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Alleged Errors Authority Evangelism False Religions Salvation Teachings The Bible The Christian The Savior The World Theology

10 Apologetics Videos That Get Straight to the Point (and Right to the Heart)

After absorbing over 50 hours of apologetics lectures and debates on topics as simple as an overview of Genesis and as minute as cave formation in New Mexico, my friend and I had an idea.  We seriously considered condensing the information in our vast, overpriced DVD library into a series of short video clips to deliver the key points in a way that would be more engaging to our generation and easy to share online.

We never got past the first script, but I am happy to report that several ministries with superior skills and funding have had the same idea in recent years.  Answers in Genesis now has Check This OutThe Institute for Creation Research produces That’s a Fact, and Creation Today has my personal favorite: Creation Minute.  These video series focus on foundational issues surrounding science and the Bible, but what about the other important questions of life?

Now, Mark Spence of Living Waters teaches on these broader topics in a series of apologetics videos taken from the Way of the Master TV Show.  I was blown away by the quality of not only the teaching but also the production that goes with it.  Unlike those old lectures, these videos get right to the heart of some of the most-asked questions about Christianity or religious beliefs in general.  Everyone has time to watch three minutes (or less) of non-stop, hard-hitting apologetics on the questions that matter most.

You can watch all 10 videos below or click a link to jump to a specific clip.

  1. Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?
  2. Does Christianity Cause Wars?
  3. Is It Wrong to Judge?
  4. Can We Trust the Bible?
  5. Is Reincarnation True?
  6. Why Would a God of LOVE Send Someone to Hell?
  7. Is Sin God’s Fault?
  8. Which Jesus do you Follow?
  9. What is Truth?
  10. Why is There Evil in the World?

Categories
Analysis Books Politics Teachings The Bible The Savior The World

Law, Liberty, and The Lord: Comparing the Bible to U.S. Laws

Christianity is too judgmental, too strict.  We must drop such dogma if we are to live as free people in a just society.  You have heard this said before.  You may have thought it yourself.  This impression is false and easily disproved by a simple comparison of the words in the Bible vs. the collection of documents that define United States law.

The Bible, Obamacare, Taxes, and US Code compared

Suddenly the Bible does not seem to be such an oppressive rule book after all, especially when considering this chart does not account for many federal regulations, state laws, city ordinances, etc.  Some point to the dietary laws penned by Moses as an example of invasive restrictions on personal freedom.  This seems to be a reasonable argument until you look at Title 21 of the U.S. Code which governs food and drugs.  It has 699,440 words.  Moses only managed to write 174,733 words in the Bible during his entire 120 years on Earth!  The FDA certainly has a lot more “thou shalt nots” limiting dietary freedom than God ever passed down to the Jews.

The same holds true for many other aspects of our lives from the time we brush our teeth to driving to and from work to watching TV at night.  All of these activities are regulated, monitored, and controlled to one degree or another by one or more federal agencies somewhere along the line.

The Source and Justification for Laws

Before going further, we would be wise to understand the reasons that we write laws to begin with.  Consider the words of Frederick Bastiat in his masterful book, The Law:

Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws.  On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place…Each of us has a natural right – from God – to defend his person, his liberty, and his property.

[amazon asin=1440446458&template=iframe image] Those things which we have a natural right to defend are those which originate from our Creator.  Therefore, the words God has spoken to us in the Bible should be the foundation of our laws which protect those gifts.  Then, how do we end up with so many statutes which extend far beyond this intent?  Paul writes in 1 Timothy 1:8, “But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully.”  When we step away from the biblical basis of natural law, we begin to use it improperly.  The law fails when we turn its intent toward what Bastiat describes as “stupid greed and false philanthropy.”

We have attempted to force “false philanthropy” upon our society through legal plunder – the use of force to deny a person’s right to their property.  As evidence, the longest section of the U.S. Code is the one dealing with health and welfare.  It is over 8 million words which makes it longer than the entire tax code and associated regulations combined.  Surely it is noble to take care of the needy and sickly, but it is unjust to forcibly confiscate someone else’s money to do so.  Religion accomplishes the same task through genuine charity which is not given out of duty, obligation, or force (2 Cor 9:7).  In this and many other ways, the Christian worldview is the antidote (not the source) of injustice or oppression.

