Jump

Just like to share an article reminding us of the Father's unfailing love and faithfulness which a friend shared over email.

JUMP

One night a house caught fire and a young boy was forced to flee to the roof. The father stood on the ground below with outstretched arms, calling to his son, “Jump! I’ll catch you.” He knew the boy had to jump to save his life. The boy could HEAR his father’s voice, but all he could SEE was flame, smoke, and blackness.

As can be imagined, he was afraid to leave the roof. His father kept yelling: “Jump! I will catch you.” But the boy protested, “Daddy, I can’t SEE you!” The father replied, “But I can see YOU son... and that’s all that matters!” The boy jumped and was SAVED because he trusted his father.

God is looking for FAITH! The Scriptures teach us that, Without faith, it is IMPOSSIBLE to please God, because anyone who comes to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who diligently SEEK Him" (Hebrews 11:6). Jesus asks the haunting question; "....when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8). He is looking for the kind of faith that will trust and obey Him even when life is difficult.

But I can’t see Him!” someone might object. No, but He sees YOU… and that's all that matters! He is not far from anyone of us! (Acts 17:24-27) “The LORD looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men. From the place of His dwelling He looks on all the inhabitants of the earth” (Psalm 33:13-14). He sees YOU, and He cares! He cared enough to provide a way of salvation from that “burning house” (SIN). His Son had to die so that YOU and I can be saved (Ephesians 1:7). If we will trust Him – trust Him enough to “jump” – He will catch us and care for us eternally.

Donner Atwood has written: “The Christian faith enables us to face life or meet death, not because we can see, but with the certainty that we are SEEN; not that we know all the answers, but that we are KNOWN.”

Salvation requires FAITH on our part - faith that will: trust in Him (Acts 16:30-31), turn from SIN in repentance (2 Corinthians 7:9-10), confess Jesus (Romans 10:9-10), and be baptized (immersed) in the name of Christ for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38; 22:16). Then if we continue to be faithful to Him, He will save us (1 John 1:7).

Jesus warned His disciples: “In the world you WILL have tribulation” (John 16:33). He also told them to trust Him even when times were difficult: “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me” (John 14:1). Jesus never promised that life would be easy, but He did promise that following Him would be worth every difficulty, every sacrifice (Mark 12:28-30).

The house is burning (1 John 2:17) and will one day be burned up! (2 Peter 3:10). The Father is waiting with outstretched arms calling for you to “jump” through your obedient faith. Even though you can’t see HIM, He sees YOU! You can trust your Heavenly Father! Take that “leap of faith,” today by trusting and obeying His will.

God Always has an Answer
We say: “I can’t go on.”
God says: “My grace is sufficient” (2 Corinthians 12:9; Psalm 91:15).
We say: “I can’t figure things out.”
God says: “I will direct your steps” (Proverbs 3:5-6).
We say: “I can’t forgive myself.”
God says: “I forgive you” (1 John 1:9; Romans 8:1).
We say: “I can’t manage.”
God says: “I will supply all your needs” (Philippians 4:19).
We say: “I’m afraid.” God says: “I have not given you a spirit of fear” (2 Timothy 1:7).
We say: “I’m always worried and frustrated.”
God says: “Cast all your cares on ME” (1 Peter 5:7).
We say: “I don’t have enough faith.”
God says: “My Word will give you faith” (Romans 10:17).
We say: “I’m not smart enough.”
God says: “I will give you wisdom” (1 Corinthians 1:30; James 1:1-5).
We say: “I feel all alone.”
God says: “I will never leave you or forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).

Counting The Cost

Sometimes the feeling really sucks when you make sacrifices; arguably even godly sacrifices only to find that perhaps your efforts were all for naught. I hate to use that word but I guess my limited vocabulary does not afford me the ability to think of another word to describe my feelings.

Today, I ungrudgingly sacrificed an eagerly anticipated Bible study on the book of Romans with some Word-thirsty friends for the sake of my church cell group which I am co-leading. Friday happened to be the only 'convenient' day for members of both groups to gather, and thus I had chosen to given priority to my church group which I feel spiritually responsible for. A meeting that could have been held on any other day of the week was given my precious Friday slot so as to accomodate everyone.

