Why Genesis Matters to Salvation

Conference Presentation – Part 1

Randy Guliuzza: What does Genesis have to do with John 316? And that’s really about witnessing. And the very first time I saw anybody witness to any group of people It’s about two months, three months after I became a Christian. I became a Christian right after high school. My girlfriend, who was my wife now, was a believer, and she’d been a believer for quite some time, but I had not been. And we had a freshman orientation, and all of them, they had all the freshmen. There was like 700 freshmen, plus all the other people they came in. And then groups from different organizations would come on and they gave presentations.

And I was sitting about two rows back in the middle of the group, and a guy came up from a Christian organization, and to my shock as a new believer, he stood in front of all of these people, and he gave a gospel testimony. And I, you know, you just think, “Well, why are you shocked? Why are you shocked because I’m a new believer.

And I thought that was something that was really personal and that you kept to yourself in things like this. But not only was it not personal, but this man did it so boldly, so confidently, that I just was standing there in awe, that he’s in front of all these people and he is literally sharing his face.

And the gist of it is this, what does Genesis have to do with evangelism? What does it have to do with evangelism? Now, this is how it goes. Someone will be witnessing to them and they’ll say, “I can’t believe the claims of Jesus Christ.” Well, why can’t you? Because I can’t believe the Bible. Well, why can’t you believe the Bible? Because science has shown that the Bible is full of errors.

And we show you’re wrong on that point. Science has not shown that the Bible is full of errors. We show that your science, as you hold it, is full of errors. What in the world are we even talking about when we talk about evangelism?

Everybody says it, but here is a Bible-based definition of evangelism. First, it’s the duty of Christians, and I’ll read to you those verses in just a second.

It’s the duty of all of us Christians to do what? To preach the good news. Now, I put the word preach in yellow because Paul says it was by the foolishness of what?

Preaching. And unfortunately today, there’s this pushback against preaching where everybody wants to have a dialogue or everybody wants to have a conversation. But the Bible says that you preach the gospel, you tell them this. And it is gospel. It is good news. It’s good news because it’s salvation from sin. Salvation from sin. Now, why should I have to emphasize that? Because, well, Paul says this is a faithful saying that Jesus Christ came into the world to save what? Sinners. Sinners.

But unfortunately, we’re drifting away from that idea and we’re here to say, Well, I hear this all the time. People will have this appeal. Are you lonely? Come to Christ. Are you broken? Come to Christ. Are you low in self-esteem? Come to Christ. Do you have a broken heart? Come to Christ. Well, Christ can help you with your low self-esteem. He can help you with your loneliness, but He really isn’t here to save you from your achy -breaky heart. He’s here to save you from your what?

Your sin. Your sin. And I know that’s a tough word to get out, but this is good news that you can be saved from sin. And that’s what it’s all about.

How do we do it? By the word of God. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by what? By the Word of God. So if you are sharing your testimony and you do not have Bible verses in your testimony, you are not preaching the gospel. It is only the Word which will do these things. And we preach the Word of God with a view, not just to do it, the view that people will come to Christ and be saved.

Part 2

Tim Moore: We preach the Word of God with a view, with the urgent hope that people will come to God and be saved. Well said, Randy.

Nathan Jones: Dr. Guliuzza then got to the crux of his message, six reasons why Genesis and Adam and God’s eyewitness account of creation and all that transpired in the Garden of Eden tied to the Gospel message according to the Scriptures.

Conference Presentation – Part 2

Randy Guliuzza: Now, I’m going to give you six reasons why Genesis and Adam and everything pointing back to Genesis and creation really tie into this gospel message according to the scriptures.

According to the scriptures. Well, number one, a real Adam brought real sin and real death to all people. And I briefly touched on that on my last message, but here’s the verses that would bring that out in Romans chapter 5. This is a wonderful one. He says, “Wherefore I’ll look at this as by one man centered into the world and death by sin.” Who’s he talking about?

Adam. Of course he’s talking about Adam. “And so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses.” That means before there ever was any law, death was reigning from that period of time, even over them which had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgressions. In other words, you didn’t have to do exactly what Adam did to die.

You just had to do your own crummy sins. Number two, according to the Scripture, means that all people are accountable to their Creator.

All people are accountable to their Creator. Now, what verse would I back that up with? “Oh, Hebrews 4 says it really, really plainly. “Neither is there any creature “that has not manifest in His sight.” That’s God’s sight.