Legalism and Grace

When preachers step forward to explain these principles and call us to adhere to God’s standards, some will object that it’s too legalistic.  But, the same folks will not cry “legalism!” when the IRS comes to enforce tax laws which are three and a half times the size of scripture.  It might be easy to jest at this hypocrisy, but it raises a useful point.  Is it reasonable to expect anyone to fully comply with a set of laws so voluminous we can’t even manage to read them let alone understand and follow them to the letter?  Certainly not, and here the faithful critic of legalism is correct to point out our utter inability to live a sinless life (Rom 3:12).

If we fail to follow every rule and regulation codified in U.S. law, we may experience little or no consequence.  Even if we are to commit the most heinous of crimes, our sentence may only be the death of our earthly bodies.  In contrast, God administers eternal and infinitely more severe consequences for breaking just one of his commandments.  This may be one reason that biblical guidelines are seen as less forgiving than federal laws.

While more and more people are beginning to fear our government, our deeper fear is of the one who can destroy both our body and soul in Hell (Matt 10:28).  The natural desire is to ignore or deny this existence of Hell, hoping it will squash our fear.  Why would God set up such severe punishment? Does he hate us? No. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son (John 3:16) to pay the debt we owe so we won’t have to suffer this awful fate.

This is how a righteous judge can also offer us the kind of liberty and peace that can be found nowhere else but in the salvation of Jesus Christ.  When we approach God in repentance and ask forgiveness, it is freely granted.  Ask the same of Homeland Security when you forget to leave a pocket knife in the car at the airport and you’ll find out just how “forgiving” our government can be.

It is time to recognize that when we look to God’s instructions we can be free; when we pile regulations on top of laws built on the wrong foundation, we are crushed under the weight of government power.  If we are to find freedom, let us heed the words in Galatians 5:1:

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

 

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Minstry Teachings The Savior

Jesus Talks with Nicodemus

We’ve all heard John 3:16 but often we do not consider the entire conversation Jesus had with Nicodemus. That night he spoke of being born again, believing in both earthly and spiritual things, and much more.

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Politics Teachings The Savior The World Theology

Jeremiah 18: God vs. Nationalism

American Christians, when was the last time you read Jeremiah – I mean seriously read Jeremiah?  I ask this question because so many of us think that God made something special here in America, and therefore God won’t abandon us.  Some of us even think that what God made here is so special that it is worthy of us expending our blood to defend it.  But what does God say in this matter?  If you’ll turn to Jeremiah 18, you will see that God thinks our defense of “liberty” and/or the “Constitution” is futile. Picking up arms, going to the polls, and/or legislating in the name of “God”, “country” or “morality” keeps our “troops” on the wrong battlefield.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no pacifist and I’m no slouch.  I’m not talking about Christians employed in military service (military service is clearly biblical: 2 Timothy 2:3).  Nor am I talking about Christians standing up for truth and/or righteousness (people need to hear the truth: 1 Timothy 2:4).  What I am talking about is putting the values of American patriotism (or nationalism) ahead of the Bible.  Our primary mission isn’t to stand up for Uncle Sam, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, etc.  It is to stand up for our biblical foundation and preach the Gospel:  Mark 16:15  “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.”  According to Jeremiah, God only wants one thing from this country:  to turn from evil (repent) as a nation.

Let us analyze American Patriotism in light of Jeremiah 18:2-10.  These verses will make it abundantly clear that as American Christians, we need to concentrate on fighting a spiritual war above all other battles.  As Ephesians 6:11-12 tells us: “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”  We do not need to get sidetracked fighting symptoms of apostasy such as homosexuals in the military, liberal activist judges or politicians undermining Natural Law.  Instead, we need to focus on the cancer that is destroying this nation from the inside out:  unbelief.

Jeremiah 18:2  Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words.

Why should we be analyzing the Old Testament, let alone Jeremiah?  Paul tells us that the Old Testament is written for our admonition in the end times: 1 Corinthians 10:11  “Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.”  Like Jeremiah, we are to hear God’s words if we are to understand what we are to do in these perilous times.

Jeremiah 18:3  Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels.

