain the origins of terrestial life in terms of a process of chemical evolution from a primordial soup. But, as we have seen, this theory does not fit the facts.

The Intelligent Universe, page 23

Read More

The Six 24 hour Days of Genesis 1

 

Dennis Edwards

Hebrew Scholar Dr. James Barr (1924-2006) Oxford University Professor 1976-1989 said the following:

"There is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience, (b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages of the Biblical story."

Dr. Barr, however, did not say he agreed with that interpretation. He did say that that was the obvious rendering of the Hebrew text. 

Dr. Gleason Archer (1916-2004) another famous Old Testament scholar from the States said something similar. "From a superficial reading of Genesis 1, the impression would seem to be that the entire creative process took place in six twenty-four hour days. If this was the true intent of the Hebrew author...This seems to run counter to modern scientific research, which indicates that the planet Earth was created several billion years ago." 

Both these men understood what the Scripture was saying. Both were influenced by modern scientific doctrines to compromise their understanding of the Scriptures to accommodate evolutionary doctrine.

Read More

September 6 - In the Beginning Was Information!

 Dr. Werner Gitt

"There is no known law of nature, no known process and no known sequence of events which can cause information to originate by itself in matter."

In the Beginning Was Information page 107             You can watch the above lecture here.

Dennis Edwards: Of course, the problem for the atheistic evolutionist is the existence of the DNA molecule necessary for the beginning of life. The DNA is basically an information code, a genetic computer program. How could the DNA, a genetic information code, develop on its own under the non-directed atheistic evolutionary process? It is not reasonable to believe that it could have since there is no known law of nature, no known process and no known sequence of events which can cause information to originate by itself in matter. It just doesn't happen and therefore did not happen in the past. The vast degree of complex information found in the DNA molecule points to a designer God. In the beginning was information and that information came from the mind of God! God, not some naturalistic non-directed evolutionary process brought about the information in the DNA molecule. God, not evolution, is the answer to the question of how life originated. God is the best answer to the DNA information enigma.

Read More

September 5 Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

 

"Willing to appear plainly to those who seek Him with all their heart and conceal from those who flee from Him with all their heart. God tempers the knowledge of Himself in such a manner as to give signs of Himself visible to those who seek Him, but not to those who seek Him not. There is light enough for those who only want to seek Him, and darkness enough for those of a contrary disposition. There is clearness enough to see for enlightening the elect and obscurity sufficient to humilitate. There is obscurity enough to blind the reprobate and clearness enough or sufficient to condemn them and render them inexcusable." - "Penses"

Read More

September 4 - When God Wants To Drill A Man

When God wants to drill a man,

And thrill a man,
And skill a man
When God wants to mold a man
To play the noblest part;

When He yearns with all His heart
To create so great and bold a man
That all the world shall be amazed,
Watch His methods, watch His ways!

How He ruthlessly perfects
Whom He royally elects!
How He hammers him and hurts him,
And with mighty blows converts him

Into trial shapes of clay which
Only God understands;
While his tortured heart is crying
And he lifts beseeching hands!

How He bends but never breaks
When his good He undertakes;
How He uses whom He chooses,
And which every purpose fuses him;
By every act induces him
To try His splendor out-
God knows what He’s about.

– Anonymous

Read More

September 3 - The Most Inclusive Out of the Most Exclusive!

 Why Will There Never Be an Amish Christian Terrorist? - Tim Keller from The Reason for God

"If your fundamental (belief) is a man dying on the cross for his enemies, if the very heart of your self-image and your religion is a man praying for his enemies as he died for them, sacrifing for them, loving them - if that sinks into your heart of hearts, it's going to produce the kind of life that the early Christians produced. The most inclusive possible life out of the most exclusive possible claim - and that is that this is the truth. But what is truth? The truth is a God became weak, loving, and dying for the people who opposed him, dying forgiving them."

Read More

August 31 "Men Have Fogotten God!"

 

Joseph Stalin (1878-1953)

Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disaster that had befallen Russia. "Men have forgotten God, that's why all this happened. " Since then I have spent well nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution...But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of our ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: "Men have forgotten God, that's why all this has happened. "

Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) Russian novelist, historian, and political dissident.

Read More

August 30 - Stand Up for the Truth Come What May!

Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

 I still believe that standing up for the truth of God is the greatest thing in the world. This is the end of life. The end of life is not to be happy. The end of life is not to achive pleasure and avoid pain. The end of life is to do the will of God, come what may.

Read More

August 29 - If We Abide by the Principles in the Bible!

Daniel Webster (1782-1852) - Secretary of State

"If there is anything in my thought or style to commend, the credit is one to my parents for instilling in me an early love of the Scriptures. If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper, but if we or our posterity neglect its instruction and authority, no man can tell how sudden a castastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity."

Read More

August 26 - A Great Moral Teacher or the Son of God?

C.S. Lewis

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I am ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I do not accept His claim to be God." That is one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would be either a lunatic, on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg, or else he would be the Devil of Hell.

