The Death of Faith

Recently, I have seen books and read articles by seminary trained men who have educated themselves out of belief in the Gospel. Men who, having entered seminary as true believers came to the point, based on the things they had studied, where they no longer believed. There is a difference between seeking an education and seeking truth, between seeking knowledge and seeking wisdom. Those who seek knowledge for its own sake, or worse yet, to gain degrees, acclaim and the acceptance of their peers, will often find themselves educated to the point of disbelief. There is no chance that one seeking truth and wisdom should ever come to such an end.

There is one central truth and that is that God is Truth. Both Jesus and the written Word are truth and the Holy Spirit will lead you into all truth. If the facts that one learns seem to contradict that truth, they are either lies misrepresented as truth or partial truths twisted by the enemy of your soul and made to appear as if they oppose the Truth of God. There are no facts that oppose the Truth of God, only misinterpretations of either the “facts” or the Word of God.

For the sake of this article, let me site two examples that have led to the loss of faith in some. First, we will discuss the massive evidence that there was a pre-adamic civilization  and secondly that there are stories of the virgin birth that predate both Judaism and Christianity. These ideas have led men and women to renounce the Gospel. Perhaps these things have bothered you or caused you to question God and the Bible.

There are large volumes that have been written which address both of these quandaries. If it interests you, let me suggest that you study further. For the sake of this short article, allow me to answer the objections in the shortest manner possible.

Some, who insist on a literal six-day creation, have suggested that all of the evidence that would seem to support a Pre-Adamic civilization may be understood in the light of the flood of Noah. They suggest that stratified layers are not the result of millions of years of build up but that they were formed during the runoff from the flood as larger and heavier objects sank deeper into the mud.  This is possible and satisfies some but certainly not all students of these things. There seem to be, in fact, a good number of exceptions which cannot be properly explained by a global inundation.

So, what if science should prove that a pre-adamic civilization did exist? What does that do to your faith? The answers to those questions, respectively, should be, “So what?” and “Nothing.”

 Genesis starts with these words, “ In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth WAS without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” (Emphasis mine.)

The little word “WAS” in that passage is troublesome because it has caused a lot of confusion, has carried over into most translations and it is wrong…

The word translated “was” here is הָיָה (hayah). Hayah is a verb. It appears 76 times in the King James Version. It is translated, [to be, become, come to pass, exist, happen, fall out]. It is translated as “WAS” exactly once, in Genesis 1:2. It is an obvious mistranslation, but it is so popular that no other translations have dared to correct the error. It is never, with this single exception, translated “WAS.”

The verse, by all rights, should read, “And the earth BECAME without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”

If you understand that one simple fact, no argument concerning the existence of a pre-adamic race could ever shake your faith…

Next, there have been stories of the virgin birth of gods and god men since the beginning and they predate the story of Jesus by thousands of years.

This fact has led some to believe that the early Christians simply mixed old pagan stories with the Hebrew Scriptures and came up with a new version of an old story… This has caused some to lose their faith.

Yet there remains a much better way to resolve the conflict. One must first concede that the Bible does not give us every detail of every story. We do not have full architectural plans for the Ark, and we do not have a list of names of all those who died in the flood. We just are not told everything and, practically speaking, we would not want to know every little detail.

What we do know is that God had a talk with Satan after the fall and told him of his future and the curse that now hung over his head. Scripture gives us a hint as to the content of that conversation, but it is certain that not every detail and every word is recorded.

In Genesis three, we read these words.

¹⁴ So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,

“Cursed are you above all livestock
    and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
    and you will eat dust
    all the days of your life.
¹⁵ And I will put enmity
    between you and the woman,
    and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
    and you will strike his heel.”

We also know, from the book of Job and others, that Satan continued to have access to Heaven and conversations with God. What was contained in those discussions we cannot even guess, but God’s future plans were certainly mentioned. Satan knew part but not all. That he knew that a virgin would conceive and give birth to the Son of God is certain because it shows up repeatedly in the old stories of the gods…

First, Satan told men that in her sin, Eve had recreated herself as a “Free Woman.” As such, they should consider Eve to be Virgin Born… She, according to the Devil, created herself. Then, the pagan gods were virgin born and the pagan goddesses were all “Virgin Born” and “Virgin Mothers.” But the stories are crude and ugly… nothing at all like the story of Mary and Jesus… The Bible story just sounds like something that God would do. The pagan stories all sound like the Devil wrote them, and he did.

Look at Isis. Isis fell in love with her brother, Osiris, and married him. Before they could have sex, their jealous brother Set, killed Osiris and cut him into fourteen pieces and threw him into the Nile. Isis searched and found everything but his private parts which had been eaten by a fish. She sewed him back together, manufactured the world’s first dildo, sat on it and impregnated herself, making her the virgin mother of the god Horus. Horus was her son. He was also Osiris reincarnated. Isis married him when he was twelve years old. Horus was then god, the son of god and the husband, brother, and son of Isis…

I guess that was the best story Satan could think up. It made him, instead of Yahweh, the father of a virgin born god… Satan always wants to mimic God…

Compare that crude and ugly story with the story of Mary and Jesus in the Bible. Even though the story of Isis and Horus came first, it is obvious, to the Christian, that one story is demonic and the other heavenly. Which one came first is insignificant.

The same is true with every conflict. We must make the extrabiblical material fit the Bible and not the other way around. Most conflicts can be easily resolved. If there remain any conflicts that cannot be resolved, we must have the faith to believe that the conflict is based, not in fact, but in our own ignorance… We must always start out with the assumption that God and his Word are correct.

“Let God be true and every man a liar…”

David…