The End May Be Much Than Nearer Than We Think

Chapter 3. The Theory of Evolution And Our Fate {157 words}

Once I had discovered the reason for the wide acceptance of the Theory of Evolution, I became intrigued by my findings and began to search the Scriptures to increase my understanding. I had seen what I felt was a very obvious correlation between the use of the forbidden fruit in Adam and Eve's day and the use of the Theory of Evolution in our day, so I wanted to look for even more related accounts in the Bible. As I searched the Scriptures, I was very surprised to find just how much could be uncovered. I did not realize at the time that I was about to unlock the key to answering all of my earlier questions about the Tribulation and that I would actually be able to see how the Theory of Evolution is playing a large role in influencing and in setting up for the Tribulation.

My search began with two very familiar Bible passages which are just a few chapters and a millennium away from Adam and Eve. I read the first of the two accounts in Genesis, Chapter Six, where the scene is just prior to the Great Flood, and the command to build the Ark is about to be given to Noah by God. Noah is instructed to build an Ark to prepare for the coming flood so that he can protect his family from the danger to come and so that he can preserve life on earth. But as I read this very familiar Bible story, my attention was drawn away from the events of the Flood itself, and instead, was shifted to the first few verses of Chapter Six where the actual reason for the flood is revealed:

"And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God care in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." (Genesis 6:1-5)

What we know about Noah's time from Jewish history and from the different Bible references, including the above verses, is that it was a time of very intense wickedness on the earth. Above, we read that "the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." In Matthew 24:38, we read that the people were "eating and drinking and giving in marriage." Both of these passages show us that the people of Noah's time very wicked and that they led a very carefree lifestyle. However, it was not simply the gross sins or the wicked and carefree lifestyle of these people that prompted God's judgment on the earth. The wrath of God was stirred up by something else that is far more serious in His eyes.

I had never really understood the meaning of these opening verses of Chapter Six before, but as I carefully read them on this occasion, I realized that it was the ungodly marriages between the "sons of God" and the daughters of men that were the igniting force behind God's anger. It is in Verse Two of this chapter that we read about them marrying, and it is in Verse Three that we get the first hint that God is displeased. It appears, then, from the order of the verses that the marriages came first, that God's anger came second, and that the evil works came later after these marriages had produced children. If this is true, then we can see that God did not want the "sons of God" to be marrying the daughters of men.

The identity of the "sons of God" is not completely clear, but it would appear from the verses that these people were creating some sort of "super" race. They may not have called it by that name, and their efforts toward creating such a race may or may not have been intentional. But the end result is still the same. They were matching the "sons of God," who were superior men or angel, with the daughters of men and producing superior children. Their children possessed superior human traits, such as being giant in size and such as being men of renown, and instead of submitting themselves to God, they perceived themselves to be as gods. They rejected the God of the Bible and saw themselves as having their eyes opened and as being able to discern between "good and evil." When they did these things, they left God out of their lives, exalted themselves, and began to do the evil imaginations of their own hearts.

The evil works that we associate with these people were only the outward manifestation of the inward rebellion that they had launched against God. By their advanced breeding, they were trespassing into territory where God did not want them, so their doom was imminent. The downfall of these people during Noah's time is clearly the same as the downfall of Adam and Eve. In both instances, the people sought to be as gods and to replace God. In both of those time periods, the people were not interested in serving the Lord but were more anxious to serve their own wicked desires. And in each of those time periods, God had to deal severely with the offenders.

After studying about Noah and the people of his era, I read the other passage which I had earlier found to parallel with Adam and Eve in the Garden. It was in Genesis, Chapter Eleven, and concerned the building of the Tower of Babel:

"And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime for mortar. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven: and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city." (Genesis 11: 1-8)

The events that took place at Babel occurred about one hundred years after the Great Flood of Noah's day. When Noah and his family had stepped off the Ark, God had commanded them to spread and multiply and to replenish the earth. However, one hundred years after the flood, all of Noah's family and their families, who at that time were the people of the earth, had only scattered as far as the valley of Shinar at the foot of the Ararat Mountains. They had not gone very far; just a few miles from where the Ark had rested on top of Mount Ararat, and from the above verses, it is clear that they did not intend to go any farther. The Bible's account of this incidence reveals to us that these people were following the same trend as that which had been previously set by Adam and Eve and by the people of Noah's day.

