Explore the Bibletag:www.explorethebible.com,2008://22007-08-24T11:02:11ZMovable Type Publishing Platform 4.0Creation or Chance?tag:www.explorethebible.com,2005:/site2//2.342007-08-24T06:10:29Z2007-08-24T11:02:11ZGod's purpose with mankind proved by the wonder of the universe.
Did the limitless heavens, this vast globe we call "earth," and the amazing diversities of life upon it, come merely by chance or caprice? Are the complexities of life a mere whim of fate -- or is there some real purpose behind existence?
A vast change has come over the world in the last ninety years. Prior to 1914, the tempo of life was far more leisurely; motor cars were few and inefficient; airplanes were flimsy affairs that inspired little confidence; electricity was still largely in its infancy. And morally, the world was still governed by the standards and conventions of the Victorian Age.]]>
A World Gone Wrong
A materialistic philosophy gained ground in recent times, which explained life in terms that left out God. It propounded the theory of evolution, claiming that creation, in all its complex diversity, originated from mere chance and not from the hands of an intelligent Creator with a well-defined purpose in mind. As mankind struggled through the crisis and slump that followed the great wars, and saw widespread misery and want in famished areas, featured so evidently in the news media, the principles of evolution became indoctrinated into politics. Communism became popular, to further challenge faith and belief in God, so that it is claimed that Karl Marx did for politics what Darwin did for science. Today, most forms of political thought, from right to left, are colored by the principles of communism, as is manifest in a growing State totalitarianism evident in every country.
Meanwhile, mankind's faith in religion was shaken. The influence of the Bible steadily lost ground and was pushed into the background. Morals were relaxed until today chastity is "old fashioned." As the concept of a heavenly Father grew dim, so the principle of fatherhood on earth waned. Divorce and juvenile delinquency grew with their heritage of misery and evil, as the whole world became delinquent towards God. Today, mankind generally, has turned its back upon God. It is morally in a shocking condition, whilst racially and nationally it faces the prospects of such terrible and widespread destruction as could completely destroy civilization.
The Theory of Evolution the Cause
No teaching has contributed more to destroying man's confidence in the existence of God than the theory of evolution. Yet, that theory is completely false, and there is no scientist of any standing, who would dare claim that it has been proved indisputably true. The theory is propounded on the basis of implication and circumstantial evidence, that fails to satisfy the truly enquiring mind. This theory cannot provide any answer to the insurmountable problems that face society, but is itself responsible for the decline of morals, the break-up of family life, and the political antagonism that disgraces today's world. Yet the Bible, with its remarkable confirmation of prophecy vindicated beyond all shadow of doubt by the amazing fulfilment of that which it has predicted, can direct to a satisfying way of life that provides for the good of humanity and also presents a hope for the future (1 Timothy 4:8).
The most seriously perturbing aspect of all this conflict, is that evolution has been gullibly accepted by people who do not understand how fallacious is its teaching, nor how dangerous its influence. It has now become incorporated into the educational systems of the schools, and though it remains an unproven theory, it is often taught as fact, as true beyond all doubt, and in such a way as to completely discredit the Bible.
Thus, from early childhood, people are taught to question the standards of previous times, and to scoff at the Bible with its message of hope and its offer of personal salvation. People reject the idea that Jesus Christ is to return to this earth (Acts 1:11: 3:19), to raise from the dead and give eternal life to those who have lived in accordance with his teaching (Matthew 19:28-29); they ridicule the doctrine that shows that God will set up a kingdom upon the earth (Daniel 2:44), over which Jesus Christ will reign as king (1 Corinthians 15:24; Zechariah 14:9). In doing so they deny themselves the salvation that God offers to perishing humanity (John 3:16), and cut themselves off from any hope in the future.
How clever is man?
The Bible demands faith, however, and in this materialistic age, when man has probed so many secrets of life, it is popular to mock at a Bible faith. Man imagines that he has grown beyond it, and thinks that he has all the answers to life's problems. But how mistaken is such a view! Man might be clever in a superficial way, but he has not all the answers. He is clever only to the extent that God has permitted him to stumble upon discoveries which have enabled him to use certain elements, the fundamentals about which, however, he remains ignorant.
Consider electricity, for example. We are absolutely dependent upon it for the basics of life, yet the scientist who harnesses it cannot explain what it is, or where it came from! Consider, further, a marvel of modern times: radio and video transmission. It is entirely dependent upon elements that man has discovered, but which he cannot create. No man has ever made an electron, or the smallest quantity of tungsten, from which electrodes are made; no man has ever created a scrap of copper used to form the casing of valves. Thus the radio -- advanced as a triumph of man's ingenuity -- is entirely dependent upon elements he never made, but found! Who put them there in the first place? Who, but God!
Now, consider yourself. Eight hours out of a day you probably rest on a bed and try to sleep. Why? Why is sleep so essential? Ask your doctor, and discover that he does not know! He knows that it is important that you should do so; he knows that it restores and revives the whole of the human frame, and that it is as important as food. But your doctor does not know why the human body must sleep! With all his professed knowledge, man is very limited.
The word "miracle," is frequently used today to describe what man does, but it is an unpopular word to use in association with the Bible. The massive jet plane flying overhead is a "miracle," but a loud laugh goes up when we refer to the miracles of the Bible.
The Evil of Evolution
With the foregoing in mind, carefully consider the theory of evolution. It claims that "life" came into existence by mere chance; that its complex, harmonious and diverse forms which are seen on every hand, developed out of slime; that it just happened without direction or purpose; that it all came into being by blind accident; that it is merely remarkable luck that we have hands, feet, head, and eyes!
Now such a theory is incredulous. I look at a watch. I observe all the intricate mechanism. I know that there is design and purpose in it all, though (not being mechanically minded!) I do not understand the functions of all the little pieces of machinery. But the science of evolution would teach me that the watch manufactured itself; that it evolved all the little springs because it wanted to tell the time for some reason it did not know itself, and therefore, by forces working outside of itself, and a desire from within, it ultimately became a watch!
My little bit of sarcasm is not far-fetched, as every scientist will know. It is the principle upon which the theory is based. How did life come into existence? One man told me that in some remote past, mighty primeval waves beat upon the shores, and life was created! But who caused the mighty waves to beat upon the shore? He did not know. And the whole of his theory, to my mind, moved out of the range of miracle into the realm of magic! Blind chance waved its magic wand, and life was created!
But then another scientist told me that the first one was wrong! And, as I searched into this matter, I found so many mistakes that scientists had made, particularly in relation to this theory of evolution, so many involved and contradictory theories, all cancelling out what the other taught, that I was pleased to get back to my Bible, with its sound, clear, and plain teaching: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1:1).
But what you need to bear in mind is that these God-defying theories are taught to children in the schools, indoctrinating them with principles that encourage them to treat God's Word with disrespect, and induce in them a spirit that can lead to delinquency.
The greatest heritage any parents can give their children is a respect for God, and an education in spiritual matters.
Has man penetrated space?
The telescope reveals our earth as a very small, insignificant speck floating in unlimited space. When you look into the sky, you are facing infinity! What is beyond space? And what is beyond that? So, as we think upon the problem, there is borne home to us that there is something greater that mortal man, and we only have to gaze into the heavens to be brought face to face with the infinite.
Our nearest neighbour (excluding the moon, earth's satellite) is the planet Venus, which is 39,000,000 kilometres away when at its nearest point. With Venus, and other planets, we revolve around the sun which is 150,000,000 kilometres away.
The sun is the centre of a little system of its own, called the solar system, and the nearest star to the solar system (and itself the centre of its own system, for every star is a sun in its own right) is Alpha Centauri, some 42 million million kilometres away.
The solar system is a very small dot in the vast Milky Way, which we see on a night spread across the sky. Every point of light seen (excluding the few planets associated with the sun) is a mighty sun controlling its own vast system like our sun. Train a telescope upon the heavens, and for every dot of light you see with the naked eye, you will see another thousand! The larger the telescope that man produces, the more he realizes that there is no limit to discoveries! He is face to face with the Infinite.
Yet it is all governed by marvellous precision and order, more meticulous and exact that the best watch that man has ever made.
Did "Lady Luck" cause all this to happen? Did blind chance create remarkable order? To pose the question is to answer it!
So tremendous is the vault of heaven, that ordinary measurements are inadequate, and man has adopted another unit called light year. Light travels at the rate of 300,000 kilometres per second. Multiply that by 60 for the distance in a minute, again by 60 for the distance in an hour, again by 24 for the distance in a day, and finally by 365 for the distance covered in a year, and the total of nearly ten million million kilometres is the enormous yardstick, our nearest star-neighbour Alpha Centauri) is four and one-third light years distant from the earth! In other words, if the rockets that landed on the moon were directed to our nearest star, they would take 5,000 years to reach it! And long before that, I should think, those who launched it would have lost interest in the progress!
Yet scientists glibly speak of "man's conquest of space"!
How puny is man in comparison with creation about him. God could well say to Job: "Canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons?" (Job 38:32).
Astronomers have ascertained that this giant of the sky, at least a million times larger than our own sun (and the sun is over a million times larger than the earth), flies through space with its retinue of worlds, or "sons," at the rate of more than fourteen hundred thousand kilometres an hour! Surely only Omnipotent power can "guide Arcturus with his sons" on their furious race through space. How true are the words of the Psalmist: "When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars which Thou hast ordained, what is man, that Thou art mindful of him?" (Psalm 8:3-6).
Yet God, in His infinite mercy, has bridged these mighty distances, and has revealed Himself as a Father unto humanity, that He might save some for His glory (see Psalm 103:11-17).
When pygmies look up!
When man gazes into the heavens, he sees something of the glory and wonder of the Creator. The Bible describes God as "hanging the world upon nothing" (Job 26:7), and speaks of the "circle of the earth" (Isaiah 40:2). Have you ever thought of the weight of the globe which is computed at 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tonnes, and considered the mighty power of God who projected it into space at a speed of 29.7 kilometres per second and continues to hold it in position by His mysterious force of gravity? This speed makes the fastest, most powerful jet-plane seem stationary! Have you ever pondered the mystery of those mighty heavenly bodies all hurtling through space at tremendous speeds; and yet all subject to such laws of precision that astronomers can predict their position in relation to the earth to the minute?
Is this mighty power and marvellous precision an evidence of Creation or Chance?
Immense as is the earth, it is small in comparison with the sun. Because of its vast distance from us, the sun, when viewed through colored glass, appears as a small red disc;; but actually, its diameter is approximately one and a half million kilometres.
The sun is nature's hearth, for terrestrial life depends upon its rays. Nothing is more interesting than the wanderings of a ray of light. First there is its long journey through space at the speed of 300,000 kilometres per second. It reaches the earth and caresses the fields. Every blade of grass seizes it with delight, and solar heat becomes imprisoned in its frail organism. The beasts of the field are allured by the fine green tufts of grass, and thus the sun's rays enter into their bodies and become transformed into milk, flesh or wool, finally ending upon our tables in the form of food, or upon our backs in the form of clothing! We can admire with gratitude the magnificent sun which provides in its rays the means of life for man, and can respond to the wisdom of God by giving thanks for His wonderful and beneficent creation; and at the same time, leave the evolutionist to his slime (see 2 Peter 2:22)!
The sun, with its health-giving rays, and its power to dispel darkness, is a fitting symbol for the Lord Jesus Christ who proclaimed himself to be "the Light of the World" (John 8:12), and who will not only give life to those who come under his beneficent influence, but will ultimately destroy the spiritual darkness and superstition that holds mankind encased in gloom (Isaiah 60:1-2). Concerning his coming reign on earth, the Psalmist declared: "His name shall continue as long as the sun, and men shall be blessed in him; all nations shall call him blessed" (Psalm 72:17).
As we look towards the heavens, and view the mighty forces that God has projected into space, we see the tokens of His power, tokens which illustrate His ability to execute His great purpose in the earth: "The God of heaven shall set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever" (Daniel 2:44).
To accomplish this purpose, God will send Jesus Christ back to this earth (Revelation 1:7).
Symbols in the sky
The great fires of the sun never go out. They burn with a surface heat of six to seven thousand degrees, whilst the internal temperature is considered to be approximately 50 million degrees. Of this output energy, the earth receives but a minute part. If the earth was any closer to the sun, the heat of the latter would destroy us. If it were as close to the sun as the moon is to the earth, the earth would disintegrate! But God's wisdom arranged that the earth should be positioned where it is in order that it should sustain life (Isaiah 45:18).