However, what was meant to be the joy of sacrifice turned into dismay when I arrived only to find my co-leader and another dear member were in attendance. The others somehow had last minute matters to attend to and could not turn up. Much as the galling taste of disappointment swelled over me, I composed myself to do justice to the one and only member who came. It would have been dreadfully unfair to her if my feelings of being hurt and 'cheated' were allowed to dictate the atmosphere of a gathering of God's people. Yes, though it was just the 3 of us instead of 7 or 8, it was still a potential time of fellowship and ministering to one another. I thank God that the meeting went well and we all went away feeling blessed. However, the feeling of being cheated still lingered. I had made a personal sacrifice in turning down a group of friends, who are equally thirsty to explore the Bible more deeply, in the hope that my cell group members would be able to come and be blessed together, and now the sacrifice had proven unjustified. Yes, while sacrifices aren't made based on their worth, but surely I wasn't wrong to feel hard done by.

This led me to think about Christ's sacrifice on the Cross. While Jesus hung on the Cross bearing the weight and shame of the sins of all mankind so that we might be redeemed and made righteous once again before God, the very people he was bearing all that pain (not just physical but spiritual as well) and agony for were mocking him, totally oblivious to the greatest sacrifice that has ever taken place.

While I am certainly not Christ and cannot claim to have made a sacrifice of a magnitude that can be even placed in juxtaposition with that of Christ, I guess these circumstances have given me a chance to experience what Christ actually went through just for you and I. This is why in Luke 14:27 Jesus said, "And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple."

Anyone who truly loves God and wants to serve Him as a result has to taken up his own cross and make immense personal sacrifices just like Jesus did. Jesus then went on to say in Luke 14:28, "Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it?" This once again emphasizes the need to count the cost before we say "Yes Lord, I love you and I will serve you with all my heart, all my strength and all my soul, and I will serve you in every way you can use me.

For me the call to cell leadership was one that I answered with much trepidation. To be honest, while many may see spiritual leadership as something to glamorous to be grasped, I was and still am a reluctant leader. I was and still am afraid that my busy schedule will give me insufficent time with my cell members and thus shortchange them, and thus intially I dared not flippantly take up such a sacredrole in the lives of others. However, the prompting of God ultimately made me say yes in obedience and confidence that He will provide. From that time till now, much greater costs have been incurred in my ministry, but yet God continues to sustain me through each new and tougher challenge.

Thus, may I conclude this simple piece of sharing my frustations with a reminder that it is always so easy to say yes to serving God and His people (after all it is the right thing for Christian to do), but we always need to count the cost of ministry - abounding pain, disappointment and personal sacrifices, with the occasional gratification of seeing people touched by your efforts.

On Abortion and Capital Punishment

Here's some new insight I gained from the current preaching series on the Ten Commandments.

Some time ago I posted an article which I wrote for a VCF's newsletter about playing God. In that article, I shared what was undoubtedly a rather hardline stand on the issue of abortion and euthanasia. Even for an increasing number of 'liberal' Christians in this day and age, the question on the correctness of abortion is deemed a 'grey topic'.

No Christian argues against the 5th Commandment which is "You shall not murder." Exodus 20:13. The words of God here are clear and simple. Murder is defined by the Oxford dictionary as the unlawful and premeditated killing of one human by another, and in no questionable terms does God prohibit this vile which shows callous disregard for the sanctity of life - which God reserves exclusive rights to give and take in accordance with His perfect plans.

Having established the fact that murder is taking another human's life into our own hands, it now follows that whether the act of abortion in any circumstance does indeed contravene the Commandment that we shall not murder hinges on whether a foetus is a life.

If we were to examine carefully Luke 1:41, we would realise that Luke describes the foetus of John the Baptist as a life. "And it happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit." The babe leaped in the womb of Elizabeth! The action of leaping demonstrates the life that existed in the unborn foetus of John the Baptist. It implies the firing of neurons and the contraction of muscles even if it was the power of the Holy Spirit which effected that. Having seen this, how can one still question whether a foetus is only considered a life when it is born into the world? We do not need any gory videos of abortion to show that foetuses desperately squirm and flee the suction tube that snatches their lives away from them. We need to look no further than the Word of God to understand that right from the time of conception, the foetus is a living being.

The psalmist David thoughtfully wrote, "For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them." Psalm 139:13-17. God cherished our existence from the very time we were conceived and we are as he wrote 'fearfully and wonderfully made'. We were 'substance' in the eyes of God even when were were 'yet unformed'. God had in mind a master plan for our lives, fashioning our days even before we lived our first in this world. Thus, I guess even for the 'unplanned' and 'unwanted' babies, it was by no accident that they were conceived; even for the child of a poor rape victim. Every life is a marvellous work of God and shall we determine it is unworthy of a chance to live out God's divine and unfathomable destiny?

