Doubts Lead to Unbelief

A post that I quote below from an atheist blog helps illustrate a very important point we have been making for some time at Answers in Genesis.

First, in 2 Corinthians 11:3, God has a warning for us:

But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

To paraphrase this warning, we are being told that the devil is going to use the same method on us as he did on Eve to attempt to get us to a position of unbelief. So what was the tactic the devil employed on Eve? We find this out in Genesis 3:1:

Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”

“Has indeed God said?,” or we could put it this way: “Did God really say?” The first attack in history as recorded in the Bible was on the Word of God. The devil employed the tactic to get Adam and Eve to doubt God’s Word, in an attempt to get them on a slippery slide of doubt to unbelief! And it worked, as we know from the rest of the chapter.

God warns us in his Word (as quoted above) that the devil will use the same method on us today. And he has used the tactic ever since the temptation in Genesis 3. I call that the Genesis 3 attack. And the Genesis 3 attack manifests itself in different ways in different eras. I suggest that in today’s era, the Genesis 3 attack shows itself through the skeptical questions that can create doubt in regard to the book of Genesis. I assert that the teaching of evolution, millions of years, big bang, and so on, that permeates the world, and even the church, is the Genesis 3 attack today. And sadly this attack has been successful in getting generations to doubt, and ultimately not believe, the Word of God and the gospel.

That is why Answers in Genesis has been so emphatic that Christian homes and churches need to equip children and teens to be able to answer the skeptical questions of today that cause this doubt leading to unbelief. I have often said that in this era, and no matter what country I’m visiting, when people learn that I am in the area to talk about the authority of the Bible and the gospel, they will ask the same basic questions (and make the same statements), such as the following:

How do you know the Bible is true? Where did God come from? We live in a scientific age which shows the Bible can’t be trusted. How could Noah fit the animals on the Ark? Wouldn’t animals have eaten each other on the Ark anyway? Where’s the evidence for a global Flood? Carbon 14 dating disproves the Bible? We evolved from ape-like creatures. Science has disproved the Bible. Where did Cain get his wife? Where did the “races” come from if we go back to Adam and Eve? Didn’t dinosaurs die out millions of years ago showing the Bible can’t be true?

Of course, we get many such questions about the Bible’s accuracy, which is why Answers in Genesis has produced books like The New Answers Books (four volumes) and numerous apologetics resources to give people the answers to these questions—questions that can cause people to doubt God’s Word beginning in Genesis. Also, the Answers in Genesis website has thousands of articles that present detailed answers to the most-asked questions that are used today to try to create doubt in the Word of God.

One of our theme verses at Answers in Genesis is 1 Peter 3:15:

But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense [answer] to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.

Answers in Genesis is an equipping ministry, providing answers against the Genesis 3 attack of our day and proclaiming the authority of God’s Word and the gospel.

Now, here are quotes from the atheist blog that help illustrate the practical outworking of 2 Corinthians 11:3:

As a former fundamentalist (Southern Baptist), the various blocks removed ultimately seem to lead to a much deeper philosophical world-view collapse than occurs in other denominations. Biblical Inerrancy was at the core of my belief system and it took a while to completely end. But eventually I reasoned that all I believed to be true was just a superstitious lie . . .

I remember the moment in 1995 that I realized that the story of Noah’s Ark was just an ancient hand-me-down ridiculous mythological tale, I was a youth minister in a small Southern Baptist Church when a student asked: “What did all the carnivores eat on Noah’s Ark for the entire year? ”I stumbled for a few seconds trying to give the best answer I could, but I knew that there could never be a sufficient answer to such a simple question. Any answer paled in comparison to the obvious: IT NEVER HAPPENED.

Second block pulled from the stack: shift from creationism to evolution

I then became obsessed with trying to make sense of Genesis One and Two. I found no rational answers to the creation stories, the order of creation and the irrational babble of talking snakes. After gaining a real understanding of natural selection and evolution, I began to dismiss creationism as a possibility of the origin of life . . .

I think the move to a more secular society is just around the corner. I definitely agree that the internet has opened the door to reason and rationality. The ability to see so many others who have similar feelings and ideas was never possible before . . . I think the move to a secular humanist society is inevitable . . .

And this item was posted in the comments section of the blog:

My First Block was Cain's wife. There were three people (four, but one was murdered). Who did Cain marry? If he had other siblings did he marry his sister or did he have children with his mother? There's two genetic bottlenecks in Genesis. The second comes in Noah's ark where only one small family survives a mass extinction of the rest of the species. It implies that our genetic pool is very shallow and we're all related to Noah (he's our most recent common ancestor)”

Yes, there are solid answers to the questions above—and you will find them on the Answers in Genesis website and in various resources. I do trust the church will wake up and realize how important it is to train up generations with answers to counter the Genesis 3 attack of our day. AiG has numerous resources to enable churches and homes to do this—including our three-year complete apologetics, biblical authority, and chronological evangelistic Bible curriculum— the Answers Bible Curriculum.

Also, my new coauthored book Ready to Return details the research conducted on the 20s generation (also called millennials) who regularly attend church right now, and the results are shocking and revealing—again clearly showing the sad lack of apologetics teaching that is leading to a very secularized 20s generation in our churches, and who are ultimately going to fundamentally change church and culture. I urge you to get the book.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken