Post Rock III: The American Dollar (Ambient Albums I, II & III)

All the American Dollar (Ambient) albums are great ambient music for me to study and think on matters.  Ambient music includes forms of music that put an emphasis on tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm. Ambient music is said to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality. To quote one of Ambient's pioneera, Brian Eno, "Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.

It is this diverse but "ignorable" quality that allows it to be useful for meditative and memorization purposes when reading my Bible. I personally have found that it allows me an almost photographic recollection (eidetic memory) of what I have read and studied in the Bible. Most people that know me know about my eidetic memory. Many of them have asked me how I retain everything and this is the best explanation I have been able to arrive at. It seems that when I have some form of audible punctuation or reinforcement things "hook" into my memory. There are additional visual/stimulation associations connected to the music also that aid my memory retention. I believe this was a rabbinic method used by the Jews with the teaching of children of the Hebrew Bible. 

I hereby acknowledge that this methodology has worked with me wondrously and has helped me retain much of what I read, the Greek language I've learned and memorization of Scripture. It's an indispensable aid in my learning and has allowed me a near supernatural level of retention in certain areas like Scripture. Other areas like systems of the world...not so much. This type of music is critical to my studies and it is why I've chosen to tell others of my methods of study.

I stumbled across American Dollar while surfing Pandora. The style is a purely instrumental mixture of indie rock, post-rock, and electronica. Some of the songs can be epic sonic odysseys of eight minutes or more. Some are a bit more concise. Either way, its good stuff. 

 
  
I provide you with a video of the song Signaling Through The Flames from Ambient One.

In Their Own Words XII: A Cell Is A World Of Supreme Technology



Michael Denton is a British-Australian biochemist. He is a renowned expert on genetics, evolution and the anthropic argument for design. It follows that he would be an expert on the construction of biological cells. Because of his pro-design presuppositions of nature, he tends to take an anti-Darwinian evolutionary position. Sadly though, Denton has firmly rejected biblical creationism as a viable alternative to Darwinism. In his favor, he categorically denied that randomness accounts for the complex biology of living organisms. Having said this he has also made some pretty profound statements about the field in which he spends his working day. One of those statements is as follows.

“To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular biology, we must magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is twenty kilometers in diameter and resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York. What we would then see would be an object of unparalleled complexity and adaptive design. On the surface of the cell we would see millions of openings, like the port holes of a vast space ship, opening and closing to allow a continual stream of materials to flow in and out. If we were to enter one of those openings we would then find ourselves in a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity…" ~ Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory In Crisis (1985)

What has Denton just described here? An airship, a spaceship? On the surface, yes he has. There is more here. Essentially he has described an object that was ideally designed to perform a purposeful function. He also uses other descriptions and metaphors that warrant mentioning. He mentions “port holes” or ports, “continual stream of materials” flowing “in and out” of said entity. If one was to enter this object it would be a “world” or effectively a place of, “supreme technology and bewildering complexity.”

Denton hasn't just said technology here, he has said supreme technology. The word technology and its classical definition comes from the Greek τέχνη/ techne which means "art, skill, cunning of hand" and λογία, logia which is the "making, modification, usage, and knowledge of tools, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization all in order to solve a problem." Again, it says art, skill, organization and solutions…all are hallmarks of intelligence based in a design.

Furthermore, the modern definition of technology is: The application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry.

These are all specifically endeavors or actions of a sentient being(s). Denton states that the cell is a supreme form of these. Denton who is an expert in biochemistry is making an authoritative statement here. The word supreme is an adjective akin to absolute, transcendent...divine. What he is saying is the cell is exceptionally designed and is a system that functions with exceptional skill. It is the sum product of a design akin to an art form yet it is utilitarian and built specifically for function. Bauhaus anyone (harmony between function and design)?

What else it Denton describing? He is essentially describing a healthy active city or even a fully interdependent world. A city that houses humans and other life forms. Life forms that are made up of the very things that Denton is describing.

A healthy living cell.

Cities are (to a greater or lesser extent) broken down into neighborhoods and functional areas just like body systems such as respiratory, lymphatic, etc. The city systems are made up of even smaller entities namely people (individual cells). These neighborhoods/systems and individuals/cells are all working together in a symbiotic manner to the greater good of the whole. I don’t see this as ironic or accidental. It is planned and designed from top to bottom. Like gravitates to like and similar to similar. Societies become the sum whole of the individual human entities. The human entities become the sum whole of individual cells. All working to move history and society along. All interdependent, all symbiotic, all miraculously harmonized.

