This week I saw a stunning photo from the Ark Encounter twitter stream. Then yesterday I found two books about Genesis, one was a scientific and devotional commentary on Genesis by Henry Morris of the Institute for Creation Research, and other other was by the same author of the science behind the creation flood. I love Genesis, especially the first 11 chapters, so it was on my mind.
Then I remembered I wrote this blog 6 years ago. It’s true today as it was then. Even more so, because an increasing number of theologians reject Young Earth and preach Old Earth or Gap Theory. I saw a Twitter poll the other day too, asking ‘if your pastor started preaching old earth, would you leave?’ I thought about it a long time. So these issues have been on my mind.
Years and years of Sunday School, VBS, and Children’s lessons about Noah’s ark like this…
…have led thousands and thousands of people to believe Noah’s ark was a cute little tub happily bounding along the sunny seas, and not the serious event that it was. I personally rate it as the third most serious event in the humankind’s history, after the Fall and the Crucifixion.
Ken Ham and the Creation Museum folks have built an Ark to biblical size. Guess what? In the face of this world’s current love affair with massive buildings, its penchant for tremendous construction projects, and its historical stunning size (it was twice as long as Caligula’s ships at Nemi) the fact is, at 510 feet long and 7 storeys high the Ark is the biggest timber frame structure in the world today. Imagine how stupendously awesome the structure would have been to the ancients. The pyramids were not built yet.
The above picture (the cover of a children’s biblical storybook) displays the unfortunate reduction in majesty and scope of the entire Noah/Flood/Judgment event. Below is the reality.
Credit: Ark Encounter photo
The post from Ark Encounter explains the photo above:
“@ArkEncounter: Our strategically placed viewing area in front of the lake allows guests to take in a spectacular view of the Ark and its reflection. This site is one of the most popular locations for family and large group photographs.”
Picture storybook illustrations are just as much a part of the recounting as the words. Be mindful of the diminishing of the seriousness of the event with the illustrations you share.
It seems that every day we awaken to a new tragedy. Maui fires, extreme heat, store shooting, hurricane…
How can this happen, people wonder. Why does this keep happening, people wonder. It happens because of sin. Man is born a sinner, and it is only God’s common grace that retrains every man from murdering every day. However, God’s restraining grace is lifted as He abandons a nation.
So, man turns to false religion to help him restrain the evil in him. But this does not work, either. The harder man tries, the more he fails.
“False religion cannot restrain sin in the heart, although it can mask it with self-righteousness.” Principles of God’s Judgment
When an individual or a nation resists the Law, the conscience, and common grace in creation long enough, God gives them over to the lusts of their heart.
“God will abandon sinners to their own choices and the consequences of those choices. And just what is this abandoning act on God’s part, it is the removal of restraining grace. It is when God lets go and turns a society over to its own sinful freedoms and the results of those freedoms. No Scripture more directly confronts this abandonment and its consequences than Romans 1 does.” When God Abandons a Nation
Three times you have the statement, “God gave them over.” This term paradidomiin the Greek can have a judicial sense. It can be used of a judgment made on a criminal who was then handed over for punishment. Each of these phrases expresses the fact that the wrath of God has acted judicially to sentence sinners. It is God officially giving them over. It is God letting them go to the uninterrupted cause and effect their sinful choices produce. When this judgment falls, there is a depriving of restraining grace and sin runs rampant through a society. When God Abandons a Nation
And false religion includes the atheist and agnostic, the ‘no-choice’ person, because those are just religion of self. This is why we need Jesus, all people do. The sin of man is inherent in his heart and only Him from above who is without stain can resolve our sin problem. All men need the Gospel.