The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. There is no creature that’s not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

Number three, the Lord Jesus is the universal creator and the owner of all things. Now this is really important, particularly when it comes to evangelism, because when I was in college at one of my universities on the east coast called Harvard. Someone came up to me and very indignantly said, “What gives you the right? What gives you the right to go overseas to another culture, preach unto them something which they don’t believe and is not part of their culture with the intent of changing them and the effect that you might change their culture.

What gives you the right to go and change these people? And I said to her, “Well, I can tell you two reasons. Number one, the Lord Jesus Christ gives me that right because the Lord has commanded me to do it.

And number two, the Lord Jesus Christ created those people that I’m going to He owns them. He owns them.

So what gives me the right to go talk to them is that He is Lord of both of us. In fact, He’s Lord of you too. Point number four is this. The Lord Jesus Christ can rightfully reconcile all things to Himself.

His work, the blood that he shed, his work on the cross can rightfully reconcile all things because following on off those verses which I just read to you where it said he was the creator of all things, it says this, “And having made peace through the blood of his cross by him to reconcile all things to himself.” Now if you had your Bible, you would draw another line from those other all -things to that all -things, created all -things, before all -things, reconciles all -things. And the fact that he can reconcile all things stems back to that he is the creator of all things.

So what does Genesis have to do with this Gospel? One, it points to a real atom. Two, it points to this real creation of which the Lord Jesus Christ has the rightful authority to reconcile all these things.

Number five, the Lord Jesus Christ brings life as a gift to all who will receive. He brings life as a gift to all who will receive.

Now, what does this have to do with Genesis? Well, I’m sorry, I picked these long verses. I try to edit them, but I think I can’t leave this out. I can’t leave this out so I got to put it in, got to put it in. So Romans 5, oh, look at this. “For if by one man’s offense, death reigned by one.” And it did, and it’s still reigning. “Much more they which receive abundance by grace “and the gift of righteousness shall reign in life one, Jesus Christ; therefore, as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life; for as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. This is a basis for a doctrine which we call imputation.

Imputation. Everybody who was in the loins of Adam, which was all of us, even though we were going to commit our own sins, his sin was imputed to us because we were in Adam.

We were in Adam. In absolute fairness and justice. The Father imputes unto us the righteousness of Christ when we are in Christ.

It’s imputed to us. Adam’s sin was reckoned to our account, and in absolute fairness when we’re in Christ, his righteousness is reckoned to our account.

For God made him to be sin, him, the Lord Jesus Christ, for God made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

Do you see how imputation fits? It goes both ways. And this is being taught right here, and he goes all the way back to the book of Genesis to bring us this whole idea of this imputation, and just as there was death which reigned unto one, all of those who are in Christ’s life will reign unto them. Number six, all people who are in Christ, in Christ will be raised from the dead, will be raised from the dead.” Now, where do I find that? 1 Corinthians 15.

“But now,” Paul says, “for people who were denying that Christ had really risen from the dead,” he says, “but now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept.” Oh, the first fruits, first fruits of them that slept. What does he mean by that? “For since by man came death.” Oh, here he goes again all the way back to Adam. “By man came also the resurrection of the dead.

For as an Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” And he’s talking about resurrection from the dead.

“But every man in His own order, Christ, the first fruits, the one who conquered death through His resurrection, afterward they that are Christ’s.

At His what? At His coming. So many promises will be fulfilled at His second coming. We can live victoriously now, but as if God has said, “But wait, there’s more.” And yet those who promote evolution denied that there is more, or even that life has a purpose here and now. Dr. Guliuzza cites prominent evolutionists who realize the inevitable atheism and nihilism of their own worldview.

We can’t get away without pointing out how natural evolution directly attacks these things. And I can go on with like quote after quote after quote. So what I thought I would do for this is I would go back and just look at what historians were saying, what evolutionary teaching did to the church.

So number one, the doctrine of natural evolution challenges God’s existence and the reality of man’s accountability and future judgment.

Now how does it challenge God’s existence? It does this. This I’ll have to back up. People can know there is a God because of what they see in nature, and specifically what they see in nature that tells them there’s a God, is what they see in biology. It’s what they see in biology.

Now you can see tremendous things out in heaven, and it is a great witness to the infinity of God. But if you want to know that there really is a Creator God you look at creatures who have all of the characteristics of having been created for a purpose and have parts and systems on them which function for a purpose.

