"THINK" SERIES: PART 2 - REASON

God, in the form of Jesus Christ - invites us to LITERALLY "“Come now, and let us reason together,” says the Lord: "“Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool" (Isaiah 1:18).

Can you imagine, GOD, Yahweh, Who can speak universes into existence with the sound of His Voice, Who can destroy great armies with a single word,  Who knows every hair on our heads, Who sees us in our weakness, sickness and sin - yet still loves US...THAT GOD - is inviting sinful, weak, no-account humans to come talk and reason with Him, so that we can not just go to Heaven when we die but that we can do life with Him right now! That Yahweh, that God - He is not only for us, He loves us.

Look at the Lord's choice of word of invitation - come let us REASON. Reason in His original Hebrew is YAKACH. Bible Hub translates and defines "Yakach" as ".... to reprove or correct. It is often used in the context of bringing someone to a point of understanding or conviction, typically through argument or evidence. The term can also imply a form of judgment or decision-making, where clarity and truth are established. In the biblical context, "yakach" is frequently associated with God's correction of His people, as well as the role of prophets and wise individuals in guiding others toward righteousness".***

It is more than encouraging...actually, it is more stunning, to read about the lives of former atheists like Lee Strobel or J. Warner Wallace or the most recent one Josh Timonen. While Josh is not a household name, the man he works for IS. That man is the world's foremost and most well-known living ATHEIST Richard Dawkins! Timonen not only produced videos and documentaries extolling the virtues of "Atheism" where it takes more Faith, to NOT believe in the Creation and God, but he sold merchandise, touted Dawkins, and even got public praise and acknowledgments in books and in person from Richard Dawkins.

But, having grown up in church and walked away, there was always something inside of him. It is inside every human being. That something is called the Law of God written on our hearts, as the Bible says. Dawkins' right hand man - Josh Timonen - began reading the Bible to "reason this thing out". Then he read a book written by another famous former Atheist - Lee Strobel. Lee was the legal correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, who was so offended as an all-out Atheist, when his wife got saved and started attended Willowcreek Church in Barrington, Illinois, that he set out to disprove the Bible.

In the process, Lee Strobel got saved and wrote "THE CASE FOR CHRIST" (Click here to watch this documentary on YouTube). After reading The Case for Christ, Josh himself was radically saved as it confirmed the reasons for Faith in God, through Jesus Christ, that this now former atheist was processing.

Click here for J. Warner Wallace's reasons to believe as well. Wallace is a former LAPD homicide detective and former atheist who used his investigative skills, to prove the reality of God in Christ.

So what happens when a person, in this case, the man who rode shotgun for the biggest living atheist in the world - Josh Timonen, does his independent research, reasons with it, then reasons with God? He comes to Faith in Christ, just like J. Warner and Lee! How about that, huh. God is so good. To wind up this brief discussion on the Almighty and Most Powerful Force in the Universe - our Heavenly Father, I leave you with the words of Josh Timonen, after he began sharing his Conversion to Christ testimony with a man, who has had life-changing impact on me, since I first saw him and Kirk Cameron in town almost 25 years ago - Ray Comfort.

Timonen describes part of his journey like this: "Jesus actually lived, He actually died, and He actually rose....and I have to deal with that. I can’t just push that aside and say, ‘Oh, it’s a myth.’ No, these are real events. Then, I’m asked to do something. It’s a personal thing between Him and me. And that’s where it kind of struck differently...." ****

If you're having trouble with YOUR Faith, with YOUR walk with Christ, go thou and do likewise. Search out J. Warner Wallace's COLD CASE CHRISTIANITY and subscribe, like I did, years ago to his podcasts. I was gloriously born again in July 1988, but the learning never stops and now, I know at least 10% about our wonderful Savior and Lord Jesus Christ. You too can begin to walk victoriously in Him, amen.

Glory to His Name!

CREDITS: 

*** = BIBLE HUB (click here)

**** = Focus on the Family  (click here)

IMAGE (click here)

LORD, I AM AMAZED BY YOU - CREATION

From Psalm 19:1-6 (ESV)

OUR INCREDIBLE CREATOR

Creator of the Universe:

1 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. 

2 Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. 

3 There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. 

4 Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, 

5 which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. 

6 Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat. 

FOUNDATIONS OF AMERICAN ATHEISM, PART 3

TRIFECTA FROM HELL - BOOKS BY PAINE, ALLEN & PALMER

ETHAN ALLEN

Some people will look at this title and think I am even crazier than I look! I mean...dude, books by some guys named Paine, Allen and Palmer? All we know is Osteen, Lucado and Chan! What is up with that. Well, before you close this page and surf to the next site, consider this: What do "The Age of Reason"; "Reason, the Only Oracle of Man" and "Principles of Nature" have in common?


