Why is Christianity the most attacked religion?
Why? Not even the Muslims (not saying all Muslims do this) who blow themselves up and kill other people are talked about and insulted as much as Christians and true Christianity have been and are. Have you noticed? We've been martyred down through the centuries, and it seems in every single age the Jews have been up against some country or people who have tried to kill them or enslave them. Even now you have Evolutionists and Atheists who, it seems, take it upon themselves to discredit it and bash it down to the ground. The morals of the Bible and of this religion have been labeled as being High and Mighty and people try their best to find fault in the Bible. In some places in China and Africa and all around the world you are jailed and even killed for being a Christian. Why do you believe in your heart of hearts that this is so?
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker
Christians are to be the same as their Savior - Jesus Christ!
Jesus said, "Is the servant greater than his master? If the world hated me it will hate you also because you are not of the world even as I am not of this world."
Paul said, "All who will live godly in Christ will suffer persecution."
Jesus said, "Strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to eternal life and few there be that find it. Broad is the way that leads to destruction and many go in thereat."
The words of Christ above make it clear that most people will not accept the word of God. Now since God has put the knowledge of Himself in every man according to Romans1:19-20, those who refuse to believe in God go against their own conscience. Because this is a hard thing causing turmoil in them between what they know is right and what they actually do, the presence of godly men and women makes them very uncomfortable. They resent the fact that these men and women are doing what they refuse to do.
The resentment mentioned above is actually against God, and since true Christians represent God who is making demands on men and women to obey Him they take their hatred of God out on those who love Him and represent Him.
There is a paradox in all this. People laugh at their friends who are telling them to go to Hell everyday and assisting them in going there, and hate those who are trying to help them to escape the wrath and judgment of God. I know this because I have lived on both sides of the issue. When I saw people coming down the street with gospel tracts I would curse and get as far away from them as possible. Now that I know what they really have to offer I am extremely glad to be one of them!
This will never change as long as God permits this wicked world to go on. It will end when God calls every human before His throne on judgment day, and all those who wouldn't listen to and obey God will reap the reward of that rebellion
Do you agree or disagree with this answer? Why? Have you ever considered this before? Do you even think it's important? Why?
God Or Random Circumstance
Are we the creation of the God of the universe or are we the product of random circumstance? There are plenty of videos and sites with text articles online that will present both sides of the issue, but I must hold to the side of Creation for some very good reasons.
First, I have done enough studying on evolution to know that there are serious problems with the "hypothesis." The first one is that a hypothesis is considered to be an intelligent guess. I find it difficult to base my existence on a mere guess substantiated by the thoughts of men who in some cases repudiate what they believe and still continue to believe it. One evolutionist said that he will continue to believe in evolution irrespective of all evidence to the contrary for if evolution isn't true then he would be forced to believe in a God who rules the universe and to whom he is accountable. In other words he would rather hold to a lie and die believing that lie than face up to his accountability to a holy God.
Second; I have never seen evolutionists provide evidence of a first cause. Even the simplest human who has little understanding of scientific ideas knows that everything originates from someone or something. So evolution can trace back through time and then it comes to a spot where there is a first cell, but there is no satisfactory evolutionary explanation as to where that cell came from. Are we
really to believe that it just came into being all by itself? Obviously that is an absurd idea, so that cell had to come from something or someone.
Third, there are no transitional species. The evolutionary explanation is that the process takes millions or billions of years. Considering that argument to be in some way valid there would still be intermediate stages where you would be able to see a human that is part monkey but on his or her way to becoming man or woman. Even if it is only a small hint of the process taking place, it stands to reason that it should be observable at least under a microscope. Examining DNA and the cell structure should reveal even the slightest change considering the advances in technology available to us in this generation.
Fourth; more and more scientists who examine the complexities of everything that surrounds us and are currently living continue to leave the camp of evolution for the creation camp. These are not ignorant and unlearned men and women, but are
some of the greatest minds in science today! The vigor with which some of their colleagues attack them and malign them could be further proof of the shaky ground
they stand on. When someone knows something to be true they don't have to attack those who oppose their view. Truth will stand forever when time comes to an end and we are all in eternity because the source of truth is perfect!
So how is this a spiritual issue with great ramifications? It is just this! If the theory of evolution is correct and everything is caused by random acts that are spread out over billions of years, then man has no purpose in life but survival and doing the best he can on earth because after death he will lie in a grave in cold, hard ground and rot, never to live again. Since there is no definite reason for existence above self preservation and getting the best you can in life, man's life is a self-centered existence and even his good deeds are for selfish reasons such as self-exaltation, getting noticed and praised, and the good feelings that come from doing what is considered right. In addition, good and evil couldn't possibly exist or be determined to exist because there would be no standard to measure them by. After all, we are just random beings with no accountability to a God and no promise of life beyond this one. That is a sad existence indeed.