Jeremiah 18:4  And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

            As usual, God is trying to teach us something.  He is giving us a visual picture to precede his spiritual lesson.  Here we have a potter working a vessel of clay on his potter’s wheel.  The vessel of clay becomes marred, and instead of attempting to repair it, he just makes another vessel out of the same lump of clay.  This concept of God as the potter and man as the clay is one that is repeated throughout scripture.  See also Isaiah 29:16, Isaiah 64:8, and Romans 9:21

Jeremiah 18:5  Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

Jeremiah 18:6  O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.

Jeremiah 18:7  At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it;

God then proceeds to lay into Israel over their wickedness and tells Jeremiah that he can pluck up, pull down, and otherwise destroy any nation in an instant.  Just like the potter working a piece of clay, God can destroy and rework a nation at will.  Now, re-read 1 Corinthians 10:11 (above).  Here, some may ask:  “This is the Church Age, isn’t God just speaking about Israel?”  What does 1 Corinthians 10:11 say?  It says this picture of the potter is both for our example and for our admonition.

Jeremiah 18:8  If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.

As usual, God works multiple lessons into every example.  God explains in verse 8 that there is hope for a nation that turns from its evil.  Not only is there hope for a wayward nation, but in a direct refutation of Calvinism’s “eternal decrees”, God explains that he will repent of his planned destruction if a nation repents of its evil.  This is not a one-off concept; it is re-iterated in Jonah 3:9-10, Genesis 18:32, and Matthew 11:21-23.

Jeremiah 18:9  And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it;

To the American patriot’s credit, they are correct to believe that God had a hand in this country’s beginning.  Verse 9 tells us that God builds and plants nations in an instant.  This is what happened to the United States.  Popery had Europe in a stranglehold and through the Jesuits was attempting to usher in another “Dark Age.”  When all hope seemed lost, God fulfilled the prophecy of Genesis 9:27 and opened up a land of freedom in the midst of Shem’s tents.  This verse also best explains why King George III inconceivably divorced America with the Prohibitory Act on 22 December 1775 and how the seemingly invincible British army lost a war to a rag-tag band of farmers (see The Revolution Myth by Gene Fisher and Glen Chambers).

Jeremiah 18:10  If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.

Now, here is where it gets scary for modern Americans.  Verse 10 builds on verse 9 and tells us that God benefits, and does good for, those countries that He builds and plants.  This concept is quite clear in history when one examines the United States.  We were instantly propelled onto the world stage with almost limitless opportunity, resources, and talent.  Then our sin natures got the better of us and we succumbed to one of the most famous verses in the Bible,  Proverbs 16:18:  “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”

So where does this leave us as modern day Americans?  The answer should be obvious.  Our country needs to repent of its evil and spiritual rebellion towards its Creator.  As Christians, we need to go out to the highways and the hedges and witness to the lost (Matthew 22:9, Luke 14:23).  We must stay focused on the harvest of Luke 10:2  “Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.”

We cannot allow ourselves to be sidetracked by man’s logic and/or “good causes.”  2 Timothy 2:4  “No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.”  Running to the hills will accomplish nothing.  Storing up food, money, and/or ammunition will not save us (see how fast Belshazzar lost everything in Daniel 5).  Gaining political office and/or voting our way out is doomed to failure (see the dismal track records of the “Christian Coalition” and the “Moral Majority” since Christians have tried to vote this country back onto the narrow path; Matthew 7:13-14).  Even protesting abortion, while a good thing, will do nothing to change the heart conditions of the heathen who voluntarily murder their own children in the name of Baal (Jeremiah 7:9).

Have I deflated your patriotic balloon enough yet?  Don’t give up entirely, just redirect your energies.  Ephesians tells us that our enemies are not liberals, homosexuals, or even the New World Order.  Our enemy is the Devil himself.  We don’t even need to worry about the 2nd Amendment as guns aren’t going to win this battle.  Crack open that dusty old King James hiding on your bookshelf and don your battle gear:  Ephesians 6:12-13  “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.  Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.”

Categories
Fruits Teachings The Christian The Savior

Soul Liberty Outline

This outline is the beginning of a series of articles that, Lord Willing, will become a book on the subject of Soul Liberty. This compilation has been three years in the making and could possibly take more. It is the result of much Bible study, much prayer, and much debate. The thesis of this outline has rocked the very soul of its author who until this year was determined to resist its conclusion. The thesis can be summed up as follows:

Jeremiah 18:7-10: “At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it; If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.”

