June 2020 – Thinking Accurately Education

The earth was filled with violence in Noah’s day, but the Bible tells us that “God’s patience waited” (1 Peter 3:20).

Why did God wait? What was He waiting for?

“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
2 Peter 3:9

Why was the ark being prepared?

Noah’s Ark

God, contrary to what you might have heard, is kind.

It has always been God’s desire to give people a means of escape, if they would simply take advantage of it.

“The Lord saw that the wickedness of man (like all that we have been horrified to see played out in the news in 2020) was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart (like tyranny, resistance to civil and public health authorities, selfishness, disobedience, lying, deceiving, conspiring, greed, racism, murder, scheming, rioting, looting, and anarchy) was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.”
Genesis 6:5-6

One site, called The Hope Project, says: “The phrase, ‘And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth,’ could be understood in a number of ways…So what is this verse saying to us? …To say that God was sorry and that He grieved in His heart shows us that God has emotions… In the original text the phrase, ‘He was grieved in His heart,’ literally reads, ‘He was grieved to His heart.’ In other words, God looked on the evil in the world and was grieved ‘all the way to His heart.’ One version of the Bible (the NIV) translates this verse, ‘His heart was filled with pain.’ …If God is infinite, then how far is it to the depth of His heart? How big is His heart? How much grief would it take to fill God’s heart? …God knew He was going to hurt this deeply as a result of creating man, and He did it anyway. And not only that, He did it exactly the way He intended to do it. But why would God do such a thing?”

The Bible tells us that:

“God is love…”
1 John 4:8

A.W. Tozer writes:

“The love of God is one of the great realities of the universe, a pillar upon which the hope of the world rests. But it is a personal, intimate thing, too. God does not love populations, He loves people. He loves not masses, but men. He loves us all with a mighty love that has no beginning and can have no end.”
A.W. Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy

The Bible tells us the following:

Noah was told to build the ark three hundred cubits (450 feet) long, fifty cubits (75 feet) wide, and thirty cubits (45 feet) high.

cubit = "about 18 inches" (Bing)

In his book, God’s Plan: What Every Christian Should Know, Dan Malczewski writes:

“This is a gigantic boat! Only some of the modern luxury liners have dimensions greater than this.”
Dan Malczewski, God’s Plan: What Every Christian Should Know

The Bible also refers to Noah as a:

“preacher of righteousness…”
2 Peter 2:5

To whom did he preach? His friends, his neighbors, the families of his daughters-in-law. How did it go? Did many people listen to Noah?

The Bible doesn’t say.

However, we have an account of a similar event, when Lot warned his in-laws to leave the city of Sodom with him:

“So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had married his daughters, and said, ‘Get up, get out of this place; for the LORD will destroy this city!’ But to his sons-in-law he seemed to be joking.”
Genesis 19:14

And we know that only Noah, his wife, his sons, and their wives were saved.

“A few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.”
1 Peter 3:20

One website, “Answers in Genesis,” says:

“When the door to the Ark was shut, there was room for many more people.”
Paul F. Taylor, “Noah the Evangelist,” March 29, 2007

So why didn’t more people get on the ark?

I recently saw an interesting movie version of the story of Noah’s ark that was made in 2014. What I found unique in this film was that Noah’s own sons originally thought Noah was being foolish by building the ark..

The Bible says:

“God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are.”
1 Corinthians 1:27-28

Today people are claiming that Jesus may be coming back soon, to “Rapture” the church.

What does the Bible say?

“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air
1 Thessalonians 4:16-17

“Let no one deceive you by any means; for (the Day of the Lord) will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way.”
2 Thessalonians 2:3-7

What do you think about these things? Do you think of it all as just foolishness?

What if you’re wrong?

When the Bible says (in the book of Nahum):

“The Lord is slow to anger but great in power; He will never leave the guilty unpunished.”
Nahum 1: 3

A lot of people laugh.

Those people look around, and see riots, and fires, and hapless government leaders without solutions. They certainly do not see the guilty –if they actually believe there actually are any–punished.

The Bible (in Genesis 4) tells us that Cain killed his brother, Abel. Why did he do it?

The answer is there, in Genesis 4.

“Sin is crouching at the door…”
Genesis 4:7

What does that mean?

If you believe the Genesis account is moral fiction, just mythology, as Jordan Peterson does, then sin–as a concept–becomes a nothing more than a metaphor for chaos (contrasting with order).

But the Bible (in the book of Ecclesiastes) says:

“The hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts…”
Ecclesiastes 9:3

So, sin is the normative human condition.

This is confirmed in the book of Jeremiah:

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick…”
Jeremiah 17:9

Racism is sin. Murder is sin. Rioting and looting are sin. Hating your brother is sin.

