Love God.

He is the sovereign creator, worship no other
Do not worship your creation…….idols
Do not abuse his name…..Revere his holiness

Love everyone else

Don’t lie

Don’t steal

Don’t murder

Sex is for husbands and wives

Honor your parents

Don’t covet

Rest on Sunday

These commands are not negotiable. They were either spoken by Jesus or written by the hand of God. These commands are the foundation of Christianity. And yet, a surprising percentage of Christians cannot recite them.

I have heard them described as “narrow minded”…….outdated.

The sad reality is that it is a rare day when we don’t violate one or more of them. Often, this is because we don’t give them any thought. Often, this is because we just don’t like them. But, the main reason that we violate these cardinal commands of God is that we believe that we have a better idea…….a better plan on how we should run our life……..a better idea on how the world should run. Sadly, we often violate these commands…….because we don’t know them.

And so we go through our day.

We say things that are not true.
We kill each other……either directly…….or we send an army to do it.
We abort our children.
We ignore the poverty around us.
We redefine our sex……by fiat….either by our behavior or by surgery.
We vote for politicians who do these things…….and worse.

And just how is that working out for us?

The world and our society are failing. We talk about sustainability while we destroy our society and the ecosystem that we should be caring for.

By any rational measure, we are not managing the planet well.

Now, imagine a world where we all obeyed the bedrock commands of our sovereign creator. This is a purely hypothetical exercise. Because the other guy is not going to go along.

I have always told my sons. “When trying to solve a problem…….focus on the part of the problem that you can control”.
And you cannot control what the other guy does.

What to do?

Review the commands of God.
Memorize them.
Recite them…….every day…….every hour if you need to.
Weigh what you say, think, and do against them.
And wade into a world that ignores them.

You will make a tiny change……figuratively…….a drop in the ocean.

That drop is tiny…….but it is all that you can do. More importantly…….it is all that you will be held accountable for.

Now, back to the world that I asked you to imagine…….the world where these commands are followed……by everyone. Such a world exists. In fact, that world has been promised to you.

If you want it, start with the first command.

He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?

Micah 6:8, ESV

I had a nightmare.

My three sons were taken away. They were in a large factory where they were being processed along a ragged assembly line. I could tell from the talk that they were being packaged up to be sold as human slaves. I charged down the line, trying to find them……to rescue them. I found my oldest son, the first of my sons to be saved. I continued to look for my other two sons. Then I woke up. I never found the other two.

My first waking thought was to pray, “God! strike down the evil people causing human slavery!” And I did. I prayed a hard, fervent, angry prayer.

My second thought was, “Why hasn’t God done this already?” This goes to the heart of a question that has haunted Christianity from the start:

“Why does a loving God allow suffering?”

When faced with suffering, my first response has always been to trust God: “I have to believe that God knows what he is doing”.

But, this morning, that just didn’t seem to be enough. The suffering in my nightmare was so huge…….so immediate. So I dug a little deeper.

Consider the human condition.

Suffering exists. But, it is confined to our temporal world. All suffering is temporary…….by definition. Relationship with God, on the other hand, is a function of the spiritual world. It is, by definition, eternal.

God either creates suffering……..or at the very least……..he allows it to go on. In Job, God gives Satan explicit permission to make Job suffer. Even worse, this is repeated……..which means that it is important. I have to conclude that eradicating human suffering is not God’s highest priority. Eradicating my own suffering may be my highest priority, followed by eradicating the suffering of others. But, I am not God. The fact that God allows suffering: Ukraine, Gaza, Iran, disease, crime, and much more…….tells me that God has other priorities. Human suffering may not even be one of the top ten problems on God’s “to-do” list.

Which leads me to the question: “What does God want more than anything else?”

Relationship

God wants an ongoing, daily, two way conversation. What God wants is to hear from me…….and you.

I think that it is quite possible that when a child suffering the pain of human slavery prays to God fervently…….daily……God may see that as a win. God could very well be more pleased by the relationship than he is saddened by the suffering.

We see suffering as a problem because we don’t like it………because our human priority is to make it go away.

But, God has different priorities. God’s biggest problem is not our suffering. God’s biggest problem is our relationship with him. The problem of relationship is what he is focused on. He has used…..and he will continue to use suffering to create relationship and to salvage relationship. If you don’t believe me……..just look at the cross.

