By Chris Maakestad

Why, indeed? Doesn’t every religion claim to have the only truth and to worship the only true deity? Regardless of the basis for these claims (or the lack thereof), only the God of the Bible has the necessary credentials that prove the veracity of His Word.

I know it is not politically correct to make that exclusivist claim, but our Creator has backed it up continuously from the beginning of time, so I am compelled to point out that it is so.

The truth is that fewer and fewer people in our culture have the necessary foundation for navigating life, which begins with an understanding of the authority of the Bible and its Writer. Of all the sacred texts handed down through the ages, this is the only one that tells the real truth: that we are sinners in need of a Savior.

Our sin problem is not just about whether we think we are better or worse than the next guy. The bad news is that sin is defined not from our point of view, but from our Creator's – and that makes it devastating for us all. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

But the good news is that God loves fallen humanity! He wants to rescue us, and He provided a way out for us through Jesus, the Messiah and our only real hope for peace with God.

He is our Redeemer, our only door to a truly fulfilled life in this world and the only solid promise of eternal life in the world to come.

But because God created us with a free will, the choice to walk through that door is ours.

In today’s culture, most people don’t embrace these truths. Consequently, Christians seem to them like deluded fools, much as the Apostle Paul did to the religious Greeks he witnessed to at Mars Hill: “Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with [Paul]. Some were saying, ‘What would this idle babbler wish to say?’ Others said, ‘He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities,’ – because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection” (Acts 17:18).

You cannot grasp your need to be saved from sin unless you understand what sin is – and therefore what your predicament is – from God's point of view.

To do that, you need to start at the beginning and see how you got into this mess in the first place. That beginning would be the book of Genesis in the Bible.

Now, I’ll warn you that the Word of God may directly contradict what you have been taught and have trusted in all your life. You may question its accuracy and relevance, especially as it reveals to you our origins and explains how sin came into the world.

That is because the humanistic teaching of the theory of evolution as scientific fact has permeated our educational system over the last three quarters of a century, while the account of our origins as given in the book of Genesis has been deliberately cast aside as fable.

This is very convenient for sinful man, who does not want to consider his accountability to the Creator God. Even some Christians do not realize that evolution is not fact, but a theory that does not hold up to good scientific inquiry.

It is more correctly identified as pseudo-science, relying on the unfounded construct of “deep time” to prop up a theory that is built upon one hoax after another.

Indeed, many real scientists (those who are not afraid to seek the truth regardless of where it may lead) have abandoned Darwinism in favor of the truth of the Bible.

Scientists who believe in Biblical Creation have submitted volcanic rock samples from eruptions that occurred less than a few hundred years ago to the most prestigious dating labs. The labs maintained that the rocks were many millions of years old. This is not to say that the technicians deliberately try to deceive their clientele, but that their conclusions are based on flawed assumptions.

For instance, evolutionary geologists date the rocks by the supposed age of the strata in which they are found, and the age of the strata are based on the supposed age of the fossils found in them – and the age of the fossils is based on the strata in which they are found.

I guess that's okay if you work in a yarn spinning factory, but I think a reality check is in order.

Creation scientists believe the young earth account given in the Bible and so they have tested coal, diamonds, and fossils (previously dated at millions of years) for the presence of Carbon-14. Since the absolute outer limit for Carbon-14 to be present is 50,000 to 60,000 years, they were not surprised to find Carbon-14 in these samples because, according to the Bible, the earth is about 6,000 years old.

Evolutionary scientists don't use the Carbon-14 test on these samples because the range of results would be far less than what they presuppose, which is millions of years. They use other kinds of radio-isotope tests, inserting various assumptions and fudge factors to manipulate the results – until they get the kind of results that they expect. Until they get the kind of results that they want.

Forcing the test to say what you want it to say? That is not real science.

The fossil record reveals mass graveyards all over the earth where many different kinds of animals are all jumbled together in one place – as if they died when forced together by some sort of cataclysmic event.

Millions of dead things are found in sedimentary rock layers (laid down by water) all over the earth. Since fossils are only preserved when an organism is buried quickly, this had to be the result of an extremely violent, large-scale flood that covered these creatures instantly with large amounts of highly mineralized sediment.

All of these factors are perfectly consistent with the biblical account of Noah's worldwide flood. God knows how to preserve the record effectively!

When Mt. St. Helens erupted in 1980, it put on display many geological effects of that catastrophe that were formed in just hours or days, rather than the millions of years we have been told they require. One notable feature, named the Little Grand Canyon, was formed in less than a day by a mudflow. It looks just like the Grand Canyon, which is presumed to have been carved out over millions of years.

Many dinosaur fossils have been found which still have soft, stretchy tissue inside the bones, as well as recognizable blood cells. This would be absolutely impossible if these creatures were millions of years old, as the evolution dogma states.

The descriptions of Behemoth and Leviathan in the book of Job are of dinosaurs that lived on land and in the water during Bible times, and cave drawings of dinosaurs show that the men living in more recent times were familiar with them, as well. Stegosaurs also appear as carvings on Buddhist temple pillars in Indonesia. Pretty hard to do if you've never seen one!

The evolutionary theories taught in school textbooks amount to a cleverly devised deception which often includes disproven information that continues to be reprinted. Evolutionary scientists interpret the same data available to Creation scientists – but they base their interpretations on unfounded assumptions. Naturally, this leads to the wrong conclusions.

Creation scientists of all disciplines have researched and produced many hundreds of books and films that prove we live on a young earth in a young universe – just as the Bible says.

The truth of the matter is that the Bible is, indeed, the divinely inspired Word of God, literal and true throughout. It means exactly what it says and it is completely accurate.

Where it deals with scientific or historical matters, these can be taken as literal fact. When figures of speech are used, their meaning is always evident in context, just as in other books. There is no scientific fallacy anywhere in the Bible. This has been proven time after time. Science is knowledge, and the Bible contains all the basic principles on which true science is built, because God created the laws of science. These principles were recorded in Scripture long before scientists discovered them in their research.

The Bible is also a book of history that is archeologically accurate. It also contains many hundreds of prophecies that have been fulfilled in detail. Other prophecies point to end-time events that have not yet been fulfilled. Some are being fulfilled in our own times. The Bible is as up to date as tomorrow’s newspaper.

Who but God could have known and caused these things to come about?

So, given the Bible's veracity and reliability in the physical realm which we see, we can trust that He has also given us the real facts about the spiritual realm. About our sinful nature of disobedience that we inherited through the first man, Adam (Romans 5:12) and about our need for a Savior. God sent the only solution.

Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sin because no other perfect sacrifice exists. Then He rose from the grave and lives to bridge the gap between God and man.

“For there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). Romans 5:8 says that God demonstrated His love for us in that while we were still sinners, He sent His Son to die for us.

God has provided the only way. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me.”

That sounds like an exclusive claim, too, doesn’t it? And He is the only one with the credentials to make that claim.

John 1:12 tells us: “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the power to become the sons of God, even to those who believe in His name.” And Romans 10:9 says: “That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved.” These are God’s most precious promises.

But each person must make that choice for himself. Will you receive the gift of God and become His child? In Revelation 3:20, He says He stands at the door of your heart and He is knocking.

Will you let Him in? I pray that you do. He is waiting for you. Call out to Him now!