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Monday, January 26, 2009

Who Created God?

This article was read and posted on a Christian Forum by Missionary and friend, Jeff Mills. It is something I believe we should teach our children and for that reason I present it for your consideration.

It is easy to make an argument for God’s existence from a cosmological standpoint. As the years have gone by, a growing amount of scientific data has accumulated which negates atheistic assumptions about how matter and the cosmos came into existence and how it has arrived at its present condition. As a science teacher and public lecturer on the compatibility of belief in God and science, I have been impressed with an increasing awareness on the part of many scientists and theologians that science and religion are symbiotic disciplines.

One question which inevitably comes up in a discussion of this nature is what the origin of God is? If God created matter/energy and designed the systems that have propelled matter into its present arrangement, who or what accomplished that for God? Why is it any more reasonable to believe that God has always been than it is to say that matter has always been? As Carl Sagan has said, “If we say that God has always been, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always been?” (Carl Sagan, Cosmos, [New York: Random House, Inc., 1980], p. 257).

From a purely scientific standpoint, it is easy to demonstrate that matter cannot be eternal in nature. The universe is expanding from what appears to be a beginning point in space/time, which appears to be a one time event. Hydrogen is the basic fuel of the cosmos, powering all stars and other energy sources in space. If the fuel of the universe has been used eternally, that fuel will eventually be depleted; but the evidence is that the cosmological gas gauge, while moving toward “empty,” is yet a long way from being there—a condition incompatible with an eternal universe. The second law of thermodynamics insists that the cosmos is moving toward a condition of disorder, sometimes referred to as “heat death.” Even in an oscillating universe, things ultimately run out of energy and “die.” All of these evidences, and several others we have not made reference to, show that matter cannot be eternal, as Dr. Sagan and his associates would like to believe. However, this does not mean that we automatically accept the hypothesis that God is the Creator. Why is it not equally invalid to suggest that God has always been?

The problem here is that many people have a mistaken concept of God. If we conceive of God as physical, anthropomorphic (like man) being, the question of God’s origin is valid. However, such a concept of God is alien to the Bible and to common sense. Consider the following descriptions of God from the Bible:

John 4: 24
God is a Spirit: ...
Matthew 16:17
... for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my father which is in heaven.

Numbers 23:19
God is not a man, that he should ... ;

Obviously, the descriptions and concepts of God given in these passages are that God is a spiritual entity. He exists outside of the three-dimensional physical world in which we live. The Bible further supports this concept of God in the following passages:
Jeremiah 23:23-24
Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off? ... Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD.

2 Chronicles 2:6
But who is able to build a house, seeing the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain him? ...

Acts 17:28
For in Him we live, and move, and have our being; ...

Not only is God described as being outside space, but He is also described as being outside of time. Consider the following:
2 Peter 3:8
But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

Psalm 90:4
For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

Psalm 102:27
But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.

Acts 1:7
...It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his power.

If God is a being that is unlimited in time, and if He has access to every piece of time as if it were now, the question of who created God is an invalid question. The problem is like asking a student to draw a four-sided triangle. The terminology is self-contradictory.
When asked “Who or what created God?” we are making the assumption that God was created. If God exists outside of time and space, and if He is the Creator of time and space, He obviously was not created! God began the beginning! This is why He says, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last” (Revelation 22:13).
God created time. The statement of Genesis, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” is making reference to the creation of time. The reason that things like heat death, the expansion of the universe, and the depletion of hydrogen do not apply to God is because He is outside of time. God has always been. He did things before time began (see 1 Corinthians 2:7). He not only began time; He will also end it. When time ends, all matter and all mankind will enter eternity—a timeless condition free of the negative things that time brings upon us now.