Now on to the topic of capital punishment. From time immemorial, there has been raging debate over the moral right for the State to declare that a convict should be executed as punishment for his or her crimes. Different legal systems carry mandatory death sentences for a range of crimes such as murder and drug trafficking. In recent times, the case of Nguyen Thuong Van stirred up widespread protests in Australia which does not condone the death penalty. Meanwhile, I regularly read on CNN about passionate demonstrators some of whom are reduced to tears protesting outside US prisons whenever convicted murderers are sent to the death chamber. While the debate on whether drug traffickers should be sent to the gallows is one which cannot be answered biblically, that on the right for judges to sentence murderers to death is clearer.

It is interesting to note that in Genesis 9:6 God declared, "Whoever sheds man's blood, By man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man." Thus, in this declaration which is often overlooked, God validates punishment of those who have taken the live of another with their own death. This is because God abhors the disregard for His divine creation of Man which He made in his very own image, and wants to safeguard other humans from those who do not value the sanctity of life.

"You shall therefore keep His statutes and His commandments which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which the Lord your God is giving you for all time." Deuteronomy 4:40

God's Commandments are not meant to restrict our liberty but the obedience of them is meant to equip us for a blessed life on this earth. Thus, let us respect these sacred rules which God has lovingly laid out to guide us down the path of righteousness in this world plagued by sin and immorality.

What is Faith?

I just finished a 2.5 hour phone call with a friend whose faith in God has taken a serious battering. Much as I would have loved to help, I was helpless to help. Faith in God is not something that you can coax a person into having. It is not something that can be reasoned out. Objective, textbook answers from the Bible to problems and injustices which rip one's faith into shreds only serve to reinforce feelings that the promises of Scripture are all merely well-constructed lies. Yet on the other hand, as a Christian whose faith is steadfast, I know that I cannot further fuel my friends' feelings of being cheated by God. The feeling of being in a quandary; not knowing what to say yet wanting so badly to offer help like any loving Christian brother would left me utterly vexed and frustrated.

"Faith means believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse."

This is a quote which left an indelible impact on my life after I came across it while reading Philip Yancey's book 'Where is God When It Hurts?' However, may I now contradict myself by saying that if this is truly what faith is, then I am a complete moron.

Pardon the use of strong words and apparent boastfulness which I need to employ to get my point across here. As a supposedly intelligent individual who is able to secure a prized place in medical school; as a person with an analytical mind who is able to reason and subscribe to logic, it seems impossible that I would believe in God.

I hate to admit that I would never be a Christian today if not for the fact that I believe that God miraculously saved my life. 13 years ago when I was still an 8 year old kid, my parents said that the obstinate bull that I was refused to believe or pray to God. In fact even at that tender age, having been born into a Christian family didn't mean that I became a naturalised Christian. I was a kid with a logical mind. No one could make me believe something unless something I experienced made it real to me. God was never real to me until I was struck with dengue haemorrhagic fever. From my parents' account, the paediatrician caring for me in NUH said that my condition was critical and only supportive treatment could be given. In fact, the Christian doctor said that the only thing that could be done for me was to pray! In that state of desperation, humans hope. My worried parents hoped for Jehovah Rophe's healing hand to come upon me. When no human intervention could save me, only God could; and He did. I stand today testifying that this miracle transformed my life by convincing me that God is indeed real. Had I not been snatched back from the brink of death, I would probably be one of the biggest atheists around this day persecuting the perceived folly of the Christian faith.

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1

Hope is something that humans thrive on. Without hope, our lives would be in a state of perpetual gloom. Hope is the very essence of faith. Without hope, there can be no faith; and without faith, no one can possibly claim believe in God; for when our hope in God is placed in the crucible of life, the purified end-product that emerges from the fires of refinement is faith. Indeed, faith is not based on empirical evidence but on divine assurance.

Detractors including the cynic in me even today can doubt that it was God that really saved me. As I now know as a Medical student with knowledge of the natural course of dengue fever, that supportive treatment to tide over the period of thrombocytopenia and dehydration will stand one in good stead for a speedy recovery once the body starts producing new platelets, which are so crucial in preventing haemorrhage and consequential multiple organ failure, perhaps I can doubt that it was the prayer and faith in a God that no one has seen. Indeed no one has even seen God as is confirmed in John 1:18. "No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known." Thus, it is with blind faith that I believe that God is real, and that my salvation through my confession that I am a sinner and that Jesus Christ died on the Cross for my sins as taught by the Bible is indeed true.

