In Genesis, for two chapters we are given the account of the creation story. God calls forth the plants, animals etc. and they come into existence. When it got to the turn of man, God said ‘Let us make man in our own image and in our likeness…’. God indeed set out to create a being that would bear his image, his likeness and have dominion over creation. Genesis goes on to state a very important truth that we must bear in mind as we move on. It said ‘… male and female he created them’. This is interesting. It means no single sex owns the rights to the image of God. Not males. Not females. Both men and women equally bear the image of God. Therefore, none of us has the right to claim we are better image bearers of God or we bear God’s image in a greater measure than another person because of our sex. He made us all in his image.

The bible states that God is not a man. ‘Man’ here doesn’t necessarily mean male but human. Jesus also tells us that ‘God is spirit…’. One of the major reasons why God made the two sexes is, reproduction. We are sure of this because the first command God gave to Adam and Eve is to ‘be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth…’. To the best of my knowledge, we are not told anywhere in scripture that spirit beings reproduce. Spirit beings are not sexual beings. So is it right to classify God who is spirit as either male or female?

The Incarnation of Christ

God made men and women in his image and this is a fact that cannot be disputed because it has been emphatically stated in scripture. However, the incarnation of THE WORD, Jesus Christ, poses a bit of a problem for us so far as this topic is concerned. Not only that but the fact that Jesus referred to God while he was on earth as his father. Also, the Bible describes Jesus as the express image of the invisible God, so if Jesus is a male then are we to assume God is a male too? This is what I have to say to that, sex (male and female) only came into existence when God created living things. The Bible describes God as the God who was, who is and who is to come. God existed way before he made anything material. He decided to come down as one of the two sexes and reveal himself to us as the father. That is it. However, how do we understand this truth in light of the already stated fact that women too are made in the image of God?

From the get-go, the Jews knew Jesus was going to be a male because of Old Testament prophecy. Isaiah said ‘unto us, a child is born, unto us, a son is given’. Jesus being a man is a fact that transcends time. For when he died he died as a man when he resurrected he did so as a man. A man who could be touched and felt. He even sat and ate with his disciples when he resurrected. Also, he is God. So we are very confident about the sex of Jesus. Concerning God, the first person of the Trinity, he has revealed himself to us as the Father. This is also a fact that we cannot overlook in this discussion. The Trinity is made up of three distinct personalities and we know that Jesus was incarnated as a man amongst the three. Therefore it is Jesus’ sex (both on earth and in eternity) we are 100% percent sure of. There is no contradiction in the fact that God made both men and women in his image, came down as a man and has revealed himself to us as the father. To state that this is a contradiction is to say God’s entire being can ONLY be expressed as a male. Or that God exhausted his entire nature in his coming to earth as a man. And this is rather a contradiction of what is stated in Genesis regarding God making both men and women in his image and after his likeness.  This tells us that bearing the image of God goes beyond sex and any human classification. To bear God’s image is to literally have his DNA and his imprint on you. Whether you are a man or a woman once you find yourself on this earth you are made in God’s image and likeness. So yes, we are sure of the fact that Jesus is male, God is revealed to us as the father and lastly, both men and women are made in the image of God. This is to say that men get their maleness from God and women get their femaleness from God.

The Idolatry of having a wrong image of God

“People are not allowed to make images of God because he already made images of himself – the Bible Project (Image of God)”

Paul makes a very important statement in his letter to the Corinthians that addresses the topic under discussion. He says in 2 Corinthians 5:16 that ‘Wherefore, henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more’. The new creation realities are in reference to the regenerated spirit, not the flesh. So when a man comes to the saving knowledge of Christ we say he is born again, not his body but his spirit. Therefore, we regard no man after the flesh but we know each man in spirit or we regard each person as spirit. Paul says if in the past we knew Christ after the flesh, we do so no more. Jesus is not a man that we have deified but rather he is God who came down to this earth as a man. There are people who raise who Jesus was on earth above his deity or they simply have little or no regard at all for his deity. Some say he was merely a moral teacher, others see him as a Jewish mythological character and some others see him as an ancient street magician. What a poor way to regard Jesus Christ!

Spoken Word poet Jackie Hill-Perry said ‘we have to understand God rightly to know him intimately’ and I agree with her. We have to endeavor to know God rightly to worship him rightly. Take for example someone who believes God listens to prayers only on Wednesdays. This person would have to wait until it is Wednesday to pray to God because perhaps according to his theology God is asleep for the rest of the week. But we know the truth because we are told in scripture that He who watches over Israel neither sleeps nor slumbers, meaning he is accessible all day every day. You can create a caricature of God and worship it because you are not well-informed and lack revelation of who he truly is. This is idolatry.

