National Geographic Fantasies
National Geographic. Just the mention of those two words together are synonymous with, representative of, and bring to mind, some of the most beautiful, colorful, dazzling, high definition and mind-boggling photography of almighty God’s creation that His world has ever seen. Tragically, they often also bring to mind something far more sinister, serious, and insidious as well – at least for those who know even the least little bit about the bible – the abiding and eternal word of almighty God (Psalm 119:89).
The blasphemies of man are not limited to National Geographic.
For example, how many times have you been watching some beautifully panoramic and ingeniously photographed nature show – whether on their network or some other – and heard those inevitable and ever-present, biblically-blasphemous and God-denying, “billions,” “millions,” or even “tens of thousands of years ago” statements made and spoken of as if indeed fact? Statements which are based solely, on nothing more than man’s highly-treasured but desperately worthless and deluded human theories, instead of on the all-powerful and eternal word of our almighty God and Creator who was actually there in the beginning and personally engineered the entire creation they are so fond of photographing? A world which was created by Him – but only about 6,500 years ago according to His divinely-dictated, eternally-changeless, heaven-originated record?
And while all such madly misinformed, “millions of years ago” mindsets might continually deny the authoritative record of almighty God, almighty God certainly didn’t deny their existence. In fact, He foretold it: For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man–and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen (Romans 1:18-25). God’s point herein is that anyone truly and objectively looking at the natural world all around them in all of its glory, majesty, and splendor, cannot honestly come to any other conclusion than that God exists and created it all just as He said.
The bible then continues: For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting… (Romans 1:26-28).
As that passage so clearly and unequivocally indicates, when anyone decides to willfully and continually deny almighty God, His eternal existence, and exactly what His inerrant and all-sufficient truth says about all things in the natural as well as in the spiritual world in favor of their own erroneously-contrived and arrived at conclusions, God sadly gives way; gives them what they want; and allows the deviant and immoral mindsets and lifestyles they apparently so prefer, to slowly poison, seductively pervert, and eventually overwhelm and destroy them (See also: 2 Thessalonians 2:9-17).
It is by the very process described in Romans 1:18-32, that God’s eternal wisdom – and by extension, His very existence – is proven time and again. And this is especially telling and intriguing when those who deny His existence by their rebellion against His truth with their “millions of years ago” man-made theories, mythologies, and other philosophies (See: Colossians 2:4-14), do by nature, the very things He said those who would thus deny Him would then also do, nearly 1900 years before they were even born. Don’t think so? Think again! A recent “special issue” of the monthly National Geographic magazine entitled “Gender Revolution,” featured a nine year old transgendered boy on the cover, presumably promoting the sexual deviancy that the American Psychiatric Association defines as a mental health issue. Can’t Nat Geo’s writers read? How can they possibly miss, misunderstand, and/or misrepresent something as incredibly simple as Matthew 19:4: “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning made them male and female?” That’s about as simple as “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1), or, the many other statements found in scripture, absolutely proving the existence and providence of God, such as are found in places like Psalm 19, Isaiah 45, and throughout. The only way one can truly miss or misunderstand something as simple as that, is to make up one’s mind beforehand, for whatever personal reason, to want to do so.
And that brings us then to this… The most recent offering from an organization which apparently can’t come anywhere close to admitting the actual and accurate age of the earth according to the word of God, and that can’t figure out something as simple and basic as God having created humans as either only male or female according to His word, is now preparing to give us another installment of “The Story of God,” beginning Thursday evening, January 19th. From what I’ve seen in the ads and trailers for this little TV mini-series, Morgan Freeman apparently travels the world over in an attempt to answer such questions as, “Does God exist?” “Where did we come from?” “What happens when we die?” “Who are the chosen ones?” and several others of the same ilk.
But the sad irony of this series is that one doesn’t have to travel to far-off mountains and secluded civilizations to find the answers to such questions. In fact, those are exactly the wrong places to look because mere mortals don’t know the answers to those questions in and of of themselves – only God does! And He has lovingly and graciously placed them all right in front of us, in stark, easy to read, black and white simplicity in His all-encompassing and enlightening word, the bible – which is, by the way, THE Story of God (2 Timothy 3:14-4:4).
For example, the bible definitively answers the question, “Does God exist?” The answer is found on virtually every page of this one of a kind, divinely-inspired and dictated document; from Genesis 1:1, to Isaiah chapters 40-45 in particular, to the accounts of Jesus Christ the Son of the living God and all that He did as recorded in the four gospels, up through the book of Acts and on into Romans 1, and throughout the entire rest of the New Testament writings. Yes Morgan and mankind, God does exist.
