God's Way Out of the Chaos

Without God in our life, we are ruled by our faulty human nature. God is all around us, controlling every atom and every molecule, but we are blind and deaf to the reality of our almighty loving creator.

We are like a ship at sea without reliable maps or compass, navigating by guesswork.
We have made such a mess of this planet. If we were not so bad, we would not need police or armies.

We have brought the planet to the brink of ruin with pollution and climate change. Political disputes are making it impossible to repair the damage.

But if God is really in control, why does he allow us to mess everything up?
When God created the first man and woman, he authorised them to rule the planet. 

 So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” Gen 1:27–28 NRSV

The man and woman were supposed to rule the world under the loving guidance of God, but when they mistrusted and disobeyed God, they embarked on a disastrous course of stubborn independence.

We know the popular song, “I did it my way.” It never worked without God. Some people have achieved great things this way, but in the end we all die, and what happens after that?

God loves you and he wants you to live with him for ever in his heavenly home.

The prospects for this planet without God are looking worse and worse every year, but God still loves every man, woman and child.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Jn 3:16–17 NRSV

If you give up your independence and put your life in God’s hands, Jesus will be your guide and your loving friend.

God Created Men and Women Equal

 The Pharisees asked Jesus why Moses allowed a man to put away his wife. For the pious Jews, the law was the perfect standard, but for Jesus the law was not perfect.

Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. Mt 19:8 NIV

For Jesus, something was even higher than the law.

    For Jesus, the law was holy, but for him there was a higher principle, God's order in creation before sin entered the world.

“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’
and said,
(Genesis 2:24) ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? Mt 19:4–5 NIV

We are familiar with these words, but we do not know how totally radical this statement really is.
In the biblical stories we read only once that a man left his parents, married a woman and stayed with the woman.

That was Jacob, who found his wife with his uncle but then she returned with him to his family. Also with Abraham and later with the Jews under the law, the woman had to leave her family and then she belonged to her husband's family.

Even the law given by God did not restore God's original order.
What was God's order for man and woman before the Fall?

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Gen 1:26–27 NIV

In the beginning, God showed his authority as Creator. Spiritual authority is creative.
God created both man and woman in his image. Both express God's nature and character, the man no more than the woman.

God gave man and woman the quality of fertility, the ability to transmit life, people who would also have God's nature.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Gen 1:28 NIV

God gave the man and the woman authority over the earth. He did not give the man authority over the woman and he did not give the woman authority over the man.

God's guiding principle from the beginning was partnership.

Some say God gave men authority over women in Genesis 3.16.

To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labour you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” Gen 3:16 NIV

Was painful childbirth part of God’s plan in creation? Of course not. It was the bitter fruit of sin. So too the domination of men over women was the tragic result of sin. Jesus died on the cross to free us from the curses of sin, including male domination.

God is Actively Involved

 In 1718, a Dutch writer described God as an all-powerful watchmaker who created the universe and then let it run by itself like clockwork.

William Paley (1743-1805) was an Anglican clergyman looking for good sermon illustrations. He popularised the idea of God as a watchmaker. Everything in the universe runs according to scientifically predictable laws, with no ongoing involvement of the Creator.

Science was becoming the new religion.

God was thus understood as an absent and insignificant creator.
If you believe in such a God, it makes no difference to your life.

But in the Bible, God does not appear as an absent landlord without compassion.  

God in the Bible is actively involved in this world. He intervenes again and again. 

Today, these interventions are understood as supernatural miracles or are explained away by humanistic theology. 

There are even conservative Christians who claim to be Bible-believing, but who quote Bible texts that supposedly teach that God only wanted to work miracles in ancient times.

But they still believe that God answers prayers. How do you distinguish between a miracle, which God supposedly no longer performs, and an answer to prayer, which is not supposed to be a miracle?

They then say that the greatest miracle is the salvation of a converted soul, which is true, but they then dismiss other miracles as unimportant.

This doctrine is full of contradictions.

If you pray for a job and get it, that's fine, but if your daughter is dying of cancer and is supernaturally healed, you shouldn't believe it. Really?

A conservative preacher prayed for a girl who was dying and God healed her. But that's not supposed to happen in his denomination because the age of miracles is thought to be long gone.

The preacher attended a conference where he asked a charismatic preacher for a biblical explanation. He wanted to know if he was praying correctly.

He got a completely unexpected answer:

Why don't you ask the little girl?

God is love. Jesus tells us that God is our loving Father.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

“Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?
Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?

If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! Mt 7:7–11 NIVUK84

Why are we here?

So many people consider themselves wise because they are sceptical. They believe in a scientifically confirmed reality.

The achievements of modern science and technology are truly amazing. 

We know so much now that was completely unknown a hundred or two hundred years ago.
But there are still many mysteries that the best scientists do not understand.

What is dark matter? There is a lot of matter in space that no instrument can identify, but scientists tell us that this invisible matter must be there because otherwise many gravitational phenomena are inexplicable.

We know that matter is made of atoms, that atoms are composed of protons, neutrons and electrons, and many other things that I don't understand because I'm not a scientist. 

We fly from Europe to Australia in 20 hours and use laptops on the plane.

The achievements of scientists have seduced us into thinking we are amazingly intelligent, even though we understand so little.

