One of the favorite arguments of atheists is the ‘foundations of the earth’ language in the bible. And, honestly, this is one of those things in the bible that’s difficult for believers to understand explain too.
Let me help with a very practical explanation.
First of all, the bible acknowledges that the earth is round…
Isaiah 40:22 (NKJV)
22 It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.
I think everyone will agree that circles are round. But, what about all the language referring to the ‘foundations of the earth’ such as…
Psalm 104:5 (NKJV)
5 You who[a]laid the foundations of the earth, So that it should not be moved forever,
Think about this. Even though the earth is round, the home in which you live still requires a foundation. Every building that we build requires a strong, immovable, preferably flat foundation. The very flat ground that we walk on, build on…live on has it’s own layers or ‘foundations’.
The fact that the world is round does not prevent the ground from being flat and requiring foundations.
Did people in the ancient world think the world was flat? Yes. But the fact that God didn’t reveal the fact that the world was round to everyone at that time doesn’t negate the fact that He is real and He lives. Think about all of the mysteries of the physical and spiritual worlds that WE still don’t know.
Don’t allow your blessings of intelligence and sense of logic be a curse to prevent you from understanding and accepting the mysteries in the word of God.
Article 2, Section 1, of the U.S. Constitution prescribes the oath of office.
From Senate.gov website:(https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Oath_Office.htm)…”The Constitution contains an oath of office only for the president. For other officials, including members of Congress, that document specifies only that they “shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation to support this constitution.” In 1789, the First Congress reworked this requirement into a simple fourteen-word oath: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States.””
George Washington was the first President to take his oath of office by swearing on the bible. Since then, each President has done the same. It’s become a respected tradition. It has also become a tradition that all elected officials to swear (or affirm) before they take office, and for citizens to do the same before they testify in court.
There is only one problem with that…
God has VERY CLEARLY FORBIDDEN taking oaths! He FORBIDS swearing.
Matthew 5:34-37 (NKJV)
34 But I say to you, do not swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is God’sthrone; 35 nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36 Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. 37 But let [a]your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.
James 5:12 (NKJV)
12 But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath. But let your “Yes” be “Yes,” and your “No,” “No,” lest you fall into [a]judgment.
You can’t get more clear than that!
So, why do people who claim to believe in God feel it is okay to swear or take an oath when God said DO NOT DO IT?
Why do people feel it is okay to swear or take an oath with their hand on the same bible that forbids it?
The Constitution is an important document, and I have high respect for it, but it is by no means a perfect document. That’s why it’s a living document and needs to be changed as we learn and grow. Unfortunately, many Americans are more passionate about following the Constitution to the letter even more than they are about following the bible to the letter.
The ‘founding fathers’ were great men, but they were far from perfect. They were ordained by God (Romans 13), but they were not God. Many of them who signed the Constitution also signed bills of sale for slaves with the same hand.
I’m quite certain that someone will take the previous two paragraphs out of context because what I just said offended them. If it offends you, examine yourself and what spirit is provoking you to be offended. Yeshua the Messiah also offended the religious leaders when He came to warn them about how their traditions need to change…
Matthew 15:1-9 (NKJV)
15 Then the scribes and Pharisees who were from Jerusalem came to Jesus, saying, 2 “Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.”
3He answered and said to them, “Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? 4 For God commanded, saying, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’ 5 But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is a gift to God”— 6 then he need not honor his father [a]or mother.’ Thus you have made the [b]commandment of God of no effect by your tradition. 7 Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying:
8‘These people [c]draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. 9 And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ”
Notice what Yeshua said about oaths when He rebuked the Scribes and Pharisees in Matthew Chapter 23…
Matthew 23:16-17 (NKJV)
16 “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obliged to perform it.’ 17 Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that [a]sanctifies the gold?
He called them fools. It makes no sense to swear on the bible. Which is greater, the cover of the bible carry more weight than the words you are speaking? Which is greater, the Bible or the words in it that make it holy? Besides, someone who doesn’t believe in God or take His word serious enough has no problem with putting their hands on the bible and telling a lie.
If we really love God, then we want to do what He said without trying to justify otherwise because we want to place our will over his…
One of the problem with many Christians is they prove by their actions that they feel the only sins that God is concerned with are homosexuality, abortion and gambling.
However, Yeshua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) has made it clear that we are to NEVER SWEAR.
I do feel it is okay to make an ‘affirmation’. I feel it is okay to say, “I affirm to support the Constitution or I affirm to tell the truth” in court. But NEVER on a bible.