Key points to consider for all who love Jesus Christ:

  1. There is no Constitution in the Bible. There are only the Old and New Testaments.
  2. The American Constitution doesn’t exist: it was destroyed by Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Man’s war for material freedom without God was lost at Gettysburg. If God wanted Americans to be able to live any way they please, the South would have won.
  3. There are no freedoms (or unalienable rights) outside of Jesus Christ. (John 8:36)
  4. The only laws that we are to disobey are those that contradict Biblical commandments. Everything else is to be obeyed, no matter how tyrannical. (1 Peter 2:13)
  5. God is in Control. God tells us that He establishes our leaders (Obama, Bush, Clinton, et. al.). (Colossians 1:16)
  6. God doesn’t care about Constitutional eligibility. God gives us both what we deserve (a tyrant) and what we want (bondage). (1 Samuel 8:5)
  7. Abortion, Homosexuality, Feminism, etc. are symptoms of our spiritual disease of unbelief. To remove the symptoms, you must first address the root cause. (James 5:20)

Matthew 9:37-38: “Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.”

Categories
Salvation Teachings The Christian The Savior Theology

Biblical Repentance

Repentance is an integral part of salvation and the Christian life. Learn what repentance is (and is not) in order that you may live with God in heaven and on Earth according to his will.

BIBLICAL REPENTANCE | Doctrine | Way of Life Literature.

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Teachings The Father The Holy Spirit The Savior Theology

How God Makes Himself Known

Chances are that you or someone you know has asked the question: “Why hasn’t God revealed himself to me personally?” Another variation is: “If God is real, why won’t he just come down from Heaven and remove all doubts about his existence?” The answer may surprise you because the premise of the question is false. You see, God actually has revealed himself to the world and to you personally. There are several ways he has done this and reasons you may not have recognized the revelation for what it was.

The first and most obvious way that God shows himself is through the world around us – his creation. I doubt anyone has ever put it better than Paul in his letter to the Romans: “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse (Romans 1:20).” Anyone who is open-minded toward the possibility of God’s existence cannot help but conclude that he’s there and he cares about every detail of our world and our lives. Much more can be said about this and I would encourage anyone to browse through the “First Days” links on our site to find websites focusing on the topic of creation.

The things we can discover about God through studying his universe fall under what we call general revelation. The more specific way God reveals himself is known as special revelation. This involves direct, detailed communication from God either in personal appearances on earth or through inspired writings collected in the Holy Bible. God has shown up in various forms throughout history:

The above list is just a brief summary of several times God has chosen to reveal himself to us visibly. One more such appearance to “prove” his existence is not only unnecessary, but it would not be likely to produce any fundamentally different result from the reaction given when Jesus Christ was here on earth. Though he showed himself to be God through many infallible proofs (Acts 1:3), the religious leaders of his time ordered his gruesome torture and death and then persecuted those who chose to believe on him (Acts 7:59Acts 9:4). For them and many others like them, even a man raised from the dead is not persuasive enough (Luke 16:31).

There are a few reasons for this attitude which we can learn from scriptures inspired by none other than the God that so many are unwilling to accept. The first comes from the latter half of what Paul said in Romans 1:21: “but [they] became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” In fact, Romans 1:21-32 reveals profound truths about our hearts and minds becoming darker and darker as we choose more and more to look upon ourselves and the world instead of God. This is the crux of the matter: God has not chosen to keep himself hidden; we have chosen to hide our own eyes.

More insight can be found in the account of the first people on earth, Adam and Eve. When they first disobeyed God, they were ashamed and attempted to cover themselves up with fig leaves (Genesis 3:7). Deep down, we perceive that God is the ultimate judge and we fear the consequence of sin – the consequence of death. People find every excuse to deny this truth in order to escape living with knowledge that God will someday execute his wrath upon the earth.

There may be many other reasons you cannot see God for who he truly is. I want to share with you today that it is never too late and there is profound hope in God’s grace and mercy. The punishment that we deserve has been paid by Jesus’ death on the cross. You need only to repent of your sins and accept this free gift from him. Once you have, the Holy Spirit will begin a work in your life to help you grow and to know God more personally and fully. He is truly a God who wants to be known by us. He is right there in front of us every day in his creation and in his word. Can you see him? Are you at least willing to open your eyes?

