GOD IS IN CONTROL: IS GOD IN CONTROL OF YOUR LIFE?

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The world is increasingly operating as if God does not exist and is not in control of the Cosmos He created and the people He made in His image that live in it. Due to Scriptures like the following one in 2 Chronicles, we know that God is in command of the elements and the creatures on earth.

“When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:13-14

This Scripture was written for the nation that God created to reveal Himself to the world, but now that Jesus has come and revealed the truth about God and provided a way for us to get back into a relationship with Him, this verse equally applies to the world today. If we would humble ourselves, acknowledge God, and turn from our wicked ways, He would heal our land.

Over the past six weeks, hundreds of out-of-control wildfires have spread across Canada causing mass evacuations and burning through millions of acres.

While the Canadian wildfire season runs from May through October, such destruction this early is rare. One month in, Canada is on track to have its most destructive wildfire season in history. Man-made climate change is blamed as the causative factor which will only further fuel the panic to get rid of fossil fuels. 

This Canadian crisis has not been limited to the Great North. Smoke from the fires has spread across a large portion of the U.S., affecting air quality for millions across the East Coast, as the fires rage on without signs of stopping. 

According to the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System, the destruction from these fires up to this point in the season has been 13 times worse than the 10-year average.

As New York City suffocated under a thick smog that turned the skies orange and shrouded its skyscrapers and the Statue of Liberty, climate activist, Sen. Chuck Schumer said on the floor of the Senate on Wednesday that climate change was driving the smoke blanketing the Eastern seaboard. “These Canadian wildfires are truly unprecedented and we cannot ignore that climate change continues to worsen these disasters,” he said. “Warmer temperatures and severe droughts mean forests burn faster, burn hotter, and burn bigger, and the warming is happening faster in countries with higher latitudes. None of this — none of this is a coincidence.”

And forecasts hold little hope. On Monday, the Canadian government issued an updated outlook for the wildfire season stating that, “current June projections indicate the potential for continued higher-than-normal fire activity across most of the country throughout the 2023 wildland fire season due to ongoing drought and long-range forecasts for warm temperatures.”

What we are seeing are but the birth pangs Jesus spoke of prior to His second coming to earth.

“Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, and in various places, famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven. But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you… You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death. You will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives.” Luke 21:10-12 ,16-19

God’s Word tells us exactly what will unfold in the final seven years prior to His return. God is ultimately in control of all that transpires on His planet. Do you believe that, and if so, how is it affecting what you do today?

EVOLUTION CAN NOT EXPLAIN THIS MARVEL

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THE MULTIPLICATION MYSTERY OF THE SOUTHERN MASKED WEAVER

THE MALE Southern Masked Weaver (Ploceus velatus) from southern Africa, some 12.5 cm (5 in) long, hangs upside down to finish weaving his elaborate nest. He is doing his part to produce the next generation.

With his strong, conical beak, he collects the materials he needs, such as strips of reeds and palm blades, and weaves these into the nest. He knows what to collect, and how to build the nest. He chooses where to attach it, how to affix the first strips of material, and the way to add the subsequent pieces.

The nest design is remarkable. It hangs like a large pear from a suitable support such as a tree branch, a bush, or even a wire fence. It has a downward-facing entrance and a ceiling inside to protect from rain. The woven construction protects from the sun, wind, and predators, and keeps the chicks warm at night. After the male has built the nest, the hen lines it with feathers or grass-seed heads to make it soft and warm.

It is interesting to consider the amazing knowledge, skills, and project management talent required. Creating the nest and the eggs, incubating them, and then caring for the chicks, is a cooperative effort between two individual birds, the male and female. The interdependence and complexity of the process is astounding.

The timing is one remarkable aspect. The nest must be finished when the female needs to lay her eggs—typically 2–5. She then sits on them for some 14 days until they hatch. After that, the female feeds and cares for the chicks until they leave the nest, which can take up to 21 days. Sometimes the male will help.

The question arises, where did these birds learn to weave their nesting masterpiece? How did they know when to begin building? Or how to care for the chicks? From the very beginning, these weavers had to be proficient in every aspect of parenting, or there would not have been a next generation. This is another mystery where the Bible makes sense of the world. The knowledge, skills, motivation, and instinct were provided by the Creator Himself at the beginning when He created birds on Day 5 of Creation Week (Genesis 1:20–23).

Our Heavenly Father loves it when we acknowledge His goodness, above all His goodness for sending His Son, Jesus to atone for our sins.

