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Two
Worldviews in Conflict
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Our Christian leaders who would have us accept evolution, or the equally unbiblical ‘long ages’ story, are really also telling us that God didn’t quite get the order of creation right in Genesis either.
As a matter of fact, if those leaders are right, God got the whole thing backwards. He didn’t just miss one point, He messed up on every point.
When God says He created the earth before the sun, birds before reptiles, whales before land animals, man before death, and that He destroyed the whole earth with a flood, did He really mean what He said or are we dependent on the wisdom of Christian leaders who trust the word of men (scientists/teachers) to tell us what God really meant?
Once we take that first step of rationalizing/manipulating God’s Word, where do we stop?
Since God is perfect, as He states in His Word, He knows exactly how He created the earth and He is capable of communicating that to us. If we cannot trust God to tell us how He created the world, or if He cannot tell us in such a way that we will understand, how can we trust Him to communicate other important principles?
If God said one should labor for six days (Exodus 20:9–11), does that mean one should work for billions of years? Yet in the very same passage He says He made everything in six days, with evening and morning, just as ordinary days have. If God didn’t get that right, what else can we trust? Clearly, in Exodus 20:11, God says that He created the universe and all that is in it in six days. Then, in verse 13, God says, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ The Hebrew word ratsach means murder, not killing in general. Murder is intentionally taking an innocent human life, and so covers abortion, suicide, infanticide and so-called ‘mercy killing’.
If the six days of Exodus 20 can be stretched into billions of years, then the precedent has been set to allow the moral absolutes of the Bible to be stretched in any direction man desires.
For instance, one could reason that since God is merciful, then assisting a person to kill themselves to end unbearable pain could be claimed not to be murder, but fulfilling God’s command to be merciful. Not to assist such a person could be argued to be very uncaring (sin). In this case, ‘Dr Death’ (the well-known suicide facilitator, Jack Kevorkian) would be a godly man.
Pro-abortionists could also justify their claim that abortion is acceptable because the child is unwanted, and so the mother is saving the child from the future pain of rejection.
Infanticide would also be perfectly acceptable if the child caused the parents too much pain. Spouses can cause each other unbearable pain, as can judges and police officers who limit people’s freedom. After all, we are just trying to eliminate pain and be merciful. So the next step might be to eliminate anyone who gets in one’s way. For example, the Jewish people caused Hitler pain because they were not politically correct.
This progression is not fiction. Other societies have already carried it out (Russia, China, Rwanda, etc.). Our Western society has already traveled a long way down this road. The major roadblock slowing this progress in America is the fact that it was founded on biblical absolutes, which still linger in the back of most people’s thinking.
Once you begin rationalizing away the literal meaning of God’s Word, the options are limitless. If we say the Bible is not ‘scientific’, and that it deals only with ‘why’ and not ‘how’ God did things, can we be sure Christ was born of a virgin? Or that He literally rose from the dead? After all, these are also ‘scientifically impossible’ events.
If we can’t trust any of these crucial matters in Genesis, how can we trust God to get it right about salvation?
But, in fact, the God of the Bible is very articulate and precise. He says exactly what He means and means exactly what He says. Throughout the Bible, God is very specific. He tells us exactly what to do to be saved. He told Israel exactly what they needed to do to receive His blessings. He told Moses exactly how to build the tabernacle. He told Noah exactly how to build the Ark. And in Genesis 1, He tells us exactly what He means as well. As a society or as individuals, we ignore or modify God’s Word at our peril.
Dan Manthei, B.S. is on the Board of both Answers in Genesis (USA) and Institute for Creation Research. Dan works in his own family business. His personal mission—to direct as much energy as possible to fulfilling the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20).