“Look beneath the surface so
you can judge correctly."

- Jesus Christ (John 7:24 NLT)

What Atheists are Missing That Makes Them So Offended by the God of the Old Covenant

"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

- Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion) 2006

Dear Sincere Atheist,

While the majority of apologists are requiring that you look through a microscope or telescope, or at archeological evidence, I would ask that you please just consider this lesson and proof from my own life.  For years, thousands of people looked only on the surface of my circumstances and misjudged that either I was a deceived fool, or that Satan must have been the architect of my life, in the face of so much suffering, and the scandal of two unfaithful spouses and divorces.

Today, however, by the mercy of God, we can look beneath the surface, to discover the astonishing timing and Biblically prophetic purpose for it all, where God left no room for doubt as to whom the real Sovereign & Architect of my life truly is.

A Simple Challenge of Logic: It is not necessary for you to believe the Bible is from God, or anything more than the man written fairytale you believe it is.

If a tree produces after its own kind, how will you dismiss the facts below which show that my life looks like it has been supernaturally designed entirely by principles of the Bible?   

  • Clear inconspicuous answers to my prayers   John 15:7-8, 1 John 5:15

  • A radically transformed life   Rom 6:19-23, Gal 2:20, 1 Tim 1:15-16

  • My loss of desire for things in the world   Gal 6:14, 1 John 2:15-17

  • My loss of the love of money   Mat 6:24, Heb 13:5, 1 Tim 6:6-10

  • The ability to forgive the un-forgiveable   Mat 6:14-15

  • The loss of many family and friends because of my faith Mat 10:34-39

  • Two unfaithful spouses and divorces, just like God Jer 3:8-11

  • Thought my apostate wife would come back, just like God Jer 3:6

  • The persecutions of my teaching and testimony John 15:20

  • Supernatural experiences of spiritual warfare Eph 6:12, 1 Thes 2:18

  • Glorious deliverance from trouble Psa 50:15, Psa 85:9, Jam 5:13

  • Striking my unrepentant enemies with trouble Exo 6:6, Psa 3:7, 2 Thes 1:6

  • All suffering eventually turned for my good Gen 50:20, Rom 8:28

  • Extraordinary signs and providences Job 33:14, Psa 32:8, Jer 32:8

  • Hearing God speak and give guidance (not audibly) John 8:47, 10:4

  • Remarkable manifestations of grace 1 Sam 3:21, John 14:21-23

  • Precise design of time in events Exo 12:41, 2 Kin 8:5, Psa 31:15, 75:2

Will you say I’m lying?  But as you can see throughout this website, I have copiously documented everything, including many eye witnesses along the way.  Will you say the universe has manifested all of this in my life?  But how can you attribute to the universe what the Bible already predicted would be the manifest evidence of a follower of God?  Is it more logical that it came from the universe or the book written thousands of years ago, which predicted these manifestations?

What is the most logical conclusion?  That ALL of these extraordinary “somethings” came from absolutely nothing? That they are just an astronomically shocking set of countless random and meaningless coincidences?  That if I would have spent the same amount of time reading say, Harry Potter, as I did the Bible, my life would have instead manifested all the wizardry and nuances of that book?

Or, is the most logical conclusion that the Bible is the true and living Word of the One True Living God that it claims, and because it makes demands of your life, you despise it and dismiss it as nothing more than a fairytale?

I too have an inner atheist, so what are atheists missing?

Perhaps famous atheists like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Alex O’Connor might be surprised to discover that I, a long time follower and teacher of the ways of Jesus Christ, understand exactly how they feel about the God they read about in the Old Covenant.  On the contrary, if they didn’t have some of those thoughts after reading it, than I would perhaps accuse them of being delusional and disconnected from all human reasoning.

Despite my strong faith, I have never lost my ability along the way to doubt, or to wonder if indeed I might have been a victim of delusion.

I too have an atheist inside of me which is hostile to God, and therefore I too have a part of me that is repelled, just as much as Richard Dawson is, by so much of what I read about God and His ways in the Bible.  The Bible even explains this happens.

Romans 8:7 - The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so.

