NASHVILLE, Tenn.?God does not reward those who earnestly seek rewards, He rewards those who earnestly seek him, author John Revell writes in a new book titled “Getting the Most from God (but not how you might think!).”

The book uses Scripture to debunk the prosperity gospel often preached by popular televangelists.

“I’ve concluded that regardless of what one believes about the appropriateness of the current congressional investigation of certain televangelists, there is no doubt that there are some unscrupulous individuals who are making outrageous claims and getting filthy rich by duping unsuspecting victims?all in the name of Christ,” Revell told Baptist Press. “Christians need to know the truth about what it really means to be blessed by God.”

Revell, editor of SBC Life, the magazine of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee, was inspired to write the book after a few teenage boys in a discipleship group he leads pulled a prank and placed his name on the mailing list of a televangelist.

“Over the next 18 months, I received some of the most bizarre correspondence ever sent in the name of Christ,” Revell said. “This man claimed that God had given him specific visions concerning me and my particular situation, and he promised all manner of physical and financial ‘blessings’ if I would only follow his outlandish instructions?and send him money.”

In response to the letters, Revell studied what God’s Word really says about blessings, and he compiled what he learned into a lesson plan for his Sunday School class and Wednesday night Bible study.

Realizing a need in a larger audience, Revell developed the material into a self-published book aimed at three groups of people: those who have been deceived by the prosperity gospel, newer Christians, and the unsaved.

“The book makes the case from Scripture that God truly desires to richly bless his children, but that his blessings often do not take the shape we might expect and that these blessings are conditional,” Revell explained. “It examines two passages from the Psalms and two from the gospels, and demonstrates that God’s richest blessings are directly related to our walk with, and our total surrender and submission to him.”

“That is not what we are hearing from some popular ‘health and wealth’ evangelists, and it is not a very popular notion these days,” he said.

Revell said he hopes churches use the book to teach members the fundamental truths about a vital, daily walk with God and the resulting blessings. Portions of the book, he said, underscore the essentials of daily Bible study and prayer while others focus on the need to surrender each aspect of life to God.

Another goal, Revell said, is for believers to use the book as an evangelistic tool, distributing it to people who have not placed their faith in Jesus and are perhaps baffled by the messages they hear from purveyors of the prosperity gospel on television.

“I have made it as affordable as possible with the hopes that it would get into as many hands as possible,” Revell said, noting the book is available at LifeWay Christian Stores for $3.99 per copy. “At this price, churches, and even individuals, could afford to buy multiple copies and distribute them freely.”

The 100-page book is written in an easy-to-read style, he said, and soon he’ll post free Bible study outlines as well as outlines for evangelistic book clubs at GinoskoPublishing.com.

In the book, Revell refers to Hebrews 11:6, which says “anyone who comes to [God] must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.”

“Ultimately, He is the reward?when we seek Him, we are overwhelmed with the incredible riches and blessings of who He is and of fellowship with Him,” Revell writes.

“… The richest blessings in life are directly and inseparably linked to a relationship with Him?a relationship in which we surrender all that we are and all that we have to Him and walk in humble submission to and with Him. Yet, as we surrender and submit to Him in this relationship, He lavishes us with the glorious blessings of His love.”

FORT WORTH?The media are replete with books, magazines, web sites, and radio and television talk show hosts offering pseudo-spiritual advice. With regard to such pretenders, Christ-followers must perk up, pay attention, and pay their biblical dues when identifying and responding to false prophets.

That’s the advice for believers from Cky Carrigan, associate professor of evangelism at Southwestern Seminary.

In the 1960s, Satan tried to convince the world God was dead. But since that didn’t work, Satan changed tactics, trying to convince the world that he doesn’t exist.

That subtle strategy works all too often because the “Devil and all deceivers use the same vocabulary as Christians, but employ a much different dictionary,” Carrigan said. “All of today’s talk about truth is not the same truth of the Bible. And all today’s talk regarding God, Jesus Christ, love, hope, joy, salvation, the cross, Heaven and Hell are not the same as these things from the Bible.

