Faith #9: The Undeniable Presence of Evil

This is Number 9 on my top 10 reasons for faith in Jesus.

The Bible presents heaven and earth as the creation of an all-powerful God, who himself declared it to be good. It also presents the conflict that arises when man pursues independence from God and becomes subject to the power of evil.

This human evil - that was introduced by "the original sin" - is unique in creation. All living beings created by God are "lesser beings" - lacking the perfect goodness of God. Although people were created in the image and likeness of God, they were created innocent and totally dependent on fellowship with God. This fellowship was broken when they decided to assume the role of God in their own lives by seeking to be like Him, knowing good and evil.

Without the goodness of God, mankind quickly devolved into evil. In a fit of jealous rage, Cain slew his brother Abel and fled to the land of Nod, east of Eden and away from God. Cain and his descendants built a city there (the first form of government) where people could fashion their own protection and entertainment. Without God, these cities became cesspools of sin.

Why though, is the existence of human evil a foundation of my faith?

First, the Bible is unique in explaining that evil has its origin in moral knowledge. This differentiates sinful man from innocent creatures. It explains to me why innocent babies become accountable as sinners when they inevitably grow into moral knowledge. Paul describes this in the seventh chapter of Romans - "the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good" and "I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died". The evil that grows in the human heart is fed by selfish ambition and pride, deceit and self-justification. Ultimately sin places itself above others to the extent that a person is capable of using his God-given intellect to lie, steal, and even inflict pain and death on others to preserve and promote his own interests.

Second, the Bible identifies this "original sin" in a time and place that is consistent with the development of civilization. There really is no other rational explanation for the sudden introduction of civilization into the timeline of history. The gradual evolutionary principal at the core of Naturalism cannot explain the sudden explosion of knowledge and communications that appeared a relatively short time ago in geological terms.

Finally, the utterly depraved nature of human evil leaves one with no other choice than to seek a supernatural solution. Outside the influence of the American experiment in constitutional democracy and rule of law, humanity has been dominated by the unspeakable cruelty of people who have fought their way into absolute power and from it become absolutely corrupt. Except in very primitive cultures, the advancement of knowledge has resulted in more and more power for the ones who possess it to dominate the ones who do not. Christian faith is an influence which, when exercised with restraint and separated from the institutions of government, produces virtue and progress for all who find it.

The undeniable presence of evil in this world cries out for faith in the goodness and mercy of God, which is demonstrated by His self-sacrificial love in the person of Jesus my Lord and Savior. Faith in this righteous and merciful God is what motivates me to leave this written legacy.

American Edelweiss

Recently I learned of Christopher Plummer’s death. I loved this man's role as Captain von Trapp in the Sound of Music (even though Plummer expressed contempt for the movie after it was released).

Captain von Trapp had pride in his country and would never accept domination by the Nazi Anschluss. One of his lines has a haunting resonance in American culture today:

"I was under the impression, Herr Zeller, that the contents of telegrams in Austria are PRIVATE! At least, the Austria.... I know."

Is there any privacy in America today, especially for those who are being “cancelled”? Most of our communications today go through companies who feel honor-bound to abuse the rights of anyone who swims against the tide of progressive globalism. And anyone can see that the global power that is coming will not be friendly to Americans who don’t collaborate.

Of course, Austria wasn’t a perfect place for people who didn’t have the wealth and power of the von Trapp family, and many Americans including myself owe their immigrant roots to ancestors persecuted by the Austrian empire.

America isn’t a perfect place either, but our liberty is a gift from God, established by people who had personal experience with government control and corruption. I am both praying for restoration of this precious gift and mourning its passing.

God bless America

Land that I love

Stand beside her

and guide her through the night

With your light from above!

Top 10 Reasons for My Christian Faith

For a number of years I felt compelled to list and explain the reasons why I believe in Jesus my Lord and Savior. I don't have much of a speaking ability but I want to leave this testimony for those who might pass this way. Each of the reasons listed below links to a separate post.

