Renowned Atheist, Richard Dawkins, describes the God of the Old Testament as ‘the most unpleasant character in all of fiction’. This is an interesting quote because it captures perfectly what most skeptics think about God and the bible. Firstly, they believe God is ruthless and secondly, that the bible is a work of fiction. The term ‘the God of the Old Testament’ in itself is erroneous: it suggests there is a different God in the New Testament. Dr. Ravi Zacharias refers to this as ‘a false dichotomy’.

Indeed there is a lot of bloodshed in the Old Testament. If you flip through the pages long enough, I won’t be shocked if you end up with bloody fingers. Most of the killings were done either directly by God or they were done at his command either by angels or humans. The most popular ones include the killing of all of humanity (save 8 people) in Noah’s time. The death toll of the flood should be in the millions. There are several other massacres scattered all over the pages of the Old Testament. Below, I have visualized a few of them in this interactive Bar Graph, do check it out.

How do we reconcile God’s almost instant judgment on people who sin against him and the fact that he told Jeremiah ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love’? How does God call himself ‘LOVE’ yet kill people mercilessly? Let’s look at Uzzah for example. He had the best of intentions to save the Ark of the Covenant from falling, so why did God kill him at that very moment?

Uzzah was killed because he disobeyed the law concerning the ark. The problem is sin, not God.

According to the definition of love in 1st Corinthians 13, ‘Love doesn’t rejoice at wrongdoing’. Imagine God in all his holiness, who has created man in his image, only to see man wandering off and chasing after ephemeral pleasures of this world that are in actual fact dung. It is sickening for God to see man wallow in sin and chase after other gods that are non-existent in the first place. God asked Jeremiah, ‘Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit’ Jer 2:11. He was talking about Israel here but indeed this applies to all humanity. For we were all created by God. Can you imagine the hurt he felt when his own people turned away from him to whore after foreign gods? In Noah’s time, sin so greatly abounded that God regretted creating man. Love cannot rejoice in wrongdoing – and God is love. That is why he punishes people who sin.

But isn’t God merciful? Well, of course, he is. Nevertheless, we must understand that as much as mercy is a function of love, so is intolerance for wrongdoing. Love without a deliberate attempt to wipe out evil is just empty talk. There is correction in love. There is purging in love. There is nurturing in love. Ultimately, there is punishment in love.  Therefore we shouldn’t be shocked at the fact that both mercy and intolerance for wrongdoing dwell in God. But, so are the other characteristics of love. Love is patient. Love suffers long. There is no personality in human history who has suffered long for the sake of love more than Jehovah. Usually, we lose sight of how long it took God to punish some people for the wrong they did. Throughout the Old Testament we see God delay punishments even for the most heinous of sins. He didn’t delay punishment for the sake of it, but while at it, he offered a hand of grace to the culprits so they would be pardoned. Let’s take for example the exodus of the Israelites. These people offended God every step of the way for 40 years. Some got their punishments immediately they sinned, but God was generally patient with the entire congregation for such a long time. Also, it took Noah 120 years to complete the ark. The bible refers to him as a preacher of righteousness: while constructing the ark he kept preaching to the people to repent. For 120 years God watched on as humans rolled in the mud of sin, yet he held back till the ark was completed before he punished them.

There are so many things that people do not consider when they say that God was wicked in the Old Testament. Let’s look at a few of such factors:

• The Law: It isn’t God who put sin in us thereby making us candidates of his punishment, it was the law. Where there is no law, there is no sin (Romans 4:15). Do you know Adam and Eve wouldn’t have been thrown out of Eden had they killed every single animal in the garden? Why? Because there was no law against that very act. The only law that existed in Eden was the one that prohibited them from eating the fruit, therefore, any other act wasn’t a sin. One act of sin changed the nature of man. So under the law even our righteous acts are like a filthy rag before him because sin is our nature. Literally, God was disgusted by man. Therefore the problem isn’t God being wicked, it is man going against the will of the almighty God when we are fully aware of the consequences. The punishment for sin is death. Also, people often call Jehovah evil because they are ignorant of how the other ‘gods’ dealt with their worshippers in times past. Some of the gods the Israelites chased after demanded human sacrifice – preferably the sacrifice of their children. God never asked anybody to do this … well apart from Abraham and even he was stopped from killing Isaac.
• God punishes the children for the wrongs of their fathers just us he blesses the children for the good deeds of their fathers: It seems rather unfair that sometimes innocent children have to die for the wrong deeds of generations that lived way before they were born.

