Responding to Atheists: The God I know

Responding to Atheists: The God I know

[Originally written in 2009]

In my travels through Cyberspace I’ve had the opportunity to engage in fervent discussion with several fellow travelers of the, shall we say Atheistic persuasion. And the one thing most of them seem to have in common is an arrogant disdain for anything Christian.

Why is that I wonder?

I am a Christian.

Have been for 21 years, actually August 11th 2009 was my 21st anniversary of receiving Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. It happened in my living room on a Thursday evening surrounded by my wife and three other really great friends, but that’s another story, for another time.

I wrote an article some time ago and published it on Gather.com entitled, “Speaking in Tongues: The Baptism of the Holy Spirit Pt 2” which is the second part of an article written to help Christians who may want to experience Holy Spirit baptism and begin speaking in tongues, but may not know how to go about it.

This article has spawned close to 100 comments so far, a lot of which were written by my fellow Atheist Cyber-pilgrims.

Why do Atheists feel they have to respond to everything Christian on the web? That’s the question that’s been needling me in the back of my head for a while now.

I wasn’t thinking about it consciously but this morning as I began waking up these thoughts were swimming around my mind and I decided to put pen to paper or more accurately finger to keyboard and share my thoughts with the Cyber-community at large and especially with my God-denying comrades.

So, here is a little bit of info about the God I know; the God with whom I have been sharing a personal and intimate relationship for the past 21 years.

You cannot prove God exists!!!

I’ve heard that famous Atheistic challenge spewed more than once.

The thing is I don’t feel the need to prove anything to anyone. Believe what you want, that’s your funeral.

However, I don’t just believe God exists I know He does! He’s my friend, we have a relationship.

I’ve been walking and talking with Him for 21 years. If I were to stand here and tell you that I only believe but I’m not totally sure He’s real I’d be a crazy man.

Whom have I been speaking with every day for 21 years of my life? Whom have I been having daily conversations with ever since I was first introduced to Him on Thursday August 11th 1988 at about 4:30PM in my living room?

I know exactly who He is He is the Lord Jesus Christ God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth! He is the Holy Spirit who lives inside me imparting eternal life moment by moment, He’s God the Father who shows me daily what a real father is supposed to be like.

There’s one other thing I find consistent with most Atheists. For the most part they seem to be highly educated and intelligent people. They can carry their own in almost any conversation and debate the issues with relevant points of reference.

I like that.

What I don’t like is when they assume that Born Again Christians are by definition mindless religious drones that have all been lobotomized and need to be viewed with patronizing scorn and treated with veiled contempt.

That rankles me – Especially when the Christian world-view is infinitely more sensible than the Atheistic.

It’s interesting to me that most of the Atheists I’ve spoken with seem to think there’s something inherently foolish in one believing in and worshipping God and believing in the Bible and the Lord Jesus Christ when many of earth’s foremost scholars share these very beliefs.

For instance, when asked the question: “Do you accept the historical Jesus?”

Here’s what one noted scientist answered:

“Unquestionably! No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life.”

This same scientist further stated:

“In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views.”

Who was this scientist?

You may have heard of him, he was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to Quantum Theory and for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect.

He is one of the founders of modern physics and the author of the Theory of Relativity. In December 2000 he was named “the personality of the second millennium.”

His name is Albert Einstein; arguably the smartest man that ever lived, after King Solomon and Jesus, of course.

My Atheist friend, the next time you’re tempted to call a Christian by some derogatory name, make a snide remark about his faith or insinuate that he or she is not playing with a full deck, I advise you to think carefully before speaking.

There’s a saying that goes, “It is better to remain silent and thought a fool than to speak up and remove all doubt.”

“Atheism is so senseless. When I look at the solar system, I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance”

“This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of His dominion He is wont to be called Lord God.”

This is the God I know, the same One who wakes me up every morning, the very One who protects me when I don’t even realize I need protecting. He’s also the same God with whom I get angry at times when I think He’s being unfair or moving too slow to bring me something I desperately want.

He’s the same God who sees me with all my human weaknesses and inconsistencies and loves me in spite of it all, He’s the One who respects me even when I don’t think I deserve respect, who always lifts me up and encourages me especially when I don’t feel like going on.

This is the God I know.

This is the same God who died for you and I so that each of us might have a chance at redemption.

This God is real and has a plan for each of our lives, one that if followed will reap for us both temporal and eternal benefits.

This is the God I know.

By the way; that entire quote above from the words, “Atheism is so senseless” to “He is wont to be called Lord God” aren’t my words.

Those words were actually spoken by Sir Isaac Newton.

In case you don’t know who he is, let me introduce you.

Sir Isaac Newton was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist and theologian. He’s the founder of Classical Physics and Infinitesimal Calculus.

His “Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica” published in 1687, is said to be the greatest single work in the history of science. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries and is the basis for all modern engineering.

He’s the one who said, “Atheism is senseless!”

What do you think about that? Is Sir Isaac Newton a mindless drone who can’t think for himself and needs religion to comfort his feeble mind? What say you?

Call me stupid for being a Christian and believing the Bible but if I were you my Atheist friend, I would pay attention to who’s agreeing with Christians, before I open my mouth.

In his book Pensées, Blaise Pascal wrote: “Jesus Christ is a God whom we approach without pride and before whom we humble ourselves without despair.”

“We know God only by Jesus Christ. Without this mediator, all communion with God is taken away; through Jesus Christ we know God. All those who have claimed to know God, and to prove Him without Jesus Christ, have had only weak proofs. But in proof of Jesus Christ we have the prophecies, which are solid and palpable proofs.

And these prophecies, being accomplished and proved true by the event, mark the certainty of these truths and, therefore, the divinity of Christ. In Him, then, and through Him, we know God.”

In reference to the prophecies Pascal mentioned let me explain that the Old Testament has over 300 prophetic references to the Messiah and every one of them was fulfilled by Jesus Christ, conclusively establishing Him as the Messiah, the Son of God.

By using the science of probability we find that for just eight of these prophecies to be fulfilled in one man it would take a probability of one in 100 trillion!

Let’s put that into perspective, shall we?

