Christ: No Wisdom Higher. Scripture: Colossians 2:1-10 Sunday, February 16, 2014.

- The mind is an amazing thing. With our minds, God has given us the abilities to think, react, reason, consider, meditate, learn, imagine, understand, philosophize, know, perceive, evaluate, theorize, reflect, predict, and communicate, etc.

- However, when we are smitten head over heels with the power of our minds we develop pride.

- It feels good to feel smart, but it feels even better to have special knowledge.

- We like to feel like experts or be sought out because of our knowledge.

- In our passage for today, Paul warned the Colossian Christians not to be deceived by well-crafted arguments and he encouraged them to stick with Christ growing in thankfulness and in the knowledge of Christ.

- Paul warned them because they could be taken captive by empty philosophies, high sounding nonsense, and worldly, human traditions instead of Christ.

- I want to encourage you this morning to persevere in cultivating and retaining a biblical Christian worldview.

- Cling to Christ and you won't be captivated by counterfeits.

- Paul told his readers that he agonized in prayer over those he had never personally met.

- He struggled because he knew that false teaching threatened to keep believers from growing in their faith.

- The spread of false ideas is always a threat to the maturity of both the church and individual Christians.

- Paul knew the only ways to combat false teaching were in the arenas of prayer and correct teaching.

- Paul counted on believers standing together to encourage one another in love to resist false teaching and remain true to our Lord Jesus Christ.

- As he wrote, "I want them to be encouraged and knit together by strong ties of love. I want them to have complete confidence that they understand God's mysterious plan, which is, Christ himself. In him lie hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." (2:2-3)

- Paul's desire was that believers whom he had never personally met would know that he cared about their growth and maturity and prayed for them diligently.

- The inner strength provided by encouragement and the outer strength provided by unity greatly help the church in resisting false teaching.

- The Lord Jesus himself is the mystery of the ages.

- No greater treasure of wisdom and knowledge exists outside of Jesus Christ.

- This treasure is accessible to everyone who confesses Jesus as Lord and believe in their heart that God has raised him from the dead.

- The Lord Jesus alone is the only treasure. He is the secret message of the ages, which God has revealed in these final days.

- All that have faith in Jesus Christ have the assurance of sharing in his glory.

- This is the treasure which is stored up and hidden away for all who believe. We will share Christ's glory.

- Everything anyone wants to know about God and his purposes in the world find their answer in the Lord Jesus Christ because in him are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

- How many treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in Christ? All! All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in Christ.

- We don't need to go looking anywhere else.

- We only need to look to Christ.

- Cling to Christ and you won't be captivated by counterfeits.

- The risen Christ is everything our minds need to be satisfied.

- But we are often subject to pride and at times easily deceived.

- As Paul wrote to the Christians of Colossae, "I'm telling you this so that no one will deceive you with well-crafted arguments." (2:4)

- The only way to not be led astray by false reasoning, fast talk, or a smooth line is for the mind of the Christian to remain focused on Christ.

- False teachers are good at persuasion and making their teachings sound believable.

- But Christians who are maturing in their faith, however, will not be conned by those who offer wisdom and knowledge not found in Jesus Christ.

- We need to guard our way from becoming either too narrow or too broad.

- When our way is too narrow we become thick-headed and unteachable, isolated and unloving.

- When our way is too broad we receive every idea as new and exciting, spending tremendous energy and taking risky roundabout routes.

- We guard our way by focusing on Christ and on his word, daily.

- Cling to Christ and you won't be captivated by counterfeits.

- The passage continues: "For though I am far away from you, my heart is with you, and I rejoice that you are living as you should, and that your faith in Christ is strong." (2:5)

- Paul's love and unity with the churches of Colossae and Laodicea was so strong that he felt spiritually present with them because of their unity in the Holy Spirit.

- Not only that, but he felt like he could see their disciplined, right living and the strength of their faith, so, Paul rejoiced.

- Right living and strong faith become a united front against false teaching in the church, making God's people unshakable while facing the attacks of the enemy.

- "And now," Paul continues, "just as you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. Let your roots go down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness." (2:6, 7).

- The Christian folks at Colossae received the Lord Jesus as the anointed one of God, the Messiah; as the historic Savior, Jesus; and as sovereign, the Lord.

