Abraham's Questions May 31

Hey Creekside... thanks for the questions this week.

Q1. I've met people who think Israel has no place in the Kingdom of God, because they crucified Christ.  Right or wrong?

A1. Wrong.  Israel are still God's chosen people.  The New Testament is full of references about God's grace and love fully extended to Israel.  In fact, Paul is so taken with Israel's salvation that he says he would willingly give up his own salvation to see Israel saved. 

Q2. A lot of people think Melchizedek was an incarnation of Christ in the same vein of the Old Testament "Angel of the Lord".  What do you think?

A2. Thanks for your question, and the simple answer is, "I don't know" and no one can know.  What's more, I seldom spend much time on unanswerable questions like this.  It is interesting to think about, but the main point here is that Melchizedek was real and he served as a picture of Christ. 

Q3. Should we tithe before or after taxes?

A3.  Great question and I suggest you look at the booklet I wrote called, "What About Money?" which you can access at www.thecreeksidechurch.org and click on resources.  The real answer to this question is about attitude, not money.  If you are trying to do the bare minimum and only give what you have to, your heart is not following God anyway, so the amount of money you give is the least of your problems.

I heard one person ask, "Should I tithe on the gross or the net?" and the pastor answered, "Do you want a gross blessing or a net blessing?"  Remember, we not only reap WHAT we sow, we also reap HOW we sow.

Thanks, "Creekers" for sending in your questions.  See you on Sunday.

Don

Questions From "Noah" May 17

Hey Blog Followers,

Thanks in advance for your questions.

Before I get to the questions from Sunday, let me apologize for not blogging recently, or should I say repent.  I promised you that if you send the questions, I will blog the answers, and you did and I didn't.  My site was down for a while, but I could have gotten it up sooner.  I'll try to do better at honoring your questions.

So here are the Q's from Sunday . . .

Q1.  Why is your blog  called Grady Dawn?

A1.  Grady Dawn is the name of our boat, which is a Grady White, so the name is a modified version of Grady Don, which was given to me by other fisherman friends.  I went with dawn, instead of Don, because I like to get up early and it is less ostentatious.  

Q2. Does God really "know" how everything will "turn out", or, does he have the ability to "see" all the infinite possibilities at each decision juncture (man's choice) and thus never be surprised by any outcome?  

A2. The short answer to your question is yes to both.  God both knows how everything will turn out and also knows all the possibilities at each juncture. He is never surprised by the outcome.  This is called "Cosmic Chess" by those who subscribe exclusively to the last part of the question, believing that God doesn't know how things will turn out, but knows all the possibilities.  

Since God is omniscient, meaning He knows everything, He would not be God if He didn't know both how things will turn out as well as all the potential possibilities.  If God knows all the possibilities, it is a small jump to believe that He also knows what will happen, since He is omniscient, thus He is never surprised.

Q3. Does the bird finding the olive branch indicate that plants were not destroyed in the flood?

A3. Good question with some deeper issues connected to it.  The simple answer to this question is yes, the plants were not necessary completely destroyed in the flood.  God's focus in destruction was only those forms of life that had "breathe", which would not include fish or plants.

However; as I taught on Sunday, it was 150 days before the waters fully receded.  This means that plants, which cannot live under water, would have been destroyed if they were under water the whole time.  So is there are reasonable way to explain an olive branch?  Yes.

Consider this. . . the world we know now is not like the world before the flood.  Creation scientists postulate, with good reason, that a vapor would have probably covered the earth giving a mean temperature of 75 degrees and a humidity of about 80.  There was only one continent, since the world was not yet divided (Gen. 10:25).  There also would have been no polar ice caps and vegetation would have grown all over the earth, including the mountains, which is significantly different that our current earth.

This huge amount of vegetation would account for the dinosaurs growing to a great size, since as reptiles, they can grow as long as their environment can support them.  I personally believe that man and dinosaurs lived together in the same world,as there is clear evidence to support this.   This view is opposed by evolutionists.  Lush vegetation and giant dinosaurs would also account for the vast oil reserves in this region and around the world.

All this to say, it is entirely possible in a pre-flood world that vegetation (olives) could have grown on mountains which may have been under water for a short period of time. This could account for a bird finding an olive branch on a mountain that perhaps had only been underwater a few days or weeks.

Thanks again for your questions and I'll see you on Sunday.

Don