Being Light Like Lights Are Lights

May 21, 2010 (Friday)

Genesis 1:14-19
And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, 15and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth." And it was so. 16And God made the two great lights--the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night--and the stars. 17And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

Matthew Henry: The lights of heaven are made to serve us, and they do it faithfully, and shine in their season, without fail: but we are set as lights in this world to serve God; and do we in like manner answer the end of our creation? No, we do not; our light does not shine before God as his lights shine before us…

Matthew 5:14
"You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.
…We burn our Master’s candles, but do not mind our Master’s work.

Clay Miller: Sometimes I get the opportunity and oomph to go outside, lay down, be still and just look at the moon and stars. They have been there all my life, and all the lives before me. They have governed life around me when I see and do not see it happening. They do exactly what they were intended to do. They are doing exactly what God wants them to do, without fail. They are inanimate. We are not. And as Henry says here, we do not answer the end (purpose) we should answer. We like using God’s set up for us…that is, all He has made for us…but we do not like tending to the work for which He created us for… How we need forgiveness and guidance from this time and forever more!!!!

God Gave Us the Lights...US

May 19, 2010
Genesis 1:14-19
And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, 15and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth." And it was so. 16And God made the two great lights--the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night--and the stars. 17And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

Matthew Henry: “The lights of heaven do not shine for themselves, nor for the world of spirits above, who need them not; but they shine for us, for our pleasure and advantage. Lord, what is man, that he should be thus regarded!…

Psalm 8:3-4
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?

…How ungrateful and inexcusable are we, if, when God has set up these lights for us to work by, we sleep, or play, or trifle away the time of business, and neglect the great work we were sent into the world about!

Clay Miller: It is amazing that everything in existence exists to display to us the power of our God. Even the lights in the heavens are there for us to do His work by. Go outside and look at the moon tonight. Consider it. It is this massive ball hanging on nothing in its perfect place, reflecting the sunlight and giving light to us. It just hangs there! We are just hanging here on a ball too. This ball is spinning so fast, and yet we do not fly off into space. It is revolving around the sun too. And the sun is constantly lighting up the earth somewhere. This is another great proof of intelligent design and care. How many billions of miracles would have to happen for everything to be in place the way it is without a Creator! Atheists deny a supernatural Creator and say it is implausible. Oh really. Truthfully I believe in one miracle of creation…it takes trillions and trillions X trillions and trillions for “chance” to get it to where it is. I will stick to consistency in my reasoning and not drift off when it comes to God.

No Reason Here

May 13, 2010

“The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, They have done abominable works, There is none who does good” (Psalm 14:1).

Stephen Charnock: “A general consent of all nations is to be esteemed as a law of nature. Nature cannot plant in the minds of all men an assent to a falsity, for then the laws of nature would be destructive to the reason and minds of men.”

Clay Miller: This is how reason works. It reasons. No matter who you are, you make decisions and determinations by what you reason. For some “reason”, all rules are dropped when it comes to reasoning the existence of God. Actually, it is not an intellectual problem…it is a moral irresponsibility and a moral problem for an “atheist”.

Stephen Charnock: “How is it possible, that a falsity should be a persuasion spread through all nations, engraven upon the minds of all men, men of the most towering, and men of the most creeping understanding; that they should consent to it in all places, and in those places where the nations have not had any known commerce with the rest of the known world? A consent not settled by any law of man to constrain people to a belief of it: and indeed it is impossible that any law of man can constrain the belief of the mind.”

Clay Miller: To answer Charnock: It is not possible. It is like saying that gravity does not exist, though that very force holds down every human being and object on this planet from floating off into space.

Stephen Charnock: “Would not he deservedly be accounted a fool, that should deny that to be gold which hath been tried and examined by a great number of knowing goldsmiths, and hath passed the test of all their touch-stones? What excess of folly would it be for him to deny it to be true gold, if it had been tried by all that had skill in that metal in all nations in the world!”

Clay Miller: The problem I see today is not with intellect, but with suppression. Some of the most intellectual people in the world will drop all reason in order to deny the existence of an intelligent Designer. They will not even allow themselves to consider it! That is suppression. They are cheating themselves and they do not care! This area alone is the one area where they will not allow reason an entrance. It is not intellect that is the problem…it is their corrupt desire to suppress the reality of God at whatever expense, even at the expense of intellectual integrity. Amazing!