The Word for today:
Psalm 104
Psalm 104
mark this: Psalm 104:1-8, 33-35 --
Bless the LORD, O my soul! O LORD my God, you are very great!
You are clothed with splendor and majesty, covering yourself with light as with a garment, stretching out the heavens like a tent.
He lays the beams of his chambers on the waters; he makes the clouds his chariot; he rides on the wings of the wind;
he makes his messengers winds, his ministers a flaming fire.
He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved.
You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains.
At your rebuke they fled; at the sound of your thunder they took to flight.
The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place that you appointed for them.
Bless the LORD, O my soul! O LORD my God, you are very great!
You are clothed with splendor and majesty, covering yourself with light as with a garment, stretching out the heavens like a tent.
He lays the beams of his chambers on the waters; he makes the clouds his chariot; he rides on the wings of the wind;
he makes his messengers winds, his ministers a flaming fire.
He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved.
You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains.
At your rebuke they fled; at the sound of your thunder they took to flight.
The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place that you appointed for them.
I will sing to the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the LORD.
Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more!
Bless the LORD, O my soul! Praise the LORD!
May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the LORD.
Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more!
Bless the LORD, O my soul! Praise the LORD!
We live in an upside down age.
People claim they don't believe in God because they can't see God. That is upside down. The truth is that people can't see God because they actively will themselves not to believe him. Unbelief is not a matter of the mind. It is a matter of the will. The will of the unbeliever suppresses the truth that he sees (1).
Psalm 104 speaks of the majestic order of God's creation, of the intricate interplay of the tides and times, of the choreography of forces and spheres.
But our schools and universities teach our children that this is the result of random chance and natural selection.
Right about here some Christians will tell us what idiots the unbelievers are. But the Bible doesn't call them idiots. The Bible calls them evil.
Romans chapter 1 teaches us that nature serves as an introduction to God; but that mankind suppresses (literally, "holds down") the truths about God which nature teaches (1).
Unbelievers take part in a vast, methodically planned and executed campaign to aggressively and actively hold down the truth. It is not a mere matter of misunderstanding what they are seeing. It is far more perverse than that. It is a matter of willfully hiding the truth under the rug.
Unbelievers deny intelligent design even as they engage in the suppression of truth masterminded by the Father of Lies, Satan (2). Consider the irony here: The suppression of intelligent design is by intelligent design.
Right about here some Christians will tell us to feel sorry for the person who does not believe. That, like so many of our operating assumptions, is not dictated by scripture:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind. (Romans 1:18-21, 28)
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind. (Romans 1:18-21, 28)
We are in enemy territory. They seek your life, and the lives of your children. This is a deep and twisted idolatry -- a sacrifice of lives to the god of their chosen realm; with the institutions and bureaucracies and confederacies of the world arranged and arrayed as front men for the principalities and the powers of this present darkness.
Right about here, you might be tempted to call this writer a kook. You don't know me then, because I may be the most cold-bloodedly sane person that you have never met.
And you might think this sounds extreme. I know you might, because I certainly do! This is not what they taught me at Anna Merritt, North Park, Washington Hunt, Emmet Belknap Junior High, Lockport Senior High School, William and Mary, Buffalo State, or Niagara University. That these truths might strike us as radical testifies to the infiltration, by diabolical design, of the enemy into every crevice of our minds, and into every pew of our churches.
Satan, copycat that he is, has always fought holy fire with profane fire (3). He fought the Word of God in Eden with an unauthorized version of those words. He is now fighting the enlightenment provided by intelligent design with a benighted version of that design.
Which version are you reading? Which version am I teaching?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(1) Romans 1:18/NKJV; (2) John 8:44; (3) Leviticus 10:1
(1) Romans 1:18/NKJV; (2) John 8:44; (3) Leviticus 10:1
No comments:
Post a Comment