In those days they shall no longer say:
“‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes,
and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’
But everyone shall die for his own iniquity. Each man who eats sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge. (Jeremiah 31:29-30)

Countless times in the Old Testament we see God making reference to the good deeds of people like Abraham and David being the reason why generations after them were to be blessed. There are so many examples of this fact that I can’t begin to quote them all here. Another thing worth knowing about God is that he can change his mind about the evil he is about to visit on a person who has sinned against him but never does he change his mind about the good he intends to do (correct me if I’m wrong).

“It may be they will listen, and everyone turn from his evil way, that I may relent of the disaster that I intend to do to them because of their evil deeds” Jeremiah 26:3

• God is sovereign: I often hear atheists calling God a serial killer, a murderer … excuse me, by whose standards are you judging God? The whole world sat and watched Saddam Hussein executed. Notice how humans call it ‘an execution’? Ha! Semantics. He was executed for the wrongs he had done against humanity. Human beings set up courts of law that determine the fate of other human beings, whether they deserve a prison sentence or death. And we have a problem when the Supreme Being and Creator of the heavens and earth has a death sentence too? The truth is, God answers to nobody. One has to be under a law to break it. He isn’t under any of the laws that govern human affairs hence we can’t say he has broken them. That is sovereignty. So when he who is sovereign decides to overlook your sinful deeds and grant you your life because he is gracious and merciful, you better accept it. A friend of mine said “only God knows how to keep a balance between love and justice’. When I think about this statement, this expression comes to mind “to tamper justice with mercy”. Which means in a legal situation, mercy, which is a function of love has no place. Only God knows how to be Love and Just at the same time. The cross is where we see both Justice and Love fully represented in one ruling. The penalty of sin was fully paid at the cross and because of that humanity received undeserved grace and mercy.

God hasn’t changed at all, he is still merciful and intolerant of sin. It is just his Grace and Mercy that have been revealed unto us in such a tremendous way because of the death of his Son. It isn’t God who has changed, it is the Testaments that have changed. When your landlord changes the terms and conditions in your tenancy agreement for it to favor you more, it isn’t your landlord that has changed, it is the conditions under which you occupy his property that have. God is still intolerant of sin. However, there is mercy when we sin and there is Grace to keep us from sinning. Please note, Grace and Mercy will end pretty soon. One of these days, God will come not as a lamb but as a ravenous lion.

One other question people often ask is, why should the man who stole 1 cedi receive the same punishment (hell) as the serial killer? This is the same reason why the thief on the cross (who got saved a few hours before he died) ended up in heaven just as the global evangelist who won millions of souls. It isn’t by deeds that we go to either heaven or hell, it is by faith or unbelief. The thief on the cross is a typical example of what I’m saying. He didn’t have to observe the Sabbath or anything else, he just had to believe in Christ and jump to his defense when the other thief accused Jesus. So there it is faith: Belief + Actions. There are degrees of punishment in hell anyway, just as there are degrees of rewards (crowns) in heaven. In Luke 10:13-14, Jesus warns the people of Bethsaida and Chorazin to repent. He said that it would be MORE BEARABLE for the people of Tyre and Sidon on judgment day than it will be for them.

We really can’t judge a person’s character by scrutinizing aspects of their behavior or relations with other people. We need to assess them based on their general behavior. So if you think God is evil based on the killings in the Old Testament, how about the blessings and victories he lavished on his people and all who feared him? You certainly cannot ignore those. This article isn’t extensive enough to capture everything on this topic. If you noticed, I used verses in Jeremiah a lot because I studied that book not too long ago. Therefore if you have questions on this topic from other parts of the bible, do ask them in the comment session and let’s get talking.