The next step in my analysis is troubling.

Suppose I am driving my car and some jerk cuts me off and gives me a “one finger salute”. I respond with a blast of obscenity. In the process, I fail in my obedience to the command “love others” …..and several other commands as well. I have damaged my relationship with God. God may very well see my road rage and the damage to our relationship that it has caused as a bigger problem than the suffering of the human slave who is praying to him right now.

And there is another disturbing side of our suffering. I think you can make a strong case……..that taken as a whole, mankind spends more effort on our relationship with God when we are suffering than when we are not suffering.

Sad…….but true.

So……

The key to dealing with the problem of suffering is to focus on God’s priority……..that is…..relationship. When we focus on the suffering instead of relationship, it is because we put our priorities ahead of God’s priority.

In short:

Focus more energy on increasing your eternal relationship with God.

Focus less energy on worrying about temporary suffering.

But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

Jesus clarifying the priority of God vs. the priorities of mankind, Matthew 16:23, ESV

Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Jesus putting Peter in charge of Christianity, Matthew 16: 16-18. ESV

From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

Jesus defining secular humanism for Peter, Matthew 16: 21-23, ESV

This has always been one of the most shocking exchanges in the Bible. Think about it. Jesus puts Peter in charge of his church and 3 verses later calls him Satan!

Jesus is setting up a juxtaposition. It is the same conflict that humankind struggles with today.

On the one hand is the spiritual world revealed to man by God.

On the other hand is the secular world driven by the logic and appetites of mankind.

This conflict has several features:

These two worlds views are mutually exclusive. They cannot both be true. One of them is wrong.

Using physical facts…….using human logic……..we cannot absolutely prove or, for that matter, disprove either of them.

And yet, ultimately, every last one of us must sort this out.

Ultimately, every last one of us must choose between these two worlds views:

A world, both physical and spiritual, created by and ruled by God.

A physical world that just happened and is run by mankind.

One of these explanations is based on revelation…….given by the creator.

One of these explanations is based on things that mankind has figured out.

In each case, there are parts of the explanation that can be supported by hard historical fact.

In each case, there are parts of the explanation that cannot be proven.

And so we fill in the gaps. The Christian fills the gaps with revelations of the spiritual realm given by our creator…..God. The secular humanist fills the gaps with theories and assumptions given to us primarily by science………and this is built on human logic and observation, which is limited to the physical realm. These theories and assumptions have never been proven. These theories and assumptions are not facts…….not yet……possibly never.

And so we are left hanging.

The most important decision in the world…….in our lifetime.

And it hinges on how we weigh two imponderables:

The revelation of the spiritual world given by our creator

Or

The explanation of the physical world based on unproven……likely unprovable……theories and assumptions.

Ultimately, this decision comes down to trust.

You can trust the creator…….or you can trust the theories and assumptions…….given to you by the scientists………the same people who told Columbus that the world was flat…….the same people who told Copernicus that the earth was the center of the universe.

The clock is running.

Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Jesus putting Peter in charge of Christianity, Matthew 16: 16-18. ESV

From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

Jesus defining secular humanism for Peter, Matthew 16: 21-23, ESV

This has always been one of the most shocking exchanges in the Bible. Think about it. Jesus puts Peter in charge of his church and 3 verses later calls him Satan!

Jesus is setting up a juxtaposition. It is the same conflict that humankind struggles with today.

On the one hand is the spiritual world revealed to man by God.

On the other hand is the secular world driven by the logic and appetites of mankind.

This conflict has several features:

These two worlds views are mutually exclusive. They cannot both be true. One of them is wrong.

Using physical facts…….using human logic……..we cannot absolutely prove or, for that matter, disprove either of them.

And yet, ultimately, every last one of us must sort this out.

Ultimately, every last one of us must choose between these two worlds views:

A world, both physical and spiritual, created by and ruled by God.

Or

A physical world that just happened and is run by mankind.

One of these explanations is based on revelation…….given by the creator.

One of these explanations is based on things that mankind has figured out.

In each case, there are parts of the explanation that can be supported by hard historical fact.

In each case, there are parts of the explanation that cannot be proven.

