They say: God is not dead? Is He is still in control. So, why then are we experiencing so much suffering and pain here on earth? Does God even care? Is He trying to punish us or did He forget us. Is He really a God of love? Would a God of love allow us to go through pain, death, and hardship? Think about it; Jesus died for our sins, why is Jesus so loving and God not? Scientists say that the earth was created by Evolution and natural selection. Could it be true that the evolution theory is true after all?
Here is a dilemma for you: If the big bang prove to be true. How can it succeed with a lack of order? Sometimes it sounds as if scientists think we came from a rock. They say the rock exploded and the explosion created the Cosmos. – It sounds like a far stretch to me, what do you say? What are they actually saying? They are saying that we were created out of nonliving (inanimate objects). They are saying that Logic appeared out of chaos. And a single cell just appeared. The cell then became DNA and the DNA created a body for itself. They reason that all of this came about without speech, thought or training; neither sight nor foresight. I am hearing them say: We started out as a rock in an explosion, (between a rock and a hard place) and then this rock morphed into a cell which created a brain for itself because it had enough time for everything to fall into place – Anything can happen when enough time is involved they say. So, from this theory I deduce that a rock had enough time to become their creator. MMM? OK, not me though! So given enough time now, through natural selection and the survival of the fittest, human being (with several trillions of cells) were formed out of this single cell. They say that the cell made itself a body to sustain life. All of this supposedly started without a creator; without life, senses, oxygen, veins, arteries, blood, a brain, the spark of life, or any of the other crucial elements needed to sustain life - such as oxygen, food and water! – So, the rock and the explosion created life out of fire and who knows where the rock came from. Exactly how did life survive the explosion? – I tell you what, the Rock is Christ, and He is God, and God is alive (This is Bible- this is truth)
Just remember: When something sounds too ridiculous to be true it usually is!
By the way, I went to the Zoo the other day; saw a primate just sitting there. (Granddaddy) It seemed as if he was deep in thought. I commented - look at that guy; he is contemplating his future. He is wondering: Am I going to turn into a human being or something? Ha Ha? But Utterly Ridiculous, What’s up with nonsensical theories such as this one? Just To think that learned men with sound? minds would fabricate and believe such absurd theories - Why? Just because they don’t want to accept God as Lord of their lives- Afraid they have to submit to His will. –So sad - very sad!
Or are you saying to yourself: if I can’t see it - it’s not there)???
What will you lose if you receive eternal life, happiness and everlasting joy in a world made new??? Huh? THINK! And don’t fool yourself. You will be the looser! “You are cutting of your nose to spite your face” No one but you can help yourself. There is no other person who can see the world through your eyes except yourself! Your experiences will determine your fate. No one can do something for you; you must work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Denial won’t help you!
No, In order for a living organism to be able to function, God had to design the complete system at once and intact. Let’s look at an example: A complex system like the eye cannot and will not function unless the entire system is created at the same time. I mean, can the heart evolve without blood – NO! Can the blood evolve without the bones which make blood? – NO. And exactly how long did it take the brain to create neurons to think with and where did the material come from (trial and error (natural selection) won’t work here) How much time did it take create all of the hearts components. (I guess someone will come up with a few gazillion years and everyone will agree and then they will add it to the curriculum) The heart cannot function without the veins and the brain can’t function without the heart – and nothing can function without the spark of life, which came from God –How you would deal with the lack of oxygen,( there aren’t any trees to produce some) and the ozone and so much more. Do you get it?
Can you imagine what would have happened if God created you out of order like evolution. He might have started off with an empty shell? What if he had to open you up to insert the intestines afterwards? What about the Muscles and the veins, the blood and the brain, exactly how would He make it work? How and when would he be able to insert the Spark of Life? If He did not do it at the exact same second. And if he had to try to create like this like the evolutionists think it happened, what glue could He have used to make everything connect and to live without oxygen. All of this while designing. Anyway, what glue did God use to make atoms stick together while being apart at the same time? This is a miracle. Evolution can’t even explain it. And how did all known and unknown chemical reactions form without a master scientist, Biologist, designer and an omnipotent creator God. Even if you have all of the material you still can’t put it together-can you now? Even if you had a body you could not bring it to life. You are not even capable of understanding it! I guess time and a rock is more intelligent than mankind – it doesn’t make any sense! God is not Frankenstein and evolution can’t even do what Frankenstein is.
