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Evolution and Big Bang theories are not mere ivory tower abstractions. Their poison infects not only theoretical science, but medicine, politics, human relationships, lifestyle choices, and more. The purpose of this chapter is to briefly mention in quick succession some things that may help encourage you to think biblically; in this case, to help you deeply realize that we live in a designed, manufactured, and God-built universe. And, everything around us, and all that happens to us, happens because God chose to make it happen that way.
After the flood, God raised up new designed and built ecologies around the world to replace what He had destroyed due to human sin. It is still true that God made the earth to be mankind’s home: “For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens (he is God!), who formed the earth and made it (he established it; he did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited!): ‘I am the Lord, and there is no other’” (Isaiah 45:18). Humans are not contaminants on a “sacred” earth.
Speaking of ecosystems, what would you think of a home builder who incorrectly installed the furnace, and when you started to use it, your house would burn down? Or what would you think of a manufacturer who included batteries with the product, but the batteries were the wrong voltage, so they destroyed the product the first time you turned it on? There are people who live in fear that minor changes to our environment could cause a “world-ending” style of disaster. These fears are reasonable under the belief that we accidentally evolved on an earth that accidentally condensed out of a gas cloud billions of years ago. Under that belief, what if we accidentally knocked down that accidentally-set-up house of cards? But God said, “And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease’” (Genesis 8:21–22).
There are those who, for various reasons, think eating meat is somehow wrong or undesirable. But God said, “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything” (Genesis 9:3). Also, various experts are continually giving us ever-changing dietary advice. Now the pendulum seems to have somewhat swung back to recommending whole milk, animal fats such as lard, and other natural products. But we should consider that the same God who made us also made our food. Need we tamper with it so much? Is there something wrong with God’s design of our food? This does not excuse gluttony or a significantly unbalanced diet, nor does it mean that poisonous plants and animals do not exist.
Why is there coal, petroleum, and natural gas in the ground? Did not God put it there, designedly and for the gracious purpose of meeting our needs? Then is it reasonable to expect that there is something wrong with using it? We live in a God-designed and God-built world with God-given resources for our use. After all, if a furnace manufacturer designed a furnace to use natural gas, we would expect the furnace to handle that natural gas safely and heat our house, and not melt the furnace. So likewise, why do we not expect that the same God who designed the earth and put fuels in the ground would not also have designed the earth to safely handle those fuels and not “melt”?
In fact, if you think about it, is it not clear that God graciously put many abundant natural resources in and on the earth to provide for humankind? If there is iron ore in the ground, it is there because God deliberately put it there for us. He also gave us those marvelous things we call trees. From mostly air and water, and a bare handful of earth, God grows up trees for fruit, shade, beauty, and that astonishingly useful and versatile building material, wood. All natural resources are God’s expressions of His kindness, goodness, care, power, and divinity. We ought to be thankful for them and use them to meet human needs, lift people out of poverty, and bring glory to God.
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). Humans have two sexes. That is the way God made us. Likewise, a man will cling to his wife—a woman, not another man—and a woman to a man.
“Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, ‘I have no pleasure in them’” (Ecclesiastes 12:1). Since we are God’s creatures, He owns us and has every right to use us as He pleases, and every right to demand our full obedience in all circumstances. He created all things; He thus has the right to grant or withhold things from us as He pleases in His infinite wisdom. We must prepare spiritually for old age, and the possibility of even severe afflictions. We must not fall into grumbling or discontent when infirmities, afflictions, or other losses come.
“Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?” (Malachi 2:10). “And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place” (Acts 17:26). It appears that, in some special way, God creates each person, individually, in His image. And, whatever differences may appear between one person and another, we are all offspring of Adam and Noah. “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12).
Evolutionary assumptions have led to medical malpractice. For example, in living memory, the tonsils and the appendix were thought to be useless. They both are now understood to have useful functions. Due to these false assumptions, many people have been needlessly deprived of these useful organs. (However, removal is still sometimes needed, especially the appendix; non-surgical treatments for appendicitis are not yet well developed.)
These are just a few examples of how we must consciously, in opposition to the prevailing culture, remember that we live in a designed, created, and manufactured universe in which nothing is left to “chance.” That everything is not at as we would like is due to our own sin and Adam’s sin. “The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies” (Nahum 1:2). “And to Adam he said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, “You shall not eat of it,” cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life’” (Genesis 3:17). The reverse is also true: we are often sinfully discontented with God’s perfectly wise and holy providence. “It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, ‘Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.’ These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires; they are loud-mouthed boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage” (Jude 14–16).
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