And so we fill in the gaps. The Christian fills the gaps with revelations of the spiritual realm given by our creator…..God. The secular humanist fills the gaps with theories and assumptions given to us primarily by science………and this is built on human logic and observation, which is limited to the physical realm. These theories and assumptions have never been proven. These theories and assumptions are not facts…….not yet……possibly never.

And so we are left hanging.

The most important decision in the world…….in our lifetime.

And it hinges on how we weigh two imponderables:

The revelation of the spiritual world given by our creator

Or

The explanation of the physical world based on unproven……likely unprovable……theories and assumptions.

Ultimately, this decision comes down to trust.

You can trust the creator…….or you can trust the theories and assumptions…….given to you by the scientists………the same people who told Columbus that the world was flat…….the same people who told Copernicus that the earth was the center of the universe.

The clock is running.

Every day, we sort the people, events, and ideas that come into our lives. Arguably, the most important sorting that we do is between good and evil. This is important because we use this distinction to guide the choices that we make. We use good and evil to guide our lives.

Good is warm and fuzzy. We like to focus on the good things. Evil is another story. We avoid thinking about it. When was the last time you heard someone, in a conversation; say that something……or worse yet someone……..is evil. It has reached the point where applying the term evil to someone or something is considered rude. We prefer the term ” bad”. For the post today, I will consider all things that are not good as evil.

We tend to see good and evil as a continuum. Some things are more good……..some things are more evil……..than others. This is comforting. It allows us to classify the bad things that we do as less evil than true, full blown evil. We even add a threshold……..actually two thresholds. One of these thresholds is between good and bad. The other threshold is between bad and evil. In practice, the threshold between bad and evil is typically the line between the bad that we do and the evil that others do. Do you think that you are immune? When was the last time that you did or said or thought something that was not good…….and later, looking back, said to yourself, “that was evil”.

This brings us to the first question:

How do we sort between good and evil?

Typical human rules for sorting:

Good helps others…….evil hurts others.
Good helps me…….evil hurts me.
Good satisfies my appetites…….evil denies my appetites.
Good is pleasant……evil is painful.
Good increases my net worth…….evil decreases my net worth.
Good is easy……..evil is hard.
Good makes me happy…….evil makes me sad.
Good is the doctrine of my political party…evil is “them”.

There are more……..but these will do. We use a set of rules like these all day every day. These rules are common…….almost universal. Your personal set of sorting rules for good and evil shape almost every decision that you make.

But, are the criteria that we apply to sort between good and evil valid?

I’m afraid not.

There is a much simpler tool for sorting between good and evil.

Good draws me closer to my creator……God.
Evil eases me away from my creator.

In the final analysis…….in the final sorting, this is the criteria that God will use. It will have nothing to do with your net worth or how pleasant your life was. It will have nothing to do with how confident you are with your position on your personal “Good vs. Evil” spectrum.

Here is the scary part. When people consider their death……and what comes after……..I often hear the phrase. “I’m a good person”. And, this is a terribly important statement. The trouble is this:

Whose criteria for sorting “Good vs. Evil” are you using?

Because one of these sorting methods is not valid.

You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy (God). It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards will do the trick.

Indeed, the safest road to hell is the gradual one — the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

C.S. Lewis, a old demon explaining evil to his apprentice in “The Screwtape Letters”.

Years ago, my family took a vacation on the island of Crete. It was an extraordinary trip. While there, we toured the ruins of the palace at Knossos. This is a giant bronze age complex. As we walked around for hours, we went through dozens of “rooms”. Each room had a sign describing the features of the room and how it was used. The walls were largely covered by frescoes which also told about the history of the palace and the ancient people who occupied it, who they were and what their daily life was like. It was an eye opening education.

But, to understand the palace, we need to look at the recent history of the building. In the late 1800’s, there was a pile of dirt, some rudimentary walls, a collapsed staircase, and a stone chair. A British archeologist, Sir Arthur Evans, began digging into the pile of dirt. As he dug, he began piling up the stones he found. He arranged them into what he thought they once looked like. He painted frescoes. He reconstructed wooden columns that had completely rotted. He rebuilt the staircase. He built walls around the stone chair. He tried to recreate the bronze age palace based on the rubble that he found. But, before long, he had had little to work from except rubble. At that point he should have stopped. But he didn’t. When he ran out of historical data, he kept piling up stones……..according to his best guess as to the original design of the palace. What we have today is, in part, a restored bronze age palace…….and in part, Sir Evans’s creation, a creation based solely on his imagination.