If we took 100 trillion silver dollars marked only one of them and laid them on the ground they would cover the entire state of Texas two feet deep. Now, mix the whole pile up and instruct someone to find the marked one – Blindfolded.

What chance would he have of picking the marked one?

The same chance the Bible writers would have in having 8 of these prophecies fulfilled in the life of one man if they weren’t divinely inspired by God.

What about having 48 of these Bible prophecies fulfilled in one man’s life?

The chance of any one man fulfilling all of 48 prophecies is one in ten to the 157th power.

The electron is about as small an object as we can get. If we had a cubic inch of these electrons and tried to count them, it would take us (at 250 per minute) 19,000 times 19,000 times 19,000 years to count them. Now mark one of them, mix them up and have our blindfolded guy find the right one.

What are his chances?

The same chance as one man fulfilling 48 of the prophecies about Christ without Him actually being the Son of God!

Now here’s the clincher, Jesus Christ fulfilled not 8, not 48 but all 300 prophecies in His life!

Now, you tell me, is He worthy to be worshipped as God Almighty or not?

Am I stupid for trusting and relying in the truth of the Bible?

(The above illustration is paraphrased from an article by Dennis Crawford)

Pascal went on to say:

“Not only do we know God by Jesus Christ alone, but we know ourselves only by Jesus Christ. We know life and death only through Jesus Christ. Apart from Jesus Christ, we do not know what is our life, nor our death, nor God, nor ourselves. Thus without the Scripture, which has Jesus Christ alone for its object, we know nothing, and see only darkness and confusion in the nature of God and in our own nature.”

What I glean from Pascal’s words is simply this; in order to understand the nature of life and the world around us, to find true purpose and gain the ability to fulfill such purpose one must come into intimate contact with the Author of it all, The Lord Jesus Christ, who is the central object of the Holy Scriptures.

One must submit and receive the free gift of eternal life, only then will we be able to understand clearly enough to make the necessary adjustments in our lives and achieve true lasting success!

But who is this Blaise Pascal and why should we listen to him anyway?

He was a physicist and philosopher. A child prodigy and mathematician of the first order who helped create two major new areas of research. He wrote a significant treatise on the subject of projective geometry at the age of sixteen, and later corresponded with Pierre de Fermat on probability theory, strongly influencing the development of modern economics and social science.

His earliest work was in the natural and applied sciences where he made important contributions to the construction of mechanical calculators, the study of fluids, and clarified the concepts of pressure and vacuum by generalizing the work of Evangelista Torricelli. Pascal also wrote in defense of the scientific method.

I have much more to say but won’t weary you with more verbiage at this time. Let’s save some for later, shall we?

For now, I trust that this article will provide some food for thought for all my fellow Cyber-travelers and especially for my Atheist friends.

May God deliver us from our ignorance and bless us with divine wisdom!

5 Facts to Know Before You Leave Earth

5 Things Everyone Needs to Know Before Leaving Earth

1. Evolution never has been and cannot be proven scientifically.

The Scientific Method states that Hypotheses must be observed and measured before they can be considered factually accurate.

The Theory of Evolution, as a Hypothesis cannot be observed nor measured therefore it cannot be quantified scientifically.

It is rather, a belief system that must be taken on faith, and based on the stark lack of verifiable evidence, blind faith at that.

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2. Atheism is a temporary delusional condition.

It’s a delusion for several reasons, two of which are listed below:

A. The Law of Biogenesis states that life must come from life, therefore the First Cause of life in the universe must be, not only a Living Entity but an Eternal Life-giving Entity.

B. Human DNA has been classified as code or information which, by nature must be sourced from an Intelligent Mind.

These two points alone confirm that Human Life must have originated from an Eternal Life-giving Entity with an Intelligent Mind… Now, who does that sound like so far?

Atheism is temporary because at Judgement every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Philippians 2:10-11

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3. The Bible is the only historically and scientifically accurate text that promises the assurance of, and clearly defines the path to Eternal Salvation.

The Bible’s prophetic accuracy, the continuity of it’s text between the Old and New Testaments and the macro and micro codes such as, Equidistant Letter Sequences (ELS) discovered throughout it’s pages confirm it could only have been sourced from and originated in a Divine Mind that exists outside the dimensionality of Time.

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4. Groups, Clubs or Nations don’t get saved… Only individuals do.

Christianity is a personal experience, it would be error therefore, to judge Christianity only by observing other Christians.

Firstly, not everyone who says they are a Christian really is.

Secondly, even among true Christians it takes many years to mature spiritually enough to consistently and accurately represent Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God.

However, it is safe to judge Christianity by the life of Jesus Christ and by the Gospel Message itself.

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5. At your Judgement when you stand before God there is only one salient question you will be asked… What did you do with the free gift of Salvation?

There will be no reasoning, no negotiating, no pleading… Indeed, the “right time” is now. Today is the day of salvation. 2nd Corinthians 6:2

Today is YOUR day of salvation!

Former Atheists Quotes

44 Quotes From Former Atheists

by James Bishop

Here follows a list of quotes I’ve collected and compiled from over the last two or so years (my digital quote library is bursting at its edges!).

There is no particular form that these quotes take, rather each is from the unique story of each former atheist.

Where possible, I’ve left links that readers can follow to find out more about each conversion testimony, or articles that they’ve authored.

The others are predominantly from books that I’ve read.

 

Wallace is a cold-case homicide detective, assistant professor of Apologetics at Biola University, Christian case maker and author. He was once a vocal atheist.

• “In the end, I came to the conclusion that the gospels were reliable eyewitness accounts that delivered accurate information about Jesus, including His crucifixion and Resurrection. But that created a problem for me. If Jesus really was who He said He was, then Jesus was God Himself. If Jesus truly did what the gospel eyewitnesses recorded, then Jesus is still God Himself. As someone who used to reject anything supernatural, I had to make a decision about my naturalistic presuppositions.“

-Warner Wallace (‘Jesus Is Evidence That God Exists.’)

• “If skeptics were willing to give the Gospels the same ‘benefit of the doubt’ they are willing to give other ancient documents, the Gospels would easily pass the test of authorship.”

-Warner Wallace (‘Cold Case Christianity.’)