The Gospel is not “having purpose in your life”. It is not “accepting Jesus” or praying a prayer. The Gospel which everyone needs is good news, as Ligonier explains:
“The gospel is called the ‘good news’ because it addresses the most serious problem that you and I have as human beings, and that problem is simply this: God is holy and He is just, and I’m not. And at the end of my life, I’m going to stand before a just and holy God, and I’ll be judged. And I’ll be judged either on the basis of my own righteousness–or lack of it–or the righteousness of another. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus lived a life of perfect righteousness, of perfect obedience to God, not for His own well being but for His people. He has done for me what I couldn’t possibly do for myself. But not only has He lived that life of perfect obedience, He offered Himself as a perfect sacrifice to satisfy the justice and the righteousness of God.”
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15)
The sad truth is that man is not good. This is not an anomaly. The man who shot the elementary students at Sandy Hook, the man who shot the movie-goers in the theater in Colorado, the who shot the homosexual club-goers in Orlando … at Dollar General… this IS man.
“America seems ripe for judgment”… The discerners of the church body have been saying ‘judgment in America’ for a while. I know I have. In 2010 I’d written that America seemed to have passed the “point of no return. Before the Economic Crash of 2008, all had been going along like it had been in this country. America was strong and mighty and seemingly invincible. Warning that judgment was coming soon was met with strange looks and shaking of heads. No brimstone was falling, after all. Just because we don’t see brimstone falling from the sky does not mean we as a nation are not experiencing judgment.
Many people think of judgment as the kind that occurred at Sodom and Gomorrah: brimstone from the sky and obliteration of the entire city. (Genesis 19:24). And that IS one kind of judgment.
Bible Fact: There are 13 mentions of brimstone (sulfur) in the Bible. Six mentions are in the Old Testament. Seven mentions are in the New Testament. Of the 7 mentions of brimstone in the NT, six are in Revelation.
The wrath of God is not one-dimensional. There are in fact many different kinds of wrath that God displays. Hosea 5:12 says “He is as a moth to Ephraim or or dry rot to Judah”, working silently and invisibly. In his 2012 sermon “When God Abandons a Nation“, John MacArthur outlined five distinct kinds of wrath the Lord has displayed throughout the Bible.
1. Eternal wrath: that is the punishing eternal, judgment God brings upon sinners in their death. 2. Eschatalogical wrath: God’s stored-up anger unleashed at the end of this present age upon the world, promised by Old Testament saints, outlined at length in Jesus’ Olivet Discourse, and seen unfolding through Revelation. 3. Cataclysmic wrath: These are tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc., the result of sin and the curse upon the world. 4. Consequential wrath: this is a person receiving the just due for their actions while on earth, the sowing and reaping. 5. Abandonment: This is the wrath seen in Romans 1:18-32. MacArthur preached, “God will abandon sinners to their own choices and the consequences of those choices. And just what is this abandoning act on God’s part, it is the removal of restraining grace. It is when God lets go and turns a society over to its own sinful freedoms and the results of those freedoms. No Scripture more directly confronts this abandonment and its consequences than Romans 1 does.”
A Hillary Clinton presidency would be a Jezebel judgment in my opinion. A Kamala Harris Vice-Presidency is also indicative of judgment, as Isaiah 3:12 seems to indicate.
MacArthur said in that 2012 sermon that “It’s pretty convincing that God has abandoned our nation.” God has done so in the past to other nations, many times. In Hosea 4:17 it is recorded that God said, “Ephraim is joined unto idols, let him alone.” America isn’t special that we should not expect the same treatment as other rebellious nations when we abandon Him.
In Acts 14:16, the Apostle Paul said, “In the generations gone by, He…God…permitted all the nations to go their own way.” This is the story of history. All the nations of history go their own way. So like the nations of old, like the nations past, we follow the same cycle of having the truth, rejecting the truth and being abandoned by God. ~MacArthur
Can you think of a worse wrath than for God to leave you alone? Whether He is abandoning you as an individual or as a nation, it is a deeply disturbing thought. In Romans 1:18-32,
Three times you have the statement, “God gave them over.” This term paradidomiinthe Greek can have a judicial sense. It can be used of a judgment made on a criminal who was then handed over for punishment. Each of these phrases expresses the fact that the wrath of God has acted judicially to sentence sinners. It is God officially giving them over. It is God letting them go to the uninterrupted cause and effect their sinful choices produce. When this judgment falls, there is a depriving of restraining grace and sin runs rampant through a society. (Source)
Do the people of a nation under the wrath of abandonment know it is happening when it is happening? Non-believers don’t of course, and even most believers don’t. But the Prophets certainly did, and it was a deep lament to them.
