Category Archives: Creation

Articles that emphasize biblical six-day, young earth creation.

September 15, 2013 · 14:45

A Loving God

Bible-God Is Love

And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. (1 John 4:16)

In my last post, “An Angry God,” I tried to perhaps shock readers back into an awareness of the awesomeness of God, by calling attention to the wrath He is capable of displaying. However, He more often restrains His anger because of His mercy.

It is said that familiarity breeds contempt, and that is exactly what happens when all we consider is the kinder, longsuffering, patient and loving side of God. We put Him on a shelf until we need something from Him, and then we plead with all of our heart for Him to answer our prayers. We live our lives no differently than the rest of the world so that an uninterested observer can see no difference between the Christian and the pagan.

God is not someone to be trifled with. Indeed, if He were to confront us, we would be overcome with fear, and we would shake and fall down as dead men (Matthew 28:4). The prophet Isaiah came face to face with the living God (Isaiah 6:1-5). He saw Him high, and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. He was surrounded by angels who continually chanted, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory.” At the sight of it all, Isaiah’s strength departed, and he cried out, “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts” (v. 5). When Peter recognized the power of Christ “he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Luke 5:8). When John saw Jesus in all of His Glory, he said, “when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead” (Revelation 1:17). God should not be taken lightly or taken for granted. He is GOD!

creating_adamThat said, God is a loving God. It is no accident that we find his first loving acts in the creation account in the book of Genesis. In the process of creation, Genesis records that He called all things into being only by His spoken Word. But when He created man, He made him in His own image. Not only that, but Chapter Two provides added detail telling us that “the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). The English word “formed” is the Hebrew word yâtsar which means to mold as a potter might mold a lump of clay to his liking. God took extra care in designing a body like the one He would one day inhabit.

ExpulsionFromEden

Later after the man sinned by disobeying God’s only prohibition, instead of carrying out the prescribed sentence – “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2:17, emphasis added) – God spared their lives and provided for future redemption: “And I will put enmity between thee [Satan] and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15).

When Cain murdered his brother Abel (Genesis 4), instead of killing him on the spot, God put a mark on Cain to protect him from a vendetta that might have been raised against him.

ark2Almost 1600 years later (Genesis 6-9) mankind had become so wicked and violent that God was ready to end it all. “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD” (Genesis 6:8), and God saved His prized creation in saving Noah and his family.

God is often criticized for His order to the Israelites to wipe out the Canaanites including men, women, children and their animals. The Canaanites were vile, wicked people who practiced child sacrifice and included all kinds of sexual perversions including the use of animals (bestiality) in the worship of the demonic gods – all of which is abhorrent to God. But God did not destroy them all at once as He did Sodom and Gomorrah. Instead, he gave opportunity for the witness of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to have an effect as they sojourned in their land. God spoke to Abraham, “And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years … But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full” (Genesis 15:13, 16, emphasis added). God allowed for the repentance of these pagans during the time that the Patriarchs were in the land, plus 430 years that Israel was in Egyptian captivity, and 40 more years as Israel wandered the wilderness. That was a total of around 600 years that they had to repent. It may be worth noting, that while God commanded that they wipe them all out to purge the land of their wickedness, Israel did not fully obey God in killing them all. Consequently, they continually struggled with the lure of idolatry, which eventually destroyed the nation. God demonstrates His love through the patience He shows toward sinners in giving them every opportunity to repent, but His patience has limits.

Much more could be said about the love of God, but in the words of the old hymn:

Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above, would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky.
(“The Love of God,” Frederick M. Lehman, 1917.)

The greatest act of God’s love was demonstrated when He took upon Himself the form of man, “And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8). God’s love is so great that He paid the death penalty in His own flesh to save us from the wrath to come. The wrath of God is nothing to be trifled with, but His love is extended to anyone who is willing to receive it.