The penalty for sin is death, eternal separation from God. Think about it, all three persons of the Godhead play a part in our redemption, our Heavenly Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit that now lives inside the spirit of every believer to enable them to live the Christian life. Jesus said the Holy Spirit would be our counsellor, teacher, and comforter. How good is our God? He is worthy of all our thanks and praise.

EXPLORING A CATASTROPHE OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS

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Most visitors to geological parks don’t connect the rocks with Noah’s Flood. But that global cataclysm immediately came to mind when Dr. Felix Wong first went on a commercial-guided geological tour of Hong Kong. He told me:

The ‘geotour’ guides were showing us where a supervolcano had erupted, and water levels had increased catastrophically in the past. These secular guides did not seem to appreciate how this evidence for geological catastrophe impacted geology on a continent-wide scale, let alone global. Despite this evidence, they continued to explain the rocks purely from the perspective of uniformitarianism. This assumes that geological processes in the past were essentially the same as in the present. So, everything must be explained from a ‘slow and gradual’ standpoint, over great ages of time. An occasional local catastrophe can be invoked, but it is made to fit into this overall multi-million-year scheme.

Asked why he now spends time showing people evidence that Earth’s past was much more violent, he said: It is very much a personal motivation. If long ages from a ‘slow and gradual’ standpoint cannot be backed up by evidence, then the worldwide geological record, with all the death and violence observable in it, would be the catastrophic evidence of the global Genesis Flood—as identified by creationist geologists. Whereas if the long-age ideas were real, the death and violence we see in the fossil record would not have been the consequence of sin because these would have been in the world long before there were any humans. The whole message of the Gospel, and the credibility of Jesus Himself, who showed that He believed the events in Genesis really happened, including Noah’s Flood, would be undermined. This sort of evidence is life-changing.

Our main purpose is to help participants connect the rocks with the Bible, through an understanding of Noah’s Flood. The Flood ‘washes away’ the millions of years. I show how things that people have been taught take vast ages happened much more quickly and are found everywhere in the world, even in Hong Kong. Since 2019, we have run 78 tours with 1,800 participants in total. Most of our geotours have been in the eastern part of Hong Kong within the volcanic and sedimentary rock regions.

Besides the igneous rock, 15% of the land surface of Hong Kong is covered in layers of sedimentary rock. Felix explained:

Eroded from elsewhere, these sediments were transported and deposited by massive water flows into what geologists call sedimentary basins. Hong Kong has three of these basins: Tai Pang Wan Basin, Ap Chau Basin, and Pat Sin Leng Basin, with lengths of 30 km, 5 km, and 15 km (19, 3, and 9 miles) respectively. 

He pointed out that the geological features of these basins show that deposition was not a slow-and-gradual process:

For instance, the sedimentary rocks of the Tai Pang Wan Basin on Tung Ping Chau Island are at least 350 m (1,150 ft) thick, while the sedimentary rocks of Ma Shi Chau (Tolo Harbour Formation) are at least 500 m (1,650 ft).

Within the framework of the biblical Flood, such largescale sedimentary rocks would have been deposited during the early and late Inundatory Stage of Noah’s Flood. That is, when floodwaters rose upon the land. Then the exposed rocks would have been severely eroded during the Recessive Stage of the Flood, when the floodwaters were receding from the land back into the oceans. Such evidence can also be found from the exposed granite rocks which cover 35% of the land surface of Hong Kong. The receding water seriously eroded granite rocks into interesting forms including sea arches in Hong Kong.

HKCRM’s geotours have covered sedimentary rock regions including Tung Ping Chau of the Tai Pang Wan Basin (Fig 3), Ap Chau in the Ap Chau Basin (Fig. 4), and other sedimentary islands. The geotours examine mudstone, siltstone, sandstone, conglomerate, and breccia. In addition to these sediments, the deposited material also includes vegetation and animal remains in the form of fossils. Other features of interest include bedding details, recumbent folds (i.e., bent back on themselves by the force of water), and raindrop impressions. HKCRM’s geotours have covered granite rock regions, such as Po Toi Island. The exposed granite rocks were weathered by the receding floodwaters into interesting forms all over the island (fig. 5). When all these features are examined and explained, their relevance for past geological catastrophe becomes obvious and the participants on the tours are amazed.