Even though they had not obeyed God by scattering throughout the earth, the people after the flood had enjoyed a certain amount of prosperity. God had blessed them by allowing their families to grow and to multiply and by giving them security and comfort in their new environment. However, under the rebellious leadership of a man named Nimrod, these people refused to acknowledge what God had done for them and instead allowed themselves to believe that they had prospered because of their own power and might. They even attempted to build the tower as a symbol of their strength and unity. In Hebrew, Nimrod means "rebellious panther" or "let us rebel", and by examining his leadership and character, we can see that he influenced the people greatly in their rebellion against God.

Nimrod used three arguments to convince the people that they should build the tower and by so doing, refuse to obey God's commandment. First, he told them that the tower would act as a center point for their city around which they could all assemble, build their homes, and raise their families. The number of people on the earth at that time was probably still small since it was so soon after the Flood, so they could easily build their community around the tower and live closely together rather than obey God's command and scatter. Secondly, he told the people that the tower would allow them to make a name for themselves and mark their marvelous achievements. Nimrod had convinced those people that they did not need God, and he encouraged them to build the kind of tower that would keep the world talking in amusement for centuries.

The third line of reasoning that Nimrod used to persuade them to disobey God and to build the tower was so that they could be prepared for the next flood. They did not know when or if God would ever flood the earth again, but just in case He did, they wanted to be ready. They wanted to literally build their tower high enough to reach heaven so that the next flood would have to wash out heaven in order to destroy them. They even used a special "slime," made from bitumen, which would make the giant structure waterproof and leak proof. Their every intention was to make themselves as powerful and as mighty as God, but here, as we saw in each of the earlier cases, God intervened and thwarted their efforts.

After I finished studying about Nimrod and his people, I began to piece together the information that had become available from each of the individual Bible accounts, and I recognized a disturbing pattern among the three. Beyond the Book of Genesis, when we begin to study about the nation of Israel, we read over and over about the sins and shortcomings of that nation. Many times, we read that God brings judgment upon them by allowing their enemies to defeat them in battle and to place them in captivity. Repeatedly, we see this simple pattern of sin followed by judgment. However, in the three accounts which have been discussed in this text, there is a different, more alarming pattern. Instead of reading about sin followed by simple punishment, we are reading about worldwide anarchy followed by worldwide judgment.

In each of the three cases, rather than just seeing sins being committed against God, we are seeing a far more serious set of events. Each of the Bible accounts give us the details of individual attacks that were being mounted against God. We read that Adam and Eve were eating of the forbidden fruit so that their eyes would be opened and they could be as gods. We read that the people of Noah's day were actively involved in producing a "super" race which they probably felt would allow them to surpass God. And we read that at Babel, the people were building a tower which they probably thought would enable them to overpower God. In all of these cases, the people were not merely replacing God with idols made by their own hands. In a worldwide, united effort, they were using whatever means available to make themselves as gods and to eliminate God.

A simple parallel to illustrate the seriousness of their undertakings is to compare the child who merely disobeys his parents with the child who is actively trying to overthrow them and rule the house. Clearly the latter child represents the greater threat, and in a similar sense, the peoples, whom we have studied about for this analysis, have represented that same kind of more serious threat to God. Therefore, just as the rebellious child must be stopped, so it was that God had to stop Adam and Eve, the people of Noah's time, and the people at Babel.

As has already been emphasized, the people about whom we have studied had an urging and desire to be as gods. They did not want to worship God or even idols. They wanted to eliminate God, worship themselves as gods, and rule God's house. However, the example set by these people did not originate in the Garden with Adam and Eve. It began before Adam and Eve were ever created, when another assault on God's throne occurred:

"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the most High." (Isaiah 14:12-14)

Before man was ever created, the devil wanted to be "like the most High." In heaven, he built an army of angels and attacked God. He lost the battle and was cast to the earth as punishment, but despite his defeat in that first attack on God's throne, he has continued the war for supremacy ever since.

