Monday, August 25, 2014

GodsView : Wife Abuse: Assault on a Woman’s Worth!

GodsView : Wife Abuse: Assault on a Woman’s Worth!: He was prominent in the community. What woman wouldn’t feel fortunate to be his wife? She certainly had all the finer things in life. And...

Wife Abuse: Assault on a Woman’s Worth!

He was prominent in the community. What woman wouldn’t feel fortunate to be his wife? She certainly had all the finer things in life. And the children … didn’t they have the best that money could buy? How could she think about destroying such a picture-perfect family or risk stepping into a future unknown? Where would she go? What could she do? How would she support herself? And even worse, if she began to expose the terrible truth, would she lose the children? She felt hopeless. Who would believe her? She had been so skillful at hiding her feelings, as well as the bruises. With swollen, tear-stained eyes, she reasoned … “It’s mostly my fault anyway!”
Even when reason seems skewed, the Psalms offer hope for the afflicted.
“You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending … the oppressed, in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more.” (Psalm 10:17-18)
While abusive acts are committed by both husbands and wives, in cases of domestic violence, approximately 95% of the victims are women. Although the reality of wife battering reveals a long history of being tolerated—tolerated traditionally and even legally—abusive behavior has always grieved the heart of God. Any violation of this most sacred relationship always produces pain, but God promises to be close to the victim who suffers at the hands of an abuser.
“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” Psalm 34:18
Domestic violence is not an issue of “marriage problems” or “irreconcilable differences” solved by “conflict resolution.” This kind of abuse…
  • ~ Affects everyone in the family
  • ~ Bridges all levels in society: racial, religious, geographic, and economic
  • ~ Undermines the value of others
  • ~ Seeks to dominate others
  • ~ Escalates in intensity and frequency

What Are the Different Types of Abuse?

  • ~ Verbal Abuse
  • ~ Emotional Abuse
  • ~ Physical Abuse/Violence
  • ~ Sexual Abuse/Violence

God’s Heart for the Victim

  • ~ God hears the cry of the battered and abused.
    “You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry.” Psalm 10:17
  • ~ God holds the victim of abuse in the palm of His hand.
    “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:10
  • ~ God will rescue the victim of abuse and violence.
    “He will rescue them from oppression and violence, for precious is their blood in his sight.” Psalm 72:14

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

GodsView : Finding Strength and Security in God’s Word!

GodsView : Finding Strength and Security in God’s Word!: I’ll never forget when my confidence in God’s Word was put to the test as a young preacher. I was the pastor of First Baptist Church in ...

Finding Strength and Security in God’s Word!

I’ll never forget when my confidence in God’s Word was put to the test as a young preacher. I was the pastor of First Baptist Church in West Palm Beach, Fla, and to my amazement, I found myself in a meeting with leaders from my denomination debating whether or not the Bible was the Word of God.
One by one the moderator asked us to share our positions on this issue, and I was shocked and saddened as I heard the comments from many of my peers. They had doubts, they said, about the trustworthiness of the Bible.
It was almost my turn when I felt a surge of anxiety rush through my system. What was I going to say? When, at last, all eyes were on me, I decided to keep it simple—and true. “The Bible is the Word of God!”
 All were silent as my words hung in the air, but then the pastor sitting next to me piped up. “You mean the Bible contains the words of God,” he said. I couldn’t believe my ears. “No,” I said, “I mean the Bible is the Word of God.”
There is a subtle but strong difference between those two beliefs. Does the Bible merely contain some of God’s words? Or is the Bible the Word of God? Many modern ways of understanding and interpretation say the Bible is a vehicle for God’s truth instead of it being God’s truth itself.
But this doesn’t square with the apostle Paul’s validation in 2 Timothy 3:16, which says, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness….” The Bible is the Word of God. That’s not something believers should debate. It’s settled right here in the Scripture itself!
 I remember reading awhile back how the great evangelist Billy Graham once struggled with this truth. Recalling when he made the decision to accept the Scripture’s reliability, Reverend Graham said this:
When I accepted the Bible as the authoritative Word of God by faith, I found immediately that it became a flame in my hand. That flame began to melt away unbelief in the hearts of many people and to move them to the side for Christ.
 I found that I did not have to rely upon cleverness, or oratory, or psychological manipulation, apt illustrations or striking quotations from famous men. I began to rely more and more upon the Scripture itself and God blessed it….
 Every single person on the planet is hungry to hear the Word of God, even if they don’t realize it. We long for something solid to stand on in a wobbling and wavering world. So today, if it feels like your world is wavering and wobbling—open God’s authoritative Word and read it. Pray it. Memorize it. When you do, I promise God will speak directly to your heart and give you the security and strength you need!
[Pull Quote] If it feels like your world is wavering and wobbling—open God’s authoritative Word and read it. Pray it. Memorize it.

Sunday, August 10, 2014

GodsView : The Enemy of Your Peace!

GodsView : The Enemy of Your Peace!: Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God...

The Enemy of Your Peace!

