Joseph’s Alabaster Box

Satan’s imps persuade many Saints that the ways of the world are the most effective ways to win and keep people. Instead of wearing their armour (which many folks find very uncomfortable), they put on worldly garb and disappear into the masses of the world. These spiritual ignoramuses smoke, cuss, gossip, tell dirty stories, cheat, litter the earth, criticize their church, sleep in on Sunday mornings. They think thoughts of material gain. They prefer a pocket knife over the sword of the LORD. They are selfish, lethargic, shallow. They ignore their soul’s pleas for prayer, Bible study, worship, and quiet. They’d rather believe the tv than their pastor. Their itchy ears are dull of hearing, and their feet are shod with vain entertainment.

The world is rapidly winning the war. It’s hard to win a baby with spinach when an enemy is offering it candy. Atheists, evolutionists, liberals, sodomites, drug peddlers, abortionists and all the evil morass that goes with them are rapidly gaining the upper hand. Now God says, “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean [thing]; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”

Ah, that a Saint full of leaven could be dried out. Where is the preacher who could bring the church to her knees with the mighty power of God? Where is the living preacher who prefers the Sword of the LORD to sandpaper? Where are the teachers who will teach their lambs that the safest place for lambs is behind a formidable wall?

The American people have been conditioned, like Pavlov’s dog, to salivate when a promise of personal ease is offered. People have been conditioned by our culture to think that their personal pleasure and happiness are more important than holiness. How can they be persuaded that God did not create man for happiness, but for holiness? Seeking happiness cannot gain you holiness, but seeking holiness can gain you both.

I pray that God will spare my family and friends from the wrath that is upon us.

Here is the most ancient and bloody conflict. Ever since Satan sat out to prevent the Seed of the woman from being born, there has been bloody warfare on this planet as well as psychological and philosophical conflict. Lucifer attacked God in an effort to assume God’s throne. God will not permit anyone to take His throne, and so there has been spiritual warfare ever since. This spiritual warfare often takes physical forms, and Believers’ blood is shed, and pain is experienced. There is a great amount of violence and bloodshed in the Old Testament, but God is not responsible for it. He loves His own children (Believers in God) too much to allow Satan to take them. So the resistible force meets the unmoveable object.

God expects His people to join this fight. Israel marched into the land of promise with swords and spears. Of course, the fight is not like as of old, because Christ defeated Satan when He rose from the dead. The war is different now because Christ won the victory by shedding His own blood. The war today is Hate against Love. Hate sheds its adversaries’ blood while Love woos the enemy with offers of mercy and grace. Here are our orders: “Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” These orders are not only for our personal safety, though they are for that, they are for the defense of the gospel. We must put this armour on, and never take it off.

The church should be our city of refuge. We should be able to go into the church and find relief from the world’s attacks. Instead, the church is full of the sound of night clubs and dance halls. The problem is that some watchmen on the wall go out without their armour, and get shot down on the wall. The enemy comes flooding in with all their music and bogus bibles, and overwhelm us with guile. Satan is able to deceive the very elect, and if we are not vigilant, even the best of men will lead us astray. Satan’s cohorts lead multitudes of God’s simpletons out of the church into all sorts of cults and three-dollar religions.

First John 1:1-4: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;)That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.”

I just heard Warren Wiersby expound upon these verses, and he filled my soul with joy. Though I will have nothing to say that Dr. Wiersby said, I am going to add my two cent’s worth to the thoughts he put in my mind. He motivated me to think again of wonderful truths I have dwelt upon many times before.