The greatest works of man are puny compared to those of God. Supposing a fog existed over Sydney Harbour (Australia) 90 metres deep, the amount of air to be dissipated would be more than five million tonnes. Man cannot devise means to disperse it; yet the sun, the great dispeller of gloom and darkness, can accomplish the work within an hour, and this is but a fraction of fog to be shifted during each twenty-four hours.
Many an astronomer has extolled the glory of the sun. Its surface is called the Photosphere, because it gives out the light which illuminates the earth. Under normal circumstances, it seems to have a smooth surface but, actually, it has large waves upon it, so that it has been described as a great ocean of fire. Sun spots appear on the photosphere which are really great fiery storms, during which tremendous hydrogen flames are cast out, reaching over 300,000 kilometres. Near the edge of some of the spots are bright ridges called faculae, which form the most brilliant part of the sun, and are sometimes 65,000 kms in length and 6,500 kms in breadth. Outside the photosphere is the reversing layer consisting of cooler gases. Above this is the Chromosphere, or color sphere, so called because of its rose tint appearance. It extends to a depth of 6,500 kms. Beyond this is the marvellous white glory of the Corona. It is a kind of rarefied atmosphere out of which emerges long, slender, luminous filaments called streamers. Some have extended to a distance of sixteen million kms in length. They were seen at the time of total eclipse in 1878.
The Bible likens the sun to a great fiery brazier of unparalleled strength and splendour, whose fertilising rays bring life to the world. In Psalm 19, David likened the sun to an army general surrounded by his troops who do his summons; or to a bridegroom appearing with glory and splendour, before the assembled gathering. The sun's great heat, light and strength, reminded David of a strong man running a race, and he saw it as a symbol of earth's coming king, the Christ in whom his hopes were centred. David was a "man after God's own heart," to whom God made promises of eternal import (see 2 Samuel 7:12,13; Isaiah 55:7), and he loved to contemplate the omnipotence and omniscience of the Creator as revealed in His works. He declared: "The works of God are great, sought out of all them that take delight therein" (Psalms 111:2).
The glory, strength, fiery heat, revealing light, dominating power, and life-giving properties of the sun are used as symbols of the Lord Jesus. He is represented as coming to the earth "as the great Sun of righteousness with healing in his beams" (Malachi 4:2). His glory will commence a new epoch, a "new day" for the earth, when he shall shine in the political heavens as King of kings (2 Samuel 23:4). His rays of spiritual light will disperse the gloom and evil of this Gentile night and irradiate the world with divine Truth (Isaiah 60:1-3). He will come as a bridegroom to his waiting bride (Revelation 19:7), and she comprises all those who have earnestly sought to live in accordance with his precepts in anticipation of his coming, and, joined to him in immortality they will live and reign upon the earth in glorious unity (Revelation 5:9-10; John 17:20-21). Christ will be "a strong man to run a race" (Psalm 19:5), for he will cast down all opposing kings and rule over the earth in righteousness (Daniel 7:27). Then shall all men praise him, for the nation and kingdom that will not serve him shall perish" (Isaiah 60:12). In the effulgence of his spiritual light and understanding there shall be dispelled the fog and "gross darkness" that encompasses mankind today, and by his revelation of divine Truth men will be forced to exclaim: "Surely our fathers (spiritual, political and scientific!) have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit" (Jeremiah 16:19).
The Evolutionist caught in a Fly-Trap!
Simply put, evolution can be defined as the developing of new and complex forms of life, from simpler forms by natural processes rather than specific creation. God is thus replaced by Nature; and evolutionists claim that all the amazing diversities of life on the earth do not speak of His wonderful creative Power, but of the remarkable vicissitudes of chance!
To see how absurd this teaching is, examine carefully God's handiwork in the insect-devouring "Venus Fly Trap," found in North Carolina, USA, and consider whether this is an evidence of wonderful design at the hand of an intelligent Creator, or of blind chance working through amazing luck!
A -- flower
B -- plant
C,D,E -- trap in action.
1. Leaves of basal rosette each with terminal trap. 2. Trap.
3. Fly on leaf.
4. Contact hairs that set off trap: closing mechanism.
5. Teeth that close the trap.
From the accompanying drawings, identify the different parts of the flower, and consider how the trap works. The leaves (see sketch B1) of this plant lie in a "rosette" flat on the ground. Each leaf ends in a leaf-blade that looks and acts like a steel trap. The two halves of the trap, hinged in the middle, are attractive on top, being colored pink, red or green, and having the lure of flowers. But there are three little "triggers" (sensitive hairs -- see sketch C4) on the upper inner surface of each side of the trap, making a total of six "triggers" for each trap.
Insects land on these traps and walk around in search of nectar. When an insect disturbs the sensitive hairs on the trap, it will instantly snap shut, with tooth-edges meshing and preventing escape (see sketch E). These six sensitive hairs even distinguish between a living and a dead object, for the leaf-trap will not close unless two hairs are touched in succession, or the same hair twice. Small sticks or pebbles will leave the trap undisturbed!
Once shut, however, the trap gradually pinches tighter and tighter, squeezing its prey against the digestive glands on the inner surfaces of the trap. These traps are strong enough to crush soft bodies, while the glands secrete an acid that can digest any insect caught.
The glands are able to give a continual supply of acid for a week once a victim has been ensnared. When the trap closes, functions are set in motion which virtually turn it into a "stomach."
This plant, with its many traps, is designed to work in unison with co-operative sequence. This is obviously the rational design of an intelligent Creator.
Consider again the various parts of the trap, two leaves, the hinges, the toothed edges, the "trigger" hairs, the digestive glands, the copious acid secretion at the right time. How could random chance, without intelligent design, produce such an organization? It is impossible. The theory of evolution is revealed to be absurd in attempting to show how the Venus Fly Trap evolved. In fact, in trying to do so, the evolutionist is himself caught in a fly trap!
Consider the alternative. The parts of the trap either "evolved" one after the other over millions of years -- or God created the plant! The evolutionist claims that it took millions of years for the trap to evolve, but, until the whole plant is completely formed, it won't work! In other words, for millions of years the plant has been evolving a trap that won't work! Fortunately, the plant has no brains, otherwise it surely would have destroyed itself in sheer frustration! But though it lacks brains, apparently, according to the evolutionist, it went on busily evolving away over millions of years, attempting the impossible, trying to make an incomplete trap work until, supposedly at one stage, a particularly bright plant, by superhuman effort (we won't use the word "miracle"), suddenly thought out (without brains, mind you) what was required and proceeded to grow it!
Please excuse the sarcasm in our description, but how else can evolution account for this amazing plant! There is only one way that plant could come into being: by specific creation.
Look at it again. Notice that the flower is separate from the trap which is situated at the end of the leaf. Any variations in the shape of leaves are not handed on to its offspring, unless they are transferred to the seeds. Can the flower do this itself? Of course not! The alternative is for the evolutionist to "suppose" that somehow evolution takes place inside the seed itself.
Now consider what these so-called scientists are asking you to believe. They ask you to accept that the intricate insect trap, with all its functions is the result of "changes" inside the microscopic cell from which the seed is developed, and that during this evolutionary period these changes were useless (for the trap would not work), and therefore they were "evolved" for no apparent reason!
The cell, itself, is made up of many complex parts and substances, the most intriguing being the chromosomes and genes. The former are the tiny ribbons of proteins and nucleic acids that dictate growth and heredity, thus determining the shape and function of the whole plant.
What possible "natural forces" could work in a cell, whose fluid interest is in an almost continual state of upheaval, in order to influence those tiny ribbons of protein, so that when the cell reproduces itself millions of times, a "Venus Fly Trap" is formed on the edges of each leaf to catch insects and any other small creatures around?
Obviously, the theory of evolution dispenses with reason and truth, and substitutes absurdity; but what is more serious, it dispenses with the need of a Creator in the marvellous living things around us, seeking to explain all existence as the result of "natural causes."
But, it may be objected, do not differences in environment bring about changes in persons? Does not interbreeding produce better animals? That may be so, but it cannot change a sheep into a horse, and that, virtually, is what evolution claims. Leave the well bred animal to itself, and what will happen? Every breeder knows; it will revert back to type.
The Marvel of Man
The human body is a wonderful and intricate piece of living mechanism. The heart, the blood-stream, the lungs, and so forth, are all working hard and constantly to maintain life in being, and yet so wonderfully is this done, that we are unconscious of it all until some disarrangement or accident causes us to heed it.
Is all this the result of chance working away in a pool of slime? The Bible teaches that man was made for the glory of God, and was given the intellect to reflect His glory. Unfortunately, that same intellect is so often prostituted to the cause of folly and stupidity.
As an example of the marvellous mechanism of the body, consider the wonder of light as taken into the body through the eye. Science says that light is a series of wave movements in the ether initiated by luminous bodies such as the sun, and which vibrate up and down at right angles to the direction of light. Light is made up of a combination of various waves, the colors of which are shown in the rainbow when the light of the sun is reflected in falling rain. These waves vary in size according to the particular color or shade but they average approximately 0.00042 of a millimetre in size.
We appreciate the beauty of light and color through the sight of the eyes, and that is possible because of the delicate membrane of the retina, which is an expansion of the fibres of the optic nerve, spread out at the back part of the eye. Although only 0.3175 millimetre in thickness, it is composed of no fewer than ten different layers, each 0.3175 millimetre thick. As light travels at the speed of 300,000 kilometres per second, it is a matter of simple mathematical computation to determine that when we look at a violet flower (violet color waves being the shortest), the retina vibrates at the tremendous rate of 750,000,000,000,000 vibrations per second!
No wonder the Psalmist declared of the Creator: I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvellous are Thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well" (Psalm 139:14). In the marvel of the retina of the eye, we have an example of the infinite power of the Creator, who has thus created a living substance 750 billion times more delicate than the escapement of a watch. It would take over 22 years for a watch to tick as many times as the retina vibrates in a second! Yet "the fool hath said" (Psalm 14:1) that man is a monument to the marvel of chance, not to the moulding of a divine and intelligent Creator!
The Evolutionist Stung by a Bee!Consider the amazing wax-cells that abound in the beehive. Each cell is a perfect hexagon which the bee by instinct makes without mistake. Try to do this yourself! Without ruler, protractor or set square, endeavour to carefully draw a perfect hexagon. You will find it impossible! Yet the bee does it! How?
Moreover, each comb contains two sets of cells, one opening on each side of its faces. The cells of one side, however, are not exactly opposite to those of the other; for the middle of each cell abuts against the point where the walls of the three cells meet on the opposite side, and thus the partition that separates the cells is greatly strengthened. This partition is not flat, but consists of three planes which meet each other at a particular angle, so as to make the centre of the cell its deepest part.
It has been ascertained by measurement that the angles formed by bees are 109.28 and 70.32 degrees respectively. By very intricate calculation, it was determined by the mathematician Konig, that the best angles for such a purpose should be 109.26 and 70.34. In other words, the mathematicians and the bees differed only by the small discrepancy of two minutes of a degree, or 1/10,800th part of a circle, an infinitesimal space in so small a thing as a bee- cell.
Were the bees by this minute fraction at fault? Or did the geometricians err? The latter proved to be the case. MacLaurin, the Scottish mathematician, not satisfied with this explanation, applied himself to a fresh and careful investigation of the question. He showed that, owing to a slight misprint in the logarithmic tables, the result previously obtained was erroneous to the exact amount of two minutes of a degree! So the bees were right, and the mathematicians were wrong.
Whence came the knowledge of the bees? Even Darwin was stung into silence by these little creatures, saying, "What shall we say concerning the honeybee...?"
What, indeed! The special instincts which cause the bees to make their cells perfect hexagons, the sparrows to build their nests with straw, the beavers to build a dam, and the rabbits to burrow in the ground, are all proofs of the creation of separate species: a silent testimony to the existence of an infinite Creator working according to intelligent plan.
The Evolutionist Reveals God's Wisdom
Unconsciously, the evolutionist gives his witness to the marvellous prescience and wisdom of God, because the growth and influence of his theory in these last days is clearly predicted in God's word. The Bible declares: "Know this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming?... for this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth..." (2 Peter 3:4-5).
Here is a Bible prophecy clearly stating that in the "last days" men would be "willingly ignorant" of the facts of creation! The widespread teaching of the evolutionary theory, in spite of the evidence that can be brought against it, is a fulfilment of this prediction. Is it not a remarkable thing, that God should predict the very trend that is so obvious today? Scripture shows that the theory will be responsible for the moral declension that would be a feature of the "last days" prior to Christ's coming to set up his kingdom on earth, so that the widespread, blind acceptance of this myth of evolution is a significant "sign of the times."