How do we fix the human heart?,

The book of Hebrews in the Bible was originally written to Jewish Christians, who knew the Old Testament book of Jeremiah, and it quotes from the 31st chapter of that book:

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant… not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant that they broke… For this is the covenant that I will make… I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be My people…”
Jeremiah 31:31-33

In other words, God will, through His Spirit–living within individual Christians–empower them to overcome sin, a feat that is otherwise impossible to humanity.

The book of Romans says:

“None is righteous, no, not one… no one does good, not even one… By works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight…”
Romans 3:10-20

So, the rioters in the streets are wasting their time. The people in Minneapolis who are disbanding their police force, they’ve got it all wrong.

Then what’s the answer?

“On the way down the mountain trail, in the middle of a storm, Alvin (York) meets his God, in the form a lightening bolt, which melts his gun, and throws him from his mule. From that moment on, Alvin becomes a transformed man of faith, apologizing…for his former behavior… Under the leadership of the Pastor Rosier Pile (Walter Brennan) Alvin starts living his life according to Biblical teachings, growing his faith in God and His word.”
Howard Hawks’ “Sergeant York,” 1941

Alvin York, medal-of-honor winner from World War I, is a real life example of a man who learned to be a contributing member of society by becoming a Christian.

Another example is Desmond Doss, a medal of honor recipient from World War II.

Desmond Doss, hero of 2016’s “Hacksaw Ridge,” receiving medal-of-honor

According to People Magazine:

“Doss’s faith and courage were forged growing up in Lynchburg, Virginia… He was particularly intrigued by a illustration of the Sixth Commandment, showing Cain murdering his brother Abel.”
“The True Story of Hacksaw Ridge and Desmond Doss: the Medal of Honor Winner Who Never Fired a Shot“

The article goes on to say:

“Private Desmond Doss walked into the bloodiest battle of World War II’s Pacific theater with nothing to protect himself save for his Bible and his faith in God…”
“The True Story of Hacksaw Ridge and Desmond Doss…“

And heroics still happen in Lynchburg, VA:

Christians respond to racial strife in Lynchburg, June 1, 2020

So what’s going on in Lynchburg, VA?

In an effort to understand, we found a book about Jerry Falwell, Sr., the founder of both Thomas Road Baptist Church and Liberty University (both in Lynchburg), whose son, Jerry Falwell, Jr., is currently being trashed on social media and being widely accused of racism. The book, titled, Jerry Falwell: His Life and Legacy, was written by Jerry Sr.’s wife, Macel Falwell, in 2008.

In the first chapter, she wrote:

“When angry protestors at Harvard University asked Jerry (Senior) if he was a racist, he replied, ‘I once was.'”
Jerry Falwell: His Life and Legacy

What did he mean?

Later in the book she elaborates:

“Jerry would realize that the Lord had been dealing with him about racism for years… Finally, Jerry realized that right was right and wrong was wrong, and he had to take a stand for what was right… He thought of the children in that Dominican Republic orphanage (where he had once done some missionary work), and the Christians he’d worked alongside in Jamaica, Haiti, and Puerto Rico… This day, he realized, had been coming for a long time…”
Jerry Falwell: His Life and Legacy

And this is how seemingly beleaguered Jerry Falwell, Jr remembers his father:

“The day before he died, Dad dropped by my office and said, ‘Go with me up to the (LU) monogram on Liberty Mountain.’ I was swamped with work and couldn’t afford the time… Then I saw the look on his face. It was rare to see him so disappointed. ‘You know (Jerry Jr said), on second thought, I would love to go.’ We sat up on top of the mountain and talked to Liberty University students. It was one of Dad’s last gifts to me, and I will always cherish the memory.”
Jerry Falwell: His Life and Legacy

Hebrews 10:16 says:

“I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds…”
Hebrews 10:16

Mrs. Falwell, in the book, was careful to point out the rough-and-tumble life that Jerry Falwell had known before God got ahold of him–just like Alvin York. She included all the tasty tidbits that so many people have used to try to destroy what has happened here in Lynchburg. But through it all, making a difference in the world–and doing what he thought God wanted him to do, is what this man was all about (in spite of his faults, in spite of his critics).

The Bible says:

“Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”
Romans 4:3

And John Wesley (founder of Methodism, and largely credited with transforming nineteenth-century England to such an extant that it was spared from the revolutions that were occurring all over Europe at that time) said:

“Give me one hundred men who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not whether they be clergyman or laymen, they alone will shake the gates of Hell and set up the kingdom of Heaven upon the earth.”
from a letter in the Works of John Wesley

Wesley is often quoted as saying:

“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can,
In all the ways you can, in all the places you can,
At all the times you can, to all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.”
Attributed to John Wesley

Those words certainly apply to Jerry Falwell’s life as well. And just as Abraham’s, and Wesley’s legacy lived on for many generations, the same will be said about Falwell’s.

This modern worship song could be said to express Falwell’s story well:

“Revival’s in the Air“

Month: June 2020

While the ark was being prepared

“Am I my brother’s keeper?”