Fossils are a witness not only to the creative power of God, but they are also a witness to God’s judgment on sin. The fossil record has preserved the forms of plants and animals from an earlier period of earth’s history, and has shown us that there were many more different kinds of plants and animals than there are now, and that they were often larger and stronger than they are today. As much as the great variety of creatures we see on earth today shows the scope of God’s perfect creativity, they do not represent the full range of what He did in the six days of creation.
In this way, the fossil record is a witness which speaks of the design, variety and creative intelligence behind the creation. No evolutionist would suggest that any of the ruins found in various parts of the world are a result of time and chance, even though we know nothing of the people who built them. The design is evident, even if we cannot always tell what a particular design was used for. Yet when the evolutionist finds a living or fossilized creature, much more intricate in design and with obvious intelligent purpose, he supposes that the creature is a result of time and chance.
While no thinking person would ever insult the intelligence of society by suggesting that the Easter Island images are a result of time and chance erosion, evolutionists are insulting the academic world by claiming that the real living things after which the simpler images are fashioned resulted from time and chance. Even when the fossil record shows millions of different forms appearing in the wink of an eye, geologically speaking, and arriving on the scene fully formed and complete, the evolutionist insists that there could not be a Creator who formed these creatures rapidly. The fossils are a witness, and their witness is great, but their witness is not perfect, for men who want to find another understanding for them always will!
The witness of natural revelation, the “fingerprints” of God in creation, is not enough. The knowledge of salvation can never result from the witness of the natural world. This is why God has commanded us to take the revealed knowledge of God, found in the Bible, to all people. In the Scriptures we learn of God’s personal saving love for us in the work of Jesus Christ.
It is a shame that the rocks often cry out with a greater witness than many Christians. The missionary zeal of many Western Christians has not been great enough to overcome the fear that the natural man has to witness about the Savior. In Luke 19:40, we read that when the Pharisees complained about the witnessing of the disciples, Jesus told the Pharisees that if the disciples were silent, the very stones would cry out. It is important for us to realize that most of the witnessing activities of the disciples and Apostles was not considered acceptable behavior in polite society. And things really haven’t changed much today.
The argument that witnessing for Christ is not done in polite society today has probably stopped more Christian witnessing than all the persecution which is going on today in the world. As a result, the stones themselves, in the form of fossils, often offer more of a witness to the creativity and judgment of God for sin than many modern followers of Christ do. We must remember, however, that the saving message of God’s love in the Gospel is not evident in the fossilsï‚ although most of the fossils were buried in the Flood, so Noah found grace in God’s eyes through his faith in God’s promised Savior.
In Habakkuk 2:9-11, we read about another witness of the stones. This passage talks about the stones, and also the rafters of a house, witnessing against someone who deals dishonestly. While these words appear, from the context, to be more figurative, there is a very real truth here. The stones themselves cry out against immorality, as indeed the entire creation groans under the burden of sin, waiting to be delivered (see Romans 8:18-21). And the fossils that resulted from creatures killed in the Flood are a witness of judgment against immorality, a fruit of unbelief. Why can evolutionists accept the Easter Island statutes as designed and made, even though we don’t know how they were erected, nor do we know who would do it, yet fail to accept God’s creative work or the worldwide Flood?
The answers to these questions are very simple. There is no philosophical cost to evolution in accepting the obvious in the case of the Easter Island statues. But the cost to the evolutionist in accepting the obvious Creator God, who judges personal sin, is the personal cost of admitting that one has sinned and is responsible for it. This is what the individual who chooses evolution hopes to avoid by explaining the creation as the product of time and chance. Evolution, then, is an alternate faith to creation which, as many evolutionists have pointed out, cannot be compromised with Biblical Christianity.
Our lesson from Scripture, then, is that just as we have more talents and abilities than rocks, God is expecting us to do that much more than the rocks do in witnessing to His creative work, His judgment of sin, and His grace and forgiveness in Jesus Christ. He does not ask us to tell others what we do not know. What He asks us to tell others is in Acts 4:20 “...what we have seen and heard.” Every Christian has a firsthand knowledge of God’s love and grace in Christ in his life. And this witness of God’s personal care and love is the most powerful witness we have.
Let us resolve to witness better than the rocks, that do cry out with their own witness.
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God Bless
Till all are one.