- Paul encouraged them to live in the same way that they had received our Lord Jesus Christ.

- They had not merely received teaching about Christ, but had received Christ himself.

- According to Paul, the job of every Christian is to safeguard the teaching of Christ and their relationship with him.

- In verse seven Paul described three ways his readers needed to continue to mature, and which are also true for us today.

- First, the Colossians needed to continue being rooted in Christ.

- Just like plants draw nourishment from the soil, so to believers need to draw life-giving nourishment from Christ.

- The more the Christian draws nourishment from Christ, the stronger he or she will be and the less likely to be fooled by high sounding, well-crafted arguments.

- Second, the Colossians needed to continue to be built up.

- Like a building that is built on a solid foundation, good builders use solid materials to continue building.

- The Christian must grow continuously adding materials that are appropriate to the foundation, which is Jesus Christ.

- Third, the Colossians needed to continue being strengthened in the faith.

- This can also be translated established in the faith.

- Establish is a legal term frequently used in a binding contract, indicating that Paul wanted the Colossian Christians to continue to take a firm stand against any form of false teaching.

- Having been routed, being built up and established in the truth of the good news of Jesus, we can allow our lives to overflow with thanksgiving to God, which also ought to describe our daily lives.

- Let's continue in our passage. "Don't let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world rather than from Christ." (2:8)

- The effect of heresy (i.e., false teaching) on those who believe-it is that they are kidnapped, taken captive, captured and taken away in their minds.

- When Christians let their guard down, they allow themselves to be captured by false teaching.

- In other words, we choose to allow ourselves to be kidnapped by false teaching by not remaining on guard against heresy by not focusing on Christ.

- Paul dismissed all false teaching as empty philosophy or high sounding nonsense which comes from human thinking or traditions and the spiritual powers of this world rather than from Christ.

- Worldly human traditions and man-made religion cannot lead to the truth.

- Paul condemned false philosophy and high sounding nonsense because it leads people away from Christ.

- Today, false philosophies and appealing nonsense is available everywhere.

- Many people continue to exchange the truth of God for a lie and worship the creature rather than the Creator (Romans 1: 25).

- Evolutionary philosophy with its billions of years is one such empty philosophy that is filled with high sounding nonsense designed to appeal to the vainglory, the excessive pride, of human intellectual achievement.

- Evolution rejects the word of God and exchanges the truth of God for a lie, dependent on human thinking and the spiritual powers of this world rather than upon Christ.

- Evolution comes from purely human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world in order to lead people away from Christ.

- Such high sounding nonsense is created by the spirit of antichrist in the world.

- It is senseless to reject Christ when all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found in him.

- Cling to Christ and you won't be captivated by counterfeits.

- Jesus said, "I am the way, even the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)

- True philosophy will focus on Jesus Christ, elevating him above all things. And true science will bring glory to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

- As Paul wrote, "For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in human body." (2:9).

- Christ is the center of God's saving activity in the world.

- In him lives all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

- The character, nature and person of God continue to dwell permanently in a human body in Christ Jesus.

- When we have Christ, we have everything we need to be saved and to live right.

- Nothing can take the place of Jesus Christ in your life, absolutely nothing.

- "So," wrote Paul, "you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority." (2:10)

- Like the Colossians, we lack nothing outside of Christ.

- The Lord Jesus is our all in all; we have no need to seek God in any other philosophy.

- Christ is our everything!

- To be complete in Christ means that we lack nothing.

- God's love and power have been poured into our life and we are ready for anything and have no need to look anywhere else.

- Jesus Christ is the unique source of knowledge and power for Christian living.

- Life's purpose and meaning are found in Christ alone.

- People all around us have lives devoid of meaning bereft of life.

- Jesus Christ is fully God and fully alive.

- He alone can fill the vacuum and bring new life.

- Cling to Christ and you won't be captivated by counterfeits.

God Is, Part Five: Good News! God Is Redeemer.Sunday, February 9, 2014. 1 Corinthians 15:3-8

- Many years ago near the end of WWII, an old Glasgow professor by the name of McDonald and a Scottish chaplain were placed in a Nazi prison camp.

- A tall wire fence separated the Americans from the British. McDonald was put in the American barracks, and the chaplain with the British.

- Unknown to the guards, the Americans had a little homemade radio and they were able to get news from the outside.

- Daily, McDonald met the chaplain at the fence sharing a headline or two in Gaelic, which was completely impossible to interpret for the Germans.

- One day, news came over the little radio that the German high command had surrendered and the war was over.

- McDonald took the news to his friend, then watched him disappear into the barracks. A moment later, a roar of celebration came from the barracks.

- Life in that camp was utterly transformed. Men walked around singing and shouting, waving at the guards, even laughing at the dogs.

- When the German guards finally heard the news three nights later, they fled into the dark, leaving the gates unlocked.

- The next morning, British and American prisoners walked out, free men. Yet they had truly been set free three days earlier by the news that the war was over.

- Good news is powerful! It has power to transform and power to set free.

- This morning, we ask the question: What is the Good News?

- The answer is simple. The Good News is Jesus: crucified, buried, risen for our sins, according to the Scriptures.

- Today, I want to encourage you to look into God's word and see his salvation plan.

- The gospel, the good news, is the central theme of Scripture. Because it is the main idea of the Bible, it's also the main idea for the Christian's life to share this good news.

- Normally, none of us intentionally keep really good news to ourselves. Our natural leaning when we hear good news is to share it.

- The news that the war was over had the power to cause celebration, lift spirits and set men free behind prison bars, so also does the gospel of Jesus Christ.

- The church in North America has been silent for too long in sharing this good news and a Cold War against religious freedom is upon us.

- Now is the time for every one of us to stand up and proclaim and live the truth in Jesus' name.

- The apostle Paul points out to his readers that the good news he delivered to them is not a fantasy but real by reminding them that Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection fulfill the prophetic insights of Scripture and were confirmed by numerous witnesses. 

- The good news which Paul preached was an actual historical event.  It was grounded in history, foretold by the Scriptures, and observed by many eyewitnesses.

- Many Bible scholars have made convincing arguments that verses 3 to 5 contain what is perhaps the earliest creed of the Christian faith.

- Let's listen again with fresh ears: (3) For I delivered to you what was of first importance and what I had received, that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures, (4) and that he was buried, and that he was raised up on the third day according to the scriptures, (5) and that he appeared to Peter, then to the Twelve.

- One commentator boldly states that we find in these verses "an early creed which declares the absolute fundamentals of the Christian faith and on which Christian identity (and experience of salvation) is built."[1]

- The Good News is Jesus: crucified, buried, risen for our sins according to the Scriptures.

- We might ask which Scriptures Paul had in mind since he doesn't list any, but Paul didn't have particular Scriptures in mind he had the whole of Scripture in mind.

- When taken as a whole, all the Scriptures together point to the suffering, death, and resurrection of the Messiah.

- The Psalms again and again point to his suffering and victory as do the prophets.

- Genesis 3:15 contains the earliest inkling of the promise. "And I will cause hostility between you [i.e., the serpent, the snake] and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel."

- What Paul told his readers was that the entire biblical story finds its climax in the person of the Lord Jesus.

- That Jesus has been raised uncovers the mystery of the story, that Jesus is now, and ever will be, Christ and Lord.

- That Jesus was raised is no myth. Paul's description in the remainder of the chapter was of a literal physical resurrection and the eyewitness accounts of the Gospels and Acts show the Lord Jesus not only being seen, but being touched, as well as eating and drinking.

- Paul's further list of witnesses was to show that his claim about the resurrection of Jesus was neither mythological nor symbolic, but real.

- "Last of all," Paul wrote, "as to one still born, he appeared also to me."

- To be an apostle one had to be an eyewitness, and Paul's eyewitness testimony was a special case.

- He had not traveled with the Lord Jesus through his earthly ministry like the rest of the apostles, who lived and traveled with him for three years yet Jesus chose to show himself to Paul.

- Some suggest that Paul, the rest of the apostles, and the more than 500 witnesses hallucinated the resurrection [i.e., that they were delirious, they saw an illusion].

- Others suggest that the Gospels are mere legends.

- These suggestions cannot prove true for several reasons: (1) people do not share the same hallucination en masse or corporately; (2) hallucinations cannot account for the empty tomb; (3) hallucinations cannot account for Paul's transformation; (4) hallucinations cannot account for the transformation in James, from sceptic to pastor in Jerusalem; and (5) hallucinations cannot account for the diversity of apostolic experiences of the resurrected Christ.

