5-15-11 Bill Sorensen said: (5-11-11) “If you read enough posts, Lydian, on

Comment on The ANN Highlights LSU’s Dr. Lee Grismer – An Evolutionary Biologist by Lydian Belknap.

5-15-11

Bill Sorensen said: (5-11-11)

“If you read enough posts, Lydian, on all the SDA forums, you soon see how impossible it is for the “carnal mind” to perceive the word of God and its meaning.”

************

Bill,

Sorry to be so slow getting an answer back to you but we have been through several really rough times here lately. (A prime example took place a week or so ago when a real “killer” of several tornados tore through our area leaving behind many destroyed homes and businesses–and many deaths and serious injuries. Neither the home we live in nor the one our oldest daughter lives in or our oldest son lives in were damaged. (Our other two children don’t live in the area so were never in harm’s way ) None of us were injured in any way although many trees, power lines, and other devastated homes were around Kathy and her husband’s home–including those of some very dear friends. While our hearts ache for those so affected we are very grateful for our blessings.

In some respects I do agree with you 100%! It IS impossible for the CARNAL mind to perceive the Word of God and it’s meaning. But Jesus did not come to this world to suffer and die–then return to heaven without doing anything to lift us out of the pit in which we as sinners are in. His life and death made it possible for us to be changed–He came that we might be changed into His likeness. He came that we might have a new heart and a new mind! And, with the help of the Holy Spirit, it is more than possible that we, as totally unworthy sinners, can be changed into His image and CAN have a new heart and a new mind!

Yes, there are portions of the Bible that ARE difficult (if not impossible) to understand on our own–but there is an abundance we CAN understand and accept with the help of the Holy Spirit–even those of us who aren’t as brilliant as we wish we were! So, in the end, we really have no excuse for not knowing enough to help us understands what God expects of His children–and living up to it!. If that is not the truth, then Jesus lived and died in vain–and I don’t think that is an acceptable conclusion. (But I am really looking forward to some day–after I’ve been with Jesus and my wonderful Father–sitting at the feet of Daniel and John as they discuss the two books they wrote–as well as Moses and the rest of the authors!) I supect I’ll need all of eternity in order to grasp it all!

But listen to what God has said, Bill::

“And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I WILL TAKE THE STONY HEART OUT OF THEIR FLESH, AND WILL GIVE THEM AN HEART OF FLESH: THAT THEY MAY WALK IN MY STATUTES, AND KEEP MINE ORDINANCES, AND DO THEM: AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE, AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD. But as for them whose heart walketh after the heart of their detestable things and their abominations, I will recompense their way upon their own heads, saith the Lord GOD.”
“Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal. Hear now, O house of Israel; Is not my way equal? are not your ways unequal?
“When a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and dieth in them; for his iniquity that he hath done shall he die.
“Again, when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive. Because he considereth, and turneth away from all his transgressions that he hath committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die.
“Yet saith the house of Israel, The way of the Lord is not equal. O house of Israel, are not my ways equal? are not your ways unequal?
“Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, saith the Lord GOD. Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin.
“Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?
“For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.” Ezekiel 18:25-32 (KJV)

“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.” Ezekiel 36:26 KJV
(How could God have said it any plainer than this–and what excuse can we possibly have for not understanding Him?)

It is true that these particular verses were originally given for the Israelites at that particular time when they were captives in Babylon–but the God of the Israelites is the God of all time and all flesh. He never changes so the “new spirit” and the “new heart” are ever available to any one and every one who turns to Him in faith. In our own strength we can do nothing to merit salvation–or a true understanding of the Bible–and it is very possible for us to get so wrapped up in “minors” that we ignore the “majors!”

We are all born with “carnal minds”, Bill, but Jesus came to this world to make it possible for us to get rid of out carnal minds and have His mind!.

He did not come to this earth to die that we may live and then return to heaven leaving us in the same state we were in before He came. He came to give us all the resources we need to shed our “carnal minds” and accept the mind of Jesus so we can understand and avail ourselves of all the help we need to obtain eternal salvation. All is available to the repentant sinner who truly seeks Him. God can and will give all the help necessary to such a one. It is our own stubborn, rebellious spirit that keeps us from understanding the way to eternal salvation. At the bar of judgment none can give any excuse for not being ready to meet Jesus when He returns–and I truly believe that time is nearer than we think.

This website was established to call attention to a real problem in our church and to make our great concern known. This issue at LSU–and probably other schools as well–is extremely important but it is very possible for us (who, after all, are on the “sidelines”) to get so heated up and so completely sidetracked that we become simply a bunch of quarreling children. We lose track of what the issues really are, what is really important– and we get immersed in hurling opinions back and forth that are completely “off the track!” and absolutely nothing is said or done that solves any problems–or draws any of us closer to Christ. (Was it Shakespear who said, “What fools we mortals be!” If not, whoever ssid it was right on track!)