Well these three rambling diatribes against Holy God, Jesus Christ, The Holy Spirit, The Bible and Christianity led Harvard and other American colleges and those in the northeastern upper crust into full blown atheism! From there, America began its rapid descent into all kinds of cults and christian-themed "religions" in the 1800's, to the point where we are today, where some people boo God at a political convention! This Trifecta of books, by the THEN three top literary minds of atheism, is the Trio from Hell! These trailblazing books provided the unholy scriptures for the new crop of followers of the god of this world, who had unbridled freedom now that the Continental Army and American Independence gave everyone in America, the freedom to be whatever you wished to be!

As mentioned before, Charles Chauncy, the man who hated the First Great Awakening which led to millions being saved in America and the Gospel spreading across the land, moved Unitarianism into the fore. Harvard, where he was in the leadership, later became one of those institutions influenced by Chancy. Unitarianism, by the way, according to Webster's Dictionary, is a denomination that stresses individual freedom of belief, the free use of reason in religion, a united world community, and liberal social action.

In case you think I am overreacting and blaming these men for the people who booed the Name of God at a convention, the point has been missed.  Once these men departed from the Gospel and started thinking what men like George Whitefield and Wesley and Edwards were doing, was uncouth and not done in "polite society"....and once they had the power to do something about it, the die was cast!  What Chauncy did was despicable. He ditched the Bible for his Unitarian sermons and started preaching out of Thomas Paine's "The Age of Reason"! It took a long time to get where we are today, but it had to start somewhere - and it started with Chauncy and Unitarianism, period.

Next to Paine's book, the great American Revolutionary War Hero Ethan Allen was the next most virulent anti-Christ. This is the same Ethan Allen that they named furniture stores after. His "Reason, the Only Oracle of Man" was an incoherent tome to paganism, yet the young men of New England lapped it up. The most outrageous statements by Allen were his writings blaspheming the Holy Spirit - the unforgiveable sin. Allen said "the doctrine of the Trinity is destitute of foundation and tends manifestly to superstition and idolatry"1. He was no different than the pharisees who stupidly (for their eternal souls) attacked Jesus and called Him all kinds of demonic names.

The third and final book of this Terrible Trio of Tomes, which has led so many into eternal torment, was actually written by a former Baptist pastor who was chased out of the ministry by the congregation, named Elihu Palmer! The ex-pastor once said of his fellow pagan Tom Paine that he "was.....the most useful man that ever existed on the face of the earth"2!!! Apparently, Palmer did not care or remember a thing about Jesus Christ! His book is called again ".

Palmer's book "Principles of Nature" contained even more heresy and blasphemy than Ethan Allen's book, this man was so lost. He said of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ "....the simple truth is that their pretended Savior is nothing more than an illegitimate Jew, and their hopes of salvation through Him rest on no better foundation than that of fornication and adultery" 3,4! Elihu Palmer now has an eternity to regret writing, saying and believing those things....just like all the others who "loved and admired" his "enlightened and reasoned" work! These men, others like them and their young admirers were the ones who rallied around Jefferson. This shocked the still involved and decent Founding Fathers John Adams and Patrick "Give me Liberty or Give me Death" Henry to no end. George Washington was horrified. Things were so bad, and especially between the Second US President John Adams and the pluralist/Deist Jefferson that a personal hatred developed between the two men. Adams was more concerned about the declining morals of the new country and finally called for a National Fast on April 25, 1799! This is something you will not see again in these days of anti-Christian bigotry in the media and politics.

While these three major books - most of them poorly written by all accounts - were the founding documents of American Atheism, God was (and always is) on the move! From the dawn of Time until now, He has His men in place everywhere.  Even in ancient Israel, which had gone completely pagan worshipping idols and more, God told the great prophet Elijah that He had 7000 men in Israel who did NOT follow the majority of that extinct nation (until 1948). Right around the time of President John Adam's National Fast,   preachers like Lyman Beecher; Ashbel Green and Jonathan Edwards grandson Timothy Dwight, were getting ready to launch the Second Great Awakening. God was moving to revive His elect and send preachers into the new Frontiers of the West! 

New England has never recovered from those men we have discussed this past week - Chauncy, Paine, Allen, Palmer and their friends from the French Revolution....but the Gospel and the men of God like Asbury; Peter Cartwright; Sheffey; Moody and more brought hope to the new West that only folks, who are completely surrendered to Christ, can do. 
Great is the Lord! Great is His Name! Great is He Who is Worthy to Be Praised! Amen.