- The Good News is Jesus: crucified, buried, risen for our sins according to the Scriptures.

- Josh and Sean McDowell also argue for the importance of eyewitness testimony in their book, Evidence for the Resurrection. 

- In the study of historical events, it is crucial to discover participants or eyewitnesses of the event in order to publish the facts. The greater the number of eyewitness testimony, the greater the authenticity and accuracy of a written record. 

- "When a Book is written about an event, the accuracy of its content can be validated if enough eyewitnesses or participants in the event are alive when the book is published." 

- In 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, we find such a record.   If it were not true, Paul never would have claimed that Jesus appeared to over 500 people at the same time who were still living at the time of his writing this letter because this claim was verifiable. 

- The McDowell's conclude, "If each of these 500 people were to testify in a court room for only six minutes each, including cross-examination, you would have an amazing 50 hours of first-hand eyewitness testimony.

- "Add to this the testimony of many other witnesses and you could well have the largest and most lopsided trial in history."[2]

- Eyewitness testimony certifies that the resurrection of Jesus is grounded in history ... a verifiable fact in the fabric of history.

- Never was there a time when Jesus Christ, crucified, buried and risen was not central to the good news the apostles announced.

- Just like the news the war was over changed life in that prison camp, the gospel of Jesus Christ doesn't just have an "other worldly" meaning but "this worldly" meaning and consequences. The gospel affects life here and now.

- "Jesus is raised, therefore he is the Messiah; he is the true Lord of the whole world; therefore we, his followers, have a job to do: we must act as his heralds, announcing his Lordship to the entire world.

- "...Jesus is raised, therefore God's new world has begun, and therefore we, you, and everybody else are invited to be not only beneficiaries of that new world but participants in making it happen."[3]

- In a sermon excerpt entitled, "I Am What I Am," from his book, Apologetic Preaching, Craig Loscalzo states, "Paul reveals that the good news of Christ's death and resurrection provides the foundation on which we stand.  We sometimes get caught up in nonessential matters in the church, and we lose sight of what is foundational to our faith, namely, Christ's sacrificial death and resurrection.  If only we could get our priorities right and keep them before our face."[4]

- The chorus from one of my favourite worship songs declares how we, the church, are called to respond to this marvellous news:

- Church arise and sing for the joy
Sing for the joy we've found
With our lives we shout out Your praise
God we proclaim Your kingdom's coming

- The Good News is Jesus: crucified, buried, risen for our sins according to the Scriptures.

                                            

---

[1] Thiselton, First Epistle to the Corinthians., p. 1186

[2] McDowell, Josh, & Sean McDowell, Evidence for the Resurrection: What It Means for Your Relationship with God. Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 2009, pp. 195-196

[3] Wright, N. T. "The Surprise of Resurrection." In Jesus, The Final Days: What Really Happened. By Craig A. Evans & N. T. Wright, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009, p. 100

[4] Loscalzo, Craig A. Apologetic Preaching: Proclaiming Christ to a Postmodern World. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000, p. 43

Sunday, February 2, 2014. God Is, Part Four: God Is Creator. Genesis 1:1-2, 31

- History begins with the Creator, God, who made the universe in six days and set humanity over it to tend it and name the animals until everything was under their dominion, even as they were under God's dominion.

- That is what Moses taught his readers.

- We live in a world that is dominated by evolutionary philosophy and in which many Christians have tried to fit the evolutionary story into the Scriptures.

- However, what many fail to understand is that when we try to fit the evolutionary story into the Scriptures, we compromise the authority of the word of God.

- Please, allow me to put this plainly and simply: evolution is philosophically opposite to the message of the Bible.

*- Charles Lyell, Charles Darwin, and other self named Free- thinkers wanted to free science from Moses. That is, it was their earnest desire to remove any biblical or Christian influence from how the world thought about science.

- In reality, these freethinkers enslave themselves to their own thinking and to a world of death.

- You see if evolution is true, then Genesis is a myth, the gospel falls, and we have no need of a Savior.