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God (Philippians 4:6, ESV).
When Paul coaches us, “Do not be anxious about anything,” it’s easy to react with indignation. “Really, Paul?! Have you looked at my life lately? Don’t be anxious about anything?” Since these are hard words to apply, let’s consider Paul’s advice thoughtfully to see how it bears up when the rubber meets the road.
The core of the word anxiousness is the idea of “a dividing care.” Worry, fear, and anxiety are like troubled sisters. But anxiousness evokes the idea of a dividing care—something that wakes you up at night, a distraction so nagging you can’t fully enter another conversation, a trouble that overshadows all your interactions. A care that divides your mind.
There is no peace in that. When you have peace, things are in their right place—entrusted to God—and no care divides your mind. When Paul tells us, “Do not be anxious about anything,” he is instructing us not to have a dividing care about anything.
We tend to rationalize our anxiety. Well, Paul’s advice applies to most people in most situations, but if Paul considered what I feel anxious about, he would make an exception. Clearly, I should be anxious about my burdens. But are our anxieties really so unique?
We can all agree that anxiety is natural and understandable, but many things are understandable that are not excusable. Because we believe that God’s Word is inspired by the Holy Spirit, we believe that every word is aptly chosen by God—even this nagging word anything. So we must accept that the God who made us wants us to hear, “Do not be anxious about anything.”
The decision to be anxious is the decision to forfeit your peace. It’s the decision to not trust God in your situation.
When we choose to sin, we choose to suffer. When God tells us not to be anxious, He is not trying to rob us of something satisfying; He’s warning us about something self-destructive. Anxiety has nasty, proven side effects: irritability, depression, insomnia, fatigue, migraines, muscle pain, elevated heart rate, high blood pressure, ulcers, weakened immune system, susceptibility to overeat and overwork. The side effects of anxiety seep into every area of our lives: physical, emotional, mental, spiritual. Anxiety is obviously not healthy.
God’s Word doesn’t just give the what-to-do but also the how-to-do-it. How do we banish anxiety? “But in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” We start praying. About what? Everything. When God says everything, He means . . . everything. There’s no wiggle room or creative way to parse this word. Pray about everything.
What could fall in the category of everything? Some ready examples:
  • money
  • children
  • relationships
  • health issues
  • job
Everything envelops the small stuff too. There’s nothing dumb to pray about. Nothing makes the Unimportant Prayer Request List—there is no such thing. You can and should pray about everything.
Don’t be anxious about anything; pray about everything. Out with anxiety—in with prayer.

Sunday, August 3, 2014

GodsView : A Catastrophic Missing Link Problem!

GodsView : A Catastrophic Missing Link Problem!: The news is often full of alleged missing links between dinosaurs and birds, like Archaeopteryx or Sinosauropteryx, or between man and ape...

A Catastrophic Missing Link Problem!

The news is often full of alleged missing links between dinosaurs and birds, like Archaeopteryx or Sinosauropteryx, or between man and ape-like creatures, such as Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis). Any time I read of a claimed transition between one kind of something to another kind of something, I love to find out what sedimentary rock layer it was found in.
Most of the time, secular reports give an “age,” not a rock layer. This age is an interpretation of a rock layer—keep that in mind. This age is not a measured quantity but an interpreted one (from chemical analyses or position in the strata sequence’s uniformitarian timeframe). And how is it interpreted? It is interpreted in light of millions of years being an absolute fact that cannot be questioned. So sometimes you have to do some searching to find out what rock layer the fossil was found in.
Sometimes you can do some “reverse engineering” by taking the age and back translating it to what rock layer the fossil was found in. For example, if someone says the fossil is 73 million years old, then this would be Cretaceous rock. See the chart below so you can reverse engineer these alleged ages to a rock layer.
Duration of Time for Rock Layers by Secular Dating
Duration of Time for Rock Layers by Secular Dating
These rock layers are real layers; it is the assignment of time to them that is rather questionable. The majority of rock layers that contain fossils are sedimentary rock layers from the Flood of Noah’s day about 4,350 years ago (By adding up genealogies from the Flood to Christ, it is about 2,350 years, and Christ lived about 2,000 years ago.). Of course, there are rock layers that have formed since the Flood, due to local floods, volcanic eruptions, and so on. But most of the layers in question formed in the Flood.
Now why is this important? It obviously deals with the time issue in regards to the rock layers. But it is more than that. When people say they have found a missing link in the rock layers, it is typically sitting in Flood rock or post-Flood rock. See the chart below.1
Rock Layers in Light of Noah’s Flood
Rock Layers in Light of Noah’s Flood
For example, Archaeopteryx and Sinosauropteryx are found in rock layers associated with the Flood. So how old are they? They are about 4,350 years old. Dinosaurs are also found in rock layers from the Flood, putting them around 4,350 years old too. Did one turn into the other during the Flood? Not at all. They were fleeing from and finally buried and fossilized in the Flood. In other words, they died at the same time.
Besides, birds (Day Five) were created before dinosaurs (Day Six, being land animals). So birds were around prior to dinosaurs and did not need to evolve from dinosaurs. This is like someone arguing that the laptop computer evolved into the first airplane. This is clearly fallacious since airplanes were already around prior to laptop computers!
Furthermore, consider that Lucy and other australopithecines are found in rock layers often associated with post-Flood rocks (e.g., volcanic layers erupted on top of Flood layers). How could such a thing be the ancestor to humans (or a close relation to the ancestor of humans) when humans, like Adam through Noah, already existed?
As Christians, we need to start thinking biblically. When you start with the Bible, sensational finds of missing links are easy to refute. The transitions don’t exist because the alleged missing link fossils are found in rock layers that were from the Flood or afterwards, which is well after people and the animals in question already existed.

Footnotes

  1. I understand that creationists debate over the exact placement of the post-Flood boundary, being at or near the K/T boundary (lower) to the higher end of Tertiary sediments (upper). However, this graph is for the purpose of relaying the idea of the fossiliferous rock layers being primarily a result of the Flood and post-Flood events, on which point both sides would agree.