Jesus: The Solution for Suffering Evil

Jesus' resurrection was a foreshadow of the things to come. In His resurrection we not only see Him restored to His body but to a glorified state. His resurrected body can't die, get sick or be corrupted in any way. Jesus' resurrection was a glimpse of the world to come. It is clear and even tangible evidence of the fulfilment of God's good purpose that He is bringing about. The blind will see, the paraplegic will walk, the mentally handicapped will be able to think clearly. No more pain, natural disasters, or suffering. He alone is the solution to evil. Evil is only the problem for those who refuse Him.

Visit http://www.bhpublishinggroup.com/apologeticsbible/Evil/Curriculum.htm

Genetic Information

Carl Sagan showed, using straightforward calculations, why one cell’s worth of genetic information approximates 4,000 books of printed information. Each of Sagan’s 4,000 books had 500 pages with 300 words per page. [See Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden (New York: Random House, 1977), p. 25.]

Each book would have a volume of about 50 cubic inches. An adult human’s body contains about 1014 cells. About 800 cubic miles have been eroded from the Grand Canyon. Therefore, we can say that if every cell in one person’s body were reduced to 4,000 books, they would fill the Grand Canyon 98 times.





The Moon is 240,000 miles from Earth. If the DNA in a human cell were stretched out and connected, it would be more than 7 feet long. If all the DNA in one person’s body were placed end-to-end, it would extend to the Moon 552,000 times.





The DNA in a human cell weighs 6.4 × 10-12 grams. [See Monroe W. Strickberger, Genetics, 2nd edition (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1976), p. 54.] Probably less than 50 billion people have lived on earth. If so, one copy of the DNA of every human who ever lived—enough to define the physical characteristics of all those people in microscopic detail—would weigh only


6.4 × 10-12 × 50 × 109 = 0.32 grams


This is less than the weight of one aspirin.

“... there is enough information capacity in a single human cell to store the Encyclopaedia Britannica, all 30 volumes of it, three or four times over. ... There is enough storage capacity in the DNA of a single lily seed or a single salamander sperm to store the Encyclopaedia Britannica 60 times over. Some species of the unjustly called ‘primitive’ amoebas have as much information in their DNA as 1,000 Encyclopaedia Britannicas.”

Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, pp. 116–117.

“Biochemical systems are exceedingly complex, so much so that the chance of their being formed through random shufflings of simple organic molecules is exceedingly minute, to a point indeed where it is insensibly different from zero.”

Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood, 8th Edition (2008), p. 3.

“No matter how large the environment one considers, life cannot have had a random beginning. Troops of monkeys thundering away at random on typewriters could not produce the works of Shakespeare, for the practical reason that the whole observable universe is not large enough to contain the necessary monkey hordes, the necessary typewriters, and certainly the waste paper baskets required for the deposition of wrong attempts. The same is true for living material.”

Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, p. 148.

Reference: creationscience.com

Defending the Faith

InTouch Magazine, November 2009 Issue, Page 35

Read | 1 Peter 3:13-16

Knowing God's Word and understanding what we believe are essential for growth in Christ and protection form deception. However, these alone aren't the final goal. We are not left on earth merely to know for ourselves what God has said but rather to share His good news with others. In other words, we're to be "ready to make a defence to everyone who asks [us] to give an account for the hope that is in [us]" (1 Peter 3:15).

The word "defence" means an answer one gives for himself. Believers are to be ready and able to give an account or explanation of their motives and reasons for holding onto their hope in Christ. Because of busy lifestyles, many Christians have never taken the time to really think through their views and beliefs. When someone challenges them, they feel a sense of panic because they're totally unprepared.

Giving account for our faith must be accompanied by a gentle and respectful delivery. Aggressively dumping a load of truth on a questioning person rarely leads him to the Lord, but a gentle answer opens hearts as well as ears.

And remember, all that we profess must be backed up with a life of integrity. If we're living a hypocritical lifestyle, not only will our testimony be worthless, but "Christ will be put to shame" (v. 16).

Early Light | These verses were not written to scholars; they were intended for ordinary people with jobs and families. The task isn't impossible, yet it requires time spent reading and studying God's Word. As you set Christ apart as the Lord of your heart, time with Him will become a joy and not a sacrifice.

Know What You Believe

InTouch Magazine, November 2009 Issue, Page 35

Read | 2 Timothy 1:12-14

All people have a belief system, whether they realize it or not. Even those who claim there is no God have faith that He does not exist. What we believe affects every area of our lives and shapes every decision we make, yet few or us take the time to really think about what we accept as true.
All belief systems have a foundation. Some people base their convictions on what fits their lifestyle, reasoning, and desires. However, Jesus calls His followers to adapt life to their faith in Him and the authority of His Word.
Anytime we add other philosophies or ideas to Scripture or pick and choose which parts of the Bible to believe, we create our own version of faith based on personal reasoning. God's Word is the only true and reliable foundation for belief, because it contains the recorded thoughts of an eternal, all-knowing God. All other concepts must be measured against it to determine their validity.
Knowing what the Bible says is essential for developing a sound system of beliefs founded on the truth and wisdom of God. This world will offer you a variety of philosophies which sound good but are laced with lies. A faith anchored in the Scriptures is your protection against deception.

Early Light | Each time you face a problem or decision, search for the answer in Scripture. Begin your day by reading the Word and asking God to help you understand what He is saying. He loves communicating with you, and as you spend time with Him, He'll open your mind to know His thoughts.

"I Could Never Believe in a Vicious, Violent God!"

"God suffered in Christ. He knows what it is like to experience pain."