Cut off your hair and throw it away; take up a lament on the barren heights, for the LORD has rejected and abandoned this generation that is under his wrath. (Jeremiah 7:29)
And so, we are under His wrath. That brings the question…is there any hope? … [T]here is a word of hope in Psalm 81…This is a plaintive cry from God who says, “Oh that My people would listen to Me, that Israel would walk in My ways.” The key, listen to Me. Walk in My ways. The only hope for this or any other society is to hear the Word of the Lord and obey it, to hear the Word of the Lord and obey it. And I would suggest that this is not a good time for weak men preaching weak messages in weak churches. This is a time for bold and powerful strong biblical ministry that calls people to hear the Word of the Lord and respond. This is the only hope for any people for any individual.
The day is sobering and the times are troubling. We all strive to display the joy of Christ in our daily life, to persevere in and aura of hope and peace. We know to be gentle and humble, and to love our friend, neighbor and enemy. But there is no doubt that the times demand of us a careful attention to the Bible and its paths, more than ever in fact.
We don’t like to be downers but we also don’t ignore the fact that we are living in difficult times that are on the precipice of being massively more difficult soon. We know that God created each person on earth specifically and for a specific purpose in their era. If I am here now, for just such a time as this, what can I do to both advance the kingdom like I’m supposed to, and also prepare for the times ahead? We must do our diligence to lift Jesus’ name to the highest with all our strength, soul, mind, and heart.
I used to spend the Fourth of July in Lubec-Eastport Maine. If you visualize Maine as the profile of a dog, Eastport and Lubec would be the nostrils. They are as far east as you can go in Maine and not be in Canada. The highest tides in the world begin there, with the Bay of Fundy beginning the funnel to a small inlet where massive tides are pushed in several times a day. They are nautical cities, driven by the sea, which surrounds both of them. And as for the air, there’s cool, fog, and cold. Those are the seasons. One one side of the street it’s sunny and the other it’s shady. The difference in temps between the shady side and the sunny side would be at least ten degrees.
Even on the Fourth the temperatures remain cool – in the sun- and out of the sun you will need either long sleeves or a sweatshirt. I loved it.
The Eastport parade drew about 8000-9000 annually, helped by the docking of a navy ship of one kind or another which gave tours. The navy men marched in the parade down Water Street, a sea of white hats swooping down the gentle hill as we clapped for their service and dedication.
I used to get there early because the parade street ran north-south. The sun at the starting time was shining on one side of the street and the other was in shadow. The shadow side was cool and dimmer than the sunny side. It was simply more practical to get there early and be in the warm sun. (Note the ladies are wearing fleeces and huddling under blankets on the dark side of the street. It’s cold on the shady side!)
I’ve noticed something lately. Many of my Christian brothers and sisters are sad. Times are tough, and there is much illness, uncertainty, and confusion. I see a lot of reporting of miscarriages or child deaths, which is utterly tragic. Many people I come across are sad about things in their lives that happened to them on an interpersonal level. (We should be sad over sin too.) I get sad sometimes, thinking of the wrongs done to me or the loss of relationships or I mourn for the way things used to be in my earlier days 50 years ago. I am sad when I see people claiming to be Christians engaged in blatant sin and not repenting.
Jesus got sad, too. Jesus even wept. When He arrived at the place where Lazarus had died, Mary fell at His feet weeping, and “Jesus was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled,” (John 11:33b).
But there is a danger in allowing sadness to veer from a useful emotion that cleanses and wallowing in it. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines wallowing as “to indulge oneself immoderately.”
One would not normally think of being sad as something one chooses to indulge in, but it is, and is the point of this post. Things happen to us that make us sad, it is part of life. As a strong Christian you are more likely to have events occur that wind up in sadness. The world does not like us. “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. “If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.” (John 15:18-19). So prepare to be occasionally sad. But do not choose to wallow.
Yes, wallowing is a choice, one that all too many Christians indulge in. Do you return in your mind to that last dreadful conversation and mentally list all the really terrible things your ex-husband/boss/mother said to you? Do you revisit the terrible circumstances, re-telling it constantly in conversation? Even thought it happened last year, ten years ago? Do you sit in your room and cry more often that you sit in your room and praise? You’re wallowing.
Yes, Jesus wept, but look what He did right after that: “So the Jews were saying, “See how He loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind man, have kept this man also from dying?” So Jesus, again being deeply moved within, came to the tomb” (John 11:35-38a) Jesus kept moving. He ‘came to the tomb’, He engaged in action, He didn’t sit by the road and cry with His friends who all were crying and had been for days. He kept moving because He had a job to do.
Our job is to be salt and light. We can’t be that if we stop moving. We can’t be that if we are wallowing in sadness over the things that happened to us. If we expend salt on our own tears and our light is dimmed by wallowing, then we are not fulfilling our obligations to the Lord Who also wept, but Who also kept moving.
Christians you can choose to be sad and wallow in ‘what he said’ or ‘what she did,’ and that is a never-ending pit because the world hates us and would love to steal your effectiveness as a joyful Christian on the move. Or you can weep but move on to the next task with all the salt and light you can muster. If you have a hard time doing that, ask the Lord for help, and see what He can do: “You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.” (Ps 30:11) Keep on the sunny side, Christians! And keep moving!
Here are the lyrics to the song-
There’s a dark and a troubled side of life There’s a bright, there’s a sunny side, too Tho’ we meet with the darkness and strife The sunny side we also may view
[cho:] Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side, Keep on the sunny side of life It will help us ev’ry day, it will brighten all the way If we’ll keep on the sunny side of life
The storm and its fury broke today, Crushing hopes that we cherish so dear; Clouds and storms will, in time, pass away The sun again will shine bright and clear. Let us greet with the song of hope each day Tho’ the moment be cloudy or fair Let us trust in our Saviour alway Who keepeth everyone in His care
Kay Cude poetry. Used with permission. Click to enlarge
Artist’s statement:
The beginnings of a trial can be tumultuous and heart-wrenching, as well as physically and emotionally exhausting. But as we seek Scriptural guidance and encouragement from fellow believers, we quickly see that all of our communication and advice must center upon Christ and our personal relationship with Him. It is when one relies upon “other” solutions (or self), that one quickly experiences the futility of our “natural” reasoning and responses. When our trials exclude Christ as the resource of resolution, fleshly reactions will lead us into deeper distress with greater turmoil; an impasse can arise and anger, hurt feelings, confusion and chaos usually pursue.
I don’t like painful trials; I don’t know anyone who does. Yet I am so very grateful that Christ captures my attention during those times and makes it abundantly clear that He is the only source who can truly sustain, teach, discipline and encourage me while He refines and strengthens me, in and for Him. It is Christ who must always be the primary topic during our trials, because without the working of His indwelling spirit, our words and actions become futile.
Yesterday I posted about how Jesus Intercedes for Us. My goal was to encourage and assure ladies that the Triune God hears our prayers, supplications, appeals, and repentances.
Doesn’t it just crush you to pray to Jesus…and know He hears us? It’s incredible, and a privilege we always remember in gratitude.
As Isaiah cried in his wonder and grief, “I am a man of unclean lips!” (Isaiah 6:5). In my case, a woman of unclean lips. Why should I be able to use these lips to pray to Jesus when I am the chief of sinners, wretched woman that I am? What is man that God should be mindful of us? (Psalm 8:4). Why should He hear us?
But He does.
Though ‘El Shama’ is not an official name of God, it refers to the fact that God hears…He listens. God told Hagar to name her soon to be born son Ishmael. Ishmael is is a combination of el and shama, “God hears” or “God listens”. The name would be a reminder to Hagar and all who knew them that He heard Hagar’s cry in the wilderness. (Genesis 16:11). He listens.
