Where did I come from? This basic question is not speaking of your nationality, race, place of birth, or your ancestry. Another way of stating the question is, “Why was I born?” You were born because of a relationship between a man and a woman, as the Bible says, “by the will of the flesh.” More significantly, you were born for a purpose. The Bible states it this way, “Thou art worthy, 0 Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created” (Revelation 4:11). God has created you for His glory and with great potential that He can use.

Why am I here? This question is intertwined with the first one. It speaks of your purpose at this moment in time. Millions find little purpose for living from one day to the next. They face life with little zest or enthusiasm because life seems futile. A satisfactory answer to this question hinges on another question a hymn writer once asked, “What will you do with Jesus?” With Christ as your Lord and Saviour you have something to live for. You can live for Him now, glorify Him, and share your faith in Him with a needy world.

Where am I going? The answer to this question is determined by how you answer the other two questions. If you surrender your life to God and live with purpose for Him, then your destiny is heaven. People who do not have a goal or purpose for living usually end up in despair. Helping other people is a worthy purpose for living, but if that is where your goal stops, you will fall short of finding ultimate satisfaction in life. You will not be able to satisfactorily answer the question, “Where am I going?”

The Bible says, “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” You need a goal beyond this life. You need to live in light of eternity with God—your own eternity and the destiny of those you influence.

How are you answering these questions about your purpose in life? Are you seeking answers in God’s Word and through submission to His Son, Jesus Christ? Your answers will make all the difference in the world—and in the next world.

“If thou shalt confess with thy month the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9, 10).

—by RLB

On the other hand, in 2002, over 17,000 people were killed in the US in accidents involving alcohol, a legal substance. Thousands die every year from drug abuse. Worldwide AIDS deaths in a recent year totaled an estimated 3 million, with 40 million people still living with the disease. This is a disease spread because people choose an immoral lifestyle.

We are living in a world of mixed-up priorities. Untold worry and fear arise over things that kill only a few people, while thousands, even millions, die of things that can largely be avoided by following God’s way, found in the Bible. Think of the millions of lives saved around the world if people would accept Jesus Christ, who is called the Great Physician and the Prince of Peace.

While you and I cannot force world societies to accept this way that would save untold lives, we are not helpless—we can do something about it. We can begin with ourselves. Are you willing to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour of your life? Following Him will bring untold blessing in your life now and in the future. Even more exciting, by turning your life over to God and living for Him, you can influence many other people to do the same. Your right choice will, first of all, influence your family, co-workers, and other people who are observing you. If these people choose the way of Christ, they will, in turn, influence other people, perhaps people you do not even know. Right choices made today can influence even the generations to come. In this way, you can be instrumental in changing society for good. What are the steps for becoming that kind of influence?

1. Recognize that you are a sinner in need of salvation through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
2. Confess your sins and your needs to God in the name of Jesus Christ.
3. Accept Jesus Christ as the Lord (controller and director) and Saviour (your rescuer) of your life.
4. Find a Bible-believing church that carefully follows the teachings of Jesus, be baptized, and identify yourself with Jesus Christ and His church.
5. Study the Bible and follow the principles and priorities found in its pages.
6. Reach out to other people in your own family and in your community and beyond, letting them know what Christ can do for them.

Jesus said, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30). Then you will find freedom from many things that destroy our society, spiritually and even physically. Again, Jesus said, “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31, 32).

-by Roger Berry

Whether you ever thought of it or not, you do have some relation to God. But how near is that relation? Is God only a powerful Supreme Being, or has He come near to you and brought you near to Him? Has He only started the worlds spinning and drawn the curtain, or has He shown Himself to you and made you a part of His plans? Does the thought of God and His terrible judgments strike terror to your heart, or have you found Him to be your Father? Or, do you just prefer to forget God and say, “God’s in His heaven, and all’s well with the world”?