Apostle Paul said in Romans 1:23 that some men thought of themselves as wise not knowing they were fools and they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and to birds etc. The first stage of idolatry is to change the image of God into something else. The concept of idolatry is more nuanced than we make it out to be. Most times it is more mental, psychological, intellectual than it is spiritual and physical. For some of us so far as we don’t have a physical object in our rooms that we pray to in earnest spirituality, we assume we don’t engage in idolatry. When your understanding of who God is is far from the truth, however you are still devoted to that false image of God in worship, you are an idolater. We have to know God for who he is and not for what we want him to be or what we wish he was.

I say this because I’ve seen people raise concerns about the place of women in the Christian faith because Jesus came down to the world as a man and the fact that God has revealed himself to us as a father. I’ve also seen some people claim that men are superior to women because they believe men bear God’s image in a greater measure than women. Both groups of people do not take into consideration what is said about men and women being made in the image of God in the book of Genesis. Basically, the first group is trying to create God in their own image. The second is exalting males over females because God came down to earth as a male and has revealed himself to us as a father. By insisting on putting God into a human classification that we belong to and refusing to worship him until it is universally accepted as such, we are saying until God is made in our image, he isn’t worthy of our worship. Until God looks like us, we won’t worship him. That, my friends, is idolatry. It is not God we desire to worship it is our nature.

Exalting yourself above others because of your sex for any reason at all (including the misinterpretation of scripture) is sexism. This too is idolatry. When we do this, we worship our maleness and not God. This kind of thinking is based on a lie that the revelation of God as a father and his incarnation as the Son is a fact that makes men generally superior to women. Paul said, ‘…there is neither male nor female… for we are all one in Christ’. This doesn’t mean that there is no sex/gender in Christ, rather it implies that the unifying factor in Christianity far outweighs the physical, features that may distinguish us.

Often when this topic comes up for discussion, people make reference to the first couple in human history: Adam and Eve. Adam didn’t have the option of choosing a life partner for himself but God ‘recognized’ a lack in Adam’s life and decided to provide a solution for it. Let me veer off a bit to address a pertinent issue here: Eve was not an afterthought! Even the devil wasn’t an afterthought.  I can’t ever come to terms with the fact that God didn’t intend to create Eve initially. Especially when he created the male and female species of every animal and instructed them to be fruitful and multiply. He said that even to birds and fishes. Now, he gave the same instruction to Adam and Eve, which implies that that was his intention all along. How was man supposed to do that if Eve wasn’t created? The question is, why didn’t God create Eve right away? The lion and the lioness were created at the same time, so the lion was never alone. Why did God allow Adam to feel the absence of Eve before creating her? God is sovereign but never have I read in scripture that he abused his sovereignty. So anytime I see him exercise his sovereignty in any part of the bible, I know there is a lesson to learn.

Adam saw creation in its purest state before the fall. If you are impressed by the beauty of nature in our day and age or blown away by the awe-inspiring colorful display of flowers in any garden, I wonder how you would react at the sight of the garden planted by the Gardener himself. Eden had to be the most amazing place on earth at the time. To top it all, Adam had fellowship with God. It isn’t stated in scripture but I don’t doubt he might have had face-to-face encounters with God. So if after all these – the splendor of Eden and fellowship with God – Adam was still considered ‘alone’, by delaying in the creation of Eve, God was just showing off the value of womanhood. It is more like God kept man’s greatest asset away from him so man could feel how empty life would be without her. Then BAM! One day, here she is. Brother man didn’t know what to say upon seeing her. Knowing God and how he communicates to us sometimes, I believe the delay in the creation of Eve was all a set-up to reveal how man is incomplete without his suitable helper (Eve).

Here is the thing, God never told Adam directly that Eve was his life partner. In other words, God didn’t impose Eve on Adam, he just presented her to him. It is Adam who was so blown away by the beauty of Eve that he said passionately ‘… this is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh…’. Nevertheless, it is clear Adam didn’t have options. He didn’t have Evelyn and Eva snooping around his relationship and ready to comfort him anytime he had issues with Eve. Adam didn’t have options, therefore it is logical to conclude God expected him to marry Eve.

Anyway, here are two key lessons from Adam’s story:

1. God will never force you to marry a particular person.

“Errm but God commanded the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute?” Well, of course he did. But at the end of the day the specific prostitute Hosea married was up to him. God just told him the kind of woman to marry and not which one in particular. In Adam’s case God presented Eve to him. God intended her to be a suitable help to him. However, God never imposed Eve on Adam. But because Adam didn’t have options, the union between Adam and Eve appeared to be an imposition. I believe God hasn’t changed since the incidence in Eden. Often people say ‘oh because Adam blamed God for giving him a woman that led him into sin God won’t force anybody into marrying a specific person’. While it is true that God won’t force you into marrying somebody, the reason stated above is rather a weak one. The main reason why God won’t force you into marrying a particular person is, He will never violate the human will. God will never ever violate the human will in any instance. That is what makes us human beings in the first place: the ability to choose to be what we want to be. If there was ever a reason for God to violate the human will, it wouldn’t be for an ephemeral and a trivial matter as who you marry. Now, a person’s spouse can make or break him/her but that cannot be compared to the salvation of the human soul. If God cannot force every human being to become a Christian, then he surely cannot go against his very nature and force his choices on you. This isn’t a sign of weakness at all, on the contrary, it proves to us that even in his sovereignty God allows us to willingly choose the right path.

