While some Christian leaders have rallied to refute the volumes of blasphemous assaults, it only fuels the fire. It is becoming increasingly necessary for Christians to back off from a purely intellectual battle with the high-minded people of this world. Intellectual battles leave far too many casualties from both sides scattered around the battlefield. But with four "New Atheists" on the block, selling massive numbers of books and touting their godless views so aggressively, we Christians must do something. I believe it is time to fall back on the principles taught by our Lord and Savior. Fairly early into this book, I will tell you why and how we can do this, as well as give you immense encouragement and motivation to follow through, but I must lay our foundation down first.

Would you agree with me that there is something beyond the tangible-istic¹ world, which moves the human body? What is that something? Many religions call it the soul. It appears to be invisible and, aside from it exerting its will and commanding the brain to give the body movement and function, it is not detectable by any of our senses. But it is that "something," the "spark," which gives the body its animation. When the physical structures die, the sparks leave them.

With regard to our animation, we are free to move in any direction we wish, travel anywhere we are capable of going, and do almost anything we want to, at anytime we want to. Survival being our natural tendency, we would preserve our lives, therefore we tend to gravitate toward sustenance (food to eat, air to breathe and water to drink), and comfort (perhaps a roof over our heads), as well as propagate our lives by mating up and making families. In addition, we tend to protect our meager lives by defending ourselves against other animated creatures who may want to take away our "freedom of survival in the way we would choose."

In addition to our free will to move our bodies in anyway we please, we have the ability to think and feel and emote anyway we want to. Most remarkable and peculiar to humans is the ability to create and imagine. Because of this, there is no limit to the number of belief systems that have been developed over time. In fact, despite the serious attempt to categorize belief systems and give them names, it can easily be seen that in each category, people believe in all manner of degrees, from extremely shallow to very intense. Beliefs, therefore, probably could be compared favorably to fingerprints. No two are exactly alike. We are free to think, free to share what we think, free to listen to what others say is true and adopt or discard what they say, and free to make up our own "truth" and gather disciples to teach our wisdom. All that I've mentioned, so far, can be seen by both theists and atheists. The next paragraph is not realized by the atheists.

Into this confusing mix of human invention, God has made Himself known to us through the person of Jesus Christ. What the atheists fail to see is that man did not create himself, nor did mankind create Jesus. God created mankind and God created His Son, Jesus. The atheists attempt to discredit or ignore the prophesies concerning Jesus, and their fulfillments. However, anyone who has seriously studied the Scriptures will surely see the atheists fail miserably at this. There were too many prophesies, made hundreds of years before He came, concerning Christ's birth, actions, words and manner of death, to deny the obvious miracles. Many, like the Roman soldiers casting lots for His clothes as He died on the cross, were uncontrollable situations that no man could have purposed to bring to pass. Any expert in probability will attest to the impossibility of Jesus' life and death being orchestrated by any human plan. The following verses in Psalms are just two examples of prophesies about Christ that are declared all through the Old Testament. These verses were written around 1000 years before Christ's appearance and, in addition to addressing the Roman soldiers casting lots for His clothing, they speak of the horrible death by crucifixion in which His hands and feet are pierced².

Psa 22:15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and My tongue clings to My jaws;
Psa 22:16 and You have brought Me into the dust of death. For dogs have circled around Me; the band of spoilers have hemmed Me in, piercers of My hands and My feet.
Psa 22:17 I can count all My bones; they look and stare at Me.
Psa 22:18 They divide My garments among them and cast lots for My clothing. (MKJV)

I know that I am saying some things that many Christians already know. So, please bear with me, if you are one who has a Bible by the side of your bed, with lots of notes written in the margins and well worn pages. You only need to walk in what you know. I'm hoping that, out of curiosity, one who doesn't know the Lord like us, may pick this book up to glance at it and I want them to understand where we are coming from. That is why I am laying this foundation. Jesus was presented as a gift to us from God, shedding His blood for our sins. What sins, you may ask? Beneath even the most peaceful exterior of all of us, lies a carnal nature that, with very little prodding, is ready to explode, becoming violent, hateful, cruel, and totally willing to lash out at anyone deemed responsible for that person's fear, hopelessness, anger or despair, whether the target person is truly responsible or not. This is sin unaddressed, which, if left to follow its course, can balloon into errors--errors in perception, errors in reason and errors in logic that can cause a formerly perfectly reasonable spark to do unspeakable things to the other sparks of life, which inhabit these exterior garments (our bodies). Long before the latent wickedness is manifested, a seed of sin must have been planted in the heart or soul of a person. That seed can be unforgiveness, bitterness, resentment or any one or combination of hidden, latent evils. Jesus came to take away ALL sin, both inbred and willfully committed wrongs. And, as can be attested to by countless millions, since His incarnation, He does just that, as one's faith (or belief) is given to Him.

Inbred sin, also known as the carnal nature, was handed down from generation to generation, even to the present time, and stems from Adam and Eve's horrible blunder in the Garden of Eden, which birthed selfishness, rebellion and pride. The desire which caused their downfall was to attain wisdom and knowledge of all things. The fruit Satan offered was this: "You will know all things. You will be as God." This root of self-centeredness, which even shows its ugliness in newborn babies, causes us to think only of ourselves. "Whaa, whaaa," we cry, "what do you have for ME?"