When God created Adam and Eve, the devil seized upon a new opportunity to do battle with the Lord. He had failed to conquer God by using his army of angels, so in his second attempt to overthrow God, he used people who shared a similar passion to be as gods. In Eden, he tried to defeat God by causing Adam and Eve to fall into sin. However, even though he succeeded in bringing humanity down, he did not succeed in accomplishing his prime objective. He could not bring down God. Before the devil could secure the victory, God put to naught that rebellion, and the devil, for the second time, had failed in his attempt to be as the most High.

The next time that the devil raised his head to battle against God for supremacy was during Noah's time. He used the "sons of God" and the daughters of men to create modern-day supermen. He convinced the people that they could be as gods and that they could do the evil imaginations of their hearts and not have to answer to God. Again though, the devil failed in his attempt to overthrow God and to "be as the most High" because God brought the Flood. From there, the battle next picked up at Babel when the devil used a man, named Nimrod, to arouse the people against God. In that fourth attempt at God's throne, the devil was issued a stunning defeat. God divided the people and changed their language, and the devil's lines of communications were cut off. The confusion which resulted from that setback caused the devil's offensive to be temporarily halted. However, even though the devil has lost all of those first four battles, he is about to make his next attempt to overthrow God and to "be like the most High."

The defeat that took place at Babel occurred about four thousand and three hundred years ago. Since then, the devil has been gathering his forces for yet another attack on God. The next assault will be number six. We did not skip a battle. The fifth battle was at Calvary about two thousand years ago, and at that time, Jesus battled satanic forces and won the final victory over the devil. With the victory at Calvary, the score is now five to nothing in favor of God. However, despite the devil's repeated defeats, he keeps coming.

On this very day, as you read these words, the devil is setting up for the next battle. It will be the sixth head-to-head confrontation with God, and in my opinion, it will be triggered by the Theory of Evolution. It may seem too incredible to be true, but consider that the devil is using the Theory of Evolution in the very same way that he used the forbidden fruit, the super breeding, and the tower. In all of those previous instances, he lured men into wanting to be as gods, just as he wants for himself. Then, he manuevered them into a no-win battle against the God of Glory. Right now, the stage is being set for the sixth confrontation between these two spiritual powers.

After studying all of the various Bible accounts, including the "signs of the times," I am personally convinced that worldwide judgment is near. When considering some other factors, I am even more convinced that that coming judgment will be the Great Tribulation. To arrive at this conclusion, I looked carefully at the previous five battles between God and the devil, and I made some observations.

First, I recalled the early portions of the Book of Genesis and the many times that the phrase "after their kind" and "after his kind" appear. In the first chapter alone, these few words occur at least ten times. These few words are usually presented in arguments that are opposed to the Theory of Evolution, but as I thought about them, I saw them as more than simply an argument to refute a foolish, manmade theory. For the first time ever, I realized that those words, which are found in several places throughout the early chapters of the Book of Genesis, and particularly in Chapter One, are an example of a literary technique called foreshadowing. Chapter One of Genesis was written by Moses about thirty-five hundred years ago, and for the first thirty-four hundred of those years, godly people had read those three words over and over again without ever realizing their significance.

It has mainly been in the last one hundred and fifty years that Darwin developed his Theory of Evolution, so it is not feasible that those three words could have meant very much to a people who had not even known about evolution or about the false Theory of Evolution. For people living before 1830 AD, the Theory of Evolution was an unheard of part of their future. Therefore, we must conclude that when the Holy Spirit inspired Moses to write those three words, not just once but over and over, that God was including them in His Word as a message for those of us who have lived during the last one hundred and fifty years. The idea of foreshadowing comes in because in the first chapter of the Bible when we are studying about the creation of the earth and of man, we find three seemingly insignificant words repeated over and over which could be giving us a subtle warning concerning the end of God's creation. It is as though in Chapter One of Genesis, we can read between the lines and see the beginning of the world by Creation and see the ending of the world begin with the Theory of Evolution.