2. There is such a thing as the perfect will of God which he has intended for all of us to willingly walk in.

From the story, we hear the thoughts of God concerning the singleness of Adam. God said ‘it is not good for man to be alone, I will make for him a help-meet’. Which means he had a plan for Adam concerning the creation of a suitable helper for him. This is God’s intention. We all know how that story ended but let’s assume Adam rejected Eve and didn’t want to have anything to do with her. Would God have force Eve on Adam? Would God have twisted Adams arms into accepting Eve? God will respect your choice though he has a better option for you. By respecting your choice I don’t mean he will honor it. He just steps back and watches as you make a mess out of yourself. In Jeremiah 8:3 God said ‘And death shall be chosen rather than life…’. Basically, life and death are the options, it is up to you to choose one. Though God would rather you chose life, he won’t impose it on you. If even in the matters of life and death God wouldn’t force you to choose life but rather leave it up to your discretion, why would he force a life partner on you? Nobody stumbles and falls into the will of God. It takes a lot of dying to walk in God’s will. It takes a lot of humility to do that. Until you intentionally ask God to assist you in taking a decision – especially concerning your life partner – do not expect his will to be done automatically in that area of your life.

So the point is made, God won’t force you to marry a particular person even though he has a specific person in mind for you. How then can one get to meet this person? By asking God to direct you to the person or let your paths cross. He can choose to give you directions via whatever medium. It could be prophecy. It could be in a dream. It could appear as a coincidence. Sometimes he will burden your heart with the specifications of a ‘perfect spouse’, so that you set out in search of such a person. Whatever it is, when you ask him about it, he will definitely show up and direct you. I believe God can speak through his servants the prophets concerning your future spouse. As has been discussed already, it doesn’t mean he has imposed the person on you. Just like all other prophecies, you will never get a detailed description of the person. At best you can be told the person’s name, physical features, career etc. just a ‘little something’ to help you identify the person. As you may know already, this is because prophets know in parts and prophesy in parts. There is always an element of mystery about every prophecy. So yes, prophecy can come in to guide you in the process of selecting your spouse. It doesn’t come to bind you and make you stiff-necked. Though a prophetic word has the power to create miracles, most of the times it comes in just to inform you about a future matter. It is up to you to subject your will to it for it to come to pass. When God says you will marry person A or B, it is still up to you to accept it as his perfect will for you or to choose your own path. If you go ahead and marry person G it is all on you.

This is a stern warning to the people – especially the brothers – who can’t woo a woman to save their lives and therefore resort to blackmailing them with so-called revelations and prophecies. Desist from that! If God revealed it to you that she is the one, be honorable enough and don’t go and tell her God said this and that therefore she should give you a chance. That is infantile. Prophecy is not a tool for blackmail. Will you walk into a bank and demand a million dollars because there’s a prophecy concerning an impending wealth hanging over your head? When God says you will be rich, it usually means you will work hard to get there. God promised the Israelites a land flowing with milk and honey. He didn’t tell them about the giants they had to kill to get the milk and honey. Even if there were no giants, they would have had to milk cows to get the milk and rear bees to harvest the honey. There is no such thing as a land flowing with milk and honey in reality. But there is such a thing as a land filled with bees and cattle. When a prophecy comes, often there is a certain amount of work to be done by the person the prophecy is about. God said Sister Belinda is your wife … blessed and highly favored are you among all men bro. Now get up like the confident brother that God expects you to be, step up to Belinda, strike a conversation, start a friendship and develop it into a relationship. Faithful is he who has said it, he is more than able to help you work it out too. Believe in him.

The conclusion of the matter is, God has a perfect will for all of us even concerning the most trivial things in our lives. I once got a prophecy concerning the fact that I have been desiring to grow my beard for so long. I want to be ‘Beard Gang’ so bad! Though I deem it embarrassingly trivial to speak about it openly, guess who cares about it too: Elohim. The one who created over a billion stars in space and knows each one of them by name. God indeed has a perfect will for all of us concerning every area of our lives. Will we humble ourselves and pray about it? He won’t impose it on you but he will guide you to it so you make the choice yourself. Whatever your choice, there is either a blessing or a curse waiting for you. Pray about it and he will definitely intervene and lead you to the right person.