If we look closely at the human body at the cellular lever we can begin to make out things like the white blood cell. Although similar to many other cells in the body, in a sense it is far less free than those other cells. Similar to an individual person with a sense of duty in society (like a soldier), a larger organism determines the white blood cell’s duties. Sometimes the white blood cell will even need to sacrifice its life for the sake of that organism in a war against foreign aggressors. Unlike the evolutionary theory it is supposed to adhere to, the white blood cell does not flee danger…it moves toward it in sacrifice to save the system.

I sometimes think of the human body as a community, and then of its individual cells such as the white cell. The cell is the basic unit of an organism; it can live for itself, or it can help form and sustain the larger organism. I recall the Apostle Paul's use of analogy in 1 Corinthians 12 where he compares the church of Christ to the human body. In this passage Paul shows the unity and diversity in the body both holistically and at the individual level. Although he is referring to the Church and the human body, he could’ve very well have been referring to the relationship between individual cells and a man. It is a beautifully orchestrated symphony of design created by a Master Musician as it could only be a Master that could pull of all of the intricacies and still have it all function as a whole like an orchestra. A well-tuned orchestra I might add.

1 Corinthians 12:12-20 ~ Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body-whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. ~ The Apostle Paul to the Corinthians

I guess Dr. Paul Brand in his book In The Likeness Of God summed up the startling parallels between the macrocosmic and microcosmic, the big and the small, the cells and the individual and the spiritual and the biological when he mimicked Scripture speaking these words…

“The body is one unit, though it is made up of many cells, and though all its cells are many, they form one body... If the white cell should say, because I am not a brain cell, I do not belong to the body, it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the muscle cell should say to the optic nerve cell, because I am not an optic nerve, I do not belong to the body, it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an optic nerve cell, where would be the ability to walk? If the whole body were an auditory nerve, where would be the sense of sight? But in fact God has arranged the cells in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If all cells were the same, where would the body be? As it is, there are many cells, but one body. That analogy conveys a more precise meaning to me because though a hand or foot or ear cannot have a life separate from the body, a cell does have that potential. It can be part of the body as a loyalist, or it can cling to its own life. Some cells do choose to live in the body, sharing its benefits while maintaining complete independence - they become parasites or cancer cells. ~Dr Paul Brand [In The Likeness Of God (p. 35-36)]

Even though this is the borrowing of Scriptural Paul by a modern Paul, isn’t this still a startlingly accurate description of society as a whole? The Church? The Body of Christ? What makes it all the more astonishing is that Dr. Paul Brand’s description maintains an interchangeability between the spiritual and biological just as Paul the Apostle’s did two thousand years ago. The parallels are mind-bending and they bridge the span of millennia…yet both hold absolutely true even now in different cultural milieu.

Denton was correct, the complexity is bewildering. The complexity is bewildering not only in reference to the individual cell but also the cells similarity to things at the macrocosmic level which it mimics such as societies, communities and the world system as a whole. We can even view the reflection from the other direction. Perhaps it is the macrocosm imitating the microcosm since the macro is nearly always made up of the micro? Either way...it is unparalleled and manifold technology and it is bewildering.

The First Fruit of Suffering

Our spiritual priorities tell us that we are to give the first fruits of our joy and blessing to God since it is Him that the blessing and joy should be coming from. We must admit that many times we do not do this and it shows in God’s silence towards us sometimes. What I have found from grinding through months of endurance and waiting for things to turn around in my family’s life (most of the issues are of my own making) is that the above statement is only half correct. We are not obligated to give only of our joy and blessings. Believe it or not we are to give God the first-fruits of our suffering too. 

All things spiritual either come from God or are allowed by God. We also know that suffering is to teach us obedience and to sharpen our faith in the long-run. These are good things…we should be sharing them as first-fruits to the Lord. Yet this is overlooked. Why? My guess is because suffering doesn't look even remotely like blessing but blessing often comes through perseverance in the unpleasant. To begin with, I need to give my pain to God firstly so that when it comes time for joy and blessing, pain will have paved the way for giving Godly behavior when blessing does come my way.

