Yes, God is ultimately in control, but the choice was made back in the Garden of Eden to rebel against a loving God who had made a paradise for us to live in with Him and have a special relationship with Him. This rebellion against Almighty God is called sin.
Picture a perfectly clear bowl of the most pure mountain spring water representing God's perfect creation before Adam and Eve rebelled. One drop of black food coloring, representing sin/rebellion against God, (God had to give us a choice, so to speak, of loving Him or rebelling against Him, otherwise no true relationship of choice would exist) dropped into that bowl, spread to and distorts and corrupts the entire bowl of perfect water. And, once that is present in the bowl of water, it cannot be removed and everything else produced in the bowl of water (creation since ) is distorted and corrupted by other sins as well. Sin is an infinite offense against and infinitely Holy God and must be judge for what it is--high treason against the One True God. And so it was. God allowed Adam and Eve and the rest of us since, to reap the consequences of our rebellion, a partial removal of His sustaining power from His creation, and now we live in a world that is a far cry from the perfect world we were designed to live in. Since that sin, we all die physically and we are dead spiritually from conception. We were designed to live in a world where there had been no sin and consequently, no death, no pain, sorrow, etc. We have a huge sin problem, individually and corporately. How to deal with this and it's horrible, final, just consequences?
God, in His infinite love and mercy (remember, he created us to have a special relationship with Him) for us sent his one and only Son, Jesus Christ, as the only infinitely perfect sacrifice that could truly take away the sins of the world. The Bible clearly states that God is not willing that any should perish, but that all would come to a saving knowledge of Him. The bible also clearly states that no one is without excuse in regards to coming to a knowledge of Him: "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. ['suppress the truth'--sound familiar?] For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse." (Romans 1:18-20) I think those us that regularly enjoy what's left of his creation, have perhaps less excuse than those who regularly do not.
In spite of our continual rebellion against Him, God sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away, once for all, the sins of all time so that He could look upon us as pure and sinless in His eyes. Those who openly, truly receive Him as their Savior and ask for the gift of eternal life and forgiveness of sin from Him and follow Him all of their remaining days on this earth will be saved from the ultimate spiritual death they deserve.
This is not the creation God originally intended for us.
The Bible clearly states in Leviticus that 'life is in the blood'. A life for a life. That is how serious sin is to our Creator. A perfect sacrifice had to die for us so that Almighty God could put His just wrath for all sin for all time upon that perfect sacrifice, Christ. Once his wrath was satisfied by putting it on Christ on the cross, we could come to Almighty God and have our sins forgiven once and for all and only for the asking and have a relationship with Him only for the asking. What a gift! A gift freely given us and paid in full by Christ's shed blood on the cross for our sins. Christ's blood shed on the cross and his physical life freely given for us there was given as a substitute death for us--a substitute death for what we otherwise justly deserve for our high treason against God.
Christ's resurrection on the third day clearly demonstrated his power over death, the 'last enemy'. Now, those that trust in Christ will still suffer the consequences of sin on this earth and physically die, but we have been 'reborn' spiritually (remember, we were 'dead in our sins'--spiritually dead from the moment of conception as a result of sin in creation). Because of this spiritual rebirth, we are once again God's children who, at their physical death, will shed this fallen/sinful body and be presented as pure and sinless to God so that we can once again have that perfect relationship with Him that we were originally intended to have and that Adam and Even had for short while in a perfect creation.
The bible clearly states that God, at some point, will destroy this sin-stained creation, and remake it new. I'm planning on being here for that.
The Bible does not tell us everything we would like to know, but it is sufficient in it's content to show us the way that we should go. There are things in the bible that are difficult to understand and we should expect that, but it's message is perfectly consistent throughout even though it is written over a period of thousands of years by over 40 different authors. "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness," (2 Timothy 3:16). God 'breathed out' all scripture. It is not just written by men.
We are dealing in the Bible with the infinite mind of God. Does a dog understand quantum mechanics? Neither will finite man understand the infinite mind of God. We should expect that there will be things we won't understand.
This is the true story of history--make sure and accept God's perfect gift of salvation that you can do NOTHING to earn, and live with Him.
Days could be spent talking about the differences between observational and historical science and how we are sold a bill of goods in our culture that un-discerningly mixes the two to produce a toxic sludge of foundational belief based in the idea that we 'evolved'. I've spent years studying this from a scientific and biblical background and have a degree in biology and so some understanding. It is pure hogwash. There is no true observable science that backs up the idea of evolution as a means of producing life. Micro-evolution/speciation, adaptation are very biblical concepts and in actuality genetically produce the opposite of what is needed for macro-evolution (molecules to man ideas) to occur. The bible talks about 'kinds' of animals, not 'species'--very different.
Big Bang cosmology--what a joke. It's sold as a story to the masses, and yet there are insurmountable issues with it. The secular Ph.D.'s argue about it back and forth and many realize that it is completely bankrupt. It is a story that is based in the foundational idea that no God exists. That's ulitimately why the Big Bang cosmology and the theory of evolution exist--ways to try and explain how we got here without God. Turns out that doesn't work very well.
If we put every person that every lived in one location and summed up all they knew, we would still know nothing compared to the infinite knowledge of Creator God.
Don't put your faith in man's guesses. Put your faith in your loving, merciful, truly just Creator.
I watched that last night, scary for sure.