 

Frank is a mathematical physicist and cosmologist, holding a joint appointment in the Departments of Mathematics and Physics at Tulane University.

• “When I began my career as a cosmologist some twenty years ago, I was a convinced atheist. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that one day I would be writing a book purporting to show that the central claims of Judeo-Christian theology are in fact true, that these claims are straightforward deductions of the laws of physics as we now understand them. I have been forced into these conclusions by the inexorable logic of my own special branch of physics.”

-Frank Tipler (‘The Physics Of Immortality.’)

 

Alister is theologian, scientist, and a priest. He has delivered various lectures and presentations on God, faith, and science.

• “Atheism, I began to realize, rested on a less-than-satisfactory evidential basis. The arguments that had once seemed bold, decisive, and conclusive increasingly turned out to be circular, tentative, and uncertain.”

-Alister McGrath (‘Breaking the Science-Atheism Bond.’)

• “Christianity offers a worldview that leads to the generation of moral values and ideals that are able to give moral meaning and dignity to our existence.”

-Alister McGrath (‘Christian Quotes: Alister McGrath.’)

 

Lee was once a self-described militant atheist who worked at the Chicago Tribune. He is now a widely known Christian author, journalist, apologist and pastor, as well as author of the book Case For Christ.

• “It was the evidence from science and history that prompted me to abandon my atheism and become a Christian.”

• “To be honest, I didn’t want to believe that Christianity could radically transform someone’s character and values. It was much easier to raise doubts and manufacture outrageous objections that to consider the possibility that God actually could trigger a revolutionary turn-around in such a depraved and degenerate life.”

-Lee Strobel (‘Case For Christ: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity.’)

• “…the scientific data point powerfully toward the existence of a Creator and that the historical evidence for the resurrection establishes convincingly that Jesus is divine.”

-Lee Strobel (‘Finding the Real Jesus: A Guide for Curious Christians and Skeptical Seekers.’)

 

Rick Oliver has his Ph.D. in Biology from the University of California, Irvine. He is a member of the American Federation of Herpetocultural Lists, the California Science Teachers Association, and the New York Academy of Science.

• “I remember how frustrated I became when, as a young atheist, I examined specimens under the microscope. I would often walk away and try to convince myself that I was not seeing examples of extraordinary design, but merely the product of some random, unexplained mutations.”

-Dr. Rick Oliver (‘Designed to Kill in a Fallen World.’)

 

William (1851 – 1939) was a Scottish archaeologist and New Testament scholar. By his death in 1939 he had become the foremost authority of his day on the history of Asia Minor and a leading scholar in the study of the New Testament.

• “Christianity did not originate in a lie; and we can and ought to demonstrate this as well as believe it.”

• “Further study . . . showed that the book (Acts) could bear the most minute scrutiny as an authority for the facts of the Aegean world, and that it was written with such judgment, skill, art and perception of truth as to be a model of historical statement.’”

-Sir William Ramsay (‘The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament.’)

 

Lewis (1898 – 1963), a former atheist, is one of the most widely read Christian apologetic author today. He is the mind behind the Narnia entertainment series, and some of his most popular Christian writings read widely today are Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters.

• “Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning.”

-C.S. Lewis (‘Mere Christianity.’)

• “Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It’s like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will give you a map of London. But if I can’t trust my own thinking, of course I can’t trust the arguments leading to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an Atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God.”

-C.S. Lewis (‘The Case for Christianity.’)

• “A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous.”

-C.S. Lewis (‘Surprised by Joy.’)

 

Aleksandr (1918 – 2008) was a Russian writer, and winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in literature. He was pivotal in revealing what life was like in the days of the atheistic communist Soviet Union. He is the mind behind his powerful book Voice from the Gulag.

• “Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”

-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. (‘Voice from the Gulag.’)

 

Antony was a world leading atheist philosopher who belonged to the analytic and evidentialist schools of thought. He was known as a strong advocate of atheism, arguing that one should presuppose atheism until empirical evidence of a God surfaces. He also criticised the idea of life after death, the free will defence to the problem of evil, and the meaningfulness of the concept of God. In 2003 he was one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto. In 2004 he stated an allegiance to deism, more specifically a belief in the Aristotelian God. He stated that in keeping his lifelong commitment to go where the evidence leads, he now believed in the existence of a god.

• “It now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design.”

• “I now believe there is a God…I now think it [the evidence] does point to a creative Intelligence almost entirely because of the DNA investigations. What I think the DNA material has done is that it has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which which are needed to produce life, that intelligence must have been involved in getting these extraordinarily diverse elements to work together.”

• “…we have all the evidence we need in our immediate experience and that only a deliberate refusal to “look” is responsible for atheism of any variety.”

-Antony Flew (‘There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind.’)

 

Francis is a geneticist noted for his discoveries of disease genes and his leadership of the Human Genome Project, he is also the director of the National Institutes of Health. Collins has written a number of books on science, medicine, and spirituality, including the New York Times bestseller, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.

• “I believe God did intend, in giving us intelligence, to give us the opportunity to investigate and appreciate the wonders of His creation. He is not threatened by our scientific adventures.”

-Francis Collins (Interview: ‘God Is Not Threatened by Our Scientific Adventures.’)

• “The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. He can be worshipped in the cathedral or in the laboratory. His creation is majestic, awesome, intricate and beautiful – and it cannot be at war with itself. Only we imperfect humans can start such battles. And only we can end them.”

-Francis Collins (The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.)

 

Peter is a widely know English journalist and author. He has published six books, including The Abolition of Britain, The Rage Against God and The War We Never Fought. He also writes for Britain’s The Mail on Sunday newspaper and is a former foreign correspondent in Moscow and Washington. In his book The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith he tells us of his conversion from militant atheist to Christian theism.

• “I thought this gesture [burning his Bible] was a way of showing that I had finally rejected all the things that I had been brought up to believe, and I went on to behave for the next 20 years of my life exactly as if I didn’t believe in him [God], and that’s how I discovered in the end that what I had rejected was right.”