Is first fruits of suffering biblical? Yes, very much so. Am I saying that God's suffering was not enough for us to gain salvation? Good grief no, that's more along the lines of the Catholic idea of redemptive suffering which is in reality a work that is unnecessary. I am merely stating that a way to help us cope with our trials and pain and still give glory to God is to first go to God to give him first of our pain...just as we would with any other thing that comes from God.

At some point if we truly understand, live out and accept the principles of Scripture we might be able to see or find the joy in suffering that Paul did in Philippians. If we somehow manage to recognize the joy in the suffering we can then see what the suffering points us to. If suffering at some point can be considered joy it could then also be considered a blessing. If it could be considered a blessing it is therefore a by-product of that blessing. It therefore stands to reason that we should offer the first fruit of our suffering including the suffering itself up to God. That is because of the good end to which our suffering will take us.

Romans 5:3-5 ~ More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

As a matter of fact James tells us that trials should all be counted joy (therefore blessing) because of the steadfastness and completeness I produces in a believer.

James 1:2-4 ~ Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

It warrants that we offer up pain and discomfort up to God as the blessing it is. Even Job whose suffering is second only to Christ’s on the cross had something profound to say about this concept.

Job 2:10 "... if we have received good things at the hand of God, why should we not receive evil?"

Each day we should never fail to thank God for the things He has done and will do for us that bless us. We should be sure to offer up the first fruits of our suffering. It is in actuality an exchange. By giving God our pain, we allow for God to heal us and refill our tanks so that we can pursue His will further. It is just like when we give God our sins…we receive sanctification in its place. This exchange also requires our dependency on God and forces us to reassert that dependency and relationship. If done properly it is done multiple times a day. Offering up our suffering and sin in return for comfort and glimpses of the Kingdom of God. 

What happens when we don’t offer up the first fruits of our pain? There is a good chance we’ll hold on to the pain instead of divesting ourselves of it like we were made to do. God wants us to come to Him to take the load off. In its place we put Christ.

Matthew 11:29 ~ “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

Our suffering has been allowed by God. It does not follow that God is maliciously doing it. Pain and suffering is the spiritual classroom of hard learning (school of hard knocks). The lessons we learn in suffering are hard earned and not soon forgotten. It would make sense that God would be glad to help us out in our suffering as He has told us to go to Him in our suffering. He has specifically told us we would be comforted in our afflictions (2 Corinthians 1:4). He knows what we suffer…He can certainly handle your pain if you hand it over to Him. He already died for you on a cross. If we can trust him with our eternal well-being, we can trust Him with our pain and broken hearts.

Even in offering our pain and suffering to God we bring glory to Him, not shame. How? Because it shows others that even in the depths of torment and suffering, we trust God to do the right thing for us, just as Job did….just as Jesus did. Suffering therefore is not the end of hope but the facilitator and builder of hope. 

Sometimes...even when you have nothing to offer up to God...you should offer exactly that...nothing or what appears to be nothing. Our pain offered up to God certainly looks like less than nothing to us but to God and others watching it shows the Lord is first in our lives...even when we are at our lowest or at our worst.

God Will Give You Much More Than You Can Handle

If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a hundred times. It comes from well-meaning but biblically errant people, “God will never give you more than you can handle.” My first reaction is usually to cringe. Then I feel the need to correct the misunderstanding if they keep it up and insist its true. Making this statement to people is usually a strategy for bolstering self-esteem and morale. It allows a person to encourage others that are struggling through something and to pull up their bootstraps and continue onward. It is usually done by many as consolation and to comfort those that otherwise may fall farther into a funk or give up totally.

 

It gives those that would believe this lie strength to face another day but it is a false hope. I will be up front. I’ve gotten wise to this fallacy or well-meaning error. We want to believe God is all loving at all costs and thereby we believe that He would never do something to us to make us struggle based on our perception of what love and benevolence is. The problem is that many people believe that not struggling and always being happy in this life is a sign of God’s blessing. Anything else is therefore perceived as God’s curse. The Prosperity Gospel and Health and Wealth preachers are exceptionally guilty of this but so are many people with a misunderstanding of the Bible.

 

Here is the rub. If we go through life thinking that each new day will bring only what we believe we can handle because God wouldn’t inundate us, we are going to be sorely let down and in for a very unpleasant surprise. The idea that God won’t give more than we can handle might be what people want to hear but it certainly isn’t the truth nor is this found anywhere in the Scriptures.

 

Truth is what saves us and truth is what will bring us to the Cross and the Gospel…which is what we really need in these situations. Here is the truth: God will nearly always give us more that we can handle and Scripture is chock full of examples of this fact.

