God's Eyes And Ears Are On You!

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Until very recent times man has depended on slow and comparatively limited means of communications — word-of-mouth, hand, flag or smoke signals, or homing pigeons. None of these means was usable over great distances.

It was not until 1835 that Samuel B. Morse’s telegraph, an electrical device using wires, provided the first rapid method of moving a message long distances. He did it by the use of “code” — long and short pulses called dots and dashes.

Alexander Graham Bell’s “telephone,” a method of transmitting the voice via wires, soon followed. Then near the turn of the century the first means of communicating without wires, the “wireless” or “radio,” was invented. Television closely followed and now we have cell phones, the internet and other means of communications which transmit pictures, writings, sounds and voices anywhere to earth in seconds, as well as reaching to other planets. Like God, man is able to command and be obeyed at a distance.

Someone greater than man put the laws and forces in motion and sustains them to make this possible. If man has been able to use God’s laws governing electronics and communications to place a TV camera on the moon which allowed him to see, count and identify tiny particles no larger than 1/50 inch in diameter a quarter million miles away in the heavens, how much clearer and better can God see over great distances. And how much easier can He accomplish things on command through the power of His Spirit!

Now if God opens up the means, via His creation, for man to accomplish such awesome things, then we should know that know God has even better perception to see, count and identify each hair on your head or mine (Matthew 10:29-31):

“Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.”

But what about keeping up with ever-traveling sparrows? Let’s see how man keeps up with man-made objects he has rocketed into space.

At the U.S. Government’s Space Center at Ent Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, with the aid of sophisticated electronic devises, men are able to keep track of a satellite, or a hunk of abandoned space junk — as small as six inches in diameter (the size of a grapefruit) and up to 2,700 miles from earth. They can spot and keep up with every man-made object which has been rocketed into space!

Correlating this ability with the ever-watchful eyes of the North American Air Defense Command using the latest in photographic cameras, men can photograph clearly the light reflected from a basketball-size satellite 50,000 miles away!

With all this in mind, can you more fully understand God’s ability to keep up with sparrows when they fall to the ground? Can you grasp God’s ability to keep track of you? “Ye are of more value than many sparrows,” Jesus declared (verse 31), “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him” (II Chron. 16:9).

God’s Communications Center

Perhaps God’s communications system is similar to the one man has developed. Let’s take a glimpse at God’s communications center at His heavenly throne and compare it to the North American Air Defense Command.

The Apostle John wrote: “And immediately I was in the spirit; and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne…. And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold. And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God” (Rev. 4:2, 4, 5). This is God’s heavenly throne!

John continues: “And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts [living beings], and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb [Christ] as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth” (Rev. 5:6).

Since the Lamb — Christ — stood in the midst and had the seven “eyes” of God sent forth into the earth, do we not have an indication that God the Father may use Christ as chief director, coordinator and controller of His heavenly communications system? Could God’s central communications system be basically comparable — as an analogy — to a super-sophisticated spiritual computer supervised by 24 operators and spiritually tied in with seven spiritual surveyors (“eyes”) — “Surveyor I, Surveyor II,” etc. — each one of which can instantaneously be shifted wherever the action is?

Of course, none of these spirit beings needs sophisticated electronic gear with their attendant malfunctions, however few they may be. Each of these beings has been perfectly designed and manufactured from pure spirit. Since these highly mobile units are not bound by physical laws and use spirit power, they move at speeds infinitely faster than light, which, we are told, travels at the “slow” speed of 186,000 miles per second.

Messages which travel via interference-free spirit rather than radio or television waves are never garbled — always crystal clear and INSTANTANEOUS! Crystal clear “eyes” delivering perfect pictures to the heavenly throne not only make it possible to “measure particles 1/50 inch across,” but 3/1000 inch hairs on human heads!

We need have no doubt God can see, count and record any and all information about us that He may require! But what about your thoughts?

Are Your Thoughts Really Private?

