Reading Original Sin

"The line between insignificance, despair, and eternal death on the one side and significance, joy, and eternal life on the other is drawn for us in the first four words of Scripture, ‘In the beginning God.’”

"To properly know ourselves we must know the God who made us. To properly live in the world, we must know Him who owns, orders, and sustains it.”

"Next to the testimony of Scripture, the best evidence for the truth of the Gospel entails the life of Christ displayed in His people.”

"When we see how God’s perfections relate to every aspect of our life and thinking, the seemingly unrelated aspects of the world become part of a marvelous picture of God’s purpose and works.”

"Apart from God, we are no more than a bit part in a tragic tale of futility, death, and ‘sound and fury, signifying nothing.’ But with God, we are part of something great and glorious, something that gives our life profound meaning and purpose, something infinitely excellent and eternal.”

"The uniformity or laws of nature are no more than how God orders the various aspects of the universe in a particular manner for a particular time.”

"What we call a miracle is merely God doing something different than what we normally see Him do as He orders and sustains things.”

"Since our sin displays a practical atheism that exalts our will over God’s will, so we also exhibit a practical kind of Deism by viewing the universe as begun by God but operating according to independent physical laws.”

"Since God transcends the universe He created, we could not describe or know Him accurately without His revelation.”

"What lives might have been spared the terror of the racist Aryanism if people were rightly treated as endowed with dignity, as created in the image of God.”

"If we lack a moral anchor beyond personal preference and the culture that surrounds us, we will become a mere pawn in the tyranny of someone else’s pursuit of power and pleasure—the prevailing winds will drive us where we never dreamed we would go.”

"Given our rebellion against God, our every breath comes by the mercy of God not giving us what we deserve, and our every blessing comes by the grace of God giving us what we do not deserve.”

"When our every sin cries, “Crucify!” and our indifference cries, “Barabbas!” why should anything good happen to us?”

"Atheists go to great lengths to claim an ethical code of living, even while their worldview denies an ultimate reason for one. Macroevolution gives no basis for morality: If a lion is hungry he eats, even if it happens to be you. He does so with no concern for your family, the preservation of society, or any other higher principles. He just eats and takes a nap. If your family shows up to argue natural rights, they’ll make a nice meal, too. No qualms. Evolution does not make us better than a hungry lion—a God-given conscience does.”

"The heart unwilling to do the will of God will not see Scripture as the divine revelation of God’s will.”

"The glaring evidence for God in the universe rains on the parade of unbelief and dispels the illusion of the rebel’s independence. Unbelievers, then, refuse to view the evidence with neutral objectivity because the implications of a right interpretation are too damning of their pretended freedom from God and His judgment.”

"The shouts of “Crucify!” came not from a lack of evidence, but from fickle hearts who feared the religious leaders and saw their conqueror of Rome under the power and punishment of Rome.”

"All people will one day be confronted with reality as God has determined it to be, regardless of what they imagine it to be.”