And now that we begin to study them we realize that they function and they operate according to engineering principles. And anybody who has ever lived on this planet and any culture knows that things don’t create themselves.

And everybody who has ever seen multiple parts working together for a purpose, they know from human experience that that had to have a creator. And so when they see creatures with multiple parts working together for a purpose on those creatures in abundance, it is a natural, very clear, undeniable revelation that these creatures had a Creator. Next, it challenges, natural evolution challenges the gospel, by equating man with animals, and we know that we don’t hold animals morally accountable for what they do.

There may be a dog that attacks children and you euthanize the dog for the sake of the children, but you don’t say, “Oh, you sinful dog.” Next, the Doctrine of Natural Evolution challenges the reality of sin on this, and we see this everywhere, where sin, sinful behaviors are being redefined as non-sinful behaviors.

And in other words, humans put themselves in the position of God deciding what is right and what is wrong. And in fact, sometimes we put our position, ourselves in the position of God, and decide who should live and who should die. And therefore, the doctrine of evolution removes the necessity for the person and work of Christ.

Therefore, the only conclusion is that Adam was a myth or a mythical creature, and when I say evolutionary conclusions, I’m not just talking about atheistic evolution, I’m talking as we saw earlier today, theistic evolution. The fall of man was a myth, which is also denied by theistic evolutionists, and thus the redeeming work of Christ was also a myth.

Part 3

Tim Moore: Nathan and I have not put our trust in a myth. We have believed upon the Lord Jesus Christ, the anointed One, the Son of Man and of God, who gave Himself for all who would believe in Him.

Nathan Jones: Atheists understand the stakes involved in the battle between evolution and theism, particularly Christianity. Dr. Guliuzza cites avid atheist Richard Bozarth to make that point.

Conference Presentation – Part 3

Randy Guliuzza: And he says, “Very insightfully, Very insightfully, Christianity has fought, still fights, and will fight science. Now, he conflates his evolutionary views with science as if Christians were fighting science, or not. We’re fighting his views of evolutionary thinking, which are very, very misguided on that. Anyway, he says that we will fight this evolutionary thinking to the desperate end over evolution. Why? Because evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus’ earthly life was supposedly, according to him, made necessary, that is to save us from our sins. If Jesus was not the Redeemer who died for our sins, this atheist clearly understands the gospel, and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing. And so you’ll hear questions like this. Why can’t we just believe that evolution was God’s method of creation?

Or maybe someone will say this, why does it have to be almost like a teenager? Does that, do we have to do it that way? You know, why does it have to be either /or, or can’t we find some common ground? Can’t you find some common ground between this anti-theistic worldview and your theistic worldview?

The answer is no. You can’t find common ground between those two. And you want to know who recognizes it? Other evolutionists. Here’s a man named Stevens Stuart Williams.

He’s an evolutionist, he’s an atheist, and he’s a professor of psychology at Nottingham University in Malaysia. He says something which is mocking the theistic evolutionists.

The whole notion, he goes on to say, that Genesis is metaphorical and that evolution is a testament to the glory of God, smacks of the kind of spin doctoring that gives politicians a bad name.

Wow, you know what’s interesting is these atheists, these evolutionists, these unbelievers, they recognize better than many believers what the implications of their own teaching is.

Liberal Christians alter their original religious beliefs to make them compatible with evolutionary theory and then scoff at the idea that there was ever any threat.

In doing so, they casually downplay just how radically they’ve rewritten their religion. Arguably, it is not the same religion as the one it evolved from.

It merely shares the same name. He’s absolutely and totally right. The only people who get caught in the middle are the ones who are trying to compromise.

This man who is an atheist, he likes to take his atheism straight on that. You know what? In some ways, the Bible says he’s hot or he’s cold.

And here we are, we’re either hot or cold. We say, “No, you cannot meld the two.” These people are in the middle, and they are what? Lukewarm.

Lukewarm, and they will be spewed out of the Lord’s mouth. They’re even spewed out of the evolutionists’ mouths. Nobody wants it. Nobody wants it, so the answer is no. There is no middle ground. There is no way that we can all get along. And conclusions from natural evolution challenge the credibility of the Scripture.