- Genesis deals with the big questions of life: why am I here? Why does the world exist, why does anything exist? What is the purpose of life? What is the purpose of my life?

- According to the Scriptures, there is a God, He is Creator and He is in control.

- In the evolutionary scheme, however, the universe is either some great accident or else it has always existed, life has no purpose, everything is meaningless. The only meaning your life and my life have is the meaning we each take from it.

- If, however, we take the Scriptures at face value, and I believe we are meant to, then what was received and written is historical fact.

- If we are going to accept and treat the Scriptures as real history, then we need to recognize that there are seven key events in the historical timeline presented in the Bible.

- The 7 C's of history: Creation, Corruption, Catastrophe, Confusion, Christ, Cross, Consummation.

- These events explain the big questions of life and oppose evolutionary philosophy. Let's briefly explore each of the 7 C's.

*-First, Creation: God created everything approximately 6000 years ago in six 24-hour days.

- The precise repetition the Hebrew author used to describe the days of Genesis 1 emphasizes that they were six 24-hour periods.

- Let's hear them together consecutively, so we get the plain sense of it: And evening was and morning was day one (Genesis 1:5). And evening was and morning was the second day (Genesis 1:8). And evening was and morning was the third day (Genesis 1:13). And evening was and morning was the fourth day (Genesis 1:19). And evening was and morning was the fifth day (Genesis 1:23). And evening was and morning was the sixth day (Genesis: 1:31).

- A good general rule of thumb with interpreting Scripture is "when the plain sense makes the most sense, seek no other sense, lest it become nonsense."

- The plain sense reading of these verses from Genesis 1 is that these were six literal 24-hour days.

- The other two repetitions in this account that are important are "God said" and "God saw that it was good."

- God speaks and it is done. And God looked at his creation each day and saw that it was good, and on the sixth day, he saw that it was very good.

*- This should cause us to consider that this was a world without suffering and sin, a world without death, disease, or decay. It was perfect, whole, complete.

- The evolutionary story claims that the universe exists because of the Big Bang approximately 13 billion years ago; the earth formed 4 1/2 billion years ago, and every living thing has evolved through billions of years of death, disease and decay to their present state.

- Biblical history teaches an opposite story.

*-Second, Corruption: The first human beings, Adam and Eve, disobeyed their Creator. Because of their disobedience, death, disease and decay entered the world. Such is the plain sense reading of Genesis 3.

- Billions of years of death, disease and decay do not fit with biblical history.

*- How can you have billions of years of death, disease and decay before sin?

- The straightforward, logical answer is you cannot.

- Either evolution is correct or the Bible, God's word, is correct. God's creation was perfect until the sin of humanity.

- No death, disease, and decay until after sin enters the picture.

*- Third, Catastrophe: After generations of sin, suffering and violence; death, disease and decay, God looked over all the earth and saw that every thought and imagination of humanity was consistently totally evil (Genesis 6:5).

*- Since only Noah found favor with the Lord God, then God by means of a catastrophic global flood destroyed the entire surface of the earth and every living thing.

- Only Noah, his family, and 2 of every land dwelling animal that had the breath of life (along with seven pairs of every clean animal) entered the 450 foot long ark.

- If Noah's flood were a real event, what would we expect to find as we look at the earth today?

*- We would expect to find "billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth."

- And what do we find? We find, "billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth."

- Contrary to the observable geological evidence, many dismiss the Bible's claims of catastrophic global flood and assume a localized flood in the region of Mesopotamia.

- For that to happen, however, the entire region would have to have been shaped like a bowl, which it is not.

- Genesis 7:19 states, "and the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered."

- There's that word again! All. The Hebrew word for all occurs twice in that verse, translated in English as all and whole.

- Whenever we see that word, all, I remind us we have to ask ourselves a question: what does that leave out?

- According to Genesis, the flood was a global event.

- So we can either accept the biblical account of a global catastrophic flood, which destroyed the entire surface of the earth, or we can reject the biblical account.

*- Fourth, Confusion: After the catastrophic flood of Noah's day, God blessed Noah and his descendents and commanded them to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth (Genesis 9:1). But Noah's descendents did not obey.

*- Instead, they migrated together to the plain of the land of Babylon. And because they all spoke the same language, God said, "Nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them!" (Genesis 11:6b)

*- So, God confused their language and since the people of that day could no longer understand one another, they were forced to spread out and migrate all over the earth.