God told us that in the last days prior to His return the world will deny God judged the world with the worldwide flood of Noah’s day and will be taken totally by surprise when He pours out His wrath once again on an unrepentant world.

“Knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.” 2 Peter 3:3-6

Abstract from an article HONG KONG SUPERVOLCANO GEOTOUR by Neville Chamberlain in Creation Magazine Vol 45, Issue 3, 2023

GOD AT WORK IN SYDNEY

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God is using Christ Forgiveness Ministries (CFM) in a major way in Sydney. The video below is streaming from Brighton Beach in Sydney of people being baptised in groups of at least ten at a time. This is just minutes from where I live.

Hundreds met at Kings Cross last night and marched the streets, past strip clubs and bars preaching Jesus Christ, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. I have never seen anything like it, all nationalities are represented, and all age groups including many young people.

This is just one of the groups that God is calling to go out on the streets and evangelize the lost. Make sure you connect with a like-minded group in your area.

CFM is embarking on a mission to set up Gospel Booths and Evangelists on every major street corner and plant CFM trained churches throughout the globe to both unite churches and that Christ will truly be present in our nation.

https://www.youtube.com/live/bqQ7TFUW0BA?feature=share

GOOD NEWS FOR THE WORLD

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Here’s GOOD NEWS for the world!

Creation Ministries International seeks to give glory and honour to the triune God of the Bible as Creator and to affirm the truth of the biblical record of the real origin and history of the world and mankind.

Part of this real history is the bad news that the rebellion of the first man, Adam, against God’s command, brought death, suffering, and separation from God into this world. We see the results all around us. All of Adam’s descendants are sinful from conception (Psalm 51:5) and have themselves entered into this rebellion (sin). They, therefore, cannot live with a holy God but are condemned to separation from God. The Bible says that “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) and that all are therefore subject to “everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power” (2 Thessalonians 1:9).

But the good news is that God has done something about it.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

Jesus Christ the Creator, God the Son, though totally sinless, took on human nature, so He could become our Redeemer. Then He suffered, on behalf of mankind, the penalty of mankind’s sin, which is death and separation from God. He did this to satisfy the righteous demands of the holiness and justice of God, His Father. Jesus was the perfect sacrifice; He died on the cross, but on the third day, He rose again, conquering death, so that all who truly believe in Him, repent (repentance = a change of mind) of their sin and trust in Him (rather than their own merit), are able to come back to God and live for eternity with their Creator.

“He who believes on Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God” (John 3:18).

What a wonderful Saviour—and what a wonderful salvation in Christ our Creator!

If you want to know more of what the Bible says about how you can receive eternal life, please email, write, or call the office near you. For more: creation.com/good-news.

I also believe God has raised up Answers in Genesis for such a time as this. The fact that Martyn Isles (formerly ACL) has joined Answers in Genesis confirms that belief. Christians need to be able to show nonbelievers that the Word of God is inerrant and therefore provides the true history of this planet. Check out their website http://www.answersingenesis.com.

WHEN YOUR FAITH IS TESTED

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What is the message of the Book of Job for us today?

First, our faith is sure to be tested. Pain may be inevitable, but misery is to an extent optional. We have no control over the weather that surrounds our lives, but we can do something about the climate of our inner life. What happens to us is less important than what happens in us.

Second, the book reminds us that human horizons are inadequate for a proper understanding of suffering and affliction. Job and his friends carried on their debate in total ignorance of the background exchange between Satan, the Accuser, and God. They were trying to fit the puzzle pieces together without having all of them. The book shows that any attempt to reduce the complex problem of suffering to some neat formula is misguided. 

Third, the book gives guidance on how to comfort—and how not to comfort—those who suffer. Though well-intentioned, his friends’ advice was unhelpful. Job’s scathing rebuke of them is understandable:

“You whitewash with lies; worthless physicians are you all. Oh that you would keep silent, and it would be your wisdom!” Job 13:4–5

Job’s friends did more for him in their silent presence (Job 2:13) than in their speaking.

Finally, we should not be too quick to import New Testament ideas into our reading of the book. It yields its treasures most readily to those who let Job speak from his own perspective.

His hands reach out to grasp the more tangible forms of revelation that God would graciously offer in the future. Yet he is poignantly aware that they evade his grasp. 

In wishing fervently for an intermediary, Job “drew attention to the vacuum that existed, the need that every troubled heart recognizes. In this respect, he anticipated the incarnate Saviour.” Through his undeserved suffering, Job gave an ‘advance echo’ of Jesus Christ, who would live a perfect life, yet endure pain and death in order to win a great victory for all who repent and put their lives in His hands – totally trusting in Him.

