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The Only Page to Be On

THE ONLY PAGE TO BE ON

MIKE CUNNINGHAM

February 17, 2008

For those of you who were here last Sunday and heard my message or read it later on the internet, you may recall a suggestion I offered concerning Christians interacting with atheist evolutionists. I said, “I wouldn’t attempt to waltz the non-Christian evolutionist through the Bible in an attempt to prove why he or she is wrong and I’m right. To do so would knock the person right off the page we have them on, and we want to keep them there. Think about it; “if someone doesn’t believe in Creation how can we expect them to seriously consider anything supposedly Authored by the Creator? That person has their own preconceived opinion of what constitutes truth. And they are convinced Bible believers are scientifically illiterate pathetic fools. Remember the page they’re on, and stay on it with them.”[i] Then, after citing several examples of the absurdity of atheism, I quoted how God characterizes an atheist and how we should interact with such a person.

Psalms 53:1 (ESV) 1The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”

Proverbs 26:4-5 (NIV) 4 Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself. 5 Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes.

I concluded my sermon by suggesting, “We must keep the fool on the same page and force him or her to live with their own foolishness, until they make themselves crazy and can’t stand it anymore. Then, in complete prayerful dependence on the Lord for Him to add His blessing to our efforts, and with an unmistakable sincere spirit of love and humility, gently persuade the person to move over to another page, the first one in the Bible, which starts by saying, “In the beginning, GOD…. I then ended with my usual, Lord willing, next week….”

It looks as though He wanted me to be back with you folks again this morning, so I’ll pick up where I left off last week by finishing the sentence: Genesis 1:1 (NIV) 1 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Now in recognition of today being “Evolution Sunday” in honor of the 199th birthday of Charles Darwin, I thought it would be kind of nice if I translated that particular verse from Genesis using my very own creation; the DAV Translation which I introduced you folks to a year ago tomorrow.[ii] For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, I named it The Devil’s Amplified Version. Allow me to quote the first verse in Genesis using my masterpiece of idiocy. “In the beginning was nothing, and all of a sudden; nothing exploded, and lo and behold, in the course of time nothing became everything,” (DAV). Now let that precious gem sink in for a moment.

Think about the awesome wonder of such an event. Can you imagine a “Big Bang” emanating from nothing suddenly creating perhaps billions of sun’s, moon’s, stars, meteors, comets, galaxies, black holes and all the planets, most of which are without names because we haven’t discovered them yet, or the zillions upon zillions of microbe’s, germs, atoms, and elements such as hydrogen, deuterium, and helium, together with everything else in the never ending universe that we don’t even have a clue about? I don’t know about you, but that word MIRICLE which modern science frown’s upon pops into my mind. In fact what I have just described is so awe-inspiring that even a Christian Science Practitioner, a person who believes that because God exists, sin, sickness, death and the entire material world doesn’t that person would probably be tempted to scratch his head, look around him, then gaze up into the starlit sky and say something such as: This sure seems like a whole lot of nothing!”

But what about our brothers and sisters in Christ, fellow followers of the Risen Savior, wonderful people who do believe in evolution? Surely they’re not on the same page as the atheist activists I spoke about last week, are they? Of course not! Nothing could be further from the truth. But neither are they on the same page as Christians who believe all of the Bible is the divinely inspired inerrant Word of God. We must remember this fact whenever we’re interacting with them, and, up to a certain point we must stay on their page in any discussion about evolution. For instance, speaking of the first two chapters of Genesis, the highly acclaimed scientist Francis Collins, who is also a Christian, has concluded that: “This powerful document can best be understood as poetry and allegory rather than a literal scientific description of origins. Collins goes on to ask, “Is the description of Adam’s creation from the dust of the earth, and the subsequent creation of Eve from one of Adam’s ribs, so powerfully described in Genesis 2, a symbolic allegory of the entrance of the human soul into a previously soulless animal kingdom, or is it intended as literal history?[iii] Elsewhere Collins adds, “Other parts of the Bible, such as the first few chapters of Genesis, the Book of Job, the Song of Solomon, and the Psalms, have a more lyrical and allegorical flavor, and do not generally seem to carry the marks of pure historical narrative.[iv]

Now that’s the page this brother in the Lord is on, and that’s the page we want to keep him and all other likeminded Christians on, up to that certain point in the discussion as I mentioned earlier. And don’t forget to remember those other important factors I mentioned last week.

Ephesians 6:12 (AMP) 12 For we are not wrestling with flesh and blood [contending only with physical opponents], but against the despotisms, against the powers, against [the master spirits who are] the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spirit forces of wickedness in the heavenly (supernatural) sphere.

That fellow human being whose sins may not have been as great as yours and mine, a person for whom Christ died an agonizing death to save from his or her sins and to restore their broken relationship with their Creator, has been demonically deceived and confused, just as you and I often have often been by those evil slime-ball cosmic forces of darkness. We should also remember never to be argumentative or project a know-it-all attitude. Instead, we must strive to come across with a sincere spirit of Christ-like love for the person we are speaking with. Now it’s time to try to move to another page which I alluded to earlier, a page which is the only one to be on, and that’s the page Jesus was on.

Matthew 19:3-6 (AMP) 3 And Pharisees came to Him and put Him to the test by asking, Is it lawful and right to dismiss and repudiate and divorce one’s wife for any and every cause? 4 He replied, Have you never read that He Who made them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 And said, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be united firmly (joined inseparably) to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder (separate).

Mark 10:2-9& Mark 10:2-9 (AMP) 2 And some Pharisees came up, and, in order to test Him and try to find a weakness in Him, asked, Is it lawful for a man to dismiss and repudiate and divorce his wife? 3 He answered them, What did Moses command you? 4 They replied, Moses allowed a man to write a bill of divorce and to put her away. 5 But Jesus said to them, Because of your hardness of heart [your condition of insensibility to the call of God] he wrote you this precept in your Law. 6 But from the beginning of creation God made them male and female. 7 For this reason a man shall leave [behind] his father and his mother and be joined to his wife and cleave closely to her permanently, 8 And the two shall become one flesh, so that they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 What therefore God has united (joined together), let not man separate or divide.

From the beginning, and not millions of years later after they finally evolved into becoming human beings.

Luke 11:51 (AMP) 51 “From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was slain between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it shall be charged against and required of this age and generation.

Matthew 24:37-39 (AMP) 37 As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For just as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, [men] marrying and [women] being given in marriage, until the [very] day when Noah went into the ark, 39 And they did not know or understand until the flood came and swept them all away—so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

Luke 17:26-27 (AMP) 26 And [just] as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the time of the Son of Man. 27 [People] ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, right up to the day when Noah went into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.

John 8:56-58 (AMP) 56 Your forefather Abraham was extremely happy at the hope and prospect of seeing My day (My incarnation); and he did see it and was delighted. 57 Then the Jews said to Him, You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham? 58 Jesus replied, I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, before Abraham was born, I AM.

Matthew 10:15 (AMP) 15 Truly I tell you, it shall be more tolerable on the Day of Judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.

Matthew 11:23-24 (AMP) 23 And you, Capernaum, are you to be lifted up to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades [the region of the dead]! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have continued until today. 24 But I tell you, it shall be more endurable for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.

Collins acknowledges, “Many sacred texts do indeed carry the clear marks of eyewitness history, and as believers we must hold fast to those truths. Others, such as the stories of Job and Jonah, and Adam and Eve, frankly do not carry that same historical ring.” [v] He simply can’t bring himself to accept the fact that Jesus was speaking about actual historical events involving real people.

Matthew 12:39-41 (AMP) 39 But He replied to them, An evil and adulterous generation (a generation morally unfaithful to God) seeks and demands a sign; but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For even as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, Someone more and greater than Jonah is here!

The things Jesus spoke about concerning Adam and Eve and Jonah appear to have had that same historical ring to them for Jesus that they don’t have for Collins. Jesus spoke as though these people did indeed exist. He affirmed the authenticity of the Old Testament by quoting from it more than a hundred times. And He certainly affirmed the reality of real people and events. Jesus regarded the Old Testament Scriptures as being the very Word of God; words either spoken directly by Him or through godly men as they were inspired by the Holy Spirit. For instance, in addition to the ones I quoted earlier, consider the following.