 

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August 18, 2013 · 15:29

Genetic Defects Prove Evolution?

mutation

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. (Genesis 1:31)

A high school sophomore was required to read Survival of the Sickest: The Surprising Connections Between Disease and Longevity by Dr. Sharon Moalem as a summer reading assignment. According to this student, the book takes different diseases or illness and traces them back to their origin and provides scientific research to back up why a particular disease was once beneficial to our ancestors. Such strong “evidence” challenged the young man’s creationist worldview and raised several questions in his mind:

  • If God did create diseases did he have any good intentions or did he want them to destroy us?
  • Is God still creating diseases today, or are the ones He created just now being discovered?
  • Is this book right when it says that as humans we adapt overtime based on certain genes that help us survive?

The student offered one example of the disease hemochromatosis, which is a genetic disorder “that causes high amounts of iron to be present in the body, and overtime the human body ‘rusts’ away until the person affected dies” according to the student. The Mayo Clinic says that “hemochromatosis causes your body to absorb too much iron from the food you eat. The excess iron is stored in your organs, especially your liver, heart and pancreas. The excess iron can poison these organs, leading to life-threatening conditions such as cancer, heart arrhythmias and cirrhosis. Many people inherit the faulty genes that cause hemochromatosis — it is the most common genetic disease in Caucasians” (emphasis added).[1]

As reported by the student, Moalem “suggests that this disease helped people to survive during the bubonic plague. The bubonic plague was easily contracted and once it was in your system would rapidly progress feeding off of the iron available in the blood stream and within days kill you. Those who were lucky enough to have hemochromatosis, however, had almost all of their iron inaccessible to the plague since it was all in ‘locked’ form. This prevented the disease from spreading and enabled people to survive.” This was offered by Moalem as one example of the evolutionary theory of natural selection and how adaptations helped many people to survive.

I have not read Moalem’s book, so the information I have is secondhand. However, the error in thinking seems pretty clear to me. The example cited about hemochromatosis is an example of a genetic defect. The people with this genetic defect die because their bodies cannot make use of the iron in their system. The fact that it protected them from the bubonic plague did not save them from the eventual death caused by their genetic disorder. They still eventually died prematurely because of their inherited disease!

The same is true for those with sickle cell anemia. It is a genetic defect that brings about the early death of those having the defect. However, the defect makes them immune to malaria, and although they are safe from malaria, they eventually die an early death because of the disease. Personally, I do not see the benefit in either of these cases!

Genetic studies are showing that we are not improving health-wise. Our knowledge of how to combat some of these diseases continues to improve as new diseases continue to crop up.[2] Studies have shown that we transmit 60 to 200 mutations every generation,[3] and those mutations are either neutral or harmful; none are beneficial.

The question of human adaptation, as far as survival in different environments, I think has more to do with man’s intellect than it does genetics. However, as Brian Thomas, science writer for the Institute for Creation Research, points out, “It’s plausible that the Creator ‘front-loaded’ Adam and Eve’s genomes with full complements of a wide variety of both essential and non-essential genes, as well as genetic and epigenetic factors to facilitate rearrangement of those genes. Thus, as humans have spread out and thrived in various environments across the globe since their dispersal at Babel, their traits have also spread out.”[4]

As for God creating diseases, in a certain sense, He did. God is sovereign and all of creation is subject to His control. However, in another sense, God did not create disease. Genesis 1:31 tells us that God’s assessment of His creation was that it was “very good.” Such an assessment coming from a perfect God can only mean “perfect” – “flawless.” Death, decay and disease came as a result of man’s sin. “Because thou … hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake” (Genesis 3:17, emphasis added). It is because of man’s sin that disease entered into the world, not because God created it – at least not initially. In the beginning man was created not to die; in fact, nothing that God created was intended to die. The Bible calls death “the enemy” (1 Corinthians 15:26). So, our genetic degradation is due to sin. However, God will not allow us to degenerate to extinction. When Christ returns, He will restore everything back to its original perfection (Revelation 21:1). That should give us great hope!