2 Peter 3:10-11
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness.
Revelation 21:4
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

The agnostic position that there is nothing that can be said to support God’s existence that cannot be said against that existence cannot, in the opinion of the author, stand in the face of this evidence.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Christian Computers, page 2

... Not long ago I did an article, titled Christian Computers, and while the reactions were swift they were far to often negative and exactly the opposite of what one should expect from a community of Christian brethren. One such comment, from a person that shall, forever, remain nameless, was to the effect that when he saw the title of the article that his first thought was of poorly built and very old computers. As the servants of our LORD we are commanded to do all we do as unto the Lord our God, Himself. (Col. 3:17)
... If a man will apply that command to his daily life, from moment to moment it will effect every decision that he makes, from the tithe he renders on Sunday to the pair of socks he put on on Monday morning. My primary thrust in the previous article was that we should never do the dishonorable as is so very common in Christian circles today. To many Christians are running illegal Windows operating systems on them and it is not only Spiritually disadvantageous it is from a worldly stand point foolish.
... I understand that most of you do not have the slightest idea of what a Kernel is once you get past a roasted ear of corn but without this gem your computer does you no good what-so-ever. Suffice it to say for this article that you have one in your operating system, whether it be Windows, Mac or one of the hundreds of flavors of Linux/Unix. This is important to you for only one reason, the Windows Kernel and the way it is written is the reason Windows Computers are attacked by virus'.
... So you ask, “Does Linux ever suffer from a virus attack?” The true answer must be an unqualified “yes.” The 1996 attack caused the Kernel to be rewritten and there-by prevent future attacks. This rewrite has been continuous, from that time until now, to stay ahead of the writers of the virus'. In the last year I have updated, by automatic update, from version 2.6.18-xx to 2.6.27-7. So you see there is a very good reason that the Linux systems never are attacked. When the Linux people find a hole that can be exploited they plug that hole.
... So, from a worldly standpoint it would make perfect sense to use one of the Linux systems because your data will not be corrupted or lost because of some outside, unknown source. But then there is the ever present lie that is pushed by IT's that are hooked on Windows, “Only Computer Geeks and nerds that like the command line can use a Linux system.” Since MS has a patent on every innovation they have ever developed, including the latest Spyware to see what you are doing with you Windows unit, one is left to wonder why Red Hat, SUSE, Ubuntu and many other systems are also point and click because the code that allows that to be is legally freeware and yet MS is supposedly the only system using it.
... That's right, Ubuntu, the system I use on my computers at home, the same system I have been building all the new computers for other folks, customers and friends, is not only safe, it has a learning curve that is practically a flat curve for anyone that can use a Windows machine. Add to those points that the system is totally free and you never need to be stuck with the antique system of Win 98SE o Win 2000 in order to use a modern operating system and suddenly your new, custom built computer that was built for five hundred by yourself or for six-fifty by your local tech that could not be purchased for three times the cash is a God honoring legal machine.
... There is another very important point. When we buy our young people their new units for school we will always, except for the richest of us, compromise on the software we purchase for them. Most of us settle for the much less expensive student's version of MS Office or at best get the student the Home Office version. Ubuntu comes loaded on the Install disk with a MS Word compatible Pro Version Office Suite. And then when you consider that there are over four thousand programs that the user just points and clicks, when on line, to install and they are every-one of them free, there should never be a question in the Christians mind about what he or she should do for their next computer.
... And last of all, you need no knowledge of computers to install Ubuntu on you Windows computer to have a duel booting computer as long as you remember to install windows first. Windows will hide your Ubuntu but Ubuntu will give you the option to use either system.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Matt. 6:24