• “The current intellectual assault on God in Europe and North America is in fact a specific attack on Christianity – the faith that stubbornly persists in the morality, laws, and government of the major Western countries. . . .The God they fight is the Christian God, because he is their own God. . . .God is the leftists’ chief rival.  Christian belief, by subjecting all men to divine authority and by asserting in the words ‘My kingdom is not of this world’ that the ideal society does not exist in this life, is the most coherent and potent obstacle to secular utopianism. . . . the Bible angers and frustrates those who believe that the pursuit of a perfect society justifies the quest for absolute power.”

• “…when it comes to the millions of small and tedious good deeds that are needed for a society to function with charity, honesty, and kindness, a shortage of believing Christians will lead to that society’s decay.”

-Peter Hitchens (‘The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith.’)

 

Richard, once a Mormon who converted to atheism, became a Christian after participating in debates and online discussions, especially discussions at Richard Dawkins’ official site.

• “Science and philosophy do not have the answer to everything. If you are willing to listen with an open mind and an open heart and just say ‘perhaps I do not possess all the truth,’ that is an act of humility and I know that God never rejects or ignores acts of humility.”

-Richard Morgan (‘Former atheist turned Christian through Dawkin’s website continues strong faith in God.’)

 

Philip, a former atheist, is a freelance writer and lecturer who has spent nearly 30 years in politics and journalism, and now works with Areopagus Ministries.

• “So, confronted by all these facts and arguments – philosophical, scientific, and historical – I surrendered my sword of unbelief to God, and asked Jesus to forgive my sins and come into my life during the hot, dry summer of 1976. In the years that have followed, I have never regretted that decision, despite many ups and downs and trials of my faith.”

-Philip Vander Elst (‘From Atheism to Christianity: a Personal Journey.’)

 

Jones was a devout atheist for over 20 years before finally managing to see the biblical truths that had managed to elude him for so long.

• “My atheistic philosophy had allowed me to lose my compassion for others. I no longer had the ability to love anyone, not even myself. I had become apathetic to life itself. For years, I had been dead, but because I continued to walk and talk, I didn’t know it. But now, I was born again and the spirit that was in me, which had allowed me to understand spiritual things, connected with the glorious and perfect higher consciousness of Jesus Christ”

-A.S.A. Jones (‘Testimony of A Former Atheist, A.S.A. Jones’)

 

Craig S. Keener is a leading scholar, and professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary. Craig received his Ph.D. in New Testament Studies and Christian Origins from Duke University.

• “I thought that atheism was “smart.”  When my grandmother argued for a first cause, I replied by postulating an infinite regression of causes (my arrogance left me unaware that my response violated modern physics!)  Yet unknown to me, my father’s mother, sister, and the sister’s family were praying for our family.  When I was 13, reading Plato raised for me the question of life after death, but Plato’s answers did not seem adequate.  I began to realize that only an infinite Being could guarantee the hope of eternal life.  Yet if such a Being existed, there seemed no reason why that Being would care about me, even if that Being were perfectly loving enough to give life to some.  I was incurably selfish and undeserving of a loving Being’s attention; it seemed to me that if I pretended to love, it was only for the self-serving purpose of getting that Being’s attention.  Yet shortly before I turned 15, I began to secretly cry out, “God, if You are there—please show me.”

-Craig Keener (‘Historical Jesus Studies.’)

 

Jennifer, a former atheist turned Catholic, is a columnist for Envoy magazine, a regular guest on the Relevant Radio and EWTN Radio networks, and a contributor to the books The Church and New Media and Atheist to Catholic: 11 Stories of Conversion.

• “One thing I could never get on the same page with my fellow atheists about was the idea of meaning. The other atheists I knew seemed to feel like life was full of purpose despite the fact that we’re all nothing more than chemical reactions. I could never get there. In fact, I thought that whole line of thinking was unscientific, and more than a little intellectually dishonest. If everything that we call heroism and glory, and all the significance of all great human achievements, can be reduced to some neurons firing in the human brain, then it’s all destined to be extinguished at death.”

-Jennifer Fulwiler (‘Why I’m Catholic.’)

 

Sarah, a former atheist, is a research scientist in astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Texas.

• “In fact, it seems that every question we have about the universe is answerable. There’s no reason it has to be this way, and it made me think of Einstein’s observation that the most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it’s comprehensible. I started to sense an underlying order to the universe. Without knowing it, I was awakening to what Psalm 19 tells us so clearly, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”

-Sarah Salviander (‘My Testimony.’)

 

Darrin, a former atheist, used to write for John Loftus’ blog site Debunking Christianity. He is now a Christian, as well as a math teacher at Ellsworth Community College.

• “Some time last week, I realized that I could no longer call myself a skeptic. After fifteen years away from Christianity, most of which was spent as an atheist with an active, busy intent on destroying the faith, I returned to a church (with a real intention of going for worship) last Sunday. Although I know I may struggle with doubt for the rest of my life, my life as an atheist is over.”

-Darrin Rasberry (‘The Journey Of An Old Atheist Convert.’)

 

Michael is a leading New Testament historian and theologian. He also lectures at Ridley Melbourne, and his teaching areas are on Synoptic Gospels, Paul’s Letters, Systematic Theology.

• “Many years later, however, I read the New Testament for myself. The Jesus I encountered was far different from the deluded radical, even mythical character described to me. This Jesus—the Jesus of history—was real. He touched upon things that cut close to my heart, especially as I pondered the meaning of human existence. I was struck by the early church’s testimony to Jesus: In Christ’s death God has vanquished evil, and by his resurrection he has brought life and hope to all.”

• “My faith and studies have led me to believe otherwise. First-century Jews and early Christians clearly demarcated God from all other reality, thus leading them to hold to a very strict monotheism. That said, Jesus was not seen as a Greek god like Zeus who trotted about earth or a human being who morphed into an angel at death. Rather, the first Christians redefined the concept of “one God” around the person and work of Jesus Christ. Not to mention the New Testament writers, especially Luke and Paul, consistently identify Jesus with the God of Israel.”

-Michael Bird (‘Professor explains how his study of the historical Jesus made him leave atheism.’)

