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Ghosts.

10/28/2017

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Are there such things as ghosts? The Bible says no.

This is the time of year when people exhibit a fascination with ghoulish things, among which are included ghosts -- the alleged departed spirits of the dead. Kentucky tourist sites offer "ghost walks" -- spooky tours of supposedly haunted places. These are all scams designed to separate gullible people from their money; in a few cases they're just interesting historical tours with a tongue-in-cheek ghost angle thrown in for flavor.  But then there are real cases of frightening and paranormal manifestations in people's lives, which also fascinate people. 

The Bible says that when a person dies, they immediately go to one of two places. If they are a child of God through faith in Jesus Christ, they go immediately to Heaven. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8). The Bible says nothing about long tunnels with a light at the end of it. There is no such place as Purgatory -- that is an ancient pagan concept that began to infect Christianity as early as the 2nd century.  If a person stands outside of Christ when they die, they go to Hell. In Jesus' account of the wicked rich man and beggar Lazarus, both died at the same time and both immediately went to Hell and Paradise respectively (Luke 16:19-23).  There is no intermediate condition,  on earth or in the afterlife.

So what is it that people see, when they claim to see ghosts, or experience paranormal events, such as through the Ouija board? For one, they see and hear the overheated products of their own imaginations. A person who expects and wants to see the paranormal will find it, of their own making. This is just human psychology.

For two, they see and hear deceptions perpetrated on them by con artists and tricksters. Whether the seance artists of the 1920s or the so-called ghost hunter TV shows of today, millions have been ,made off the gullibility of human foolishness. 

But the Bible also teaches that there are such things as demons. God is the ultimate righteous immaterial Spirit, angels are His righteous immaterial spirits, and demons are evil immaterial spirits who serve Satan. Demons stand behind the false religions of this world (1 Corinthians 10:20). Satan and his demons are able to appear to men (if God permits), and disguise their appearance (2 Corinthians 11:14). In Job 1-2, Satan was able to affect the weather, evil men's minds, and disease -- though only as far as God allowed it. If an apparition is not just a product of the imagination, or a scam, then it is demonic.

As I said, a ghost cannot be a human soul, because every human soul departs immediately for Heaven or hell at the point of death. God God absolutely forbids any attempt to communicate with the dead, and He condemns all forms of sorcery.  www.gotquestions.org/Bible-sorcery.html 

If you own a Ouija board, destroy it!. If you own Tarot cards, throw them away! Do not dowse for water (which is a witchcraft practice), and do not try to talk to the dead. Talk in prayer and praise to God only!  Jeremiah 33: Thus says the LORD who made the earth, the LORD who formed it to establish it, the LORD is His name: Call on Me!" Do not pray to the dead, or seek the dead!
  

Call instead upon the living, resurrected Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, to free you and your home from evil spirits, and He will do it. He is the Messiah, exalted above all spirits and powers, and is the implacable enemy of the devil. The only "ghost" with whom we should interact is God the Holy Ghost.  



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Is The God of the Bible a Moral Monster?

10/26/2017

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I was recently asked a question about God ordering the Israelites to kill all the Canaanites, including their children. To answer that question would require an essay so long that few would read it, so I'm going to address the question as concisely as I can.

1.  God sent His Son to suffer and die on the cross, so that children (among others) may rejoice in heaven, free of all sickness, pain, or death. It is not God's will that little children perish everlastingly (Matthew 18:14).  They die physically because of Adam's unique original sin, and Adam's sin made us all sinful by nature (Romans 5:18).

But God judges individuals based on their works (Revelation 20:13), and babies have no works (Romans 9:11), so they are not judged. God cannot be accused of not caring about the children of the world. In one case in the Old Testament He refrained from judging an entire city, because of the children and animals that lived there (Jonah 4:11). God is also clear that He finds no enjoyment in punishing (Ezekiel 18:23). God made sure there was an open door to Heaven for all infants and children who cannot know Him or His moral laws. God opened that door with the key of the cross.

2.  God visits the consequences of the sins of parents on their descendents (Exodus 20:5).  Not the guilt -- God in Ezekiel 18 says He doesn't blame children for their parents' sins. But the practical consequences of adult wrongdoing cascade down on children.  We see this in everyday life: when the court system jails a criminal, the punishment negatively impacts the children of the criminal. 

A parent can bring divine blessing or cursing upon his or her own children. An example of blessing was Phinehas. When Phinehas righteously executed a rebellious Israelite with a spear, God rewarded his whole line with the honor of perpetual priesthood (Numbers 25:6-13). Another example is Noah -- we all benefit from Noah's obedience (Gen. 9:11).  This principle ought to make parents tread more carefully. The Amorites of Canaan lived in violent, evil perversion for centuries, until God decided to erase them. They brought annihilation of their people down upon their own heads.

3.  God is the only God, and the Creator, which gives Him absolute, unique rights that no human being has. No one may say to the Creator, "Who do You think you are?" or "What do you think You're doing!?"   According to certain science/ecology websites, about 150,000+ people die each day.  In each case, the circumstances of the person's death was ordained by God. 

God alone decides how long each person lives (Psalm 139:16).  Skeptics complain that God was "wrong" to have the Jews kill the Canaanite children. But, since God ordered them to do it, it was therefore not wrong. God always has the right to end life. God is not a giant man.  If the Jews had done it on their own, it would have been genocide. But God through His prophet Moses ordered them to do it, so it was a divine judgment.

God is not a moral monster, because human beings do not have a right to stay alive a certain amount of time, or to die in a certain kind of way. There is no moral law, whether above God's head or created by humans here on earth,by which He may be judged. In addition, God created Heaven at the cost of His son's death, so that all the suffering of this life could be wiped out forever. God the Son knows exactly what it feels like to suffer horribly and die, so no one can accuse Him of apathy, and He came of His own free will to undo earth's suffering, so no one can accuse Him of indifference.



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