 

So, where did the errant belief that God would take it easy on us come from? I believe this lie finds its origin in a misinterpretation of 1 Corinthians 10:13?

 

1 Corinthians 10:13 ~ “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”

 

Nowhere in this verse does it say God won’t give you more than you can handle. The verse is speaking specifically of temptation(s) not the ordinary troubles and struggles of life. God will give you the ability to endure or escape temptations not life's struggles. The truth is that once we have reached our end and need to go beyond ourselves where we cannot push ourselves…these are the exact places God intervenes supernaturally somehow for His own glory. It is here that we see why God will allow insurmountable things into our lives that we cannot handle. It gives God a place to show his true power and glorious nature. As Paul said, in weakness, He is strong.

 

2 Corinthians 12:19 ~ “But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me."

 

As a matter of fact, it is exactly because Paul and others are pushed beyond their limits that they become such great examples of faith in Christianity. It showed that God acted on their behalf in grace and mercy. It is in this exact example of Paul and why he speaks of his overwhelming ordeal that we learn the exact truth which is both purposeful and useful for the Christian.

 

2 Corinthians 1:8-11 ~ “For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.  Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.”

 

Paul and his companions had been pushed well beyond their own strength(s) to endure anymore and they were at the point of death. They were therefore in the realm of God's grace. They did not despair even more and say, “Oh my! God won’t give us any more than we can handle!” No! They realized that God could indeed overburden them but they also knew in faith that He would deliver them. On this fact about God they placed their hope and did not despair. They didn’t place their hope in false platitudes like the lie we tell others today. They also turned to God in prayer.

 

What they did not do is try to build up one another’s self-esteem with empty words. This is the diseased fruit of today's self-help mentality. They turned to the only One that could affect a positive change to their dire predicament. They turned to the Omnipotent God that was allowing them to be pushed beyond their limits because of the very fact that He was allowing the struggle to take place and He would provide the route of escape. Only one question therefore remains: Why does He allow insurmountable struggles to come upon those He loves?

 

Simple. God cares about your eternity more than your present condition. He allows these things to come into our lives to strengthen our faith in Him and get us to realize that He is the only One we can turn to when all worldly hope is lost. Who will you look towards at your point of death? Although these look like the actions of an unloving or apathetic God, this again goes back to faulty human reasoning and the twisted way fallen men view God and His actions. It isn’t because God is sadistic and unloving, but it is because He is loving that He allows our trials of this magnitude. So that is counter-intuitive you say? Perhaps for man it is counter-intuitive but in God’s reasoning it is needed, and Paul already told us why. It was, “…to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” Paul is pointing to the supernatural goal line stand. This is all about eternity.

 

The Lord pushes us over the edge of our abilities to deal with things specifically to show His glory when it comes time for Him to work through our faith in Him. A glory so great that it overcomes death and maintains us in eternity. Even when we are at the ragged edge. God really does become evident in our weakness because it shows it is nothing that we are doing and it’s all about Him. It also points us to prayer and when prayer begins to show that it works it increases faith even more. Then the floodgates of heaven open. This is the place of abundant faith and miracle. This is the place God is most prominently put on display in all His glory.

 

God...who specifically backed is people up to the Red Sea while being run down by Pharaoh.

 

God...who specifically pitted David against a monstrous Goliath.

 

God...who specifically gave Gideon 300 men to fight the Midianites.

 

God...who put Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in a furnace they’d have never survived on their own.

 

God...who put Daniel in a lion's den with lions Daniel couldn't control and eventually killed other people.

 

God...who allowed all humans except Enoch and Elijah to face death the unbeatable foe. Yet all have overcome this last foe. They have done so through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We as humanity have overcome due to our Advocate who died and rose again the third day in accord with Scripture.

 

Let’s face it folks. If we didn’t have unbearable circumstances in this life that threaten to sink our ships…where would the need for faith or God be? Absent, that’s where.

 

Your struggles are essential to your faith because your faith is produced in the crucible of hardships you must endure. The heat of the crucible burns out the doubts that would have otherwise gained traction in an absence of suffering and faith.

 

Without getting more than you can endure you are not forced to step out in faith. You are not learning to depend on God. You will not grow spiritually. We must see our obstacles in life as being placed there specifically by God for His purpose, not as impediments God left lying around to torment us. In the end we need to get to a place that keeps us in the crucible. A place where we could’ve never otherwise survived without God’s miraculous and supernatural intervention on a regular if not constant basis.