In July 1965, 135 million miles from the earth, the Mariner IV spacecraft swung close to Mars so its television camera could snap close-up still photos of the red planet and relay them to earth. “These pictures were scanned and broken into 64 different shades of gray. Each shade became a number, and the numbers in sequence were transmitted to the tracking stations of NASA and the Jet Propulsion Lab.

“The signals were faint when they reached earth — only one quintillionth of one watt strength. They were amplified, taped, and fed into computers. Each sequence of 6 ‘zeros’ and ‘ones’ became a piece of visual information, which was then reconverted into one of 64 shades of gray to make a picture, much like the tiny dots make up the picture on your TV screen at home” (Reader’s Digest, October 1965).

Can your mind comprehend how little power “one quintillionth of one watt” is? Most ordinary light bulbs in your home are probably rated at 100 watts. If written in decimal form, “one quintillionth” would be .000000000000001. Yet man was able to receive, amplify and decipher the message carried by one quintillionth of a watt of power.

Is it conceivable God could receive your thoughts in His heavenly communications center, amplify them, record them, read out and understand them by and through His Spirit?

Notice in Malachi 3:16-17 that God definitely does record certain of man’s words and thoughts: “Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.”

God read Job’s thoughts. Job was self-righteous. God was so interested in Job He let him go through much grief to learn to recognize and overcome that self-righteousness. Finally, Job said, “I know that thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be withholden from thee” (Job 42:2).

God Also Broadcasts Commands

When King Ahab and the whole nation of Israel sinned grievously, God allowed a three and one-half year drought to overtake the nation as punishment — to wake up the nation and its king. During this period, to keep His prophet Elijah alive, God “commanded” ravens to bring food to Elijah. God told His prophet:

“And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there. So he went and did according unto the word of the Lord: for he went and dwelt by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook” (I Kings 17:4-6).

How did God “command” the ravens to feed Elijah? He may have done it by altering their instinct which regulated their behavior patterns. Regardless of how He did it, the Scriptures show us that God has the ability to give long-distance commands and cause them to be obeyed by His creation!

From the “miracles” of modern science and God’s Word, YOU CAN KNOW that a Living Being in the heavens can clearly see and hear the activities of any and all human beings on this earth!

God Uses His Power to HELP US!

True Christians have been chosen by God and are being scrutinized by Him. Much more than the sparrows, God, through His spiritual assistants and master spiritual communications center, watches, hears and keeps track of you, for your good.

Said Jesus Christ, “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you” — why? — “that ye should go and bring forth fruit” (John 15:16).

And what goal does He have in mind through that? Christ told His disciples: “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:44).

That is your destiny. That is the reason God watches and hears you — to help you and guide you so you can qualify to one day be instantaneously changed, or resurrected, to join Jesus Christ and the Father in their all-powerful Family for eternity!

Source: Good News, Jan/March 1973

The Eternal Habitation Of God

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Isaiah 57:15 contains one of the most incredible phrases that a human mind could possiblyunderstand. These few words describe God as “One that inhabiteth eternity.”  Considering the overwhelming significance of these words, let’s investigate what “inhabit” and “eternity” mean.

The Hebrew word translated “eternity” is ad. Ad can be translated “eternity, forever, everlasting, always.”  The English word “inhabit” in Isaiah 57:15 comes from the Hebrew verb shakhan — which can mean “to rest, live in, continue, dwell, settle, inhabit.” The word shakhan gives the impression of comfort and confidence. In various contexts the meaning includes the complete possession, occupation and fulfillment of the object inhabited.

And so, much like the human family abides in, dwells in, continues in and inhabits the earth, the God family rests in, abides in, dwells in, continues in and inhabits eternity!

In the same manner that physical beings can control and comprehend a specific plot of space, spirit beings can control and comprehend an eternity of time. Just as the earth is the arena for all the activities of the human family, eternity is the arena for all the unimaginable activities of the God family.