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Alleged Errors Teachings The Bible The Savior Theology

Why Does God’s Creation Include Death and Suffering?

Why do bad things happen? Through the ages, human beings have sought to reconcile their understanding of an all-powerful, loving God with the seemingly endless suffering around them. Tommy Mitchell explains the Biblical answer to this problem.

Why Does God’s Creation Include Death and Suffering? – Answers in Genesis.

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General Science Teachings The First Days The Savior Theology

Where Science and Religion Overlap

I keep coming across the idea that belief in evolution doesn’t matter to Christians because (supposedly) evolution is “science,” and Genesis is a religious “myth.” People then say that science and religion answer different questions. Religion answers “why” and science answers “how.” So, what does it matter if God used evolution to create us or whether it was by divine fiat?

This whole idea goes back a long way, but was popularized by an evolutionary biologist (and noted Marxist) named Stephen Jay Gould. He called it Non-Overlapping Magisteria, or NOMA. This is an attempt to separate science and religion as being totally different entities and two different ways of discovering truth. Religion deals with spiritual truths while science deals with natural truths.

If that’s the case, then there should be no conflict whatsoever between science and religion, right? Not so fast. When it comes to creation and evolution, there’s quite a conflict. When we talk about origins, science and religion fully overlap and thus the NOMA idea doesn’t apply. Both means of discovering the truth arrive at fundamentally different answers with regards to where everything comes from. Science is trying to tell us that the creation of everything is due to natural causes. Religion tells us that “God created.”

You see, it does us no good to wonder why God created us, or what His purpose for us is if we don’t even believe he created us in the first place. Furthermore, knowing how he created us tells us a lot about God’s nature. Evolution, at its core, is entirely purposeless and directionless. Its foundational concepts include random variations preserved through selection (death). Notice the word “random”. If God used evolution to create us, what does that say about our purpose? What does it say about death? If we’re mere accidents on an evolutionary tree, then we’re not created in God’s image according to His will. If death is part of the creative process of God, then it was not a punishment for Adam’s sin. Religion and “science” (if evolution can even be classified as science) are in a great deal of conflict with the biblical description of God.

Christians see Jesus as the Son of God. On several occasions, Jesus referenced parts of Genesis in defense of his teachings. In particular, he used the creation story to defend marriage between one man and one woman, saying that the two are one flesh and man shall “cleave unto his wife.” Furthermore, Matthew and Luke include Adam in Jesus’ direct lineage. But, if evolution is true, then Adam and Eve didn’t exist. So, what does that mean about Jesus’ statements on marriage? Which people in the Bible’s genealogies are real if the first ones aren’t? How arrogant are we as humans to say that we know the history of life on Earth better than the Son of God?

As I will show in other articles, we have every reason to scoff at man-made myths about swirling balls of gases that formed stars, then planets, then goo, and eventually …you. The Bible is an important book of history that starts at the very beginning, as written by an eyewitness. In the story of creation, this eyewitness is God Himself, who spoke to the first man and inspired the writers of the Bible. It is this witness which gives us observations which we can begin with in conducting scientific investigations to discover more about our wondrous habitation.

I leave you with this thought from Romans 1:20-25:

“For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the creator, who is blessed forever, Amen.”

Categories
Age of the Earth Astronomy Biology Design General Science Noah's Ark Teachings The First Days The Flood The Savior

Laying The Foundation On Creation

“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”
– Robert Jastrow

Everyone has moments in their life when they ponder their existence. Occasionaly it’s simply a question of ancestry; many times it involves the origins of life on Earth and the universe itself. I’m no exception to this. I was given a basic concept of how our existence might have come to be throughout my public school education. Teachers explained that a big bang quickly dispersed gases and such throughout the universe very quickly. Then, things cooled and slowed down; galaxies, stars, and planets formed. On Earth, there must have been a pre-biotic soup of complex chemicals that formed the earliest simple cells. The rest of the story is documented in the fossil record and the subsequent evolution of these simple cells eventually produced all life we see today. Of course, all of this must have happened over billions of years. It all seemed logical and well-supported; I thought all that was left was to figure out the steps involved in going from our evolutionary beginnings to the present day.

