Biblical Historical Prophecy

   Morgan refers to the Pilgrims at Plymouth who made a covenant with each other before they got off the ship. He suggests an idea: what if William Bradford, their leader, had told his people that they and other Pilgrims would develop into a great nation and prosper for 100 years as a colony of Britian. But eventually the nation would break those colonial ties by a war of independence; then adopt a constitution that would state that all men are created equal; elect a president and congress. Also, the new nation would spread out westward pushing Indians out of their land. Many more states would join the union of states, but there would eventually be a war between the northern and southern states. This would be a very bloody war, but the union of the states would be saved by a man named Lincoln. There would follow a period of reconstruction to rebuild the South with great industrial growth and the nation, called America, would become a world power. Then America would be involved in a world war, but would win then fall into an economic depression, and another world war in which 50 million people will die. Again America will win, but only because they use "a terrifying weapon of apocalyptic dimensions against the land of the rising sun." After this war America "will lose its moral bearing, references to God will be expunged from public domains, sexual perversion and violence will swallow up the nation, entertainment will become the supreme pastime, and the Christianity we have come here to preserve will again be threatened."
   We know Bradford never made such predictions. No person can predict the future like that, but God can!
   There are hundreds of predictions and prophecies given in the Bible about the future of Israel and her Messiah and the nations of the world. Some of these prophecies involve some minute details and they have come true just as prophesied.These were given 100's and 1,000's of years before being fulfilled. Some have  tried to say that the prophecies were written after the event happened, but those people alive at that time would have proven it untrue. However, archeology has proven that they are real prophecies fulfilled as prophesied.
   Morgan says, "God provided these prophecies for the purpose of proving His Word is trustworthy and authoritative. In otherwords, prophecy in the Bible is given to confirm the reliability of Christianity."
   In the Old Testament God said that if what a prophet said didn't come true, it was not God's message.
   Morgan asks, "(H)ow can we know if the Bible is true? We can ask: Does it make specific predictions about the future and have those predictions come true?" "I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come." (Isaiah 46:9-10) "No other religion on earth contains such an abundance of predictions and prophecies about the future, much of it minute in its specifications and no other religion can document detailed fulfillments of its predictions in human history as ours.
   Next time we will look at some specific prophecies.

Sincerely,
Rick

   I would like to mention that you can read any of my posts by clicking on the list at the bottom right side of the page.

Sincerely,
Rick

The Social Effects of Evolution VS Creation.

   Morgan writes in "Beyond Reasonable Doubt" that "(creation) results in human dignity and happiness, whereas the results of the evolutionary hypothesis are dark, sinister, and deeply troubling. Scientists, after all, gather evidence for their theories by conducting experiments and finding out what works and what does not." How about it? Is evolution a success when it affects our society? Does it affect how we feel about ourselves? Or how we treat others? I believe that those that embrace evolution are much more apt to support abortion because they don't hold life sacred like those believing the creation history given in Genesis chapters 1-3.  I also believe that those believing evolution are more susceptible to suicide because life has no real meaning to them. I feel that's why teens are taking their own lives in greater numbers as schools become more adament in teaching evolution. Even teens with a church background, when taught in school with such "authority" and as if it were known to be true without doubt, are ending their own lives for the same reasons. Certainly they were not grounded in the Christian truth from their Bible.
   Some churches are teaching theistic evolution which either opposes or spiritualizes Genesis chapters 1-3 along with too many other Scriptures. Even Jesus referred to Genesis chapter 2 when He referred to marriage in the beginning. Was he wrong? NO! Evolution is wrong!
   Morgan asks, "So does evolution work? It is a well-known, if seldom-mentioned, fact of history that Darwin's survival-of-the-fittest and materialist evolutionary conjectures, seized upon by Karl Marx, provided the foundation for both Hitler's Holocaust and Stalin's genocide." Darwin's influence in America is much more subtle. Morgan says, "If Darwin is right, we are nothing but accidental byproducts of evolutionary dust on an insignificant world lost somewhere in the vastness of a hostle universe and doomed to perish in a short period of time. We are nothing more than a match that blazes for a moment then is extinguished forever.
We are without any divine guidance, without any moral absolutes. We have no spirit and no soul, therefore we become obsessed with our bodies, obsessed with pleasure. All we are, as the song says, is 'dust in the wind'." In all of that quote there is no hope, no future, no love, no compassion, no value on life. Also there is no moral need to obey laws. That allows for assualts, robberies, murders, and scandals of many kinds!
   If one obeys the Bible and believes in Jesus Christ, all those problems go away. Christians are not perfect, but forgiven. There would probably be some minor troubles. Remember, I'm saying,"If they believed and obeyed the Bible."
   Morgan wrote, "If, on the other hand, creation is true, then we were formed by a loving God in His own image, the crown of His creation, and heirs of eternal life through His Son, Jesus Christ. We are people of dignity and worth, surrounded by a fantastic universe that He made for our enjoyment. We are guided by sound moral principles leading to human health and happiness and we are comforted by all the promises in the Book He has given. We have hope even during life's darkest hours, and we have value beyond that of any other living creature.
   Which option seems most sensible to you?"
   Morgan, then, tells the story of Hugh Ross who was a post-graduate fellow at the California Institute of Technology. As a boy he was looking at stars with a telescope and spent a lot of time in the library reading about them. By the age of 16, he lectured on astronomy! He won the British Columbia Science Fair with a project on variable stars. He went on to earn his doctorate in astronomy from the University of Toronto and then did research on quasars and galaxies as a post-graduate fellow at the California Institute of Technology. As he studied the heavens and noted their complexity and beauty pointed undeniably to a Creator, he began to study the great religions of the world, but was deeply disappointed at their inconsistancies, myths, and scientific foolishness. But when he read a Bible, he saw that it made sense. As he read the Bible he said, "I was amazed with the quantity of historical and scientific references and with the detail in them. I committed myself to spend at least an hour a day going through the Bible to test the accuracy of all its statements on science, geography, and history. At the end of eighteen months, I had to admit to myself that I had been unsuccessful in finding a single provable error or contradiction. I was now convinced that the Bible was supernaturally accurate and thus supernaturally inspired."
   While looking for scientific and historical verses, he found verses about salvation and became a believer in Jesus Christ. He said, "At 1:06 in the morning, I signed my name on the back page of my Gideon Bible stating that I had received Christ as my Lord and Savior."
   Are you willing to see the evidence of creation and believe in the God of the Bible? Are you willing to devote your life to Him and trust Him to save you from your sin? If so, confess to Him that you are a sinner, that you regret it and thank Him (Jesus) for dying on the cross to pay your debt of sin. Ask Him to come into your life and save you. Trust Christ, alone, by faith (believing), alone and you will be saved. Please read St. John 3:16-21, 5:24, 8:31-32, 10:10-18,27-29, 12:46-50, 14:1-6,27. See, also, Romans 3:20,23, 6:23.

