Saturday, January 5, 2019

IMAGINE GOD CHANGING YOUR FUTURE


Excerpt from the book IMAGINE THE FUTURE YOU, by Ada Brownell


Also available in Audio. Read or listen to first chapter free! #Teens #Family #Devotions


The Creator of the universe loves you and will guide you into blessed tomorrows.




God— the One who is, who always has been, and who always will be, is the most important person you can meet. He is your Creator, and what your future is like depends on your relationship with Him.

I know more and more young people are atheists today. This is by design by the secularists who write curriculum, teach in our schools, the universities, and have taken over our government and media. As I’ve said before, there is active brain washing to assure you won’t believe in God.

I’ve said many times in the past “atheism is the opiate of the sinner.” If wicked people at least think they don’t believe in God, it helps quiet their conscience. But their conscience won’t quit, so they blame it on other people . Apparently they know what Christians believe is real, so they target Christians. They think stopping the influence of Christianity will help them feel better in their sinful state. That is why religious freedom is in danger in the United States.

So, your future is wrapped in whether you believe in the God of the universe. For that reason I will present the truths to you in this chapter you might not have heard.

Besides creating you, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”[1] That’s the opening verse of the Bible—Genesis 1:1.

That sentence is where the debate begins, but it’s nothing new. Atheists and agnostics argue extensively on this subject. Yet, they can’t prove God is not there. Neither, however, have Christians proved without a shadow of doubt God is the Creator and interested in humankind.

Because we can’t prove how we got here, atheism takes faith, as much or more faith than it takes to believe in a loving God. To be an atheist, man must be­lieve the eyes he sees with and everything he sees and even things he can’t see just happened, including the origin of matter, life and the exact mixture in the air we breathe: nitrogen, oxygen, water, argon, carbon dioxide and trace gases.

IMAGINE HOW YOU GOT HERE

Now, some Christians do believe in evolution—but with God starting the process. But those who believe in God don’t believe the universe or the magnificent human body happened by itself.

Most secular professors and teachers will not hesitate to tell you what to believe and not believe about your origins, but even scientists disagree.

One of the most interesting debates on evolution occurred in October 1980, when 150 scientists met in Chicago and began openly bickering among themselves, thundering forth conflicting theories.

Some scientists at this conference promulgated the “big bang theory.[2] This theory, obviously not the TV show, contends that instead of millions of leisurely evolution­ary years, the world began all at once, Bang!, in a great galactic explosion of atoms and enzymes.

Darwin’s theory also came under attack from scientists—because missing links are still missing after more than a century since Darwin.

“Fossil hunters have not found the fossils needed to explain the glar­ing differences between major species,” Associated Press newspaper columnist Hugh A. Mulligan reported. “In the whole cycle of environmental selection, with all the genes and embryos playing splitsville according to the evolutionary plan, no six-legged vertebrate has yet walked forth upon the earth.”

Science has pro­vided few or none of the examples of one major species shading gradually into another.

Fossil experts, not clergymen, are Darwin’s most formidable opponents, according to Phillip E. Johnson, author of Darwin on Trial.[3] Although Darwin’s theory revolved around survival of the fittest, paleontologists often disagree with Darwin because appearance of an improved form implies a disadvantage of its parent form. Many supposed parent forms still survive, and the missing links just aren’t there, even though they’ve been searched for since 1859, when Darwin wrote Origin of the Species.

“There always will be missing links if we think in terms of link between all change,” a university anthropologist argued when I interviewed him. He said changes in Darwin’s theory have occurred, the most recent the theory of “punctuated equilibrium,” which he explained relates to the time taken for one species to shade into another.

“A form which had been a small variant, might have great rapid growth,” he said.

He used the doubling of chromosomes in some species as an example of radical change in a short period.

On the other hand, he admitted such doubling could be caused by the environment and also that most mutations are undesirable rather than desirable.

He used a fruit fly as an example of a species with a short life span where such changes in chromosomes could be observed. But he admitted the insect still was a fruit fly.

“It is very difficult for an average scientist to test evolution,” he said. “Our lives are too short and the research too specialized. The theory is the result of collective effort.”

IMAGINE OUTDATED TEXTBOOKS

One psychology professor openly ridiculed Christians in one of my university classes with more than seventy students. As the instructor made sarcastic remarks about Christians in the news and preached his atheistic ideas, I wondered why no one challenged him. One day I raised my hand.

 “You said this textbook will be outdated in ten years,” I began. “So what you are saying today might not be true in ten years?”

The questions flowed.

“Can you prove evolution? Isn’t it true you accept it by faith? Are you aware that many scientists have thrown out missing links because they couldn’t find them? Did you know scientists are even putting forth the idea that man might have fallen from outer space?