Here are some other articles on the human genome that you may find interesting:

 http://www.icr.org/article/origins-breakthroughs-2010-human-genetics/

http://www.icr.org/article/new-genomes-project-data-indicate-young/

[2] Brian Thomas, “More Mutations Mean More Diseases, Less Evolution” http://www.icr.org/article/mutations-mean-more-diseases-less-evolution/

[3] Brian Thomas, “The Human Mutation Clock Is Ticking” http://www.icr.org/article/human-mutation-clock-ticking/

[4] Brian Thomas, “Recent Human Variation Is Not Evolution” http://www.icr.org/article/recent-human-variation-not-evolution/

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August 12, 2013 · 10:40

Episode 33 – Dinosaurs and Humans

Episode 33 – Dinosaurs and Humans.

Are dinosaurs mentioned in the Bible? Watch and see!

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August 11, 2013 · 18:04

Big Dâg!- A Fish Story

Jonah and the Whale by Pieter Lastman

Jonah and the Whale by Pieter Lastman

Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. (Jonah 1:17)

One of the strangest stories in the Bible is that of “Jonah and the whale.” In fact, the story is so incredible that even some Bible scholars have tried to invent alternative renditions to make the story more believable. Some suppose that the “great fish” that swallowed Jonah may have been something like a whale shark, or a sea monster like leviathan (thought by some to be a mosasaur), or a whale. The suggestion that the creature was a whale probably comes from the King James reference in Matthew 12:40 where it describes Jonah as being in “the whale’s belly.” However, the Greek word translated “whale” is kētos, which could be understood as “sea monster” as it is translated by the Revise Standard Version and the New American Standard Version Bibles. But kētos can also be translated as “a huge fish.” This understanding is more in keeping with the Hebrew of Jonah 1:17 which literally translates the Hebrew dâg gâdôl as “great fish.” What the great fish was, is up for speculation. It certainly could have been a whale shark, which is a “great fish,” but it certainly was not a whale or “sea monster,” otherwise the Hebrew word tannıyn would have been used (Job 7:12; Ezekiel 32:2).

Whether the “great fish” was a whale shark or some other variety of large fish is irrelevant. What should be noted is that “the LORD had prepared” the fish “to swallow up Jonah.” It is not impossible to understand this as a new creation miracle of God so that it was something totally new created just for this purpose. It is also reasonable to believe that God used a dâg gâdôl that was already in existence to be called upon do to the LORD’s bidding. God is not limited in His options.

The other point of contention in this story is that Jonah survives inside the belly of this great fish for three days. That is truly incredible! One would think that the digestive acids in the fish’s belly would have been enough to kill Jonah. Well, perhaps Jonah actually did die! Listen to Jonah’s words: “I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice” (Jonah 2:2, emphasis added). The Hebrew word translated “hell” is she’ôl – the abode of the dead – translated “Hades” in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures). He describes himself as going to the depths of the sea. “I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my God” (Jonah 2:6, emphasis added). That sounds dead. But some may challenge, “How can a dead man be aware of his condition?” Others may reasonably suggest: “This is Hebrew poetry; Jonah is speaking metaphorically.” For that, I would remind the reader of Jesus’ account of the death of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). When the rich man died, he was aware of the flames of his new environment, he was aware of his thirst, he was aware of Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom, he was aware of the lost condition of his five brothers, and he was able to converse with Abraham. If this was true of the rich man – and Jesus relayed this as a factual account, not as one of His parables – then it certainly can be true of Jonah.

This understanding makes Jesus’ analogy in Matthew 12:40 even more poignant. “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the [belly of the kētos]; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Jesus died an actual death. He was in the “belly of Hades” for three days. “And the LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land” (Jonah 2:10). In the same way, after three days in the tomb, God raised Jesus from the dead. For this reason, I believe Jonah actually died and was revived to accomplish the will of God. That is why Jesus could point to Jonah as the example of His death, burial and resurrection.

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July 28, 2013 · 20:55

An Atheist’s Challenge – Round Two

DNA Double Helix

… evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.

(2 Timothy 3:13)

The atheist about whom I wrote last week actually responded. It surprised me. Something I’ve noticed about atheists is their inability to focus on any one thing and examine it thoroughly. Instead they resort the “fire hose tactic” by trying to overwhelm their opposition with more “evidence” than one can respond to – all of it unsubstantiated, of course. I find that one advantage of writing over speaking is that I can select the topic to which I will respond, and rather than going into great detail to defend my position, I just refer the atheist to articles written by real scientists that present a contrary view. The atheist prides himself in being “open-minded,” so this allows him to practice what he preaches.