We need to heed these warning, prophetic words of the Bible, and refuse to bow down to such a God-defying doctrine as evolution, which in spite of the claims of so-called learned men, cannot be proved as true, and remains in the realm of magical imagination.
Let people consider the wonders of creation, whether viewed in the heavens above, or upon the earth beneath, and here will be instantly recognized tokens of glory that speak of the wisdom of the Creator's hand. Let them closely study the Bible, and they will be compelled to realize, that in this wonderful Book, there is found something equally as marvellous as the intricate patterns of life in its diversity, as is manifested on all sides.
It is inconceivable that God should have arranged for creation without purpose, and inasmuch as we see design and wisdom in the heavens and the earth, in man and in all creation, so there must be a future purpose for life on this earth.
The Bible reveals that purpose. It declares: "The whole earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord" (Numbers 14:21). It is for that reason that Jesus Christ is to return; it is for that reason that the Bible has come into existence: to bring man God's revelation and to call him to salvation. That Book offers you life eternal upon the earth at Christ's coming (Romans 2: 6-7; Revelation 22:12; Daniel 7:27).
What can the present offer you? A life of frustration and difficulty ending in death! But what of the future? That depends upon what you do with Jesus Christ and with God! Are you really satisfied with things as they exist on earth at the present? Are you happy about the future in which families must grow up? Cannot you discern the growing evil on every side? The increasing immorality? The tremendous problems that are already facing humanity?
The Bible has the solution to these things. For, although people are being subjected to pressure today that can drive them away from the things of God and the Bible, wisdom dictates that you show sufficient determination and independence of mind to resist these influences, and seek that which can be of inestimable benefit.
The issue is up to you!
-- Logos Publications (edited by G. Mansfield)]]>
Israel: God's People, God's Landtag:www.explorethebible.com,2006:/site2//2.512006-08-08T16:28:56Z2006-12-24T00:14:51Z The old man stood high on the hillside, the Israelites below him hushed and expectant as they waited for him to continue. These were his people, the flock he had shepherded for over 40 years. Moses' voice rang clear...
The old man stood high on the hillside, the Israelites below him hushed and expectant as they waited for him to continue. These were his people, the flock he had shepherded for over 40 years. Moses' voice rang clear through the desert air: "The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth" (Deuteronomy 7:6).]]>
The Chosen Nation
Was Moses being too starry-eyed, too close to the Israelites to see things in perspective, when he spoke of them as the "chosen people"? The answer is a resounding "No". Over 1,000 years later, even after that same rebellious spirit had driven them into captivity in Babylon, Zechariah the prophet could still write to the people of Judah: "Thus said the LORD of hosts ... he who touches you touches the apple of his eye" (Zechariah 2:8).
There is nothing we treasure more than our eyesight; to touch the eyeball causes instant pain and a violent reaction. This is how God felt when nations had oppressed the people He loved. 500 years later still, after the Jews had killed God's Son and rejected the Gospel, the Apostle Paul asks, "Has God rejected His people?" He replies, emphatically, "By no means". "They are beloved," he declares, "for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable" (Romans 11: 1,28,29). Like the father of the prodigal son in Jesus' parable, God's love for His people has never changed, even though they have often made Him sad.
The idea that God has a special relationship with the nation of Israel does not go down well today. Our society is pre-occupied with equality and equal opportunity. Why should God choose one nation out of the many that fill the globe? What is so special about that tiny strip of land between the continents, the country we now call Israel, for which He seems to have such a deep regard?
A short answer to this question would be that as God is the Creator, He does not have to answer to us for what He does. We view His work from a very short time-span, compared with the eternity through which He operates. We must be prepared to wait a very long time if we want to know why He does things a certain way.
God's Design
It is like walking past a building site when a new Town Hall or office block is being built. We peer through the gap in the fencing, and all we see is mud and holes, cranes and scaffolding, noisy activity with no obvious end-product. We know, of course, the activity is not really aimless. Tucked away in the Contractor's cabin are drawers of plans, and flow charts listing the dates by which the foundations, walls, roof and services will be complete. If we were good at technical drawing, we could leaf through the plans and visualize the final appearance of the building, admiring the grace and practicality of the design. But, at first sight, just walking by, we may go home and grumble that the Council is wasting its money.
Looking at God's work is very much like that. We shall never see things in perspective, unless we step inside the cabin and look at the plans. And that is where we hope to help in this booklet: to open up God's great design, revealed in the Bible. God has a set of plans, and a schedule with the order of operations carefully laid out. The building He is constructing is called the Kingdom of God, and one day, when all the stages of preparation are complete, He will reveal an earth filled with grace and beauty, inhabited by people from all the past centuries who have loved and waited for Him. With Jesus as their King, they will govern the peoples of the earth in an age of peace when at last God's will is done. And the nation of Israel will be seen, in that day, to have been the framework of the structure, the joists and beams on which the many rooms and corridors depend.
Let us look through the Bible, then, to see from God's point of view what has been happening this last 4,000 years.
In the passage we quoted from Romans chapter 11, Paul said that the Jews were beloved "for the sake of their forefathers". The man all Jews look back to as the father of their race is Abraham, the son of Terah. Abraham was brought up in a city called Ur, close to the River Euphrates in what is now Iraq. At an age when most people are thinking of retiring, Abraham had a visitation from the Lord who asked him to leave Ur of the Chaldees: "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house," he said, "to the land that I will show you" (Genesis 12:1).
Abraham-Father of the Nation
It was a lot to ask of anyone, but with what turned out to be a characteristic faith in God, Abraham sold up and moved out, not knowing, to begin with, exactly where he was going. After a long trek up the Euphrates, he was guided to the west and south until he came to a 200 mile long strip of land between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea, mountainous in the center, with coastal plains to the west and the Sinai desert to the south. No-one appreciated, at that stage, the strategic position of the land of Israel, sited at the junction of three great land masses. Nor could they foresee the beauty it will have, one day, when the desert is made to blossom as the rose. That was all tucked away in the drawer of plans. God promised Abraham simply, "To your descendants I will give this land" (Genesis 12:7).
There was an irony about this statement. Although Abraham and his wife had been happily married for many years, to their intense regret they had had no children. Yet God was promising the land to their descendants! The promise was repeated and expanded as the years passed, but Abraham and his wife moved round the land in their tents, still childless, and no nearer to possessing the land than when they first arrived.
One night Abraham had opportunity to question the messenger from the Lord more closely. "I am the LORD," he had just been told, "who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess". Instantly Abraham unburdened his anxiety. "O Lord GOD," he asked, "how am I to know that I shall possess it?" (Genesis 15:7,8). To confirm and guarantee His promise, the Lord proceeded to make a solemn covenant with Abraham, after the custom of the times, sealed with the blood of sacrifice. At the same time, He outlined His plans: "Your descendants will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and will be slaves there, and they will be oppressed for 400 years; but I will bring judgment on the nation which they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions... And they shall come back here in the fourth generation; for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete" (verses 13,16).
Isaac, Jacob and the Twelve Tribes
This remarkable prophecy illustrates how detailed are God's plans, and how precise is His foreknowledge. See now how accurately it was fulfilled. Abraham becomes the father of a son, called Isaac. His grandson, Jacob, has 12 sons, whose offspring form the 12 tribes of Israel. As predicted, the Israelites move south into Egypt, a foreign land, in a time of famine. Their numbers grow, and they are enslaved by the Pharaohs. Moses, with whom we began our story, is given the task of leading them out. After ten dramatic plagues or disasters had brought Egypt to its knees, the night eventually came when the Israelites were to leave. So scared were the Egyptians of the God of Israel, that they pressed their valuables on their former slaves. "Jewelry of silver and of gold and clothing . . . they let them have what they asked. Thus they despoiled the Egyptians" (Exodus 12:35,36). The record notes, almost casually, "The time that the people of Israel dwelt in Egypt was 430 years" (v. 40). Just a note, in passing. Yet every detail of the prophecy had now come true: the sojourn in a foreign land; the slavery; the taking of a spoil; the 400 years. All precisely as predicted.
But there were moral implications to the prophecy as well. God had judged the Egyptians, through the catastrophic plagues, for their ill-treatment of Abraham's people. Moreover, the Israelites were now on their way to the same land where Abraham had pitched his tents. Four generations had gone by, and the inhabitants had filled it with violence and open immorality. In God's eyes, the iniquity of the Amorites (inhabitants of the land of Canaan, or Palestine) was now full. Thus Moses explained to the eager Israelites: "Not because of your righteousness . . . are you going in to possess their land; but because of the wickedness of these nations the LORD your God is driving them out from before you" (Deuteronomy 9:5).
This brief introduction shows us how immensely complex is God's control of human affairs. As the Creator and sustainer of the earth, He oversees the rise and fall of nations, according to their moral standards. He detained the Israelites in Egypt, so that having experienced slavery and suffering they could value freedom. At the same time He allowed four generations of Amorites the opportunity to repent from the evil ways of their fathers, and then displaced them by the Israelites. As the Apostle Paul once wrote of God: "How unsearchable are his judgments, and how inscrutable his ways!" We must press on to see the next stage of His great plan for Israel and their land.
Blessings and Cursings
At the start of their wilderness journey, Moses brought to the Israelites the Law of God. This great national code not only restrained crime, but lifted people up to show love and respect for the poor, the alien and even their enemies. On the slopes of Mount Sinai, he joined the people to God in a great covenant, sealed, like Abraham's, with the blood of sacrifices, under which they agreed to keep those commandments. In return, God promised them a long and happy life in the land he was giving to them. However, there were conditions. Their continued possession of the land was dependent on their obedience. If, like the Amorites, they defiled it with blood and barbarity, their tenancy would be terminated.
This brings us to the next remarkable prophecy about Israel, in which Moses was able to foretell their history for hundreds, even thousands, of years. To memorialize their agreement with God, He pronounced on the people a series of blessings and cursings, which they were to recite aloud and write down for a witness on entering the land. They are to be found in Deuteronomy chapter 28. The first 14 verses are concerned with the blessings they would enjoy if they were obedient. The rest of the long chapter outlines the troubles God would bring upon them with increasing intensity, if they failed to honor their promise. At first their economy would go wrong. The rains would fail, and crops would shrivel. Their enemies would get the better of them, and foreign kings would rule over them. As the pressure increased, they would be invaded and besieged, and taken away into captivity. Eventually, Moses warned, "The LORD Will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other... And among these nations you shall find no ease, and there shall be no rest for the sole of your foot... night and day you shall be in dread, and have no assurance of your life" (vv. 64-66). Verse by verse, it was a terrifying catalogue of growing calamity.
The amazing thing is, it all came true. After the 40 years wandering, the Israelites took over the land of the Amorites. Ruled by leaders called Judges for 500 years, they reached the pinnacle of their power and prosperity in the time of their early kings, David and Solomon. Their devotion to the Lord and their obedience to His law had brought about the blessings promised by Moses. But then, slowly, they drifted away from God. They imported the worship of foreign gods from the nations around them. They preserved an outward form of piety in observing the festivals and sacrifices of the Law, but neglected to care for the poor and oppressed. Inevitably, the curses began to bite. Neighboring countries like the Syrians and Edomites encroached upon their territory. The mighty Assyrians crossed the Euphrates, put them to tribute, then deported 10 of the 12 tribes into captivity.
God was extremely patient with His people. Through the prophets, great men like Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, He sent them constant reminders that they were breaking their promises to keep His laws. "Wash yourselves," Isaiah pleaded, "make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes" (Isaiah 1:16). But the response was not there.
Eventually, around 587 BC, the Babylonians captured Jerusalem and took Judah and Benjamin away. For 70 years the land was empty of all but the poorest Jews. After that time, a proportion were allowed to return from Babylon. They picked up the thread of national life, without a king, and were subject in turn to the Persians, Greeks and Romans. It was into their oppressed world that Jesus of Nazareth was born.
The Son of David
The sending of Jesus was God's most poignant appeal to His people. In the Parable of the Vineyard, Jesus likened the people of Israel to the tenants of a vineyard. When God, the owner, sent His servants, the prophets, to collect the rent, they beat them up and sent them away. "Then the owner of the vineyard said, 'What shall I do? I will send my beloved son; it may be they will respect him.' . . . And they cast him out of the vineyard and killed him" (Luke 20:13-15). Jesus knew, too well, what lay ahead of him. He also knew that God's wrath would shortly burst over the heads of his listeners. "Fill up," he cried, "the measure of your fathers" (Matthew 23:32). Like the Amorites before them, Israel was filling up the measuring pot of their iniquity. The vineyard would be given to others.