Charles Darwin nevertheless, came up with a theory that involves a very interesting mechanism called Natural Selection. Natural Selection refers to the process by which a member of a specific species of organisms develops some kind of advantageous features which the other members do not possess; this organism then transfers this trait to its offspring. So the other members of this species who do not have these special traits will eventually die-off as time goes on. This is simply because the advantageous traits usually come in to aid survival, reproduction etc. therefore the organisms that do not have it will eventually die-off. Natural selection communicates a sense of ‘the survival of the fittest’. It also professes that, fairly complex organisms evolved from somewhat simplistic ancestors. For example an organism that develops wings among its fellow members of the same species is bound to pass on the trait to its offspring. Therefore there will come a time when only its offspring will survive because they inherited this special trait from it. It is like what we see in movies like X-MEN; we see human beings developing special super powers; they are called mutants. If this were to happen in the real world, then it is obvious that these mutants would live longer than the average man. Simply because they would have special traits that could help them survive dangerous circumstances. Therefore these mutants would mate and transfer these traits to their offspring. And as generations pass, there will be a total wiping out of the human race – better yet, members of the human race who aren’t mutants.

 
I saw in a documentary once that snakes are believed to have evolved from 4-legged ancestors. It turns out to be a widely held assertion because I have come across it in other write-ups too. I find that very amazing! The fact that scientist believe that the snake evolved from a 4-legged ancestor. It amazes me because, I was taught this very fact way back in Sunday school. In Genesis 3:14, God cursed the serpent when he said ‘…cursed are you above all LIVESTOCK’. He goes on to say that ‘… on your belly you shall go…’ .The serpent once had 4 legs, hence it being referred to as a livestock. Then the curse caused it to become a creeping animal. Once again, we see a collision of science and scripture, yet the former will never give the credit to the latter for making the assertion first.

One of the strong bases on which the theory of Evolution rests is the fact that the process of Natural Selection takes a long time to fully materialize. So all what has been said about Natural Selection above is only possible over a very long period of time. Nevertheless, Darwin himself said if it could be proven that an organism came into existence without going through numerous, successive, slight modifications then his theory would absolutely break down. This affirms what has been mentioned earlier that his theory completely rests on a long process of numerous, slight modifications in organisms. If there is ever an organism that is known to have come to being without going through such a process, it would be called an ‘irreducibly complex system’. The interesting thing about an irreducibly complex system is that, it is a system composed of multiple parts which are necessary for the system to function. And the entire system cannot function if one part is missing. This brings to mind organs in the human body such as the eye. If we claim the human eye had to go through a process of evolution, then we are simply saying that for several years, there were generations of men (or creatures) who walked the face of the earth blind. Because, if their eyes evolved gradually, it means at some point their eyes didn’t have some parts. And since with the eye every single part helps in vision, then probably they were blind. Charles Darwin himself says:

‘To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light … could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.’
Prof. John Lennox also makes a very important argument that I would like to cite here. He said the human genetic code is the longest word recorded in human history. It is a 3.4 billion-long word which has been arranged systematically. When you discover your name written in the sand, it is absolutely normal for you to assume that a being of intelligence made an input. You look at your 10-letter-long name written in the sand, and you immediately wonder WHO it is that wrote it there. Here we are, as humans, with a 3.4 billion-long code in all of us yet we are expected to believe it all happened by chance. There is certainly something wrong somewhere. Molecular biologist Michael Denton states that:
‘Although the tiniest bacterial cells are incredibly small, weighing less than 10-12 grams, each is in effect a veritable micro-miniaturized factory … made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machinery built by man…’

My favorite part of the quote is where he says the bacterial cell is far more complicated than any machinery built by man. Think about the most outstanding and complex machine in the world, Denton claims the bacterial cell is more complicated than it. So if human beings created those machines, isn’t it right to assume that there must be a personality behind Creation? Isn’t it rather absurd to assume that it all happened by chance? All evolution is trying to tell us is that, over a long period of time, a laptop could come into existence without anybody inventing it. Even if that is possible, what explains the origin of the operating system the laptop runs on? That is why I believe in the creation story in Genesis 1. In the beginning GOD…

I call Evolution ‘Evilusion’ because I see it as an evil illusion that deters humans from giving honor and praise to GOD. I believe in God. The universe is far too complex to have happened by chance. The cells in our body are far too complex to have come to being as a result of a random unguided process. GOD’s Not Dead, He is surely alive.