 

Ravi is a world leading evangelist. He has authored numerous books, including the Gold Medallion Book Award winner Can Man Live Without God? in the category “theology and doctrine” and bestsellers Light in the Shadow of Jihad, and The Grand Weaver.

• “I very seldom like to mention the turning point of my own life, for it is a very private matter and sometimes still hurts to think of it, to say nothing of the embarrassment it must bring my family. But I cannot resist thinking of that most poignant moment of my past. I was seventeen years old when, with neither great intensity or great anguish, I came to the recognition that life had very little meaning. The more I pondered its harsh implication the closer I drew to a decision. That decision was to choose the way of suicide.“

• “I found myself after that attempt lying in a hospital bed, having expelled all the poison that I had taken but unsure if I would recover. There on that bed, with a dehydrated body, the Scriptures were read to me. The flooding of my heart with the news that Jesus Christ could come into my life and that I could know God personally defies the depths to which the truth overwhelmed me. In that moment with a simple prayer of trust, the change from a desperate heart to one that found the fullness of meaning became a reality for me. God reached down to a teenager in a hospital bed in the city of New Delhi, a mega-city of teeming millions. Imagine! God cared enough to hear my cry. How incredible, that He has a personal interest in the struggles of our lives. I cannot express it better than to say that His self-sufficiency and greatness do not deny us the wonderful joy of being affirmed in our individuality and of knowing that we are of unique value to Him. That was the point of the parable Jesus told about the shepherd who left the ninety-nine sheep in the fold and went looking for the one.“

-Ravi Zacharias (‘The Cries of the Heart.’)

 

Nick is the Music Minister at Bacon Heights Baptist Church in Lubbock. He tried to disprove God’s existence after his son committed suicide.

• “I tried to disprove the existence of God, immediately after finding my 19-year-old son dead in his bedroom from suicide.”

• “But atheism failed me. The words of the best, most intelligent atheists rang hollow. Their rebuttals and refutations against the existence of God were, in my opinion, incomplete, short-sighted, and at times, ludicrous. While the atheists scream loudly trying to speak for their evidence, the theists, in my opinion, simply step back and allow the evidence to speak for itself. For the arguments of theists were akin to the familiar statement: “You don’t need to defend a lion; you simply open the cage and allow him to defend himself.”

–Nick Watts (‘Atheism failed me.’)

 

Jordan is a contributor to the magazine Fare Forward, and has also written for Christianity Today. She is also an avid writer and blogger.

• “I tried to face down an overwhelming body of evidence, as well as the living God.”

• “At the same time, I had begun to read through the Bible and was confronted by my sin. I was painfully arrogant and prone to fits of rage. I was unforgiving and unwaveringly selfish. I passed sexual boundaries that I’d promised I wouldn’t. The fact that I had failed to adhere to my own ethical standards filled me with deep regret. Yet I could do nothing to right these wrongs. The Cross no longer looked merely like a symbol of love, but like the answer to an incurable need. When I read the Crucifixion scene in the Book of John for the first time, I wept.”

-Jordan Monge (‘The Atheist’s Dilemma.’)

 

Edward is professor of philosophy at Pasadena City College, and author of the book The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism. He is also particularly critical of atheists like Richard Dawkins.

• “Secular theorists often assume they know what a religious argument is like: they present it as a crude prescription from God, backed up with threat of hellfire, derived from general or particular revelation, and they contrast it with the elegant complexity of a philosophical argument by Rawls (say) or Dworkin. With this image in mind, they think it obvious that religious argument should be excluded from public life. . . . But those who have bothered to make themselves familiar with existing religious-based arguments in modern political theory know that this is mostly a travesty.”

-Edward Feser (‘The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism.’)

 

John was very anti-Christian, and after reading the Bible four times over he planned to write a book called All the Stupidity of the Bible. After failing to find scientific contradictions in the Bible he gave up this project.

• “I had a lot to overcome. I could not talk without swearing. You could not go to the preacher’s house and say pass the @$#%& potatoes. I had to learn a new way of talking, a new way of living, a new set of values, and a new morality, because I had lived in opposition to God. I asked God’s help in these things and I found I was able to overcome things I had never been able to overcome before. I have a whole new set of problems — a whole new set of things that I have to work on — but the problems I have today are nothing like the problems I had in the past. If anyone had told me twenty years ago that I would be openly using my limited abilities to publicly convict disbelievers of God’s reality, I would have thought they were insane. Nonetheless, God has blessed my feeble efforts in spectacular ways — totally beyond anything I could have ever done.”

-John Clayton (‘Why I Left Atheism.’)

 

Darren grew up in as an atheist in non-Christian home with a father who was an atheist and a mother who was a lukewarm Christian.

• “I realized that a lot of what I had been told about Christians when I was growing up was not true.”

• “Becoming a Christian didn’t solve my problems, but it helped me to understand them and it opened the way for God to start healing me from my past.”

Darren Gedye (‘Testimony of an Ex-Atheist.’)

 

Giovanni was militantly atheist before his conversion. He once attempted to create scandal by speculating that Jesus and John the Apostle had a homosexual relationship.

• “Humans: become atheists each and all! God will nevertheless welcome you with all his heart!”

 

Dana is self-employed in the environmental field, with an emphasis on water protection. She received a B.S. in Biology with a minor in Secondary Education and an M.S. in Aquatic Ecology, both from Kent State University. Her area of specialization is in nonprofit organizational development, collaborative decision-making, environmental education, and lake ecosystems.

• “I was again confronted with the science/faith dichotomy when recently given the gift of Jesus. This time, the Holy Spirit would not let me reject my salvation, but what awful anguish I experienced as I assumed I had to reject my beloved science instead. I was thrilled to learn that I could believe in both! As I investigate my newfound faith alongside my scientific knowledge, the Lord continues to reveal to me that scientific findings and the use of the scientific method are very good, just as his Word is also good.”

-Dana Oleskiewicz (‘Historical Jesus Studies.’)

-Giovanni Panini (Inspirational quotes, words, sayings.’)

 

Original Post by James Bishop here

Politically Correct vs. Biblically Correct

Several years ago I posted the graphic below on Pinterest which says, “It doesn’t matter how politically correct it is; if it’s not Biblically correct… IT’S WRONG!”

This message elicited many responses from several different people and I found myself re-reading these comments on Pinterest today (10/11/15) and thought I should share them here for your edification.

I pray this information blesses you.

Everest John Alexander

• 3 years ago

Politically Correct vs. Biblically Correct…

————————————————————————————-

• 

  Bernhard Alund

  • 1 year ago

  So by that logic it’s ok to own slaves?

• 

  Everest John Alexander

  • 1 year ago

  No Bernhard. It’s not OK to own slaves as we understand it in the 21st century.

  It’s not OK to allow children to suffer before they can get close to Jesus either. Yet Jesus said, “Suffer the little children to come on to Me”

  Some biblical words, phrases and concepts take on completely different interpretations when you take them out of their original context and try to apply them according to our 21st century language and culture.

  This is the reason why accurate Bible interpretation is not something that can be done by just anybody. It usually takes a skilled and seasoned minister of Jesus Christ to accurately interpret the Scriptures and then preach or teach it to others.

  This is NOT to say that any Christian cannot accurately interpret Scripture but it typically will take a profound love of the Truth, years of study and an intimate fellowship with the Holy Spirit to consistently interpret Scripture accurately.

  Hope this answers your question.

• 

  Bernhard Alund

  • 1 year ago

  So are we speaking selfproclaimed “minister of God” or those appointed by the church? If selfproclaimed any person with an aim can twist the word to make themselfes rich or even turn people into sin. And if appointed by the church makes one a trustworthy person then why is the sin so large within the church itself (sexual predators and greedy ministers)?

• 

  Everest John Alexander

  • 1 year ago

  Bernhard, no true Minister of God is self-proclaimed.

  God Himself calls, anoints and appoints His Ministers to perform His will in the earth! It seems when you say, “The Church” you’re referring to the Roman Catholic Organization.

  FYI… The Roman Catholic Organization is a man-made organization and is absolutely NOT sanctioned by God and is NOT the Church of God/Jesus Christ mentioned in the Bible!

  The true Church referenced in the bible is made up of individual human beings from every part of the world, every race, every language, every culture.

  These are individuals who have expressed faith in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ at Calvary! They have believed that Jesus Christ is God, incarnated as a Man so He could die to pay the penalty for their sins and rose from the dead justified because He did not sin personally and so was not worthy of death.

  Because of this expressed faith in the risen Christ they have had their spirit recreated and reconnected to God and their inner nature transformed so that they now share in the divine nature of God.

  The Holy Spirit also now takes up residence in their reborn spirit and guides them from the inside, continually imparting eternal life to them from within… These make up the true Body of Believers, The true Church of God and of Jesus Christ!

  It is important to note that even after having gone through such an experience these people are still human beings clothed in flesh and subject to the faults and frailties of the human condition so that they may through their own free will, contrary to the mandate of God participate in any number and manner of sins to their own hurt.

  But who, because of the matchless grace of God are living under the perpetual forgiveness that the shed blood of Jesus Christ provides.

  The long and short of it is that a true born again Christian is someone who was born a sinner like everyone else but who has chosen to no longer remain condemned but rather accept the free gift of Salvation that God freely offers to every human being and who strives everyday to live a life pleasing to God and worthy of emulation.

• 

  Bernhard Alund

  • 1 year ago

  See that right there is the issue i have with morals based on holy writings. You have your faith and i accept that but you seem to view it as the only true faith. If the same question would be asked a catholic he would claim only his faith is the true faith.

  So any follower of said faith will have different moral standpoints and the whole idea of a “moral based on god” is nonexistent since the morals change depending on what faith you have.

  True humanitarian morals that come from a good heart needs no scriptures since IT IS wrong to murder, rape, steal and pray on your next man.

  Any man NOT raping and killing because a god tells him so IS evil at heart and his kindness is only there because of selfishnes. (I am Swedish so hope my English is understandable)

• 

  Everest John Alexander

  • 1 year ago

  Your English is perfect!

  I wouldn’t have known you were not a native English speaker if you hadn’t said so.

  You’re doing an excellent job!

  Bernhard, you said, “Any man NOT raping and killing because a god tells him so IS evil at heart and his kindness is only there because of selfishness.” There is great truth in that statement!

  The Bible declares that ALL men ARE evil at heart! And because of this ALL men ARE doomed to eternal punishment!

  That’s the very reason God became a Man! It’s so He could die to pay for man’s sin.

  The righteousness of God demanded that blood be shed as payment for man’s sin and since it was man’s sin to be paid for that means it was man’s blood that needed to shed as payment.

  But ALL men are born sinners, unrighteous and they only get worst from that point onward.

  The problem facing the human race was that only pure, holy blood that was not tainted by sin could atone for the sin of the Human Race that’s why God Himself had to become a Man so that He could shed His blood for the sin of the entire world!

  The beauty and power of becoming Born Again, Bernhard is NOT that once you surrender to Jesus Christ you now have to struggle to TRY and do the right thing BECAUSE God said so and if you don’t, then you are in danger of some sort of punishment. That’s NOT it at all!!!

  After you accept God’s free gift of Salvation and become born again He changes your inner nature so that you don’t WANT to sin anymore! Plus… He gives you The Holy Spirit to continually impart wisdom and strength for daily victorious living! Victorious life in Christ is effortless when we do it right!

  Christians who struggle to live right and constantly find themselves participating in sinful activity are not accessing the power God gave them and are trying to live a supernatural life with natural abilities… that will never work! NO ONE can live up to God’s standard of holiness without God’s divine power working on the inside of them.

  Even if you are already born again you still have to submit yourself to the guidance and empowerment of the Holy Spirit for daily strength and wisdom to overcome the temptation to sin. If you are NOT born again this is quite impossible! (Con’t)

• 

  Everest John Alexander

  • 1 year ago

  The unfortunate reality is that for the unsaved person, i.e. someone who is NOT born again it does not matter how good a life you live you can never attain God’s standard of righteousness!

  The reason is that your primary problem is not about good vs. bad but rather life vs. death!

  Every human being is born spiritually dead i.e. their spirit is separated from God and it does not matter how much good they do in their entire lifetime it cannot give life to their dead spirit.

  They are born spiritually dead and will die spiritually dead! They are born separated from God and will die separated from God! And no amount of good works can change that!

  That’s the reason Jesus came and died and resurrected from the dead! It was NOT to make bad people GOOD but to make dead people LIVE! This is the true power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

  It, and it alone has the power to give spiritual life to dead humans… NO religion on earth can do that! And that is the primary experience that all humans need… to be made spiritually alive!

  ————————————————————————–

  This was the entire conversation with Bernhard but there were other comments made by different people about this same topic which I will share in another post.

  For free Bible Study Resources visit: KingdomLearning.com

The Light of the World Bible Movie

THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD MOVIE

 This film takes you on an unforgettable journey, showing the biblical account of the creation of man and the entrance of sin into the world.

See why Jesus Christ came to earth and how He dealt with the sin issue once and for all. Follow the Lord’s life, from His miraculous birth to His agonizing crucifixion and glorious resurrection.

You will realize the horrible price Christ paid for your sins, and understand why He is the only way to heaven.

For Free Bible Study Resources Visit: KingdomLearning.com

Bible Codes

Scientific Proof the Bible is Authored by God

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“We conclude that the proximity of ELS’s (Equidistant Letter Sequences) with related meanings in the Book of Genesis is NOT DUE TO CHANCE.”
(“Equidistant Letter Sequences in the Book of Genesis”, Statistical Science, August 1994, p.434 )
“The phenomenon cannot be attributed to ANYTHING within the KNOWN PHYSICAL UNIVERSE, human beings included.”
(“Divine Authorship?”, Biblical Review, October 1995, p.45)

---

Three mathematical statisticians, Doron Witztum, Eliyahu Rips and Yoav Rosenberg of the Jerusalem College of Technology and the Hebrew University, discovered words encoded in the Genesis text that was humanly impossible!
For they found related names, events and dates from the nineteenth century!

Only someone who knows the future could have placed them there!

The three mathematicians submitted their findings to the prestigious scientific journal Statistical Science for publishing, Editor Robert Kass, said:

“Our referees were baffled: their prior beliefs made them think the Book of Genesis could not POSSIBLY contain meaningful references to modern day individuals, yet when the authors carried out additional analyses and checks the effect persisted.” (“Equidistant Letter Sequences in the Book of Genesis”, Statistical Science, August 1994, p.306 )

Here’s the details of their amazing discovery:

The Hebrew text of Genesis (the textus receptus or Masoretic text, which ONLY the King James Bible is from, ALL new versions use other texts) was converted to a continual string of letters. The letters were placed into a two-dimensional array, which simply means, the letters were divided into rows, each row containing a certain number of letters. For example:

(row 1) KHASDSERYQDWHADIKOTESNSINFGBE
(row 2) HOKNFRWDSCKAPMIENNFUMIEUBEYIC
(row 3) JOLMSUDBDYIWIDIDNEYOPGHEBEBVX
Using computers, they then searched the Hebrew text. They discovered words composed of letters at various equal skip distances, or “equidistant letter sequences”. For example, every second, third or fourth letter formed the encoded words. The word “house” might look like this:

(every second letter) HXOXUXSXE
(every third letter) HXXOXXUXXSXXE
Simply finding encoded words is nothing unusual. . .

But they discovered something that was!
In “close proximity” were related word-pairs. For example, the researchers found the name “Zedekiah” (a sixth century B.C. king of Judah) and in “close proximity” was the word “Mantanya” which was Zedekiah’s original name! They found “Hanukkah” (the Jewish festival that commemorates the re-dedication of the Temple after it was recaptured from the Assyrians in the second century B.C.) and in close proximity was the word “Hasmoneans” which was the family name of the leaders of the Jewish armies that took the temple from the Assyrians for which Hanukkah celebrates!

It was humanly impossible for the author of Genesis to know this in 2300 B.C.! Not to mention the impossibility of encoding meaningful related “equidistant letters” into a text and then the text itself make sense!

The researchers selected, at random, 300 such related Hebrew word-pairs from names and events that occurred hundreds and thousands of years after Genesis was written. And of these 300 related name-event pairs.

ALL 300 WERE FOUND!

Looking for some coincidental explanation they searched for the word-pairs in simple randomized tests! But they were not found! The word-pairs were ONLY found in close proximity to each other proving irrefutably that the encoded word-pairs were not coincident or accident but were intellectually encoded by a superior intelligence!

The scientists stated the statistical odds of this occurring by chance are less than 1 in 50 quadrillion that’s 1 in 50,000,000,000,000,000! According to scientific analysis a finding of less than 1 in 20 is significant!

One fact is crystal clear — the Author of Genesis was not human!

Biblical Review magazine, commenting on these findings stated:

“The capacity to embed so many, meaningfully related, randomly selected word-pairs in a body of text with a coherent surface meaning is stupendously beyond the intellectual capacity of ANY HUMAN BEING or group of people, however brilliant, and equally beyond the capacity of ANY CONCEIVABLE COMPUTING DEVICE.” (“Divine Authorship?”, Biblical Review, October 1995, p.31)
Five distinguished mathematical scholars, two from Harvard, two from Hebrew University and one from Yale, issued the following statement:

“The present work represents serious research carried out by serious investigators. Since the interpretation of the phenomenon in question is enigmatic and controversial, one may want to demand a level of statistical significance beyond what would be demanded for more routine conclusions… [T]he results obtained are sufficiently striking to deserve a wider audience and to encourage further study.” (Biblical Review,”Divine Authorship?”, October 1995, p.31)
More demanding tests were performed …

And more discoveries were found!

The skeptical scientists went one step further. . . Instead of searching for simple pairs of related words, they took the Hebrew reference book, The Encyclopedia of Great Men in Israel (Margalioth, M., ed. (1961)) and found the 34 most prominent men in Israeli history from the ninth to the nineteenth centuries! They paired the names with the day of birth or death (Hebrew numbers are represented as letters). The author of Genesis could not possibly foresee these men 4,000 years before their birth and definitely not their birth or death date — UNLESS THE AUTHOR WAS GOD!