When God breathed into the lifeless, clay statue of man He had made, He breathed into the statue the breath of life, or soul (Genesis 2:7), and the statue came to life. When the breath of life (soul) goes out of that statue, it goes back to a lifeless, clay statue of a man. The body was just a lifeless clay statue of a man before God breathed life into it, so the dead body is put back into the earth where it blends back into the dirt. The breath of God created a soul in man that could never die. The soul was intended to live forever. That is why God will not annihilate the soul of a human when he dies. Since the soul was created an eternal thing, the soul cannot die, and it must be put somewhere when it leaves the body. There is only one place where the soul can be warehoused - in Hell. God made no provision for a storage place for a lost soul because He never intended that any man should die in unbelief. Therefore, he puts the lost soul of man in Hell which He made for the devil and his angels. Since the sinner dies in unbelief, and insisted all through his life in his body that he is his own god; or he would work to atone for his own sins; or he had no sins, God allows him to suffer for his unbelief. He did not acknowledge that God in Christ suffered for his sins, so he must suffer for them himself.

A human, like God, his Creator, is composed of three elements: body (Jesus Christ), soul (Father), spirit (Holy Spirit). The flesh and blood body is just a camper we ride around in in this world. The body is a machine. The body is conscious of nothing (maybe self). The soul is conscious only of things about it (horizontal consciousness). The spirit is conscious of vertical things (God in heaven).

The word “soul” is used about 459 times in the Bible. Below is the definition of “soul” as found on the Blue Letter website at <http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H5315&t=KJV>

inner man, mind, will, heart, understanding
a) inner part, midst
1) midst (of things)
2) heart (of man)
3) soul, heart (of man)
4) mind, knowledge, thinking, reflection, memory
5) inclination, resolution, determination (of will)
6) conscience
7) heart (of moral character)

8) as seat of appetites
9) as seat of emotions and passions
10) as seat of courage

It seems that the soul and the heart are the same. Romans 10:9, 10 tell us “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” It is the soul that has the responsibility of turning to Jesus Christ, believing that He gave His life for the redemption of the individual. The soul must rescue itself by casting itself upon Jesus Christ.

People in general do not realize the importance of their soul. Most do not even realize they have a soul. But everybody, except a few fools, know they have heart. The anti-Christ may be in power right now, and if so, the Lord Christ will soon appear. When He comes again, everybody who has heard the Gospel (what you have just read) are doomed. The writer of Left Behind would be among the first to tell you that is the truth.

The reason God instituted capital punishment is because one who snuffs out a human life, snuffs out what God gave that person. If people understood the value of a human soul, he would not hesitate to execute a murderer, whether the murderer is six years old or sixty, and they would do it by hanging him or stoning him to death on the main street of town. This is the basis of human government. Government was not established to rob the responsible people in the state to give money to the irresponsible. Government is for the purpose of protecting the innocent, not exploiting them.

I am off my subject, as usual. Please, if you have never committed your soul to the care and keeping of Christ Jesus, the Redeemer do it now. Simply acknowledge that He is God, and that He died for you because you are a sinner. He loves you. He’ll forgive you and embrace you.

Down her ankle sank in mud;
he laughed himself to pain
to see her hair all plastered down
in cold torrential rain.
She labored to withdraw her foot.
He slapped his thighs with glee.
Her skirts were swishing in the muck;
she fell down on her knee.
And then his heart began to pain.
He stepped down from the planks
and waded through the miry street,
and heard her breathe her thanks.
Back toward the shelter of the porch
his mighty arms did bear
the trembling, muddy, grateful lass
to leave her safely there.
But from the boiling, angry clouds
a blinding bolt flashed down
and touched with fire the soggy crown;
flashed through them to the ground.

The citizens along the walk
in horror stood and stared,
as heaven hid its piteous face,
and wept . . . as if it cared.

Genesis 1:1

The truth of God’s existence is the benchmark from which all landmarks are located. The truth of the existence of God is the foundation on which all truth rests. God existed before evil existed, and God will exist after evil is confined in outer darkness with Satan and his cohorts. The eternal God lives in a time element which includes past, present, and future, therefore He knows what will happen throughout eternity future, and does not forget what happened in eternity past, unless He wills to forget it, and when He wills to forget, it becomes as something that never happened.To deny the existence of God is an act of insanity so severe that God says that person is a fool (Psalm 14:1; 53:1). To deny the existence of God is to deny the existence of life, of love, of intelligence, of hope, or justice. Claiming that God does not exist, or that He is dead, is the expression, not of truth, but of hope, for nothing would please the unregenerate heart more than to be rid of God. In the final analysis, any person who rejects the Gospel of Jesus Christ is an atheist, because denying Christ His deity is atheism in its blackest form.