And I am not excusing myself and just blaming others. Believe me, I do not consider myself an “example’ of what being a true Christian is all about! I mean well but I often–very often–find myself as one of the “chief of sinners” for I have learned so much, been helped in so many ways by so many wonderful Christian friends so much better and more committed than I am–yet–after all these many years–I still find myself at times doing things I know I should not do, saying thing I know I should not say, and thinking things I know I should not think! But I take courage from my Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy and struggle on. God has been wonderful to me in spite of all of my often not-so-obedient-life

Hope all of you have had a wonderful Sabbath!

Lydian

PS: I hope I don’t confuse anyone by my use of the KJV. It is the Bible I grew up with and which I am most familiar. I’ve tried relearning verses in the newer versions but end up not being able to quote either one correctly. Old habits die hard!

Table of Contents

1 Lydian Belknap Also Commented
- 1.1 Recent Comments by Lydian Belknap
2 Related

Lydian Belknap Also Commented

The ANN Highlights LSU’s Dr. Lee Grismer – An Evolutionary Biologist
5-9-11

Dear Kent (and anyone else who cares to read it.)

I really do appreciate your kind words. Having just lived through some real “tornados” I’m beginning to feel like I’m in the middle of a “scientific-religious” one and that everything I try to say is just blown out of my mouth and disappears into nothingness.
I just cannot accept the–to me, anyway–helpless “science doesn’t support it….”,You just have to take it by faith…”, etc I hear over and over again on this site. As if our God isn’t “smart enough” to give us ample evidence of what He did in SIX DAYS! There are GOOD SCIENTIST “out there” who are shaking their heads and laughing at us for our stupidity!

I’m not a “scientist” in any sense of the word (my late husband was but he passed away in ’05, just 3 months and eight days before our 60th anniversary) but I don’t think I’m a “dummy” either. I can still read and think and I not only read a lot on the internet but I also subscribe to two Creationist magazines as well as having bought several books on the subject. However, I’ll be the first to admit that a lot of it goes over my ancient head but I can understand enough to see the logic behind the things in their writings that I can understand.

And another thing–Years ago I bought a book called “None Of These Diseases” by S. I McMillen, M.D. (now deceased) and it was one of those “wow!” books you don’t run across very often. It doesn’t deal with creation or evolution but he gives incident after incident where God gave Abraham and Moses–(that’s the Abraham and Moses of the Bible!) health instruction that “science” didn’t “discover” for centuries!
Just one example: Cancer of the cervix:
Two Doctors in two different hospitals began to study the lives of the women who had died from this disease to see if they could find anything in common. They were desperate to find a common cause.
Suddenly it dawned on them that there were very few Jewish women among those who had died! This was in the early 1900’s– years after I was born!. What made the difference? Medical researchers now agree that the practice of circumcision among Jewish men is responsible for the difference.
Open your Bible and see what God told Abraham CENTURIES earlier! Genesis 17:9-12. And please notice that God told Abraham the exact day when a baby boy was to be circumcised–the 8th day. (Hundred of modern workers labored at great expense over a number of years to discover the safest day for the circumcision. They finally discovered it was the 8th day–the very day God told Abraham over 4,000 years earlier that it should be done on!
I won’t go into all the details as to why it is the best day–suffice it to say that is the first day in a baby’s life that it is safe to perform any kind of an operation because that is the first day that all of the necessary safeguards are in place in the little body. One is over 100% in place and on the 9th day it starts to fall back to “normal”.) Even as we appreciate all the hard work of so many for so long we can almost hear the pages of the Bible rustling. They would like to remind us that over 4,000 years ago when God initiated circumcision He said, “he that is eight days old shall be circumcised..;.’
Just think of the thousands upon thousands of lives that have been lost because “science” was over 4,000 years “late”in their discovery. And this is only ONE of the diseases that have killed millions before “science” discovered a way to stop them–many of which could have been prevented by listening to the wonderful God who created us!
I firmly believe mankind will discover some day in the not-to-far distance–future that the “scientist’s” at whose altar so many “worship” today will see that they are worshiping at the wrong one. I just hope they won’t discover this truth too late!

If you are interested, the name of the book is “None of these Diseases.” I believe it was out of print for a number of years but is now available at Amazon and a few other places. Get the one he authored alone–not the one I think his grandson (or maybe son-in-law) revised. (It may be very good but I’ve never read it. And get the hard cover–the paper covered ones have very small margins and smaller print. (I think you will be amazed at what you learn.)

We truly worship an awesome God. If He knows enough to give good medical advice–and is able to give us so many prophecies in the Bible that have been proven accurate in every detail He certainly can be trusted to tell us the real truth about origins!!!