Educated scientists and technicians can explain a lot. They understand how things work, but when confronted with existential fears, we are in the dark. In the end, even scientists are only mortal human beings.

What happens when we die? Doctors can explain how our bodies shut down when we die, but what comes after that?

We imagine that we understand things that we don't understand at all, but we have a kind of religious faith in the supposed omniscience of scientists.

For many people, science is the new religion. Even if we don't understand this alleged reality, we trust our high priests, the scientists.

Why does anything exist at all? The best scientists have no better answers than toddlers.

Albert Einstein was led to believe in God through his studies. Without God, everything makes no sense.

But if we understand everything as God's creation, how can we explain the existence of evil?

How can God be good if he is the creator and allows so much evil? I can find the answer only in the Bible.

Have you read the Bible with an open heart? I find that the Bible is the only remedy that can save us from hopelessness.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Jn 3:16 NIV84

God's Way out for our Ruined Planet

God loves music. He invented music. God loves you too. He planned you before the creation of the world.

God wants everything in creation to shine like beautiful art and sound like exquisite music.

We see this glorious beauty in nature. The poets and artists of the Romantic period celebrated this beauty.

We can still see this beauty, but we also see how we humans are spoiling nature. There is a huge pile of rubbish in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Dolphins eat plastic bags and choke on them.

God has given us beautiful poppies and we have made effective painkillers from them. The best painkiller for dying cancer patients is heroin, but tragically this very good medicine is horribly abused.

God created us as sexual beings, not just to produce children, but so that we should have love, companionship, pleasure and joy, but what do we see in the world? Pornography addiction, human trafficking, rape and forced prostitution.

God has made us different. Who can run or dance like the black Africans? But we have so misunderstood our differences that cruel hatred and racism is ruining humanity.

God created us as spiritual beings to live eternally with Him as His own image, but we have corrupted our spirituality. We see cruel religion and witchcraft everywhere. 

God's is watching all this and He is suffering.

Creation itself is in agony because we humans have failed as stewards of nature.

So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” Genesis 1:27–28 NRSV

This was in the beginning, but many years later the apostle Paul wrote.

for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope

that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; Romans 8:20–22 NRSV

Many today see how our planet is corrupted. Our very existence is threatened. They want to save our planet through political action. Without God, that would be the only way.

They understand that the fate of the planet is inseparable from humanity, but they do not understand that without God our humanity and our existence has no future.

Nature is corrupt because we humans are corrupt. God did not make us this way. We have corrupted God's creation. Only with God can we find the way out.

GOD IS INTENSELY INTERESTED IN YOU

God wants nothing but the best for each person, and that includes you. 

• God made you for His purposes, and His purpose is always good.

...God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27 (NIV) 

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good...Genesis 1:31 (NIV) 

But Adam and Eve messed up God's plan by listening to lies and choosing the wrong way. 

You and I followed the wrong way and messed up a lot of God's plans but that did not change God's heart towards us because...

... if a person isn't loving and kind, it shows that he doesn't know God—for GOD IS LOVE. 1 John 4:8 (TLB) 

When we are not loving and kind, it does not change the character of God or the heart of God towards us.

• God is love and he made you because He loved you.

• He loved you before the creation of the world. 

• He loved you when you were conceived and when you were born,

• and He loves you now.

But what if you were conceived in the back seat of a car after your parents had too much to drink?

• That does not change the love of God for you.

What if your parents brought you up in witchcraft, and you were demon possessed as a small child?

• That doesn't change God's love for you. He doesn't blame you for what was done to you.

One of the most amazing characters in the Bible was a man with a terrible past. 

• We don't know his name but when he first met Jesus, he was running around naked and cutting himself with stones. He was possessed by hundreds of devils, but he still had a human soul. 

When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. 

He shouted at the top of his voice, "What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you won't torture me!" Mark 5:6-7 (NIV)

He was so confused, that he could not distinguish his own thoughts from the thoughts of the demons who controlled him, but he responded to Jesus with faith when the demons left him.

For Jesus had said to him, "Come out of this man, you evil spirit!" 

Then Jesus asked him, "What is your name?" "My name is Legion," he replied, "for we are many." Mark 5:8-9 (NIV) 

After Jesus drove out the demons with a word of power, the man was restored to sanity and begged to be allowed to stay with Jesus.

As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. Mark 5:18 (NIV) 

But Jesus did an astonishing thing.

Jesus did not let him, but said, "Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you." Mark 5:19 (NIV) 

But the man did far more than tell his family.

So the man started off to visit the Ten Towns of that region and began to proclaim the great things Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed at what he told them. Mark 5:20 (NLT) 

After Jesus healed a totally insane and demon possessed man, He immediately commissioned him to go and tell his story to a whole region. 

• He became the evangelist for ten towns.

Before this man began to preach, the people asked Jesus to leave them.

• When Jesus returned later, great crowds followed Him and many people came to faith in the Son of God.

It may be that you have also been rejected and bullied. You may have been tormented by illness, depression or even demonised by involvement in witchcraft, drugs or sexual abuse.

Whatever your story might be, you are important in God’s eyes. He wants to give you a future and a hope.

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11 (NKJV)