“How did creation turn out so perfectly without a Designer? Why aren’t monkeys turning into hu­mans now?”

He admitted that, yes, the textbooks and the theories and knowledge in them would soon be outdated; that he didn’t have all the answers; and, “Yes, we do accept some things by faith. But when something is universally accepted, we treat it as fact.”

I should have asked, “Then because the God of creation and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ are universally accepted, that should be treated as fact?”

A few weeks later, I asked a science teacher if the first and second laws of thermodynamics violated evolution. The teacher had opened the class on the environment by stating everything would be based on evolution.

No more than thirty-five pages into the text, Living in the Environment, by G. Tyler Miller Jr., the class was studying the law of energy degradation, also known as the second law of thermodynamics. The law states that matter, if left to itself and undergoing physical or chemical changes, will always change in the direction of decreased order and decreased energy content. The entire universe obeys this law, and this includes every chemical reaction.

In words plain and simple, the law means anything left to itself will slowly fall apart. Every time you see an old barn with the roof sagging and the walls falling in, you see demonstration of this law. Despite galaxies thought to be expanding (are they expanding, or are we increasing our knowledge?), scientists will tell you the entire universe is slowing down, growing old, and, as the saying goes, is running out of steam.

The second energy law also tells us energy tends to flow or change spontaneously from a compact and ordered form to a dispersed and random, or disordered, form.

“No one has ever found a violation of this law,” Miller states.[4]

When the teacher read that, I put up my hand. “Isn’t evolution a violation of this law?”

In order for evolution to occur, many complex chemical changes must take place, and they must all be in the direction of in­creased order and energy to move from the simple to the com­plex.

The teacher paused a moment, cleared his throat, and said, “Well, evolution is the only violation.”

The theory of evolution also violates the first law of thermodynamics, which simply says energy (or matter) neither can be created nor destroyed.

A story goes that God and Satan were having a discussion.

“I can do anything you can,” Satan said, stretching his puny body so he looked taller.

God smiled. “OK. Make a man.”

Satan bent over and began scraping up dirt.

God grabbed his shoulder. “Use your own dirt.”

IMAGINE DECEPTION

In the camp of atheism, we even have deception. Among attempts to “prove” evolution, we have the Piltdown Man, which for forty years was acclaimed as the “missing evolutionary link.” In 1952 it was proved to be a hoax designed by Charles Dawson. The skull actually was the cranium of a man and the jaw of an ape. The specimen was believed to be a million years old before it was discovered to be a fraud. The teeth had been filed and stained to suggest age.

Among other attempted deceptions was the Solid Muldoon, which ap­peared to be a petrified giant with a tail about three inches long at the base of the spine. The figure was dug up in 1877 near Pueblo, Colorado.

The Solid Muldoon was exhibited by W. A. Conant, the “discoverer,” and George Hull, who planned to show the figure with P. T. Barnum, the showman. But scientists were skeptical because Hull exhibited another “petrified man” known as the Cardiff Giant. Hull later confessed he and a stonecutter carved the “giant” out of stone and buried it for “discovery.”

Hull finally admitted that, in an attempt to make the Solid Muldoon appear authentic, he made it from pulverized stone and bones, clay, blood, plaster, and dried eggs. He pounded the “skin” with a needle-studded mallet to give it “pores.” Then it was fired in a kiln for two weeks.

Now, even a person who rejects evolution must admit there are few blatant decep­tions such as these in the scientific realm today. But that is not to say you can rest your future and eternal destiny on science.

IMAGINE NEW EVIDENCE

New evidence makes it necessary to continually revise the theory of evolution. In fact, according to US News and World Report, the theory is radically being revised.[5]

An article several years ago by William F. Allman says, “The branches of the human family tree are being given a thorough shaking.”

One of the recent shakings, Allman said, concerns Lucy, a primate thought by evolutionists to walk upright and represent the oldest known human ancestor. But he said a number of distinct creatures, and possibly ten different species of upright, large-brained ape-like creatures, have been discovered, changing thought about Lucy’s species being the evolutionary link. Some creationists discount Lucy entirely because pygmy chimps wander about upright much of the time in rain forests today.

One of the most hotly debated issues among experts on human origins concerns Neanderthals—stocky, primitive hominids thought to be a direct ancestor of modern humans.

Researchers recently recovered DNA from a Neanderthal fossil and decoded it to see how closely it resembles human DNA. The Neanderthal DNA differed from human DNA in twenty-seven places, while human DNA differs from person to person by an average of just eight variations in genetic sequence.[6]

The author of the article in US News and World Report concluded the DNA tests showed Neanderthal men died out and were not the ancestors of modern humans.