What came next is the problem. Sir Evan’s and subsequent archeologists went through the restored palace and made up stories about how the people who occupied the palace lived. These stories were based solely on the years of reconstruction. The reconstruction was in large part created out of thin air by Sir Evan’s imagination. He called the stone chair a throne. He called the room that he built around the chair “The Throne Room”. And he put a King that he dreamed up on the throne. This tale is taught as history today. The problem is that this tale was largely created out of the imagination of Sir Evans.

Please understand, Sir Evans was not a quack or a charlatan. He was a highly respected scientist. He still is highly respected. He did what scientists do to this day. He began by studying actual physical data. But, when he ran out of data. When he ran out of walls to repair, he began speculating. He built walls out of rubble to fit the narrative that he believed. He created a myth about the Minoan civilization. That myth is taught today as history.

Scientists today do exactly the same thing. They analyse hard data and draw conclusions. But, at some point, they run out of data. They fill in the gaps using assumptions and theories. They craft these assumptions and theories to support the data and the analysis that they have already done. These assumptions and theories may some day turn out to be true…….to be supported by new data. But, until that happens, they are myths. Many of them will never be proven by data and will remain myths.

And there is the rub.

The rub is that the scientists teach the theories and assumptions as fact. And we build our lives around them. Some of them are true. Some of them are myths.

What are these theories….assumptions…..myths:

The flat earth theory
The earth is the center of the universe theory
Darwinian evolution
The missing link between man and apes
The big bang
The expanding universe
Dark energy
Dark matter
Hubble tension

There is a thread that runs through all of this “science”.

There is an assumption that undergirds it all.

That assumption?

God does not exist.

This is the greatest myth of all. And it will remain a myth until either the non-existence or the existence of God is proven…….by hard data. But……..that may be too late……for us.

Always remember this:

A chain of logic that contains 1,000 bulletproof steps and one assumption……..is an assumption……a theory…….a myth.

The greatest logical error that we can make as human beings?

To endanger our eternity on an assumption………a theory…….a myth.

The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Paul, 2 Thessalonians 2: 9-11, ESV

The Bible and Christianity explain a lot. But, they don’t explain everything.

Science explains a lot. But it doesn’t explain everything.

Both Christianity and science promise that we will learn more later. Meanwhile, both ask us to trust them. Both science and Christianity ask us to fill in the gaps that they do not explain with acts of faith.

But faith, ultimately, in what?

In the end, it comes down to faith, either in the God of the Bible or in the Great Accident.

God is powerful and active. He can, and will, create and destroy. God loves and cares for us…….for me. Moreover, God has expectations and he places requirements on us.

The Accident can create and destroy too. Experience teaches us that the accident is more likely to destroy than create. The Accident has no expectations. The Accident places no demands on us. Furthermore, the Accident is purely random. There is no intelligence behind the Accident. The Accident does not love us or hate us. In fact, it has no involvement, no relationship, with us at all. In a word, the Accident is completely indifferent to us.

So, we ask the big questions:

Where did we come from?

Why are we here?

Where are we going?

Both the Accident and God offer explanations……..answers to these questions.

But, they give us precious little hard evidence to support their explanations.

Both the Accident and God ask us to trust them. Both the Accident and God require that we fill in the gaps in the data with faith.

In the end, both the Accident and God require us to honor them by acting on faith. They both ask us to build our lives around their explanations and their demands. They both ask us to wager our future on their promises. This amounts to worshiping them.

We have grown up with the idea of the God of the Bible. You can accept his existence or deny him, but we understand him as God.

Here’s the thing.

The Accident, in terms of our relationship with him, in practice, is a God too.

He goes by many names:

Good luck
Bad luck
Karma
Kismet
Happenstance

We look at these two Gods. We weigh their demands and their promises……..and we choose.

We honor…..put our faith in….the God of the Bible.

Or

We honor…….put our faith in…..the Accident.

Both paths are acts of faith. Both paths are, in practice, acts of worship.

God makes demands and rewards us with the promise of eternal joy that grows out of his sovereignty and his love.