To be able to stand in this heat requires supernatural faith. To have this type of faith we need to pour ourselves out as offerings to God so that we can make room for His Spirit to bolster and sustain our lives and push us from the mundane to the super-mundane. From ordinary to extraordinary.

 

In those crucible moments of truth, when we’re overcome with the need to alleviate or ease the pain we must accept that God will often offer us no easy way out. He might even turn up the heat of the furnace to get us to the place He wants us more quickly. Sometimes there just will not be a ladder out of the lion’s den to make life the way we want it to be. Perhaps that is because God doesn’t want our lives the way we want it to be? Perhaps it is because He wants our lives the way He wants it to be? The truth is that usually we want solutions to allay our pain. God wants us holy and pain may be one of the impetuses to get us there. Our solutions usually don’t bring us to God and holiness, they just bring us back to ourselves and temporary answers (therefore idols). God’s path or hardship usually solves problems permanently and bring us to Him. Therefore they bring us to holiness and life.

 

Perhaps we should stand longer in the fire of God’s sanctifying flame rather than always attempting to avoid it? Perhaps the fire will burn off our impurities?

 

Malachi 3:2-3 “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the Lord offerings in righteousness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Too Much Salt Ruins A Good Steak

There are two Greek words in the Bible (akatastasia and synchyseos) that surround one idea (confusion / mayhem) that should be taken into consideration when we discuss diversity or what the modern culture calls tolerance and what they consider acceptable nowadays. By understanding these words and how the modern world relates to them will allow us to better understand why today’s “diversity” and "tolerance" or the accepting of everything under the sun is actually a bad thing. 

The first word is ἀκαταστασία / akatastasia and it is found in James 3:16 and 1 Cor. 14:33.

1 Corinthians 14:33 for God is not a God of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.

James 3:16 ~ “For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing.”

In 1 Corinthians it is translated confusion and in James it is translated disorder. It is actually a compound Greek word formed from (a) meaning not, (kata) meaning down and (stasis) meaning stand/steady. Together it means "cannot remain steady". It literally means something is unstable or it is an instability brought on by disorder.

A nearly identical word is found in Acts 19:29.

Acts 19:29 ~ “The city was filled with the confusion, and they rushed with one accord into the theater, dragging along Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul’s traveling companions from Macedonia.”

The word confusion in Acts 19 is actually συγχύσεως / synchyseos and is often translated tumult or uproar and means to pour or mix together. When used in this context it means to trouble, stir up or agitate (people in particular). So at its root we see the idea of pouring different things together to the point that they can no longer be separated just like we saw the crowds in Acts 19 when they got a hold of Paul and his companions. Here is where this idea applies to us today.

Our society prides itself on multiculturalism and unity in our diversity. There are many cases where this interacting is a good thing. True diversity is indeed an asset to not only the Body of Christ but also our nation. One man’s weakness can be another man’s strength. Additionally, gasoline in the right environment can make a vehicle go but used incorrectly or with evil intent and it can be used to make a Molotov cocktail. Mixing and using differences can always be used to suit God’s good purposes. Just like anything else that the Devil can counterfeit, it can be used for destructive ends…even subtly. This is where the word diversity and confusion begin to fuse together and become almost indistinguishable. It takes a diversity of people mixed chaotically together to cause a confusing uproar.

It is here we see that there are types of melding that just shouldn’t take place. The reason they shouldn’t be mixed is because they cause chaos, not unity. They cause disunity and mayhem. It is the exact idea gleaned from 1 Corinthians 14:33 and the fact that God is not a God of confusion. By removing God from the equation, disorder and chaos reign. The absence of God’s presence allow it to happen. God Himself is order and maintains order. So to remove Him from any given situation is to produce disorder. The restraint of God’s grace is removed and the sin and evil of man enters in its place like a spiritual vacuum. This is exactly what we see in Acts 19. It is also what we see in Luke 21:9 which is the description of the destruction of the Temple in the End Times. It is idea in the word translated uprisings. In the End Times when people ignore or turn away from God…there will be more war, disorder and confusion. Chaos will reign.

Luke 21:9 ~ “When you hear of wars and uprisings, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.”