References: Hosea 1, Genesis 1 and 2, 1 Corinthians 13:9.

See? So this is why Ghana may never go into the production of cars. Because other countries produce cars at a lower comparative cost and therefore we would have to concentrate on the production of goods that we have comparative advantage in. All I am trying to say is this, to the layman, the government of Ghana must attempt producing cars and assist private companies like Katanka. But this seemingly intelligent suggestion doesn’t make economic sense. Therefore, what seems logical to the layman isn’t logical in the field of Economics.

When it comes to religion – Christianity to be specific – people do not understand this simple idea. People do not understand the fact that what is completely logical in Christianity may come across as nonsense to them because they aren’t Christians. It is simple, just know that once you are not a Christian, certain things Christians do will never make sense to you so you just have to respect that and move on. I am saying this in connection with the recent frenzy about what men of God say. I think nowadays, too many journalists go to church for the wrong reasons (to fish for catchy headlines). Archbishop Duncan-Williams prayed a few months ago, commanding the cedi to rise! Well, I don’t particularly know what inspired him to do that but I was shocked when he became a laughing stock after that. Wait, shouldn’t we be laughing at the people who were trained in school to fix the problem and are in the position to do so but are fumbling badly like they were being electrocuted?  He is a man of God, what do you expect him to do? Pass a bill? Implement government’s policies? Clearly, he did what he was supposed to do and maybe if we all did same this country would be a million miles away from where we are. It isn’t as if he declared a fast and required everybody to stop working and pray? He just said a simple prayer and this prayer, when its answer materializes, will be beneficial to all of us. So what’s up with all the demeaning comments? For some mysterious reason, people believe prayer is a cheap getaway for lazy people and being prayerful simply means inactivity. Really? It is the bible that stated that faith without works is dead.

Let’s discuss the merits of that command the Archbishop uttered. He said ‘I command the cedi to rise’. This is a statement of authority which can only come from someone with spiritual oversight and jurisdiction over a particular area. What is wrong with this? Oh yeh, I get it, he was speaking to an inanimate entity and expected it to obey his voice. Excuse me, have you heard about Jesus Christ? Jesus was out there speaking and commanding invisible things like the wind. He cursed a fig tree. He healed an epileptic boy, not by casting out epilepsy, but by casting out a demon. I am not saying that every single physical occurrence has its roots in the spiritual world, but a lot of them do. I am more concerned about the fact that some Christians came out to openly deride the man of God. My question to them is this, is the bible a fable to you? Jesus said he who has faith can command a mountain to be uprooted and be thrown into the sea and it will happen. Well, maybe you are right when you assume He was speaking metaphorically. If He was, then it is only right for the man of God to command a mountainous economic situation. Remember what I said earlier, logic isn’t absolute; it varies from field to field. So what is logical in a particular worldview may be irrational in another.

As I stated earlier, people tend to assume that prayer gives prayerful people the impression that things are happening for them supernaturally hence they can fold their arms and look into the skies and manna would pour down. This isn’t correct. What prayer does sometimes is it sets physical processes in motion. The tree that Jesus cursed started withering from the roots gradually. Let’s look at the creation story for example; it is recorded in two different chapters in Genesis: these are Genesis one and two. Chapter 1 contains all the commands: the ‘let there be’s’ and the ‘calling forths’. But chapter two contains an account of the physical processes that were underway for the commands to materialize. Let’s take for example the creation of plants or the calling forth of vegetation. In verse 11 of chapter1, we see God command the earth to sprout vegetation. Nevertheless, in verse 5-7 of chapter 2, the bible says because there was no rain, plants couldn’t grow. So God caused a mist to hover on the earth thereby watering the earth which created an enabling environment for plants to grow. This is what the creation story in chapter2 of Genesis gives us: a detailed account of what transpired after God commanded. This goes to support my earlier point that commanding things spiritually(Prayer) comes to begin or even quicken physical processes. What if the Archbishop’s prayer was actually meant to give ideas to the economic team at the Central Bank of Ghana? What if it was going to quicken the process? A command is a command but there are things that work in the background to make it materialize. And this is seen vividly in the creation story.

On the other hand, we have seen many things happen in the church that don’t even make logical sense in Christianity. It seems the church is the last place to think. The truth is, you need to know the bible for yourself and weigh what you hear in church by it. As the bible itself said, in the last days there will be an eruption of false teachers and prophets. Therefore there is the need to be guarded with the truth of the word of God. Believers must think. Thinkers must believe. Nowadays, people seem to be drawn by miracles and signs and wonders more than the unadulterated word of God. On TV these days, we see so many churches airing deliverance sessions and it is an awful sight mostly. This is what a friend of mine, Abotsi, calls ‘prophetic journalism’ or ‘spiritual journalism’. These prophets seem to enjoy interviewing demons that are manifesting through people. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t like to be in a church where I would hear the voice of a demon more than the voice of God through my pastor. They spend countless minutes having discourses with demons meanwhile Jesus and Paul didn’t waste time on demons at all. They cast them out immediately; Paul and Silas cast out a demon from a girl who was even speaking the truth about them. The truth is you can’t trust the words of a demon. So to prevent confusion, shut them up and cast them out. I believe that a deliverance-centered ministration won’t waste precious time on one case but would want to deal with one quickly and totally before moving on to another. A lot of these things, I believe are just for showmanship.