Jesus' death on the cross for our sins had a primary and a secondary purpose. Primarily, His act was utterly selfless, as He fully exchanged His life for our wrong nature, providing the necessary sacrifice that God required for sins. Secondarily, the act was also an example to us of being selfless, or dying to self, as Jesus demonstrated complete submission to God's will, and the cruel circumstances in which He willfully participated. In both cases, the victory was manifested in Jesus' resurrection from His death. God accepted Jesus' exchange of His sinless life for our sinful ones, and then, as Jesus foretold God would do, in three days God gave Jesus His life back again.

So, as I said, in addition to the primary truth of Him dying for our sins, there is a secondary truth which Jesus demonstrated on the cross, and that He spoke of during His ministry. Jesus demonstrated a complete death to self, which we, too, are asked to accomplish. When we totally submit to God's will, dying to our own will, dying to our own fleshly desires, God will resurrect us, giving us new life. While He was on earth, Jesus invited us all to pick up our crosses and follow Him. In addition, He said He was the way, the truth and the life and that no one came unto the Father except through Him. He didn't say that to cause us to fight among each other, as we vie for religious superiority, although that has happened. He said it because there is only one truth, and the truth presented to us supernaturally by Jesus, is that truth. We need to realize His way, truth and life must become our way, truth and life, in order to successfully navigate through this world and to the next.

Jesus was not made up. He was not a figment of someone's imagination. He was and is God's Son. His name must be sanctified, set apart, from all other teachers, past and present, which have resided or are residing on this earth. Jesus said no one comes unto the Father except through Him. No one! This challenges all the other belief systems on this planet, which are as numerous and varied as the people who exist. Despite all of these belief systems and substrata of belief systems, there is only one truth. Jesus is that one truth. Ultimately, as you who have committed your lives to Christ know, when all our chips are cashed in, the choice made to follow Jesus will be the only right one. All other choices will be incorrect, because, as I am compelled to emphasize, there is only one truth.

The secular humanism teaching of today encourages the acceptance of ALL beliefs and in so doing, demeans the truth by relegating them all into a "so what?" category. Believe whatever you want to, it says. None of it really matters anyway. However, keep in mind that ALL belief systems are powerful. And keep in mind that everyone has a belief system (even those who say they don't, BELIEVE they don't). Being apathetic weakens our discernment and makes us settle in to those belief systems to which we are most exposed. Seek the truth, says Jesus, for it will make you free. We are not free until we find the truth and that truth comes from and is, Jesus.

We must be careful what we are producing in the ivy-covered campuses of this world. Most professors have adopted secular humanism as their belief system, which touts a worldly rationalism and atheistic obsession with the tangible. The college students are not being taught to think for themselves, but are being taught to think like their professors who, mostly, discourage a belief in and reliance upon, God. If open-mindedness was the goal, Godly wisdom would be taught along side worldly rationalism³. We would pray for the professors, now, that they might open their minds to the truth that will set them free, and the many students they mentor into the world. Lord, their influence is very high. What they tell our children is believed by them and can often lead those who are not grounded in the truth, into very unfulfilling lives and even to the depths of hell itself. Lord, lead these professors, who have become the children's future "Sunday School teachers," to the truth that they might return to the roots of most colleges and universities—a strong belief in God.

Jesus says we must be tolerant and loving to everyone, but we must not cease shouting the truth (for there is only one truth) from the rooftops. We must never cease embracing Jesus' saving grace, given to us from the cross, nor His teachings, given to us during His ministry on earth. We must love God with all of our hearts and love each other as we love ourselves. If we love God and willingly submit to all He asks us to do through His Holy Spirit, we will have a humble and teachable spirit within us and, consequently, we will walk through the fiery relationships we have in a more joyful spirit. That's because we'll understand why we are walking through them. God has set it up that we walk through the fiery relationships so that we might learn to love unconditionally and forgive others. How else could this be done, unless we are tested? Doing this, (loving and forgiving others) actually moves God to forgive us of iniquities we cannot even see, that are hidden in the recesses of our hearts. We must love others even as they resist the fires of their lives, which they may misinterpret as coming from us! Our security in God and His process of healing our lives as we forgive others, will calm us and help us not be upset with other people. It will enable us to give the genuine unconditional love and forgiveness to others that we want God to give to us. And biblically, we are assured that He will return to us the forgiveness we give to others. See Matthew 7:2:

Mat 7:2 God will be as hard on you as you are on others! He will treat you exactly as you treat them. (CEV)

Though atheists preach an incomplete doctrine that ignores the value of the spark which animates the physical body, they must be shown Christ's love. His love for them is genuine and it must be genuine in us. Though they assume that life is something that creates itself, rather than something that has a Creator, Christians all around them could show them otherwise. God is not a delusion. God can be proved. But it requires some understanding of a couple of things Jesus taught in order to discover God's existence. In the next few chapters I will share the key that will reveal God's reality to everyone, lukewarm Christians included.

1. I understand "tangible-istic" is not a word, but I am using it as a description of someone who believes only in what is tangible. I will be using this word and its forms, throughout this book. I was initially going to use the word materialistic, but that word denotes being into money and the things that money can buy. Back

2. Visit http://www.konnections.com/Kcundick/crucifix.html for an incredibly insightful article on Christ's crucifixion from a medical point of view. In addition the article quotes more from Psalms which correctly forecasted what Jesus would go through. Back

3. It seems irrational to use the term "rational" the way we do, denying the supernatural. To me, incorporating God's supernatural nature is rational, and not doing that is irrational, but I guess that is the limitation of language. Back

Back

TOC

Next