21. How can a loving God condemn people to eternal torment in hell for refusing to submit to His authority? That God would punish to such an incredible degree seems utterly contrary to our notion of love.

22. Is there life on Mars?

23. Some Christians have suggested that Noah's ark still rests on top of Mt. Ararat and that its discovery will provide definitive proof of the Genesis Flood. What does the physical evidence say, and what does the Bible say?

24. How can we tell whether God or mere men were responsible for the Bible or for any other book of "holy writ?”

25. Is there a day of judgment, and if so, how will God evaluate our lives?

21. How can a loving God condemn people to eternal torment in hell for refusing to submit to His authority? That God would punish to such an incredible degree seems utterly contrary to our notion of love.

First, we need to understand that God does not force Himself on anyone. Those individuals who end up in hell are those who clearly and deliberately pushed aside the influence of God's Spirit during their lifetime. Sartre wrote that the gates of hell are locked from the inside. In accord with their persistent choice, God withdrew His Spirit.

The prophet Jeremiah warns us that without the restraint of God's Spirit, the human heart will express unimaginable evil. Therefore, to keep the inhabitants of hell from making things even worse there, God imposes torment.

John, in Revelation, points out that for those who have done much evil on earth and are capable of wreaking more atrocity upon their fellows in hell, God imposes more torment. Upon those who have lived a seemingly decent life, God imposes less torment. God expresses His love to those in hell by giving each one just enough torment to keep hell from becoming a worse place than it must be already, without the presence of Him in whom all goodness and love reside.

22. Is there life on Mars?

A Viking spacecraft looked a few years ago without success. The Soviet space agency and NASA are trying soon again, using much more sophisticated testing instruments.

Why such great expenditure of effort and money? Certain evolutionists are convinced that life evolves naturally not just on Earth but elsewhere throughout our universe. According to these scientists, the discovery of life on Mars would prove that life evolved. And, if it did on two out of nine of planets in our solar system, then life may be abundant in other stellar systems.

They’ll find it all right. What!

These experts are ignoring just how transportable and survivable the Earth's life-forms are. Balloon studies have found microorganisms high up in the earth's stratosphere. From these high altitudes, the solar wind is capable of pushing the organisms all the way to the surface of Mars. Also, ancient asteroid collisions with the earth could have sent life-carrying earth material to Mars. We should expect to find many species of earth life at least as far away as Mars. Not living, mind you, but remnants of life that survived the trip.

So, don't be deceived. The discovery of minute life-forms on Mars proves nothing about the natural evolution of life.

23. Some Christians have suggested that Noah's ark still rests on top of Mt. Ararat and that its discovery will provide definitive proof of the Genesis Flood. What does the physical evidence say, and what does the Bible say?

First, the Genesis account does not say that the ark came to rest on top of Mt. Ararat. Rather, it says "the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat." The Hebrew word for mountains, bar, has a very broad definition, from a 50-foot high hill to Mt. Everest. Thus, the expression "the mountains of Ararat" would encompass more than 100,000 square miles of territory north and east of Ninevah.

Second, the dove that Noah released came back to the ark with an olive leaf. Olive branches would be found on the lower hills of Ararat but not on the high mountains.

Now if the ark came to rest on the foothills of Ararat, as is a biblical and reasonable conclusion, we can reasonably conclude further that its precious wood was used up long ago for construction projects in and around Mesopotamia and hasn’t been laying around for millennia.

Conclusion: It ain’t gonna be found!

24. How can we tell whether God or mere men were responsible for the Bible or for any other book of "holy writ?”

There are many ways to examine this good and honest question. But let’s look at it from a way not used too often: let’s examine the perspective. Men will write from their own limited point of view. It is reasonable to expect that God, on the other hand, would communicate to us from a perspective that goes beyond our limited frame of reference.

Man's finite universe is limited to the four dimensions of length, width, height, and time. No wonder, then, that a man-invented religion will confine God and God's interaction with man to these four dimensions. But, since God the Creator must live beyond these four He created, a message truly from Him will reveal His perspective from extra dimensions.

In this respect, among many others, the Bible is unique. It alone contains descriptions of an entirely self-consistent, yet extra-dimensional reality; such as the beginning of space and time, God's operations before time began, and God as one, two, and three persons simultaneously. The Bible alone teaches such doctrines as the simultaneity of free choice and predetermination. For these and many other reasons, it is sensible to conclude that the Bible alone is the written word of God to man.

25. Is there a day of judgment, and if so, how will God evaluate our lives?

The consensus view among all major religions is that we will face a day of reckoning.

Most portray judgment day as a weighing of good deeds versus bad deeds. This seems fair from a human perspective, but the Bible reveals a different perspective - that even our most righteous deeds are like filthy rags in comparison with God's holiness. Why? Because it is unrealistic and unrighteous for us to take credit for goodness that did not come from us, but rather from the One who made us. We might as well take credit for our birth.

What separates Christianity from the other major religions here is that the Bible declares that if we respond to God in humility and depend wholly upon His goodness and mercy, expressed tangibly in Jesus Christ's life, death, and resurrection, He will forget every bad thing we have ever done and reward us according to our responsiveness to Him. Someone say “amen”!

If, on the other hand, a person never bows his heart in surrender to God, God will forget all good things he has done, which are not his anyways, and judge him according to his bad deeds.

In other words, God judges us on the stuff that's on one side of the balance scale only. This picture of judgment is unique to the Bible. But, this is to be expected. Only the Bible transcends man's perspective to reveal for us God's love and justice and mercy.