Welcome to answers to the big questions. I'm your host, Allen Sonter, and I'm glad you could join me. In the last episode, I talked about whether one religion is better than another.
Some suggestions were made to help us decide the answer to this question, though of course, much more could be said about the issue in my Answers to the Big Questions. In this series, only a brief outline of the subjects is possible, but I invite you to contact me at three ABN if you have further questions. Today's question is one which most of us have asked at one time or another.
While we've considered some aspect of this question in previous episodes in this series, today we'll attempt to give an answer that deals specifically with the question. There are two parts to the question, so let's start with the first part where did we come from? Nobody alive today has firsthand experience of the beginnings of the human race. We can only learn from the sources that claim to know the answer.
There are two main sources to which people go to look for answers to such questions science and religion. When we ask science where we came from, we really find no answers because science depends on observation and interpretation. As noted above, no scientist alive has ever observed the beginning of the human race.
So the best a scientist can do is to observe so called evidence for possible beginnings of human life and other forms of life as well, and interpret this evidence using principles of interpretation developed by observing the world around us. Most scientists believe that there is no God, so they set about looking for evidence they can interpret as indicating that life began without the intervention of God. The most common belief by modern scientists is that man evolved from lower forms of life and that these forms of life evolved from still earlier forms until we go right back to the beginning, when life arose spontaneously from nonliving matter in some kind of primordial soup.
Scientists who accept this theory then have to come up with evidence to support their ideas. The theory I have briefly described is called the Theory of Evolution, and it was championed by Charles Darwin from about the 1840s. He worked out his theory after observing that some birds in the Galapagos Islands had different shaped beaks from others, and he believed that the different beaks had evolved to enable the birds to cope with different environmental factors experienced by the birds over time.
Darwin knew nothing of the highly complex cellular structure of living things or of the information contained in DNA which enables living organisms to replicate themselves. Had he known about such things, he would probably never have launched the theory of evolution. But because he knew nothing of modern biological science, he taught his theory, which at the time was thought to be possibly plausible because his ideas provided a way of explaining the origins of life without needing a creator God.
Many in the scientific world accepted them gladly, and they rapidly spread throughout the scientific community. Once these ideas had taken hold, there were many scientists who would be ready to defend them against anyone who suggested that God was the Creator. It appeared that there were only two options either God created life, or life evolved without God.
It's my belief that theory of evolution would never have taken hold if scientists in Darwin's time had known. What we now know of biological science as the theory is totally untenable. Given what we now know, it's simply not possible for more complex forms of life to develop from simpler forms, because the more complex forms require more information in the DNA and the more information requires intelligence.
And without an intelligent God, there's no source of intelligence from which the needed information can come. But once science had accepted Darwin's theory, the efforts of scientists were focused on finding evidence to support the theory. So when our understanding of DNA and other aspects of genetics was presented to evolutionists, they tried desperately to prove that their theory was correct, despite the evidence against it arising from genetics.
So evolution still has millions of followers who are intent on defending their theory against any evidence creationists may present. To the contrary, almost every law of biology, chemistry and physics would have to be broken if evolution was true. Take just one example the law of entropy, also known as the Second Law of thermodynamics.
It states that as one goes forward in time, the net entropy that's the degree of disorder of any isolated and closed system will always increase, or at least stay the same. Entropy is simply a measure of disorder and affects all aspects of our daily lives. Put simply, the law of entropy says that everything tends to break down or fall to pieces unless it is maintained by the input of someone's effort.
But according to evolution, over vast periods of time, living things became more complex and order increased. That is simply not possible according to this law. On the other hand, those who believe that God created everything in the universe can point to a great deal of evidence that indicates the activity of a Creator in the origins of life.
The complex designs of living things, the ability of living organisms to reproduce themselves, and the evidence of fossils and geology for a comparatively recent creation and a catastrophic worldwide flood all lead the open minded observer to conclude that living organisms, including human beings, were designed and created by an intelligent being that we choose to call God. We can see that science has no satisfactory answer to the question, where did we come from? So let's look to religion for an answer. After all, religion is the source of our ideas about things we cannot understand by observing the world around us.
When we study various religions, we see that each religion has its own answer to this question, ranging from the dreamtime stories of the Australian Aborigines to the tribal stories of people in many cultures, and to the beliefs of Hindus, Buddhists and others. Then there is the teachings of the Bible, which tell us in the first two chapters of the book of Genesis just how humans were created by God. In the first episode of this series, we gave evidence for believing that the Bible is God's message to us.
So here we will focus on what the Bible says about where we came from. In Genesis one, verses 26 to 29, we read the account of the creation of humans, which reads as follows then God said, Let us make human beings in our image to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.
So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God, he created them. Male and female, he created them.
Then God blessed them and said, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground. Then God said, Look, I have given you every seed bearing plant throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food.
And I have given every green plant as food for all the wild animals, the birds in the sky and the small animals that scurry along the ground. Everything that has life. And that is what happened.