... It is a funny world that we live in today. The social system that we live in today has, in most of the world, changed but not as much as we like to imagine. In the New Testament times the Romans dominated the world and whole families might be slaves to one man. In our world today we, generally, have smaller families but they might each one of them belong to a different master. The husband might be a Mixer Operator for Texas Industries, the wife might be a Machine Operator for Toshiba, The son a supervisor for a small company and the daughter might be a Cosmetic Supplier for a major, nation-wide company but just as the “slaves” in the scriptures worked to earn their keep, so it is today. We are even commanded to give our masters their due.
... When I was young I went into the business of building and remodeling homes for people. My thought at the time was that I was tired of working for someone else and seeing them profit from my labor. I, on this premise, went into business, for myself. Of course reality soon seated itself. Not only had I traded a single master for many but there were additional problems that I had not fore seen.
... As the contractor, I was responsible to everyone of my customers, their slave, for the work that was being accomplished, in their behalf. Where, when working for a single master I had tended to blow off much of what he said, I had to pay very close attention to what each of my customers required in order to be payed and to stay out of court. These, many, masters were always pulling at me to get their way.
... Now, added to all this additional headache were the men that worked with and for me. There was always Christmas for their children, the health of their wives, getting them to work with a hang over, keeping them out of jail and a limitless number of other head-aches. It was soon apparent to me that no man has ever worked for himself.
... So it is odd to this old man that people have such a problem accepting the fact that in the Spiritual Realm we serve a Master also. It is a much simpler choice for one to make because there are only two such beings to choose from, we either serve Satan or we serve God. And of course the most popular response to this situation is that there is no proof for such a circumstance and that is, of course, correct if you discount the lack of evidence and the negative being a grand cause to closely examine that lack.
... Upon close examination both the popular Big Bang Theory and the Theory of Evolution have absolutely no supporting evidence that has stood the test of time. If, after better than 150 years of intensive examination, the Theory of Evolution has not turned up, even, one supported piece of evidence, it is, surely, an indicator that there is not a reason to support such an idea. Then, when we look at the case for the Big Bang idea, we are surely saddened by the insistence of a scientifically irrational idea. Since the scripture teaches us that man, originally, lived around a thousand years it is reasonable to say that based on scripture that man has likely been looking for the scientific origin of the world for better than 4,000 years and if you base you ideology on the unsupported claims of science it is possible that men have sought after the origin of the Earth for tens of thousands of years and still no support for the Big Bang Theory.
... At some point, many, like myself look at what science refuses to examine, a Spiritual answer and all that I know of that have seriously taken the claims of the scriptures to heart and have tested God in the ways described by God in His Holy Book have converted. We have found the proof positive that the world and everything seen has been created by the Living God. It just seems to me that if a man is not driven to examine this thing as closely as is possible by the utter lack of any other answer that his master, Satan, has blinded him. There are but I pray that there be not many that this is true of.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Why?

Why?
... I have a good friend that, like myself, teaches lost men anywhere he is allowed. The one thing we are faithfully promised for our efforts is rejection. Jeff Mills, missionary, from England, on the field in Guatemala, must leave his wife and adopted daughter, alone in a foreign land to go solicit funding for the work he has committed to do for God. He does this in spite of the fact that most of the people he will speak to will either openly reject what he says as fool's talk and in spite of the fact that he is a man with a combat damaged body that keeps him in pain. That pain from the honor we once cherished so much that we put ourselves in harm's way are enough to make us life long brothers.
... Another common thread for Jeff and myself is the fact that we did not just accept the idea that the universe just sprang into existence without cause and in not accepting that, rather silly, notion sought after the answer in the, unseen, spiritual realm. I did this, rather suddenly, one morning after my best friend was blown to pieces by an enemy mortar and realized that there must be an answer that I could not fathom. It was there, in the middle of a dirt road, in the middle of a combat zone that God first spoke to me. My first reaction was to get away from Him because I knew that He was there and I knew that I was a drunken, woman chasing soldier that any god would refuse to accept.
... I was wrong! God hung out with me for the next 23 years, until I finally sought after the reason. When I learned that God loved me so much that all I had to do was to change my direction, repent, and He would give to me eternal life instead of eternal Hell, I fell on my knees and swore to serve Him, no matter the circumstance. From that time until this I have heard those steel bars lock me inside the prisons with cop killers, rapists and every other manor of criminal and did not fear, I was in His hands.
... So why do we place ourselves in the line for being made fun of and being openly rejected as foolish? Because more often than we have any right to expect it God, our Heavenly Father uses us to open the spiritual eyes of a lost man or a lost woman and we know that this person has chosen life, eternal life and that is our reward. Just as we once fought against cruel and mean people we are still at war, fighting against Satan and eternal death.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Four Ways our Culture is Brainwashing Us

This article, from Charisma, was posted to the web by my friend, Jeff Nills, who is on the field in Guatamala. I found the article so important I post it for you to read and to share.

Forces in our culture want to rip the foundations of Christian faith right out from under America. Here are four lies we must challenge.

This past week I spent four days preaching at Emmanuel College, a Christian liberal arts school in northeast Georgia. I love speaking to college students because they are spiritually hungry, they love passionate worship and I don’t have to wear a tie.


On the third night (after a young man got saved and delivered of drug addiction—yeah God!) I told the kids I needed to get brutally honest. They gave me permission to shoot straight. Because I genuinely care about them—and because they will be spiritual leaders before too long—I warned them about four lies they must confront.

