Picture Quotes – Page 9 Often those most bent on affirming the free and sovereign will of people are the most adamant to deny responsibility for the evil it produces. Religion poses no challenge to unbelief, so long as it is not Christianity. Satan does not care what you worship as long as it replaces the God of Scripture. God can make good from evil but does not do evil to make good. The first displays His infinite wisdom and power, the latter is blasphemy. God is holy and can never be the direct or indirect author of evil. We lack sufficient insight and have no standard apart from God’s character and works to judge what is good. We will comprehend the perfect goodness of every act of God when we get to heaven. “For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7 While all death is the effect of God’s judgment on the world for sin, God’s ultimate judgment remains beyond this life. Many thought to have died before their time, from our earthly perspective, will enjoy immeasurable happiness in heaven forever. A God of perfect knowledge, wisdom, and power can use fallible people to pen infallible truth. To what higher authority can one appeal to claim He cannot? To defend and proclaim an undefined higher power leaves unchallenged the unbelievers’ presumed authority to define God as they please and substitute one idol for another. Idolatry makes gods of our own choosing. Repentance includes turning from a presumed independence from the true God and from a presumed authority to define and worship false gods. Wisdom admits its limits before an infinite God. Reason cannot reconcile God’s sovereignty and foreordination with human freedom to choose evil. While great mysteries must exist, God’s perfect holiness is not one of them. God cannot be the author of evil. When deep mysteries bring us to the edge of our knowledge, we accept our human limitations and rest in God’s perfect power and character. Beyond this, we cannot go. Job will enjoy the infinite blessings of God forever, while pilgrims yet to arrive in glory learn great spiritual lessons from his short life and suffering. God answered Job and we are the beneficiaries. Because we cannot see or understand something taught by Scripture does not mean it does not exist. The darkness of philosophy comes not from the pursuit of truth, logic, or answers to life’s deep questions, but from darkness in the heart of the philosopher. The sinking sand of personal and unjustified opinion is no rock on which to rest one’s eternal destiny. Promoters of a world without moral absolutes often live in gated communities and send their children to private schools where rules are taught and enforced, avoiding for themselves the consequences of what they inflict on everyone else. Opposition to Christ and the Gospel increase when God’s excellence appears most clearly. Christ came into the world, but the world “loved the darkness rather than the light” (John 3:19) All unbiblical speculation concerning what is possible and impossible with God amounts to unjustified faith in human opinion. When you are next confronted with atheists calling your faith unreasonable and making claims that require the infinite knowledge of God, you need not be intimidated. Just smile and ask if they know what is in your garage. If they don’t know, how do they know that which requires infinite knowledge to know? Adam and Eve were created as glorious creatures, radiating the beauty of God’s holiness in their state of innocence. And though they sinned and lost original righteousness for themselves and their descendants, vestiges of God’s image remain. The clay still bears the fingerprints of the Potter as the genius of the Artist can be seen in His handiwork. To the extent that unbelief arises from a lack of evidence, it would be reasonable and innocent; the blame would lie with God. Yet, Scripture places the guilt for unbelief in a denial of the obvious, from a heart of hostility toward God and His authority. Though we have “become partakers of the divine nature” as redeemed in Christ (2 Peter 1:4), and will display His nature to a far greater extent in Heaven, we will forever remain dependent on God for all things. Our holiness will shine like the sun as God’s glory radiates in and through us. Closing one’s eyes and ears while sitting in the path of an oncoming train will not make the train disappear any more than denying the reality of hell will make it disappear. Picture Quotes: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10