Jesus did not come to make bad people good

Jesus did not come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people alive. I can’t remember which pastor said this, but it has a catchy ring about it that’s easy to remember. We are not just bad people…we are dead in our sins.

There is a common teaching in Sunday schools and churches that instead of teaching people how to know the Giver of life better, they try to teach people how to be good. It’s not necessarily a bad idea to share God’s expectations for righteousness, but we can never get to know God by being good enough. But by knowing Almighty God, we will be compelled to righteousness.

Ephesians 2:1-5

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live when you followed the way of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved.

Dead Kids Make the President Mad

And rightly so! Death is so sad. Unfortunately, the president is only mad about certain dead children. Unfortunately, he’s not so concerned with the hundreds of children, who are killed everyday in abortion.

Death (physical death, and separation from the Creator) is a result of sin as mentioned in Genesis 3. Praise God that Jesus came to re-open the way to life.

What a glorious passage is I Corinthians 15:20-26. One day kids won’t die. Abortion will end one way or another. “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” – John 3:16-17

“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks from the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:13-14

Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” – John 11:25-26

Evidence for Evolution

I recently found this blog and was reading a few of the previous articles about creation/evolution. It struck me as odd that this Christian blog would remark on the reasonableness of evolution and then essentially says, “Well, even though this evidence confirms atheism, I’m still gonna’ be a Christian.”

For one, the evidence (as will be shown below) was impotent in proving evolution, but most importantly, the writer did not understand the importance of our starting point being revelation from God . If God and his revelation are not the starting point from which we interpret all evidence, then there is no precondition for intelligibility. We can only know things if the Creator revealed himself as a self-authenticating authority.

We must first start with the presupposition that God exists, and to know anything for certain, he must have revealed himself. Since he revealed himself as the Creator in his Word, we can know some things (not everything as he has not revealed everything). And since his revealed word also has definite things to say about the history of the universe and mankind, we can trust those things.

The evolutionary worldview differs sharply from what has been revealed in God’s Word, so we know that they are not true, and all evidence will show this. For a more complete rebuttal of the Grand Theory of Evolution, you can check out my Creation Manifesto. But below answers, what the writer of the Isaiah53 blog says is the emperor’s clothes best evidence for evolution:

  1. DNA – The universal common genetic code is strong evidence for a single designer. Information does not coalesce by natural processes. Specified complexity requires a designer. As a database administrator, I understand the critical nature of coded information being correct, and I reject the idea that the hard work I put in to formulate thousands of lines of code could be thrown together by natural forces like gravity, erosion, or combustion. As DNA is far more complex than the most sophisticated computer code, it is beyond logic to expect genetic code to have been formulated or improved by natural processes absent a designer. As far as all genetic code being similar, it only makes sense that the code be very similar but not exactly the same since all organisms were intended to be nourished by the same food source: plants. Plants, while classified as “alive” today are really just self-replicating food sources. Genesis 1:29-30. Since all genetic code is similar, it can be nourished by the same food source. If genetic code were wildly different, the only thing that humans would be able to eat for nourishment would be ourselves.
  2. Fossils – The fossil record shows variation within the same families of animals, but any theoretical transition between kinds of animals is missing. The fossil record however, is a strong indication that the Bible is true. In Genesis 7, God brings a catastrophic worldwide flood upon the surface of the earth that killed every living thing that was not on the ark. So Christians would expect to find billions of dead things buried in water-sorted rock layers. That is exactly what is found! So, why have human remains not been found with dinosaur remains? Would you live in the vicinity of dinosaurs? Probably not. Neither did pre-flood humans. They are buried in different layers, not because they lived at different times, but because they lived in different places. As far as the existence of fossils goes, it is an insurmountable problem for evolutionists to explain. Why are the rock layers perfectly flat with no erosion markers between the layers? Surely after each layer is exposed for thousands/millions of years there would be erosion between the layers. Why is there no bioturbation (root/worm-path fossils) in the layers? Why are the layers sorted by soil type? After thousands/millions of years soil types would be mixed and jumbled. Why are there fossils across multiple layers of rock? Did these dead animals/plants/trees lay exposed for millions of years while it was waiting to be buried by multiple layers of rock? To get fossilized material at all, an organism has to be buried quickly to avoid scavenging and decomposition, so the existence of fossils is actually unexpected from an evolutionary worldview that relies on slow, destructive processes. Fossils and the geologic layers are actually strong evidence for a catastrophic worldwide flood.
  3. Genetic Commonalities – This is pretty-well covered in item 1. But to further show that this is a false indication of evolution, the most recent research of DNA is showing that the genetic code is orders of magnitude more complex than originally thought. Junk DNA has been shown to be a false prediction of evolution as the entire DNA strand is now proving to be useful for the organism…exactly as one would expect if an omnipotent Creator designed everything from the beginning. For anyone interested in doing more research on this issue, check part one of this six part issue. A great quote from the article says, “If ENCODE is right, then Evolution is wrong.” Hint: ENCODE is right.
  4. Common Traits in Embryos – This line of reasoning was disproven over 100 years ago. Let me say that again, so it sinks in: Common traits of embryos was disproven over ONE HUNDRED years ago!!!! This was based on the fraudulent drawings made by Haeckel in the 1800s and recognized for the lie that they were within years of his submission. It’s absolutely irresponsible for this line of reasoning to be used as evidence for evolution. Gill slits??? Please!
  5. Bacterial Resistance to Antibiotics – This has nothing to do with microbes to microbiologists evolution. As stated, there are a few individuals present in bacterial colonies that are already resistant to antibiotics. So, in the presence of antibiotics, these mutants will thrive and be able to produce more offspring. As is required by evolution, no new information is added…only the gene pool is thinned by antibiotics, which is natural selection in action. Natural selection thins the gene pool; it does not create anything new. People have misunderstood what natural selection means, but it is an expectation that is perfectly in line with a biblical worldview. For more information on antibiotic resistant bacteria, you can check out this article.

So, as you can clearly see, these “evidences” for evolution are completely misunderstood or misrepresented. They are actually strong evidence that the Creator can be trusted in his revealed word. Since God can be trusted about the past, we can put our faith in Him completely for our future!

Where Was Adam’s Garden of Eden?

I love this blog post, since I’ve been asked several times where the Garden of Eden might be. My answer has been a much less detailed version of this same post. Thanks Bible-Science Guy for the detailed answer.

2 Peter 3:5-6 is so true! We cannot know for certain the location of the Garden of Eden because the flood re-arranged the geography of the entire planet.

“But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word and heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.”

God’s Word can be trusted about history, and we can trust God’s Word about our future!

Bible-Science Guy

(4 Minute Read)

According to Mark Twain, the Garden of Eden was in the vicinity of Niagara Falls. In fact Mark Twain first published a version of Extracts from Adam’s Diary (1904) under the title The First Authentic Mention of Niagara Falls in 1893 in Buffalo, NY.

According to Twain’s version of Adam’s Diary, Eve re-named the Garden of Eden Niagara Falls Park.

Early Mormon leaders taught that the Garden of Eden had been situated in Jackson County, Missouri.

These two locations for the Garden of Eden are doubtful. But other locations suggested for Eden by historians and archaeologists are more possible. These include the Arabian peninsula, Iraq, Turkey, Egypt, and Lebanon.

What does the Bible say about the location of Eden?

Where Was the Garden of Eden?

The Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had…

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Apologetic Sermon Illustration #30: Planned Parenthood services and Nazi Volkswagon fallacy

A further argument in this type of discussion would be to ask whether Planned Parenthood does ANY good at all. As Christians, we do not have to accept that PP’s distribution of condoms and kindergarten sex education classes are good.

Thankfully, as Christians we can also share the gospel of grace and God’s ability to forgive any sin. Repentance and forgiveness. GRACE is bigger than sin!

The Domain for Truth

GO TO PART 29

hitler and volkswagen

Point: A defense that some people give to defend Planned Parenthood despite their sin of murdering the pre-born is to point to the “good services” that Planned Parenthood provides.  But is the logic of that kind of counter-argument sound?

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