As to the question “Where did we come from?” once again, God has already told us very clearly in Genesis 1 through 3; and then in His great love and patience has repeated the answer in multiple other places such as Genesis 5:1, Psalm 139:13-16, Isaiah 45:11-12, 1 Timothy 2:8-15 and others. As to the question, “What happens when we die?” God has already answered that as well, in places like Ecclesiastes 12:1-7, Luke 16:19-31, Romans 2:2-11, 1 Corinthians 15:1-58, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:10, and others also.
And even – and perhaps even especially – when it comes to exactly who the “chosen ones” really are, God has once, and once and for all (Jude 1:1-25), defined and determined, exactly who they are and shall be as well. As His hand-picked apostle John – who actually walked with Jesus – reported in Revelation 17:14, it is only and exclusively those who are with Jesus, the “Lord of lords and King of kings,” who comprise the “called, chosen, and faithful.”
As another one of the Son of God’s handpicked apostles, Peter – who also walked with Him – additionally reiterated in his first epistle, it is only those who repent and obey God’s black and white biblical truth, hence being redeemed by the precious blood of Christ and then following His eternal word of truth from that point forward (1 Peter 1:1-2:8), who constitute His “chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people… who once were not a people, but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy” (1 Peter 2:9-10). The “chosen ones” are therefore very easily and clearly defined – by God. They are those whom, as Peter first instructed on the Day of Pentecost and whom then responded in faithful obedience as reported in Acts 2: believed the gospel message of Christ enough to repent and be buried with Him in baptism specifically for the forgiveness of their sins; and who were then subsequently added, by God, to His Son’s ‘saved by grace through their faith’ group, or church; and whom then completely devoted themselves and their new lives to following the apostle’s doctrine, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Period. (See: Acts 2:22-47; Romans 6:1-23, 16:16-18; Galatians 3:26-29; Ephesians 1 and etc…).
Sadly however, I seriously doubt that those penitent, obedient, and blood-washed saints who comprise the Lord’s one, New Testament, pre-denominational church of Christ as seen in Scripture, are the ones who will ultimately be reported by Mr. Freeman to be the “chosen ones” despite what God in His word said. This, because he’s looking for answers in all the wrong places; this, because instead of accepting the eternally inerrant and divinely-inspired written record – and of these two apostles in particular who were actually eyewitnesses who walked with Jesus (1 John 1:1-4) – he will be consulting with mere men some two millennia removed from the time the Son of God walked the earth, was killed, buried, and raised again (or resurrected) on the third day thereafter, just as the scriptures said He would (Luke 24:44-49; 1 Corinthians 15:1-10).
And one has to wonder how many people might possibly be led astray by the potentially unbiblical, and at times perhaps even anti-biblical information intrinsic in such presentations (2 Peter 1:16-2:2). For example, in an interview found at http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/03/160329-morgan-freeman-interview-story-of-god, Mr. Freeman indicated his apparent belief in the God-defying and biblically denying doctrine of reincarnation, stating: “One really interesting thing I didn’t know was that reincarnation is binding. You’re bound to the Earth; you’re bound to a corporal existence. You have to keep coming back and coming back until you get it right. But once you get it right, that’s it, you’re done. But, we were in Varanasi in India, the holiest city on the Ganges, and we learned that you could get a shortcut. Just go to Varanasi and die, and be cremated at that river, and that’s it, you’re done, it’s over. You don’t have to come back anymore. So you know where I’m going!”
In Hebrews 9:27-28 however, God forever and very simply settles the question of reincarnation once and for all wherein He says: “And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him, He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.” And as Romans 3:4 goes on to reinforce when it comes to this text which refutes reincarnation – or any other vain and man-made doctrine for that matter (Mk. 7:1-13) – “Indeed, let God be true and every man a liar.”
Mr. Freeman then goes on to further explain in the aforementioned interview, how He and the film crew were kicked out of the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, because, being in one of the tombs near where the crucifixion took place, he, quote, “used the term ‘myth,’ and we were asked to leave post-haste. Out.”
So… we are supposed to somehow believe and accept, that we are getting a true, actual, and accurate picture and portrayal of the story of God, from a production in which the lead investigator apparently believes in biblically contradictory false doctrines, but at the same time, at a tomb in Jerusalem near where the crucifixion of the Christ occurred, he and his film crew were actually kicked out for referring to something said or done there, as ‘myth?’ Think I’ll pass.
Bottom Line? If you really want to know the true story of God, then don’t waste your time watching such misleading things (2 John 9-11; Ephesians 5:15-17; 2 Peter 3:14-18); spend your valuable God-given time instead, studying God’s divinely-dictated, eternally-accurate and eye witnessed word – which is the absolute truth (John 8:31-32, 17:17) and the one, God-given standard by which we shall all be judged on the last day, according to none other than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself (John 12:48-50)!