Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.

Script:

I will destroy my people because they are ignorant. You have refused to learn, so I will refuse to let you be my priests.

Hosea, chapter 4, verse 6, God’s Word Translation

VK: Hello! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. We’re so happy that you’re with us here today on Anchored by Truth as we wrap up a series we called “Eternal Information.” This has been a fascinating series because during it we have talked about yet another way we can be assured that God is the creator of everything. Today, as we conclude and summarize what we’ve covered in the series we have RD Fierro back in the studio. RD is an author and the founder of Crystal Sea Books. RD, we use information every day and we take its existence for granted. But information could not exist if the universe consisted only of matter and energy could it?

RD: No. It couldn’t. But before we go to much farther I would also like to welcome everyone and thank them for joining us as we close out this rather extensive view of information. Simply put, information only exists where there is intelligence. Information is an organized system of units or symbols capable of containing or conveying purpose or meaning. I know that sometimes subjects like the laws of information and how information is necessary for life can seem pretty far removed from what people think about when someone mentions the Bible or Christianity or faith. But that’s why we opened our episode today with that quote from the Old Testament prophet Hosea. Hosea makes the link between knowledge and service to Christ abundantly clear.

VK: Just to be sure we’re clear, our opening scripture for this episode was Hosea 4:6 which says, “I will destroy my people because they are ignorant. You have refused to learn, so I will refuse to let you be my priests.” That’s from the God’s Word Translation. The New International Version puts it this way. “… my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. “Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests …”

RD: Yes. God is speaking in that verse. And God is saying that because his people – in this case the inhabitants of Old Testament Israel – have rejected the knowledge of His law, He is going to reject them as serving as His priests. A priest was someone who represented the people before God.

VK: A prophet was someone who represented God before the people. Conversely, a priest was someone who represented the people before God.

RD: And in this verse God is connecting knowledge with service to Him. He is specifically saying that He wants His people to possess knowledge of Him and His law for them to be qualified to represent Him before the nations. Jesus would later say the same thing from a slightly different perspective when He said that the greatest commandment was to love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind.

VK: That’s the Gospel of Mark, chapter 12, verse 30. In the New Living Translation that verse says, “And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.”

RD: Yes. Jesus was telling His audience that God wants us to love and worship God with our entire beings. Yet, in our contemporary church all too often we focus almost exclusively on the hearts of believers and not their minds. And while it is certainly true that we must always be concerned about appealing to people’s hearts, we must never ignore their minds. If we do so, we are not only ignoring a specific command of the Lords but we are also denying them an important, and maybe the most important source of spiritual power.

VK: The command you are thinking about is Romans, chapter 12, verse 2 which says, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” That’s from the New International Version. So, the command is very clear. We are not to be conformed to “the pattern of this world.” And the way we avoid that is by being transformed “by the renewing of your mind.” But why do you say that if we don’t follow this command we may be sacrificing a source of spiritual power?

RD: Because any and all spiritual power that a Christian ever possesses must come from God. By ourselves we are totally at the mercy of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Simply put if are not connected with God, united with God, we are going to be adrift in the world like a boat without an anchor.

VK: That’s why we call this show Anchored by Truth. And why we open every episode by encouraging people to anchor themselves to the only true source of eternal life the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God – the Bible.

RD: Amen. Back to our verse from Hosea – God said that He would reject the people who reject knowledge – specifically the knowledge of his law. God’s law is contained in the Bible. Then our verse from Romans tells us to renew our minds so we won’t be conformed to the pattern of this world. Flip that verse around. It warns that if we don’t “renew our minds” we will wind up being conformed to the pattern of this world. No one can be conformed to the pattern of this world and possess God’s power. And if we don’t possess God’s power we will not have the ability to remain godly in a godless world.

VK: You know this may very well be what the Apostle Paul was warning his disciple Timothy about in 2 Timothy. In 2 Timothy, chapter 3, verses 4 and 5 Paul warned Timothy that a day was coming when people would “… betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God. They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly.” That does seem to be a characteristic of our age.

RD: Sadly, it is and I am firmly persuaded it is because so many Christians in our day and age don’t want to make the investment in their faith of understanding not only its content but also its intellectual underpinnings which includes subjects like apologetics. In the most basic sense apologetics is simply the area of study that teaches us how to be confident in our faith – confident that God exists, confident that the Bible is God’s word, and confident that the lies that the world pushes are not true.

VK: And in our last episode of Anchored by Truth we spent the whole episode talking about doubt – about how doubts can sometimes seem so real and yet doubt has little to no informative value.

RD: Right. So, I wanted to close out this series on information with the positive side – how the study of apologetic systems and approaches, including the study of areas like information, can increase our confidence in our faith. Let’s face it. Today the shifting tides of cultural chaos are surging around us. In fact in many ways we are dealing with a tsunami of cultural dysfunction. And you can couple that with the fact that people in the church are regularly confronted with what I would label denominational deviance. That’s the bad news. But the good news is that in Christ, through the renewing of our minds and our commitment to the truth of His word, we are more than overcomers. The really good news about Christianity is that it is true. So, even when Christians feel doubt that does not change the fact that they are still saved eternally because of Jesus’s finished work on the cross.

