Monday, August 18, 2008

Evolution: Indoctrinating Our Children, Part 2

Evolution: Indoctrinating Our Children, Part 2

When I first began writing this series I knew that it was by the leading of the Holy Spirit and all that I was doing was being obedient to His direction. The more I wrote the more understanding I myself was getting in relationship to the message He was providing me however there was still some inner conflict that I was facing. I felt that while I knew I was being obedient was I really following His leading or was I putting too much of myself into the text that I was writing. Over the last couple of days I have been in a discussion with an atheistic Jew who also believes in evolution. When He kept trying to push me into providing proof I insisted that any proof that I would provide he would not accept because it did not fit into his presupposed concept of acceptable proof so he attempted to turn the discussion into proof of Jesus and while I gave him the facts that He was mentioned historically and through government documents of the era, he still refused that evidence. Feeling frustrated I found the Answers in Genesis website and lo and behold I was given conformation with what I was writing. I quickly said thank you to the Father and began reading some of what Ken Hamm had written and found that much of his writings coincide with what I felt led to write.

You see while we have not actually discussed evolution in theory we have discussed the effects of it; the reason being is so that we can understand how our failure to put Christ first allows evolution to sink into our children’s hearts. Let me share with you some notes from Ken’s website Answers in Genesis.

So I said:

‘Pastors, here’s the problem. The students know that evolution and its teachings contradicts the Bible’s teaching about Adam and Eve. Then they come to your religion classes and hear you teach from the Bible. However, since they think that the Bible is an outdated book which has been disproved by science, why should they be interested in listening to what you have to say?’

I suggested that before they could really teach effectively about the other issues, they needed to get the students’ attention that the Bible was the infallible Word of God, and really could be trusted.

After all, if the first book in the Bible can’t be trusted in their eyes—why should any other? As one lady put it to me 20 years later:

‘When my church told me that I had to accept evolution, and that Genesis couldn’t be believed as written, I asked, when does God start telling the truth, then?’

Working with the pastors, we devised a series of lessons that showed the students that evolution was just a belief—there weren’t any ape-men—evolutionists had not proved the earth was billions of years old—there were major problems with their theories about the origin of the solar system.

When the pastors presented these lessons—they were astonished. The students sat up and listened. They were extremely interested—and they had lots of questions. ‘What about carbon dating, then? Where do dinosaurs fit in? Why don’t our teachers tell us this information?’

What a difference it made! Many of the students showed intense interest in spiritual things. Later, when the pastors began teaching about Jesus in the New Testament, they had much more success in getting these young people to listen and take note.

At the time, I didn’t realize that I was involved in developing a method of evangelism that I later came to understand as ‘Creation Evangelism.’ Not only is this based on the Bible, but it is one of the most powerful methods for reaching today’s world with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Do you see the importance here? It is not enough to tell them the Bible is true we have to live as if it is true. If they don’t see it in us they are not going to believe it to be true. They have more than enough evidence in the world from evolution that tells them that God doesn’t exist and the bible can’t be trusted. So even if they had been raised in the church they are not going to instantly believe the bible especially if you the parent are not practicing obedience to God. Before you claim that you can believe in both let me show you what Ken had to say about that.

Some are eager to point out that in cases like the Inquisition, and more recently clergy involved in sex abuses against children, ‘the church’ is hypocritical. Of course, the Bible strongly condemns these and other forms of crime, and those acting in these ways are inconsistent with what the Bible teaches.

However, evolutionists who argue this way are being inconsistent with their own philosophy. Because if there is no Creator who sets absolute rules, such as ‘You shall not murder’ (which is what the Nazis did to the Jews, totally consistent with their evolutionary beliefs), then the only rules that exist are what we as a society make up.

A theistic evolutionist may profess belief in a rule-giving Creator, but because of his/her de facto rejection of a reliable revelation, how can the rules be known for certain?

Simply put, if the Bible misleads in Genesis, how do we know when it can be trusted elsewhere, including its moral teaching? Jesus said (John 3:12): ‘I have spoken to you about earthly things and you do not believe; so how will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?’

This is the very thing that I had pointed out before however I feel it does a better job explaining why the two don’t mix. I can’t help but wonder if this is why so many refuse to surrender their lives to Christ. Let’s look at what evolution takes away from us when allowed to be believed in the schools or in the home. This becomes even more dangerous in a Christian home where parents do not believe in the Bible as God’s inspired word or when they include evolution into their belief of the bible.

Consider this:

  1. A gospel without the message of the Creator, and the origin of sin and death, is a gospel without the foundational knowledge that is necessary to understand the rest of the gospel. Without this information—who then is Jesus Christ? Why did He need to die? Where did sin come from? Why can we say that all have sinned? Why do we die?
  2. A gospel without the message of Christ crucified and raised from the dead is a gospel without power. As Paul said: ‘And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins’ (1 Corinthians 15:17). The only reason our personal sins can be forgiven and our relationship with our Creator be restored, is because of what Christ did on the cross. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is central to the gospel.
  3. A gospel without the message of the new heavens and earth, is a gospel without hope. What point is there to a gospel with no future sinless state? Because of sin and the judgment of the Curse, the creation is ‘groaning’ (Romans 8:22). There is death, sickness and suffering all around us. However, we need to understand that death is an intrusion. In 1 Corinthians 15:26, Paul states it this way: ‘The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.’

I would like to include a fourth point here because I believe it to the key point which enforces the gospel message.

4. A gospel message without a life to enforce the message destroys the very message it attempts to

establish. This is the very message of Christ when He stated in Mark 8:34 And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, “Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” And again in Matthew 10:38 And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.

Consider this; from very early records we see that man has shown a high degree of culture and understanding in law and moral/societal behaviour. Dating from the 17th century before Christ is the Code of Hammurabi, a Babylonian king who, according to secular historians, came to power about 1750 bc. This set of laws, governing situations such as marriage, commerce and theft is generally regarded as one of the best and earliest written codes of law for a society. The proper functioning of law depends on the existence of an ultimate authority. Speaking of a society which was crumbling because of a lack of authority, the Bible says: ‘In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes’ (Judges 21:25).

The Ten Commandments are considered, even by many non-Christians, to be a foundational set of rules for moral and ethical living. But if they were written by only a man, then they are no more ‘right’ than someone else’s opposite view. In rejecting Biblical absolutes, will modern law eventually cease from allowing criminals to be branded with ‘wrong-doer’ in favour of the more evolutionarily consistent concept of a ‘socially-unacceptable choice’? Some evolutionists have excused even rape on the grounds that males’ genes and ‘less civilized’ evolutionary past predispose them to such actions.

As the evolutionary foundation of no right or wrong overtakes the Biblical concept of personal responsibility, we can expect people to have less defined boundaries in both young and adult life, resulting in increasing social and family problems.

Can you see the importance of seeking God’s face daily as a part of the training up your child in the way that he should go? Since we have allowed evolution to exist, it is up to us to not only teach our children that it is only a theory but to also live as God has commanded us to live. This is not a salvation by works but evidence of our salvation by our works.

In the next segment we will discuss more about how to discuss evolution versus creation

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