I think it’s truly a wonder that anyone follows the God of the Bible, because if we all leaned only on our own human understanding and remained honest about how we felt when we read about Him, not one in their right mind would believe in or follow Him!

I find it to be a remarkable paradox in that so many Christians have stated that I have a much stronger faith in God than they do, and yet I believe I could destroy the Bible and personal faith in God better than even most atheists.”

Over the years I’ve even made a few very difficult messages highlighting the most questionable and offensive acts of God in the Bible, (When it Looks Like God Deceived You, and God Would Never Do That), along with a messages about the many contradictions in the Bible like, The Letter Kills but the Spirit Gives Life.

“You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God's."

- Jesus Christ (Mat 16:23)

Hard Messages About God

If you can imagine a boat captain or a medical doctor trying to understand what was going on under the surface of water or human flesh, apart from a depth finder or an x-ray machine, you can imagine what it is for an atheist to try to make sense out of God without the faculty of faith.  

Human nature alone, if it is honest and sane, cannot but stumble at the thoughts and ways of God.  When natural man reads God’s ways in the Bible, apart from the heaven given gift of a supernatural faith, it has no choice but to squirm and reject. 

For instance, WHY did God Allow All of This?

  • He gave Adam a wife who then deceived him into his own death?

  • He gave Eve two children and allowed the first born Cain, to kill the second born? Why did God put protection over the murderer as he traveled, but didn’t protect the innocent brother whom was killed?

  • He stopped king Abimelech from taking Sarah as his wife and sleeping with her, but he did not stop Abraham from taking Hagar as his wife and sleeping with her, even knowing it was going to lead to disaster?

  • He allowed Hagar to be Abraham’s wife for a time and then had him put her away (divorce)

  • He allowed Moses to be stuck for 40 years in the desert?

  • He commanded Moses to go to the Pharaoh and perform miracles so that he would let his people go only to then allow Moses to fail and have the people turn against him that he was supposed to save?

  • He put the Israelites in 430 years in bondage when the scripture shows no evidence that they deserved it?

  • He gave David Mikal as his wife knowing she was going to become a snare to him?

  • Once Mikal was taken away from him and given in marriage to another man, why did he allow David to remarry her even though it was a violation of the law of Moses?

  • He allowed Jephthah in Judges chapter 11 to sacrifice his own precious daughter? 

  • He allowed the Levites’ concubine in Judges Ch. 20 to be raped to the point of death, and then allowed the Levite to cut her up into 12 pieces to send her around to the tribes of Israel?

  • He gave Sampson a wife, only to knowingly let her be murdered, so He could start war between the Israelites and the Philistines?

  • He gave Hosea the prophet an adulterous wife when it is against the very law of Moses?

  • He allowed Satan to strip Job of everything, including killing his 10 innocent children, to win an argument?

  • He secured a position for David in the Kings Court, only to then have the king turn against him empowered by an evil spirit and attempt to destroy him?

  • He allowed David and Bathsheba to have a child in their sin and then punished the child by death?

  • He allowed David and Bathsheba to continue in their marriage even though it was born out of two horrible evils?

  • He gave Ezekiel a delightful wife and then killed her in one stroke just to make an illustration to BACKSLIDDEN Israel?

  • He allowed Israel to think that their Messiah would be a political or military leader, and then have their hopes crushed when Jesus Christ shows up lowly and riding on a donkey?

  • He allowed someone who Jesus said was the greatest man ever born to woman to serve so faithfully for six months only to have his head cut off?

  • He allowed ALL of this and more to be recorded about Himself and His ways in the Bible!

Just as a doctor uses an x-ray to see inside the body, born again Christians, through faith, see inside God’s ways, where a natural man cannot.

True born again Christians are given an extra faculty, an organ, a new lens, a sixth sense if you will, called FAITH, which enables them, not to remain blissfully ignorant of the hard facts about God and the Bible, but to see the greater spiritual truth beneath the surface of the matter.

“You judge by human standards"

- Jesus Christ (John 8:15)

1 Corinthians 2:12-14

We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. [13] This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. [14] The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord. [9] "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
- Isaiah 55:8-9

A Shocking Fact About God: He intentionally places stumbling blocks on the surface which trip up human reason and can only be overcome when man sets down his pride and humbles himself to receive a gift from heaven, which the Bible calls faith.