Matthew 22:31-32 (ESV) 31 And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”

Matthew 22:43 (ESV) 43 He said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord,

Mark 12:26 (ESV) 26 And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?

Luke 20:37 (ESV) 37 But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.

Make no mistake about it and don’t deceive yourselves. Jesus didn’t regard the events and people He referenced from the Old Testament as being anything other than historical events involving specific human beings. For instance, concerning the Sacred Scriptures, we learn that at the beginning of His public ministry:

Luke 4:14-21 (AMP) 14 Then Jesus went back full of and under the power of the [Holy] Spirit into Galilee, and the fame of Him spread through the whole region round about. 15 And He Himself conducted [a course of] teaching in their synagogues, being recognized and honored and praised by all. 16 So He came to Nazareth, [that Nazareth] where He had been brought up, and He entered the synagogue, as was His custom on the Sabbath day. And He stood up to read. 17 And there was handed to Him [the roll of] the book of the prophet Isaiah. He opened (unrolled) the book and found the place where it was written, 18 The Spirit of the Lord [is] upon Me, because He has anointed Me [the Anointed One, the Messiah] to preach the good news (the Gospel) to the poor; He has sent Me to announce release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to send forth as delivered those who are oppressed [who are downtrodden, bruised, crushed, and broken down by calamity], 19 To proclaim the accepted and acceptable year of the Lord [the day when salvation and the free favors of God profusely abound]. 20 Then He rolled up the book and gave it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were gazing [attentively] at Him. 21 And He began to speak to them: Today this Scripture has been fulfilled while you are present and hearing.

John 10:35 (ESV) 35 “…and Scripture cannot be broken

Matthew 26:52-54 (ESV) 52 Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword. 53 Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? 54 But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?”

Luke 24:24-27 (ESV) 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.” 25 And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

John 5:37-39 (ESV) 37 And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, 38 and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. 39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,

If Jesus was mistaken about His understanding of even one word in the Scriptures, what else could He have been mistaken about, and how would you feel about Jesus being mistaken about what He promised in the following passages for starters?

John 3:16 (ESV) 16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

John 11:25-26 (ESV) 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

Allow me to quote from an excellent little pamphlet entitled: 15 REASONS TO TAKE GENESIS AS HISTORY. Concerning fossilization, the authors write, “Of course, fossilization requires death. All attempts to marry the Bible with the secular ‘natural history’ accept the story of billions of years. But billions of years of what? Those unimaginable eons of time do not float out there on ‘cloud nine’, disconnected from reality. The fossil record of multicellular organisms supposedly covers some 600 million years in which these creatures were dying and being preserved as fossils. There are fossil bones with cancerous tumours preserved in them; it is a record of suffering and death. In this scenario, man appears about a million years ago, one of the latest results of countless experiments involving death of the unfit and survival of the fittest. And when man appears, effectively standing on a pile of bones kilometers deep, God says, it’s all very good’ (Genesis 1: 31). What an insult to the loving God of the Bible![vi]

Those confused Christian’s who are bewildered by this issue are folks who apparently have difficulty in accepting the truthfulness of all the Scriptures. I suspect it’s because they can’t figure out how, short of a miracle, God did all His creating and put everything together in six literal days. I suggest that we respectfully and gently respond to them with the same words Jesus used a long time ago when He admonished the Sadducees for being uninformed as to the true meaning of the Scriptures:

Matthew 22:29 (ESV) 29You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.” And then remind the person that the only page to be on is the one Jesus was on. Lord willing, next week…


[i] My sermon: THE SAME PAGE STRATEGY, February 10, 2008.

[ii] My sermon: APPALLING TIDBITS FROM THE (DAV) TRANSLATION, FEBRUARY 18, 2007

[iii] Page 206, THE LANGUAGE of GOD; Free Press 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N. Y. 10020.

[iv] Ibid page 175.

[v] Ibid, page 209.

[vi] 15 REASONS TO TAKE GENESIS AS HISTORY © 2006 by Don Batten Ph. D. and Jonathan Sarfati Ph. D. page 13, emphases added, Creation Ministries International, Brisbane. P. O. Box 4545, Eight Mile Plains, Old 4113, Australia. www.CreationOnTheWeb.com.

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February 17, 2008 Posted by Categories: Uncategorized 1 comment

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