Imagine my utter shock when I learned that the basic premises for all of this were based on mere speculation or flawed evidence and that there was another explanation staring me right in the face my whole life. The answer was in Genesis. I had heard about creation scientists who believe everything was created in six days as described in the Bible and that Earth is merely a few thousand years old. In the face of what we’ve been taught and led to believe our whole lives, this seems preposterous at first glance.

Much of the criticism stems from a perception that all creationists do is try to show the impossibility of evolution and that they say such things because they simply don’t understand how it works or they stubbornly refuse to abandon their faith despite scientific knowledge or reason. After over a year of obsessive investigation I’ve uncovered a network of qualified PhDs in all disciplines that have done serious research, written volumes of technical papers and produced informative videos showing how the Biblical model makes better sense of scientific observations. This investigation is what led me to reject my faith in evolution and put my faith instead in our Creator. I couldn’t come close to covering the details which led me to this realization, but I’ll try to cover the basics.

Religion and Science

First, let me clarify some things about science and religion. Religion is a worldview. Your beliefs and moral practices are based on that view. Science is a way to test a hypothesis. In science, you make predictions based on logic or mathematics that are testable and (preferably) falsifiable. Then, you interpret the results to see if they fit in to an overall theory, which is sometimes predicated on assumptions which are shaped by one’s worldview or the reigning paradigm.

There are thousands of different religions, but on the question of origins they fall neatly into two categories: naturalist and creationist. The former is a belief that everything that’s in the universe is self-existent and was shaped exclusively by natural processes. The latter is a belief that the universe was created by a supernatural being that is eternal and exists outside of what we know as space and time. The difference is especially obvious concerning the origins of life on Earth.

By their very nature, scientific experiments must operate independently of any religious bias. It involves the careful observation of facts to see if a prediction makes sense. If the results falsify the theory or fail to adequately support it, it’s time for a new theory. As I have seen lately, the evidence used to support evolution as a basis of origins simply doesn’t hold up. It’s past time to abandon it as an explanation of origins. However, the only alternative is to believe in special creation. That’s simply too hard to swallow for a lot of people who are reluctant to give up beliefs held their whole lives.

Compromise

Before getting into the details, you might be wondering why such a discussion of evidence is important. Why spend so much time and effort disproving evolution if it is possible that God used evolutionary processes to create the world? Couldn’t Genesis be interpreted as a day being comparable to a geological age? Should we “limit” God by having a narrow view of origins? There are many ways to interpret the six days as described in Genesis, but all of them result in compromising key doctrines and scripture as a whole, as I will show.

The word “day” in our language can be used to describe the 12 or so hours that we can see the sun, it can be a full 24-hour day, or it can be sometime in the past (i.e. “Back in my day…”). In the Hebrew language (the language of the Old Testament), when that word is combined with words like “evening” and “morning” or when it’s given a number in front like “first”, “second”, and so on, it always means a 24-hour day. Every single one of the verses in Genesis that describe the creation says “and the evening and the morning were the (insert # here) day”.

The Bible is filled with references to God’s six-day work of creation. The fourth commandment in Exodus 20:11 spells this out clearly and Jesus used the history found in Genesis to explain his teachings in Matthew 11:23Matthew 12:39Matthew 19:4-6Matthew 22:31-32Matthew 23:35… and that’s just in one book! If you think most of the creation story is metaphor or merely poetic, think about the genealogies from Adam all the way down to Jesus Christ as detailed in Genesis 5Matthew 1, and Luke 3. Then ask yourself, “Where do the metaphors end and the where does reality begin?”

Now, here’s the bigger issue: death. Unless death came as a result of sin (Romans 5:12), then it existed before God declared everything “very good.” For old-earth advocates, this means death carried on for millions of years before that declaration. Yet, every sane human being intrinsically knows that there is nothing “good” about death. The existence of such suffering and evil is often used as an argument against the existence of a loving God. Only the young-earth view that death (physical and spiritual) came through original sin sees it as an enemy in this world – an imposter that Jesus Christ conquers.

We mere humans have no business telling God how he must have gone about creating our world. He told us already! There’s no need for re-interpretation – no need for compromise. Let me show you why so many credible scientists (and theologians) see no conflict between scientific evidence and a young Earth.