Lydian Belknap

The ANN Highlights LSU’s Dr. Lee Grismer – An Evolutionary Biologist
I’ve read all of the comments given above (and hundreds of others during the past) but none address the question that remains uppermost in my “unscientific mind” and that is this:

“Why can non-Adventist scientist find and joyful accept and preach ample evidence of God’s creative power in the creation of our world and so many Adventist have such great difficulty doing so?” (Don’t misunderstand me–we do have mny wonderful scientists in our midst but–it seems to this “ancient mind” that the higher we go “up the ladder” the harder it is to find good, solid scientist who see good evidence for Biblical creation and teach it and preach it.

Two different fairly recently published books come to my mind–neither of which have I read yet. One I don’t really want to read–”The Greatest Show on Earth” by Richard Dawkins–often referred to as “the world’s best champion of both atheism and it’s intellectual underpinning. particles to people evolution.”

The other is “The Greatest Hoax On Earth” by Jonathan Sarfati “who is no light-weight opponent; his Refuting Evolution (over 500,00 in print) is the biggest-selling creationist book ever. In his crisp, readable style trademarked by sheer competence, Sarfati calmly but relent-lessly erodes each of Dawkins’ claims. In the process, he repeatedly exposes logical fallacies–even dubious tactics–employed in Dawkins ideologically driven crusade.”

(He deals with each point in Dawkins book so I think I’ll basically read Dawkins’ book in the process.) I only ordered and received this book a short while ago. Due to the flu, three deaths in the family and a slew of tornados that hit our area I’ve not yet found the time to do much reading– but what I have read so far sound very good.

There were several tornados that hit our area at the same time and they were terrible–many lives and injuries were the result. Many homes had only their roofs on the ground to show where their homes once stood and vast areas of forest now have only a few, lonely trunks still standing. (A lot of those were close friends–but have heard of no deaths or serious injuries among them thus far.)

But God was very good to us and one of my other daughter’s who lives several miles away–who was in the direct path of one of the tornados. We had one small tree fall across our drive way and, while they had numerous (very large) trees knocked over–which will take a long time to take care of– but both of our homes are still standing with no damage at all and none of my family was injured or killed.

When the storms struck, the daughter I live with and three of her children (all grown now) were on their way to Atlanta to pick up her oldest son who was returning from a year’s stint in Africa as a student missionary. They stopped briefly at one spot before they reached Atlanta because of the driving rain–then decided to keep driving. 15 minutes later one of the tornados hit the place where they had stopped and virtually the whole little town was wiped out. If they had not left when they did they would doubtless have all been killed! While we are deeply saddened over the death and destruction all around us we thank God for His protecting care over us.

Not one of us can count on a “tomorrow.” Right now is all we have so we need to make sure that our relationship with our heavenly Father is what it should be at any time.

(Please excuse me for “wandering” but my mind is pretty full of “tornado’s” right now.)

The ANN Highlights LSU’s Dr. Lee Grismer – An Evolutionary Biologist
5-0-11

No, Eddie, it was NOT a “flawed design!”

Nothing my God does is EVER flawed. Remember, God created Adam ‘perfect’ so there was something there that was intended for a perfect man and a perfect woman. Just what the purpose was for the way He made man we will not know this side of eternity. This is the work of the devil–NOT our GOD!.

I hope you noticed that it apparently wasn’t until the time of Abraham that it came to be a problem because that was when God stepped in and provided a remedy.

“God’s plans have no haste and no delay!”

I really think you would find that book a real jewel. Diseases are the result of sin–things God never intended for His children to have to suffer like we do. Leprosy, the Black Plaguey, heart disease, cancer–you name it–are all the result of sin and were never intended to be a part of our lives.

God gave the Children of Israel, through Moses, specific health instructions that, if followed, they would never have had to suffered from the diseases they met with in Egypt. If followed, God promised that “none of diseases” that afflicted the Egyptians would be seen among them.

In these last days God in His mercy and love gave us the Spirit of Prophecy and in it are many, many additional instructions on how we should live, eat, dress, spend out time,–and much, much, more– to help us live healthy, happy lives. But how many of us really heed the information? It’s “so old fashioned”, “so restrictive”, so “uncool”–(and besides it “tastes good”, “looks good”, “feels good” etc. But, as my grandmother used to say, “If you are going to dance you will have to pay the fiddler!” How true that is!

(When I was growing up all of EGW’s books had red covers and were lovingly called the “Red Books.” Whether true or not I do not know, but “the saying is” that the colors were changed because people were calling them “the Unread Books!”

We have an awesome God who loves us with an “everlasting love” and who wants us to be healthy and happy. But if, like the Children of Israel and the world today, we disregard His instructions some day we will have to “pay the fiddler”!. We can’t blame God for our own stupidity and disobedience!

Lydian

PS: In no way do I want to imply that everyone who suffers from sickness and unhappiness are that way because they have disregarded God’s instructions and are “paying the fiddler!” That simply is not true in many cases. Many wonderful Christians are sick through no fault of their own. All of us are the decedents of those who have gone before and we have inherited weaknesses or diseases (or health, or strengths) over which we have no control. All who are sick and weak need our help, our encouragement, our prayers–NOT our criticism!