Secular Humanism vs. God

Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription:

TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.

Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.

(Acts 17:22-24) NKJV

It’s one thing to talk about God with Christians, they know God from the Bible. It’s something else to talk with people who don’t go to church and whose knowledge of God comes from atheist propaganda.

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Free Will

“Now you shall say to this people, ‘Thus says the LORD: “Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death.

(Jeremiah 21:8) NKJV

There are two issues that help us to understand the reason for why we were created with free will and how this is even possible given the nature of God as pure and holy, not to mention omnipresent and omniscient.

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God: אֱלֹהִ֑ים – elohim

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

(Genesis 1:1-2) ESV

A word frequently translated God is the Hebrew elohim. What’s interesting is that the word is plural, denoting more than one. It’s not a problem because we can resolve it with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

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A Pavement of Sapphire Stone

Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness.Then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel: And they saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness.

(Exodus 24:9-10) ESV

You may be uncomfortable with the idea that God uses a section of the firmament as a movable platform like a giant cosmic surfboard. We get it, this is a deep end and we went off it. It’s what we do.

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Foundations of Sapphires

And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever. (Daniel 12:3)

O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires.

And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones.

(Isaiah 54:11-12) KJV

The firmament was originally composed of many more layers than it is now. One layer in the midst transformed into something like obsidian, completely black, and melted causing the inner layers to separate.

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The Brightness of the Firmament

And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever. (Daniel 12:3)

The wise leaders will shine with all the brightness of the sky. And those who have taught many people to do what is right will shine like the stars forever.

(Daniel 12:3) Good News Translation

Then God’s people will shine like the sun in their Father’s Kingdom. Listen, then, if you have ears!

(Matthew 13:43) Good News Translation

The creation of gravity and formation of the firmament was to establish a place, heaven, where God would dwell in perpetual light because the firmament is bright like the sun, as we see from Daniel.

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The Waters Above

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

(Genesis 1:6-8) KJV

The firmament, third heaven, originally had a portion of the deep covering its outer surface. At the time of Noah’s flood the windows of heaven opened and the water poured through and flooded the Earth.

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The Three Heavens

blue sky with clouds

I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago—whether in the body I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows—such a one was caught up to the third heaven.

(2 Corinthians 12:2) NKJV

Given that the apostle Paul specifically refers to something called the third heaven it’s not a stretch to conclude that there must also be a first and a second heaven. We need to know what they are.

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