Every Christian in this country must learn to dissect these lies using the Word of God. The devil is working overtime today to gain control of our nation’s soul. We are in a life-and-death struggle. This is not a time for Christians to be squishy in their faith or spineless in their convictions. We must plant our feet on the bedrock principles of the Bible and oppose each of these lies:
"We must start preaching about hell again instead of worrying about who might leave our church or how it might affect our TV ratings."
1. Hell does not exist. Jesus preached about hell more than anyone in the Bible. His words dripped with love, but He didn’t soft-pedal when addressing the eternal consequences of sin. When He began His ministry, he read from the book of Isaiah, announcing that He had come not only to “proclaim the favorable year of the Lord” but also “the day of vengeance of our God” (Is. 61:2, NASB).


The real gospel is a double-edged sword that offers both the “kindness and severity of God” (Rom. 11:22, emphasis added). That’s why hell is one four-letter word we should use more often—not to condemn people in mean-spirited judgment but to warn them that mercy has a time limit.

The world rejects the concept of hell because it’s too exclusive. Our Oprah-ized culture insists that everyone deserves a warm and fuzzy life free of consequences. “How can a loving God send anyone to hell?” people ask. If we truly love them we will explain that hell is not a metaphor—it is a real place of dreadful separation from God that sinners choose when they reject Him. We must start preaching about hell again instead of worrying about who might leave our church or how our unpopular message might affect our TV ratings.

2. God didn’t create the world. 2009 is the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species, so you can be sure the scientific community will bombard us this year with more “proof” of this sketchy theory. The mainstream media and academia insist that evolution is pure fact. Anyone who dares to challenge it is considered a religious idiot.

What people don’t realize is that Darwinism, besides being laughably lacking in scientific basis, has roots in spiritualism. Welsh naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace shared many of Darwin’s beliefs and encouraged him to publish his book. Wallace believed in spirit guides, participated in séances and was intrigued by all things paranormal. He promoted the “science” of evolution because it supported his anti-God views. Is it any wonder, then, that this doctrine he and Darwin propagated has been used to undermine Christianity ever since?

The world does not want to believe in a Creator because if He is real, then He has ultimate authority over His creation. On the flip side, man has no moral responsibility if he crawled out of a primordial soup, grew fins, then legs, and then became a talking ape. Evolution is not really about science at all—it is about rebellion against God’s rule over us.

3. All religions lead to God. This isn’t a new lie, but it is enjoying a revival today. President Bush has obviously flirted with the idea, since he has told reporters that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. Barack Obama attended a church for 20 years that teaches that Jesus is not the only way to salvation—and he has publicly acknowledged that he believes this.

The doctrine of universalism—which states that all people will ultimately gain salvation and enjoy heaven—has become the religion of the masses. Even some charismatic and Pentecostal preachers such as Carlton Pearson of Oklahoma and D.E. Paulk of Atlanta have abandoned biblical orthodoxy to embrace this heresy. They are now on a crusade to rewrite Christian theology—and they have allies in some mainline denominations (such as the Episcopal Church) where the authority of Scripture is denied.

Christians who embrace universalism are like the prophets of Baal in Jezebel’s court who had been neutered. They preach a powerless message that cannot change anyone. We must arise in the spirit of Elijah to confront this deception and prove to the world that the one true God answers by fire.

4. Man can redefine morality. This is perhaps the most deadly lie of all. Everywhere we look today, leaders in media, politics, education and entertainment are plotting the virtual overthrow of conventional morals. They want a hedonistic world with no rules and no guilt. This was most obvious last month when Newsweek published a cover story brazenly claiming that the Bible approves of same-sex marriage.

A lying spirit has invaded many mainline churches and is convincing weak Christians to change their views about homosexuality, abortion and fornication. Evil is called good while those who stand for the biblical values of purity and traditional marriage are labeled bigots.

If we ignore these lies they will engulf us. We need a zero-tolerance policy for spiritual compromise. While we must demonstrate overwhelming compassion and love for sinners, God requires us to oppose cultural brainwashing. We cannot be silent on the issues the devil is attacking.