Anyway, let’s just respect the fact that the activities of people who hold a different worldview may never make sense to us if we are not believers of that worldview. Also, the best way to judge if someone is doing what his worldview dictates, is to look at the originator. In Christianity, Jesus is the originator. So if Jesus didn’t interrogate demons, then it isn’t biblical to do so. But if Jesus spoke to inanimate objects, we SHOULD do same.

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK.

Charles Darwin nevertheless, came up with a theory that involves a very interesting mechanism called Natural Selection. Natural Selection refers to the process by which a member of a specific species of organisms develops some kind of advantageous features which the other members do not possess; this organism then transfers this trait to its offspring. So the other members of this species who do not have these special traits will eventually die-off as time goes on. This is simply because the advantageous traits usually come in to aid survival, reproduction etc. therefore the organisms that do not have it will eventually die-off. Natural selection communicates a sense of ‘the survival of the fittest’. It also professes that, fairly complex organisms evolved from somewhat simplistic ancestors. For example an organism that develops wings among its fellow members of the same species is bound to pass on the trait to its offspring. Therefore there will come a time when only its offspring will survive because they inherited this special trait from it. It is like what we see in movies like X-MEN; we see human beings developing special super powers; they are called mutants. If this were to happen in the real world, then it is obvious that these mutants would live longer than the average man. Simply because they would have special traits that could help them survive dangerous circumstances. Therefore these mutants would mate and transfer these traits to their offspring. And as generations pass, there will be a total wiping out of the human race – better yet, members of the human race who aren’t mutants.

 
I saw in a documentary once that snakes are believed to have evolved from 4-legged ancestors. It turns out to be a widely held assertion because I have come across it in other write-ups too. I find that very amazing! The fact that scientist believe that the snake evolved from a 4-legged ancestor. It amazes me because, I was taught this very fact way back in Sunday school. In Genesis 3:14, God cursed the serpent when he said ‘…cursed are you above all LIVESTOCK’. He goes on to say that ‘… on your belly you shall go…’ .The serpent once had 4 legs, hence it being referred to as a livestock. Then the curse caused it to become a creeping animal. Once again, we see a collision of science and scripture, yet the former will never give the credit to the latter for making the assertion first.

One of the strong bases on which the theory of Evolution rests is the fact that the process of Natural Selection takes a long time to fully materialize. So all what has been said about Natural Selection above is only possible over a very long period of time. Nevertheless, Darwin himself said if it could be proven that an organism came into existence without going through numerous, successive, slight modifications then his theory would absolutely break down. This affirms what has been mentioned earlier that his theory completely rests on a long process of numerous, slight modifications in organisms. If there is ever an organism that is known to have come to being without going through such a process, it would be called an ‘irreducibly complex system’. The interesting thing about an irreducibly complex system is that, it is a system composed of multiple parts which are necessary for the system to function. And the entire system cannot function if one part is missing. This brings to mind organs in the human body such as the eye. If we claim the human eye had to go through a process of evolution, then we are simply saying that for several years, there were generations of men (or creatures) who walked the face of the earth blind. Because, if their eyes evolved gradually, it means at some point their eyes didn’t have some parts. And since with the eye every single part helps in vision, then probably they were blind. Charles Darwin himself says:

‘To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light … could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.’
Prof. John Lennox also makes a very important argument that I would like to cite here. He said the human genetic code is the longest word recorded in human history. It is a 3.4 billion-long word which has been arranged systematically. When you discover your name written in the sand, it is absolutely normal for you to assume that a being of intelligence made an input. You look at your 10-letter-long name written in the sand, and you immediately wonder WHO it is that wrote it there. Here we are, as humans, with a 3.4 billion-long code in all of us yet we are expected to believe it all happened by chance. There is certainly something wrong somewhere. Molecular biologist Michael Denton states that:
‘Although the tiniest bacterial cells are incredibly small, weighing less than 10-12 grams, each is in effect a veritable micro-miniaturized factory … made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machinery built by man…’

My favorite part of the quote is where he says the bacterial cell is far more complicated than any machinery built by man. Think about the most outstanding and complex machine in the world, Denton claims the bacterial cell is more complicated than it. So if human beings created those machines, isn’t it right to assume that there must be a personality behind Creation? Isn’t it rather absurd to assume that it all happened by chance? All evolution is trying to tell us is that, over a long period of time, a laptop could come into existence without anybody inventing it. Even if that is possible, what explains the origin of the operating system the laptop runs on? That is why I believe in the creation story in Genesis 1. In the beginning GOD…

I call Evolution ‘Evilusion’ because I see it as an evil illusion that deters humans from giving honor and praise to GOD. I believe in God. The universe is far too complex to have happened by chance. The cells in our body are far too complex to have come to being as a result of a random unguided process. GOD’s Not Dead, He is surely alive.

The lady next to me was on her feet as well. You could tell she had a lot to say as she looked at me with eyes that were glistening because they were teary. She had a lot to say; her whole demeanor depicted one who had some sort of fire burning inside of her, causing her discomfort. But the greatest discomfort was, trying to hold herself back, and if you like, trying to tame the wild fire. You could tell vividly that she wanted to scream but her words rolled off her tongue in a murmur: a soft speech under her breath. She said to me, ‘I know that girl; we met once at the hospital. We had both gone there to see the doctor. That day the doctor told us we would have to undergo a surgical operation to correct the deformity in our legs. She told me later that her parents could not afford it – mine could, anyway – so I encouraged her. I told her not to lose faith and that God will make a way’. By saying ‘God will make a way, I am sure she meant God will make the needed amount for the surgery available. She obviously didn’t expect God to come through for the little girl in such a dramatic fashion. All of us in the auditorium that day were stunned at the sight of the miracle but the lady next to me was hit the hardest. Obviously due to her past encounter with both the little girl and the same condition. Seeing a condition literally vanish into thin air in such a dramatic way was awesome. Especially if you once had the same deformity and had to pay a huge sum of money to get it fixed (in this case, the lady next to me). My life hasn’t been the same since that day. What happened? Did the Evangelist stretch the little girl’s left leg till it was of the same length as the right? Was it thermal expansion? They say there is a scientific explanation for every phenomenon, so I guess it was thermal expansion: the process by which heated objects increase in size. I cannot explain it, but I know I saw it together with the hundreds of congregants on that day.

The occurrence of miracles simply reiterates the fact that not everything can be explained scientifically. That is the very reason why some scientists do not believe in them. They claim miracles are a breach of natural laws and since that is impossible then it means those who claim to have witnessed miracles are delusional. I love C.S Lewis’ explanation of what miracles are. He made this illustration:

‘when I put 2 dollars on a table and add 2 dollars to it later, it equals 4 dollars. Leaving the money on the table, when I come back and only see 2 dollars, it doesn’t mean that the laws of arithmetic have been broken, but it means that the laws of ALABAMA have been broken’.

What he is saying here is, when there is a strange occurrence, especially one occurring in a realm where there are laws, we need not always allude it to a breach of the laws. Those two dollars he came to meet on the table later on do not signify that the laws of arithmetic have been broken (since 2+2 equals 4). They signify that the laws of Alabama have been broken, in the sense that, it is likely somebody came in to steal the other 2 dollars. Do we say that this person broke the laws of arithmetic or the laws of Alabama? Certainly not the law of arithmetic because he operates in a different realm and that realm is governed by laws too. So the thief broke the laws of Alabama because he is under those laws. One can only break a law he is under. When it comes to miracles, we are talking about God here. He doesn’t have to break any natural laws, because he isn’t subject to them in the first place. He is God. Many claim the bible is full of fables because most of the happenings in it cannot be verified scientifically. Well of course, the bible is a book about God and his relationship with men and anywhere there is God you should expect supernatural occurrences. I have seen police officers direct traffic many times even though the lights were working. This is usually due to the heavy nature of the vehicular traffic on those roads that day. On such occasions, the cars obey the policeman and not the traffic lights. The red light could be on, but the officer would beckon that particular row of cars to move because that power has been vested in him. Do we say the policeman has broken the laws of Ghana because of that act? Certainly not, on such occasions, he has the authority and sovereignty to do so. So in the case of miracles, think of God as the policeman who stepped in to direct traffic. Though there are laws governing natural occurrences, He steps in to do his will as He pleases. That is SOVEREIGNTY!

 
Miracles are supernatural occurrences that cannot be explained; Creation in itself is a miracle. The universe is arranged too systematically for it to have just occurred without an agent creating or even guiding it. The many stars and galaxies, the sun and the other heavenly bodies and the other planets couldn’t have been created out of nothing by nothing. Instead of scientist giving God the credit for these things, they would rather give it to a random occurrence. In 1929, Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe is expanding. This claim is held in high esteem by scientists the world over. It is also a proven fact that the earth is hanging in space. More than 5000 years before that, these 2 facts were recorded in the book of Job:

‘He stretches out the north over the empty SPACE, and hangs the earth on nothing’ Job 26:7.

It says ‘He stretches…’ implying that it is an on-going activity; it never ended. God hasn’t stopped expanding the universe, otherwise the verse would have read, ‘He stretched…’ which would have communicated a sense of finality. I am fascinated by the fact that the author of the book of Job knew that the earth hanged on nothing. How did he know that? Was he an astronaut? Did he know Neil Armstrong? Maybe he owned a spaceship. Whatever the case may be, the author knew something that took 1000s of years for the smartest brains of this world to know. The irony of the whole situation is in the fact that children at Sunday school probably knew this and erudite scientists had to wait till 1929 to be sure of it. Wait… let that sink in.

I believe in miracles because I have seen many in my own life and in the lives of others. Day in and day out I encounter people who operate in the gifts of the Holy Spirit which are a tangible proof of the existence of God. It is my prayer that many Christians shall hunger for God more and he will also grant us these gifts to help in showcasing his power thereby pointing many to him. At the display of such gifts, many shall run and announce, like the woman at the well, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did’ – Jesus. Our God is alive and not dead.

The bible makes mention of Nephilim in the Old Testament and also other Ancient books that are considered credible and true like the book of Enoch speak about their existence. In those days, there was a massive invasion of the earth by the Nephilim. This move, obviously orchestrated by Satan, is believed to have been his way of trying to corrupt the genome of the promised Messiah. Look at it this way; he knew God was going to send His son down through a virgin’s womb to save mankind from sin and damnation. Hence, he orchestrated this move in order to corrupt the genes of the entire human race, so that the savior would be born not fully God and fully man, but he would have a bit of the genes of fallen angels in him- thereby making his blood not qualified to atone for the sins of humanity. This necessitated the flood in Noah’s time. That was God’s solution to the whole problem: he had to wipe out all who had their genes corrupted by that of the Nephilim.

In Genesis 6:4 it says, ‘The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, AND ALSO AFTERWARD, when the ‘sons of God’ (Angels) came into the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the MIGHTY MEN who were of old, the men of renown. Verse5. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth…’. This is exactly the point I raised earlier. The Nephilim had filled the earth with so much evil and sin that it grieved God and he decided to save humanity and the bloodline of the savior hence the story of Noah’s ark. It is common knowledge that in those many years that the ark was under construction, Noah extended a hand of grace to the people. He told them of a pending disaster, yet they made fun of him and didn’t pay heed to his message. That is how gracious God is, for though he sought to preserve the bloodline of the savior, he still loved the evil and pervert generation so much that he offered them a second chance. In the verse above, you will realize that it says there were Nephilim in those days ‘…AND ALSO AFTERWARD’. This implies that after Noah’s ark, there was another eruption of Nephilim. This makes complete sense, when you think about the fact that the story of David killing Goliath happened many years after the flood. There was another eruption of Nephilim and those were dealt with accordingly by the Israelites. Remember when the spies Moses sent into Canaan came back saying that they were like grasshoppers in the sight of the indigenes of the land? Well there you have it; the Canaanites were known to be a Nephilim tribe, definitely made up of giants. In 2Samuel 21:15-22, we see how David and his men killed four of such creatures. This time God did not use a flood to destroy them, just as he promised Noah, but He used his own people.

(A Nephilim skull next to a human skull)
All of these things are facts in the bible or facts of the bible; but are they true? Did Nephilim really exist? The huge skull you see there, next to the human skull, is known to be the skull of one of these creatures. I know naysayers might just jump to the conclusion that it is a human skull. Because we all know people who have relatively big heads: therefore the hefty skull in there could belong to someone whose head was a burden for his neck. The human skull is known to be made up of 4 plates (bones); one at the front, another at the back and two in the middle. The two in the middle are known as the Parietal plates or bones. They form the area of your head from your ear to the top of your head on both sides. The issue is this, the Nephilim skulls do not have two parietal plates, they have just one! Meaning, the structural make-up of their skulls are not uniform with that of normal human beings. The reason why I am stressing this point is, if this is true (which I believe it is), then it means there was a certain generation of ‘human beings’ with distinct characteristics that the Darwinian Theory doesn’t make provision for. How do we explain the origin of such creatures? Will we say they also had a common ancestry with monkeys, ‘as humans do’? Clearly they were not humans or fully human. Some of the bones that were dug up were measured to be the skeletons of 9-15 footers. Creatures of that height are known to be giants. And the evidence is scattered all over the place. In Paracas Peru, there was a discovery of hundreds of such skulls.

There were Nephilim; there were Nephilim on this very earth. And if they existed, then it means there was a creation of a demonic hybrid by fallen angels and the daughters of men. Also, if this is true, it goes a long way to establish the existence of the spiritual realm, angels and most importantly the existence of God. Those who adhere to a Darwinian world view may debunk this fact, but the evidence is so glaring. There once were creatures on this earth that were mighty in stature and intellect and from the structure of their cranium, they couldn’t have been humans. God’s not dead; and the evidence is all around us.

Reference: L.A Marzulli’s interview on Sid Roth’s ‘It’s Supernatural’ show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0dOJB8A9SI[/embed]

An elimination of origin is tantamount to an omission of destination.

Nevertheless, some philosophers and scientists who are atheists have managed to move us a step back by prompting the posing of the question of whether or not God exists instead of who He is. I must say that, philosophically ‘God is dead’ is rather a weak statement which goes on to betray the intentions of those who say it. If He is dead, then it means He once lived. And if He once lived, then He was probably everything He said He was, which includes: eternal, all powerful and omniscient. Therefore if you claim He is dead, you just halfheartedly accepted his existence (or at least, that He once existed). Anyway, that’s rather on a lighter note.

How do we face facts as humans? When I go to the beach and see ‘Elikplim Sabblah, kindly meet me behind the rocks on the far end of the beach’ written boldly in the sand, it instantly triggers this question in my head – ‘who wrote this?’. It is only normal for us to pin a human being or a personality to anything which expresses a certain level of intelligence. Nobody in their right senses would ask ‘how did this happen?’ when they see their full name written in the sand. Which would mean the writing in the sand appeared just like that – without an agent. Funnily enough, this is the line of thought that some of the smartest brains of our time hold: that the universe with all its splendor and majesty appeared on the scene and created everything else. Philosophically it doesn’t even make baby sense. It’s only normal to allude the expression of intelligence to a personality but some scientist choose to allude it to an event. So all through history, many set out to prove a mechanism while vehemently refuting the existence of an agent manning it. The argument they put up is that, one’s full name scribbled in the sand at the sea shore could have been written by the waves that hit the sand at the shore and not a person.

Imagine two people seated in the back seat of a Ford car, driven by Henry Ford himself. One claims that the fact that the car moves on four wheels and has the ability to stop, it must have created itself, because there couldn’t possibly be a being who could invent such a machine. The other says, since the driver of the car is called ‘FORD’ as well as the car, then the rumors are probably true: he could be the one who invented the car, especially because he is the sole-distributor of that brand of cars. The first man is an atheist and the second, a believer. The issue isn’t about the fact that believers merely allude everything to God to save them from the cumbersome ordeal of thinking. NO. Rather, the universe appears too systematically arranged and purposefully designed to have come to being by a random unguided process. Hence as a rebuttal, atheist-scientist often retort, ‘If you say God created the universe then who created God?’. Isn’t it ironic that they believe the universe created itself? So then we pose the same question to them: ‘if the universe created itself and everything else, then who created the universe?’

The presence of pain, suffering and evil in the world is seen as one of the greatest arguments against the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing and ever-present God. For if God knows everything and He wields all power why would He sit back and watch the world drowning in misery and do nothing about it? There is evil in this world because God created human beings and not robots. God created beings that reason; beings that have a WILL because He prefers the worship of a being who does so because he loves HIM (God) and not because he has been hardwired to do only that. Your sense of worth as a spouse may diminish when you realize you got married because your partner didn’t have an option. Same way, God gave man a will to choose to either serve him or not so that those who do serve Him, do so out of total reverence for him and not because they are robots that have no other function or option.

There is pain in the world because we live in a fallen world. The world God intended for man, sin made us disqualified for it. Eden was a place of eternal bliss, joy and peace. Yet our sin which largely communicated reverence to another being other than God, made us fall short of it. But the good news is, Calvary has made us eligible occupants of such a place – God has worked everything out to get us back to that sort of environment. Many also ask why God will place the human race in a world filled with dark forces and evil. This is neither here nor there, because when you think about it procreation sort of puts man in God’s position, so far as creation is concerned. So if you claim God is evil for placing human beings in a world filled with diseases, terrorism and evil, then guess what, you are equally evil for having babies. We all know there is a certain level of evil in the world, yet some of us have kids and others intend to have some. Even we who cannot vouch for the safety of our offspring are willing to bring them to life in a world like this, how much more he who holds the world in his hands?

Sometimes I just wish God would reveal himself to all mankind and just save us – his children – from having to defend his honor to people who doubt his existence. That would save the day, won’t it? Ha! If your 24 year old son walks up to you demanding a paternity test, regardless of the striking resemblance and character-traits both of you share, it will take a certain level of insecurity to make you actually take that test. I am saying if your child demands enough reason to be convinced you are his father, it will take insecurity on your part to actually want to prove it to him. Especially if there is enough proof already. I believe strongly that this is God’s position on the matter; he doesn’t have to show up to show that He is. Just as Henry Ford needn’t interrupt the argument going on in the car he invented because he knows who he is and what he did. God’s not dead, He is alive and today, I joined nature to scream it out loud.