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The Eyes of the Lord

Danby House January 9, 2018

For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. ( 2 Chronicles 16:9 )

What does it mean to be perfect?

But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. ( James 1:4 )

Perfect means complete, you need nothing that you don’t have.

Night and day praying exceedingly that we might see your face, and might perfect that which is lacking in your faith? ( 1 Thessalonians 3:10 )

What could be lacking in our faith?

But godliness with contentment is great gain. ( 1 Timothy 6:6 )

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What is Free Will?

See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil; In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it. But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them; I denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish, and that ye shall not prolong your days upon the land, whither thou passest over Jordan to go to possess it. I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them. (Deuteronomy 30:15-20)

God could have created a perfect creation from nothing, he didn’t.
He created a corrupted system which is temporary and bound for destruction.
Why?
He did it In order to manifest free will.

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Why Do We Have Night?

Genesis 1:3-5


And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

If God saw the light, that it was good, why didn’t he just keep it light?
If the ultimate goal is a heaven which is permanently full of light, where there is no day or night, then why did it get dark again?

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A Testable Hypothesis For God

January 6


Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

(Malachi 3:10) KJV

Non-believers frequently demand proof of God, and insist that absence of said proof is proof of the absence of said God. This proof is available, you may have proof of God any time you want.

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Is The Bible Literal Or Figurative?

John 4:7-14

There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.) Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

Both. The literal parts should be taken literally, but the figurative parts should not.
So how do we know what parts of the Bible are literal and which are figurative?

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Is the Bible Literal or Figurative?

But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

(John 4:14) KJV

What is this living water? And if Jesus said that there is such a thing as living water, does that mean that there is dead water? These are the kinds of things that I contemplate, it helps to ease my mind. This puts me in good company I believe, as Isaiah seems to have thought the same thing.

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.

(Isaiah 26:3) KJV

One of the things that I truly love about the Bible is the way that it explains itself. When you find a passage, like this one of the conversation that Jesus had with the Samaritan woman, and it raises an intriguing idea like that of living water, diligent study will find out the other parts of the Bible that help to bring you to its full understanding. So if the living water wells up in the person who believes in Jesus Christ, then what? What does it do? We turn to another passage in the Gospel of John for help understanding it.

In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

(John 7:37-38) KJV

So now I know that the stream of living water will come out of my belly. Now, technically speaking, there isn’t actually a stream of water coming out of my belly, and so therefore this is a figure of speech that is being used as a picture of something else. The passage goes on to explain this too, and what it tells us is that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the believer enables the believer to share the gospel of Jesus Christ like a river of living water. However, the practical manifestation of this is not actual water coming out of an actual belly, but an out-flowing of the Spirit of God through words and deeds.

There is a point to this, trust me.

I believe that the Bible gives us an accurate account of the physics of creation, the history of the world to the present time, and what is going to take place in the future. Because of this some people ask me if I think the Bible should be taken literally. Unfortunately there is not a simple yes/no answer. I believe that the literal parts should be taken literally, but the figurative parts should not. So how do we know what parts of the Bible are literal and which are figurative?

We have to examine the context of the passage to see if it is referring to or describing an actual physical phenomenon. I know that Jesus in today’s passage is speaking figuratively because there isn’t a stream of water coming out of my belly. I also know that when God said, “Let there be light,” the physical conditions necessary to cause light to appear were present, and so this is literal.

We can test the Bible against itself, and we can test the Bible against physical evidence and scientific knowledge. This is also how we can test whether scientific knowledge is real or imaginary.

Is science describing something that, interpreted correctly, can be accounted for by the Bible? This again should cause us to examine the evidence carefully, not what science says about the evidence, but we should be examining the evidence for ourselves.

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Deep Water

Stylalized ball-and-stick water molecule

The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.

(Proverbs 20:5) ESV

Before moving on to the physics of what God did with the waters of the deep, we need to see if there’s anything to be learned from the Bible about what water actually IS.

Continue reading “Deep Water”