This account is straightforward and tells us that God made humans and gave them a plantbased diet also tells us that God gave the animals a plantbased diet. Then in the second chapter of Genesis, in verses 718 21 and 22, we read how God made man and woman. Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground.
He breathed the breath of life into the man's nostrils, and the man became a living person. Then the Lord God said, it's not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.
So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While the man slept, the Lord took out one of the man's ribs and closed up the opening. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib and brought her to the man.
These verses continue telling us that this is why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one, which it tells us in verse 24. It's interesting to learn that God's account of the beginning of human life includes an explanation of how the two sexes began and of the beginning of the marriage relationship, which, of course, provides for humans to reproduce themselves. The theory of evolution has no plausible explanation for the continuation of the race.
So we can answer the question where did we come from? Quite simply, we were created by God when he made life on the earth. I believe this happened about 6000 years ago, based on the chronology of the Bible. Now let's look at the second question where are we going? In episode four of this series, we looked at the question what is death? And on the face of it, it looks quite simple.
We will all eventually die, go to sleep to await the resurrection. If we have accepted the salvation Jesus offers us, we will be brought back to life at the first resurrection, when Jesus returns. Or if we have rejected the salvation Jesus offers, we will sleep till the second resurrection, when we will be brought back to life to face the judgment for all our rebellion against God.
But what happens then? This is where the difference between those who have accepted Christ and the salvation he offers and those who have chosen to live for themselves becomes very clear. In episode six of the series, we told something of the future of these two groups. But we need here to say something about what causes us to be in one group or the other.
The difference is a matter of our choice, who we choose to worship. Jesus offers us a gift, salvation and eternal life if we worship him. But not all accept this free gift.
If we live our lives to bring the greatest joy to the most people, we will choose to allow Jesus to control our lives and all that we do. This means living unselfishly as Christ lived. As the Bible writer the apostle Paul put it in his letter to the church at Galatia in chapter two and verse 20 my old self has been crucified with Christ.
It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. It's only if we really love Jesus that we will be happy to worship him and have him in control of our lives.
It is this idea that Christ lives in the one who accepts his free gift of salvation that makes the life of the Christian so different from that of the person who wants to live for himself or herself. Someone who chooses to live for selfish pleasure or gain will not be happy to have Christ in control of the life. So such a person will not accept the salvation offered because although it costs no money, it means giving Christ control of our lives.
So the two ways to live are very different, and the final end of each is also very different. The difference is in who we worship. For the person who is happy to worship Christ and have him in control of his or her life, the end is the first resurrection at Christ's second coming and a place in the new earth that Christ will set up on this earth.
After sin has been completely eliminated, that person will live forever in that wonderful world where everyone worships God and loves Christ and one another. For the person who chooses to worship the rebel Satan and live for self. The end is the second resurrection after the end of the thousand years, the millennium during which time God and his people are in heaven judging those who have rejected Christ while Satan and his angels are restricted to this desolate earth with no one to tempt.
Then when those who have lived for self and chosen to worship Satan are brought back to life in the second resurrection, they join Satan and his angels in an attempt to take the holy city which comes down from heaven with Christ and his people. Their attempt to take the city ends when God destroys both Satan and his followers in a lake of fire which destroys all sin and sinners and cleanses the earth of all the effects of sin. God then makes the whole earth new and sets up his government here on this earth.
All of this is described in chapters 20 and 21 in the Book of Revelation in the Bible. So our options are live forever, loving and worshipping God, or worship Satan and die in the lake of fire which is called the second death from which there is no resurrection. My listening friend, please accept the joy of having Christ live in your heart.
His presence gives meaning to life and fills your life with joy and love. Living for self leads to sorrow and death. Please choose life.
You've been listening to answers to the big questions. I'm Allen Sonter and I hope you can join me again next time .
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Master Designer, I know you are. I see all your work when I look at I look around me through nature I see diner. How much you care for me kinder please look.
In my heart. And show me the way I can make I want to give you the best I can be. Only and shape me with your holy hand Live out within your take me servant.
Who lives just for Thee this humbly I follow the strokes of your hand. For me, there's a world that is waiting for someone who care. In my heart I allow you to be.
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And I'm sure that he'd grant it again I want to stroll over heaven with you some glad day when all our troubles and heartaches are vanished away then we'll enjoy the beauty where all things are new I want to stroll over heaven with you you so many places of beauty we long to see below the time and treasures have kept us from making plans, as you know but come the morning of the rapture together we'll stand anew and I'll stroll over heaven with you I want to stroll over heaven with you some glad day when all our troubles and heartaches are vanished away then we'll enjoy the beauty where all things are new I want to stroll over heaven with you I want to stroll over heaven with you choose you this day to give God your heart he's calling you now to make a fresh start? Inviting you in? Accept now his love just give him your heart. Give him your heart. Give him your height.
Just give him your height. Give him your height. Give him your heart.
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