The Evidence

Take it from the beginning: how did a primordial soup of chemicals form the first cell? In Darwin’s day, they thought cells were a blob with a dark spot in the middle. It wasn’t much of a stretch at that time to hypothesize that the first cells might have come about by unguided chemical interactions. Now we know that even the simplest cell has at least as many complex systems as a space shuttle, making this argument far less convincing. But even complex things like crystal formations can be seen forming all over the place in nature, so complexity by itself is not enough to prove that something is the result of an intentional mind.

One way to empirically asses whether something is the result of deliberate design is through a concept that Michael Behe calls “irreducible complexity.” Consider his example of this using a mousetrap. A mousetrap has several parts. If you take any of the parts away, it ceases to have any useful function. Darwinian evolution would require that mousetrap to have formed step-by step, keeping the parts that helped and rejecting the parts that were useless (natural selection). An irreducibly complex system is one in which no parts are useful (therefore gaining a survival advantage) until all the respective parts are in place and functioning properly. Evolutionists have no good answer for this problem when it comes to the origin of life and many of the systems we see in biological organisms.

For the sake of argument, suppose that first cell could have formed naturally and survived. Now, it has to manage a way to reproduce. It also has to modify genetic code to form entire organisms and produce the diversity we see today. Unfortunately, scientists have not yet found anything in nature that can increase the information content DNA and retain it for generations. The main argument is that this happens through mutation, but many fail to realize that this usually destroys parts of the code rather than producing it.

At this point, an evolutionist might chime in by saying that I’m ignoring the fact that we see evolution happening today with things like antibiotic resistance in bacteria. We see new species all the time, and living things evolve to adapt to their environment extremely well. Creationists have no beef with this because that’s a form of evolution which takes place through mechanisms we can observe and test – mechanisms which have never been observed to make something new (morphological novelty). A dog can beget different dogs, a bird can beget different-looking birds (like Darwin’s finches), but can an ape-like creature beget some transition to a human? There are limits to evolution and adaptation.

An evolutionst might also point out that fossils are observational evidence that creatures have changed throughout the eons. You have probably visited a museum with a display of the “ascent of man” with clay replicas of fossils that show the transition from apes to humans. What you don’t know is that many of those transitional forms are either hoaxes that are still presented as proof or the fossil was nothing more than that of a tooth or small fragments of a skull. Fossils displayed as complete skeletons are usually a “Frankenstein” collection of other fossils found at different sites. Darwin himself said that if his theory were to be true, there must be thousands of these transitional forms. Millions of fossils later, we still see very little in the way of potential transitional forms. Even if you arranged enough complete fossils in a certain order to show the transition, this still requires interpretation which is open to argument and preconceived biases.

What about the age of the earth? Doesn’t carbon dating (and other radiometric dating methods) show us beyond any real doubt that the earth is billions of years old? No, it doesn’t. The first problem is that radiometric dating assumes uniformitarianism; that is, it assumes decay rates (and other necessary values) have always been constant. A group of researchers with the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) has found remarkable evidence that several radioactive elements decayed much faster at some point in the past. They have also used other means of dating elements (such as helium diffusion rates through zircon) to determine the true age of the earth. Do you know what they found? That the data show the earth is between 4,000 and 10,000 years old! What’s worse – fossils that are supposed to be millions of years old should have no measurable C-14 left in them. C-14 has been found and measured in fossils found all over the earth. This error can’t always be explained by C-14 contamination because excessive amounts have been found in diamonds which are not prone to an influx of outside carbon. For more on the Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth (RATE) project, see ICR’s web site.

One might wonder how so many fossils and sedimentary layers could have formed in a short time period; doesn’t that take millions of years? The truth is that in lab experiments (by secular scientists) we see that fossils can form in a matter of hours under the right conditions, and in a matter of a few years under conditions commonly found in nature. Dr. Dino (Kent Hovind) has an impressive collection of fossilized pickles, hats, and even a fossilized cowboy boot with his leg still in it. It doesn’t take all that long to form a fossil or the rock layer which has preserved it.