#10: The Futility of Naturalism
The philosophy of Naturalism teaches that everything that happens in the physical world can be explained by the "laws of Nature", i.e. there is no Supernatural agent, and thus no existential purpose in life...You can't fully comprehend the futility of Naturalism until you grasp the meaning of Eternity...(more)

#9: The Undeniable Presence of Evil

The Bible presents heaven and earth as the creation of an all-powerful God, who himself declared it to be good. It also presents the conflict that arises when man pursues independence from God and becomes subject to the power of evil...This human evil - that was introduced by "the original sin" - is unique in creation...(more)

#8: The Declaration of Creation
The more I learn about the universe, the more I appreciate the miraculous Power that crafted it, and the more thankful I am for this little blue speck we call Earth...(more)

#7: Messianic Prophecy
Jewish Rabbis and Church Fathers both recognized these prophecies as Messianic, but the fulfillment of these prophecies in the life of Jesus reveal the astonishing surprise ending...(more)

#6: The New Covenant
Number 6 on my top 10 reasons for faith in Jesus is the New Covenant - the covenant of Grace, sealed by the blood of Jesus, which provides the promise of redemption, forgiveness, and eternal life...(more)

#5: The Resurrection
The defining reason why Christians over the millennia have professed faith in Jesus is the resurrection. Without the resurrection there would be no Christian faith...(more)

#4: The Preposterous Gospel of Christ
The gospel message itself is called "foolishness" to the nations of this world, and a "stumbling block" to the Jews whom Christ came to reach first. Of all the improbable ways to start, this kingdom began with the King himself being whipped and hung naked on a cross to suffer and die with criminals...(more)

#3: The Last Days
We are living in the last days. Today Christ the Messiah reigns at the right hand of God in the midst of His enemies. There is a coming day of wrath when Christ will return with the host of heaven to remove His enemies from creation and give eternal peace and joy to the people of God...(more)

#2: The Faith of Our Fathers
Hebrews chapter 11 lists many fathers of our faith, in chronological order, which the author calls a "cloud of witnesses". Their testimony of the faithfulness of God, and the testimony of our Christian heritage provides me with my Number 2 reason for faith in Jesus...(more)

#1: The Holy Spirit in Me
The conviction of the Holy Spirit and the word of faith was breaking down the walls of skepticism and leading me to repentance. I had to accept a lot of things I didn't understand, but felt that I had found the source of life and hope. The truth of this matter is that He found me!...(more)

Faith #10: The Futility of Naturalism

To start my list of reasons for faith in Jesus the Messiah, I chose The Futility of Naturalism.

“You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

John 6:67-68

Some time before I began my new life of faith, I was aware of the futility of life without God. I began to doubt the existence of God as a young teenager.  Even though my parents were models of Christian behavior and raised me in a Presbyterian church, I could not accept the Christian faith in the face of what I was learning in school.

School taught me that I was a product of millions of years of evolutionary change that began in a swamp of protein activated by lightning or some random phenomenon. Society taught me that God was an invisible concept that had little bearing on people's everyday lives. It didn't require much for my inquisitive mind to conclude that there is no God, and around eighth grade I became a skeptic. 

Being an adolescent skeptic caused me to spend hours contemplating the meaning and purpose of life. Some people use the term "God-shaped hole in your heart" to describe the emptiness you feel when you have no purpose. You see, the philosophy of Naturalism teaches that everything that happens in the physical world can be explained by the "laws of Nature", i.e. there is no Supernatural agent, and thus no existential purpose in life.

That "God-shaped hole" tends to get filled with something which ends up determining the destiny of your life. Like many adolescents I tried to fill it with alcohol and other hedonistic pursuits, but God had a different plan for my life. A friend on my high school golf team finally reached me with the gospel of Christ and helped me understand the "words of eternal life".

You can't fully comprehend the futility of Naturalism until you grasp the meaning of Eternity. In the words of a song the Lord inspired in me as a young man...

Is there a purpose for me if I am just an accident of elements in time?

My conclusion is that there IS an eternal purpose, there MUST be, and if you want to find it you must believe that God has revealed it to His creation. Search the religions of this world and you will not find a revelation of God anything like that found in the Bible. The Bible reveals a loving, merciful God that saves lost souls from futility and death to live a life of eternal meaning and purpose.

Post script

The book of Ecclesiastes is all about the meaning of life and the futility of life without God. Solomon, the "Preacher" who wrote this book, was a wise man and a naturalist according to the first book of Kings...

Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the sons of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt. He spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon even to the hyssop that grows on the wall; he spoke also of animals and birds and creeping things and fish. Men came from all peoples to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom. 

1 Kings 4:30,33-34

Many verses like this express the futility of Naturalism:

For there are many words which increase futility. What then is the advantage to a man? For who knows what is good for a man during his lifetime, during the few years of his futile life? He will spend them like a shadow. For who can tell a man what will be after him under the sun?