VK: And what we want at Anchored by Truth is for our listeners, everyone really, to experience the confidence and peace of knowing that fact. But the world these days does not make that easy. Today the world attempts to raise innumerable barricades to block the “narrow gate” that opens to salvation. In the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 7, verses 13 and 14 Jesus said, “You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.” That’s from the New Living Translation.

RD: And today those barricades inevitably start with informational questions. If the universe and earth are billions of years old how can Genesis chapter 1 be true? What evidence is there that there was ever a worldwide flood? If Moses wrote all of the first five books of the Bible why did he use different names for God? How could the prophets in the Bible have information about the distant future? Today, informational questions are thrown at believers not just daily but every time they turn on a TV, look something up on the internet, or enter a classroom. It can be a lot for people to have to overcome.

VK: But we don’t have to overcome the world. Jesus has already done that for us. In the Gospel of John, chapter 16, verse 33 Jesus said, “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” That’s also from the New Living Translation.

RD: Right. Jesus has overcome the world. But one of the ways He overcame the world is by giving us His word which is always available to strengthen and comfort us. And another way He overcame the world is by giving us the ability to make observations about the world around us and think logically about what we can see. And when we do so, we see that without God the world we know could not exist in the absence of a supernatural, omniscient, omnipotent Being who could create everything and impart the ability to observe and reason to the creature He created in His own image.

VK: We then can pose our own questions. If the universe is eternal why do the laws of thermodynamics tell us that the universe will one day run out of energy? If galaxies and stars can form from interstellar clouds of dust why do scientists tell us that 85% of the matter is “dark” meaning we cannot see it or detect it? If living creatures are the result of the random collision of inanimate particles why can’t supposedly intelligent people create life in a laboratory from non-living chemicals? How did 100 billion atoms of just the right type collide all of a sudden at just the right place and form the first cell? And how did that collision occur when there was just the right energy source available to provide the energy necessary for it to feed, live, and reproduce? So, Christians have our own set of questions that need answering before we would need to accept the Big Bang and evolution as being the best explanation for why the universe is the way we see it.

RD: And that brings us back to what we have learned in this series on information. Information is present in the universe and in our own experience but information is not created, and does not interact, with matter or energy. Apple trees produce apples. Orange trees produce oranges. Dogs produce puppies. Cats produce kittens. Like produces like. Information is massless and non-material. So, material causes cannot produce a non-material phenomenon. And information is not present if intelligence is not present. Therefore the non-material source that gives rise to information must also be intelligent.

VK: And, unless you acknowledge the existence of God, that would be a big enough conundrum all by it. But we also see information present in living creatures. DNA is not just an information storage and organization system but it is one that is far more complicated than any information system yet created by man. The human body produces somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000 individual proteins but human DNA only contains about 20 to 25,000 genes. To produce all those individual proteins the genes within DNA must sometimes act in concert with one another. So, the 1st level of information within DNA is the information that is simply stored in the sequence of DNA “letters” – the 4 different kinds of bases that are the letters of the genetic code. But the 2nd level of information within DNA is the information that is stored when various sections of DNA actually interconnect with one another to perform additional functions.

RD: And there is a 3rd level of information stored in DNA which results from the 3-D configuration with which DNA is stored within a cell. A single strand of human DNA contains about 3 Billion base pairs and would be 6 feet long if it were uncoiled. But it is present within the 30 to 40 trillion cells in a normal adult. To store the DNA molecule it is folded into a complicated shape and yet we find out that the folded shape also provides information to the cell to enable the cell to carry out its functions properly. Moreover, there is a 4th level of information that DNA supplies which is that as we go through our lives how DNA behaves actually changes. It is, in effect, a dynamic reprogramming system that functions throughout our lives. This is a level of information sophistication that has never been achieved in any human information system.

VK: And all of this sophistication isn’t even the end of how amazing DNA really is or how it performs. DNA has its own unique repair system because every time we go out into the sun we are bombarded with minute amounts of cosmic radiation that would decimate our DNA if it could not repair itself. But it can. And the scientists who explored that repair system won a Nobel prize for their discovery. Furthermore, there are delicate and sophisticated motors that carefully control the DNA replication process. If these motors didn’t precisely guide the unraveling of the double helix it would be a tangled mess that would never allow it to be duplicated. And a creature that can’t duplicate its DNA wouldn’t live very long. And all of this informational complexity is present just within the DNA system. We haven’t even begun to address RNA, protein construction, how the cell’s permeable membrane is built. This cellular sophistication generates an entirely new set of questions that a world that doubts God can’t answer.

RD: Exactly. The more we probe into the mysteries of life the more we realize the inadequacy of the answers that the God-alternatives provide. It’s impossible to explain the existence of intelligence in a universe that would be comprised of only matter and energy. That would make intelligence the product of random chaos. I can’t think of many things that are more unreasonable. But, even if somehow, a godless science could answer those questions we then get into the question of the supernatural intelligence which is displayed in the Bible.