Grasp the fundamental difference: Just as physical beings employ the vectors of space, spirit beings employ the vectors of time. (This is why God equally speaks of 1000 years as one day and one day as 1000 years — II Peter 3:8.)
Jesus Christ is called the Father of Eternity — which is a way the phrase “the everlasting Father” in Isaiah 9:6 can be translated. And incredibly, the Bible actually states that human beings have the potential to be like Christ (John 17:22). Like God!

“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (I John 3:2).

God says as a son in His family, all will eventually possess, envelop, encompass, occupy and fulfill eternity, in the same manner as they today can physically possess, envelop, encompass, occupy and fulfill a comfortable home or a soft easy chair.

That is a fundamental truth that the religions of this world cannot accept, They are locked into doctrinal disputes which have nothing to do with what Christ actually spoke about; concepts such as going to heaven or hell, the trinity, pagan holidays (Christmas, easter, etc). NONE of these are biblical, yet all of them are universally accepted among Christian denominations.

What is eternity?

Eternity is a long time. Could it get boring?  If it could, it would!  There’s plenty of time available! If boredom would develop — even a little bit — we’d be in deep trouble. Eternity would become a literal hell! As a matter of fact, that is precisely the fate reserved for Satan and his demons — hell — an eternity of boredom: “Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever” (Jude 13).

If eternity is to be spent gazing blissfully up into God’s face in heaven, or having our every wish immediately fulfilled — as many religions teach — after a few months (or after a few octillion years, it doesn’t really matter). life would get unbearingly boring.  And once life got boring, it would be sickeningly and fiendishly terrifying. Because there would remain nothing but an unending eternity of boredom to come — with death a wonderful but impossible way of escape (see Luke 20:35-38). This would indeed be the ultimate torture.

But our Eternal Father has a better idea. He has designed a plan in which eternity will not grow progressively more boring. But, as unbelievable as it seems, eternity will grow progressively more exciting, more scintillating, and more enjoyable as each eon follows eon.

In Ephesians 2:7 God reveals “that in the ages to come he [God] might chew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.”

Psalm 16:11 multiplies this simple but profound concept: “… In thy presence is fulness of joy; at [in] thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”

The words “pleasures” and “for evermore” in Psalm 16:11 are somewhat unusual. Note the numerous meanings of each:

“Pleasures” is translated from the Hebrew word naeem meaning: “pleasant, delights, agreeable, lovely, beauty, glory, pleasures.” “Forevermore” is translated from natzach, a Hebrew root which can mean: “forever, perpetuity, permanency, truth, faithful, overseer, entire, perfect, complete, surpass, excellency, glory.”

Now combine them together in your mind’s eye in order to begin to barely approach the really great time that God has in store for us for eternity.

Men are shackled to time

Man is  constantly hounded by time because he does not have life, only a temporary physio-chemical existence. It feels like life because it is all he knows – this limited physical body needs to recharge daily.

God wants us to realize the temporary nature of all things physical – the nature of matter. It’s all in bondage to decay. Everything in us does not want to accept that fact. We don’t want to believe it, despite the evidence.

Do we realize how short and temporary life is? The Bible says we are like a fading flower, like a fleeting shadow. Another analogy is that we are like an alarm clock that is constantly running down to death. We die daily and are one breath away from death. That is why the Bible says our years come to an end in a flash, like a tale told (Ps. 90:5).

There is simply no guarantee that we will see 70-80 years of life and there is no way to predict how long we live either. Compare the days of your life to an hourglass with sand draining from top to bottom. Now imagine the top being opaque and hard to see through. You would have no idea how much time is left. There may be a lot but there may also be very little.

Now consider if you are married and how you feel about your wonderful wife and children. Do you understand that you marriage covenant is a temporary agreement only, until you die? You will see 100% disruption and destruction by death, abandonment, split-up, or old age.

Use time wisely

God tells us to number our days (Ps. 90:12), which is akin to asking God to teach us to understand how short life  really is and how certain it is to come to an end and motivate us to use our time wisely. The better perspective we have with time, the better we will put it to use.

If we are wise with the use of our time on this earth, then God rewards us with rulership in His Kingdom (Math. 25:20-21). Basically, God says if we sue this small amount of time (our life) in a faithful way, He will give us eternity with “an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fades not away…” (I Pet. 1:4).