Ecclesiastes 6:11-12

The Preacher concludes his wise counsel with this:

Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, “I have no delight in them”;... 

 

Remember Him before the silver cord is broken and the golden bowl is crushed, the pitcher by the well is shattered and the wheel at the cistern is crushed; then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it. “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher, “all is vanity!” 

Ecclesiastes 12:1,6-8 

The scribe of this book, writing later about Solomon's words and life, ends with this:

The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil. 

Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 

You can live life without God and accept or ignore its futility, or you can live your life for God and experience joy and hope for eternity. God leaves us each with this choice.

Siege Warfare, Covid Style

Imagine if you will, that you are under siege in Jerusalem in AD 70, having ignored Jesus' warning to flee to the mountains when the Roman army began to gather outside the walls.

Destruction of Jerusalem by David Roberts (1850)

Now imagine that you have two choices: 1) to go outside the walls to escape/face the Romans or 2) stay in Jerusalem and be starved to death, maybe killed and eaten, or if you are "lucky" you survive all that and get slain by soldiers or burned to death when the Romans finally break down the walls.

Well that is a sort-of analogy to the siege we face with this pandemic. However, our chance of survival is much better outside the walls of our dwelling places.

If we all stay in our homes we would literally die in siege-like fashion because there would be no food in the pantry. So we make exceptions for "people we need" to feed us, keep our electricity on, treat us for illness and disease, protect us from thugs and looters, etc. This seems like a very elitist solution.

If we all go outside our walls and return to "normal" maybe up to 20% of the population would become seriously ill and maybe up to 1% would die, many of whom would die soon anyway due to age or other conditions.

If we stay "locked in", our governments will drown in debt, our businesses will suffer a cascading spiral of bankruptcies, and those who will suffer and die will be the youngest of us - who will live to see the consequences of our profligate self-indulgence for many years hence. This is much like the siege warfare scenario where the youngest become victims of cannibalization.

But the good news is that the risk of going outside and back to "normal" can be greatly improved with medicines and practices to improve our odds against the virus. And most of all, we can count on God's mercy because -TRULY-, this unseen enemy is an act of God and ultimately under His control. All we really need to do *that has not been adequately done* is to acknowledge God and ask for His mercy. I would much rather cast myself on the mercy of God than to face the wrath of a society gone mad within its own desperate walls!

Depth Perception: Two Views of the Cross

This is the the time of year when Jews and Christians remember their deliverance from slavery, which for followers of Jesus means freedom from sin which enslaves all mankind.

I was studying the crucifixion accounts and noticed an apparent contradiction. The verses in Luke 23 give a moving account of two criminals who are crucified with Christ, one on his left and one on his right. One of them is insulting Jesus like the Jewish leaders and the Roman soldiers overseeing his execution. To them, and even to the disciples of Christ this appears to be the end of Jesus’ life and the end of a Messianic delusion.

The other criminal has a different attitude. He sees the righteous and unjust suffering of Christ and comes to his defense, even to the point of Spirit-inspired faith in Jesus. This man in the depth of his suffering understands something that has evaded Jewish scholars and even those who followed him for years, that his kingdom is not earthly but heavenly. Deep calls unto deep, and this man truly understands as no one else at the time, the deep deep love of Jesus. True repentance is never too late and never rejected by God, and Christ gives the promise of a home with him in his eternal kingdom.

Now here is where I gained my own depth perception. The crucixion accounts in Matthew and Mark simply say that both criminals were hurling insults at Christ, condemning him as a false Messiah. After prayerful consideration I realized that this was not a contradiction at all, but a powerful story of conviction and repentance. Two criminals went to Golgotha with Christ; two criminals saw him crucified even as they were hung on their own crosses. Both followed the crowd as they insulted the sacrificial Lamb of God. But as he hung there dying, one criminal saw the righteousness of God, his justice and mercy on public display for all time, even as it crossed the ultimate injustice of man. One criminal contemplated his own sinfulness and his fast approaching encounter with eternity, and allowed Christ into his heart.

Those are indeed the two roads we all must choose between when we encounter Christ. Accept or reject him - where those roads cross is the decision point that determines our eternal destiny. If you find someone at that crossroads remind them that it’s never too late to follow the One who bore our sin.