Now let's examine the creationist view or the idea that God created the heaven and the earth and everything in it. Not only that, mankind was created in the beginning to have a purposeful existence to live in such a way as to bring all honor and glory and praise to the one who created them. Considering that we would not even have an earth, heaven and the multitude of beautiful scenes we are blessed with in sunrises, sunsets, flowers, oceans, bird, animals and much more, it is not hard to understand that the creator of these things deserves our thanks and our loyalty. Worldly people are quick to give honor and praise to those who achieve certain things in life, but slow or unwilling to give praise to the Creator of all things. Think of all the things that pertain to our survival in this world such as water, oxygen, food, light and much more. Where would we be without them? Dwell on the incredible expanse of space that has never been fully tapped by man, or the amazing depths of space or the structure and the support systems of the human body and how it all fully functions together without our help. Can you still believe that all this came about through random and uncontrolled circumstance?
The spiritual impact of the Christian system of belief is overwhelming! If the Creator God that they believe in did bring all this about, and if we will have an accountability to this God, and if we are eternal creatures as the Bible teaches, then all choosing to believe otherwise would be unwise to reject God and what he has to say to mankind. Imagine this scene; A man who died rejecting God's view and what he has to say in regard to mankind and his wickedness suddenly finds himself in a place where there is nothing but suffering, and he also has a full knowledge that this is not the end of it all. He will understand that a day will come when he will be called up from Hell and stand in the presence of the God he denied. He will see the holiness and power of this God on full display in judgment and he will wish with everything in him that he had believed while he was still alive, but that's water under the bridge and can never be changed. Horror grips him as he is made acutely aware that his sin was far worse than he could have imagined on earth, and the times he joked and mocked concerning the things of God flood his memory. All who have ever lived are there. Some are in glorious robes and joy shines from their faces because they are finally in the presence of the one they loved on earth. There are many whose faces are in varied states of shock and terror because they too are like this man. Then the life of the man is put on display for the whole world to see as God shows him his life history and he sees, perhaps in an instant, all that he ever did including all the times salvation was offered to him and he refused. Finally judgment from God's throne is pronounced, and the angels come and cast him into the Lake of Fire where he will spend eternity without reprieve.
This is the spiritual side of evolution, and unlike evolution, it is not a theory! I'm convinced from knowing and walking with God for 49+ years that all evolution has to offer is physical death and spiritual death and damnation for those who adhere to it and die believing it.
As with everything else, you are free to believe it or reject it. If you are right then there are no consequences to what you believe. If I am right then there are some very serious consequences to what we believe. I pray with all that is within me that you will make the right choice! Too much depends on it!
If we're all created by God how can Jesus be the only begotten son of God?
Jesus Christ as God is not a created being. Matthew 1:23 - "Behold a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God with us." This is called the immaculate conception. God came as a man who was given the name Jesus Christ. He was the God/Man or, in other words 100% God and 100% man. This is beyond human rationale to fully understand, but nevertheless it is true based on scripture. In theological terms it is called the hypostatic union.
Some falsely claim that Jesus himself never claimed to be God, but they are in serious error. Read John 10:30-33. "I and my Father are One. Then the Jews took up stones to stone him. Jesus answered them; Many good works have I showed you from my Father; For which of these works do you stone me? The Jews answered him saying; For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy; because thou being a man makest thyself God."
It is clear that the Jews fully understood what he was saying for they accused him of blasphemy and also of making himself to be God as shown in verse 30.
So the man Jesus Christ was the "Only begotten" Son of God. These words speak of the divine conception when Mary was with child by the Holy Spirit, who is one member of the Godhead as well.
Jesus stands alone as begotten of the Father. He is not nor was he ever a created being as we are.
None of us was born of a virgin and none of our mothers was with child by the Holy Spirit. We all had sinful mothers and fathers and we are all sinners.
Jesus never sinned and was the spotless Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world because God demanded a perfect sacrifice to pay for the sins of mankind. We are all sinners and not worthy of salvation so God made a way for us to obtain salvation through the sacrifice of His only begotten Son. It is a gift of mercy to all who will receive it.
Do you agree or disagree with the answer? Why? Have you ever considered this before? Do you even think it's important? Why?
Is Jesus God?