Allister McGrath

Some atheists picture God as a man with a white beard standing in the clouds throwing down lightening bolts like Zeus and delighting at watching people burn forever in hell. God doesn't want us to be scared into repenting. In other words, God does not want to kill you for His glory. He does not find it delightful nor do the angels in heaven sing and praise the Lord every time a sinner goes to hell.

Isaiah 27:4, 5

Fury is not in Me.
Who would set briers and thorns
Against Me in battle?
I would go through them,
I would burn them together.
Or let him take hold of My strength,
That he may make peace with Me;
And he shall make peace with Me.

He doesn't want us to repent because of His fury or wrath. But He wants us to repent because of His kindness. The angels in heaven rejoice when a sinner repents. Ezekiel said, "God does not delight in the destruction of the wicked."

"God has no pleasure in your death; He is not seeking to magnify Himself by the destruction of so a paltry of foe; He could devour you in a moment; He could burn you up like stubble; and you mistake it if you think that is renown on so poor a field of contest is renown that He is at all aspiring after. This is not what He wants: He would rather something else. Be assured, He would rather you were to turn, and to live, and to come into His vineyard, and to submit to the regenerating power of His spiritual husbandry, and be changed from the nature of an accursed plant to a tree of righteousness. By your death He could magnify the dignity of His Godhead; But He does not want to magnify Himself over to men in this way; He has no ambition whatever after the renown of such a victory, over such weak and insignificant enemies."

Thomas Chalmers

Ephesians 2:1-7

And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together min the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

1 John 4:9-10

In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Revelation 21:4

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.

Facing Terminal Illness

There is growing speculation on humanity's ultimate destiny—death and what comes after it, if anything. After this 'Dawkin's Delusion' comes to an end, which I would say is soon, a consideration to religion will eventually be attractive because people will come to terms that science can't fill in all the answers to life's biggest questions, especially about morality. Religion gives one meaning and identity, whereas, atheism says that you are only a product of mere chance. But that's not how the universe works. We live in a cause-and-effect universe. God created everything in the universe and He created man in His image. Initially, God is infinite, He always has been and always will be—God causes Himself to exist—even if that's hard to believe.

The 9/11 tragedy created the impression that religion has a potency to violence, thus making it all the more important for a Christian apologist to address this issue. The main atheist challenges seem to be the following, according to academic debates and discussions with atheists:

1. Christianity, like all other religions, leads to violence.
2. God is just an invention designed to console losers.
3. Christian faith is a leap in the dark without any reliable basis.
4. The natural sciences have disproved God.

Responses:

1. In the nineteenth century, atheism argued that it abolished violence and tyranny by getting rid of what ultimately cause it: faith in God. Religion can in doubt lead people to do some very bad things. But that is not the real issue. Atheisms argument is: get rid of religion and the world would be safer and kinder. As the popular euphoria at the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 made clear: atheist states end up oppressing people. Some of the greatest atrocities of the twentieth century were committed by regimes that espoused atheism, often with a fanaticism that some naive Western atheists seem to think is reserved only for religious people. The real issue is extremism, whether religious, antireligious, or political. The point is simple. All ideals, whether divine, transcendent, human, or invented, are capable of being abused. That's just the way human nature is. And that happens to religion, as well.
2. This argument has its roots in the works of the left-wing German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach, who was argued that the idea of God arises understandably, but mistakenly, from human experience. Religion in general is simply the projection of human nature unto an illusory transcendent plane. Karl Marx argued that belief in God arose from sociological factors, and Sigmund Freud argued that it arose from psychological pressures. Feuerbach's critique is just as effective a criticism of atheism. On the basis of Feuerbach's analysis, it is not simply Christianity but also atheism that can be regarded as a projection of human hopes. Might not his atheism itself be a wish fulfillment? There is a fatal error in Feuerbach's analysis. It is certainly true that nothing actually exists because I wish it to. But does this mean that because I want something to be true, it cannot be? Let me explain. Imagine the man who longs for a drink of water on a long, hot, dusty day. Does water not exist because he wants some? Hardly!
3. The prominent atheist Richard Dawkins has famously argued that faith is a "process of non-thinking." His analogy is the belief in the existence of God, the Tooth Fairy, and Santa Claus as being in the same category. Everyone knows that people do not regard belief in God as belonging to the same category as these childish beliefs. Faith in God, Dawkins argues, is like believing in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. When you grow up, you grow out of it. This is amateurish and unconvincing. I stopped believing in those things when I was a child. I discovered God when I was nineteen! A large number of people come to believe in God in later life.
4. As the late Stephen Jay Gould, American evolutionary biologist pointed out, "Science simply cannot [by its legitimate methods] adjudicate the issue of God's possible superintendence of nature. We neither affirm nor deny it; we simply can't comment on it as scientists." If the God question is to be settled, it must be settled on other grounds. It is this: the sciences are, by their very nature, incapable of answering big-picture questions. As philosopher Gilbert Harman pointed out some years ago, the sciences are not capable of the kind of proof these questions demand. The alleged certainty of scientific atheism is simply an illusion that cannot be defended on scientific grounds. They want to argue that the sciences disprove God. And yet they find themselves unable to justify this by argument, by experiment, or even by an appeal to the scientific community as a whole. It reminds us that atheism itself is a belief system, a set of ideas that cannot actually be proved.

References: Beyond Opinion by Ravi Zacharias; Challenges from Atheism, The New King James Version of the Holy Bible.

Greg Koukl - What About Those Who've Never Heard?

Reference: YouTube; STRvideos

Quote of the Month

People are important to the Lord, and if they are important to Him, they should be important to you and me.

It is often said that you may be the only Bible some people ever read; your words, your manner and your actions speak volumes. That’s what it means to be an ambassador (2 Corinthians 5:20).

- Greg Koukl