“We must be alert to a changing world and changing teachings about God and spirituality because we live in an era when some people display a form of godliness, but know not God’s power,” Carrigan said.

Carrigan served as national missionary for interfaith evangelism at the North American Mission Board from 1998-2007. His website, ontruth.com, deals with Christian apologetics and combating false teachings.

“The best remedy for a lie is the truth. So, we Baptists must open our Bibles and read them. Biblical dues-paying is hard work, but it’s good, rewarding and essential work,” he said.

“Acts 17:11 says the Bereans eagerly examined the Scriptures every day to verify the veracity of contemporary teaching and preaching. Today is no different,” Carrigan advised. “The Berean onus is on us. It’s time for this generation to pay our dues as did our Baptists forebears who mastered the doctrines of our heritage that we find in the Bible and the Baptist Faith and Message.”

“We must study the Bible and doctrinal statements derived from it as if the whole world depends on it, because it does. If we don’t know the truth, we can’t tell it; and if we don’t tell it, the world won’t know it. Furthermore, if we don’t know the truth intimately, then we also will be ignorant to half-truths and whole lies,” said Carrigan, who added that extra- or contra-biblical teachings “almost always corrupt the pure doctrines of the Scriptures, the tri-unity of God, the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ, and grace-alone, faith-alone, Christ-alone salvation. The best way to identify the counterfeit is to know what is true and real, and that comes from biblical study.”

Carrigan said parents, deacons and Sunday school teachers must be versed in the fundamental Christian doctrines, and “teach those we love what we know and protect them from false prophets and false teachers.”

Carrigan is careful to distinguish exactly who is a prophet, saying that a “true biblical prophet received and conveyed direct, unmediated revelation from God.” And to confer the title of prophet on those who purvey false doctrines is a misnomer. They are, instead, teachers of false doctrines.

Christians therefore, may be unaware that, to call someone a false prophet may shift the focus off of the revisionist’s self-proclaimed status and onto whether their utterances are really false and not on whether the person is indeed a prophet. While scrutiny of both the message and messenger is vitally important, Carrigan cautions that such discernment must not become imbalanced.

Theologians continue to debate whether valid prophecies have ceased, Carrigan said, adding that many Southern Baptists believe that foretelling in fact has ceased?at least for this present Christian era.

“Southern Baptists generally assert that God does not speak to Christians today by means of direct revelation through prophets. So, it would be impossible, or at least extraordinary, by definition, for a professing prophet to be a true prophet today, even if he utters a prophecy that is found to be true by biblical standards.”

And since the Bible is the standard by which prophecies should be judged, then the standard itself negates the present-day need for the office of biblical prophet, Carrigan believes.

Whether false teachers are on the rise is not a question Carrigan feels qualified to answer. “But what is clear is the seemingly infinite number of false prophets who spin their deception on the worldwide web. The Internet is the go-to place for all things informational, even all things spiritual. This is all the more reason to study carefully the Word of God and to be ready to demonstrate that one is fit to divide rightly the Word of God and not be ashamed in this day of deception,” he said.

“In sum, prudence demands extreme caution today when someone claims to convey direct, unmediated revelation from God,” Carrigan said. “So, in this present era of Christian history, beware of the self-proclaimed prophet?period.”

In this media-rich age, numerous resources are available for equipping Christians to become “so familiar with the truth that when a counterfeit looms on the horizon, you recognize it immediately,” as Hank Hanegraaff of the Christian Research Institute often says.

What follows are a few websites and books useful to the believer in defending his faith in a pluralistic society.

