Exchanging the truth of God for a lie

I was reading some articles on the site Japan Today, when I came across this article, "In 2050, your lover may be a robot". I was troubled by the title, but was more troubled by the content of the article. At one point the expert, David Levy, says,

“There will always be many millions of people who cannot make normal satisfactory relationships with humans, and for them the choice is not: ‘would I prefer a relationship with a human or would I prefer a relationship with a robot?‘—the choice is no relationship at all or a relationship with a robot.”

This is disturbing on many fronts. I want to focus on Sunday's sermon and the fact that we, human beings, were created in the image of God. Genesis 1:27, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." God did not create us in His image to create an artificial love, but to experience love between male and female, both created in the image of God. We are forsaking God's intent, for our own pleasure.

I guess that like the Apostle Paul says in Romans 1:21-25,

"For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen."

May we as believers in Christ not forsake the image of God nor relationships with those created in the image of God for something that looks like the creation of God.

We will cover in just a few weeks the marriage relationship. We will see then that God does not want us to forsake the truth for a lie. This is clearly a lie from the father of all lies to keep men and women from enjoying the truth of who God created them to be.

Any input you have on this subject would be great to hear.

The Waters Above from the Waters Below

I was asked recently, "Were the waters that went above like a canopy over the earth until the days of the Flood or were the waters above simply our "sky" as we now know it?

This was an interesting question for me. While attending a Christian school, in middle school physical science, my teacher taught that this canopy surrounded the earth and helped create an environment that helped plants and animals thrive, but God used this water to bring about the Flood. Until this question was directly proposed to me, I had never questioned my 8th grade science teacher.

As I look into this matter bear in mind that I am not the expert, simply an individual looking at God's Word and speculating. The Bible does not specifically tell us. We, also must remember that each of us will look at this text and still be left wondering was it some special canopy, or is it simply referring to the clouds and atmosphere of our planet called earth?

The text seems to indicate something within the everyday experience of the natural world, in a general way, a place where the birds can fly and where God has placed the lights of the heaven. So the likely reference of the "waters above" is to clouds. This is the view that many of the early church fathers held. John Calvin writes,

"We see that the clouds suspended in the air, which threaten to fall upon our heads, yet leave us space to breathe. . . . We know, indeed, that the rain is naturally produced; but the deluge sufficiently shows us how speedily we might be overwhelmed by the bursting of the clouds, unless the cataracts of heaven were closed by the hand of God."

I am not sure the Bible nor science is as clear as my 8th grade teacher led us to believe about the canopy that may or may not have existed. "Answers in Genesis", a web-site devoted to creation doctrine, has this article dealing with the idea of a "dome" or "canopy" over the earth. Check it out at your convenience.

Can't wait to hear your theories.