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36. What happens to people who have never heard about Christ? If Jesus is the only way to eternal life what chance do they have? How could God judge them?
37. Where did Cain get his wife, plus all the people to build and occupy his city?
38. If God created us, who created God?
39. How can the Bible be trusted if it contains scientific errors? If the Bible includes scientific errors, either God is not totally knowledgeable about the universe and the earth, or the Bible is not the word of God.
40. Death seems so horrible. Why would a God of love make us go through such an experience?
36. What happens to people who have never heard about Christ? If Jesus is the only way to eternal life what chance do they have? How could God judge them?
Have you ever been asked these questions and wished you had a really good answer? There is one, and it's not complicated: it is that everyone has heard the gospel. Romans I declares that God's character and nature can be "understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." But, exactly how is the gospel revealed to us through the creation?
Honest humble-hearted examination of the world of nature is sufficient to convince us that there must be a Creator, and that the Creator is awesomely powerful, wise, loving, and just. Our experience convinces us that we fall hopelessly short of the Creator's perfect standard. But, surely a Creator who is so obviously loving, powerful, and wise would have made a way to rescue us. If we trust our lives totally and only to Him, to His Divine Rescuer, we will be saved.
A good example of someone who discovered the gospel as he considered the creation is Job. Take a look at chapters 7 to 19 in the book of Job.
And you may want to read our paper, Pygmies in Africa, which deals with this subject a little more in depth.
37. Where did Cain get his wife, plus all the people to build and occupy his city?
The Bible says that people really did live to be about 900 years old. This fact is supported in writings other than the Bible.
Given the hundreds of years life-spans, and a reproductive rate of (estimating!) one child every five years per couple, and a reproductive period of an conservatively estimated 600 years per couple, there could have been 6000 people on the earth by the time Adam reached age 350. By his 900th birthday there could have been 4.5 billion. (Of course, many probably died by accident or disease or murder, but the point is there could easily been a LOAD of people.) Hence, Cain would have had no problem finding a wife or people to populate his city.
Obviously, Cain or one of his brothers must have married a sister. This union is not a problem genetically, since genetic weaknesses from intermarriage would not appear until after several generations. Neither is it a problem morally, for the command against marrying close relatives did not appear until the days of Moses. Abraham, you may recall, was married to his half-sister.
38. If God created us, who created God?
The question presumes that God is restricted to one dimension of time, just as we are. Recently, however, astronomers demonstrated that our universe of matter, energy, space, and time had a beginning.
Of all the so-called "holy" books of the religions of the world, the Bible stands alone in teaching this doctrine. It is stated clearly in Titus 1:2 and in 2 Timothy 1:9. The Bible declares that the grace of God we now experience was in effect before the beginning of time. In other words, God operates in two or more dimensions of time. Thus, we would not expect God to have a beginning in our dimension of time. Everything in this universe is one dimensional in time, and therefore must have a beginning and be created. But, God, transcending our single dimension of time, has no beginning or ending and is not created.
Can we comprehend a multi-dimensional time existence? No way. It is beyond our understanding. But it does exist.
39. How can the Bible be trusted if it contains scientific errors? If the Bible includes scientific errors, either God is not totally knowledgeable about the universe and the earth, or the Bible is not the word of God.
We would challenge you to find a single provable scientific error in the Bible. This has been given much lip service by skeptics, but they fall short in bringing out the evidence.
Now, if the Bible said that the world rests on a great tortoise which is being carried by a strong giant who is standing barefoot on sharp. pointy rocks, that’s different. That would clearly be a problem (and not just for the giant).
Rather, the Bible is filled with correctly stated scientific facts far in advance of the discoveries that established them as true. The laws of thermodynamics are correctly given; so is the water cycle, also the shape of the earth. the order of creation events, and certain laws of health and sanitation, to name just a few. These scientific forecasts are presented so specifically that the odds of their being merely coincidental are astronomically small. Thus, they constitute powerful proof that the Bible is indeed the inspired, inerrant word of God.
40. Death seems so horrible. Why would a God of love make us go through such an experience?
Let's consider what the Bible tells us about this difficult subject.
Back in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve sinned, God took steps to bar their access to the tree of life, which, had they eaten of it, would have kept them alive physically forever. Some people see this as cruel and mean-spirited. Let’s look at it with a love bent to it.
By introducing death to their bodies, God was working out His plan for our benefit and He was limiting the spread of man's evil. Long life spans work for the advantage of the wicked, not the righteous. The days before the Flood when people lived hundreds of years bear witness to this fact. Murder and evil of every kind apparently became wholesale.
Each of us can fully trust God with the timing of our own death and the death of those we know and love. Scripture reveals that God chooses the day of our death according to what's eternally best for us. If we're His, His loving nature will keep us alive long enough to maximize our eternal reward, and if we are not His, it's to minimize our torment in hell.
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FAQs 36-40