The “prehistoric” models used by evolutionists also are sometimes built on a very few bones and often rely on artists for fossil reconstruction. For instance, Science Magazine showed a half whale and a half land animal on its cover on April 22, 1983, and according to Dave Nutting of the Alpha Omega Institute in Grand Junction, Colorado, the picture was reconstructed from teeth, a small fragment of the jaw, and one bone at the back of the skull.[7]

IMAGINE CREATION

 One of the biggest stumbling blocks to belief among educated people is the idea that the Earth was created in six days.

Recently a young man asked, “But how can Christians be right? I heard someone counted genealogies of the Bible and figured the Earth is about six thousand years old. We know it’s older than that!”

Do we? How do we know scientific dating is correct? During the early 1960s in Leadville, Colorado, I worked at the Leadville Herald Democrat and did a story on the town’s old opera house. On display in a small museum at the opera house was what appeared to be a petrified foot in a high-topped shoe. The toe of the shoe was torn and a very real-looking big toe and toenail protruded from the end. Every detail, including the eyelets and strings, appeared real, but the shoe and foot, broken off above the ankle, were stone. The specimen was found in a mine.

Years later I tried to find this artifact again to get more information, but it was gone from the opera house, and I couldn’t discover where it was taken.

Dr. Carl Baugh of Creation Evidences Museum in Glen Rose, Texas, believes man and dinosaurs walked together. In his museum is a fossilized human finger and fossilized human footprints in dinosaur paw prints. He says there are other human and dinosaur footprints together in the Paluxy River Basin in Texas.[8]

Baugh[9] believes Earth’s atmospheric pressure before the flood in Noah’s day was 2.18 times what it is today, and the air was super oxygenated—enabling dinosaurs to live and pterosaurs to fly. Ultraviolet light was filtered out, and this atmosphere also gave man a longer life span.[10]

Dating methods are being challenged by some of today’s Christian scientists. The potassium-argon dating method, which dates the Earth’s age in billions of years, is said by scientists to be valid because of the amount of time needed to make evolution seem reasonable, say textbook authors Emmett L. Williams, a former metallurgical engineering professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, and George Mulfinger Jr., a physics specialist (Physical Science for Christian Schools). [11] The dating method, however, assumes no argon was present when the rocks were formed. Yet, when volcanic rocks known to have been formed in 1800 to 1801 were tested, their age was said to range between 160 million and three billion years!

The radiocarbon dating method also is challenged by Williams and Mulfingers, who say it is unreliable because the calibration curve cuts off at about five thousand years ago and because the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere does not remain constant and appears to be continually increasing.

But suppose scientific dating is correct. It does nothing to undermine faith in God. Many Bible-believing Christians accept a very old Earth.

Often people try to make the Bible say something it doesn’t. The Bible doesn’t say the Earth was created in six twenty-four-hour days, although some people believe it was. Neither does the Bible say when “the beginning” was.

Here are some Christian ideas about the days of creation:

 Twenty-four Days of Re-creation: The belief there was a creation before Adam that was somehow destroyed. (This idea leaves a gap of time between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2.)

Age-Long Days of Creation: The belief that creation occurred over six different ages that could have been thousands of years in length.

 Revelatory Days of Creation: The idea that the days had nothing to do with creation but with the amount of time God took giving Moses, the writer of the Book of Genesis, information about creation.

Twenty-four-hour days of creation: The belief that God literally created the Earth and all that is in it in six twenty-four-hour days, as we know days.

So when Genesis says, “So the evening and the morning were the first day,” “The evening and the morning were the second day,” and so forth until God rested on the seventh day, the length of time can be interpreted several ways.

One thing that makes me believe in a young Earth is population. Scientists use the “population J curve” to show exponential growth of the number of humans. The “J curve” is any system that grows by doubling—one, two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, etc., or geometric growth.

Experts estimate the world’s population was two hundred million in 1 AD and population continued to double and double until 1850—the curve of the J— when eight hundred million people lived on the Earth. Estimates and censuses showed two billion by 1930, three billion in 1960, four billion in 1976, five billion in 1990, six billion in 2002, and an estimated seven billion in 2011.

It took nearly two thousand years to quadruple the number of people from the time Jesus walked the earth but only eighty years for the population to grow from one to two billion between 1850 and 1930 and twelve years to grow a billion between 1990 and 2002. The US Census Bureau estimated the world population to be 7.073 billion in 2012.