The question above is the most vital consideration in all of Christendom! For the Christian it holds significant meaning that verifies or repudiates their salvation! If Jesus is "God With Us" (Matthew 1:23) it follows that he was able to live as a sinless man fit to sacrifice for the sins of the human race. The sacrifices of the Old Testament had to be without blemish, and so the final sacrifice had to be too! Jesus is called the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. Jesus is considered by most theologians to be the "God Man," - 100% God and 100% man. This is beyond the finite minds of mankind to comprehend apart from the divine revelation that comes from God alone, and then it is a subject to approach with the most supreme reverence. This is where the human mind fails. Spiritual truth boggles the human mind. God corrects this problem through the ministry of the Holy Spirit who is said to "lead us into all truth." Apart from that all mankind is doomed to live their entire lives in spiritual ignorance and die without any hope!
So! Is Jesus God or not? The following is a study on the subject that I have done personally. Since it was done by a human being it will be imperfect, but perhaps something can be gleaned from it that will enable the reader to move up higher!
Is Jesus God? Did Jesus ever claim to be God?
Jesus is never recorded in the scripture as specifically saying the words, "I Am God." That doesn't mean, however that he did not claim that he was God. Take, for example, the words of Jesus in John 10:30 - I and the Father are one." We need only to look at the Jew's reaction to his statement to know he was claiming to be God. They tried to stone him because "you, a mere man, claim to be God." John 10:33 The Jews knew exactly what Jesus was claiming - to be deity! Notice
that Jesus doesn't deny his claim to be God. When Jesus declared, "I and the Father are One" John 10:30 he was saying that he and the Father were of one nature and essence. John 8:58 is another example of this. Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, before Abraham was I am." The response of the Jews who heard this was to take up stones to kill him for blasphemy as the Mosaic law required them to do.
What did Jesus mean when he said, "I Am?"
In a sentence, Jesus was equating himself with the I Am title that God declared himself to be in Exodus 3:14. The Jews became incensed and took up stones to kill him. Their violent response is further proof that they understood his words.
If Jesus merely wanted to say he existed before Abraham's time he would have said, "Before Abraham, I was." This would have had an entirely different and not so offensive meaning to the Jews. The words chosen by the Holy Spirit when he gave the scripture to mankind clarify that Abraham was brought into being, but Christ is eternally existent. (compare John 1:1 combined with John 1:14) There is no doubt that the Jews understood clearly what he was saying because they took up stones to kill him. Jesus didn't commit blasphemy because he is, and always has been God the Son and part of the Godhead.
Jesus also used the same phrase in "I Am" in seven declarations about himself. They can be found as follows: John 6:35, 48 and 51 - "I am the bread of life." John 8:12 - "I am the light of the world." John 10:7 and 9 - "I am the door of the sheep." John 10:11 and 14 - "I am the good shepherd." John 11:25 - "I am the resurrection and the life." John 14:6 - "I am the way, the truth and the life." And finally, John 15:1 and 5 - "I am the true vine."
John reiterates the concept of Jesus' deity in John 1:1 "The Word was God," and John 1:14 "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." These verses indicate that Jesus is God come in the flesh or in the form of man. These two verses combined cannot refer to anyone else but Jesus.
Thomas, a disciple of Jesus Christ declared concerning Jesus, "My Lord and my God." John 20:28 Jesus did not correct him or deny what he said. In Hebrews 1:8 God, the Father declares of Jesus, "Your throne O' God will last forever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom."
Now compare two scriptures concerning God - one of which is very well known to everyone saved and unsaved. John 3:16 tells us, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life." Another verse that is not so well known is found in 1 John 3:16 - "Hereby we perceive the love of God in that he laid down his life for us; so ought we also to lay down our lives for the brethren." Read the entire passage in this chapter, and you will see that there is not one mention of the name of Jesus Christ. This verse must then be saying that God the Son laid down his life for us because it states that the love of God is shown by laying down his life for us. The Greek word in this verse is "Theos" which means the supreme divinity. If Jesus were not God then the verse must be blasphemy because it attributes the sacrificial death to God himself. This same word for God is also used exclusively throughout every part of the New Testament. Since it is well known that it was Jesus who laid down his life for us we must agree that Jesus, as God laid his life down for us. In another place Jesus clearly states that he laid down his life by his own choice.
Another thing to consider is the time when the disciples and Jesus were in a boat on the sea, and Jesus was sleeping. A strong storm came and the wind and waves had the disciples frightened, and they woke Jesus up and cried out for help. Jesus simply got up and commanded the wind and the waves to cease and the storm ended instantly. No man before or after Christ has been able to simply speak a command to a storm and see it stop at once. It would take God himself to do it!