The bible makes mention of Nephilim in the Old Testament and also other Ancient books that are considered credible and true like the book of Enoch speak about their existence. In those days, there was a massive invasion of the earth by the Nephilim. This move, obviously orchestrated by Satan, is believed to have been his way of trying to corrupt the genome of the promised Messiah. Look at it this way; he knew God was going to send His son down through a virgin’s womb to save mankind from sin and damnation. Hence, he orchestrated this move in order to corrupt the genes of the entire human race, so that the savior would be born not fully God and fully man, but he would have a bit of the genes of fallen angels in him- thereby making his blood not qualified to atone for the sins of humanity. This necessitated the flood in Noah’s time. That was God’s solution to the whole problem: he had to wipe out all who had their genes corrupted by that of the Nephilim.

In Genesis 6:4 it says, ‘The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, AND ALSO AFTERWARD, when the ‘sons of God’ (Angels) came into the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the MIGHTY MEN who were of old, the men of renown. Verse5. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth…’. This is exactly the point I raised earlier. The Nephilim had filled the earth with so much evil and sin that it grieved God and he decided to save humanity and the bloodline of the savior hence the story of Noah’s ark. It is common knowledge that in those many years that the ark was under construction, Noah extended a hand of grace to the people. He told them of a pending disaster, yet they made fun of him and didn’t pay heed to his message. That is how gracious God is, for though he sought to preserve the bloodline of the savior, he still loved the evil and pervert generation so much that he offered them a second chance. In the verse above, you will realize that it says there were Nephilim in those days ‘…AND ALSO AFTERWARD’. This implies that after Noah’s ark, there was another eruption of Nephilim. This makes complete sense, when you think about the fact that the story of David killing Goliath happened many years after the flood. There was another eruption of Nephilim and those were dealt with accordingly by the Israelites. Remember when the spies Moses sent into Canaan came back saying that they were like grasshoppers in the sight of the indigenes of the land? Well there you have it; the Canaanites were known to be a Nephilim tribe, definitely made up of giants. In 2Samuel 21:15-22, we see how David and his men killed four of such creatures. This time God did not use a flood to destroy them, just as he promised Noah, but He used his own people.

(A Nephilim skull next to a human skull)
All of these things are facts in the bible or facts of the bible; but are they true? Did Nephilim really exist? The huge skull you see there, next to the human skull, is known to be the skull of one of these creatures. I know naysayers might just jump to the conclusion that it is a human skull. Because we all know people who have relatively big heads: therefore the hefty skull in there could belong to someone whose head was a burden for his neck. The human skull is known to be made up of 4 plates (bones); one at the front, another at the back and two in the middle. The two in the middle are known as the Parietal plates or bones. They form the area of your head from your ear to the top of your head on both sides. The issue is this, the Nephilim skulls do not have two parietal plates, they have just one! Meaning, the structural make-up of their skulls are not uniform with that of normal human beings. The reason why I am stressing this point is, if this is true (which I believe it is), then it means there was a certain generation of ‘human beings’ with distinct characteristics that the Darwinian Theory doesn’t make provision for. How do we explain the origin of such creatures? Will we say they also had a common ancestry with monkeys, ‘as humans do’? Clearly they were not humans or fully human. Some of the bones that were dug up were measured to be the skeletons of 9-15 footers. Creatures of that height are known to be giants. And the evidence is scattered all over the place. In Paracas Peru, there was a discovery of hundreds of such skulls.

There were Nephilim; there were Nephilim on this very earth. And if they existed, then it means there was a creation of a demonic hybrid by fallen angels and the daughters of men. Also, if this is true, it goes a long way to establish the existence of the spiritual realm, angels and most importantly the existence of God. Those who adhere to a Darwinian world view may debunk this fact, but the evidence is so glaring. There once were creatures on this earth that were mighty in stature and intellect and from the structure of their cranium, they couldn’t have been humans. God’s not dead; and the evidence is all around us.

Reference: L.A Marzulli’s interview on Sid Roth’s ‘It’s Supernatural’ show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0dOJB8A9SI[/embed]

An elimination of origin is tantamount to an omission of destination.