But, any elected official who proclaims an ‘oath of office’ or is ‘sworn in’ begins their term with a sin.
And, anyone who swears not to tell a lie in court promises not to commit one sin by committing another one.
As we work to make the Constitution an even better document by including amendments that secure the rights of everyone, don’t you think we should change it in a way to please the God of our salvation first? And do it ASAP.
Have you ever noticed how a negative person can sap the energy out of a room? Have you ever noticed how negativity can steal the joy from a moment? Have you ever noticed how a person who complains can convince a person who is completely content and satisfied to be unhappy?
This is why God hates pessimism. This is why God hates negativity. This is why God hates complaining…7 REASONS GOD HATES COMPLAINING…
Remember that God had promised Israel victory, but they had to go in and claim the Promised Land that He had committed to giving them. As they travelled in the wilderness, Moses sent out spies to ‘check out the land’. To make a long story short, Joshua and Caleb brought back positive news in the form of a good report. However, the other spies brought back negative news and pessimism in the form of a ‘bad report’…
Numbers 13:21-33 (NKJV)
21 So they went up and spied out the land from the Wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob, near the entrance of Hamath. 22 And they went up through the South and came to Hebron; Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of Anak, were there. (Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.) 23 Then they came to the [a]Valley of Eshcol, and there cut down a branch with one cluster of grapes; they carried it between two of them on a pole. They also brought some of the pomegranates and figs. 24 The place was called the Valley of [b]Eshcol, because of the cluster which the men of Israel cut down there. 25 And they returned from spying out the land after forty days.
26 Now they departed and came back to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; they brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. 27 Then they told him, and said: “We went to the land where you sent us. It truly [c]flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. 28 Nevertheless the people who dwell in the land are strong; the cities are fortified and very large; moreover we saw the descendants of Anak there. 29 The Amalekites dwell in the land of the South; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan.”
30 Then Caleb quieted thepeople before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.”
31 But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.” 32 And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. 33 There we saw the [d]giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like[e] grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”
Numbers 14:1-4 (NKJV)
14 So all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night. 2 And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness! 3 Why has the Lord brought us to this land to [a]fall by the sword, that our wives and children should become victims? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?” 4 So they said to one another, “Let us select a leader and return to Egypt.”
This pessimism and negativity pissed off the God of our Salvation because it discouraged the people! It pissed Him off A LOT!
Numbers 14:11-25 (NKJV)
11 Then the Lord said to Moses: “How long will these people reject[a] Me? And how long will they not believe Me, with all the [b]signs which I have performed among them? 12 I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.”
13 And Moses said to the Lord: “Then the Egyptians will hear it, for by Your might You brought these people up from among them, 14 and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that You, Lord, are among these people; that You, Lord, are seen face to face and Your cloud stands above them, and You go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. 15 Now if You kill these people as one man, then the nations which have heard of Your fame will speak, saying, 16 ‘Because the Lord was not able to bring this people to the land which He swore to give them, therefore He killed them in the wilderness.’ 17 And now, I pray, let the power of my Lord be great, just as You have spoken, saying, 18 ‘The Lord is longsuffering and abundant in mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but He by no means clears the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation.’ 19 Pardon the iniquity of this people, I pray, according to the greatness of Your mercy, just as You have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.”
20 Then the Lord said: “I have pardoned, according to your word; 21 but truly, as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord— 22 because all these men who have seen My glory and the signs which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have put Me to the test now these ten times, and have not heeded My voice, 23 they certainly shall not see the landof which I [c]swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who rejected Me see it. 24 But My servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land where he went, and his descendants shall inherit it. 25 Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valley; tomorrow turn and move out into the wilderness by the Way of the Red Sea.”
How many times have you negatively influenced someone who was perfectly content? How many times have you spread the contagious spirit of negativity?
God gets just as angry now as He did then. As a matter of fact, His extreme judgments in the Old Testament are recorded for us as examples of how angry pessimism, negativity and complaining makes Him…
1 Corinthians 10:1-10 (NKJV)
10 Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, 2 all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. 5 But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.
6 Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. 7 And do not become idolaters as were some of them. As it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.” 8 Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell; 9 nor let us [a]tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by serpents; 10 nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer.
As much as we are working hard to prevent the spread of contagious diseases, please make sure that you aren’t responsible for contributing to the pandemic of pessimism.
BE BLESSTIFIED! 