The World’s Last best Hope June 15, 2015
After last week’s blog and Sunday’s sermon (Posted on our Website) many people were asking me for a list of books that they could read to educate themselves. Here is a list of what I have been reading.
E. Benjamin Andrews – 6 Vol. History of America – the best I’ve read
Mark David Ledbetter -America’s Forgotten History – excellent volume
Charles Murray – American Exceptionalism – Why we have been great
David Horowitz – The Black Book of the American Left – If you want to understand the progressive left, this is the author you want to read. He was raised and communist and a crucial cog in the radical 60’s but after the war ended and he saw what communism did to millions, he had “second thoughts” – and began to turn to the right. Today he is one of the best authorities on the progressive left, their many names and their goals.
Ravi Zacharius – The Real Faith of Atheism – One of the best apologists (defender of the faith) of our day.
Rodney Stark – A great historian – multiple books covers a lot of history.
Dinesh D’Souza- America, Imagine a world without her. A contemporary immigrant who sees clearly the
Jim Demint & J. David Woodard Why We Whisper- restoring our right to say it’s Wrong. – Addresses why so many are frightened to tell the truth.
Oswald Chambers Christian Disciplines
David Marshall The Truth behind the New Atheism
William J Bennet America The Last Best Hope
Peter Kreeft and Ronald K Tacelli Handbook of Christian Apologetics: Hundreds of Answers to Crucial Questions Kindle Edition
Norman L. Geisler The Big Book of Christian Apologetics 
Norman L. Geisler Christian Apologetics
I know the list seems overwhelming, but just get started with one. Pick one that seems of interest to you. With the multi-volume books you might just choose ones that are related to the 20th century forward. This progressive socialism was evident in President Wilson a WWI isolationist forced into war.
With all of this bad news about the trouble America is in, many are people are asking “why all this evil”? “Why does God allow this to happen to us”?
If we are the world’s last best hope, then why would God let us fall?
The reason is very simple. You have to get your mind out of this world.
The World’s best hope has always been and will always be God the Creator.
In these terrible last days, He is our Last Best Hope.
God is not the author of Evil. (1 Corinthians 10:13) In fact evil is not something objective that you can collect and put in a can or jar. Evil is the absence of good. God is good.
Jesus told us the only God was good. To the degree that God and His Light is absent, then evil & it’s darkness claims the void. Did you ever wonder why God seemed so close in church, and then a bit more, maybe quite a bit more, distant out in the world. In worship, where we are exalting God,
His heavenly creatures are with us, joining in that exaltation. There is little room for a void, unless you are suppressing God’s presence. To the degree that you do that, the less you will receive from God out of worship.
The question naturally arises “Why did God allow temptation to be there in the first place?” First of all, God tempts no one. (James 1:13,14) But He does allow us to undergo testing. That is why the one tree – the tree of the “knowledge of good and evil” was created in the garden. God wanted us to choose obedience & in that obedience we would have found the difference between good and evil. But in choosing dis-obedience, we discovered the difference from the side of darkness, defeat & death. So we hid from God. We’ve been running from Him ever since. But like the Good Shepherd that He is, He has been chasing us down ever since, to bring us back to Himself.
When God created us, He wanted us to be a much higher level, and so He gave us great intelligence and the ability to choose between right and wrong. In the Garden they chose poorly, and as a result sin came into the world and God would no longer be fully present. As a result of our actions, we created a void, as it were, and Satan took advantage of that filling the void with sin ad darkness. The more the world went into darkness, the worse life became. Immorality and crime increased. It is only a matter of time until God says, “Enough! I’ve had Enough!” And then destruction follows. Read history and you will see it is true.
Just as cold is the absence of heat and darkness is the absence of light, so evil is the absence of good. Knowing this, there are many believers who want to go into the heart of the darkness in order to shine the Light of God.
It might cost them everything, but they cannot ignore the call of God in their lives to let His Light shine in those terrible places, whether it is in an American Ghetto or a Mid-Eastern place torn apart by the forces of evil.
Eventually God’s Light will overcome all the darkness of this world, when He comes back to establish His Kingdom. The key to His return is to finish the great task He has given us. When the Gospel is preached over the entire world, and everyone hears about the love of God (whether they accept it or not) He will come back to us. Come quickly Lord (Maranatha) was the call of the early church. May it become our passion today.
Coram Deo, Pastor Mike