Therefore this is what the Lord says: "I will put obstacles before this people. Fathers and sons alike will stumble over them; neighbors and friends will perish."
- Jeremiah 6:21

If I may say it plainly, it is clear to me both in Scripture and in life, that God intentionally acts in ways that are designed to be offensive to the fallen human nature of man.  Indeed, He does not think or act like humans at all, and this is the greatest obstacle to finding a saving relationship with Him. (Isa 55:8-9)

God intentionally shrouds some of His most important work in scandal, weakness, or very unattractive wrappers. The tabernacle of His presence was covered with the hides of sea cows (Num 4:6).  What human king or ruler would do that?  Jesus Christ was brought forth into the belly of a poor Jewish girl, out of wed-lock, and the God-child was born in a cow shed.  What human if they were God, would ordain that?  The Bible says there was nothing in Jesus Christ’s appearance to make him physically attractive so that we would desire Him (Isa 53:2).  Is that anything like the thinking of humans?  We would have made him look more handsome than Prince Charming, if we were God!  God chose a man, who persecuted Christians and gave permission for them to be killed, to be the man He would introduce the Gospel to all Gentiles through.  Is that who we would have chosen?  God chose me, a man who has been married three times, to do an unprecedented display of His Sovereign control over life.  Would you have ever chosen me for this, if you were God?

All throughout the Bible and Christian history, we see this is one of God’s ways of humbling man, who first rebelled against Him through the use of their own human understanding and wisdom, judging something “pleasing to the eye”, to be good, when it fact it was deadly.

Proverbs 14:12 There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.

God’s Response to the Fall:

According to the Bible and the Laws He placed in nature, we all reap what we sow.  Man first sinned by rebelling against God based on what she saw with her eyes and what she reasoned in her intellect. 

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
- Genesis 3:6

It is now wonder that God in His infinite wisdom would choose such a precisely just retribution, and correction of man’s first rebellion.  Just as the Bible says God barred Adam and Eve from physically entering that Garden where the tree of life was, God has also spiritually barred the path to eternal life in Himself. 

He has intentionally placed stumbling blocks in the way of natural man, where he can not naturally choose the One True God and path to life found in the Bible, by what they see with their eyes, or reason in their intellect.  Many have naturally chosen a God and Jesus that do not exist in the Scripture, but that again only proves that man cannot correctly choose the God of the Bible without the gift of faith.

God now demands that humans who would come know Him and gain eternal life in Him, must humble their pride and intellect, and receive a gift of faith from heaven.  Man’s pride is the door that keeps him blocked from God and humility before Him is the key that opens the door of faith to Him.

Think of…

  • The prideful sailboat captain who refused to start using a new radar system called a depth finder which would have allowed him to finally see and avoid with ease, the dangers below, which threatened to sink him.

  • The prideful doctor who refused to start using an x-ray machine which would have allowed him to see and diagnose what not even the patient could see in their own body.

Pride in humans runs wide and deep, and this is why we see so few that come to a true saving faith in Him, and why Jesus said, “No one can come to me, UNLESS the Father enables them” (John 6:65).

The Wisdom of Prince “Kit”

Have we not all marveled at similar stories to the one told in the 2015 Cinderella story about the deep wisdom of Prince “Kit’s” method for assuring that he does not attract the wrong kind of bride? To be certain that he will find someone who will truly love and appreciate him for who he his, rather than his position or wealth, he hides his true position and status, making himself less attractive and desirable to Cinderella?

John 6:26-27 Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. [27] Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval."

To avoid the snare of “gold diggers”, how can we not be amazed at the wisdom and the courage of a handsome prince or successful business man, who hides the status which would increase his outward attractiveness, perhaps even covering it over with things that would repel the average self focused suitor, all to be certain that he finds a faithful bride, who will love him for all the right reasons, not because she is a gold digger. He courageously waits until he finds a potential bride who can see beneath the surface, to the value of his character and his heart.

1 Corinthians 1:18-23 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. [19] For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate." [20] Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? [21] For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. [22] Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, [23] but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,