Not only that, they make Christians look as if we are anti-scientific and superstitious clots, not worthy to be listened to. And when they do this and we allow it to happen, it limits the seriousness with which people take our message and how it’s received on those ends. You know what? This has been going on all the time because people have laughed at us all along.

When Paul went and spoke to the Epicureans and the Stoics up on Mars Hill that says this, he was listening and he was preaching and they were listening intently until they heard of the resurrection and then in verse 32, and when they, that is those Athenians, heard of the resurrection of the dead, some of them mocked, some of them mocked. There will be people who will laugh and mock all these things.

But do you know what the rest of the verse says? But somewhat believed, but some believed. And that’s why this is so important, what we’re doing, that’s why Genesis fits into the Gospel.

Part 4

Tim Moore: Militant atheism is the least intellectual of any position. Atheists claim that in spite of limited senses, limited experience, limited ability to search the vast reaches of the universe and limited minds, they can categorically exclude the possibility of God. Agnostics at least acknowledge the limitations of their knowledge and simply confess, “I don’t know.” But recently, one famous atheist made a statement that belied his own claim to reject God. Richard Dawkins is one of the so-called Four Horsemen of New Atheism and the author of “The God Delusion”.

He is considered the most vocal atheist in the world, and yet during an interview with a British news program in early 2024, he said, “I call myself a cultural Christian. I love hymns and Christmas carols, and I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos. We in the UK are a Christian country in that sense.” Dawkins made clear that he was distressed by the growth of Islam in Great Britain and confessed, “If I had to choose between Christianity and Islam, I’d choose Christianity every single time.” As the old adage says, “There are no atheists in a foxhole.” Someday, these misguided atheists will realize the folly of their denial of our Creator God.

Our prayer is that they and you will come to saving faith in our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, in this life, long before every rebellious knee bows, and every defiant tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Nathan Jones: Too many people today buying a Satan’s lie that we have no need for a Savior. Well, clearly God’s own Genesis account does not support that claim. Genesis 3:15 foreshadowed the Messiah would defeat Satan once and for all. And yet, Satan continues to deceive many into thinking they’re good enough and do not need to be saved from their sin. Well, Tim, You recently observed that even Pope Francis has been spouting all this unbiblical ideology.

Tim Moore: That’s right. When he was on “60 Minutes,” Pope Francis was asked what gives him hope. Instead of pointing to our blessed hope, Jesus Christ, as the one who saves us from our sin and offers us eternal life, the Pope said that he considers all people good.

That kind of universalism denies our desperate need for a Savior and is in direct contradiction to what is taught throughout the Word of God, beginning in Genesis. The curse God placed upon mankind was so that we would toil in vain and eventually die. The earth, meaning the entire natural order, was also cursed.

Paul reminds us that the creation itself groans and suffers, longing to be freed from its slavery to corruption. That will happen when Jesus returns to reign upon the earth.

Nathan Jones: Not only that, we who have put our trust and him will receive our own glorified bodies, whether we are raised up from the dead or caught up to meet him in the air at the rapture. The glories that await us are beyond description.

Paul says that eye has not seen and ear has not heard, all that God has prepared for those who love him. Likewise, folks, it’s impossible for us to capture in a single TV episode all that we’d like to convey to you about God’s prophetic word and the eternal truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It’s also the challenge we face in boiling down these hour-long presentations to fit in the time slot that our television program allows.

Tim Moore: That is why you can watch the entire conference on our YouTube channel, or order the 2 DVD set for only $15. Just visit our website or call the number on the screen and tell our staff that you want to order the Everlasting to Everlasting Conference DVD. Or for only $40, we will send you Bundle 1002, including the conference DVDs along with a copy of our new Revelation Study Guide and Job Martin’s book, “Evolution of a Creationist.” All three items will help you dive deep into the bookends of the Bible to discover God’s perspective on the beginning and the end.

Nathan Jones: And next week, we’re going to wrap up this series on Everlasting to Everlasting. Tim’s message on what we have to look forward to will encourage you with our blessed hope.

Tim Moore: We hope this series has deepened your appreciation for Genesis and Revelation. Even more important, we pray that you have embraced the gospel of Jesus Christ, confessing Him as your Savior and Lord. Soon and very soon, our Creator God will return to make all things new.

The one who said, “Let there be light,” will illuminate the world with the radiance of His glory. We can hardly wait. If He tarries, we’ll see you again next week for another episode of “Christ in Prophecy”. Godspeed!

End of Program