My second reason for believing that the worldwide acceptance of the Theory of Evolution will cause the Tribulation is because God now has what He has always wanted. In our minds, the Tribulation signals the beginning of the end of our world, and never before has that end been a more feasible course for God. When God created Adam and Eve, He was creating a people with whom He could have and with whom He wanted to have fellowship. Notice that God always went to Adam and Eve in the Garden signifying that it was He who sought their fellowship. When they sinned, they rejected Him, and God was unable to have the fellowship with them that He wanted. Sin not only separated Adam and Eve from God, but it also separated God from Adam and Eve.

During the time of Noah, the same thing happened again, only on a much larger scale. All the people of the world, with the exception of Noah and his family, had rejected God because they did not value His fellowship. By joining forces with the devil in an attack on God, God had no other choice but to destroy all life on earth, with the exception of Noah and his family. Still trying to have a people with whom He could have fellowship, God again allowed humanity to multiply and to grow. But just one hundred years after the Flood, the people of the world, under Nimrod, had again turned on their God. This time, though, rather than completely destroying all life on earth as He had done before, God chose to bring confusion and chaos upon their rebellion, and such were the events at Babel.

As one can clearly see, God has had to endure much sorrow at the hands of the devil and man. Later, in the Old Testament, we read about God choosing the nation of Israel for His special people. But eventually, they, too, rejected Him. From a study of the Scriptures, it is clear that God has always wanted a people who would love and worship Him. During the first five head-to-head confrontations with the devil, God could have easily destroyed the whole world at any time, but if He had done so, it would have been self-defeating because He still would not have found a people to love and worship Him. But now, alas, God has found His people to love and to worship Him, and He has collected them into a single body called the Church. In the sixth head-to-head confrontation with the devil, the one that is about to occur, God will be able to destroy the whole world and all of those evil people of the world who have rejected Him, and He will still have His Church to love and worship Him. Fellowship is all that God has ever wanted, and He has it now.

The third reason for believing that the coming judgment will be the Tribulation is that now the terms of our redemption are complete. In the fifth battle, when Jesus died on the cross at Calvary and purchased our redemption, He paved the way that would allow us to come to Him. Had God destroyed the world prior to the fifth battle with the devil and prior to the offering of Jesus at Calvary, then there would not have been a way for men and women to come to God, and any chance of fellowship between God and man would have been impossible.

The fourth reason for believing that the coming judgment will be the Tribulation is that there is no reason to believe that God will allow these battles with the devil to go on forever. Everything necessary is now set for God to bring down the final curtain. So, I believe that we can begin to look to the sixth encounter between God and the devil, and I also believe that we can expect the struggle between these two mighty powers to be the Tribulation.

I am not a date setter. But I do believe that we can look at the other battles between God and the devil and identify a pattern which will enable us to better predict when the Tribulation will begin. In Genesis, Chapter Three and Verse Twenty-Two, we read that Adam and Eve had successfully become "as a god knowing good and evil." In Genesis, Chapter Six, we read that the "sons of God" and the daughters of men were successfully producing the "super" beings that they wanted to produce, and in Chapter Eleven, we read that the people at Babel were successfully building the tower that they wanted to build. In all of these cases, what we are seeing is a significant amount of success by God's enemies. At Babel, one is given the impression that if God had not intervened, then the people would have successfully built their tower to Heaven. No one knows how far the people of Noah's time would have gone had they not been stopped, and of course, we know that Adam and Eve had come to be as gods knowing good and evil.

I would never try to suggest that if these people had been left alone that they would have succeeded in overthrowing God, but I do believe that God waited until the last moment when these people had reached the point of no return before He stopped them. God's patience in dealing with the very people who were trying to destroy Him just proves a very important verse written by the Apostle Peter:

"The Lord is not slack concerning his promises as some men count slackness: but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." (II Peter 3:9)

I do not believe that God wanted to punish Adam and Eve, that He wanted to destroy the people of Noah's time, or that He wanted to bring confusion and chaos to the people at Babel. But I think that it can be said in each of those cases that the people left Him no choice. Concerning our days, I believe that the day is rapidly approaching when God, because of the Theory of Evolution and the other devices which cause us to see ourselves as gods, will have no other choice but to stop us. Thus, the end really may be much nearer than we think.