We saw the mingling of the Israelites with the original inhabitants of the Promised Land. This in turn led to the chosen people reverting back to pagan worship. We saw it also when Solomon married pagan wives. What we read in the Bible about the Canaanites and other people surrounding Israel were that they were workers of iniquity. They were not the friendly neighbors next door unless the next door neighbors were Satanists or purveyors of human sacrifice. 

These neighboring people also routinely attacked the Israelite people. In Numbers 25 and 31 we see the Israelites had joined with the Moabites and Midianites to commit fornication to idols. Here mixing wasn’t only bad…it had been forbidden. God eventually calls for destruction of the pagan people (and eventually His own people). When we see Solomon, we see a man that does the same. Unfortunately, he is the king of the entire nation of God's chosen people.

Another absolute must is that light should have nothing to do with darkness or truth with untruth or confusion ensues.

2 Corinthians 6:14-18 ~ “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.”

The idea of being unequally yoked together means to be "joined in participation toward a common goal" by two disparate people. It is the idea of joining two things together that are spiritually incompatible. Not all religious fellowship is pleasing to God. It displeases God when fellowship involves the wrong people as we saw in the Old Testament. In the same vein, when joining two spiritual ideas together we should see the same incompatibility. Taken to the extreme we can see how even double-mindedness and incompatible thoughts are bad news (2 Cor 10:3-4). 

The same idea applies today when people pick and choose what they wish to adhere to or obey in the Bible. Murder is viewed as bad…except if it is in a mother’s womb and the mother doesn’t wish to bring the unborn child to term. Then in is called tolerance of that woman’s wishes and she is allowed to have her choice (See what I did there?). Love is viewed as good no matter how the people match up or whom they engage in relationships with. Homosexuality and mix-and-match gender relationships are okay with the culture even though the Bible calls them sexual immorality outside of heterosexual marriage (I did it again). Not all mixing is acceptable regardless of what a pluralistic sexually immoral society says.

Finally, we have the mixing and confusion caused by the mixing of word definitions as I just showed above. In our society…no one can be wrong. It is only acceptable or tolerant to allow everyone their viewpoint or opinion and society says that we have to accept all as valid truth claims. This is where mixing and matching of truths just does not work (neither in logic, nor in reality). Those bent on immorality will merely change word meanings to make their sin less sinister sounding or even try to make their sin sound good. Murder is now “pro-choice” and sexual immorality is now “alternative lifestyle”. Call it whatever you want…depravity is still depraved.

In any given context, only one truth can be true. It is an issue of agreement or disagreement of terms that allows the above twisting of language to take place. Our society in its push to get everyone’s opinions accepted has allowed all definitions of word meanings in these arenas. In formal logic it is called The Law of ID or The Law of Identity. The failure to adhere to this rudimentary logic causes a fallacy called an equivocation. That is to say, people try to use the same words/terms in the same discourse while having signify different senses or meanings–even though the different meanings are conventionally prescribed to that term. In our case for this post “love” means “immoral sexuality” and “abortion murders” are called a woman’s right to “chose”. This mixing of meanings causes, among other things, confusion and disorder. So…if this is what’s happening in our culture and worldwide and it is causing a tumult, is it of God?

Answer: No. So where is truth? I already told you, its in the Bible...and I didn't equivocate.

The truth is this folks....real truth is in the Bible. Anything that stands opposed to the truth of Scripture is not of God. Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. Start in the Scripture whenever in doubt and odds are you will end up with less confusion. Christians are not to mingle with those that perform deeds of wickedness.

Ephesians 5:11 ~ “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.”

In the end our attempts in evangelism to try and mingle the Word with the world to get our message out comes at a cost. The more we put the culture, science, worldly philosophies into our messages and sermons, the more we depend on the culture, science and worldly philosophies to convey our message. The truth is exclusive and it doesn’t need mixing. The Gospel worked fine for 2000 years. Do we really think it needs to change to adapt to the culture now? Every time we piggyback things into the Gospel to make it more pleasing to the world we only end up watering it down, or diverting attention from it. We end up showing people that the message of the Gospel is not quite enough. Like gold, sometimes things are most valuable when they are most pure. Like believers, sometimes when things are emptied of all their unnecessary filler, they are most useful. 

Sometimes…mixing too much salt can ruin a good steak.