Nevertheless, some philosophers and scientists who are atheists have managed to move us a step back by prompting the posing of the question of whether or not God exists instead of who He is. I must say that, philosophically ‘God is dead’ is rather a weak statement which goes on to betray the intentions of those who say it. If He is dead, then it means He once lived. And if He once lived, then He was probably everything He said He was, which includes: eternal, all powerful and omniscient. Therefore if you claim He is dead, you just halfheartedly accepted his existence (or at least, that He once existed). Anyway, that’s rather on a lighter note.

How do we face facts as humans? When I go to the beach and see ‘Elikplim Sabblah, kindly meet me behind the rocks on the far end of the beach’ written boldly in the sand, it instantly triggers this question in my head – ‘who wrote this?’. It is only normal for us to pin a human being or a personality to anything which expresses a certain level of intelligence. Nobody in their right senses would ask ‘how did this happen?’ when they see their full name written in the sand. Which would mean the writing in the sand appeared just like that – without an agent. Funnily enough, this is the line of thought that some of the smartest brains of our time hold: that the universe with all its splendor and majesty appeared on the scene and created everything else. Philosophically it doesn’t even make baby sense. It’s only normal to allude the expression of intelligence to a personality but some scientist choose to allude it to an event. So all through history, many set out to prove a mechanism while vehemently refuting the existence of an agent manning it. The argument they put up is that, one’s full name scribbled in the sand at the sea shore could have been written by the waves that hit the sand at the shore and not a person.

Imagine two people seated in the back seat of a Ford car, driven by Henry Ford himself. One claims that the fact that the car moves on four wheels and has the ability to stop, it must have created itself, because there couldn’t possibly be a being who could invent such a machine. The other says, since the driver of the car is called ‘FORD’ as well as the car, then the rumors are probably true: he could be the one who invented the car, especially because he is the sole-distributor of that brand of cars. The first man is an atheist and the second, a believer. The issue isn’t about the fact that believers merely allude everything to God to save them from the cumbersome ordeal of thinking. NO. Rather, the universe appears too systematically arranged and purposefully designed to have come to being by a random unguided process. Hence as a rebuttal, atheist-scientist often retort, ‘If you say God created the universe then who created God?’. Isn’t it ironic that they believe the universe created itself? So then we pose the same question to them: ‘if the universe created itself and everything else, then who created the universe?’

The presence of pain, suffering and evil in the world is seen as one of the greatest arguments against the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing and ever-present God. For if God knows everything and He wields all power why would He sit back and watch the world drowning in misery and do nothing about it? There is evil in this world because God created human beings and not robots. God created beings that reason; beings that have a WILL because He prefers the worship of a being who does so because he loves HIM (God) and not because he has been hardwired to do only that. Your sense of worth as a spouse may diminish when you realize you got married because your partner didn’t have an option. Same way, God gave man a will to choose to either serve him or not so that those who do serve Him, do so out of total reverence for him and not because they are robots that have no other function or option.

There is pain in the world because we live in a fallen world. The world God intended for man, sin made us disqualified for it. Eden was a place of eternal bliss, joy and peace. Yet our sin which largely communicated reverence to another being other than God, made us fall short of it. But the good news is, Calvary has made us eligible occupants of such a place – God has worked everything out to get us back to that sort of environment. Many also ask why God will place the human race in a world filled with dark forces and evil. This is neither here nor there, because when you think about it procreation sort of puts man in God’s position, so far as creation is concerned. So if you claim God is evil for placing human beings in a world filled with diseases, terrorism and evil, then guess what, you are equally evil for having babies. We all know there is a certain level of evil in the world, yet some of us have kids and others intend to have some. Even we who cannot vouch for the safety of our offspring are willing to bring them to life in a world like this, how much more he who holds the world in his hands?

Sometimes I just wish God would reveal himself to all mankind and just save us – his children – from having to defend his honor to people who doubt his existence. That would save the day, won’t it? Ha! If your 24 year old son walks up to you demanding a paternity test, regardless of the striking resemblance and character-traits both of you share, it will take a certain level of insecurity to make you actually take that test. I am saying if your child demands enough reason to be convinced you are his father, it will take insecurity on your part to actually want to prove it to him. Especially if there is enough proof already. I believe strongly that this is God’s position on the matter; he doesn’t have to show up to show that He is. Just as Henry Ford needn’t interrupt the argument going on in the car he invented because he knows who he is and what he did. God’s not dead, He is alive and today, I joined nature to scream it out loud.