The existence of God makes reality possible. If God does not exist, then how can I know I exist? If God does not exist, then how could we exist? Is that red maple tree in my front yard there, or is it just an illusion? I know it is there because I know that God created trees. If a tree falls in a remote forest out of reach of any ear, does it make a sound? Of course it does, because God created matter which makes sound and carries it. In addition to that, God hears every sound.

All humans are born with a belief in the existence of God. Anthropologists have studied humanity all over the earth, and have found that every people have some form of religious belief and worship. Paleontologists and archeologists have studied ancient artifacts, and have discovered that no matter how “primitive” a people may seem, they all had gods and worshiped something.

Evolutionists, many of whom themselves are atheists, look for religious artifacts when trying to determine if certain fossils are human, or animal. Evolution itself is a primitive religion. From the back cover of Dr. Duane Gish’s excellent book, Creation Scientists Answer Their Critics (available from ICR 1 800 628 7640), we glean this bit of information: “Marjorie Grene, a leading philosopher and historian of science and professor at the University of California, Davis, states that ‘It is a religion of science that Darwinism chiefly held, and holds men’s minds…. The modified, but still characteristically Darwinian theory has itself become an orthodoxy, preached by its adherents with religious fervor, and doubted, they feel, only by a few muddlers, imperfect in scientific faith’.”Professor Grene also writes in her book that evolution is a religion having priests, icons, dogmas, relics, rituals and ceremonies.

God can be ignored and denied, but He cannot be annihilated. He cannot even be avoided. God told Moses that He would be Israel’s God. God meant that He would be their God whether they wanted Him or not. There would be times when Israel would not want God for their God, but that did not change the fact. At some point, God will be the God of every man. There will come a time when man’s free will will no longer be a factor. God will judge him and dispose of him as His justice demands.

If all humans believe in God, then why are all humans not saved? For the simple reason that most believe in a god other than God. The god most people believe in is a god they have created out of their own experience and education, and their god is always like themselves. His god approves of nearly everything he does, and assures the person that if he does something bad, it is really okay, or he can do some small penance to atone for it.

But a god created in a man’s own gray matter must be smaller than the man’s gray matter, because nothing can come out of a container that is bigger than the container. A vessel must always be bigger than its contents. The universe itself, not even God’s Word. can fully reveal God, for He is bigger than either or both together. But what we learn about God from either is vastly greater than a man can learn from the reasoning within his head.

If God would reveal Himself totally, I could not take in the knowledge, for my being is far too small to contain such an unlimited store of information. If every brain cell in the most brilliant head could function at 100% efficiency, it could not contain a fraction of what God could offer. Our labors to fully understand spiritual matters are comparable to the wonder of a little baby as he looks at the strange world about him. I am more like an ant standing on the top of Pike’s Peak looking east trying to see the Taj Mahal, and wondering what the thing looks like. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Evolutionary biologists like Harrison Matthews say, “The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology… ,” but actually, the study of living things is meaningless without the backbone of Genesis 1. How can the study of life be a science when science doesn’t even knows what life is? The Creator created matter, and then made a statue of matter (dust of the earth), which man has done many times, but only the One Who understands life could make the statue live.

There is only one God because there is room for only one God. There can be only one God for God does everything that God must do. God is unlimited. Being unlimited enables Him to be God to every human on the earth as if that human were the only human alive. God can interact with any man as if there were not another human on Earth. He can hear and respond to the prayers of an infinite number of people at the same time.