#boyertownministry, #andypierson, #pottstownministry,#souljournaler,#jesuschrist, #biblical, #scripture, #christian, #salvation, #jesus

In Their Own Words XI: The Universe Knew We Were Coming

[More in an ongoing series about the profoundly ironic theological 

or philosophical quotes scientists or those in academia make. ]

Freeman Dyson is a theoretical physicist and mathematician. It is apparent he is a rather clever man that is good with words too. He is known for his work in quantum electrodynamics, solid-state physics, astronomy and nuclear engineering. Dyson stated in 2000 that he is a (non-denominational) Christian, and he has disagreed on numerous occasion with militant atheist Richard Dawkins criticizing Dawkins' understanding of evolution. Considering Dyson made the statement below 21 years before announcing he was Christian, it is not surprising be became one recently. It appears his mindset was already being swayed towards God in the 1970’s.

"…the universe is an unexpectedly hospitable place for living creatures to make their home in. Being a scientist, trained in the habits of thought and language of the twentieth century rather than the eighteenth, I do not claim that the architecture of the universe proves the existence of God. I claim only that the architecture of the universe is consistent with the hypothesis that mind plays an essential role in its functioning.... The more I examine the universe and study the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known that we were coming” ~ Freeman Dyson- Disturbing the Universe, 1979, pp. 250-251.

Dyson states, “The Universe in some sense must have known that we were coming.” What is Dyson saying here? Simple. He is (ironically) making an anthropomorphism about the Universe. An anthropomorphism is the designation of human characteristics or behavior to an object. By doing this Dyson is saying there has to have been sentience or thought (i.e.: design) behind the complexity and balance of the Universe / Creation. By making this anthropomorphism Dyson is inadvertently (or purposely) referring to the common argument for the existence of God called the Anthropic Cosmological Principle here. 

In Greek the word ἄνθρωπος  / anthropos means man or human. Therefore this principles says that, based on the observations of the known physical universe, the very nature of the universe itself is compatible with human life or specifically suited to support mankind. The universe did not have to become the way it did to cater to human life but it seemingly in a supernatural way...has done exactly that. It is tailored to support conscious life in the form of man (anthropos). 

In other words it is remarkable that that the universe's fundamental constants happen to fall within a mathematically improbable and impossibly narrow range thought to be compatible with life, our lives. Frank Tipler a mathematical physicist / cosmologist and John Barrow a Reformed Christian and English cosmologist / theoretical physicist / mathematician affirmed a similar belief in their 1986 book The Anthropic Cosmological Principle.

According to the Anthropic Cosmological Principle, the Universe appears “fine-tuned”. It is “dialed in” in such a way that it is nearly impossible that the order that now exists in the universe couldn’t have possibly arose out of the chaos of the Big Bang. How suited is the universe for the existence of mankind?

The universe operates in accordance to exact physical laws. These physical laws allow man to calculate exact planetary orbits and exact properties of metals. These exact laws also allow us to predict when the moon will cause a solar eclipse. Strangely though science will concede that the universe has order but will not concede that it is design because design will require an intelligence that could design something as massive as the universe. It requires that they concede that there is a God.

It is a universe that is about 20 billion light-years in diameter. There are approximately 100-200 billion galaxies in the Universe (Lawton, 1981), and an estimated 25 sextillion stars or a 25 followed by 25 zeroes (25,000,000,000,000,000,000,000). The Milky Way galaxy alone contains over 100 billion stars. Traveling at the speed of light it would take 100,000 years to cross its diameter. Again, what is amazing is that all the matter in the universe this vast behaves in accordance to the same physical laws.

Our Sun gives off more energy in a single second than mankind has produced since the Creation. It also produces radiation, which can be deadly. Ironically, the Earth is located at exactly the correct distance from the Sun to receive the proper amount of heat and radiation to permit life on Earth. Conversely, if we were any closer to the Sun, human life could not survive because of the horrible heat and too much radiation. If the Earth were only 10 million miles closer, too much radiation and heat would kill life. If the Earth were only 10 million miles farther away too little heat would be hitting us and life would also die by freezing to death.

We are protect from 99% of the deadly radiation from the Sun due to our distance from it and also because of our atmosphere. In particular, the Mesosphere that is about 12 miles above the earth contains ozone which filters out nearly all of the ultraviolet radiation from the Sun. Other particles also bombard the Earth from outer space at an extremely high speed, but most of these protons and electrons are reflected back into space because the Earth acts as a giant magnet that pushes the particles away allowing life.