30 years after Jesus was crucified, the Jews rebelled against Rome. A strong army besieged and captured Jerusalem, filling the streets with corpses and destroying the temple. Another 60 years, and the revolt of AD 132 sealed their fate. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were sold into slavery, increasing the already substantial Jewish populations of many provinces of the Roman Empire-and beyond. The Israelites, as Moses had foreseen, became the Wandering Jews, to be found in practically every country of the world, despised, reviled and hounded by persecution from city to city. For long centuries, exactly as the cursings had warned, they had no rest for the soles of their feet.
God's Purpose in His Son
The murder of God's Son was the ultimate act of rebellion by the Chosen People. Yet even that wicked deed had been anticipated in God's plan. The Apostle Peter, speaking to the Jews in Jerusalem six weeks after the event, insisted that Jesus had been "delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God" (Acts 2:23). Indeed, the prophet Isaiah, in his heartrending chapter 53, had predicted long beforehand Jesus' suffering: "He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" (v. 3).
Why, you may ask, did God allow His only Son to die in shame and agony? The answer is complex, and yet it is central to God's plan to save men from their sins. On that hill outside Jerusalem, God brought the self-denial and grace and love of Jesus face to face with the human lusts of pride, envy and cruelty which are in all our hearts, and which the Bible calls sins. For three days, sin appeared to have triumphed. But Jesus, the sinless, rose from the grave after that short time, so breaking the power of death for those who believe in him. "He was bruised," Isaiah continues, "for our iniquities ... and with his stripes we are healed" (v. 5). So, when those conscience-stricken Jews, realizing they had killed God's Son, asked Peter on the day of Pentecost what they should do, he explained that the risen Christ had become the sacrifice that could take their guilt away: "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins." The immediate response was impressive. 3,000 Jews were baptized. But with the passage of time, it became clear that the majority of God's chosen people remained unconvinced. Their pride in being descended from Abraham had blinded them to the need for faith, that quality which entitled Abraham to be called "the friend of God".
"Has God rejected His people?"
This rejection of the Gospel by the Jews, followed by their final scattering, might lead one to conclude that God has finished with the Jews. Paul addresses himself to precisely this question in Romans chapter 11 "God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew", he writes (v. 2). Although as a nation Israel had turned her back on God, there were individuals within the nation who did respond, such as those who listened to Peter on the Day of Pentecost. And that was all that mattered. As Moses taught, numbers are unimportant to God. Quality matters more than quantity. "So too at the present time," Paul continues, "there is a remnant, chosen by grace" (v. 5). Nothing had gone wrong with God's plan. The scattering of Israel simply meant it was entering a new phase.
As the Jewish political Organization tottered towards its end, the call of the Gospel was dramatically widened: for the first time, Gentiles were invited to share in the privilege of knowing the eternal God. Paul was the foremost and most energetic leader of this preaching to the Gentiles. "it was necessary that the word of God should be spoken first to you," he declared to the Jews at Antioch. God's people had been given the first opportunity to hear the good news about Jesus. However, "since you thrust it from you," he continued, "and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles" (Acts 13:46). Gentiles are people of any nation other than Israel. Through the work of the apostles, and the spread of the Scriptures, the door has been opened to people like you and me to come close to God.
We can become Chosen People, with the same promises and enjoying the same Fatherly care that God bestowed on Abraham and his descendants. "There is neither Jew nor Greek," Paul wrote to the Galatians, "...for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise" (Galatians 3:28,29). "Once you were no people," adds Peter, quoting from the prophecy of Hosea, "but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy" (1 Peter 2:10).
In Romans 11, Paul compares Israel to a fine olive tree, which, regrettably, produced no fruit. God has pruned out the barren branches and replaced them instead with wild olive shoots, grafted into the ancient trunk. These Gentile olive shoots now share the rich sap of the parent tree. The fall of Israel was the Gentiles' opportunity.
It is worth noting that, as with Israel, so with the Gentiles, the response to the call is still limited to individuals. The "remnant" principle still applies. James, another apostle, put it crisply when he described the call of the first Gentiles, Cornelius and his household: "God first visited the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name" (Acts 15:14). It will only ever be a few who are "taken out", selected by their response to the call to repentance. And the conditions for acceptance by God are still faith and obedience, just as they were for Abraham.
This new phase of God's plan, the call of the Gentiles, has been running for nearly 2,000 years, a period as long as the call of Israel. We are now ready to move on, and ask whether the Bible reveals yet further stages to God's plan, ahead in our future.
The Return of Israel
On the campus of the Tel Aviv University in Israel there stands a remarkable museum called Beth Hatuphutsoth, 'House of the Dispersion'. It is a graceful new building packed with the very latest in audio-visual aids. It aims to show young Jews of today how their fathers preserved their beliefs and culture during centuries of wandering, how they kept themselves pure from inter-marriage, and how they returned to the land of their dreams. In a darkened bowl-shaped auditorium, rays of light project on to the curved ceiling above the audience a world map where tiny stars represent the known communities of Jews from the times of Assyria, Babylon and Rome onwards. Practically every country of the world has received Jews at some time. As the centuries pass by, the stars in the display move eerily, as persecution drives the Jews from one Country to another. France, Germany, Spain, Poland, Great Britain-each act of terror is catalogued in lights. Sometimes the lights go out, as whole communities pass into oblivion. Then, amazingly, the pinpoints of light begin to move back to the Land of Israel, as the Return gets under way in the twentieth century.
Whole galleries of the Beth Hatuphutsoth museum are devoted to the fortunes of Jewish communities in particular lands-a pagoda-style synagogue modeled on the one in Peking, a reconstruction of a wedding in the Ukraine, a Jewish rabbi pleading for his life before a Jesuit priest in the Inquisition, and most moving of all, in letters of fire, the last words penned by Jews who faced death in the German Holocaust.
The pace and emotion quicken as the exhibition reaches the last joyful stages of the Return. Everything is painstakingly chronicled. First come the thoughts of a national home penned by Weizmann in Russia under the Czars, the publishing of Herzl's The Jewish State in 1896, and the Zionist Congress of 1897. There follows the slow, grinding labor of the early settlements in Palestine under the Turks. The British mandate after the First World War allows more and more Jews to return. Finally, the agony of Hitler's repression creates an irresistible pressure in Europe and precipitates a chain of events leading finally to the formation of the State of Israel in 1948.
Since those exciting days, as we know, hardly a day goes by without some mention of the tiny State in our newspapers. No bigger than Wales, with a population two-thirds that of London, Israel is now prominent in world affairs. The Suez crisis of 1956, the Six-Day War in 1967, the Yom Kippur battles in October 1973, the invasion of Lebanon in 1984 -whether you resent or admire their prowess, the Israelis have a new, vital national spirit that defies all the rules of history. Never before has a nation been driven systematically from its land, survived 25 centuries of uprooting, and come back to life on its ancient hills with such remarkable vigor.
What, we must ask, is the meaning of all this? Is it some fantastic coincidence, that God's people should survive, when so many other nations in history have perished? There is a straightforward answer. Right at the end of the blessings and cursings we looked at in the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses wrote these significant words: "When all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the LORD your God has driven you, and return to the LORD your God ... then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes, and have compassion upon you, and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the LORD your God has scattered you. If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and ...will bring you into the land which your fathers possess that you may possess it (Deuteronomy 30:1-5).
The Return is no accident of history. it is the deliberate act of a loving, merciful God.
Jeremiah puts it just as plainly: "I am with you to save you, says the LORD; I will make a full end of all the nations among whom I scattered you, but you I will not make a full end" (30:11). How true are those words! The Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Romans, who scattered Israel, have disappeared, but the Jews survive. "I have loved you with an everlasting love," the prophet goes on, "therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you" (31:3).
Or Ezekiel: "I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses ... A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you ... and the land that was desolate shall be tilled, instead of being the desolation that it was in the sight of all who passed by" (36:24-26,34).
We could go on. There are many, many similar prophecies in the Old Testament, each describing aspects of the Return we have been witnessing in our own time. There is no doubt it is the work of God Himself.
Now, ask yourself: Why should God want the Jews back in their ancient homeland? What is it leading up to? The answer to that question is the most dramatic of all: it is the coming of the Kingdom of God! Before you scoff at this idea, just listen again to the words of the angel Gabriel to Mary, the mother-to-be of Jesus: "He will be great ... and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever" (Luke 1:32,33). Did Jesus reign over the Jews when he was on earth before? The answer is "No". "We have no king but Caesar," they cried. They rejected him, and he was crucified.
But Jesus rose from the dead to an immortal life. A King who reigns for ever needs to be immortal. That prophecy of Gabriel requires an immortal Jesus to return to Jerusalem where David's throne was, and rule over a land populated by Jews. 100 years ago, this would not have been possible. The Jews were still scattered, and the Turks ruled over the Holy City. Today, we find the land inhabited by nearly 4 million Jews (and by other ethnic groups as well); and Jerusalem once more the capital of Israel. Consider, again, the promise of Jesus to his apostles: "I appoint for you that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel" (Luke 22:29,30).
For this simple, straightforward blessing to be given to Peter, James, John and their fellows, they must be brought back from the dead for none of them reigned over Israel in his lifetime. There must also be an Israel for them to reign over, with Jesus. All of this is entirely possible today. Israel has survived, and God has brought Israel back to their land, in preparation for the Kingdom of God.
There is absolutely no doubt that Jesus is going to come back from heaven, and then will come the time of reward for all those who, like the apostles, have followed him faithfully. Jesus tells us this plainly in the Parable of the Nobleman, who went into a far country, to receive kingly power and then return (Luke 19:11-27). During his absence he left his servants to look after his business interests. Significantly, the citizens of the country sent a message after him to say, "We do not want this man to reign over us". Jesus spoke this parable, Luke says, "because he was near to Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the Kingdom of God was to appear immediately" (v. 11). Jerusalem was the place of David's throne. Jesus, the disciples believed, was the King, and they thought he was going to reign, there and then.
But the time was not ripe. He had to suffer for the sins of men, and rise from the dead, and go away to his Father's right hand for 19 long centuries. Jesus himself is the Nobleman, and heaven the far country. The Jews, who were supposed to be his people, rejected him, just as the parable said. But see how it concludes. At his return, having received the Kingdom, the Nobleman inspects his household, and promotes his loyal and industrious servants to positions of honor- reigning over 10 cities, or 5 cities, according to their ability. At the same time, his enemies are slain. The time for the Nobleman to return is very near. We must prepare for the day of inspection.
Looking into the Future
So far, we have been following God's plan steadily through to the late 20th century. Does the Bible permit us to lift the curtain and see beforehand the sequence of events which occur as the Kingdom of God begins to replace the world of today? The answer is a qualified "Yes". The problem is, there are many prophecies to fit together. It is like assembling the pieces of a huge jigsaw puzzle, where the broad outline is clear, but the details do not yet all fit into place.
Firstly, it is plain that the Jews themselves must undergo spiritual renewal before they are fit for Jesus to be their King. It is a sad fact that devotion to God, which was so real to them during their dispersion and persecution, has been abandoned by so many now that they have returned. There has to be a major change of heart before they can truly become God's people. We saw this in the beautiful passage from Ezekiel, describing the Return: "I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses" (Ezekiel 36:25). Malachi writes of "Elijah the prophet" being sent, like John the Baptist was, "before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes", to prepare God's people for the coming of Jesus (4:5,6).
No doubt a minority of the people will respond to this message, as they did in the First Century. For the majority, however, "the day comes, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up" (Malachi 4:1). The catastrophe that purges those Jews living in the land of Israel is to be a mighty invasion by an army made up of many nations, combining forces to attack and at last to capture Jerusalem, the jewel in Israel's crown. The theme comes across in numerous passages. "I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle," writes Zechariah, "and the city shall be taken and the houses plundered" (14:2). I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat (outside Jerusalem)," adds Joel (3:2). "You will bestir yourself," Ezekiel says to Gog, the prince of Meshech and Tubal (ancient names for Russia), "and come from your place out of the uttermost parts of the north, you and many peoples with you ... you will come up against my people Israel, like a cloud covering the land" (Ezekiel 38:14-16). Somehow, this invasion is not just against Israel, but against God Himself, and His Son. "The kings of the earth set themselves," sang David in Psalm 2, "and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and his anointed (Christ), saying, 'Let us burst their bonds asunder... ' " (vv. 2,3).