So faith is indeed an illogical thing. It seems to me that the more intellectual a person is, the harder it is for him to humble himself to believe in the seemingly senseless and asinine notion of God. I would think that the uneducated people who live in the remotest jungles are far easier to convert to my belief of God and salvation than the most brilliant scientists on this earth. To have faith means to blindly believe. It is irrational; and one needs in that sense to stupefy himself to say that yes, I shall put my trust in God and surrender my life to him. To have faith means to read the bible and use it as the basis of your beliefs without questioning its authenticity.

Romans 5:1-5 is one of the cornerstones of the Christian faith. "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, [2] through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. [3] Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; [4] perseverance, character; and character, hope. [5] And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."

The promise in this passage sounds incredibly good. It makes people believe that we can glory in our sufferings because in God we have a hope that does not disappoint. How do we know that it does not disappoint? Because we feel the love of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. Yet, as atheists would contend, perhaps this thing called the Holy Spirit is just some psychological phenomenon that some brilliant con-artists have come up with to fool millions of Christians around the world.

Don't get me wrong here. Atheists may be rejoicing at my apparent enlightenment at this juncture. However, while I concede that there will always be doubts about the reality of God in my rational mind, I insist on believing in God. I choose to be the stupid fool in the eyes of the world because faith gives me hope. It is the hope that God is indeed real; that all the victories in life that I experience are correctly attributed to the sovereignity of the omnipotent God that I believe in. Faith is not for the intelligent. It is not for the worldly. It is for the innocent. This is why Jesus said in Matthew 18:3, "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Children are innocent and foolish in the eyes of learned adults who have seen the world. Yet it is this foolishness which gives them a simple, innocent faith that my ever-wandering, complex and intellectual mind craves. It is indeed a burden to be a logical human being, for it makes faith in God something so hard to have.

I pray that whoever reads this will see that faith is not for the proud in heart. In all our purported human wisdom and knowledge, it takes great humility to acknowledge that God is real.

"For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom." 1 Cor 1:25

If you ever cast aside your human wisdom and follow my example by hoping in the foolishness of God, that's faith.

"Yes" by Walter Brueggemann

You are the God who is simple, direct, clear with us and for us.
You have committed yourself to us.
You have said yes to us in creation,
Yes to us in our birth,
Yes to us in our baptism,
Yes to us in our awakening this day.

But we are of another kind,
More accustomed to “perhaps, maybe, we’ll see,”
Left in wonderment and ambiguity.
We live our lives not back to your yes,
But out of our endless “perhaps.”

So we pray for your mercy this day that we may live yes back to you,
Yes with our time,
Yes with our money,
Yes with our sexuality,
Yes with our strength and with our weakness,
Yes to our neighbor,
Yes and no longer “perhaps.”
In the name of your enfleshed yes to us,
Even Jesus who is our yes into your Future. Amen.

God's Relentless Pursuit

O Lord our God,
How excellent Your name is,
How excellent Your name in all the earth,
Your glory fills the heavens,
Beyond the farthest star,
How excellent Your name in all the earth.

When I think about the heavens,
The moon and all the stars,
I wonder what You ever saw in me,
But You took me and you loved me,
And You've given me a crown,
And now I'll praise Your name eternally...

Whenever I sing this song, tears will well in my eyes for the lyrics are so steep in meaning; speaking of God's amazing love and favour upon us. Inspired by the words of David in Psalm 8 (my emphasis), "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor", the song first exalts the majesty and splendour of God. Then in a juxtaposition of us and the marvels of God's creation, we seem so insignificant and unworthy of His notice. Yet, our heavenly Father took us and He loved us, giving us a crown of glory and honour, making us ruler over all creation.

"Draw near to God and He will draw near to you." (James 4:8, NKJV my emphasis).

God is in a constant pursuit of an intimate relationship with us. When God created Man, His desire was for us to commune with Him on a personal level. Notice in Genesis 1 that when God created day and night, land and seas, the sky, plants and animals, each time He noted that it was ‘good’. However, after creating Man, God said that it was ‘very good’. Man was a special creation above all others, made to be in His own image (Gen 1:27), designed to rule over all other things and dwell in the Garden of Eden in the intimate presence of God. However, Man sinned by wilfully partaking of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and fell short of the glory of God who detests sin. In their nakedness, Adam and Eve hid from God, yet God called out to them, “Where are you?” (Gen 3:9). Surely God who even numbers the very hairs of our head (Mat 10:30) knew their whereabouts, yet even in His anger at their sin which He already knew they had committed, He called for them in an act of seeking them.

"... for he is a God who is passionate about his relationship with you." (Exo 34:14, NLT my emphasis).

The NKJV translation reveals that God is a jealous God whose name is Jealous. When we think of jealousy, a negative connotation immediately comes to mind. However, when we think of our God who is perfect in righteousness, why does He command in Deut 5:7 that "You shall have no other gods before me.”? This is precisely because God created Man to worship Him as is evident in Exodus 8:1, “Then the Lord said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh and say to him, 'This is what the Lord says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me.” God wanted his people free from the Egyptians so that they may worship Him. Thus, God who created us with the sole purpose to praise and glorify His name has the divine right to be jealous of the god of this age (2 Cor 4:4) that so many tragically have turned to. Satan, the master deceiver, has used the the allure of money, power, and pleasure to blind people to the light of Christ’s gospel. When people reject Christ and prefer their own hedonistic pursuits, they have unknowingly made Satan their god, and this most certainly pains the heart of our Father in heaven.

Ever since the fall of Man, the human race has plunged into moral depravity. The prevalence of sin in our lives grieves the Spirit of God (Eph 4:30). God and sin cannot co-exist, yet in God’s relentless pursuit of us, He masterminded the perfect redemption of our sins through Christ’s death on the cross. John 3:16 is the bedrock theology of the Christian faith, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Knowledge of the law rendered it impossible that we ever enter the Kingdom of God by our own effort. (see Rom 5:20, 7:7-11). However Romans 3:22-26 encapsulates the hope of salvation we have through Jesus Christ. “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, [23] for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, [24] and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. [25] God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished-- [26] he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”

At this juncture, some may wonder, “God may have done that for mankind collectively. I recognise that I am a sinner yet I think that I am unworthy of this salvation that Christians speak of. Who am I, 1 out of 6.5 billion people that God is mindful of me and desires an intimate relationship with me?” Well, the answer to your doubt is that even if you were the only one on earth, God would still have pursued and ransomed you relentlessly with the great price of His only begotten Son.

This truth is evident from Jesus’ ministry in Mark 5:1-21 (note in verse 21 that “Jesus had again crossed by boat to the other side of the lake"). In this story, in the midst of teaching multitudes about the Kingdom of God, Jesus purposefully crossed the lake to save just one, yes one, demon-possessed man. This was a man who must have been the scourge of society. He lived in tombs and people had often attempted to restrain him with chains but to no avail. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones. A desolate and pathetic figure of misery indeed! Yet, Scripture notes that Jesus crossed the lake with the sole purpose of liberating this man from the clutches of Satan. Jesus cared so much for one man that society considered unwanted that he journeyed to and fro across the lake to minister to him and him only!

Finally, I would like to share some assurances that we are indeed no strangers to God in a world of countless people. God knows everyone of us from head to toe!

Isaiah 49:15-16 writes, "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.”

David sings most beautifully of God’s intimate knowledge of and attention to us in Psalm 139:

[1] O Lord, you have searched me
and you know me.
[2] You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
[3] You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
[4] Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O Lord.

[5] You hem me in--behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
[6] Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

[7] Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
[8] If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
[9] If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
[10] even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast...

[13] For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
[14] I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
[15] My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
[16] your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.


God loves us so much that He pursues us every second of our lives. How much longer will we harden our hearts to Him? Every step we take to Him he will take two steps or more to us. God wants to draw close to us. However, it takes two hands to clap in every relationship.

“The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He also will hear their cry and save them. The Lord preserves all who love Him.” (Psalm 145:18-20a)

"Draw near to God and He will draw near to you." That is a promise from the most faithful Promise-keeper in you can ever know.

Can There Be No God?

Here's an article that I wrote a few years back for a university application. I felt inspired to share it with you as a thought-provoker. I acknowledge that a belief in God cannot be something forced upon someone even with the most logical and convincing of arguments. The Christian faith is something that cannot and should not be argued for. Thus, my hope is that whatever I am about to share in a very objective voice will be a catalyst to coax your mind into thinking, and may the Lord whose boundless love and salvation is extended to every single one of His beloved creations enlighten you and speak to your hearts in His own special way; for only the conviction of God and not even Man's greatest wisdom can attest to the truth of His existence.

Living in a world which is split over two opposing views on whether a God really exists, I would like to propose one of the most mind-boggling questions that will certainly spark off intensive debate: "Can there be no God?"

From time immemorial, Man has often raised the cliched question of whether God really exists. People have come up with countless theories to prove the non-existence of God, while others have bitterly raised counter-arguments to justify the reality of God. During the course of history, the fierce argument has swung between two opposing camps with no real conclusion found to the biggest mystery that baffles mankind. I thus feel that it would be ideal for us to turn the question around and consider it from a fresh and different perspective.

The answer to the million-dollar question: "Can there be no God?" is an emphatic "No". I shall now attempt to prove why the answer to this question is so simply negative.

Throughout the course of history, atheists have sought to prove the non-existence of God by attacking the credibility of the Creation Theory. Ridiculous, they would say of the Bible's claims that God created the heavens and the earth. If God really created the universe, then who created God?

Doubters of the Creation Theory have also embraced Darwin's Theory of Evolution (which he renounced late in his life), believing that Man actually evolved from apes and that the Bible's records of Adam and Eve are purely fictional.

That question is one that neither I nor anyone else in the world would have an answer to. However, considering things in a different light, I can clearly prove that there cannot be no God (which implies that there must be a God).

Suppose we are standing at the foot of the Empire State Building in New York. I say to you, "Every sensible person would think that this gleaming skyscraper is the result of a team of architects and engineer's carefully designed plans, but they are wrong. I know better. In some strange way, the steel girders appeared from nowhere and fashioned itself into the structure of a building. And then glass panes started to form windows and cement began to line the floor. After a long while, furnishings grew into place and 'poof', there stood the what was once the world's tallest building."

You would probably consider me an absolute lunatic and shy away from my ludicrous chatter. This is precisely because your logical mind reasons that where there is a design there must be a designer, and having seen other products of the human mind, you are positive that the Empire State Building was indeed planned by a human mind and built by human engineering.

Considering this, it shocks me that there are highly educated men of incredible knowledge who can argue and believe that the entire universe came into existence purely by chance. SOme more scientific people even tritely propose the earth was formed by a phenomenon called a 'cosmic boom'. Unfortunately, their great knowledge amounts to nothing when we appeal to our logical minds.

All that atheists can offer us is the enigma of design without a designer, of creation without a creator, effect without a cause.

Every sensible person believes in a sequence of causes and effects in nature. Each cause results in an effect, which becomes the cause of yet another effect. The acceptance of this simple model compels us to agree that there must be a beginning or some sort of initiation to any series. If there was no God, the universe could not come into being.

Moreover, it seems to me a mockery of human sensibility that men of great learning can stubbornly insist that the human body with all its intricacies is a product of chance and chance alone. Oh yes, the millions of blood vessels somehow assembled themselves to form our circulatory system. Our brain which controls every action of ours was a fortunate product of millions of cells coming together by some form of telepathy. Infants teach themselves to cry when they are hungry or hurt.

Allow me to give a simple mathematical illustration and you may judge for yourself how probable it is that our bodies were self-assembled. Take ten identical coins and mark them one to ten. Place them in your pocket. Now remove one coin. There is a one in ten chance that you will get number one. Now replace it and take a second coin. The chance that the number two follows the number one is one in hundred. Following this sequence, the chance of drawing one to ten in a sequence is amazingly one in ten billion.

George Gallup, an American statistician once said, "I could prove God alone statistically. Take the human body alone - the chance that all its functions would just happen is a statistical monstrosity."

Indeed, even mathematical evidence points to the fact that the possibility of there being no God (which implies our very existence was a product of chance) is virtually zero.

While I agree with the natural selection theory of Darwin's Theory of Evolution, I am inclined to assert that men who claim God's non-existence by claiming that Man, God's most valued creation, evolved from apes is totally unacceptable. What Darwin suggested was a series of changes without intermediates. Humans could not have been descendents of apes for the simple reason that the vast differences between Man and their supposed ancestors cannot be accounted for.

If we were to just open our eyes and admire the beauty of our natural world; the majesty of the Niagara Falls, the vastness of the Sahara, or the grandeur of the Himalayas, how could there possibly be no God? If my arguments have not been convincing enough, the marvels of creation themselves are perfect testimonies to the very existence of God. Thus, it is my conviction that there cannot be no God.