In recent weeks, we’ve been taking a look at the subject of suffering in our nursing-home Bible study—specifically exploring the oft-asked question, “How can a good God allow such suffering in the world?” In the process, we have discovered that the Bible provides us with many reasons that the Lord allows tribulation in our lives, from guiding to disciplining us, from impacting a loved one to displaying His power.
 
But let’s focus for the moment on one answer in particular: God allows some people to suffer in order to get their attention, especially if they are unbelievers in fact or in effect.
 
That’s what He did with me, back when I was an atheist. He broke my heart, and the rest is a tiny dot on the sweep of feminist/atheist history.
 
If you are suffering today—physically, emotionally, financially, or spiritually—perhaps the Lord is trying to get your attention.
 
Maybe you’re a professing Christian—you believe in Jesus Christ, but you have no relationship with Him.  You haven’t actively sought Him through His word, the Bible. No doubt you have your reasons—too busy, perhaps, or not interested, or maybe you were exposed to scripture when you were a kid and figure you already know all you need to know about Him.
 
Or maybe you’re religiously pluralistic, convinced that it doesn’t matter what you believe just as long as you’re a good person who believes in something. You acknowledge some sort of supreme being, so you’re good; if there is a heaven, you’ll be fine.  
 
Or perhaps you’re not so good. Perhaps you’ve lived such a sinful life that you know you’re headed for the other place. You’re sure that there’s no way out, not for you.
 
Whatever your circumstances, if you are suffering, rest assured that the Lord knows it, controls it, and is at work in your life. And if any of the descriptions above sound even remotely familiar to you, realize that this may be the only way He’ll ever be able to get your attention, and therefore to save you—putting you irrevocably on the path to heaven, as promised in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
 
Will it work?
 
Will you repent and trust in Him to have paid your entire sin debt on the cross?
 
That’s up to you, of course. But consider: If you are saved, this world is as close to hell as you’ll ever get. But if you are not, this world is as close to heaven as you’ll get.
 
Seems like a no-brainer, doesn’t it?

I am so weary of the idea that all religions are alike, and that we all worship the same deity. Hypocritical, perhaps, considering that for three decades, that was precisely what I believed. In fact, it was only when I took a serious interest in researching the subject of God’s existence, and later His identity, that I finally came to understand the truth that sets us free.
 
Here is the first life-changing conclusion I reached, as described on pages 139-140 of Heaven Without Her (Thomas Nelson, 2008)--an enthusiastically endorsed memoir describing my intellectual journey from feminist atheism to born-again Christianity: 
 
“There are, of course, dozens of other religions out there, some interesting, some pretty wacky.  I checked them out at random as their names came up.
 
“For my little research project, I included in this group those that claim to be Christian but are in reality Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic or Gnostic in nature – Christian Science and Unity School, to name just a couple.
​
"I included eminently progressive, ‘it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you’re not a Christian fundamentalist’ groups that seem to worship, above all and often exclusively, tolerance of everything except a plain reading of the Bible. 
 
“I included bizarre worldviews like Scientology as well as explicitly evil paths like Satanism.
 
“And I included an array of religions devoted to worshiping the gods of nature, from Japan’s native Shintoism to various expressions of Native American spirituality.
 
“The only readily apparent common denominator among all these worldviews was the idea that whatever your view of Heaven or Paradise or Nirvana, what gets you there is living the right kind of life.
 
“Except for Christianity.
 
“Christianity says that what gets you there is Jesus.”
 
As I discovered, a sincere and careful exploration of the facts leads to only one possible conclusion: There’s Christianity, and there’s everything else.

​Make your choice carefully; it will determine where you spend eternity. 

Have you ever noticed how experts like to take perfectly innocent words, strip them of their original definition, and give them entirely new meanings? We see it fairly often these days.  Sadly, it’s sometimes so subtle that even a careful reader can miss it; yet it can change our thinking dramatically, especially about the most important questions in life.
 
Take, for example, the word “foreknow” in its various forms.
 
Romans 8:29 tells us, “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son …”

And 1 Peter 1:1-2 says, “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To the pilgrims of the Dispersion …, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ …”
 
What did Paul and Peter mean?
 
Most reasonable readers would conclude that they were both referring to people predestined or elect based on God’s foreknowledge of them – because of what their omniscient and eternal Creator knew about them long ago. It’s similar to what a novelist knows about his or her characters well before the details begin to play out on paper – except that God’s knowledge of His creatures is absolutely perfect and absolutely complete, whereas fictional characters can and do surprise their creators.   
 
Most reasonable readers would, in fact, feel comfortable applying a simple dictionary definition of “foreknow” to such passages. For example:

• “To have previous knowledge of; to know beforehand especially by paranormal means or by revelation” (Merriam Webster)
• “To be aware of (an event) before it happens” (Oxford Dictionaries)
• “To know beforehand” (YourDictionary.com)
• “To know beforehand, i.e. foresee” (Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, which shows us the meaning of the original Greek)

 
But hold on! If you think “foreknow” means much more than these simplistic definitions indicate, cheer up – you’re far from alone.
 