It will be a black day for Israel, with their cities captured, prisoners taken, and multitudes slain. But the outcome is clear. It is in that day of trouble that Jesus appears to his people, as their Savior. He brings them not only relief from their enemies, but pardon from their sins. "When they look on him whom they have pierced," Zechariah shows, "they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child ... On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness" (12:10; 13:1). "The Deliverer will come from Zion," quoted Paul, "he will banish ungodliness from Jacob" (Romans 11:26).
The mode of destruction for the enemies besieging Jerusalem is unorthodox, but devastatingly effective. A mighty earthquake shakes the land, dividing the Mount of Olives, and an unearthly fire consumes the hosts in the open field. "You will be visited by the LORD of Hosts, with thunder and with earthquake and great noise, with whirlwind and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire. And the multitudes of all the nations that fight against Ariel (Jerusalem) ... shall be like a dream, a vision of the night" (Isaiah 29:6,7). Ezekiel says it will take seven months to bury the dead (Ezekiel 39:11-1 6).
The sequel is breathtaking. The Jews, having been brought forcibly to see how far they have gone away from God, return to Him and find the peace of reconciliation and forgiveness. From all the nations under heaven, a mighty Exodus begins, dwarfing the present-day Return, with two great streams of returning Jews from north and south. "in far countries they shall remember me, and with their children they shall live and return. I will bring them home from the land of Egypt, and gather them from Assyria," writes Zechariah (10:9,10). "He will raise an ensign for the nations," adds Isaiah, "and will assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth" (11: 12).
As in the original Exodus, the rebels are purged out, and those who complete the journey are united in the land of Israel with their brethren who have survived the northern invasion. Here the repentant people become the nucleus of a mighty empire ruled by King Jesus, whose reign will bring peace and joy to all the nations of the earth. "At that time," rejoices Jeremiah, "Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the LORD, and all nations shall gather to it, to the presence of the LORD in Jerusalem" (3:17). "Out of Zion shall go forth the Law," reads Micah, "and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between many peoples" (4:2,3). "With righteousness," writes Isaiah, "he shall judge the poor..... and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked... They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea" (11:4,9).
The Wilderness Transformed
At last, the plan of God comes to its climax. After thousands of years of preparation, the people of the Kingdom are brought together. The leaders and princes are the faithful disciples from all ages, raised from the dead with the apostles to reign with their King. The subjects are the restored Israel, and the nations of the earth who share in their happiness. Now, at last, the reason why God chose that tiny land become plain, as it forms, at the hub of the continents, the headquarters of Christ's administration. And now the promises made to Abraham about his descendants, are fulfilled-promises made so long ago but never forgotten by Abraham's God.
As Jesus brings relief to the oppressed and teaches men all over the world to love one another, the blessings God once promised begin to fill the earth. The wilderness turns into fields and forests to feed the hungry. "May there be abundance of grain in the land," sings the Psalmist, "on the tops of the mountains may it wave" (72:16). Yes, even on the hills, barren from neglect and the exploitation of greedy man, great harvest crops will be provided by a bountiful God. "Like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands" (Isaiah 65:22).
What a glorious picture this is to look forward to, something in which all can share! To see the earth set free from endless war and violence, from disease and tears and suffering. "Your eyes will see the king in his beauty," promises Isaiah, "... Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a quiet habitation" (Isaiah 33:1 7,20). "The ransomed of the LORD shall return," he concludes, "and come to Zion with singing ... they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away" (35:10). "They shall be priests of God and of Christ," wrote John in the Book of Revelation, "and they shall reign with him a thousand years" (Revelation 20:6). For all that time Jesus and his immortal princes will reign over the earth. "He must reign," writes the apostle, "until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death" (1 Corinthians 15:25,26). Although during the kingdom disease and famine will have been restrained and life lengthened, death will not finally be taken away until all sin, the cause of death in the beginning, has at last been rooted out from the hearts of men. And those who see that glorious end, and live on eternally into the time beyond, will be one with God and His Son for ever.
This Kingdom of which the Bible speaks, lies just round the corner in time, but the invitations to belong to it have already gone out. For the last 2,000 years, people of all nations have been called out, as we have seen, to prepare for its coming. Our share in its benefits is independent of race. We do not have to be Jews to be there. All we need is the faith that Abraham had, and the will to obey.
In one of his parables, Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of God as a wedding banquet, to which people were summoned, even from the highways and hedges, to sit down at the feast. What an honor it would be, if we received through the post an invitation to dine with our earthly Sovereign or President. The fact is, we have been invited to something much greater. Through the Bible, we have received an invitation to sit down at table with Jesus, the King of the Kingdom of God! Usually when we are invited to a wedding, we feel we have to go out and buy a new suit or dress. But in this case, the wedding garments are provided by the host himself, free of charge. Jesus' own blood is the covering for our sin, and we have only to "put him on", in the ceremony of baptism, to be made clean and fit to stand before God. "As many of you as were baptized into Christ, have put on Christ," Paul wrote, in a passage at which we have already looked (Galatians 3:27).
The Coming Kingdom "And if you are Christ's," he continued, "then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise" (Galatians 3:29). Imagine that: to be able to enjoy, today, the same mercy and forgiveness God will show to Israel in His Kingdom! And when it comes, to be heirs to Abraham's land, restored in all its beauty, and fellow-heirs to David's throne, and to a world where nations live at peace.
But first, a warning. The coming of Jesus will bring a Day of judgement, when the hearts of Jews and Gentiles are to be inspected by Jesus, the King. We need to make ready for that day. "God's righteous judgment will be revealed," warned Paul. "To those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor," he continues, "he will give eternal life; but for those who ... obey wickedness, there will be wrath and fury" (Roman 2:5-8). Glory, honor, immortality-all these can be our in the Kingdom of God. In his last letter, Paul describes this great reward as "the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me," he concludes, "but also to all who have loved his appearing" (2 Timothy 4:8).
That day of Jesus' appearing could be very close. There is nothing in the world to stop us from laying hold of the wonderful promises God made to Abraham. The way has been prepared, through His great plan. He has shown us, through the history of His people the Jews, that we can trust His Word - the message of the Gospel contained in the Bible. But we must believe, and be baptized; and then live the life that Jesus requires of his disciples. "He who believes and is baptized will be saved" (Mark 16:16).
- David M. Pearce
All Bible quotations are from the Revised Standard Version. Reproduced by kind permission of The Christadelphian Magazine & Publishing Association, Birmingham UK. All rights reserved.]]>
Sunday and the Sabbathtag:www.explorethebible.com,2006:/site2//2.502006-06-12T17:22:35Z2006-12-24T00:14:51ZWITH the general decrease in religious belief and as society becomes increasingly secular, there is strong commercial pressure to treat every day of the week equally; shops, bars, places of entertainment are open, and sporting and other events are held...
WITH the general decrease in religious belief and as society becomes increasingly secular, there is strong commercial pressure to treat every day of the week equally; shops, bars, places of entertainment are open, and sporting and other events are held now on any day from Sunday to Saturday. These moves are welcomed by some people, who see them as the final sweeping away of hide-bound traditions. But others see the trend as a great threat and an indication of serious moral and religious decline. When there are such strongly held and conflicting views on the subject, how can we determine what response to make? Where can we turn for answers to the problems that are raised?]]>
Old Testament Teaching
We do not know whether the earth's first population organised themselves by means of a seven day week. Whereas other periods of time (the day, month and year) are based upon observable movements of stars and planets, the seven day week has no such basis-that can be found only in the explanation in Genesis.
This introduces an interesting aspect to the subject. By living according to a weekly cycle, man witnesses to the Genesis account of creation, irrespective of whether he believes it.
Even if, in the times before Moses, people organised themselves around weeks of seven days, God did not say they would be punished for not resting on the seventh day. They had total freedom of choice about this. In fact, God gave no instructions about how the seventh day should be spent until after the nation of Israel had been brought out of Egypt and led miraculously through the Red Sea into the wilderness of Sinai. Being a large community, they needed a good and regular supply of food and water, but in desert conditions these were very scarce. The people soon complained, and wished they were back in Egypt. A further miracle brought them their food. Each morning around their camp "there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as the hoarfrost on the ground" (Exodus 16:14). The food was called "manna", and could be collected for six days each week.
On the first five days each week any manna not eaten that day, but kept overnight "bred worms, and became foul". On the sixth day, if a double portion was collected, it would keep fresh for use on the seventh day when no manna was available. In this way the pattern of work and rest was enforced for the nation of Israel:
"Today is a sabbath to the Lord; today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is a sabbath, there will be none" (Exodus 16:25,26).
Six days of gathering and one day of rest: God's activity in Creation thus became the example for His nation. For the first time in the Bible, the word "sabbath" is used. It means simply 'to cease', and is used to describe the day when the Israelites rested from their labours, as God had from His.
The Ten Commandments
Shortly after the manna was first provided, God gave through Moses laws to control the activity of the nation. The framework for these laws, known as the Ten Commandments, was written by God on two tables of stone. The fourth commandment was:
"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labour, and do all your work: but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God: in it you shall not do any work . . . for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth ... and rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it" (Exodus 20:8-11).
As for the manna, so for all of Israel's activities the pattern would be six days of labour followed by one day of rest. The use of the word 'labour' is important as this was an aspect of man's life that did not exist in his early days in the garden of Eden. Only after Adam and Eve had been disobedient to God's commandments did He sentence them and their descendants to hard toil in order to produce their necessary food. When the Psalmist refers to this, he speaks of man, who "goes forth to his work and to his labour until the evening" (104:23). Man's daily work, therefore, is a constant reminder of his mortality; the certainty that he is "dust, and to dust (he) shall return" (Genesis 3:19).
We can now see the significance of the introduction of the Sabbath commands being associated with the provision of manna. The nation's experiences in the wilderness where God freely provided their daily food were forcible reminders of the punishments brought upon the world as a result of Adam's disobedience. By resting on the sabbath, man would identify himself with God, and with the completion of His creation, when He was able to review "everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good" (Genesis 1:31).
The Sabbath Enforced
The Jewish day commenced at sunset, so the regulations governing the sabbath operated from 6 p.m. on Friday to 6 p.m. on Saturday. This national law was to be strictly enforced. The penalty for breaking it was severe: any transgressor was to be put to death because they would have "profaned" or defiled the sabbath (see Exodus 31:14). On one occasion, while the children of Israel were still in the wilderness, there was the case of a man found gathering sticks on a sabbath day. Presumably he wanted them to make a fire for cooking. Although the sabbath law and the punishment for breaking it had been given, the people were not certain whether the man's activity had broken it, so they placed the problem before the Lord. The answer was categoric: "The man shall be put to death" (Numbers 15:32-36).
The punishment was very severe for what seems to us a minor offence. It suggests that the man set out deliberately to flout God's law, but it also confirms the importance of the sabbath day provision in God's purpose.God is not revealed in the Bible as an uncaring despot, so the enforcement of this law by a strong penalty suggests that there were significant benefits to be obtained from keeping it.
The Sabbath Blessing
When the details of the law were being repeated for the generation that had been born in the wilderness after leaving Egypt, the following information was added by way of explanation:
"Your manservant and your maidservant may rest as well as you. You shall remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out thence with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day" (Deuteronomy 5:12-15).
There was thus a clear social benefit for everybody in the nation, but also an important underlying reason for the law. By keeping the sabbath there would be a weekly reminder of the nation's redemption from Egypt. They were to be merciful to their servants, because God had showed great mercy to them when He freed them from slavery to Pharaoh. To reinforce this point, even animals were to benefit from the sabbath law! As well as allowing servants to rest, the ox and ass could rest too (see verse 14). When the Apostle Paul commented upon another aspect of the law where animals were mentioned, he said: "Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Does he not speak entirely for our sake?" (1 Corinthians 9:9). Whilst not denying that God is interested in all His creatures, the main benefit of the sabbath was for men and women, not animals. They were involved purely to emphasise the importance of the command.
Servants would obviously be pleased with the law, but what about their masters? Unscrupulous masters, like unscrupulous employers today, would surely try to find a way round it. But there were great benefits for them too. God told them that the sabbath was "a sign between me and them, that they might know that I the Lord sanctify them" (Exodus 31:17; Ezekiel 20:12). If they wished to continue to receive blessings from God when they were in the land, as they had received them in the wilderness, they needed to keep His sabbaths.