Sincerely,
Rick

The Bible's knowledge of disease prevention.

   If one would carefully study God's instructions to the Israelites, His chosen nation, he would see much instruction telling them preventative measures that we use today! For instance, God said that the mouse, mole, lizards, etc. are "unclean". They weren't to eat them or use any vessel they touched unless it could be cleansed with running water.(Leviticus 11:29-38)  God also separated lepers from the rest of the people and gave directions to know what leprosy was.(Lev.13:1-46) He also warned that leprosy could be spread by clothing or other things.(Lev.13:39-59) Other diseases could be spread by a "discharge" from a sick person's body.(Lev. 15:1-33)  God gave Israel laws about keeping food and utensils clean and gave them the promise that if they followed His laws, "I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the LORD, Who heals you."(Exodus 15:26) In Numbers, God said that anyone who touches a dead body would be "unclean" 7 days - he was quaranteened. He was to wash himself on the 3rd and 7th days. Anyone or anything in the tent when one died was unclean and must wash or be washed with  running water to be "clean" as well as be sprinkled with special ashes and water. Then he can mingle with others.
(Numbers 19:11-19) God required a man and wife to be faithful to each other and warned that sexual unfaithfulness causes deadly diseases.(Proverbs 7:1-23) In Leviticus 3:17 God forbids eating fat which is known today to cause various problems in the body.
   Morgan gives the example of Dr. Semmelweis who worked in a hospital in Vienna. 1 in 6 mothers were dying. Drs. didn't wash hands between patients or even after autopsies. Dr. Semmelweis thought that washing their hands between autopsies and patients would cut down on deaths. As long as Drs. did the death rate dropped, but they got tired of so much washing and stopped it. They actually laughed Dr. Semmelweis to scorn and he was eventually fired! Yet thousands of years before that God wanted His peoplle to wash to be clean.
   Morgan goes on to say, "But a more careful study of (Exodus, Numbers, and Leviticus) would amaze us. They are filled with health-inducing practices and procedures thousands of years ahead of their time, based on scientific truths that are only now being uncovered by modern medicine, science, and technology - all of which is exactly what you would expect if the universe was created by the God Who also gave us His Own inspired Scripture. His world and His word are 2 sides of the same cosmic coin."