We wonder; why did God not save me at creation?
Speaking about order, let’s speak about the order of salvation in the same way: how could God let His Son die to save us before we came into being? If He did, it would mean that no one have sinned yet.
God is a God of perfect order; He had to go through certain calculated steps to create; in the same way he had to go through certain steps to save. The story of our lives is prefigured in two cities.
In genesis the Bible talks about Salem. And this city became Jerusalem. Jesus came to Jerusalem (city of God) to bring in everlasting righteousness but they were not willing, they rejected Him and crucified Him. Jesus said (O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how have I tried to take you under my wings but you were not willing) Jerusalem pointed to the New Jerusalem (The Bride of Christ) in heaven; it is a shadow of things to come. But there was also the city of Babel, (meaning confusion) it became Babylon and in the end Babylon (religious confusion) will fall. Rev 14
God had to go through a progression of steps to bring in perfect righteousness.
The wicked people of the Old Testament hindered Gods plan of Salvation. He started over with Noah. God had to eliminate them, to protect the righteous and give them the best opportunity to receive Salvation.
Every step God took was geared towards salvation. God gave more and more liberty and grace as time went on. Not everyone would accept him through.
God change not and the God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament. (Our God of love)
God predestined us all to be in heaven. We would have been, if Adam didn’t sinned. God had to let this cancer of sin run its course to develop a perfect church. (A body of believers who would follow the lamb wherever He goes)
God created everything that exists. When God gave us a transcript of His character He did so by writing the Ten Commandments with His own finger. He designed the heavenly sanctuary. The earthly sanctuary was o copy of the heavenly sanctuary and God Gave Moses the blueprint) to construct it here on earth. Everything in the sanctuary was pointing to the plan of redemption in heaven and the coming Christ to save us. He would come as our hope and our Savior. God wanted to dwell with us.
God created a new covenant only after they had rejected His old Covenant, Why? God does everything in order.
We proclaim the message and we tell people “God is love” and we say “God change not” He is the same yesterday today and forevermore. But Skeptics dismiss us as being irrational and ridiculous believing in “a mystic war God of the Old Testament” When we tell them that God is love, they come right back at you and say. Well, the God of the Old Testament is different than the God of the New Testament, in other words – God is schizophrenic and mean and The Bible contradicts itself. So, what do you have to say about that? Huh?
Then, trying to defend God, we answer and it would sound something like this. “Well, I don’t understand it myself” So we become doubtful and we question our own beliefs. We picture God as a General at war and we see Jesus as a Lamb ready to be slain and we can’t seem to reconcile the two.
Have you ever wondered about the difference between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament? Why the change of character / or did it?
What have you imagined against the Lord? (Verse)
God created the human race in his image. What does this mean? It means that, amongst others, He gave us a spiritual nature with the power of choice the Ability to reason; a loving heart, and a creative mind to think with. God asked Adam and Eve to show their loyalty by obeying Him. God knew they would fail, but He also knew, given the opportunity to recover from rebellion, some would actually choose to follow Him out of free will.
In order for God to establish a perfect race it was essential for Him to do everything in His power to create the perfect environment to foster spiritual growth.
God could not start with creation make man and save Him at the same time. Doing this would bring in everlasting righteousness at creation. You might say: That sounds like a great idea, why didn’t He.
Yes, it sounds good, but it is not. Think, the consequences of such a act
For one it would eliminate our entire history of Growth. He could not start off by saving us either – saving us from what? You say noting, there is not sin yet, so all works out good, right? Wrong!
In this scenario there is no sin, why? Because there was no decision. Jesus could not have identified with our temptations if saved us at creation (this would means that God atoned for our sin before we were created) nor could He have sacrificed His life for us. We were not created yet and there was nothing to sacrifice His life for. And God could not put us on probation before we had rejected Him. – Anyhow the beginning must precede the end (Logic) Thus, in order to afford a Savior you must first be lost and in order to be lost you must first reject – are you tracking.
In other words, failure precedes salvation.
So, when God decided to start creating He had to do it with a master plan in mind. Had to go through a progression of steps to make salvation possible and perfect. So, He started by creating a perfect sinless human being and placed Him here on earth in a perfect environment. He refused to allow another Lucifer to be created.