The Objective
All of these provisions should have had one result; the formation of a people who were God-centred, not selfcentred. If they had been prepared to organise themselves according to His laws, they would have been blessed above all other nations and peoples. Instead of being a burden to be endured, the provision of the sabbath could revolutionise their lives:
"If you turn back your foot from the sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honourable; if you honour it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth" (Isaiah 58:13,14).
The great tragedy is that Israel, having been promised all these things by God, were not prepared to live in accordance with His commands. Instead of honouring the sabbath, they continually defiled it. They did not treat it as "holy", but made it profane. As God's promises to them were conditional on their obedience, eventually He had to bring the punishment He had said would occur if they were disobedient:
"I swore . . . that I would scatter them among the nations, and disperse them through the countries, because they had rejected my statutes and profaned my sabbaths, and their eyes were set on their fathers' idols" (Ezekiel 20:23,24).
Before seeing what the New Testament says about the sabbath, let us summarise the Old Testament teaching:
The seven day week comes from the Creation record, and is a mute witness to God's creative work.
The sabbath was an institution for the nation of Israel, and was not imposed upon individuals prior to the Exodus.
They could rest on the seventh day or not, as they wished.
God wanted the sabbath to be a "holy day".
The sabbath (meaning cessation, or rest) was to be observed by the Israelites refraining from everyday tasks in order to enjoy and remember God's blessings.
The six day working week was a constant reminder that all men die and are sinners in need of redemption.
Observance of the sabbath shows a man's trust that God has promised a share in His rest. God's response was to shower great benefits on the nation, so long as they continued to obey Him.
Under the Jewish law, the penalty for defiling the sabbath was death.
The sabbath was designed by God to teach Israel: about their special national relationship to Him, of His great mercy in freeing them from Egyptian slavery. It was to be a weekly remembrance of the nation's redemption.
Petty Regulations
Turning to the Gospel records in the New Testament, we soon learn how the Jews applied the law of the sabbath 1,500 years after it was given. Recognising that God, because of their disobedience, had allowed His people to be taken into captivity, and His land to be desecrated and overrun, those Jews who returned from captivity attempted to ensure that the same would not happen to them. The religious leaders at the time of Christ regulated the law according to a complicated set of rules built up over the years. This was not just perversity on their part, but grew out of a strong desire not to displease God. Accepting that no work was possible on the sabbath, they attempted to legislate about what could be done to prepare meals, to look after the sick, or to care for animals. Unfortunately, despite these good original motives, the joy there should have been in the sabbath could not exist alongside the attitude forged by concentrating on relatively unimportant details. Soon they could no longer see the wood for the trees! The purpose and benefit of the sabbath was wholly lost in a myriad of petty rules and regulations.
New Testament Teaching
Against this background, the Lord Jesus Christ commenced his ministry, "preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God" (Mark 1:14). He soon met problems with the legalistic attitude of the Jewish leaders. If he healed on a sabbath day, they complained that he had defiled a "holy" day. So antagonistic were they, that they sought ways and opportunity to destroy him. This raises two important questions: Why did Jesus heal without hesitation on the sabbath day, especially when he knew how the Jewish leaders would be incensed? and, Why do the gospel records attach particular importance to his sabbath day miracles?
Seven specific sabbath miracles are noted in the gospels and one of these was preceded by an incident which placed Jesus' view of the sabbath in direct opposition to that held by the Jewish leaders (Matthew 1 2:1-8). Some of the Pharisees had complained about Jesus' disciples who were plucking and eating grain as they walked through a cornfield on a sabbath day. The Jewish law allowed passers-by this privilege, but did not specify whether it was prohibited on the sabbath (see Deuteronomy 23:25). However, the tradition of the Jewish elders forbade it. They saw the action as no different from reaping and winnowing: activities certainly forbidden on the sabbath.
Old Testament Precedents
In his reply to the Pharisees' charge, Jesus mentioned two incidents from the Jewish Scriptures. He reminded them of the great king David who, when he was in a desperate position ate of the showbread, food specifically devoted to the priests' use (1 Samuel 21:1-6). Speaking of the priests, Jesus also pointed out that they "broke the sabbath" every time it was their turn to perform the temple services on the seventh day. Yet David was blameless before God, and so were the priests. There were clearly some other considerations that applied in these circumstances. If they could be understood, then we may better appreciate Jesus' own attitude to the sabbath.
There are some important similarities between the two Old Testament precedents Jesus quoted and his own position. David was being pursued by Saul, the Jewish king, when he came to Ahimelech the priest at Nob, and asked for food for himself and his "young men". Jesus was with his young men -- the disciples -- and the Jewish leaders of his day were keen to pursue him. If the Pharisees had pondered the comparison they would also have learned that Jesus, like David, was "the Lord's anointed", and they, like Saul, had had their day.
So also with the other incident. It was true that the priests did not profane the sabbath if they were working in God's house. But Jesus had said to Mary and Joseph when he was only twelve years old, after they had searched for him for three days, "How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" (Luke 2:49). Unlike anyone else who has ever lived, Jesus lived his whole life in total harmony with God's will. All others, however good they may be, have sinned. Even David, a "man after God's own heart", sinned in the matter of Bathsheba. But Jesus "committed no sin; no guile was found on his lips" (1 Peter 2:22).
Lord of the Sabbath
We wonder whether the Pharisees understood the real impact of these two examples Jesus had quoted. It was an outright claim to his close relationship with God, and his part in God's plan of redemption as the future King who will rule over an earth at peace. His short summary of the sabbath provision is important:
"He said to them, 'The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: so the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath'" (Mark 2:27,28).
Jesus declared what we discovered from looking at the Old Testament: God provided the sabbath to confer benefits on anyone who was oppressed-it was "made for man". How could the Pharisees have witnessed the great works Jesus did, healing the sick and bringing relief to the poor and hungry, and not appreciate that the real essence of the sabbath could be seen in his devotion to His Father's will, and in his concern for his fellow men?
"Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:29).
Truly he was "Lord of the sabbath"!
Salvation from Sin
Just as God had brought the nation of Israel out of Egypt and released them from slavery, the Bible describes how Jesus, by destroying in himself the power of sinful desires, has opened up a way for men and women to have their own sins forgiven, and ultimately to be released from the grip of mortality. Many aspects of the Law given through Moses looked forward to this work of Christ: the tabernacle, the sacrifices, and the priests, for example. But so did the sabbath. It should have taught the Jewish nation of God's concern for His people, and of the blessings He wished to shower upon them. The apostle Paul described it like this: "The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ . . . but after that faith is come we are no longer under a schoolmaster" (Galatians 3:24,25).
The Law taught a lesson about God's purpose through Christ. If the lesson has been understood and adopted, the work of the Law is complete. The sabbath was a weekly reminder of the release from Egypt. Followers of Christ are now commanded to remember the release he has achieved on their behalf. Shortly before his crucifixion, Jesus ate a meal with his disciples and imparted a fuller meaning to the bread and wine they shared. The bread, he said, was representative of his body, wholly given to God to bring salvation to his friends; the wine was, like his blood, shed for them for the forgiveness of sins. "This do", he told them, "in remembrance of me". Commenting on this, the Apostle Paul explained that, "as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes" (Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:26).
No wonder Paul was so upset that some of those he had taught the good news about Christ were insisting that the sabbath (and all the other parts of the Jewish religious calendar) had to be observed: "Now that you have come to know God . . . how can you turn back again? . . . You observe days, and months, and seasons, and years! I am afraid I have laboured over you in vain" (Galatians 4:9,10). Not that following these aspects of the Law was wrong, but insisting that all Christian believers should do so ignored what Jesus himself had taught. In an important and crucial passage, Paul explained that what had earlier been imposed nationally on the Jews, since Christ had come was a matter for the individual conscience:
"One man esteems one day as better than another, while another man esteems all days alike. Let every one be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it in honour of the Lord ... None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself . . whether we live, or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living" (Romans 14:5-9).
The Lord of Life
After Jesus' death, resurrection and ascension, the early believers soon got into a pattern of worship. As the hope of life and immortality was made sure by his resurrection, they remembered his sacrifice on the first day of the week, the day he came out of the tomb. We read for example of an occasion when Paul was visiting Troas, "and upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them" (Acts 20:7; see also 1 Corinthians 16:2). The information is introduced so naturally into the account that it must have been the practice adopted generally by the various groups of believers in different places.
The implication is that the sabbath was studiously avoided as the day when the memorial of Jesus' sacrifice was held, and they chose instead the day when he rose from the dead. The sabbath had commemorated God's rest after creation. The first day of the week was a reminder of when God had said: "Let there be light", and of when "the Light of the world" came from the tomb. Death was conquered, and Jesus was the Lord of life.
Though worship on the first day of the week had become part of the pattern of the early Christian congregations, the restrictions of the sabbath had not simply been transferred from Saturday to Sunday. There are no instructions in the New Testament commanding believers to rest from their daily work. The individual has to order his own life as he sees fit: "Therefore let no one pass judgement on you . . . with regard to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath. These are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ" (Colossians 2:16,17).
This New Testament teaching can be briefly summarised as follows:
- The Jews had forgotten the real purpose of the sabbath, it was lost in a welter of petty rules and regulations which they had devised.
- Jesus, in his teaching and by his miracles, declared the real purpose of the sabbath. It should show that God's purpose involves freeing men and women from slavery to sin and death so that they can serve Him. There was no better day for him to do God's work than on the sabbath.
-The sabbath was a weekly reminder of these things, but Jesus lived this way every day, throughout his life.
After Jesus' ascension, his disciples met on the first day of the week to remember his sacrifice, but did not make it a matter of command: it was for their individual conscience.
Modern Attitudes
Religious Jews today who do not recognise the work of the Lord Jesus Christ still keep the sabbath traditionally on the seventh day. They sincerely believe that the Law is still awaiting its fulfilment.
Some Christians think that by worshipping on a Sunday they are keeping some sort of New Testament sabbath. We have seen that there is no support for this view in the Scriptures. But this does not mean there is anything wrong in worshipping on a Sunday, or in refraining from the mundane tasks that fill other days of the week. Where Sunday is not a normal working day, it is surely sensible to arrange meetings for worship on that day. Yet it must always be remembered that God does not command it. While Christian believers should meet regularly to remember Christ's sacrifice, there are no commands about exactly when they should do so. The important statement about this is that "as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death". It is more crucial to remember regularly what Christ achieved, than to make an issue about what day the memorial should be kept.
Seventh Day Adventists
Members of this church claim that Christians should keep the seventh-day sabbath. They are right in saying that the sabbath was instituted on the seventh day, and not the first; but their insistence that true believers in Christ should still keep it ignores the New Testament evidence. If the apostles, who wrote under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, specifically stated thatkeeping the sabbath was turning back "to the weak and beggarly elements" from which Christ's sacrifice had freed them (Galatians 4:9), how can true Christians insist upon it? Adventists claim that the sabbath was instituted and kept in Eden, though, as we have seen, there is no Biblical evidence of a sabbath command before the Law of Moses was given.
The New Testament teaching about the Law of Moses no longer being operative for Christian believers is so clear that it may be wondered how the members of that church can maintain their position. They do so by claiming that the Law must be viewed in two parts: a 'moral' law (the Ten Commandments), and a 'ceremonial' law (all the other commandments). They see the 'moral' law as God's eternal commands, and thus still in force for believers today. They accept that the 'ceremonial' law came to an end when the Lord Jesus was crucified. But the Bible never refers to the Law in this way; the phrases 'moral law' and 'ceremonial law' do not occur in Scripture, and nor do the ideas the phrases are meant to express.
In fact, there is a specific comment in the New Testament showing that the Ten Commandments were not to be regarded as eternal principles. The Apostle Paul wrote to Christian believers in Corinth telling them that "the written code (the Law of Moses) kills, but the Spirit gives life". He described the Ten Commandments as "the dispensation of death, carved in letters on stone" (2 Corinthians 3:6,7). The high standards of the Law convicted every man a sinner, and the righteous punishment for sin is death. The essence of the teaching of Christ is the hope of forgiveness of sins because of his sinless life and selfless sacrifice.
We do not like to take issue with people who are honestly attempting to interpret what the Bible teaches, but we believe that Seventh Day Adventists are seriously misguided on this particular aspect. Their beliefs possibly grew up as a reaction to a very common misconception regarding Bible teaching about the sabbath. This misconception arose within a few hundred years following the death of Christ, and soon became a fixed tradition.
