My Eyes Are Closed, You Can't See Me

"My eyes are closed, you can't see me," said my little girl as she sat on my lap.  Of course I laughed at the thought of her thinking that my vision was limited to what she could see; because she was invisible to herself she thought that she was also invisible to me.

How often we think that if we close our eyes that somehow our Heavenly Father, and our brothers an sisters, become blinded by our closed eyes?  Surely if I close my eyes to my own failures and flaws then everyone else's eyes are also closed.

It is with God, as with me as I watched by little girls close her own eyes, He sees me with my own eyes willingly closed thinking that I have blinded Him to me as well.  God sees; God knows!  My prayer is that God will give me grace and courage to open my eyes to both see Him and myself as I ought.

Atheist Hypocrisy

I have been watching a lot of Atheism vs. Theism debates lately and I wanted to post some observations.  I am sure if any of my atheist friends find their way to my blog that they will engage in Dawkinian and Hitchinian insults about how ignorant and deluded that I am.  This is totally fine with me.

1. BURDEN OF PROOF DISCREPANCY:  While our atheists friends chide us incessantly about the lunacy of theism and its lack of evidence they are more than willing to be open minded about pure speculation and even laud it as intellectual if it denies God.  An example of this is the Multiverse Theory.  There is at this point no scientific evidence that there are billions of other universes outside of ours, yet for atheists to entertain this idea is intellectualism.  To even theorize about the Multiverse Theory one must immediately leave science behind. Yet, no matter what hypothesis the theist forwards or what evidence he gives for it, we are deluded.

2. UNDERSTANDING DISCREPANCY: In these debates with atheist, particularly Christopher Hitchens, they show not even a rudimentary understanding of what the bible actually teaches.  I point this out because atheists often insist that we don't understand science.  However, atheists like Hitchens and Dawkins do not even have a Sunday School grasp of Christian theology, much less the advanced knowledge they demand we have of science.  The only way that religion, and Christianity in particular, could be so misrepresented is for these guys to be ignorant of theology, or intentionally misrepresenting our view, neither of which are good options.  Frankly, it is hilarious to watch at times. The theists (Craig, D'souza, Lennox, Strobel, Wilson) that participate in these debates are much versed in philosophy and science than the atheist (Barker, Dawkins, Hitchins) are in theology.  If the theists only knew as much about philosophy and science as the atheists knew about theology (religion in general/Christianity specifically) they would not be given the time of day; no one would take them seriously.  The atheists need to do a much more serious job in their presentation of religion and Christianity in these debates. 

Resurrection: Proof of Theism and Christianity

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2  and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you--unless you believed in vain. 3  For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4  that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 

1 Corinthians 15:1-4. 14 ESV

In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, 2  until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. 3  He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

Acts 1:1-3 ESV

The resurrection of Jesus is essential to Christianity and relevant to theism.  Theism (deism, Judaism, Islam, ect...) can be true if the resurrection is not true, but Christianity cannot be true apart from the resurrection of Christ.  The resurrection is relevant to theism in that if the resurrection is true, then so is theism, and consequently Christianity.  The resurrection, if true, is the ultimate proof of the existence of God.

The resurrection is central to the Christian claim.  If the resurrection is not true then Christianity is the largest hoax in the history of mankind.  This is why we as Christians must begin to reemphasize it as the central tenant of the faith.  I am writing this blog to encourage Christians of all creeds, especially young Christians, to focus on a defense of the historical resurrection of Jesus.  This is where the battle is.

I encourage all who read to make this the most important focus of your theological studies.  There are many other doctrines that the resurrection of Christ touches, but the resurrection is the most important. 

Debate Firsts

I have had a lot of debate firsts: My first debate. My first oral debate. My first written debate. My first godhead debate. My first Eternal security debate. My first communion debate. My first baptism debate. My first impeccability debate. My first marriage and divorce debate. My first debate with a Church of Christ. My first debate with a Baptist. My first debate to be a moderator. I am sure that the list could go on, but last in the Weatherly-Pendergrass debate was another first.

MY FIRST DEBATE WHERE A POINT OF ORDER WAS IGNORED!

Thursday night of the debate I called a point of order 4-5 times and it was ignored by both the debater (Kevin Pendergrass) and his moderator (David Fanning).  I have never seen this happen in any debate.  Unprecedented!

Their excuse was that they did not think that they were breaking any rules so they did not have to acknowledge our point of order.  Any time a point of order is called by the other team you owe them the courtesy of acknowledging their grievance.  If they had call a point of order we would have given them the respect they deserved as out opponents.  It was disrespectful to say the least. 

Caricature of God

I can pick on the above gentlemen as I too have been abundantly blessed with ears. The artists have over emphasized the ears of Barak Obama and Ross Perot. While they have big ears, these pictures are obviously an exaggeration of their size. The artists have focused on a particular attribute of their persons.

Many times this is what men do with God. They over emphasize a particular attribute of His nature until the picture they have of God is not true, but a caricaturization of Him. What we must do is put each of God's attributes in proportion to all his attributes, and not to the minimization or elimination of some.

Some people focus so heavily on the holiness of God that barely no one can be saved; after all their best efforts they even worry about themselves. Others focus so heavily on the mercy of God that no one will be lost, including: Dahmer, Hitler, Stalin and Hussein (not Barak). When you do this you have a distorted view of God. The mercy and holiness of God are not competing ideas that you have to accept one or the other. Both are true and are complimentary of each other.

"Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other." Psalms 85:10 KJV

Let's view God how He is, and not how the human mind would portray Him by exaggerating the aspects of God's nature that we choose to emphasize.

Trip To Jamaica: Update 1

I am really excited about leaving in the morning on my trip to Jamaica. I am making a 3 day stop in Ohio to preach for a friend there who will also be accompanying me, as well as two other ministers from his church, on my Jamaican journey. I will be preaching 11 times in about 8-9 days, so it is going to be a busy week and a half.

I hope to get in a little sight seeing while I am there. Not sure how that I going to work out as I will be in church at least once a day. Either way it is going to be a blast. I am believing God for great things.

The negative side is that I am going to be missing my family really bad. I am going to miss "The Great One," our 2 week old foster son, as well as Lil Red. Most of all I am going to miss my wonderful wife. Oh yeah, my in-laws are going to be in town. They are probably glad that I am going to be gone, but I will miss seeing them as well.

I will be taking a camera and snapping lots of pictures which I will be posting here. I will be posting pictures of the services as well as the scenery. Maybe even a few video clips of the music. I love the Jamaican way of Praising God. They are great people!

Not to mention I am flying my air line of choice, AA. So, I will be getting frequent flyer miles! All things considered this is about to be a fantastic week!!!!!!!