 This increase is despite diebacks because of disease and epidemics, natural catastrophes, and wars. In my mind, there is no way man could have been here millions of years. Again, science uses millions of years to make evolution seem plausible because we can’t see any evidence for it in a lifetime of one hundred years.

 But the length of time that it took to create the Earth is not exceedingly important. What is important is that we know and believe Genesis 1:1, that “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

The whole world’s scientific thought constantly changes and often contradicts what scientists thought was solid evidence. On the other hand, the Creator and his witness never change and will never be outdated.

IMAGINE EVIDENCE FOR FAITH

It is not difficult to believe in God. Archaeology has found evidence for many decades to support much of the Bible’s historical information. Cities mentioned in the Bible have been discovered. According to the Biblical Archaeology Society, on July 18, 2013, the Israel Antiquities Authority reported in a news release: King David’s Palace was uncovered in the Judean Shephelah.

The Pool of Siloam where Jesus healed a blind man was discovered after excavations in the Jerusalem. From reports, another pool was thought to be the Pool of Siloam, but when this one about the size of two football fields was discovered along with a series of steps leading down to the pool. The pool was uncovered by a Jerusalem utility crew. Work was halted and archaeologists took over.

The pool is at the end of an amazing aqueduct discovered in 1838 by American biblical scholar Edward Robinson. The tunnel was far more spectacular than anyone imagined, hewn out of solid rock and 1,750 feet long. Skeptics claim the tunnel must have been created more recently than 1,700 years ago, but analysis of the ancient writing found in the tunnel, carbon 14 dating of the plant life disrupted by the tunnel, and uranium-thorium dating of stalactites and stalagmites that grew after completing of the tunnel, support a date of around 700 BC, the date given in the Bible.

Why did Hezekiah build the canal?

At about that time, the Assyrian Army led by King Sennacherib conquered nearly every prominent town in the southern kingdom of Judah. Israel lay in ruins. Sennacherib’s strategy was to cut off all food and water outside the fortified city walls, then when the people inside were near death from thirst and starvation, begin the siege.

When King Hezekiah heard what was happening around Jerusalem, he sought the Lord, and built a tunnel, a canal, from the springs outside the city through solid rock to bring water under the wall and to the people. You can read about it in 2 Kings 18-20 and 2 Chronicles 32.

There is much more archaeological evidence to support the Bible.  Ancient writings also have been found that verify people mentioned in scripture lived at the time described.

 Archaeologists have found so much evidence for the Bible accuracy it takes books to tell it.

 Fulfilled prophecies also show the Bible is something on which we can depend. The Jews returning from being scattered over the earth after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD and Israel becoming a nation in 1948 fulfill Ezekiel’s prophecy concerning the valley of dry bones. You may remember the song about the “dry bones” connecting.

 Fervent study of scripture reveals many fulfilled prophecies.

IMAGINE EARTH THE WAY GOD MADE IT



Anyone who will look with an open mind will see that creation is “programmed” the way God designed it. Species reproduce only after their kind. The body returns to dust—from which the Bible says it came.

If we look at creation, there is too much perfection to be attributed to chance.

It is with awe toward the Creator that we see not one but two kinds of humans, animals, insects, reptiles, birds, and fish—which keep reproducing to populate Earth. Doesn’t it take too much faith to believe two kinds evolved so per­fectly so as to join together and have the capacity to create others just like them?

Any part of the human body or any other part of cre­ation defies explanation outside of the design of Almighty God.

 More evidence for faith surrounds us. The power of God at work in the lives of men and women today is a great testimony. First, a personal relationship with God is the only thing that really satisfies the soul of man. Even if we have access to everything the world has to offer, if we don’t know God, we have emptiness.

IMAGINE WHY FAITH IS IMPORTANT TO YOUR FUTURE

Dr. Andrew Newberg, neuroscientist and author of Why We Believe What We Believe, says our brains seem to have a special place for faith. He has tracked how the human brain processes religion and spirituality. It's all part of a new field called neurotheology.[12]

Newberg says the frontal lobe, the area right behind our foreheads, helps us focus our attention in prayer and meditation. The parietal lobe, located near the back of our skulls, is the seat of our sensory information. He says this place in the brain is involved in that feeling of becoming part of something greater than one’s self. The limbic system, nestled deep in the center, regulates our emotions and is responsible for feelings of awe and joy.

Newberg says similar areas of the brain are affected during prayer and meditation. He suggests brain scans may provide proof that our brains are built to believe in God. He says there may be universal features of the human mind that actually make it easier for us to believe in a higher power.

 I believe people search for God because of the “God-shaped void” within. If they haven’t heard the Gospel or reject it, they worship the earth, an idol they know is nothing but a figure humans created, or devise their own religion—even making unbelief into doctrine.