The Accident promises nothing but more random events, most of them destructive……..ending with our ultimate destruction…….our death. The Accident gives us nothing. But, here is the key. The Accident demands nothing from us.

We can worship the Accident which demands nothing and gives nothing.

Or

We can worship the God of the Bible who demands a relationship based on love and on his sovereignty…….and, in return, gives us eternal joy.

You can have one or the other.

But not both.

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. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

Paul comparing God and the Accident, Romans 1: 21-28, ESV

I woke up early this morning. It was still dark, so I got to watch the sunrise over the mountains. I’ve seen this hundreds of times, but it never fails to amaze me. It struck me that most of us rarely see the awesome beauty of the sunrise. Most of those who see it don’t make the connection between the beauty of the sunrise and the God who created it. Most of us see the mechanics of a spinning globe circling a ball of burning gas………and miss the heart of the being that created it. It struck me that our perception of the sunrise is a microcosm of the conflict between secular humanism and Creationism.

The humanist sees a moving ball of burning gas……the result of a giant accidental explosion 14 billion years ago. The Creationist sees the handiwork of an intelligent being who called it all into being for his own purposes. I can only speculate as to God’s motivation. I suspect that he did it all because he wants a relationship with us…….a relationship with me……based on reciprocal love…….a conversation. That conversation is how my day begins.

The central tenet of secular humanism is the complete removal of the Creator from the creation. Many of us embrace secular humanism because we want control of our lives. We chafe at the idea…..the presence……of a creator who has plans for us…….who has expectations of us. In order for the humanist to achieve control, he must accept a creation story that is built on theories and assumptions…….a series of trillions of sequential events, billions of years ago……..events that cannot be documented. You cannot collect data, then analyse that data by applying assumptions and theories, and say that your conclusion is a fact. But, scientists do just that……all day……every day.

This is the core of secular humanism. And, if you close your eyes and hold your nose, if you ignore the gaps, missing links, theories, and assumptions, if you ignore dark matter and dark energy, if you ignore the probability of a human genome consisting of several hundred billion chemical bonds…..each one a random accident……if you can commit those logical atrocities…….you can almost convince yourself that an intelligent creator, God, is not necessary. This is the price that you pay for control.

But, as I sit in my chair this morning, having a conversation with a creator who loves me more than life itself, I have to ask two questions:

What is the secular humanist giving up when he sacrifices that conversation, that relationship……….in order to gain a little temporary control of his life?

What is the secular humanist depriving God of…….in terms of the lost relationship……the lost conversation? This morning, it was about a spectacular sunrise. In a few hours, that conversation will be about things far more important.

Both God and the humanist lose out on the single most important thing in the universe…….relationship.

And that saddens me.

He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?

Micah 6:8, ESV

First, let me say that I am a committed creationist. I believe that an intelligent being created everthing………everything. I live in Kentucky, just a few miles from the Creation Museum. I will add that I am grateful for Ken Hamm and his staff for standing up for their convictions. The creation museum teaches creation in 7 twenty four hour “earth days”. That causes me to pause. I am not sure that they are right. I certainly am not sure that they are wrong either. There is no question about the existence of an intelligent creator. But, I think that there is some room for doubt about the equivalence of 7 biblical creation days and 7 modern “earth days”.

I see my calling as a marketer for Christianity. My job is to draw people to God/Jesus/Holy Spirit. My job is to depopulate hell and improve believers.

There are two ideas that are my biggest obstacles:

Darwinian evolution and creation in 7 “earth days”. Darwinian evolution is an idea created by man. Darwinian evolution is the most dangerous idea that man has ever conceived. It is deadly because it eliminates the need for God. It gives man an excuse for assuming sovereignty. I will attack it without a qualm. Creation was an act of God. But, the tension between creation in seven 24 hour days and modern science is widely used by secular humanists to ridicule the concept of creation……the concept of intelligent design. Even worse, that tension is used to ridicule the creator……..God. I cannot reject the idea of creation in 7 modern earth days…….but I think that there is room to explore it. If a biblical creation day is a metaphor describing an era, possibly lasting billions of years, then the gap between the Bible and scientific observation narrows dramatically. This eliminates one of the most powerful weapons of the secular humanists.

It all comes down to this:

What is the definition of a biblical creation day?

The secular humanists and the scientists tell us that the evolution of the universe took billions of modern earth years.