Psalm 17:6 says
I have called on you, for you will hear me, O God: incline your ear to me, and hear my speech.
Gill’s Expositions says of the Psalmist’s plea in verse 6,
“for thou wilt hear me, O God; God is a God hearing prayer; he is used to hear his people, and they have frequent experience of it, and they may be assured that whatsoever they ask according to his will, and in the name of Christ, he will hear; and such an assurance is a reason engaging the saints to a constant calling upon God, Psalm 116:2; and such confidence of being always heard Christ had, John 11:41;”
1 John 5:14 says,
And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.
Did Peter forever relive his anguish each morning of his remaining life, when he heard the rooster crow the day awake and remembered his own perfidy? Owww, Peter, I understand your grief, the pain of betraying Jesus in word or in deed from our own sinful actions. Yet…Jesus prayed for Peter. Luke 22:32. He did not pray for Judas. Both men betrayed Jesus, but Jesus prayed for Peter.
If you’re a Christian, Jesus prays for you, too. It’s staggering to consider that the God of the Universe prays for us. He hears us, and He prays for us. We have a superlative God, One who is true and kind and loving and compassionate. Sister, no matter what you are going through, Jesus hears your prayer and He takes your cares to the Father in prayer. Be encouraged.
The NY Times published an article titled The modern charm of practical magic. I found it interesting for many different reasons. I was not saved by grace of the Lord Jesus until I was 42 years old. I spent all of my adulthood prior to the salvation moment, searching for the magic key to the magic in life, the unexplainable, explained. I dabbled in lots of different kinds of magic. Ouija boards, Kirlian aura photography, dreamcatchers, sage burning, Reiki, astral projection, summoning spirits & spirit guides, clairvoyance…
We all want to know what’s on the other side. We do enjoy peeking behind the veil, knowing the unknowable. Because, the unsaved person knows there is a higher power. (Romans 1:19-20). They just deny Who it is. ‘Oh it can’t be God. It must be runes…solstice…labyrinths…”
The NYT article says that they notice more than ever, people seeking answers through magic,
You may have noticed it at work. Perhaps your co-worker has ornamented her cubicle with rose quartz crystals? Has a friend uploaded an I Ching app onto his phone? Or maybe your boyfriend blamed his failure to respond to your text messages on Mercury being in retrograde?
Why magic, and why now? The lack of religious faith so prevalent in our age is an anomaly in history. Magic, which usually does not demand faith in a particular deity, or the sometimes exclusionary imperatives of organized religion, allows people to access a sense of the miraculous on the level of the quotidian.
The article concedes the yearning for a higher power but subtly warns against it actually being God,
There is relief to be found in simply accepting a higher order, in letting go, but what of appeals to reason? Is it not important to disbelieve things that aren’t real? Might faith in the healing powers of a vibratory sound bath lead the next day to outlandish conspiracy theories?
I liked this NY Times article, for many reasons but mainly for its use of my favorite word, quotidian. Where else are you going to read an essay where the author uses such a fancy word which means mundane?
The Christian is bombarded with practical magic all the time. Did you know that? The fads are part of the devilish worming into your home of these magical activities. Labyrinths, Breath prayer, mantras, prayer beads, Mandala coloring books, the false gospel of telling you your words have power, drawing prayer circles, horoscopes, seeking the Presence (which is actually summoning spirits)…and more, are just different kinds of old magic that satan is using to take your eyes off Jesus.
Beware of the charm of practical magic, brethren. The warning is not just for unbelievers, but for believers. Satan insinuates practical magic into our lives under the guise of it being Christian, but it never is. We have the answers. We have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:16). Our answers are in the all-sufficient Bible. We do not need additional practices that promise to deliver information, (but never does), or promises to give added insight (but won’t) or gives a special closeness to Jesus (but never does).
Here are some resources about the dangers of Christian magic:
the-end-time.org 