God (through His human servant) then proceeds to explain the contrast between the physical and the spiritual by saying:

Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away (I Pet. 1:23-24).

In other words, what is waiting for us has eternal (and very positive and joyful) consequences, while the end of the physical life offers only decay.

The nature of God

Psalm 90:2-4, II Pet. 3:8) shows that to God,a thousand years is as a day and a day as a thousand years. What does that mean?

It is all about our approach to time. Our destiny is to become members of God’s family – with a mind oriented towards eternity.  1000 years can go by as a single day to God. Figures are arbitrary. Paul may well have said one second is as a trillion years.

We can only be in one place at one time, but for God time is multi-dimensional. He can dwell in one moment for as long as He chooses or move one moment to another at will. He is not restricted by time, which is why he can listen to all our prayers at the same time.

In these prayers, true Christians have special access to Christ. But what if  all desire to have access at the same time? The answer is that we will have time without limits. Eternity is not an endless amount of seconds, minutes and hours. It is timelessness – to have all limitations removed.   You can inhabit eternity to have all problems resolved.

Time versus eternity

God puts limitations in the lives of humans so that they have to prioritize. Seek first the kingdom of God to eventually be rulers over many things. Man has to manage his time because he are in bondage to it. And precisely because he is limited to time, he must do all he can with limited resources. Don’t waste a single day. Our body is a temporary tent and we have to make the best use of it (II Cor. 5:1).

We crave permanence and stability – we crave eternity. God has shackled us to decay and we don’t want to think about something not being permanent. How often in this life have old age and death, tragedies and separations disrupted and seemingly obliterated forever the supreme joys of deep family satisfaction and quiet family happiness? One hundred percent of the time!

Every family that has ever existed has eventually been destroyed by death. The death of husband, wife, parents, children, brothers, sisters — whether at premature or elderly ages — is always the most piercing and the most permanent of human tragedies.

Well, the time is coming — soon — when such misery will never again darken the door of any home. And even more fantastically stirring, most members of almost every family in all human history, having been ripped apart by death, will become reunited! And this time they will be forever inseparable.

God’s Word has the answer to death: “… Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (I Cor. 15:54, 55.)

Never again will the corruption of disintegrating change alter the serenity of family life. Never again will separation, disease, old age and death bring that grinding despair known to every human being. This is why verse four of the twenty-first chapter of the book of Revelation is so emotionally stunning:

“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”

All the epochs of human obituary — in childhood, in youth, in the prime of life, in middle age; all the ways of human death by war, by accident, by disease — will all be eradicated. Full families — your family — will for the first time be really together — grandparents, parents, brothers and sisters, children and grandchildren. All will be in the prime of their spiritual lives, working, living and enjoying life as a close-knit family, as part of the overall family of God. Forever. And ever.

But this life is just a stepping stone to something far greater. Ps. 36:7 says all will eventually be abundantly satisfied. There will be no death or disease in the World Tomorrow.

Make the best use of all we have and all the time we have. Number our days and soak up all moments. It may be our last opportunity to do so. We are one breath away from death, so this little sliver of time is a gift. Use it to attain eternal life.

The Universe: Evolution Or The Work Of God’s Fingers?

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Whenever we read about evolution, it’s usually preceded by the word theory. A theory, according to Webster’s, is described as “speculation, an idea, hypothesis or a scheme.” A theory then is an unproven statement.

Darwin’s theory of evolution teaches that the first life upon the earth came by “spontaneous generation,” or by “electrochemical action,” or some unknown process millions of years ago in the warm ocean slime. Thus it is the theory of evolution that life sprang out of dead matter, or that the living came from the non-living.

Now probability is the mathematics of chance, and therefore probability should have a great deal to do with evolution.
Given a monkey, a typewriter and a stack of paper, by chance alone, words, sentences, even whole books could be written, right? This is a doctrine deemed holy by a not-insignificant number of educated men in the biological and geological sciences today.