WEBSITES:
?The SBC’s North American Mission Board has an apologetics and equipping website?4truth.net?that provides resources for sharing Christ with members of various world religions and cults, as well as information on foundational Christian doctrines.
?The Apologetics Resource Center, on the web at arcapologetics.org, offers a free bi-monthly newsletter called “Worldviews” and a subscription magazine edited by Southern Baptist Steve Cowan called Areopagus Journal. Also, numerous articles and books are available.
?One of the best known apologetics ministries, the Christian Research Institute (CRI), on the web at equip.org, offers podcasts and topical papers on various Christian doctrines and doctrinal summaries of many cult groups. CRI publishes the Christian Research Journal and also broadcasts the nationally syndicated “Bible Answer Man” radio broadcast featuring the CRI president, Hank Hanegraaff. The show is heard in Texas in the following cities:
?Austin: KLGO (99.3 and 98.5 FM) 6 p.m. Mon.-Fri.
?Bryan: KAGC (1510 AM) 11 a.m., Mon.-Fri.
?Dallas: KWRD (100.7 FM) 7 p.m. Mon.-Fri.
?Houston: KKHT (100.7 FM) 5 p.m. Mon.-Fri.
?San Antonio: KSLR (630 AM) 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Mon.-Fri.
?Tyler-Longview: KTAA (90.7 FM) 5 p.m. Mon.-Fri.
?Watchman Fellowship, on the web at watchman.org, specializes in “new religious movements, cults, the occult and the New Age.” The ministry offers resources on witnessing to Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

BOOKS:
?”Know What You Believe,” by Paul Little (out of print but used copies available on Amazon).
?”Know Why You Believe,” Little.
?”Jesus Among Other Gods: The Absolute Claims Of The Christian Message,” by Ravi Zacharias (regular and youth editions).
?”The Case for Christ,” by Lee Strobel.
?”The Case for Faith,” Strobel.
?”Christianity in Crisis,” (a critique of the word-faith movement) by Hank Hanegraaff.
?”Charts of Cults, Sects, & Religious Movements” by H. Wayne House.
?”Mere Christianity,” by C.S. Lewis.
?”Holman QuickSource Guide to Christian Apologetics,” by Doug Powell.
?”Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics,” by Norman L. Geisler.
?”Intelligent Design 101: Leading Experts Explain the Key Issues” (due out this spring from Kregel Publications).

HOUSTON?Intelligent design is not “a gussied-up version of creationism,” William Dembski said in the opening remarks of a debate with evolutionist Niall Shanks before an audience of Bible scholars gathered at the Havard Campus of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Houston.

In a discussion free of the rancor that has defined many of the debates between intelligent design (ID) advocates and scientific materialists, Dembski and Shanks laid out their reasoning for and against ID March 29 during the regional meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society.

In existence for almost 50 years, the ETS is, according to its website, “a group of scholars, teachers, pastors, students, and others dedicated to the oral exchange and written expression of theological thought and research.”

The plenary sessions between Shanks and Dembski focused on the theme “Natural Revelation, Natural Law, and Design in the Cosmos.”

Dembski is one of the world’s leading ID theorists and is a research professor in philosophy at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. Shanks, with a Ph.D. in philosophy, holds the Curtis D. Gridley Distinguished Professor of History and Philosophy of Science chair at Wichita Sate University in Wichita, Kan.

Dembski argued that the ID proposal stands on its evidence within nature, while Shanks countered with his concerns of theories claiming to resolve scientific questions with little or no evidence to substantiate them.

ID: Study of nature’s patterns
Confessing that the two men?although philosophical and scientific rivals?have become friends over the course of their debates, Dembski set the tone for what would be a cordial debate. In his opening remarks, he said ID is often accused by critics in science and the media of being creation science revisited. Dembski said there are important distinctions between the two schools of thought and “ID has no stake in [creation science].”

ID, Dembki argued instead, is “the study of patterns in nature that are best explained as the product of intelligence.”

The frame of reference by which humans observe and make assumptions about the world around them leads one to concede the existence of a designer. Dembski called upon the work of 18th-century scientist and theologian William Paley and his famous reasoning for the inference of a designer. If a person were to see a rock on the ground, that person would conclude the rock had always been in this natural state. But to stumble upon a watch?with its intricate mechanizations?one must conclude the presence of a designer. Quoting Paley, Dembski said, “The marks of design are too strong to be got over. Design must have had a designer.”