IMAGINE GOD GIVING YOU JOY AND PEACE

Besides satisfying the longings deep within us, we can see other results of the Lord in the lives of men and women today. When people accept Jesus Christ as Savior, their lives are changed for the better. They won’t be perfect, but they will be much better individuals than they were before they came to know God.

Parents who neglected their families begin to care for them. They clean up their lives and become solid, dependable individuals. The Bible says they are “new creatures in Christ Jesus. Old things are passed away. Behold all things become new.”[13]

 If someone claims to be a Christian but doesn’t turn from sin, however, he probably didn’t submit himself to God. By the same token if they say they know God, and no longer walk in obedience to Him, they are not Christians.

In addition to changed lives, if a person gets to know a Christian well he will learn of many answers to prayer. In most Bible-believing churches, all you would need to do is ask, “What is the greatest answer to prayer you’ve experienced?” I’ve done that and discovered many wonderful testimonies: God turning a forest fire from a home; a man with a head injury from a motorcycle accident back to work in six weeks—after doctors said he probably would never work again; a slowly dying child healed; God keeping a rainstorm behind a highway paving machine for three days so a man with a large family could work. 

We’ve experienced miracles in our family—a daughter thought to have multiple sclerosis totally healthy years later; a son where tests showed he had only 40 percent kidney function, but later tests determined his kidneys worked perfectly. Our six youngest grandchildren are miracles, four because of pregnancy issues of their mothers, and the last two loving gifts of adoption.

God doesn’t always work the way we wish. We lost a daughter to cancer, but the Lord was our Comforter and gave peace. He does great things in answer to prayer.

In the church, especially, one can see the work of the Holy Spirit, which Jesus promised He would send when He went away, drawing men and women to salvation, filling them with power, and teaching them.

When all information for belief in God or all information for belief in atheism is given, however, there is still room for doubt.

Why would God leave room for doubt?

IMAGINE YOUR FAITH

Because faith is necessary for salvation. The Bible states, “Without faith it is impossible to please him. For he that cometh to him must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”[14]

In another scripture the Bible says, “All who believe in God’s Son have everlasting life.”[15]

If God’s existence could be proved, there would be no reason for faith!

When the whole matter of man’s existence on Earth is questioned, there is nothing to settle it—but faith. So why not believe in God? It’s the only thing that makes sense.

Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ International, said he has never seen a single individual who has honestly considered the evidence who was unable to believe in God. But he has seen some who are unwilling to believe.[16]

Belief is a matter of the will. God created man with freedom of choice. We aren’t forced to serve or obey him. Adam and Eve had that choice from the beginning, and so do we. We can serve false gods, Satan, or ourselves if we choose.

It is only when we choose to believe in the Creator that we begin to build our life on the Rock where the hurricanes of life can’t destroy us.

God’s love was demonstrated when He sent His only Son to die, arise from the tomb, and be the Savior of sinful men. Belief in God the Father is not enough, however. Devils believe and tremble (James 2:19). We also must believe and confess Jesus Christ as Lord (Romans 10:9) and obediently follow Him and His Word.



[1] Genesis 1:1
[2] Charles Percival, Pueblo Chieftain, Aug. 9, 1992, page 6B.
[3] Darwin on Trial (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 45.
[4] G. Tyler Miller Jr., Living in the Environment (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co.), 34–43.
[5] William F. Allman, “A Family Legacy for Lucy,” US News & World Report, April 11, 1994, 55.
[6] Laura Tangley, “Not So Close After All,” US News and World Report, July 21, 1997, 9.
[7] Pueblo Chieftain, Pueblo, CO, Jan. 12, 1991, page 1B; and The Alpha Omega Institute, bulletin, Grand Junction, CO.
[8] Ada Brownell, Pueblo Chieftain, Nov. 4, 1989, 1B; and Carl Baugh and Dr. Clifford Wilson, Dinosaur (Orange CA: Promise Publishing Co., 1987).
[9] Baugh’s credentials for making these claims are challenged by some experts, however, and even some creationists are skeptical about the Paluxy footprints, although they are in a protected national or state park.
[10] Carl Baugh, Panorama of Creation (Oklahoma City, OK: Southwest Radio Church), 55-62.
[11] Bob Jones University Press, Greenville, SC, 1974, 271.
[12] CNN report by A. Chris Gajilan on April 4, 2007.
[13] 2 Corinthians 517
[14] Hebrews 11:6KJ
[15] John 3:36
[16] Josh McDowell, Foreword, Evidence That Demands a Verdict (San Bernardino, CA: Here’s Life Publishers Inc., San Bernardino, CA, 1979).

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