The Early Church
The spread of Christianity in those early times was rapid and far-reaching. It has been likened to a spreading flame, setting alight all in its path. The effect upon the Roman Empire, which controlled a large area of the inhabited world in those days, was very great. Some emperors, seeing the threat it posed, attempted to stamp it out by persecution. But, like pruning a tree, this only made the movement stronger and more determined. In the fourth century A.D. the emperor Constantine saw the political advantages of having the Christian subjects in his empire working with him rather than against him. So he merged some of the aspects of the old pagan religions with features of Christianity. Some pagan festivals were renamed to make them acceptable to both Christians and non-Christians. Recognising that Christians met to remember their Lord on the first day of the week, Constantine issued an edict to the effect that: "All judges, city people and craftsmen shall rest on the venerable day of the Sun". He therefore cleverly merged the old Sun-worship with the "new" religion of Christianity.
It was like the Law of Moses reimposed in a pseudo-Christian way. All the restrictions the Law had applied to the seventh day, by Constantine's edict now transferred to the first day. He removed the freedom introduced through Christ, and made observance a matter of law rather than free will. Just as the Jews had built up their traditions about how the sabbath should be kept, over a period of time misguided Christians began to view the first day of the week in strict Sabbatarian terms. We have only to read some Victorian novels to understand how dull and depressing, how much calculated to remove any joy in worship, these traditions became.
Seven Whole Days
What can we learn from the subject, so that we can put into practice today only those things that are pleasing to God? There are some lines in George Herbert's famous hymn, "King of Glory, King of Peace", that can help us:
"Seven whole days, not one in seven,
I will praise thee ....
E'en eternity's too short
to extol thee."
Our time belongs, not to us, but to God. If we wish truly to please Him, we shall not grudgingly give Him just one day a week, and keep all the rest to spend only as we see fit. We shall try to keep His commands as guides for every aspect of our lives, and thus honour and glorify Him. There is no doubt that there are great blessings to be obtained from a regular weekly release from ordinary, but necessary work. If these blessings are properly used what better than to devote them to worship and remembrance, as a response to a gracious provision, not because some "law" makes demands on mankind. This is how Paul spoke about the subject a little later in his letter to the Galatians:
"Stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery . . . for you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants one of another" (Galatians 5:1,13).
"There remains a sabbath rest"
There is one final aspect. When writing to Jews who had left the Law of Moses behind and become brethren in Christ, the Apostle wrote about the sabbath provision in a fascinating way that draws together all the different things we have discovered in our brief survey of Bible teaching (see Hebrews 3:7-4:10). Meditating upon a verse from Psalm 95, where God declared that those who turned away from Him would never enter into His rest, the Apostle deduced that there was an implicit promise for some to enter it. Who would they be? It could not be the Israelites who, through disobedience, lost the promised blessings. So it must refer to others, who are still waiting for the rest to begin: "There remains a sabbath rest for the people of God; for whoever enters God's rest also ceases from his labours as God did from his" (4:9,10).
The real rest of God is therefore yet to come. It will be a time when His will is done perfectly "on earth, as it is in heaven", as Jesus taught us to pray. Elsewhere, the Bible calls this rest the Kingdom of God. Every day of the week there is an opportunity to show by our lives that we believe in the promise of its establishment.
The King will soon return to call dead and living saints to his Father's eternal rest. Will you be one who has waited for him?
--MICHAEL ASHTON
Scripture quotations are taken generally from the Revised Standard Version
Reproduced by kind permission of The Christadelphian Magazine & Publishing Association, Birmingham UK. All rights reserved.]]>
Christ in the Old Testamenttag:www.explorethebible.com,2006:/site2//2.492006-03-05T11:30:00Z2006-12-24T00:14:51ZThe Lord Jesus Christ is the central character of the New Testament scriptures. The opening words of the first gospel account, by Matthew, can be applied to the whole of the New Testament: "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ" (Matthew 1:1). The four gospels are followed by the account of the preaching of Christ's apostles, and by the letters they wrote to believers in him throughout the Roman world in the first century AD.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the central character of the New Testament scriptures. The opening words of the first gospel account, by Matthew, can be applied to the whole of the New Testament: "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ" (Matthew 1:1). The four gospels are followed by the account of the preaching of Christ's apostles, and by the letters they wrote to believers in him throughout the Roman world in the first century AD.]]>
A Divine Watermark
This simple statement conceals a miracle. Yes. a miracle: something altogether beyond human achievement. And the miracle is this: there is throughout the Old Testament, on every page, a divine watermark revealing in advance the nature of Israel's coming Messiah. The Old Testament might appear to be just God's message to the Jewish people and an account of their history. But it is much more than this. There is something which is part of the very texture of the Old Testament and which cannot be removed without destroying the book as a whole. Simply stated, it is the fact that we have the life history of Jesus written centuries before he was born. In other words, you can read all about Jesus in the Old Testament.
It must be a matter of regret that all this information about Christ, revealed by the inspiration of God to His servants the prophets right from the dawn of human history, is so neglected. For Jesus himself, these scriptures explained the reason for his birth, the work he was to accomplish, and the glory in store for him, and for all who come to God through him. Our understanding of Christ will be diminished if we do not take account of the information presented about him in the Old Testament scriptures.
Messiah
The word Messiah is part of everyday speech. Nowadays, it is used about men who have a powerful personality and a message to go with it. But the impact usually dies when they die and pass off the scene. Such usage is a mere distortion, a poor copy, of what the word Messiah means. It is a Hebrew word taken right out of the Old Testament. It means "anointed" which in Greek is kristos, our English word, Christ. In the Old Testament, Messiah was not an historical person. The word stood for the Promised One, the Coming King, the one "whose right it is" (see Ezekiel 21:25-27).
Messiah was the Great Deliverer for whom faithful Jews waited and longed. They and some of their neighbours talked about "when Messiah comes". One of the earliest disciples, after he had met Jesus. told a friend, "We have found Messiah", and the gospel writer who recorded the incident added a word of explanation, "which is, being interpreted, the Christ" (John 1:41). They were exciting times. Faithful Jews had been craning their necks to catch a glimpse of Messiah's time. They were constantly on the watch, yearning for the day. Messiah was the kernel of all Jewish hopes, the very essence of the great promises made by God as set down in the Old Testament. Jesus was that Messiah.
The Evidence
The Old Testament described Jesus before he was born. No one but God could have foretold in such detail so many different kinds of things about Jesus. The Jews themselves had identified many of these Scriptures as foretelling Messiah. They were not brought to light until after Jesus came. They were plain for all to see. Some of them are so astonishing that we may feel they can only have been written after the events they speak about. Yet the evidence that they were written centuries before is altogether beyond doubt. Let us say it clearly: the birth, life, mission, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ of Nazareth were detailed in the old Jewish scriptures, the Old Testament, and read in Jewish synagogues at home and abroad, and faithfully preserved right down to our own times.
The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in 1947, some of them pre-dating the birth of Jesus by over 200 years contain, for example, copies of the prophet Isaiah with exactly the same prophecies as are known to us from our English Bible. The same is true of the Greek translations of the Old Testament: they too were made two or three centuries before Christ and are known to us by various manuscripts now in museums in different parts of the world. Thus the prophecies were known in Hebrew and Greek long before Jesus came. Therefore, it would simply be flying in the face of incontestable facts to say that these prophecies were 'inserted' after Jesus was born.
In any case, we must remember that the Jewish nation is not Christian. and they would never have allowed their Bible, the Old Testament, to be tampered with by Christian hands. To try to plead, as some have done, that the prophecies were added at a later date is only to admit how good they are! The only Bible available to Jesus was the one we know as the Old Testament. Josephus, the Jewish historian of the first century AD, lists the books in the Jewish Bible in his day and they are exactly the ones we have in our Old Testament. The Old Testament without doubt predates the time of Jesus.
What Jesus Said
Jesus used the prophecies of the Old Testament as powerful evidences when he spoke to the apostles after he had risen from the dead. This is what he said: "These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures" (Luke 24:44,45). Earlier, in the same chapter, we read: "And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself" (Luke 24:27).
These are important and significant words. Jesus took the apostles back to the three constituent parts of the Old Testament - the books of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms. He said that in those scriptures there were things about himself which were being fulfilled in his own life-story. "In all the scriptures" is how Jesus summed up the evidence. Describing some of these prophecies, Jesus said: "Moses wrote of me" (John 5:46). Moses lived about fifteen hundred years before Jesus!
After his resurrection, Jesus commanded the apostles to go out as his witnesses to preach the gospel every where. As part of their preaching of the gospel, they used as evidence those same Messianic prophecies: the history of Jesus written before it happened! And those same prophecies of the Old Testament were in use in the synagogues throughout the Mediterranean region.
What Kind of Prophecy?
The Bible is an account of redemption, how God rescues men from sin and from death. The Bible begins with a record of Creation and of how sin and death came into the world in the Garden of Eden. The Bible ends with a description of the culmination of God's glorious plan, still in the future, by saying that:
"I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." (Revelation 21:3,4)
Jesus Christ is the bridge between Eden and the promised, glorious End. He is the means whereby God accomplishes His mission of mercy and salvation. The Old Testament prophecies about Jesus are part of that story God's Grand Plan of Redemption. The prophecies were revelations of how God would work out His saving will. Let us follow the steps in the Grand Plan, revealed long before Jesus was born.
Jesus the Man
The Old Testament foretold that Messiah would be a Jew, born in Bethlehem in the royal line of David the king, of the tribe of Judah. These are clear and detailed prophecies. Look at these examples:
"And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou (David) shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever." (2 Samuel 7:12,13)
"But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel: whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." (Micah 5:2)
These are promises of an illustrious son of David who would be born in Bethlehem. Solomon was the immediate successor - son of David, but he was not born in Bethlehem. He certainly built a temple for God, but his throne was not established for ever. Moreover, Micah's prophecy, about Messiah being born in Bethlehem, was written some two or three hundred years after the death of David. Messiah had still not come. About seven hundred years later Jesus was born in the little town of Bethlehem a few miles from Jerusalem in the land of Judah.
Jesus, Son of God
The prophecies said Jesus was not only to be the son of David; he was also to be Son of God. This is variously described in the Old Testament:
"Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." (Isaiah 7:14)
"I will be his father, and he shall be my son." (1 Chronicles 17:13)
"He shall cry unto me, Thou art my father, my God, and the rock of my salvation. Also I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth." (Psalm 89:26,27)
"I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee." (Psalm 2:7)
Therefore Messiah would be a descendant of David but not of a Jewish father. As the New Testament later tells us, he had a virgin mother but no human father.
"Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us." (Matthew 1:22.23)
"Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh." (Romans 1:3)
Surprisingly, the very first promise of the virgin birth (Genesis 3:15) calls the promised Deliverer: "the seed of the woman", not the seed of the man. It was God, not man, who would provide the Redeemer: nevertheless, he would be born of a woman:
"But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman ..." (Galatians 4:4)
The Forerunner
The public ministry of Jesus was preceded by the witness of John the Baptist who declared himself to be the one who ran ahead to prepare the way for Messiah the Lord by preaching in the wilderness. This too was made plain by the prophets:
"The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God." (Isaiah 40:3)
"Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me." (Malachi 3:1)
The message of John Baptist stirred the hearts of thousands of Jews to repentance and preparation. John told them to get ready for Messiah, and when Jesus came to the River Jordan where John was preaching and baptizing, one of John's disciples said:
"We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth ..." (John 1:45)
The Message of Jesus
The wonderful message of the Lord Jesus Christ came as comfort and healing to the minds of the ordinary people, and they said, "He taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes" (Matthew 7:29). "They were astonished at his doctrine", and people of all kinds, high and low, rich and poor, sick and well, came to him and were cradled in his words of relief, care and salvation. But this was exactly what the Old Testament prophets had foretold of him:
"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me: because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD." (Isaiah 61:1-2)
"The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned." (Isaiah 50:4)
No wonder the gospel is called "glad tidings". People who had been locked in dead formalism and made afraid by their teachers and rulers found release and joy and hope - just as the prophets had promised. They caught the meaning of all this, and sick people repeatedly called Jesus, "the son of David", the one promised to David by God. He was their Messiah.