But, what does the Bible say?

Day one

He separated light and dark

Day two

He separated the water below the air from the water above

Day three

He separated earth from water and created plants

Day four

He separated the light into stars and the moon and planets

Day five

He created and separated fish and birds

Day six

He created land animals, man, and work. He separated man and woman

Day seven

He separated work from rest

So far so good.

But, notice that the stars, including our sun, did not exist until biblical day four. Our modern earth day is defined by the relationship between the earth and the sun. This relationship did not exist until Biblical day four. The day described on creation days one to three could be defined differently from a modern earth day. I think that it is entirely possible that a biblical creation day is a metaphor representing an era, possibly billions of modern earth days.

And I will leave the seven days of creation at that.

But what about the 8th day?

To be clear, day 8 is my invention. It could very well be a metaphor for an era also.

The Bible teaches that the heavens and the earth were completed in 6 days. On the 7th day God rested. But the story goes on. God was clearly not finished with his work. The rest of the Bible deals with the triumphs and failures of man. It introduces us to our rescue by Jesus. Then, it culminates with the destruction of the physical world and the creation of the New Jerusalem”. This is an eternal spiritual world. This is God’s final act of creation. Could this be day 8 of creation? Could day 8 be the end of the temporal/physical world and its conversion into God’s eternal/spiritual world?

Back to the acts of separation:

The Bible clearly teaches that there will be a final act of separation. This final separation will be catastrophic for many of us. God will separate the people, the souls, that he has created into two groups. He will take the people who have chosen to have a relationship with him, based on his sovereignty, and draw them to him for eternity. This is the “New Jerusalem”………Heaven. Those people who have rejected the sovereignty of God…….. those who have embraced the sovereignty of secular humanism…..will be sent elsewhere. We can quibble about the details…….but hell will not be nice.

Like it or not, Christians will spend eternity with God. Secular Humanists will spend eternity elsewhere. The horror of this is that there are a lot of good people, kind people, nice people who will be on the wrong side of this final sorting. As Christians, we are required to reach out to them.

“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”Jesus, describing the final judgement, Matthew 13: 24-30, ESV

I just watched a movie……Greenland. It was pretty good entertainment……..lots of action, talented actors, and a fast moving plot. The condensed version is that a comet slams into earth and kills almost everything. This is referred to as “a planetary extinction event”. Science tells us that this has happened before……..at least 5 times, maybe more, depending on how you define the term.

The best known of these was the Yucatan asteroid. This caused the death of about 80% of the living things on earth……..including the dinosaurs. It doesn’t take a lot of foresight to accept that anything that has happened 5 times already can happen again. It is not so much a question of IF there will be a planetary extinction event. It is more a question of when. Every few years, scientists detect a giant space rock that passes close to earth. They assure us that it will miss……..that we will literally dodge the bullet one more time. There are likely plans to try to blow up or deflect such an asteroid should it threaten us.

Curiously, mass extinction is an area where science and the Bible agree. The flood of Noah’s time, described in Genesis, was just such an event. Revelation is a detailed, though likely metaphorical account of a future mass extinction event. In the Bible, as with science, the only question………is when.

Science and the Bible agree.

We are headed for a mass extinction event. It’s just a matter of time.

What to do?

If the secular humanists are right, the only defense is to die from something else before the comet hits. As “best possible case scenarios” go…….this is daunting.

The Bible offers something else……..a spiritual dimension…….a cosmic “escape pod”. We go to another dimension that is safe. Even better……it is eternal. Pretty cool.

But there is a catch.

In the movie, there is a sanctuary. In order to get into the sanctuary, you have to have a bar code on your phone and a little blue plastic band on your wrist.

The Bible is different. The Bible teaches that there is an eternal spiritual dimension……..that both the physical world and the spiritual world were created by an intelligent being…….and that this intelligent being, God, has expectations……….conditions. Instead of a blue wrist band and a bar code. God requires you to accept his existence. This means that you accept his rules…….love him and love those around you. Do that, and you will survive the final mass extinction event.

The burning question is this:

Who is right? The secular humanists or the Christians. Which explanation of the final mass extinction event is true.

It is not an academic or philosophical question. It is literally a choice between life and death.

Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.

Jesus describing the escape pod, John 14: 1-3, ESV