Sincerely,
Rick

The Universe is Extremely Complex

   William Paley suggested that the complexity of the universe could be compared to a watch. He said, "Suppose we were walking along and came to a stone, we might ask where the stone came from, and our companions might say that the stone had been there forever. But suppose, continuing down the path, we came to a watch, with its hands and face and dials and gears and its intricate, precise workmanship. If we asked where the watch came from, the obvious answer would be someone had made it....had owned it....had lost it. Such a precise and finely crafted instrument would not have come into existence just by pieces of dust and debris blowing together."
   Since the universe is so extremely more complex than a watch, its complexity proves the need for an Intelligence to design it - a Creator. Morgan quotes an article from Time Magazine by Robert Wright, "Who called himself a fairly hardcore scientific materialist. But in the course of the article, Dr. Wright admitted:  There is more to this universe than meets the eye, something authentically divine about how it all fits together. One intriguing observation that has bubbled up from physics is that the universe seems calibrated for life's existence. If the force of gravity were pushed upward a bit, stars would burn out faster, leaving  little time for life to evolve on the planets circling them. If the relative masses of protons and neutrons were changed by a hair, stars might never be born, since the hydrogen they eat wouldn't exist. If, at the Big Bang, some basic numbers--the 'initial conditions'--had been jiggled, matter and energy would never have coagulated into galaxies, stars, planets or any other platforms stable enough for life as we know it. And so on. Morgan goes on to quote Dr. Hugh Ross, a scientist with a Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Toronto, who wrote in his book, Creation and Time:  "Until recently the universe was measureless. Now we can see and measure many of its limits and characteristics. In making these measurements, astronomers discovered the anthropic principle, the maxim that the universe has been built for humankind. As of October 1993, twenty-five different characteristics of the universe were recognized as precisely fixed. If they were different by only slight amounts, the differences would spell the end of the existence of any conceivable life. To this list of twenty-five can be added thirty-eight characteristics of our galaxy and solar system that like-wise must fall within narrowly defined ranges for life of any kind to exist.
   The degree of fine-tuning necessary for the support of life supercedes by many orders of magnitude the best human beings have ever achieved in the design and construction of instruments, machines, of anything else. Three of the characteristics of the universe must be fine-tuned to a precision of one part in 10 to the 37th power or better. That's supernatural!"
   Not only is the vastness of our universe so intricately designed, but the tiny parts of our world are also. Morgan quotes "Fred Hoyle, a highly respected scientist of the first caliber, but an athiest. Hoyle discovered the remarkable nuclear arrangement of the carbon atom which is so uniquely and perfectly designed that if its composition and resonance level had been altered in the slightest way, life would be absolutely impossible. Dr. Gingerich heard a rumor that Fred Hoyle claimed nothing had shaken his atheism as much as his discoveries regarding the carbon atom....Then Dr. Gingerich read this in an article by Fred Hoyle appearing in a Cal Tech Publication: 'Would you not say to yourself, "Some supercalculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule." Of course you would....A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question." Dr. Gingerich observed, "Fred Hoyle and I differ on lots of questions, but on this we agree: a common sense and satisfying interpretation of our world suggests the designing hand of a super-intelligence."
   Many scientists are seeing the complexities of both the universe and microscopic elements, animals, and plants. They are honestly concluding that there must of necessity be at least intelligent design or even a Creator. I don't see any other honest conclusion that can be made, but the biblical statement, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

Sincerely,
Rick

Where did the universe come from?

   For nearly 100 years scientists have been trying to deny the reality of a Creator God, but the more they learn about the universe, the harder it is to deny the evidence they can't help but see. Without God Christianity couldn't exist. It is as important to Christianity as the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We've seen that there were over 500 people who saw the resurrected Christ as a proof of its reality. In the same way, creation proves the existence of God. "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard."(Psalms 19:1-3) See, also, Romans 1::20.
   If God didn't create the vast universe that scientists have seen, Who did? How did it get here? Scientists have been promoting various theories and some are promoted as if they were factual. It is certain that none of them were there when the universe was started (Created).
   Morgan says, "I remember hearing a science professor reduce to shreds the arguments of an agnostic student by simmply asking him a series of repetitive questions. Where did life come from? 'It evolved from chemicals in some sort of primeval pond,' said the student. Where did the primeval pond come from? 'From elements existing as residue of the Big Bang.' Where did the Big Bang come from? 'From a speck of matter that exploded.' Where did the speck of matter come from? That is where the discussion ended for the student's only answer was, 'I don't know.' "
   Scientists use their own terms (words) to describe their theories so they don't sound so ridiculous. Morgan states that, "Dr Fredrick B. Burnham, science historian and director of the Trinity Institute in New York City, confessed that many scientists would consider the idea that God created the universe ' a more respectable hypothesis at this point in time than at any time in the last 100 years!'
   Morgan quotes Dr. Henry Morris as stating "Every observed phenomenon is an effect, and its cause must be adequate to produce it. No effect can be quantitatively greater or qualitatively extrinsic to its cause. Every effect must be assimilated in principle to its cause." Morgan explains, "Simply put, since the universe appears almost limitless in extent, the First Cause must be virtually infinite. Since the universe appears almost endless in duration, the First Cause must be virtually eternal. Since the universe pulsates with energy, the First Cause must be virtually omnipotent. Since the universe is phenomenally complex and contains intelligent life, the First Cause must be virtually omniscient. Since the universe contains feeling and emotions and love and human relations, the First Cause must be personal. Since the universe contains goodness and righteousness and love and justice, the First Cause must be moral." "Thus," says Morris, "reasoning from cause-and-effect leads us to conclude that the great First Cause of all things is an infinite, eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent, personal, emotional, moral, spiritual, living Being. And this, of course, is nothing less than a description of the God of the Bible."
Sincerely,
Rick