“To foreknow means to choose beforehand,” explains prolific writer Warren Wiersbe on page 117 of his 2002 book Key Words of the Christian Life, “to set your love upon someone…. God in His grace sets His love upon certain ones who are going to be saved.”
 
My goodness – that’s certainly a New! Improved! definition of “foreknow,” isn’t it? For readers bored by the basics, it adds a ton of bonus information!
 
But Wiersbe isn’t the only one who has dolled up the meaning of this simple word. For instance, a lecturer I heard recently insisted that “foreknowledge” doesn’t mean that God looked down at us through the tunnel of history. “It means that you are dead in your sin until God makes you alive,” she insisted, drawing on Ephesians 2:1 to embellish this apparently too-dull word.
 
Hmmmm. If we can add to the meaning of words by pulling in other remotely related scriptural concepts, might we conclude that “foreknowledge” means the Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world, based on John 1:29? Or that He draws all men, per John 12:32?
 
And there’s more.
 
“When the Bible speaks of God knowing particular individuals,” www.monergism informs us in a “foreknowledge” definition requiring over 2100 words, “it often means that He has special regard for them, that they are the objects of His affection and concern.” In other words, “He only knows those ‘who love Him, who are called according to His purpose,” per these authors, neatly piling on thoughts from Romans 8:28 to further our understanding of “foreknowledge.”
 
The nearly ubiquitous MacArthur Study Bible would seem to agree. “[Foreknowledge] does not refer to awareness of what is going to happen, but it clearly means a predetermined relationship in the knowledge of God,” says the note on 1 Peter 1:2 in this volume, which has shaped the thinking of so many Bible students over the years.
 
Of Romans 8:29, this same book says “foreknew” is “not a reference simply to God’s omniscience – that in eternity past He knew who would come to Christ. Rather, it speaks of a predetermined choice to set His love on us and establish an intimate relationship – or His election.”
 
And so on. Google the word “foreknow,” and you’ll find well over 100,000 entries, with gobs of them explaining why “foreknow” does not really mean “foreknow.”
 
Seems like these commentators have gone to a lot of effort to strip this one little ol’ word of its original meaning and gussy it up in layers of cross- and extra-biblical thinking.
 
I realize that defenders of this approach claim that these embellishments must be made to dovetail with other passages; but the truth is, one runs into the same issues with these other passages, too, until we're left in a fog of completely unnecessary confusion.   
 
I guess the moral of this story is this: Be Bereans (Acts 17:11); if you want to know what God has to say on any given subject, go directly to His word. Be wary of adding to or taking away from what He has said (Revelation 22:18b-19). Ask questions about what you’re reading, such as "who's the audience?" ... "whom is the writer talking about?" ... “based on what criteria?” ... and “for what purpose?” 
 
In short, “as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby” (1 Peter 2:2). And beware of any additives that threaten to taint it.

If you’re under 65, you may not believe that the 1950s were the loveliest time to be a kid in America. But it’s true. Sure, I would later join my feminist girlfriends in mocking the decade, but that was just politically correct hypocrisy on my part; even as I sneered, I knew that it had been a golden era for moms, dads and children alike.
 
But until recently, I hadn’t thought about why those years were so sweet. And then I read Dr. Jerry Bergman’s new book, God in Eisenhower’s Life, Military Career and Presidency (Wipf  & Stock, 2019).
 
In a nutshell: Like so many citizens in the wake of World War II, during which he served as Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, General Dwight D. "Ike" Eisenhower was an unabashed Christian. And he did all he could to encourage his fellow Americans to recognize and honor the God of the Bible—the very God on whom this nation was founded, as politically incorrect as it may be to say so today.
 
According to this thoroughly researched and well-footnoted spiritual biography, Ike’s powerful faith was one of the reasons he won the presidency in 1952. As the Episcopal Church News reported, Eisenhower “insisted that only by trusting in God could he effectively carry out the responsibilities of the office and help the United States solve its problems.” On the other hand, his opponent Adlai Stevenson, a Unitarian, claimed that  “A man’s personal religious beliefs [have] no proper place in our political life” (p. 106). 

​Apparently the American people sided with Eisenhower in this debate; he won by a landslide. 
 
Eisenhower has been called “the most religious president in our history” (p. 142). Consider just a few of the ways he honored our Creator:

• It was under  his presidency that “In God We Trust” became, by law, our national motto, printed on our paper currency in addition to our coins.
• He worked with Congress to add the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance.
• He instituted the Christian National Prayer Breakfast in the White House.
• His administration helped to establish the National Day of Prayer.
• He was the first Commander in Chief to mail presidential Christmas cards.
• He supported a wide range of religious programs sponsored by non-governmental organizations, including the American Legion's “Back to God” program.

 
What’s more, in his public addresses, Eisenhower often discussed God’s importance to our nation—saying, for example, that “Without God, there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first—and most basic—expression of Americanism” (p 138).
 
