Search the Scriptures Daily Program #0703c:
You are listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Still ahead, Dave and Tom continue their weekly in-depth study of the Doctrine of Salvation. Please stay with us.
CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH
Now, Contending for the Faith. In this regular feature Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call . Here is this week’s question: Dear Tom and Dave, I appreciate your dealing with the tough questions concerning the Bible. Although I consider myself a creationist, here’s one question that I wrestle with. If God created everything and declared that all of his creation was good and initially all creatures lived in harmony with each other, how did animals that have deadly toxins, poisonous venoms and so forth, appear? Take the rattlesnake for example. It has rattles and its bites are deadly. It hardly seems that it was originally created that way.
Tom:
Dave, that’s a puzzler. You have lots of animals you think about it. The questioner mentions a rattlesnake but there are other things, the piranha, and some animals that really seem vicious almost.
Dave:
Not almost, Tom, they are vicious.
Tom:
It doesn’t seem that they fit within God creating everything and creating them good.
Dave:
Well Tom, I don’t have the answer to this question. I can give you some ideas. For example, we could jump ahead and look to the millennial reign of Christ and you will have, a child will put its hand into a poisonous snake’s den and will not be bitten or be no harm done. The wolf will lie down with the lamb, the lion will eat grass like an ox. So, if they can do it then, I guess they did it to begin with. Now God knows exactly what is going to happen, He knew that the fall would take place so he created these creatures with the capabilities that stand them in good stead in a jungle when they had to fight for survival against one another. But you have carnivorous animals now but they will eat grass again.
Tom:
And in some cases the evolutionists would tell you that there was a time when they were not carnivorous and they can set up an example and call it micro evolution that is changes within a certain species, not change from one species to the next but change within a certain species in which things took place. The food supply maybe dwindled in a certain area and the animals some died off but some were forced to adapt and so on.
Dave:
I don’t think it’s a great question, Tom. I mean it’s not anything that’s going to cause someone to ponder and puzzle because we simply don’t know, but that it could happen there’s no doubt about it—that it’s an anomaly, that it seems rather strange, I don’t doubt that either. On the other hand it seems rather strange that men torture one another, kill one another. Animals don’t even do that. You might see a cat playing with a mouse or something but it’s not deliberately trying to torture it. But we have human beings who have tortured other human beings and seemed to get some pleasure out of it. You would think that would be just repugnant to the human conscience. So I cannot explain these things but sin definitely has infected this whole world.
Tom:
Well Dave, pick up on that. Sin—the world changed. We know that in Genesis at the end of chapter three it deals with a transformation. The physical aspects of the earth changed. Thorns, briars, God said that the one would grow up with the others. Now that wasn’t that way prior to it so somehow sin and by God’s direction and subsequent to sin altered some things to affect man’s walk.
Dave:
We read of it in Romans chapter eight. Paul writes, the earnest expectation of the creature, that is the animals all creatures I guess, waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. Now you have a teaching, the manifested sons of God, that when we are manifested in our Godhood that then this world will be a paradise again, that’s not what it says. But let me go on and read it. “Romans:8:19-22 [19] For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.
[20] For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,
[21] Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
[22] For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
, for the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.” So somehow, we are all tied together. When Satan rebelled it shook this universe. Man joined him, it was a horrible day on this earth and it affected all his descendants, affected the animals, well, Tom—
Tom:
And not necessarily through some long term evolutionary change, that’s kind of my point.
Dave:
Tom, please don’t say, not necessarily, because it’s absolutely impossible. I know what you mean. No, there was no evolutionary change in it at all. I know what you mean. But it was sudden, it was cataclysmic like the flood was a cataclysm as well. And it just reminds us of the consequences of sin in our own lives. It carries serious consequences to our loved ones or to those in the church that we may be in. But it’s not for that that we serve the Lord, it’s because we love Him. He’s changed our hearts.
Tom:
When Christ returns we’re going to have a millennial reign of Christ. It’s not going to take years and years for animals to try and get along with each other and with mankind, that’s my point.
Dave:
Amen.