“This is a fundamental way we have of summing up reality,” he said.

But, if one were to surmise that this same thought process can be applied to biological systems, “all hell breaks loose,” Dembski said. “That ends up having huge worldview implications.”

Scientists have long held the idea of natural theology, the belief that God, the creator, is evidenced in the creation. Paley’s book “Natural Theology,” published in 1802, was required reading by the students at Christ College, Cambridge?students such as Charles Darwin.

But ID, Dembski said, does not so much build a concept of a designer in the cosmos, but more effectively shows the weaknesses of scientific materialism. It is the mechanisms of evolutionary change that are challenged most by ID, he said.

“That is what is at issue. The evidence is not there.”

The cornerstones of Darwinian evolutionary theory?random chance and natural selection?are called into question by ID-friendly scientists. Dembski asked how, in the process of evolution, does an organism survive from point A to point B without the immediate use of highly complex, often interdependent parts that would theoretically take thousands or millions of years to develop.

The presence of ID thought and discourse, Dembski said, has served to keep evolutionary scientists honest. And it is a theory that should be given as much peer consideration as studies in physics such as string theory and dark matter. Dembski said ID is not “God in the gaps,” but a legitimate theory that should be given respectful review. The arguments for design, he said, are not made from ignorance but from what we do know, such as the complexity of the cell.

It is a reasonable inference to believe there is a design in the system, he said.

Design without a designer?
It is theories such as string theory and dark matter that concern Shanks, who has written several books on the history of science and philosophy. Such theories, including intelligent design, do not stand up to evidence and merely try to explain aspects of the cosmos that science does not yet understand, he said.

Shanks said Mount Rushmore is evidence of rock formations far beyond the realm of simple erosion. But, he asked, does the appearance of design always point to a designer?

Although he disagrees with ID theory, as outlined in his book “God, the Devil, and Darwin: A Critique of Intelligent Design Theory,” Shanks conceded, “I think one has to entertain the possibility of ID.” But, he added, all claims have to be open to revisions in light of new evidence.

Shanks said his skepticism for ID is an “evidential worry.” The lack of evidence for a designer outside an organism and no watermark on the finished product lead Shanks to find dubious the claims of a creator. With no knowledge of or evidence for a designer, Shanks argued the inference of design is a stretch.

“We have to work in the realm of appearance,” he said.

Biology irreducibly complex
But ID researchers claim such evidence exists in the irreducible complexity of some biological systems. Of his theory, Darwin wrote: “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organism existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.”

An irreducibly complex system is one made of several parts with each part being interdependent with each of the others for the function of the whole system. Without one of the parts, the system cannot function. The bacterial flagellum is such an organism, argues Michael Behe in his book “Darwin’s Black Box.”

Behe wrote, “Because the bacterial flagellum is necessarily composed of at least three parts?a paddle, a root, and a motor?it is irreducibly complex. Gradual evolution of the flagellum, like the cilium, therefore faces mammoth hurdles.”

To the ETS audience, Shanks countered the proclaimed evidence for ID on the microscopic level and said, “I don’t see it as product of design but something that has been cobbled together through evolutionary process.”

The “hallmark” of the evolutionary process, Shanks said, is the re-use of modules from other organisms. Such systems begin on a simpler scale within simpler organisms.

But, Dembski countered, the re-use of components in the bacterial flagellum does not discount the element of design.

“It is a marvel of engineering,” he said.

Layers of information and the engineering, not cobbling, of mechanisms in biology refute the idea of randomness producing such a working system.

With regard to science’s inability to discover a designer, Dembski said, “Our technologies are so dwarfed by the design of a cell that we don’t have the technology, yet, to define the designer. But the design, nonetheless, can be inferred.”

Darwin’s God snub
In a second session of the ID debate, Shanks opened with his views on Darwin and his theological ideals. Shanks said Darwin was a theist when he wrote “The Origin of the Species” but languished into agnosticism before his death due, not to his the