I do not want to burden my readers with every detail of the conversation, but the following are some of the points the atheist attempted to make, along with my commentary.

  • Some species that have evolved throughout the recorded history of mankind. Examples – The fish in the Hudson River evolving to survive the toxic waste, the South-East Fence Lizard which has learnt [sic] a defensive ‘dance’ to fight off ant predators, the Lerista Skink that’s evolved to shrink its legs to travel through the Australian sands more efficiently, slithering instead of walking with legs.

Here the atheist is equivocating. I had previously warned the atheist not to do this, but there is only so much one can expect from a reprobate mind (Romans 1:28).  Evolutionists often confuse “adaptation” (microevolution) with macroevolution – one kind of animal changing into another. In his examples, the fish is still the same species of fish. It did not change into a whale or grow legs to walk out of the polluted waters. The lizard is still the same species of lizard. The lerista skink genus, according to the Wikipedia, “is especially notable for the variation in the amount of limb reduction. The variation ranges from short-bodied forms with large legs bearing five toes, to elongate forms completely lacking legs” (emphasis added). “Variation” does not equal “evolution.”

  • Humans share (approx) 96% of their genes with Chimpanzees, 90% with Cats, 80% with Cows, 75% with Mice (90% of Mice’s genome can be lined up with certain regions on the human genome, also with 99% of Mice’s genes turning out to have analogues in humans), 60% of Fruit Flies’ DNA is shared, 60% of genes with Chickens, and so on.

If anything, the similarity in DNA among animals and even plants speaks to a common designer not to evolution. The information coded and stored in DNA are the instructions necessary to make a human being human or a dog either a Great Dane or a Chihuahua.  Dr. Jeffrey Tomkins, biologist with the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) has written much on this subject. His research shows that the similarities between human and chimp DNA are not as close as first proclaimed, and the gap grows greater the more he investigates. (See: Chromosome Comparison Shows More Chimp-Human Differences.)

The atheist then pointed to Darwin’s finches at the Galapagos Islands. That really is no different than what has already been covered above. Typically, what I have noticed about atheists is that they parrot things that they have heard without bothering to think critically about what they have heard. They simply regurgitate what they have been fed. His next point is a good example:

  • Big Bang Theory… 13.7 billion years ago (somewhere around that mark), not 5,000 years (almost hilarious to believe the world is that young with the overwhelming amount of proof), something quite large happened. Not an explosion like most Religious parties believe happened, nothing like if a balloon were to pop and all its contents were to spill out in all different directions. It happened more like a small balloon finitely expanding to the size of the Universe as it is now. What caused this, no-one knows, the mathematics behind it are [sic] crazy and extreme for humans to even grasp.

If “religious parties” portray the Big Bang as an “explosion,” it is because that is how it was initially portrayed by Sir Fred Hoyle (and others), the man who coined the phrase in 1949. Current theoretical physicists promulgate this idea by what is presented on the mass media. While they speak about “inflation,” they present images that imply an explosion. Contrary to the atheist’s portrayal of “religious parties,” creation scientists would lean more toward the side of “inflation” (without the billions of years) as this view lines up better with biblical instruction (Job 26:7; Psalm 104:2; Isaiah 40:22; 44:24; Zechariah 12:1). The atheist ignores that there are competing views among secular scientists on how the Big Bang developed. The jury is still out on which is the correct interpretation. So, like all fools, the atheist builds on a foundation of sand (Matthew 7:26).

  • Our sun alone is 4.57 billion years old, after it collapsed (along with many other stars) from being a part of a giant molecular cloud (Hydrogen + Helium). For god to have created the sun 5,000 years ago, it would still be in the process of its collapse and Earth would still being in its process of creation, much more flat and disc-shaped.

In the first place, gas does not collapse; it expands, which is an argument against current star formation theories. This is a carefully guarded secret. As for God not being able to create in a short amount of time, obviously the atheist is not familiar with the omniscient, omnipotent God of creation.

At this point, the atheist begins his assault on God. He begins his attack with words straight from the devil’s mouth: “You’re god is the only true god?” Then he lists several pagan gods. Interestingly he finds the parallels between the pantheon of Asherah, who is impregnated by a ray from the sun god, gives virgin birth to a son, who is killed and rises again. There are several variations of this theme in ancient pagan religions which predate Christianity. Asherah is called the “Queen of Heaven,” a title which is currently carried by the Virgin Mary of the Roman Catholic Church. Let us face it; Satan is not stupid. He is the foremost counterfeiter. Jesus called him the father of lies (John 8:44). Sadly, the atheist has willfully accepted the lie as evidenced by his charge that “Christianity and its bible [sic] is simply a mish-mash, hand-me-down of all the most memorable elements and factors of thousands of different ‘pagan’ religions that came a long time before it.”

As previously stated, often the atheist’s strategy is to overwhelm his opponent with a barrage of stupid questions. (Yes, there are stupid questions – those that are not thought out before presenting them.) Here are some examples:

  • About Adam and Eve … They ate from the ‘Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil’ which disobeyed god…right? Just one problem: How could have Adam and Eve been expected to comprehend the implications of their actions if, prior to their indiscretion, they had no concept of right and wrong, punishment, evil, pain, suffering and death? Even if god had been successful in adequately explaining all these beforehand, this means that he would have had to give them knowledge of good and evil anyways, which turns the entire story into one big ridiculous farce. A loving, just and secure god would realise [sic] that simply not believing in him is not a crime worthy of hellfire.

The atheist assumes that Adam and Eve were supposedly created with lower intelligence rendering them incapable of understanding God’s only rule (Genesis 2:16-17). This rule seems straightforward and simple enough that any child can comprehend it. This was answered in last week’s post, so I will not comment on it further other than to say the atheist was either not paying attention or his reprobate mind kept him from seeing it.

  • God doesn’t make mistakes, as you put it, he is perfect in every aspect, therefore his creations were perfect too… so why then did he flood the entire Earth killing thousands, if not millions of innocent people, along with some of the ‘sinners’… they couldn’t have been ‘sinful’ because god made them, and he’s perfect and so were his creations. There would be no way they could have turned against him, because they were perfect (research the word ‘perfect’ think you’re using the wrong one).

The atheist missed the part about the fall of man (Genesis 3:6), also covered in last week’s post. That is what makes these kinds of questions stupid, and they are designed to distract the opponent from the main point – that God is Creator of all and His creation is accountable to Him – like it or not.

The atheist went on to make more absurd arguments, and I do not want to bore my readers; but what follows is the saddest thing of all. This was his response to the Gospel message that I presented to him:

  • Jesus’ “sacrifise” [sic] … For Jesus to have made a blood sacrifice for our sins is impossible. A blood sacrifice cannot ‘pay’ for a person’s sin, it is an archaic, deeply flawed view of morality that says that, as long as there is blood spilled to appease god (and with Jesus’ blood being innocent at that), then the crime is forgiven. How can someone else pay for your sins? In what sense is morality and justice served if someone, let’s say, offers to take the place of a condemned criminal in the electric chair? Does this change the fact that the condemned criminal has not been held responsible for his actions? And how is the innocent death anything more than a sad, pointless waste that doesn’t add anything to the overall moral equation?

It intrigued me that he should see the futility of blood sacrifices. God shares the same attitude: “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4). But the innocent, sinless blood of the God-Man is ultimately superior: “By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10).

The atheist had much more to say, but I found it wearisome, tedious and mind-numbing. The Bible tells us to “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear” (1 Peter 3:15). But the Bible does not put the burden of conversion on the shoulders of the witness; that work is for the Holy Spirit. But we should not withdraw when challenged by an unbeliever just because we assume it will be time wasted. Often, your words, no matter how well put together or how brilliantly argued, will fall upon deaf ears. Occasionally though, you may find that one that is ignorant, knows it, and truly wants to learn the truth. That one is worth the effort!

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