*- The evolutionary story presents a kind of confusion in and of itself telling us that there are many different races of humankind and that these races are all at different levels of evolutionary development, migrating over 1000's of years.

- This idea is definitely at odds against the Scriptures.

*- As communicated in Genesis and as we heard from the apostle Paul a few weeks ago, "From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole Earth."

- The evolutionary story goes out of its way to reject the truth that every human being is either a son of Adam or a daughter of Eve.

- Evolution's goal has always been to remove God from the picture and see what our human imaginations can come up with to explain our origins.

- Let's be reminded this morning that our God is a missionary God. He is on a mission to redeem the world from sin, suffering, and violence; death, disease, and decay.

- So he called out a people for himself, promising that through Abraham's offspring all the nations of the earth would be blessed, which brings us to the fifth C, Christ.

*- Fifth, Christ: The gospel writer, John the apostle, wrote: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us..." (John 1:1-3, 14a)

- The Creator became human in the person of Jesus Christ.

- The birth of Jesus our Lord marks God's D-Day, the beginning of God's full-scale assault against the powers of darkness which rule his world.

 - The Lord Jesus obeyed God in everything. - Alike, yet not like Adam, he was tempted in every way, just as we are yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). By his perfect life, Jesus our Lord fulfilled the law.

- Evolutionists have a questionable interest in their story because if Jesus was and is who he claimed to be and everything he taught is correct, then the evolutionary story is a lie.

*- Those that tell the evolutionary story are comfortable with Jesus being a good man, a sound moral teacher, or even a prophet, but not our Creator.

*- CS Lewis called such an admission patronizing nonsense; either Jesus was and is who he claimed to be or he is not; our Lord himself did not give us any other options.

*- Sixth, Cross: In 1 Corinthians 15, the apostle Paul gives his readers the basics about the good news: Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures; he was buried, he was raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures.

- The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus from the grave established his place as Lord and Messiah, the Savior of the world.

- The historical facts surrounding his crucifixion, death, and burial, and the reality of the physical resurrection of the Lord Jesus from the grave vindicated him and the Scriptures themselves.

- All who put their trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior can have life in his name, both now and forever more.

*- The evolutionary story denies the significance of the cross of Christ by denying the supernatural and, therefore, the resurrection, thus seeking to rob the world of its Savior.

- In his cross, the Lord Jesus more than identified with sinners.

- As Paul wrote, "for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21).

- Because Jesus became sin for us and because he is risen, we are saved through faith in him. His resurrection vindicates the Bible start to finish.

*- Seventh, Consummation: God is a missionary God. He is on a mission to redeem the world from sin, suffering, and violence; death, disease, and decay. Jesus is coming again.

- God is going to renew his creation. He is going to establish a new heaven and a new earth. And everything that does not belong in that holy and perfect place is going to the incinerator.

*- God will judge the living and the dead. "And the sea gave up the dead that were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who are in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire." (Revelation 20:13-15)

- There is a God, He is Creator and He is in control; the day is coming when that dominion will be perfected and restored and renewed.

- The Scripture testifies that the Lord Jesus says so, "Behold, I am making all things new"(Revelation 21:5).

*- Those who tell the evolutionary story are uncomfortable with God's judgment and hell.

*- In their story, humanity still has billions of years to get it right and if there is a God, which there probably isn't, he is loving, and he doesn't send anyone to hell.

*- However, since there is no God in their story, then there is no afterlife, and when you die you just cease to exist.

*- When confronted with the truth of God's word that makes us uncomfortable, many people try to ignore, deny, or explain it away.

- My prayer is that today you would affirm our take-home truth: There is a God, He is Creator and He is in control

- I also pray that you would be better equipped to stand on the word of God in response to evolutionary philosophy and other ideas that compromise Scripture.

- May God by his all powerful Holy Spirit and through his word enable each of us to separate truth from fiction, fact from fantasy.

*- Let us agree together in the Lord to familiarize ourselves with these seven key events of history: Creation, Corruption, Catastrophe, Confusion, Christ, Cross, Consummation so that we can continually be assured as well as assure others that There is a God, He is Creator and He is in control.