Geology can bee seen two ways: layers formed by sediments that were laid down and shuffled around over millions of years, or the strata were formed and features were carved by a massive worldwide flood (ring any bells?). The Grand Canyon is a favorite subject among creation junkies such as myself. I was always told it was formed by the Colorado River over millions of years. Did you know the highest point on the canyon’s ridge is several thousand feet higher than where the river enters? Rivers don’t flow uphill. You might explain that away by assuming that tectonic shifts rose the edge over time. In fact, there is evidence of uplift, but the angles at which the layers are bent indicates that the sediment had not hardened into rock yet. Also, if you look at a satellite photo, you’ll see that certain eroded features were made pointing in the opposite direction of the river flow.

Now for the universe: physicists generally explain that the Big Bang or something like it is a reasonable, naturalistic explanation of how our universe began. The main evidence for it is expansion of the universe and the cosmic background radiation. There’s another proposal by physicist Russell Humphrys, Ph.D, called White Hole Cosmology which explains this evidence much more fully while showing it could all take place within the biblical time scale.

The best way to understand the concept of a white hole is to compare it to a black hole. Just as everything sinks inward beyond the event horizon of a black hole, so does everything expand outward beyond the event horizon of a white hole. When Einstein’s General Relativity theory is applied to this concept, we can explain the problem of stars being billions of years old and millions of light-years away while only 6,000 years have passed. Time is very different when you include massive speeds and gravitational forces in terms of Einstein’s relativity.

That’s only the tip of the iceberg. In fact, it’s only the snowman on top of the tip of the iceberg. There are still many, many questions to be answered. I questioned this a lot at first, but in searching deeper I’m thoroughly convinced of all of it. If you require more explanation, more proof, there are a few web sites you can start with on our links page or use our custom search tool: a Google engine which finds results from a group of creation-focused sites selected by the editors at soulliberty.com.

Bias

I would hope that the amazing discoveries and scientific experiments carried out by creationists would get roaring applause the world over, especially from Christians. They’ve taken what we already know about many fields of science and have moved the research a step further to test assumptions through experimentation. They’ve scientifically shown that we can trust Bible and that faith and reason are not in any way opposed. Then, why aren’t they getting peace prizes and a wealth of funding to carry on their research?

A fundamental tenet of the scientific community is never to invoke supernatural explanations. That’s a reasonable assumption when examining ongoing processes, but it presupposes that such a supernatural being could never exist or interact with our world. When a creationist comes forward with experimental validation of a young earth, they are ridiculed and labeled as religious fundamentalists who don’t understand science. I don’t think it’s necessary to point out examples from history, but humans have seen a lot of great scientists come and go that were ridiculed in their time for their “radical” notions. American society is based on freedom and tolerance, but that doesn’t really apply when it comes to religion in academia.

Most scientific research is funded by government grants or universities. Under the guise of religious tolerance, neither the US government nor major universities will fund research that is clearly aimed at promoting one religious concept over another. As a case-in-point, a creationist that works at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History got a paper on Intelligent Design published in a secular scientific journal. That caused frenzy at the Smithsonian and sparked quite a lot of name-calling and bluffing. It was presented in documentary form in Ben Stein’s “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.” (For the record, Intelligent Design is quite different from biblical creationism. ID simply holds that life is designed, is not interested in who did it or when, and refuses to use the Bible as evidence.) Creationist researchers are funded by private donations, eliminating the restrictions on academic freedom found at leading research institutions.

Evolutionists claim creationists have no authority because they haven’t been published in any peer-reviewed scientific journals. They actually have, but the papers used to support a young earth or refute evolutionary hypotheses can only get published in peer-reviewed creationist journals. No one who questions evolution, no matter their qualifications or validity of their argument, is allowed by secular publishers. Most of the creationists who have published their work earned Ph.Ds from the top schools in the world. Many of them didn’t turn to creationism until long after they graduated. Still, the anti-Christian bias trumps truth in our fallen world.

The Truth

What’s simple is true: you did not get here by some chance event that formed life from rain and lightning on rocks or in the sea billions of years ago. You are a direct descendant of Adam, the divine and special creation of God. It happened exactly as He described through the penmen of the Bible and is confirmed by the teachings of Jesus with no need for re-interpretation or revision. Don’t just take my word for it. Look into it yourself. Read the Bible and the findings of those who have devoted their lives to studying the science behind it. Find the answers you want in as little or as much detail as needed to thoroughly convince you. I pray you’ll find your way.