Last year I discovered Answers in Genesis. They erased any lingering beliefs in theistic evolution from my head. They did so in ways I never expected. Never before had I thought about dinosaur extinction millions of years ago as a product of evolution, just monkeys to men ideas. Never before had I realized that belief in aliens stemmed from evolution.
Last week, exactly a week ago, I went to their museum, blown away once again. Dad and I bought their whole gift shop, pretty much. At least dad did; I'm po'. I got these six talks from Ken Ham on video and have been watching them. Last night I watched "Why Won't They Listen?" It blew me away even further.
Ken, always emphasizing the importance of Creation Evangelism explained how the Gospel with Jesus and the cross makes more sense when we talk about creation first. Now, I definitely agree that Creation and any Old Testament passage is very important, but I'm also trained to not finish church unless I've talked about the death and resurrection.
Then Ken Ham went into expositions of two Acts passages. The first is Acts 2, the day of Pentecost, Peter preached an amazing message all about Jesus, the Messiah, who they crucified but who rose from the dead. He converted 300 people that day. The Jews knew their Scripture backward and forwards. They knew about Creation, Adam and Eve, the fall of man, the flood, Cain and Abel, and the Tower of Babel. Now that Peter explained the cross that at first confused them, but now they understood, they could accept Christ.
In Acts 17, Paul preached to Greeks. At first he started with just the cross and resurrection. It was foolishness to them. They just didn't understand the need for a savior to die for them. They already had millions of gods. They could add Jesus to them; the more the merrier. So Paul had to define God for them, define sin, define God's wrath, before he could define God's salvation. He had to tell them the bad news, before the could tell them the good news. So he started with their "Unknown God" and told them that he created the universe in 6 days, that we sinned and brought suffering on the earth, thus earning God's wrath, and it's only by his grace that he even keeps us alive, much less saves us. That's why he came in the form of Jesus to die the punishment we deserved on the cross and then defeated death by rising from the grave so that we too can live after we die. Later on, some still made fun of him, but some wanted to hear more, and some even gave their lives to Jesus.
One guy in Wales even shocked Ken Ham by saying that Ken was radical because he was a Christian with answers. The audience laughed but that's really a tragedy today. Christians don't have answers because they forgot their foundation and let evolutionists steal the first book of their Bible and make it mythology. Believe it or not, everything we believe has a foundation in the first 11 chapters of Genesis. Jesus created the earth. We first meet God in Genesis 1. Jesus came to die for our sins that we don't know about unless we read Genesis 3. In fact, we don't know how bad sin is until we read about brother murdering brother in Genesis 4, God flooding the earth in Genesis 6-8, and people still rebelling even after God saved them in Genesis 11. We don't realize that sinful humans can't approach God without blood, which is why Adam and Eve now wore garments of skin and why God wouldn't accept Cain's offering, because it wasn't blood. We don't realize that only a perfect sacrifice could make us permanently approachable to God and that's why only God could have died on that cross and saved us.
Which brings me to the first part of my title: Theodicy. Why does a good God allow sin? Why do I bring this up? Because an article by John Knight on Desiring God. http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/hurting-people-need-to-know-the-character-of-god
It answers about God's sovereignty over sin, disabled people, earthquakes, and suffering. Good new testament knowledge about a loving God who allowed suffering so that he could send Christ to save us and hope for a better world. But not one remark about Genesis 3 which says we basically brought all this on ourselves. Of course, I do agree that hurting people don't need to be told it's their fault, even if it is true. But all the horrors that you see all go back to Adam and Eve rebelling against God. And we all were born after that, so we carry on that sinful DNA, and the earth groans along with it.
Now, they could have taken John MacArthur's approach and said that God did ordain for sin to happen because he always planned on sending Christ to save us through a bloody sacrifice on the cross. We'll never know how wonderful a Savior and God we have unless we have something to be saved from. Everything God does is for his glory. He didn't do that. He just skipped over the sin story, getting us off the hook.
Maybe I should read the article again. It actually is pretty good. It's a shame that if articles get mentioned on my blog, they will more than likely be something I either disagree with or what doesn't settle quite right with me. I am picky like that. But Ken's video taught me that after I'm done with VBS in two weeks that I'm going to go over the first four Cs of history with the kids before I start a semester studying Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.
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