In Matthew 10:1 Jesus sent the disciples out to preach and heal the sick. It goes on to say that he "gave them power over unclean spirits to cast them out and to heal all manner of sickness and disease. If he were not God he could never have dispensed power to anyone merely by speaking it. In the beginning of the Bible we read that "God said, and it was so." God spoke the worlds into existence, and so Jesus, as God, had no problem empowering his disciples.
Further, Jesus was in the presence of the Jewish spiritual leaders, and they were thinking evil things against him and what he was teaching. Jesus looked at them and asked, "Why are you thinking these things?" They didn't have a chance to voice what they were thinking because Jesus knew their thoughts. He wasn't a psychic person as some believe others to be today. He knows the thoughts of all mankind
because he is Omniscient. Scripture bears this out.
This is only some of what I have been able to discover in my 49+ years as a Christian. I have found that the deeper I go into the word of God and the more I invest time in his presence, the more the Holy Spirit shows things to me. I have read some passages hundreds of time getting nothing special from them, and as time progresses suddenly the Holy Spirit shows me things in those passages.
This hardly constitutes all there is to know about the deity of Jesus Christ, and I know that there are some who will refute what I am saying even though it seems to me to be indisputable, and that is alright. The important thing is not to be the one who is right all the time. The important thing is to have the mind of the Spirit of God and to be teachable so that you and I can be prepared on the day when all men will be judged to hear God say, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant!"
Galatians 1:10 tells us that if we seek to please men, we are not the servants of Christ. Jesus told us we cannot serve two masters for we will hate one and love the other. Joshua in the Old Testament issued a challenge to the doubters in the Hebrew nation when he said, "Choose you this day who you will serve, but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord." There is no single individual in the universe who has done for us what Christ did on Calvary. Without God there would be no universe and no life for us to live. We do not ever owe our allegiance to man or any country on earth because the scriptures tell us that we seek a new country where God dwells. What about you? What choice will you make before you die? Will you believe, love and serve the only one who died for you or choose to disregard his sacrifice for you at the risk of your own eternal damnation?
Choose this day who you will serve; BUT as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Today our family lives to love and serve God. How about yours?
Why Do People Believe In God When Evolution Seems Logical
Evolution is far from logical. It is a "hypothesis" which merely means a guess. The theory or hypothesis ends at the base of Darwin's tree with a single cell that has appeared out of nowhere. So everything we see in the world came from nothing. I don't understand how that is logical in any way. Science is a process that gathers information and comes to logical conclusions based on evidence, but science has one huge problem in that many scientists are jumping ship as we find realistic answers with our advanced technology that lead to Creation over Evolution. These men, who are very intelligent, find too many holes in evolution's hypothetical answers concerning life that are unsustainable.
Obviously Creation implies a Creator - or God! God makes a lot more sense than the assumption that nothing brought everything into existence. Wouldn't you agree?
There are many gods ( small g) that people acknowledge and worship that are born in the imaginations of mankind, and there is only one God (capital G) according to the scriptures who actually lives and rules the universe. There's another god who tempts men to sin and rebel against that God and his name is Satan. He has power over the unbeliever who is a mere pawn in his hands. Those who have trusted in Jesus Christ to save them from their sins, death and damnation know God on a personal level as their Father and walk with him and talk with him every day. The unbelievers mock and laugh at them, but they continue to get answers to prayer in the name of Jesus on a regular basis that meet all their needs spiritually, mentally, physically and materially.
This has gone on for centuries - and multitudes of unbelievers have moved on into eternity without hope because of their unwavering commitment to other gods or philosophies or ideologies that refute the God of the Bible. But many others have chosen to trust this God and they have moved into eternity with God and are at peace forever, and will be with him on a new earth according to the teaching of the scripture in Revelation 21 and other scriptures.
Christianity gives everlasting hope for undeserving sinners who place their trust in Christ. All others will die without hope and be lost forever and eternally damned as promised in scripture. That is why people trust in God.
Personally, I have that hope and have seen miracles just like the Bible miracles Jesus did in my 49+ years as a Christian. I have also had many prayers answered in the name of Jesus Christ including instant healing, provision, finding things that are lost, casting out demons, and much more that prove my faith is in a God that is alive and very interested in me.
Do you agree or disagree with the answer? Why? Have you ever considered this before? Do you even think that it's important? Why?
C R Lord © 2/12/2023
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