Using the computer analysis, the scientists searched the Hebrew text for the 34 name-date pairs. Remember, they had to be “equidistant” and in “close proximity” to register a “hit”. And how many did they find?

EVERY ONE!

ALL 34 NAMES AND DATES WERE FOUND!!!
The bewildered scientists were baffled!

This was not HUMANLY possible!
Not believing what they were seeing they repeated the test. They picked the next 34 most prominent men from the encyclopedia. Because the dates of the death for 2 of these men were not known, the second test included 32 men. And how many did they find?

ALL 32 WERE FOUND!!!

There is not the least possible chance that these findings were an accident!

Someone with a far superior intelligence than you or I had to have encoded these prophetic names, dates, and events!

Statistical Science concluded:

“We conclude that the proximity of ELS’s (Equidistant Letter Sequences) with related meanings in the Book of Genesis is NOT DUE TO CHANCE.” (“Equidistant Letter Sequences in the Book of Genesis”, Statistical Science, August 1994, p.434 )
Biblical Review stated:

“The phenomenon cannot be attributed to ANYTHING within the KNOWN PHYSICAL UNIVERSE, human beings included.” (“Divine Authorship?”, Biblical Review, October 1995, p.45)
In other words there is only ONE possible explanation GOD!

Biblical Review also stated:

“What then was the purpose of encoding this information into the text? Some would say it is the Author’s signature. Is it His way of assuring us that at this particular, late moment-when our scientific, materialistic doubt has reached its apotheosis, when we have been driven to the brink of radical skepticism- that He is precisely who He had said He is. . .” (“Divine Authorship?”, Biblical Review, October 1995, p.45)
The researchers ran the same tests using the Samaritan Pentateuch, which is slightly different from the textus receptus or Masoretic text. According to Biblical Review (p.44) “the phenomenon was UTTERLY LACKING in letter-level variants. . .” They also tested other texts sacred and secular but no such findings existed in ANY OTHER TEXT! Only the textus receptus! The textus receptus is the text for the King James Bible! The new versions do not use the textus receptus. The new versions are NOT the words of God!

Friend, there is no doubt the King James Bible is the word of God.

And there is no doubt you will one day stand before God.

The Bible says in Hebrews 9:27, “And as it is APPOINTED unto men once to die, but after this THE JUDGEMENT.”

 

Original Article written by Terry Watkins here.

Bible Codes

Macro Codes and Micro Codes of the Bible

In order to prove that the Bible is the Word of God, divinely inspired by Him one would have to prove that it’s message originated in eternity, transcending time and space as we know it, the product of an infinite mind.

One way in which we can see evidence of this is in the use of “Macrocodes” and “Microcodes” throughout the biblical text.

By using these codes throughout the Bible, God has shown that it is much more than just an historic account of the nation of Israel and the story of the redemption of the human race and the restoration of His kingdom on earth.

 

Macro Codes

Macro-codes are large-scale elements which include literary devices such as Allegories, Metaphors and some Prophetic Passages.

As far as the prophetic macro-codes are concerned the Jewish perspective on prophecy is more than just foretelling the future and seeing it come to pass. The Hebrew mind sees pattern in the prophecy as well.

For instance, the offering of Isaac by his father Abraham foretells of the offering of Jesus Christ by His Father, God for the sins of humanity.

The entire book of Ruth is prophetic in nature, depicting in types and shadows the relationship between Jesus and His Bride, the Church. Naomi represents Israel, Ruth is the Church, the Gentile Bride and Boaz is a type of Christ , the Kinsmen Redeemer.

A full one-third of the Bible is prophetic in nature. It simply cannot be compared with any other literature, religious or otherwise.

For a prophetic Macro-code to fail someone integral to the narrative has to disobey God. For instance, Moses disobeyed God when he hit the rock instead of speaking to it, like God instructed him to.

In so doing, he grossly misrepresented God and messed up the prophetic symbolization God wanted to demonstrate and for this, Moses missed entering the promise land as just punishment.

 

Micro Codes

Micro-codes are  small-scale text-based elements like Acrostics and the Equidistant Letter Sequences popularized by Yacov Rambsel and Grant R. Jeffrey.

The Equidistant Letter Sequence is applied by consistently counting a specific number of letters from a particular point in a sentence and recording the letter after each interval.

All the captured letters are then placed one after the next, spelling out a significant word or phrase.

When counting, the letter interval may be every 7 letters or every 20 letters or every 2nd letter, for instance.

As an example, in Genesis chapter 2 we find the phrase, “And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.”

Using ELS we find that Genesis chapter 2 also contains the encoded names of every tree mentioned in the entire Old Testament.

In Genesis chapter 2 we also find the phrase, “And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air.”

Again, this same chapter also contains the encoded names of every animal mentioned in the entire Old Testament.

In Genesis 1:29 “God said, Behold, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit”

Embedded in that same text are the names of seven species of seed-bearing fruit: Barley, Wheat, Vine, Date, Olive, Fig, and Pomegranate.

Finally, Isaiah 53:10 is a prophetic passage about Jesus’s atoning sacrifice for sin.

Using ELS and counting every 20th letter from the second Hebrew letter in the phrase “He shall prolong” we find embedded is the phrase “Jesus is My Name”

Mathematicians calculated the probability of this occurring randomly and found it to be 1 chance in 50 quadrillion, in other words… impossible!

 

Divine Authorship?

The bottom line is, both Macro-codes and Micro-codes in the Bible convey design.

If there is design, there must be a designer. Design by nature can’t happen randomly.

This is irrefutable proof that the Bible is indeed divinely inspired.

When we consider the Bible Codes and see the clear evidence of design it tells us that the Bible is much more than mere eye witnesses accounts and the recorded preaching of God’s Messengers.

Consider this, if one single letter is out-of-place in an entire chapter every dependent ELS Code will fail!

It is believed by Jewish Rabbis that God gave the Torah – First 5 Books of the Bible – to Moses letter by letter!

In any case, the specific design displayed throughout the Bible leads one to conclude that God guided the Bible writers on precisely what to write and how to write it.

Conclusion: The Bible was not written by men but God himself wrote it merely using men to record the precise message He wanted mankind to have.