Now God is not only in His heaven, but He came down into our world—His world. The coming of Jesus Christ as perfect God and perfect Man to draw God and man together again is an established fact and experience. I say that Jesus Christ draws God and man together again because the “togetherness” in which man and God first delighted was broken by man’s sinful disobedience. The deepest springs of human nature were so incurably poisoned that cleansing and purifying could only be accomplished by the outside help of God. You, likewise, must look to power outside yourself for betterment. “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”

When rebellious man comes to God for this renewal, this cleansing, this restoration, the process is so drastic and so painful to sinful nature that God likens it to a birth, a new beginning, a new creation. “Ye must be born again” is God’s express requirement. To change the rebellious mind of man into a loving, dependent submission to God requires the power of God Himself. But God will not usurp man’s power of choice. Man’s decision and surrender are his part. The transformation of man’s life can be imitated but not successfully duplicated. “It is the gift of God.“

The sure fact stands: all mankind is guilty before God and remains so until pardoned by Him. Is that your relation to God—guilty? Have you seen God’s way to forgiveness and pardon through Jesus Christ? Have you learned of His sacrifice and His blood which cleanses from all sin? Have you come to abandon your own opinions regarding your condition, agreeing with God to your guilt and shame? Will you prefer God’s Word to your own? Have you abandoned sin completely as God lays it bare before you and convicts you? Have you believed in the work of pardon accomplished by Jesus Christ in His death and resurrection? If you have so abandoned yourself to Jesus Christ for pardon, for cleansing, and for obedience, then your relation to God is right, straight, and plumb; your vertical relationship is then true and upright.

Some feel sure about this vertical relationship but not so sure about the horizontal relationship: with other people. How are you related to others? By love or by strife? Have you enemies you will not forgive? If so, God cannot forgive you. Can you say in truth of heart that you have no resentments or ill will? Can you further say that you have not only absence of ill will but the actual presence of love? Is your love for others a self-denying, sacrificial love or a kind of looking-down-on-others sort of love that wears a superior feeling while it sympathizes? Can you enjoy the prosperity of your rivals? Do you cater to the admiration of others, their praise of your person, your appearance, your talents, your possessions?

The carpenter’s square is true vertically only if the horizontal is level. So likewise is your relation to God truly upright only if your relations to men measure true. How, then, is your relation to other people? On the square?

Just as real as God and other people is the world about us. This “world” is the whole system of customs, ways, and standards by which men without God live. What is your relation to this social order? Are you living by these customs, ways, and standards? Are you devoting your time and affection and interest to the “arts,” the “sciences,” or to “wine, women, and song”? Are you a slave to the values of your social order or political order? The apostle had to count them all as worthless in relation to Christ. Likewise, the religion which is acceptable to the social orders of the world is not the religion of the meek and lowly Jesus. The most sophisticated of world cultures is, after all, pagan.

Let the question be put in the words of the Scriptures: Do you love the world? the things that are in the world? its entertainments, its pleasures, its goals which are designed to appeal to human honors and accomplishments, to satisfaction of the flesh and the carnal mind? Its religions are designed to appeal to the carnal mind too. What is your relation to this world? “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” Could any pronouncement be clearer than this?

Lest you feel happy about your relation to God and to your fellowmen, consider carefully your relation to the world. This may well be the proof of your first two relationships.

God has an open book, the Bible, revealing His will in these three relationships: man to God, man to man, man to the world. No other authority exists for safe steering from here to eternity.

I urge you, while opportunity is at hand (for it may be cut off at any moment), to take serious, sober thought of your inescapable relation to God, for someday you will give account of yourself to Him and will answer as to what you did with this opportunity. As God clears your vertical relationship with Him, He will enable you to clear your relations with other people. He will likewise give you power to live above the sub-Christian standards of the world.

“If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

-by Harold Brenneman

A recent court case in Pennsylvania highlights the efforts across the United States to break the stranglehold of evolution on American schools. It was pictured as eleven parents versus the Dover school board. However, there would have been many parents who did not want evolution forced on their children. The passion and polarization in the conflict was revealed by the caricaturing of creationism as religious foolishness. Evolutionists invariably divert the debate away from physical evidences and turn it into a religious debate. On the other hand, the creationist believes that “the fool hath said in his heart, There is no God” (Psalm 14:1).

Repeated statements are made that scientific “authorities” have observed, by examining the remains of nowextinct creatures, how one creature has emerged to replace another. Then they give examples of variation in kinds such as the different beak sizes in Galapagos finches. This, of course, is working with the billions of bits of information already in the bird. This information controls size, color, and many other features. This has nothing to do with originating the masses of complex, ordered information on the genome for a fin, a leg, a wing, or just a feather! Nothing just happens without an information cause. Environmental pressure can only select from existing information. According to Dr. Lee Spetner (Johns Hopkins University information theory teacher) no one has ever observed an increase of constructive information to the genome.

The Wall Street Journal said the Dover, Pennsylvania case was one of the biggest tests of evolution since the 1925 Scopes “Monkey Trial.”

The Scopes Event

The Scopes “trial” was a staged event in Dayton, Tennessee, in response to an ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) ad in the Chattanooga Times (May 4, 1925). They offered to pay the expenses of any teacher willing to test Tennessee’s recently passed anti-evolution law. The proceedings moved according to script, including a staged fight between a druggist and a promoter of the event. The promoter made a pro-evolution speech, but he didn’t really believe it. (Mr. Scopes had not actually taught evolution in classes.)

The trial pitted Clarence Darrow, a shrewd criminal lawyer, against William Jennings Bryan, a popular lecturer, debater, and politician. His speech entitled “Is the Bible True?” had influenced support for the Tennessee law. This law made it illegal for teachers to promote any theory that denies the story of divine Creation and to teach that man has descended from a lower order of animals.

The trial involved eight days of proceedings—scientists and lawyers were brought hundreds of miles to testify. The climax came when Clarence Darrow questioned Bryan on the witness stand, ridiculing his Bible beliefs. Darrow then got the judge to conclude the trial before Mr. Bryan could question Darrow (the agreement) or give his 15,000-word rebuttal. Even the Science News magazine (3-1-97) took credit in an anniversary issue for helping to finance the affair.

The Evolutionists’ Evidences!

What were these “evidences” given for evolution in 1925?

1. Vestigial Organs: Around two hundred supposedly useless parts of the body, such as tonsils and appendices, were left over from our evolutionary ancestors. Today medical science has found a function for all of these.
2. Embryonic Recapitulation: The idea that the human embryo goes through the stages of its evolutionary ancestors. Ernest Haeckle made drawings of numerous embryos to show similarity. In later years, Haeckle was found guilty of falsifying his information and is in disrepute today.
3. Neanderthal Man: Anthropologists began to dig up fossil bones of humans and apes to find what they wanted to see. From 1857, human bones and artifacts were found across Europe. In 1908, Marcellin Boule concocted a brutish, bowlegged, hairy, naked apeman that led many to believe evolution. Today, it is believed that these people were altogether human but suffered from rickets. They actually had a larger brain case than the average human does today.
4. Java Man: Mr. Dubois, who found these bone pieces, acknowledged in 1935 that this skullcap was that of a gibbon-like ape.
5. Piltdown Man: This fake was a cornerstone of the UCLA Scopes Trial. A partial skull and jawbone found in England fooled scientists for forty years. In 1953, it was admitted that the fragments had been stained with acid to look old and the teeth had been filed. But it had also served its purpose of indoctrinating two generations of schoolchildren.
6. Nebraska Man: In 1925, this “ancient” man was the current sensation. It was found in Nebraska in 1922. The highest authorities, such as Henry Fairfield Osborn, certified it to be man’s early ancestor. A whole family of naked hominoids were drawn, based on a single molar tooth. In 1928 evidence was found that the tooth was from an extinct pig. In 1972, this variety of pig was discovered living in Paraguay.

These are the “evidences” referred to in the current Dover Case when an article says: “Evolution has been tested by examining remains of now-extinct creatures.” But all their best case “evidences” for evolution have been disproved. Much discredited material still remains in textbooks to indoctrinate schoolchildren to believe in evolution. (Peppered moths, for example. There is no evolution here, just variation and selection of existing information.)

Media Power Play

The Scopes Trial had the world’s attention. In 1925, radio was just coming into prominence. The movers in the media were feeling their power to influence the masses by controlling what they heard and the bias then used in reporting events. The reporters knew what their liberal editors wanted. They found plenty of captivating stories in the circus atmosphere in Dayton, including a trained chimpanzee named Mendi. About two hundred reporters wrote stories totaling around one million words. Prominent intellectuals such as George Bernard Shaw in England wrote columns full of bombast and ridicule of Mr. Bryan and the American legal system.

The recent Dover case mimics many of the 1925 incidents. Apparently, Darwin’s grandson was present and a documentary may be made of the case. The judge threw out the school board’s 6-3 vote to introduce an alternate to evolution. He ridiculed “the breath-taking inanity of the board’s decision . . . when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial” (Wall Street Journal 12/21/05).

Judge Jones may have some authority, but he had no facts supporting evolution. Lawyers and judges have taken the power from the people today and dictate from the bench. The media, along with an activist judicial system, are working together to subvert the moral values that many people want to preserve.

Political correctness does not allow for dissent from conventional wisdom. Numerous scientists see evidence that the five billion + bits of information on the human genome could not self-organize from inorganic minerals (dirt), but they are not given a public forum. Only writers weighing in on the side of evolution are printed in the major news publications.

Methods Examined

You can’t overcome the world on its own battleground. God does honor all who in every nation honor Him (Acts 10:35). However, it is a mistake to not see the separation from the world required for the believer (see Rev. 18:4). On the evolutionists’ own turf one is subject to and victim of their powers. Satan is the “prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2). Powerful public relations firms and propaganda machines are working behind the scenes to shape events to turn American and world opinion against conservative Christians.

Unbelievers ignore evidences and turn the burden of proof on believers, trying to force them into compromising positions. Intelligent Design scientists were used who don’t claim to know who or if God is. These notions about God gave Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education (antagonist of creation), the opportunity to give a painful stab by saying believers are “burying God deeper.”

The Outcome

God is working to polarize people’s beliefs in the irreconcilable conflicts of our end-time. “Many shall be purified . . . but the wicked shall do wickedly” (Daniel 12:10). Nominal Christianity, which gives lip service to God and also serves the flesh, has failed. “Choose you this day whom ye will serve” (Joshua 24:15). The life of everyday devotion to God and obedience to His Word spreads as salt in society. When this happens, it will strengthen and preserve a nation (see Acts 10:35). “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 13:34). These are the true believers who will die (not fight) to keep the faith of God even when it is no longer popular.

The suffering, disease, violence, and death in our world are evidences that there is a real Satan behind the scenes. That old serpent, the devil, is raising the world up in rebellion against God, but it is God that is bringing them to judgment. “Babylon hath been a golden cup in the lord’s hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad” (Jeremiah 51:7).

Sources:
Wall Street Journal 12/21/2005
US News 12/6/05
Scopes: Creation on Trial -R. M. Cornelius and John Morris
Not by Chance — Dr. Lee Spetner

-by Elvin Stauffer

‘Tis easier work, if we begin
To serve the Lord betimes:
While sinners who grow old in sin
Are hardened by their crimes.

It saves us from a thousand snares,
To mind religion young:
With joy it crowns succeeding years,
And makes our virtues strong.

To Thee, Almighty God! To Thee
Our hearts we now resign;
‘Twill please us to look back and see
That our whole lives were thine.

Let the sweet work of prayer and praise
Employ our daily breath:
Thus we’re prepared for future days,
Or fit for early death.

—by Isaac Watts