Eisenhower may have been tolerant of other belief systems, but he personally was a Bible-believing Christian. As biographer Virgil Pinkley wrote, “Wherever he was quartered or headquartered, I never saw Ike Eisenhower without a Bible somewhere in sight … It was a Bible for use, as the well-worn pages showed.” (p. 145)           
 
This biography is especially edifying in light of our nation’s current problems. There’s no doubt that we’re in serious trouble today, with politicians competing desperately to see who can throw the most money at whatever ails us. Why in the world don’t they instead look back to the last time we got it right, and return to the policies and institutions that made it so right? That would take us straight back to the 1950s, when family and church were at the center of American life and when the leader of the free world refused to be cowed by the forces of evil and the father of lies.
 
I do have one major reservation about this book: its somewhat sympathetic portrayal of Jehovah’s Witnesses and their governing Watchtower Society. Ike’s parents were active members. And although he left the organization as an adult and became a Presbyterian upon marrying Mamie, he did grow up under Watchtower teachings—a fact the reader is reminded of frequently.
 
Dr. Bergman does address the aberrations of this religion, but not in any comprehensive way until Appendix I. I therefore mention it here, lest any reader be led to believe that the Watchtower is a Christian denomination, or that Jehovah’s Witnesses are Christians. It is not, and they are not. In fact, they have been taught to deny virtually all the key doctrines of orthodox Christianity—including Christ’s substitutionary death on the cross, salvation by faith alone, the Trinity, the personhood of the Holy Spirit and the full deity of Christ. This makes them, by definition, a cult (see the late Walter Martin's classic The Kingdom of the Cults for details).
 
This caveat aside, I found Dr. Bergman’s biography to be a fascinating exploration of President Eisenhower’s character, faith, and contributions to America’s spirituality in the idyllic decade of my childhood. 21st century Americans could learn a great deal of value from this account.

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts ..." (Ecclesiastes 3:11a)  

I've long thought that this is one of the most beautiful verses that wise King Solomon ever wrote. Pondering it tonight, I wondered if the world would at least grant us that it's a natural instinct -- that belief in an afterlife seems to be something that most people, in most cultures, have embraced over history. 

So I did a little Internet investigation. No surprise, I came across a lot of atheist bilge about weak-minded people inventing God to soothe their fears about death.

But then I stumbled across a CNN report from 2011 -- a report entitled "Religious belief is human nature, huge new study claims." 

The subject of this very sketchy article was a three-year Oxford University study which concluded that a belief in purpose and afterlife is pretty much universal. And apparently this wasn't the first time such researchers have come to this conclusion: "Studies around the world came up with similar findings," the article reports, "including widespread belief in some kind of afterlife and an instinctive tendency to suggest that natural phenomena happen for a purpose."
 
This study did not attempt to prove or disprove God's existence, according to one of its co-directors. 

No surprise there, either, but what a pity: A bunch of academics spend three years studying whether a belief in the afterlife is common ... yet apparently spend not a moment trying to determine whether such a belief is true. 

Wouldn't it have been more profitable for everyone concerned if they'd searched for absolute truth rather than wasting their time on what is, at least to an unbeliever, absolute opinion?

I guarantee that any reasonably intelligent researcher -- one who was willing to follow the evidence wherever it led -- would discover the truth in far less than three years. And it would lead him or her directly to that narrow gate, with an eternally important decision to make.

It was in the summer of 2001 that a very godly woman brought me to a life-changing realization about truth, and where to find it.
 
Here’s the scoop.
 
I’d joined the choir in the church I was attending in those days. The director put me in the tenor section with the guys; rightfully so, since I have a range of about five notes and they’re all below middle C.
 
Usually, we stuck to fellowshipping in our own sections. But one evening during practice, I somehow found myself chatting with our star soprano, a beautiful little redhead named Gail. Still a baby Christian in those days, I asked her a silly question or two or three about the faith. Can’t remember what those queries were, but she suggested we have coffee together to discuss them.
 
I will never forget sitting in a booth in Baker’s Square with this woman, lobbing very tough questions at her. At least I thought they were tough, perhaps even unanswerable.  
 
But Gail didn’t hesitate. She responded to every query by flipping to a new section in her Bible, reading me a verse or two, explaining it when it wasn’t quite obvious to a novice, and showing me additional passages whenever necessary.
 
I was blown away. Using only her Bible, she had answered all the questions I’d brought to the table that morning. We met several more times in the weeks that followed. Each time I brought her a slew of challenging new questions. And each time, she found the answer to every last one in the pages of her Bible.
 
Not that every answer incorporated the specific details that had prompted my questions, or outlined a simple course of action. For instance, I asked Gail if I should continue seeing atheist friends who were mocking my newfound faith. She showed me what the Bible said about loving our enemies, sharing the gospel and shining our lights for God’s glory. She also showed me its warnings about, for instance, what bad company can do to good habits and how we are to keep ourselves unspotted from the world.
 
So unlike the Magic 8 Balls of our childhoods, the Bible’s response isn’t always a simple “yes” or “no.” But as this godly woman demonstrated for me in those early days of my walk with Jesus, there’s not an issue in our lives that the Bible doesn’t address for anyone with ears to hear and a heart to obey.
 
I lost touch with Gail years ago. But I look forward to seeing her again one happy day in heaven, and to thanking her for her life-changing investment in me. The Lord used her to open my eyes to His word. And I will be forever grateful.