God is not the laws of physics: He is the Creator and Sustainer of the laws of physics. When He created matter, He created the laws that govern matter. As the Law Giver, He is able to change as necessary the laws of physics, and this is called “miracles.” He sustains every atom, and governs its behavior. He needed atoms to change water to wine. Probably He created those atoms, but if He chose, He could have called them from some other place in the universe. He keeps a running inventory of atoms, and loses not one. It is amazing how much man has learned about the atom, a thing he cannot see. Yet the complexities of the atom are at this point in time still illusive to scientists. The atom is composed of three main particles: electron, proton, and neutron. The most important things in the universe are triune, pointing man to the triune Creator - the triune God. Matter is triune: liquid, solid, and gas. Time is triune: past, present, and future. Plants are triune: grass, herbs, and trees. Man is triune: body, soul, and spirit. All sign posts in the universe point to the triune God.

No man hath seen God at any time. We must worship the unseen God in spirit and in truth. It is forbidden that we make representations of Him. God is everywhere, and in everything, but everything is not God. We must always distinguish between God and matter. We must also distinguish between matter and imagination. Matter can be god only if I imagine it to be so. “The mighty God, even the LORD, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof.” 2 “Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined.” (Psalm 50:1,2). The earth responds to the voice of God, just as everything in nature except man and Satan.
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God will one day make all things right that Satan and man have made wrong. God will not be defeated by wickedness. Jesus Christ is Jehovah. It is by His willingness to suffer in our place that mankind has survived upon the earth, and that these things shall pass, and life be sweeter.

Faith in the true God makes a difference in one’s life, and what he produces. This is seen in comparing the lives and progeny of two men. Jonathan Edwards was the great preacher who brought in the Great Awakening. Among his descendants are the following: 300 preachers, 65 college professors, 13 university presidents, 60 authors, 3 congressmen, 1 vice president of the United States. Max Jukes was a notorious criminal. Among his progeny are: 300 dead prematurely, 100 convicts, 190 prostitutes, 100 drunkards, all of whom cost the state of New York $1,200,000.00

Proverbs 10:1: “The proverbs of Solomon. A wise son maketh a glad father: but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.”

Faith in God is essential to living a normal life. Psychologists and psychiatrists take note.

DR.ISSAAC ASIMOV

“I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I’ve been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn’t have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I’m a creature of emotion as well as of reason.
Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don’t have the evidence to prove that God doesn’t exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn’t that I don’t want to waste my time.”1

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) has this to say about Dr. Asimov who wrote the words above: “Isaac Asimov January 2, 1920 - April 6, 1992) was a Russian-born American author and professor of biochemistry, a highly successful writer, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books.”

Enter: God Almighty, also known as Jehovah, never born, eternally existent, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, Writer of sixty-six books. Also known as Jesus Christ and Holy Spirit.

According to Dr. Asimov’s testimony given above, he did not believe God exists. God knows Dr. Asimov existed. God wrote in Psalm 14:1, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.” (Psalm 14:1)

God reiterated His remark when He wrote through David the prophet, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good.” (Psalm 53:1)

Dr. Asimov wrote over 400 thick, hard back books. He evidently wrote on every scientific subject he could think of. He wrote only eight hours a day, so he surely didn’t need to do much proofreading and rewriting. He wrote a commentary of the Old and New Testaments. He must have overlooked the two verses given above, but I can’t imagine Dr. Asimov overlooking or forgetting anything. He was indeed a genius of the first order.

Dr. Asimov was a signer of the Secular Humanist Declaration, “drafted by Dr. Paul Kurtz, a professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and published in the first issue of Free Inquiry, edited by Dr. Kurtz, in October 1980.”2

My copy of “Humanist Manifestos I and II” list Dr. Asimov as a signer of the second Manifesto. This document states on page 16 the following: “We find insufficient evidence for belief in the existence of a supernatural, it is either meaningless or irrelevant to the question of the survival and fulfillment of the human race. As non-theists, we begin with humans not God, nature not deity.”3

Dr. Asimov believes there is no God, and God is saying, “I’m standing right here all around you,” so we have a conflict. Perhaps the mystery will clear up if we recognize there is a difference in what the brain does, and what the heart does. The head accumulates knowledge, and regulates the functions of the body. The heart pumps millions of gallons of blood - yes, but the heart is also the seat of the emotions. It is the soul of man. The head and the heart must get together in agreement if a human is to be normal - and saved.

