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Someone once said, "It’s not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting, but it has been found hard and not tried." The same can be said of the God of the Bible. What of God, is He sought? Don’t be deceived, the God many worship today is not the God of the Bible. They see Him as a God to whom there is no obligation owed, i.e., His commandment of baptism for the remission of sins is not viewed as necessary; sprinkling is just as good. Why does this God appeal to people? The answer is obvious, it’s easy. When all the words are cleared away and we face the unvarnished truth, our pride is fed as we experience the greatest freedom from restraint in the history of Christianity. The sad part of all this is that the hullabaloo by the intelligentsia gives the simple Christian an inferiority complex. Let us rid our minds of these doubts about our old fashioned God. Let us do battle with these formidable opponents. It may surprise you how quickly they are put to shame.
The most formidable is first, the God of Science. How that name has struck terror in the hearts of clergy today. Frightened and cowardly, they profess to believe the theory of evolution and then attempt to reconcile the idea with the Bible story of creation, an exercise in futility. And how does the scientist describe this god of his? He begins first by condemning the God of the Bible, making His word a myth because of the unbelievable creation story and the preposterous resurrection chronicle. His god is the first great cause. The sleeping giant, who somehow, sometime, woke up long enough to activate a little proteinaceous matter, and to then let this self- propelled bit spin itself into all the myriad variations of life. All without purpose; simply the result of blind chance, forces of nature and caprice of circumstance; an accident, no less. The scientist then asks us to accept this blind and sleeping god who does not control his own creation. One must admit that this god does not compare very well with the God of the Bible, the knowing God, the loving God, the purposeful God. But you must not be swayed by human emotion in the matter, says the evolutionist. OK, this is a fair statement. It would be nice to believe in your God, they say, but we must be governed by truth. They say the god of evolution can be proved, whereas the God of the Bible cannot. Nothing can be further from the truth. I am no scientist, but there is no more conclusive evidence now than in the day Darwin first popularized it. What is so incredible is that this theory has deluded millions. Granted it is only a theory, they say, adding that the Christian God is only a theory too. Of the two the Christian God is more plausible because the God of the Bible rests on far stronger ground than mere theory. If this case were tried in court there could be no doubt of its outcome: Supporting the God of the Bible we have the direct testimony of many historical figures, Moses, Israel’s King David, the prophets, Christ and his miracles seen by crowds of people, the resurrection itself witnessed by the apostles along with others, as recorded by Luke, Paul and additional New Testament writers; all good circumstantial evidence from which we can infer that the God of the Bible exists. Pitted against the Christian there would be no testimony as to the actual truth of evolution, but only opinion evidence as to the facts in issue. Opinion evidence as to the ultimate fact is not admissible. Opinion is for the jury; they draw conclusions from facts presented. No facts of evolution can be given because no one has ever witnessed it.
Some people, driven into a corner by scientific theory, explain their beliefs by a picture of God, the hub of a great wheel, with spokes leading to desired behavior by the Christian, the effect of which is to relieve man of all duties, but only to sit by the side of the road and be a friend to man. This is simply another example of mans penchant for believing what he wants to believe, and possibly provide a reason for the breakdowns of Christian ministers generally, a not uncommon occurrence. After all, it is an impossible thing to sit on a fence and preach totally divergent views on the creation of man and the world. Where’s the truth? The evolution theory is plausible to millions in that it is taught in schools as absolute truth right along with the multiplication tables. No time to think through the idea; you are not a biologist, archeologist, or paleontologist.
What is evolution anyway? It is the theory that life in the form of simple carbon-hydrogen compound accidentally got the spark of life and all life now existing is a descendent of that accident. What does the Bible say? God created man, ndependent of other creatures, as recorded in Genesis. Luke traces Christ’s origin back to Adam. Paul refers to Adam. The Bible is full of testimony that God created and willfully controls the earth. It was not accidental. The evolutionary theory is at variance with the concept of original sin and the teachings of Christ who came to save sinners, to help the weak, heal the sick and brokenhearted,quite the opposite of survival of the fittest and a credo of might makes right He has no responsibility for his nature, and answers to no one. However, man is now and has always been on probation. He sinned, fell from grace, inherited death. God in the Bible shows us how to get back into His grace.
Does it make more sense to think that life, the universe, everything, is sheer blind chance and that the whole world is dancing to a crazy rock and roll tune? That is, eat, or be eaten. Or does it make more sense to say that "All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose." (Rom 8. 28) Amen.
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