Nothing Created Everything: The Scientific Impossibility of Atheistic Evolution (17 page)

An atheist argued, “Jesus didn’t abolish death. People still die and, as before His birth, peoples’ souls still live on forever.”

Of course people still die. However, the Bible still says, “Jesus Christ abolished death” (2 Timothy 1:10). So you have a choice. Either those who believe that death has been abolished are mentally challenged, or there is something here that you don’t yet understand.

The Scriptures tell us that sin has resulted in capital punishment for humanity (see Romans 6:23). We die because we are criminals in God’s sight. However, for those who repent and trust in the Savior, that death sentence is instantly commuted. It is nullified. God shows us the immutability of His promise of commutation by giving us His Holy Spirit. The Bible says that He “seals” us with His Spirit as a token of good faith, so that we have even more than His promise.

It’s as though God said that He abolished darkness and then quietly gave a secret light to those that trust Him (see Psalm 25:14). So each person who has the light no longer walks in darkness—they have “the light of life.” This is what Jesus was speaking of when He said, “I am the light of the world: he that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12).

I was listening to the “Hallelujah Chorus” of Handel’s
Messiah
recently and wondering what atheists have as an equivalent. An equivalent? They don’t have a Bible, they don’t belong to a church, they don’t have a relationship with God, and they don’t have their own music. That’s because they have nothing to sing about. Without God, atheism would have no reason to exist.

God bless Handel for using his God-given gifts to glorify the Giver. God gave man the ability to create music, and godly music has the ability to give us a small taste of Heaven.

What an incredible heritage we have as Christians. How rich biblical Christianity is in history. Its missionaries have taken the message of salvation to the ends of the earth.

And what a glorious future it promises: “Jesus Christ has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”

My eyes have been leaking a lot lately. Back in 2008, I found it hard to clearly focus on a news item that showed a San Diego man at a press conference, reacting to the tragic deaths of his wife, his two young daughters, and his mother-in-law. A fighter jet had landed on his house, and, in an instant, swept them into eternity.

As he leaned for support on his pastor’s arms, he said that he didn’t have any animosity towards the pilot of the downed plane, calling him a “hero.” Then he said, “I know there are many people who have experienced more terrible things. Please tell me how to do it, because I don’t know what to do.”

It seems that everything this man leaned on for security—his beloved family and even his home, were taken from him. He told reporters: “Nobody expected such a horrible thing to happen, especially right here, right [in] our house. I know God is taking care of my [family].”

In times of such despair, there is great consolation in Christianity. God promises to work this tragic incident out for his good: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

In a recent political scandal, commentators spoke of a “culture of corruption” surrounding a certain high-profile politician. In reference to the fact that he had violated the law, one commentator
said, “The line kept moving,” and that he seemed to have “lost his moral compass.”

That’s the result of the theory of relativity. Mankind has a theory that there is no absolute right and absolute wrong. The strange thing about it is, he is absolutely sure that he’s right when he says that no one can be absolutely sure about anything. The political commentators also said that he thought he was invulnerable. Pride and arrogance are often the bedfellows of corruption.

The fallen political figure is typical of the proud human heart. He lives in a culture of corruption where he pushes the moral envelope. Like the proud politician, he thinks he’s invulnerable. However, the line of right and wrong is not relative. It is written in stone. It doesn’t change, move, or soften. When the Moral Law is violated, the sinner becomes an anvil for eternal justice. Time will show that to be true.

The political commentators called the politician “ethically challenged.” That’s modern vernacular for saying that they thought he was a criminal. The only way to prove that is to try him by civil law.

The same applies to you and me. We are extremely ethically challenged. If found guilty on Judgment Day we will go away for more than a long time. It will be for eternity. But the Judge is rich in mercy, and He kindly offers us a reprieve in the Gospel. Read about it in the New Testament. Do it today. You may not have tomorrow.

An investigator was asked to listen to the testimony of four eye witnesses to a bank robbery. He found that three of the witnesses said that there were only two bank robbers, while the fourth disagreed. He adamantly maintained that there were three.

Did the investigator therefore conclude that the bank robbery didn’t take place? Of course not. He began to think deeply as to how the testimonies could harmonize, and rightly came to the conclusion that one of the bank employees had been an accomplice to the robbery.

