The Strand Study Bible

Written From Corinth During Paul’s Third Missionary Journey ROMANS was false, evolutionists refuse to let go of their pet theory by simply repackaging it and giving it a new name: Abiogenesis (the theory that life can create itself without any ancestors). Morris and his friends go on to note: 1849

The food canning industry has furnished many millions of cans of evidence in support of Pasteur, to say nothing of the evidence added by innumerable bandages sterilized by hot steam in hospitals all over the world. But as the quotation points out, negative evidence can’t win and the “possibility” of spontaneous generation has not been “obliterated” from men’s minds, in the halls of science at least. The same authors explain further,

The first breech in this impasse was made by the Russian biochemist, A. I. Oparin, in a book he published in 1936. Oparin suggested that although life cannot arise by spontaneous generation under the present environmental conditions, life could have been generated spontaneously under the conditions existing on the lifeless Earth some two billion years ago. 9 Meaning: Men who hate the idea of a God will always find an excuse to deny His existence, even when presented with the facts. The fact is: Men know God ( when they knew God ), even if they choose to deny He exists. Sadly, due to intellectual obesity, men have become so full of themselves that they refuse to admit that there is a God. Dr. David Noebel, in his mammoth work called Understanding the Times , maintains that while humanists find no adequate proof for a supernatural God functioning on this earth and guiding the human race to a divine future, there is a crack in their atheistic armor. Dr. Noebel quotes famed atheist, Corliss Lamont (Humanist of the year in 1977), from Lamont’s own book called Philosophy of Humanism in which Lamont admits: The immensity of the universe makes [Humanists] cautious about absolutely denying the existence of a God among the billions of galaxies billions of light-years away…Humanists are awe-struck by the fathomless mystery of the origin, size, and destiny of the whole mighty cosmos. 10 While this famed atheist rigidly maintains a militant atheistic view, he quietly admits the possibility of the existence of a God, which makes him what this verse suggests –someone who knows God, but refuses to glorify Him as God. NOTE – This portion of Scripture deals with those who know God, not with those who do not. We are not held to account if we are not accountable. This is a provision of grace. Therefore our Gospel will not judge those who: 1. have never heard of CHRIST The question has often been asked, “What happens to those who have never heard about CHRIST ? What happens to them when they die?” Though we may never gain a complete answer to this question, still, according to the Bible, there are four principles that lead us to a biblical perspective concerning the inquiry: (1) God’s very nature prevents Him from being hateful and unjust (Gen 18:25, Deut 10:17, Acts 10:34 and I Pet 1:17) Though Satan would like us to think so (Gen 3:1-5), God is not unjust. Unlike the man who was sleeping and hated it when he was awakened (Lk 11:5-13), God never sleeps (i.e., never tires of hearing from us). Unlike the unjust judge who hated to be bothered (Lk 18:1-8), God wants to be bothered by our burdens. This would lead us to conclude that God is love (I Jn 4:7-10) and that this love of His has provided us a fair and just way of getting to Heaven (Jn 14:6). Therefore, God’s nature is such that He cannot be hateful and unfair. (2) God wants all men to be saved (II Pet 3:9, Lk 2:10, II Cor 5:14-15, I Tim 2:6 & 4:10 and I Jn 2:2 & 4:14) This would lead us to conclude that God loves mankind enough to do what it takes to save mankind (Jn 3:16). The truth is that no person is destined for Hell unless, of course, he or she chooses to go there by rejecting Christ. (3) God prepared Hell first for the devil and his angels (Mt 25:41) The question has been asked: If God created Hell for the devil and his angels, why would He create a second free-willed creation (man) knowing the majority of them would reject Him and have to go to Hell as well? There are five logical reasons why man shouldn’t question God’s motive for why he was created: * A simple analogy –If we were to attend a three-act play, all three acts would need to be attended in order for us to have a full understanding of the purpose of the play. Correct? When man was created 6,000 years ago, he entered the play during Act II, called Time ( Gen 1:5 ). Which means: Man missed Act I, called Before Time , completely. Man doesn’t remember Act I because only Lucifer and the angels were here during Act I (Ezk 28:11-18). We not only have little if no comprehension of Act I, but we only have a fragmentary glimpse of what has occurred since the beginning of Act II. Act III (eternity – Revelation 21 Subject Head ), called After Time , hasn’t even taken place yet, so we don’t know if the same rules that apply to man now will apply to him in eternity. Gravity won’t apply to us after we receive our glorified bodies. Correct? Point being: We have little if no understanding of Act I. We’ve only individually experienced a small portion of Act II (I’ve only been here on the earth for 60 of those 6,000 years). And we have little if no conception of Act III. With this analogy in mind, it would be advantageous for us to learn to just trust Him with both the answers as well as the results. * Our tendency as humans in answering this inquiry is to look at it from a “man-centered” perspective, which is, “What’s in it for us?” The question is not: Why did God create us knowing we would sin, but why did we have to sin? Nobody twisted Adam or Eve’s arm. The question shouldn’t be: Wouldn’t it have been better if God never created us, but wouldn’t it have been better if we never chose to sin? Sin was our choice, not God’s. * God did not create this world primarily for our benefit. Remember Act I? According to the Bible, we are God’s “second” free-willed creation. We came to this earth after the angels were already here and had sinned ( Gen 1:1d and