If you are wavering in your faith on any of these four fundamentals, get honest about your doubts, repent of your lukewarmness and dig in God’s Word until your mind is renewed. Don’t become a brainwash victim.
J. Lee Grady is editor of Charisma

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Just thinking

... Just for a reference you should know that I have MS as a result of my service in Vietnam and the VA worries about my mental health. I came home from thirty months of duty over there and in complete honesty I was only attacked three or four times in the last tour composed of my last six months of military service. I'm not crazy and I haven't thought of killing myself for quite a few years now. The Va has me see my shrink 4 times a year to keep an eye on my condition and to insure that I'm taking my mood enhancers and I don't mind.
... Because I have the MS, brought on by 24 months of Agent orange, Blue and White exposure I am oft asked if I regret or would change my past if I could. The truth is that my past, all of it, has made me what I am today. A friend of mine was on the Enola Gay when it bombed Japan with it's nuke and he, like myself takes the drugs to help him not dream so much and to be easier to get along with. He is over sixty years away from that day and he still tosses in his sleep because he sees that bomb falling and going off. My wife has taken to sleeping in a seperate bed because she does not do well when I wake her in the wee hours screaming and flailing at her to get in the hole before they kill her, I can't say that I blame her at all.
... There are many dreamers that want to be known as a hero but only the men that wear the medals understand the price that is paid for the distinction. I remember the first man I ever killed and watched the life pour out of his eyes. At that very moment I lost a part of me that I have never been able to regain and I have never been the same person from that day on. The dreamers need to know that there is a price that is extracted for every adventure a man pursues and there is no-one else to pay your dues for you. Would I do it differently, no! I believed then and I believe now that those gentile people deserve freedom and freedom is the most expensve commodity a man will ever purchase, it is bought with the blood of good men and there is no substitute for the price.
... Today, a gentleman began to tell me how wrong it was for the government to spray us in Vietnam and how sad he thought it was that I was strapped to my wheelchair. I cut him short and explained to him that I had to write my Congressman before the Army would let me volunteer to go to Vietnam the first time and as he stood there, with a slack jaw, I finished with I volunteered all three times and so it is my fault that I was sprayed so much and if I needed to do it over I would.
... I do not understand these young people today. I was taught by my WWII Hero dad that if you loved someone or something you would die for it. There were an unbelievable number of young Americans that loved this country in the forties, about a half a million of them died fighting for my freedom and today there are still a few good men in this country and some of them are paying with their lives and others are coming home in worse shape than I did and we need to always remember to remember them. Pray for your defenders every day, they are all that is restraining the Muslim invasion.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Christian Computers

... I will forever admit that I am considered a brash individual because I tend to say exactly what I mean without trying to be politically correct. With that known I tell you today that it is absurd the number of Christians that waste their resources by buying a computer with a Windows operating system on it. Then these same people, the parents of tomorrow's Presidents, Prime Ministers, Worship Leaders and Pastors turn their impressionable children loose on the Internet. But, some of you object, I put software on it to keep them safe. I'll resort to my Greek here and give you a loud, Baloney!
... Dell Computers now sells their units with the option of installing Ubuntu and there-by spending less for your new computer and if you have an old unit that has died a horrible death it is very likely that you are guilty of the same slackness that 95% of the world is guilty of and that there is, most likely, nothing wrong with your old computer. I revive discarded units every day by turning them on and inserting an Ubuntu disk and installing Ubuntu or UbuntuCE over the corrupted Windows system.
... UbuntuCE is the Christian Edition of the point and click operating system that is written by Christians for Christians. The learning curve of this system is almost flat for the Windows operator. It is so widely accepted now that when I called AT&T Tech. Support last evening they said that's great when I told them my operating system. The tech. said that they were supporting Ubuntu because it was so very much like XP.
... I will tell you that not only is Microsoft so concerned that they have agreed to support XP for an additional 5 years because of the rapidly increasing popularity of Ubuntu. The OS is not the only thing that is free. The system comes with a Professional Quality Office system, preinstalled. Add to that the truth that the system will run most of your MS software but installing the free program named Wine and it hardly seems important that there are over four thousand programs that will do anything that Windows software will do and now I'm going to hurt you, they are all free and you just point and click while conected to the Internet and they are installed.
... So, why did I rag on parents? UbuntuCE is equiped with a feature known as Dan's Guardian that your children cannot defeat as long as you are the Administrator and refuse to give them your log-in and password. Your children are as safe as you wish them to be on that computer.
... Where do you download these remarkable systems? You will download UbuntuCE at www.ubuntuce.com and Ubuntu at www.ubuntu.com .