RECOMMENDED BOOK: WHY REVIVAL TARRIES BY LEONARD RAVENHILL
Quote Credits:
1. Reason The Only Oracle of Man by Ethan Allen (Bennington Vt 1784) pp 352, 356
2. Principles of Nature by Elihu Palmer (London 1823) pg 112
3. Ibid pg 25
4. Ibid pg 23

FOUNDATIONS OF AMERICAN ATHEISM, PART 1

CHAUNCY, UNITARIAN/LIBERAL

PART 1 - CHARLES CHAUNCY

Have you ever wondered why teens from youth groups and solid Christian homes, lose their faith in college?

Have you ever wondered why even famous American institutions of higher learning, like Harvard and Princeton, went from being colleges founded as 100% Christian, slid quickly into the hotbeds of Universalism at best, and  paganism at worst, in the past century or so?

Have you even wondered why an entire society, beginning in the liberal New England region, pushed secularist thought and humanist reason so much that it now permeates every level of society .....which also now threatens to destroy the principles of Religious Freedom, upon which the United States was founded?

How did this all happen?  Well, the seeds of this can be traced to two decades, before and after the American Revolution of the 1770's! In this short series, we will look briefly at the men who never really believed in the founding Biblical principles of a new nation....while still fighting the good fight for it! We will take a good look at men from Charles Chauncy to Thomas Paine and Jefferson himself! Regardless of what the well-intentioned modern Christian historian David Barton says, he cannot revise the History of these men, in order to make them look like followers of the Jesus Christ every one of them rejected. What these men did in part, was set in motion the secular United States we see today, which France has lived under since the French Revolution.

Charles Chauncy (1705-1787) was a Congregational minister in Boston, who was the great grandson of the second president of Harvard College (now Harvard University). When the winds of True Revival swept through the comatose body of New England Christianity, Chauncy was one of its first and most vocal enemies! Here was a supposed minister of the Gospel, literally resisting the Spirit and fires of the Lord! He hated the reaction of the masses of people, by the thousands, who responded to the Call to Repent and realize the fleeting nature of Life, their miserable estate before God and the need for Salvation. In churches and wide open fields they came, sometimes up to 30,000 at a time, to hear the most fiery and powerful preacher of the Gospel for 200 years until Billy Graham came along.

George Whitefield was that man! Chauncy hated him. He hated him personally. He hated the preaching which came out of the true Reformation - about the Total Depravity of man and the need for forgiveness and crying out to God to be saved. Thousands reacted to this powerful preaching with tears and heart-felt emotion. This was something which those in the elite of the clergy, and the upper crust of society, frown vehemently upon. Never mind that their churches were the beneficiaries of all these people getting saved and coming to Christ!  In fact, Chauncy and his elitist clergy friends, which included the boards of Harvard and Yale, banned Whitefield from even being allowed on the premises of their colleges! To make it worse, Chauncy then proceed to preach against not just Whitefield, but the First Great Awakening Move of God! But wait, there was more - he followed Whitefield all over Massachusetts as he preached open air to scores of thousands, and then published pamphlet sermons against Whitefield and his messages!

One day, when both men happened to meet accidentally on a Boston street, Chauncy was overheard saying to Whitefield "I am sorry to see you return!" To which Whitefield said "so is the devil!1" But personal animosity aside, what this Chauncy did was not just conduct his personal war against True Revival, led by the Holy Spirit, as the leader of a prominent congregation and a Harvard official, he used it to lead millions now, away from the Full Counsel of God, as found in the Scriptures.

Chauncy called himself a Calvinist like the great Jonathan Edwards or Whitefield or the rest of the Revival preachers, but he was not one.  His doubt of the Word was the impetus for him first believing and then sowing the seeds of "common sense" or Reason as the unbelieving French called it. He ceased to believing in the Triune God or the Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit! He stopped believing in Original Sin (whereas Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden) and thus, he did not believe in a literal hell! Two years before he died, Chauncy published a book he could never have gotten away with years before during the American Revolution. It was called "The Mystery Hid from Ages and Generations". 

This man is solely responsible for the spread of liberal Protestantism and even worse than that, he gave us what came to be known as the Unitarian Universalist. Chauncy pastored there for 60 years and had the opportunity to corrupt many a mind, in what is now known as the hotbed of all kinds of liberalism - the North East USA! The Unitarian movement he spawned has had awful consequences for the Furtherance of the True Gospel of Christ in that region. True Christianity is not welcome in these Ivy League colleges anymore. Charles Chauncy was but one of the founding pillars of American Atheism, and a man who showed the spiritual path out away from Jesus Christ for many we see today.

COMING UP:

PART 2: THOMAS PAINE, JEFFERSON AND THE FRENCH INFLUENCE

PART 3: ETHAN ALLEN AND ELIHU PALMER

1. Seasons of Refreshing by Keith J, Hardman (Baker Books 1994 pg 74)