The Earth is rotating on its axis at 1,000 miles per hour at the equator, and moving around the Sun at 70,000 miles per hour (approximately 19 miles per second). This rotation provides periods of light and darkness called night and day…just as described in the Bible. It is also necessary for sustaining life. If the Earth rotated much faster, cyclones would consume the Earth. If the Earth turned slower, the days and nights would be insanely hot or cold. 

Furthermore, the Earth’s orbital speed and tilt are “just right.” The Earth tilted on its axis allows for seasons. The Earth’s orbit is actually elliptical. This means that sometimes the Earth is closer to the Sun than at other times. In January, the Earth is closest to the Sun; in July, it is farthest away. When it is closer, the Earth “speeds up” to avoid being pulled into the Sun; when it is farther away, it “slows down,” so that it remains in a position in space that is “just right.”

What is even more remarkable is that, as the Earth moves in its orbit around the Sun, it departs from a straight line by only one-ninth of an inch every eighteen miles. If it departed by one-eighth of an inch, we would come so close to the Sun that we would be incinerated; if it departed by one-tenth of an inch, we would find ourselves so far from the Sun that we would all freeze to death (Science Digest, 1981, p. 89,124).

As I said before the Earth tilts on its axis at 23.5 degrees. If it were not tilted as it is, but instead sat straight up in its orbit around the Sun, there would be no change of seasons. The tropics would be vastly hotter perhaps uninhabitable, and the deserts would get bigger. That would happen because the equatorial portion of the Earth would be perpetually close to the Sun. In turn the Polar Regions would be farther way and colder permanently.

Then we have the Moon which is 240,000 miles away. The Moon's largest effect on us is on the movement of the oceans tides and currents not to mention weather too because of its effects on the oceans. Stationary bodies of water stagnate so the moon prevents this. Stagnant water would inevitably kill life. This therefore maintains the balance in the food chain of the world’s bodies of water. If the moon were moved only 40,000 miles the tidal changes would be monstrous. There were either be constant deadly tidal waves or not enough water movement. In addition about 75% of the Earth surface is water. This of course makes the hydrological cycle work properly.

Water worldwide is constantly evaporating and condensing. This therefore causes rain to fall on the Earth and perpetuates the weather we see all over the Earth. Cloud cover regulates temperature by reflecting (or not) radiation (heat) back into space. This is why deserts are so hot (no reflection) and rainy climates tend to be a little bit cooler. Without cloud cover our world would quickly become uninhabitable like Mars. If there were too much cloud cover the greenhouse effect would go exponential and we would be like Venus. It is ironic that the extreme examples of what we might become are our closest neighbors in space. One too close to the sun with too much cloud cover and one too far away with no clouds to speak of.

The atmosphere on Earth is perfectly maintained in its dilution and mixture of gases too. How? By the plant and animal kingdoms. Plants take in carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. Animals depend upon the plants and trees for our oxygen supply. The balance of plants and animals is critical or both die. It in essence is a symbiotic relationship necessary for all life on Earth except for perhaps bacteria.

I could go on because the startling balance for life still has finer points to elaborate about, but you get the picture. I guess it’s all one big accident or one big case of luck that all this stuff would balance precariously on the thin edge of a razor so it works properly...so that it works perfectly. Is it statistically possible that it could’ve been possible without a Designer? Yes, I suppose it could but the odds of it happening and the amount of time it would’ve taken for all of this to happen by chance are statistically….impossible. 

Hugh Ross once calculate that there were 122 known constants necessarily for life. The chances that even two or three of these would align to work together, well, the odds of those happening boggle the mind of this rational man. The chance of all these constants accidentally popping up out of the chaos of the universe is 1 in 10 to the 138 power. That's a 1 with 138 zeroes behind it. 

Like I said, impossible.

So let us re-ask the question with one additional caveat. Is it possible? Yes. Is it plausible or probable? No. When we throw in the possibility that life could’ve actually arisen on our planet in the complexity that it has to produce self-conscious life that can even pose these questions of self-existence stretches the meaning of credible belief. Sometimes its easier to believe in God over the godless alternatives.

Well, you do the math, I’m not going to bother. It seems rather pointless. Pointless, just as radical atheist science claims the existence of life is. In reality they are claiming we are all one big pointless statistical accident. The numbers alone tell me otherwise, never mind common sense.

Dyson, Freeman, Disturbing the Universe, 1979, pp. 250-251.

Science Digest, p.89 [1]: Issue 124, January/February (1981)