Dr. Asimov readily admits it is his heart that has the trouble believing God. (”Emotionally, I am an atheist.”). That’s exactly what God said thousands of years ago, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.” The fool did not say in his “head” there is no God because his head wouldn’t let him.

An atheist scientist looks at a cell, and knows much about it. But oddly, life can leave that cell, and the scientist can’t tell any difference in the cell until the matter in the cell begins to deteriorate. The scientist cannot identify what it was that left the cell. In other words, the scientist does not know what life is. Why doesn’t the scientist, an absolutely brilliant man, realize that it is God Who took the life out of that cell, and God can put it back in. He did that to whole bodies made up of cells several times right here on Earth while men were watching.

It is a mystery how a cell lives. It is a greater mystery how 1014 of them can work together to make a body of some sort. How is it that some cells develop into a big toe, while others form the invisible lens of the eye? A master scientist must have designed such an organism. Why do some plants grow from the ground up, while others grow only at the top? A scientist, of all people, should know that these things are not the result of accidental movement of atoms.

Scientists should be the strongest believers on Earth. A man who recognizes the complexities in an eye, or a kidney, or a sparrow sitting on tree limb should know that all things are lifeless atoms. They can only live because there is a “Life Giver,” and His name is Jehovah. A scientist would not think of building something without doing much intricate designing, yet he cannot believe that the finest machinery in the world is designed. How can dead matter make itself alive, or better? How can you believe the spinning of atoms can result in complicated living things? That is so nonsensical that even a scientist ought to recognize the foolishness of holding a belief that there is not One who can make things live.

“I don’t have the evidence to prove that God doesn’t exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn’t that I don’t want to waste my time.” Of course, he didn’t have evidence! It’s the evidence that God doesn’t exist. His brain had more sense than his stupid heart. His brain could see the glory of God in the night sky. His head could see God’s handiwork all around him. The very idea of a man like Dr. Asimov going to Hell with his unscientific heart, rather than listening to his scientific brain!

Dr. Asimov made many decisions in his life, I’m sure. He was married. He lived in a fine apartment. No doubt he had stocks and bonds. All humans make decisions almost every day. Dr. Asimov had a scientist’s brain. He would not make decisions without considering all the available evidence. Often his heart had to agree with his head as when he married, but it was his head that ruled. But when Dr. Asimov came to make the most important decision in his life, he failed to believe his head. The best evidence was discarded for the silly advice of his heart.

God’s knowledge is unlimited. That’s what omniscience means. He knows every thing there is to know. He knows the most intimate thought of every person. There are no secrets to God. He is perfectly aware of all the psychological razmataz about every human. Wasn’t He wise to say, “The fool hath said in his heart . . .” Why is the heart of man so wicked? So corrupt? It depends on whether the heart listens to the brain, or goes off on a tangent by itself, making decisions that are eternal, without good reason.

Motives are pretty hard to discern. Why people do things is often a secret locked up in their heart. Why did Dr. Asimov say, “. . . I so strongly suspect he doesn’t (exist ed.) that I don’t want to waste my time.” What is the motive for ignoring the brain? Some one said it is because of sexual, or moral reasons. Reproductive behavior is very strong motivation, but morals are a product of the heart.

Little wonder God laughs (Job 2:4).

It matters little to atheists what I believe. It matters little to them what God says, so I’m in good company. I both hate atheists and love them. My head hates them because it knows what terrible influences they have on the world. My heart loves them because they are people for whom my LORD gave His life. He loves them, and so I d, too. I can only say that I am glad my head and heart came together is December 1937, and I committed my soul into the care of the God of grace. It has been a good life ever since.

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1. Henry M. Morris, The Long War Against God: The History and Impact of the Creation/Evolution Conflict (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1989), pg. 114. And many other sources.
2. Ibid., pg 49.
3. Paul Kurtz, ed., “Humanist Manifestos I and II” (Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1973),
pg. 16.