VK: The Bible is a unique book. It was written by over 3 dozen authors over a period of 1,500 years but it contains a unified message about creation, fall, and redemption. Yet it presents that message while giving people information about living better lives, managing money, overcoming troubles, raising families, and organizing a more fair and responsible society. If the only information we gained from the Bible was by reading it from left to right, front to back it would be an amazing work. But besides the pragmatic information the Bible contains it also contains an unparalleled body of prophetic information.

RD: Indeed – or as I sometimes say in our Life Lessons - exactamundo.

VK: Exactamundo – again. Really?

RD: Really. The body of accurate prophetic information in the Bible is enormous. Moses wrote the 1st five books of the Bible besides leading the Hebrews out of Egypt. But in addition Moses was also a prophet. He gave several prophecies that would later come true in the future of the Israelite nation and Moses foretold the future arrival of the Messiah. David was the 2nd king of the Jewish nation and in many ways its most successful king but he was also a prophet. God revealed to David that the coming Messiah would be David’s descendant which is why the Jews were so focused on whether or not Jesus was a “son of David.” David wrote several Messianic psalms including Psalm 22 which describes a crucifixion experience before that method of execution was used. He also wrote Psalm 110 where he prophesied that the coming Messiah would be a king and priest combined like the Old Testament figure Melchizedek. Only Jesus every satisfied this criteria.

VK: The prophet Isaiah provided the name of the Persian emperor who would release the Jews from the Babylonian captivity 150 years before Cyrus arrived on the world scene. He also prophesied that a confederation of Israel and Syria would fail in their attempts to conquer Jerusalem which they did. And he prophesied that the Messiah would be born of a virgin. Daniel was a Hebrew captive of the Babylonians but he named a series of 4 empires that would dominate the Middle East for over 500 years and the series unfolded just as he said. And Daniel gave the famous prophecy of “seventy weeks” which actually foretold the exact day Jesus would enter Jerusalem just prior to his death.

RD: Right. By studying the Bible carefully we see that there was prophet after prophet that was inspired by God and gave the world information about the future that only an eternal God who sees all of history accurately could possess. Men can’t predict the weather more than a few days out but God gave His prophets names, places, and events centuries ahead of time. As we said during this series if natural information requires the presence of natural intelligence, supernatural information requires the presence of supernatural intelligence. And the Bible’s evidence of supernatural intelligence isn’t just contained within its pragmatic and prophet information. It’s also contained within the interconnected details we can see between the Old and New Testaments. We covered some of that in our 10th episode in this series and used the example of Melchizedek to illustrate this point.

VK: So, the point that we have tried to make in this series is by applying ourselves just a bit we can overcome the stumbling blocks that the world, the flesh, and the devil would like to place in our path to the narrow gate that leads to salvation. Satan manufactured the fall out of a seed of doubt. But God has given us the ability to think clearly to refute those doubts and approach our lives with a spirit of confidence in our faith, in our Bible, and in our God. But as we started out saying we do have to embrace this knowledge to acquire this confidence.

RD: Well, as you have said, “God expects us to do our own homework.” That I think is part of what Jesus referred to when he admonished his followers to take His yoke on their own shoulders. Now, His yoke is easy and His burden is light but it is not non-existent. We live in a fallen creation. We face a hostile world. And the Devil roams about looking for people to devour. We can’t change any of that. But what we can do is what Jesus asks us to do – love Him and the Father with all our soul, hearts, strength, and minds. I am always struck by the fact that when Jesus gave that commandment He used an “and” and not an “or.” Jesus didn’t say to love God with our hearts “or” our minds but with them both. We have free will. We can obey Him or not obey Him. What we can’t do is disobey Him without consequence.

VK: People have good, solid reasons based in science and fact to believe in God and the Bible but all too often we seem to be willing to embrace the doubts without being willing to do what it takes to change that doubt into confidence. They will cling to discredited ideas about the universe popping into existence from nothing and living creatures spontaneously arising from pond scum and scarcely ever express doubts or reservations. We want to help people understand there is no need to do that. Information, accurate information, is the antidote to the poison of doubt. The stakes for us not doing so are truly eternal and – worse – for the mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers their unwillingness to set a positive pattern can affect many other lives. None of us should want to be like the people Hosea spoke to – where we risk being rejected as being a suitable witness for God because we wouldn’t embrace the knowledge that is readily available. This sounds like a good time to go to God in prayer. Today let’s listen to a prayer of for those people who place their lives and safety at risk to serve and save others. We should all be willing to exchange a bit of our time and entertainment to serve others by having the answers that could bring eternal life to our friends and family.

---- PRAYER FOR FIRST RESPONDERS

VK: We’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.”

If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not perfect but our Boss is!”

(Bible Quote from the God’s Word Translation)

Hosea, chapter 4, verse 6, God’s Word Translation