“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭5:8‬ ‭NASB‬‬

Save the Date - November 8

Don't know what to do on November 8? I have some thoughts and recommendations.

If you've seen my blog in the past you might have noticed I have not been particularly complimentary of the major party nominees for the office of US President. I still think both parties could have done better with their nominees. However, there are some really significant reasons to support (gulp) Donald Trump this year.

Yes, that's right, I'm going to turn out with all my deplorable friends on November 8 and vote for Donald Trump. Here's why...

No Serious Third-Party Choices

I probably would not throw away my vote on a candidate that had no possibility of winning, especially if my second choice candidate needed my vote, as Mr. Trump does (well maybe not in Texas, but you get my point.) In my opinion Libertarian Gary Johnson is just not up to the job, and even if he were he does not share my worldview. His agenda seems to be mainly focused on marijuana, if you can call that "focus". The Green Party candidate seems like a nice smart lady but her politics are way too far left of the foul line.

Experience

Whaaat...experience? Hillary Clinton has far more experience in government than Donald Trump, I will grant you that. Mr. Trump's experience with government is mostly related to being the subject of government regulators and bureaucrats. However the value of his long experience as an entrepreneur favorably compares with that of President Obama's experience as a "community organizer" and first-term mostly-absent Senator when he entered the White House.

Mrs. Clinton's experience proves only that she has an agenda that is not pro-America but rather pro-Clinton. Any major party candidate will bring a team of experienced advisers and consultants from the ranks of their party, along with the established departments of government and military leaders to help them hit the ground running. What really affects the ultimate course of the country is not experience but the president's worldview and agenda.

Agenda

Both candidates come with an agenda. Mrs. Clinton comes with a progressive agenda, which means she wants to undo practically everything that the greatest generation of America stood for, a strong America that could hold back the tide of evil despotic regimes and set a moral standard for the world to envy and emulate. Mrs. Clinton's history indicates she will chart a course similar to the Obama agenda, trading America's sovereignty and strength for globalism and compromise with organizations like the U.N. or the World Court. On the home front she will press even further toward anti-Christian and anti-family values, led by her friends and mentors on the progressive left. Her agenda on the economic side includes the typical FDR-era government make-work programs.

As far as I can tell, Mr. Trump's agenda (beyond the obvious quest for power and a place in the history books) is to restore America's preeminent place in the world, which has been unilaterally surrendered by the Obama administration. I believe he sincerely wants to help get Americans back to work in the private sector, even if some of his proposals are a bit off-the-wall. I believe he would take a practical approach to deregulation and tax reforms that could help our economy grow.

Temperament

Most people would give Mrs. Clinton the upper hand for being more composed and thoughtful than Mr. Trump. Thus, in spite of her high untrustworthy ratings, she is considered the "safer choice". I can't deny that there is some risk in a Trump presidency, but let me offer this perspective.  Mr. Trump has the proven ability to lead large organizations and make decisions that affect thousands of people's lives and livelihoods. He has also proven his ability to raise responsible hard-working children against all odds for someone in his income bracket. In spite of this Mr. Trump is universally hated by most of the media elites in America and around the world. If elected he would have a tremendous challenge getting anything controversial done without severe criticism and calls for impeachment or resignation from the left, and possibly even members of his own party. This makes it highly unlikely that he could do much damage to the integrity of the presidency.

Mrs. Clinton on the other hand has carte blanche from the media all around the world. She also has the "woman card" that she will use if needed (e.g. "the first female president" and so forth.) She also has a federal court system that was stacked by her husband and President Obama to support her. One or two Supreme Court appointments will make her practically immune to any legal attacks or publicity campaigns, which could quickly be silenced by her executive powers. As she has proven repeatedly, she is willing to put her own interests above those of the country, and like her husband is she capable of successfully thwarting any attempts to uncover the incriminating truth.

The Supreme Choice

By far the largest and most important factor to consider is the precarious state of the Supreme Court. The constitution literally hangs in the balances of this election. Hillary Clinton appointees will consistently rule against private gun ownership and self-defense rights, against first amendment rights of religion and speech (except for Muslims of course), and against any other rights that stand in her way. Clinton appointees will consistently rule in favor of the progressive left agenda. This will affect the moral fabric of our nation so profoundly that I believe we may never recover. Maybe we have already passed the point of no return, but if voting has any ability to change the course of history, my vote will be cast in favor of a stronger United States and against socialism and one-world government.