You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up as a fool. You can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon, or you can fall at His feet and call Him "Lord and God," but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

Read More

August 21 - Exercise Your Soul Muscles

If a man does not exercise his arm, he develops no biceps muscle; and if a man does not exercise his soul, he acquires no muscle in his soul, no strength of character, no vigor of moral fiber, no beauty of spiritual growth. Love is not a thing of enthusiastic emotion. It is a rich, strong, vigorous expression of the whole Christian character—the Christlike nature in its fullest development. And the constituents of this great character are only to be built up by ceaseless practice. ....

By synthesis of all the colors, men can make whiteness, they cannot make light. By synthesis of all the virtues, men can make virtue, they cannot make love.--Love Practised, Henry Drummond

Read More

August 25 - Sir Walter Scott on the Bible

Within this awful volume (the Bible) lies the mystery of mysteries. Happiest they of human race, to whom their God has given grace, to read, to fear, to hope, to pray, to lift the latch, to force the way. But better had they ne’er been born, who read to doubt or read to scorn. -  Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) Scottish historical novelist, poet, playwright, and historian. 

Read More

August 24 - Dead Sea Scroll vs Massoretic Text

In comparing the Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah with the Massoretic text Josh McDowell wrote;

The impact of this discovery (of the Dead Sea Scrolls) is in the exactness of the Isaiah scroll (125 BC) with the Massoretic text of Isaiah (916 AD) 1,000 years later. This demonstrates the unusual accuracy of the copyists of the Scripture over a 1,000 year period.

Of the 166 words in Isaiah 53, there are only 17 letters in question. Ten of these are simply a matter of spelling, which does not affect the sense. Four more letters are minor stylistic changes, such as, conjunctions. The remaining 3 letters compose the word “light,” which is added in verse 11, and does not affect the meaning greatly. Futhermore, the word is supported by the Septuagint Isaiah. Thus, in one chapter of 166 words, there is only one word (of three letters) in question after 1,000 years of transcription and this word does not significantly change the meaning of the passage. – Josh McDowell, The Evidence Deserves a Verdict (2017)

Read More

August 23 - Mark Twain on the New Testament

The New Testament is the very best book that ever was or ever will be known in the world, because it teaches you the best lessons by which any human creature, who tries to be truthful and faithful to duty, can possibly be guided. – Charles Dickens (1812-1870) British Novelist

Read More

August 22 - The Person of Christ!

 

This Jesus of Narazeth, without money and arms, conquered more millions than Alexander, Ceasar, Mohammed, and Napoleon; without science and learning. He shed more light on things human and divine than all philosophers and scholars combined; without the eloquence of schools. He spoke such words of life as were never spoken before or since, and produced effects which lie beyond the reach of orator or poet; without writing a single line, He set more pens in motion, and furnished themes for more sermons, orations, discussions, learned volumes, works of art, and songs of praise than the whole army of great men of ancient and modern times. – Philip Schaff (1819-1893)  The Person of Christ

Read More

August 18 - Are the Gospels Romance or Myth?

 

If someone tells me that something in the Gospels is legend or romance, I want to know how many legends and romances he has read, how well his palate is trained in detecting them by the flavour…Turn to (the Gospel of) John. Read the dialogues: that with the Samaritan woman at the well, or that which follows the healing of the man born blind. Look at the pictures: Jesus, if I may use the word, doodling with his finger in the dust…I have been reading poems, romances, vision-literature, legends, myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know that not one of them is like this. – C.S. Lewis Westcott House (1959)

Read More

August 17 - Are the Gospels Legends?

As a literary historian, I am perfectly convinced that whatever else the Gospels are they are not legends. I have read a great deal of legends and I am quite clear that they (the Gospels) are not the same sort of thing. – C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) What Are We to Make of Jesus?

Read More

August 16 - The Bible the Only Book of Prophetic Truth

 

It (the Bible) is the only volume ever produced by man, or a group of men, in which is to be found a large body of prophecies relating to individual nations, to Israel, to all the peoples of the earth, to certain cities, and to the coming of One who was to be the Messiah. The ancient world had many different devices for determining the future, known as divination, but not in the entire gamut of Greek and Latin literature, even though they use words prophet and prophecy, can we find any real specific prophecy of (a) great historic event to come in the distant future, nor any prophecies of a Savior to arise in the human race. – Wilbur M. Smith (1894-1976) Theologian

Read More

August 14 - The Miracle of the Dead Sea Scrolls

 

The Isaiah copies of the Dead Sea Scrolls proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95% of the text. The 5% of variations consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling. – Gleason Archer (1916-2004) Bible Scholar

It is a matter of wonder that through something like a thousand years the text underwent so little alteration. – Millar Burrows (1898-1980) Yale Divinity School  The Dead Sea Scrolls of St. Mark’s Monastery

Psalm 12: 6-7 "The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever."

Read More