Miracles
The good news Jesus brought was called "the glad tidings of the kingdom of God". He was the One who, at his second coming, would reign as king on David's throne. Meanwhile, his message was the royal law by which his disciples were being prepared for the kingdom. His miracles were not simply embroidery of his teaching. They were living attestations that he was Son of God as well as son of David, bringing them a foretaste of the kingdom age:
"Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence: he will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out. and streams in the desert." (Isaiah 35:3-6)
The people said they believed that his words and miracles proved that Jesus was the promised Messiah:
"Then was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw. And all the people were amazed, and said, Is not this the son of David?" (Matthew 12:22,23)
Jesus the Rejected
Despite his wonderful words and compassionate miracles and his evident goodness, Christ was at the last rejected by his own people. The rulers envied and hated him. The common people proved to be unreliable and were easily swayed by the hostility shown toward Jesus by their elders and religious rulers. This, too, was foretold long before Christ came:
"He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not." (Isaiah 53:3)
"Thus saith the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel, and his Holy One, to him whom man despiseth, to him whom the nation abhorreth ..." (Isaiah 49:7)
"I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting." (Isaiah 50:6)
"Thou hast known my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonour: mine adversaries are all before thee. Reproach hath broken my heart: and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none." (Psalm 69:19,20)
Jesus the Crucified
The climax of the life of Jesus was his death by crucifixion. It is said that in times before Christ it was sometimes the practice to tie or nail certain criminals to a stake or tree after they had been put to death. Crucifixion of living persons appears to have come only with the Romans. It was unknown among the Jews. Yet, a thousand years before Jesus was born, his living crucifixion was clearly foretold:
"For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me." (Psalm 22:16,17)
Even the sharing of his clothes - which the New Testament describes as having been carried out by the soldiers - is clearly described:
"They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture." (Psalm 22:18)
The mockery, scorn and biting derision of his enemies, and Christ's uncomplaining submission were prophesied:
"But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head." (Psalm 22:6,7)
"He was oppressed. and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth." (Isaiah 53:7)
There are no more poignant words in the Bible than these which were written up to a thousand years before the event they describe. Their complete fulfilment in Christ is evidence that he was Messiah and that prophecies were the word of God. They could not be the word of anyone else.
Jesus the Redeemer
The suffering and shame of Christ were full of redemptive purpose. He s
A -- flower
B -- plant
C,D,E -- trap in action.
1. Leaves of basal rosette each with terminal trap. 2. Trap.
3. Fly on leaf.
4. Contact hairs that set off trap: closing mechanism.
5. Teeth that close the trap.
From the accompanying drawings, identify the different parts of the flower, and consider how the trap works. The leaves (see sketch B1) of this plant lie in a "rosette" flat on the ground. Each leaf ends in a leaf-blade that looks and acts like a steel trap. The two halves of the trap, hinged in the middle, are attractive on top, being colored pink, red or green, and having the lure of flowers. But there are three little "triggers" (sensitive hairs -- see sketch C4) on the upper inner surface of each side of the trap, making a total of six "triggers" for each trap.
Insects land on these traps and walk around in search of nectar. When an insect disturbs the sensitive hairs on the trap, it will instantly snap shut, with tooth-edges meshing and preventing escape (see sketch E). These six sensitive hairs even distinguish between a living and a dead object, for the leaf-trap will not close unless two hairs are touched in succession, or the same hair twice. Small sticks or pebbles will leave the trap undisturbed!
Once shut, however, the trap gradually pinches tighter and tighter, squeezing its prey against the digestive glands on the inner surfaces of the trap. These traps are strong enough to crush soft bodies, while the glands secrete an acid that can digest any insect caught.
The glands are able to give a continual supply of acid for a week once a victim has been ensnared. When the trap closes, functions are set in motion which virtually turn it into a "stomach."
This plant, with its many traps, is designed to work in unison with co-operative sequence. This is obviously the rational design of an intelligent Creator.
Consider again the various parts of the trap, two leaves, the hinges, the toothed edges, the "trigger" hairs, the digestive glands, the copious acid secretion at the right time. How could random chance, without intelligent design, produce such an organization? It is impossible. The theory of evolution is revealed to be absurd in attempting to show how the Venus Fly Trap evolved. In fact, in trying to do so, the evolutionist is himself caught in a fly trap!
Consider the alternative. The parts of the trap either "evolved" one after the other over millions of years -- or God created the plant! The evolutionist claims that it took millions of years for the trap to evolve, but, until the whole plant is completely formed, it won't work! In other words, for millions of years the plant has been evolving a trap that won't work! Fortunately, the plant has no brains, otherwise it surely would have destroyed itself in sheer frustration! But though it lacks brains, apparently, according to the evolutionist, it went on busily evolving away over millions of years, attempting the impossible, trying to make an incomplete trap work until, supposedly at one stage, a particularly bright plant, by superhuman effort (we won't use the word "miracle"), suddenly thought out (without brains, mind you) what was required and proceeded to grow it!
Please excuse the sarcasm in our description, but how else can evolution account for this amazing plant! There is only one way that plant could come into being: by specific creation.
Look at it again. Notice that the flower is separate from the trap which is situated at the end of the leaf. Any variations in the shape of leaves are not handed on to its offspring, unless they are transferred to the seeds. Can the flower do this itself? Of course not! The alternative is for the evolutionist to "suppose" that somehow evolution takes place inside the seed itself.
Now consider what these so-called scientists are asking you to believe. They ask you to accept that the intricate insect trap, with all its functions is the result of "changes" inside the microscopic cell from which the seed is developed, and that during this evolutionary period these changes were useless (for the trap would not work), and therefore they were "evolved" for no apparent reason!
The cell, itself, is made up of many complex parts and substances, the most intriguing being the chromosomes and genes. The former are the tiny ribbons of proteins and nucleic acids that dictate growth and heredity, thus determining the shape and function of the whole plant.
What possible "natural forces" could work in a cell, whose fluid interest is in an almost continual state of upheaval, in order to influence those tiny ribbons of protein, so that when the cell reproduces itself millions of times, a "Venus Fly Trap" is formed on the edges of each leaf to catch insects and any other small creatures around?
Obviously, the theory of evolution dispenses with reason and truth, and substitutes absurdity; but what is more serious, it dispenses with the need of a Creator in the marvellous living things around us, seeking to explain all existence as the result of "natural causes."
But, it may be objected, do not differences in environment bring about changes in persons? Does not interbreeding produce better animals? That may be so, but it cannot change a sheep into a horse, and that, virtually, is what evolution claims. Leave the well bred animal to itself, and what will happen? Every breeder knows; it will revert back to type.
The Marvel of Man
The human body is a wonderful and intricate piece of living mechanism. The heart, the blood-stream, the lungs, and so forth, are all working hard and constantly to maintain life in being, and yet so wonderfully is this done, that we are unconscious of it all until some disarrangement or accident causes us to heed it.
Is all this the result of chance working away in a pool of slime? The Bible teaches that man was made for the glory of God, and was given the intellect to reflect His glory. Unfortunately, that same intellect is so often prostituted to the cause of folly and stupidity.
As an example of the marvellous mechanism of the body, consider the wonder of light as taken into the body through the eye. Science says that light is a series of wave movements in the ether initiated by luminous bodies such as the sun, and which vibrate up and down at right angles to the direction of light. Light is made up of a combination of various waves, the colors of which are shown in the rainbow when the light of the sun is reflected in falling rain. These waves vary in size according to the particular color or shade but they average approximately 0.00042 of a millimetre in size.
We appreciate the beauty of light and color through the sight of the eyes, and that is possible because of the delicate membrane of the retina, which is an expansion of the fibres of the optic nerve, spread out at the back part of the eye. Although only 0.3175 millimetre in thickness, it is composed of no fewer than ten different layers, each 0.3175 millimetre thick. As light travels at the speed of 300,000 kilometres per second, it is a matter of simple mathematical computation to determine that when we look at a violet flower (violet color waves being the shortest), the retina vibrates at the tremendous rate of 750,000,000,000,000 vibrations per second!
No wonder the Psalmist declared of the Creator: I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvellous are Thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well" (Psalm 139:14). In the marvel of the retina of the eye, we have an example of the infinite power of the Creator, who has thus created a living substance 750 billion times more delicate than the escapement of a watch. It would take over 22 years for a watch to tick as many times as the retina vibrates in a second! Yet "the fool hath said" (Psalm 14:1) that man is a monument to the marvel of chance, not to the moulding of a divine and intelligent Creator!
The Evolutionist Stung by a Bee!
Consider the amazing wax-cells that abound in the beehive. Each cell is a perfect hexagon which the bee by instinct makes without mistake. Try to do this yourself! Without ruler, protractor or set square, endeavour to carefully draw a perfect hexagon. You will find it impossible! Yet the bee does it! How?
Moreover, each comb contains two sets of cells, one opening on each side of its faces. The cells of one side, however, are not exactly opposite to those of the other; for the middle of each cell abuts against the point where the walls of the three cells meet on the opposite side, and thus the partition that separates the cells is greatly strengthened. This partition is not flat, but consists of three planes which meet each other at a particular angle, so as to make the centre of the cell its deepest part.
It has been ascertained by measurement that the angles formed by bees are 109.28 and 70.32 degrees respectively. By very intricate calculation, it was determined by the mathematician Konig, that the best angles for such a purpose should be 109.26 and 70.34. In other words, the mathematicians and the bees differed only by the small discrepancy of two minutes of a degree, or 1/10,800th part of a circle, an infinitesimal space in so small a thing as a bee- cell.
Were the bees by this minute fraction at fault? Or did the geometricians err? The latter proved to be the case. MacLaurin, the Scottish mathematician, not satisfied with this explanation, applied himself to a fresh and careful investigation of the question. He showed that, owing to a slight misprint in the logarithmic tables, the result previously obtained was erroneous to the exact amount of two minutes of a degree! So the bees were right, and the mathematicians were wrong.
Whence came the knowledge of the bees? Even Darwin was stung into silence by these little creatures, saying, "What shall we say concerning the honeybee...?"
What, indeed! The special instincts which cause the bees to make their cells perfect hexagons, the sparrows to build their nests with straw, the beavers to build a dam, and the rabbits to burrow in the ground, are all proofs of the creation of separate species: a silent testimony to the existence of an infinite Creator working according to intelligent plan.
The Evolutionist Reveals God's Wisdom
Unconsciously, the evolutionist gives his witness to the marvellous prescience and wisdom of God, because the growth and influence of his theory in these last days is clearly predicted in God's word. The Bible declares: "Know this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming?... for this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth..." (2 Peter 3:4-5).
Here is a Bible prophecy clearly stating that in the "last days" men would be "willingly ignorant" of the facts of creation! The widespread teaching of the evolutionary theory, in spite of the evidence that can be brought against it, is a fulfilment of this prediction. Is it not a remarkable thing, that God should predict the very trend that is so obvious today? Scripture shows that the theory will be responsible for the moral declension that would be a feature of the "last days" prior to Christ's coming to set up his kingdom on earth, so that the widespread, blind acceptance of this myth of evolution is a significant "sign of the times."
We need to heed these warning, prophetic words of the Bible, and refuse to bow down to such a God-defying doctrine as evolution, which in spite of the claims of so-called learned men, cannot be proved as true, and remains in the realm of magical imagination.
Let people consider the wonders of creation, whether viewed in the heavens above, or upon the earth beneath, and here will be instantly recognized tokens of glory that speak of the wisdom of the Creator's hand. Let them closely study the Bible, and they will be compelled to realize, that in this wonderful Book, there is found something equally as marvellous as the intricate patterns of life in its diversity, as is manifested on all sides.
It is inconceivable that God should have arranged for creation without purpose, and inasmuch as we see design and wisdom in the heavens and the earth, in man and in all creation, so there must be a future purpose for life on this earth.
The Bible reveals that purpose. It declares: "The whole earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord" (Numbers 14:21). It is for that reason that Jesus Christ is to return; it is for that reason that the Bible has come into existence: to bring man God's revelation and to call him to salvation. That Book offers you life eternal upon the earth at Christ's coming (Romans 2: 6-7; Revelation 22:12; Daniel 7:27).
What can the present offer you? A life of frustration and difficulty ending in death! But what of the future? That depends upon what you do with Jesus Christ and with God! Are you really satisfied with things as they exist on earth at the present? Are you happy about the future in which families must grow up? Cannot you discern the growing evil on every side? The increasing immorality? The tremendous problems that are already facing humanity?
The Bible has the solution to these things. For, although people are being subjected to pressure today that can drive them away from the things of God and the Bible, wisdom dictates that you show sufficient determination and independence of mind to resist these influences, and seek that which can be of inestimable benefit.
The issue is up to you!
-- Logos Publications (edited by G. Mansfield)]]>