If, for some reason, the investigator had the preconceived notion that all the witnesses were liars, he wouldn’t be an “investigator.” If he is seeking the truth, he must set aside all personal prejudice and attempt (within the bounds of reason) to harmonize his eyewitness testimonies.

If anyone wants to investigate the “contradictions” of the testimony of the gospels, he must put aside preconceived notions—all personal prejudice, and humbly seek the truth. For those who do so, it doesn’t take long to see their perfect harmony.

I thank God for fear. It keeps me from harm. Fear stops me going near the edge of a thousand-foot cliff. It keeps me away from poisonous spiders and snakes. It tells me to put on a seat belt. Fear stops me from taking risks when I’m on the top of a ladder and can’t reach something.

Fear has a bedfellow—it is called “common sense.” Common sense stops me from going near the edge of a thousand-foot cliff, keeps me from poisonous spiders and snakes. Common sense tells me to put on a seat belt. The two, fear and common sense, go hand in hand. That sort of fear is good.

There is also a fear that is bad. The Bible says that it has “torment.” That’s not the fear to which I am referring.

Contrary to what many may think, I am not a “Hell-fire preacher.” I believe that Hell is a real place and I therefore continually warn of its reality, but I don’t think that people should become Christians because of a fear of Hell. Rather, they should come to Christ out of a fear of the God that can cast them into Hell:

So what’s the difference between fearing Hell and fearing God? The two are separated by the Moral Law. It is the Law (the Ten Commandments) that shows me that God is perfect and holy. The Law also shows me that I am not. It reveals that lust is adultery in the sight of God and that hatred is murder. It brings a knowledge of my depravity.

The Law shows me that I justly deserve Hell. It convinces me that I will be without excuse on the Day of Judgment. That’s why the Bible warns that it is “a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God.” Those who fall into His holy hands will only be those who deliberately stepped off of the high cliffs of sin.

It’s only when I realize that I deserve Hell that I can truly appreciate the love and mercy of God in providing a Savior. Through trust in Jesus I still fear God, but I no longer fear Judgment Day because my sins have been forgiven. This is the meaning of “Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17).

In December of 2008, a report which studied thirty thousand high school students found that 30 percent of students admitted
to stealing from a store within the past year, a 2 percent rise from 2006. More than one-third of boys (35 percent) said they had stolen goods, compared to 26 percent of girls. An overwhelming majority, 83 percent of public school and private religious school students, admitted to lying to their parents about something significant, compared to 78 percent for those attending independent non-religious schools. “Despite these high levels of dishonesty, these same kids have a high self-image when it comes to ethics,” the study reported. Some 93 percent of students indicated satisfaction with their own character and ethics, with 77 percent saying that “when it comes to doing what is right, I am better than most people I know.”

These are violations of God’s Law—lying, stealing, and dishonoring of parents. It’s significant that the religious schools had higher rates of lawlessness and that self-righteousness was rampant. While experts and philosophers suggest a multitude of reasons as to why this is happening, it traces itself back to a lack of the fear of God. Their concept of God doesn’t include retribution for transgression of His Law. Idolatry is probably the hardest to detect, but it is undoubtedly the worst of sins, because of the door it opens.

It’s not a matter of solving
all
the questions of his theory. It’s only one of a million cans of worms he opened. When you eliminate a creator, you are stuck with the ramifications. We have male and female throughout creation. Darwin and every believer in evolution believes that male and female evolved. There was a time when there was no male and no female, and then over millions of years, they came about through the process of evolution to a point of having the ability to reproduce. You don’t know how they reproduced before that point, but you are stuck with the fact that before there were both sexes the only way they could carry on their species, was to be asexual. That’s unless you say that “in the beginning there was male and female,” and that cuts too close to the Genesis bone for an atheist.

Charles Robert Darwin went to meet his maker on April 19, 1882, in Downe, England. Upon his death, Darwin’s family arranged for him to be buried in St. Mary’s churchyard in the village of Downe. However, William Spottiswoode, the president of the Royal Society, wrote to the dean of Westminster Abbey requesting that Darwin be buried in its prestigious cemetery. Darwin once wrote: “I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton.”

It’s interesting that Darwin spoke of the mind of Newton. Here is what Newton said about God: