Something struck me differently the other night as I was reading Romans 1. Paul is talking in his letter about the wrath of God and what man has done to bring it upon himself. I talk online a lot to evolutionists and atheists about God, creation, etc. One thing I always notice is that they fail to ever see any awe and wonder in the universe. They look at it with such scientific eyes, that they fail to see the things of a God that is capable of creating such a magnificent place.
Paul addresses this in Romans starting in verse 20 and continuing to verse 23. “For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” (vs. 20 NIV). The problem is that man was not satisfied with this. They were not satisfied with having a God in the picture and so, they started to devise ways of explaining everything.
Why would they do that? It is simple I suppose; with God in the picture, man is accountable for what he does, but without God around, we are only accountable to each other and that really does not bother a lot of people. Paul continues, “Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools” (vs. 22 NIV). Any body see where this is going? In all the discussions and debates I have with these people, first and foremost, they attack the intelligence of the Christian. Any disagreement with them will bring onslaughts of verbal pounding and abuse about the ignorance of people who believe in God and creation. They also have a lot to say about the intelligence that they think that they have. The big one is, that science is what it is all about and if your degree is not in Biology or Earth Science, well, you must be brainless. Evidently, you just cannot beat some facts and a theory.
The next verse is what struck me different as I read it, “and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.” (vs. 23 NIV) Now, I know that Paul is talking about carved idols that the people where worshipping, but when I read this, all I saw was the “Idols of Evolution”. This sang out to me that it is the same thing! These people worship the images (bones and fossils) that they find. What do they look for? They search high and low for “Ape-men” (anthroópou), birds (peteinoón), four-footed animals (tetrapódoon) and reptiles (herpetoón). I put the Greek words Paul used in parenthesis, just because they sound like names the paleontologists would use. These are the creatures of evolution and have become the idols of the “religions of Evolution and Atheism”.
Paul sums it up in verse 25, “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and [they] worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator-who is forever praised. Amen.” (NIV) King Solomon said it best in Ecclesiastes 1:9, “there is nothing new under the sun.” (NIV). Man is still worshipping idols, some carved from stone and wood and some just dug up from the ground. Man will do anything rather than face the one true God while here on earth. The sad part is, everyone will face God one day and account for who or what they worshipped.
Pablito
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