We need to be reminded that we are not to look for signs, but for the Lord Himself. He has said, “Surely I come quickly,” and faith responds, “Amen, even so come Lord Jesus” (Rev 22:20). We know He is coming because He died and rose again (1 Thess 4:14). However, there are some very dark shadows of the night that are causing us to long for “the light of the morning, even a morning without clouds” (2 Sam 23:4).
Violence
The Lord said, “But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be” (Matt 24:37). Is there a real parallel? Yes! “The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence” (Gen 6:11).
Within three days of the violence in Santee, CA, where it is alleged that Charles Williams killed two classmates and wounded others, the Associated Press reported 16 similar acts or threats of violence in schools across the country. The question always asked is, “Why?” The answer from Scripture is the depravity of the human heart. It is also a powerful indicator of the development of the “mystery of lawlessness” that will be the character of the end time. Sociologists are now speaking out against the ever-present element of violence on television and video games. The average twelve year old has seen many thousand violent deaths; such exposure hardens conscience and takes away abhorrence to violence.
Corruption
At a hospital in Rome, an Italian gynecologist, Severeno Antinori, assisted by Dr. Panos Zavos, an American, declared on March 9th, 2001 that “nothing can stop the creation of human beings by the methods that produced Dolly, the cloned sheep.” At this conference, opposition from other scientists was shouted down.
The two researchers claimed, “Cloning creates ordinary children.” Other scientists strongly criticized the arrogance of Antinora and Zavos. Biogenesis (Louis Pasteur) is still true: only life can beget life. This kind of corrupt behavior is not totally new. Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses (2 Tim 3:8). They could imitate the miracles that God performed through Moses, but they totally failed to produce life. It is solemn to read, “But they shall proceed no further; for their folly shall be evident unto all men” (v 9). Cloning would never work without life that came from God.
Cloning begins with a living, adult cell with intact genes. The DNA code allows such a cell to replicate, that is, to produce its own kind. This cell is joined with a living egg from which the genes have been removed. It is this absence of two sets of genes that makes cloning different from a test tube fertilization. What is wrong? Dolly was produced after 29 failures. These 29 fertilized eggs were killed by the failed experiments. How many fertilized eggs will be destroyed to clone a child? In this day of legalized abortion, the world is not concerned, but Christians regard this as murder. In each fertilized cell there is a new life, a new soul and a new person with a fallen sinful nature. Every living person received these things from Adam; therefore, conception produces a person (Rom 5:12-19, 1 Cor 15:45-49).
Researchers report that “attempts to clone animals have often ended in disaster, with monster-like results and repeated premature deaths.” One researcher asked, “If we can do it, does that make it right and moral?”
If science succeeds in producing a cloned child, will it have a soul? I have been asked if God cloned Eve from Adam. I am certain that Eve’s creation was very much more than a mere cloning, but where did she get her soul? Only in one unique act did God create a living soul, “Man became a living soul” (Gen 2:7). If Adam is the head of the human race, then he was a procreator and even Eve received her soul from Adam by an act in which God “made a woman.” In the same sense a cloned child will also be a “child of Adam” and receive a soul from him.
The earth also is corrupt before God and the earth is filled with violence. “Nevertheless the foundation of God stands.”