When God placed the tree of knowledge and good and evil in this perfect garden, He visited them and he guided them to accept Him as Lord and Savior of their lives. Living in the Garden Adam and Eve found themselves in the perfect environment with the perfect conditions in a perfect world with a sinless nature and they had every opportunity to succeed and to make a perfect decision by being loyal to God opposed to Lucifer.... However, it took only one temptation to lead them astray when they listened to the devil. It was bound to happen, sooner or later.
The power to choose to love is the essence of real love. Creating someone without the power of choice is involuntary love. It’s forcing love, and forced love is an assault on ones liberty. It is not real love (not by a long stretch) So, God had a problem. He wanted to create a human race and He wanted them to love Him with their whole heart, their whole might and their entire being. He wanted them to accept Him out of their own volition and their own choice. But it is impossible to unite every human being to make the right choice.
What am I saying? (I’m talking about the entire human race deciding to submit under God, Obedient and united as one. Such followers should refuse temptations. They must be committed to the Law of God right from the get-go. And they must remain faithful forever and ever and evermore). They must remain obedient and in His love and they must choose Gods love unconditionally forever; even when exposed to the lust of the eyes, the desires of the flesh and the pride of life. These things can get you into deep trouble and it leads people into many different directions.
This is why God allowed the devil to tempt us. In the beginning God started His plan of salvation with Adam. God gave Adam the easiest way of escape. It was impossible for God to create us, to die for us, and take us to heaven at the time of creation. This will eliminate the time and the opportunity for decision making and character building. Also God could not have started out by giving people the new covenant. How could He? In order for us to receive a new covenant you need an old covenant first, Right? Also, we could not choose to obey God out of free will unless we had an opportunity to exercise that free will through a history of temptation. We needed an opportunity to choose Gods love over our own will. This is the test of loyalty and devotion and it is the essence of real love.
So, they were tempted and they ate from the tree. They chose to disobey God and this disobedience caused sin.
Things have changed now. God could not walk with them in person anymore and He removed Adam and Eve from the Garden: then He removed the tree of life also. He did so to shorten our sinful existence (It was a Blessing in disguise). They were contaminated by sin and living in sin forever would be disastrous. But, God was still gracious, and He designed the plan of salvation. Thus God went to plan B. (Not because He had failed) but because we had failed Him.
Satan, our adversary, and the father of lies effectively replaced the tree of knowledge and good and evil. (By disobeying God we choose to obey Satan as our Lord and master) God knew many would choose to reject Him but He also knew what He was doing. He created everything perfect to facilitate perfection. But knowing that it would not work, He decided to redeem those who would willingly choose to obey Him by their own free will. But He had to stand back and allow us to reject Him first. He had to allow us to fail before He could save. This could not happen without allowing us some time in temptation for character shaping.
What happened? As expected, the first Adam failed and he sinned. Then God made a 490 year Covenant with the Israelites. They were Gods chosen generation. They were supposed to be a blessing to other nations; to be the ambassadors of God. They were supposed to take the Gospel to the entire world). This became the best way to save the world. But things went south! (They were caught up in pride and idolatry, and they became haughty and condescending. What does this mean? It means they made a decision and they chose against God. God stepped in and implemented faze three of the plan of redemption. Up to this time, He did everything He could to save us. So he implemented his rescue mission. God knew He had to send Jesus as the propitiation of our sins. He instructed The Israelites to make Him a sanctuary (a copy of what is in heaven) (foreshadowing redemption in heaven) It introduced them to Gods plan of salvation to them. He wanted to give them hope and He wanted them to know that He would send Jesus (Hosea and gomer) – hope remained. God wanted to be with His people but He couldn’t - sin had spoiled everything. By this time God could still communicate with us through His prophets, and He did just that. Then God did what He could and He freed them form bondage and slavery and He journeyed with them through the desert to the Promised Land. Sin had put a separation between God and man, thus the only way for God to meet with them was behind the veil in the Ark of the Covenant (if you sin/die) so, God led them through the desert to the Promised Land. (Signifying our life on earth and heaven as our destination) He would send His son to atone for our sins. He gave them the chance to be redeemed from sin by keeping his covenant. This would give them another way of salvation but it was always by grace (unmerited favor). At this stage of the fight this would be the best way for them to be saved. But as expected, they broke the covenant. God implemented the next step. By now sin was so ugly that God could not connect with us in person anymore. So He sent His one and only son in the form of man to proclaim the love of the Father and to redeem us from sin. This is the lengths God went through to save you (He has send His only Son on a suicide mission so that you can live) by doing this Jesus sealed up the prophecy and He made atonement for sin to bring in everlasting righteousness. God needed a substitute to eradicate sin from our lives but things were really bad by this time. Later sin would escalate to the point where they would actually crucify their long awaited Savior. (God’s chosen people would crucify their Savior, and they did just that). Then Jesus sent the Holy Spirit as our comforter to lead us. His Spirit will guide us through the desert all the way to the promise land. He empowers us and He convicts us of sin and unrighteousness. The Holy Spirit lives within us. He is our schoolmaster leading us to heaven.
So, God made a covenant with them, they broke it! Then God took the next step and he made a new covenant. This covenant was based on better promises. It was the same covenant as the old covenant except for the fact that the new covenant was contingent on God’s grace and not our efforts. God wrote His law on our hearts. He did away with the ceremonial laws of Moses, the ones that was against us. However God did not abolish the Ten Commandments though – Never! Look at matt 5:16, 17
Did you notice what has happened? God created man in His own image. He gave them a test of Loyalty and they chose to reject Gods love. God still wanted to save us and He gave us His plan of redemption. But we failed at it and we plunged into sin.
So, the earth started off perfect, it got contaminated by sin, and its deteriorating more and more each day. The earth is growing old like a garment. But in contrast to this- Gods plan of redemption started of Perfect, it was rejected but it stills a perfect plan. God is determined to save us. So, God took the next step in the plan of salvation and it got better and better each step of the way.
What happened next? The Gospel went to the world, to every nation kindred tongue and people on the face of the earth. God gave us the Gift of His son. By dying for us, Jesus would save us, enabling us to inherit eternal life, if only we would decide to accept Him. It is made possible by God’s grace through faith; by our decision to accept Jesus. Works won’t help you here ; it’s through God’s gift of grace alone. We would be saved by believing in Jesus; it is the gift… of God. Jesus loved us so much that He committed Himself to die for us. So, the Gospel went to the world. Now up to this point God has done everything He could have done to save mankind. He even killed His most beloved son - for your sake. Unfortunately, many would refuse the gift. This is why John 3:16-17 is there. By now the only thing we have to do to be saved is accepting Jesus and He would accept us by grace not of works lest anyone should boast. By accepting Jesus we would become the children of God and Heirs of the Kingdom we will be family and one with God... In the end Christ will declare us righteous by giving us the robe of righteousness to make us perfect before Him.
So, now we find ourselves at the end of time. It is our time to shine by accepting Jesus. Our probation is almost over. God is fulfilling the last phase of the plan of salvation. It is just a matter of time and we will see Jesus.
You may ask What is still to come? Our next in God’s plan of salvation is to stay sincere, committed and to wait. Why wait? It’s simple; God is waiting for us to make our decisions. ( He is Longsuffering, not wanting that any should perish) Time must be fulfilled then He would fill heaven with those who accepted the Gift of His Son. He would actually take us to heaven! There will be rewards there. But only those who would accept Him; He will not drag you kicking and screaming. Time is far spent; the time of Judgment has come and the Day of Atonement is at hand. The next thing on Gods calendar is the close of probation and the coming of Christ. He will take us to heaven. He will show his love to us. Then He would perform His act His strange act. Jesus promised to recreate everything for us. We will start over. Sin will be no more and we would not fall again. However, this gift is given, but only to those who wanted God so much that they chose Jesus even through hardship, persecution, and self-denial. It’s extended only to those who will remain loyal to their God; only they will be saved – will you make sure you are one of them - Please tell Jesus?
I am not ashamed of the Gospel; it is the salvation unto Christ.
Things will be perfect again. Choosing to love him will be easy then. We are going through all of the steps that lead to salvation. God wants to work in and through us and He wants to give us a heart of flesh. He wants to give us His character. This will transform our lives. Those who go to heaven will never fall again. And God is looking into the future and He says. Sin will not arise a second time.
It is necessary for God to exhaust all of His options and allow us to go through these steps and He had to let us reject Him before Jesus could die for us. He wants to refine us through the fire, eliminating the “dross”
Jesus could not die for a nation who did not sin yet. He can and He will clean us up and give us glorified bodies when He comes and not before that. (At the last trump) God will fix everything, have Hope!
Do not neglect such a salvation
Conclusion: God's not dead. As suggested in the movie: what would the impact be if you were to give this message to all of your contacts