Abstract from article WHEN FAITH IS TESTED – THE BOOK OF JOB by Peter Howe in the latest Creation Magazine Volume 45, Issue 3, 2023

“And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends. And the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. Then came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and ate bread with him in his house. And they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him. And each of them gave him a piece of money and a ring of gold. And the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning.” Job 42: 10-12

THE FOOL SAYS IN HIS HEART, “THERE IS NO GOD”

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“When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.”—G.K. Chesterton

“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” Psalm 14:1

“For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” Mark 7:21-23

“When a man’s folly brings his way to ruin, his heart rages against the Lord.“ Proverbs 19:3

As much as atheists pretend otherwise—talking as if ‘reason’ and ‘science’ are exclusively atheistic values— it is actually the rejection of God that requires ‘leaving your brain at the door.’ And the effects of both godly and godless thinking on the world make this abundantly clear to any honest observer.

We must remember that just ten generations from Adam this is what God said about the wickedness of man and He destroyed all but eight people when He poured out His wrath upon the earth with the flood of Noah’s day.

“Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was altogether evil all the time.” Genesis 6:5

The Bible is a true, authentic, historically accurate, reliable, and trustworthy revelation from God. It states that the way to true fulfilment, lasting peace, and joy in life is found in the person, Jesus Christ. N.B. what Jesus said to the apostle Thomas.

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” John 14:6-7

You too, can have a relationship with the co-creator of all that exists.

Many Bible scholars tell us that up to one-third of the Bible is predictive prophecy and all of the prophecies up to date have been accurate so we can expect the many prophecies of Jesus’ second coming will also be accurate.

Jesus tells us that God will pour out His wrath again upon an unrepentant world with the Trumpet and Bowl judgements (Revelation 8 & 16). It is at the trumpet blast when the seventh seal is opened that the rapture of the Saints happens and the Trumpet judgements begin.

Will you be foolish and deny God’s existence and face the coming wrath of God, or will you repent and turn from selfishness and reckless living without God? If you do repent, you need to acknowledge and thank Jesus for His sacrifice on the cross that has paid your debt of sin and guilt in full.

If I can be of help you can contact me on ron@bakb.com.au

MORE AND MORE EMINENT SCIENTISTS ABANDONING EVOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN

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Foresight, by Dr. Marcos Eberlin, is about the design of life, the fine-tuning of the universe, and the inadequacy of naturalistic storytelling. It discusses the origin of life, the limits of natural selection, and the naturalistic bias that permeates the scientific community. It includes many examples of fascinating designs in living things and explanations for why evolution cannot reasonably be invoked to explain these features.

Marcos Eberlin has a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Campinas. He boasts an impressive career with many accomplishments. He founded the Thomson Mass Spectrometry Lab, was the president of the International Mass Spectrometry Foundation, and won the Thomson medal in 2016. Eberlin stands as a great example of a highly qualified scientist who does not believe in evolution and believes that the universe was created by a supernatural designer. This allows the book to stand out among Intelligent Design (ID) books, as it argues for the existence of a supernatural creator, and against the General Theory of Evolution.

The book is rather short but packed full of information. It contains nine chapters with roughly half the book focusing on the intricacies of life at the cellular and molecular level. These chapters focus on biochemistry, organelles, proteins, and DNA. The second half of the book focuses on multicellular organisms such as insects, carnivorous plants, birds, humans, and special features found in specific multicellular organisms and features shared among many multicellular organisms. The first half of the book is fairly technical. Unless you are already familiar with organic chemistry and cell biology, there is a good chance that you will need to consult a textbook or utilize an internet search engine.

Evolution has no foresight

This communicates the core argument of the book. Foresight is something not present in differential reproduction. The only things selected are physiological changes that provide an immediate and substantial increase in reproductive success. A mutation that notably increases root length could help with gathering essential nutrients from poor soil; a mutation that causes defective leaf development can produce thorns.Display footnote number:3 Both relatively simple changes provide clear costs and benefits without the need for a developing structure to be almost useless over millions of years.

This shows an issue with the ‘why’ in evolutionary storytelling. It is often easy to see how a certain feature is advantageous, and thus why it would evolve. However, this exercise in imaginative storytelling breaks down when you ask, “why would natural selection favour defective structures that would be a detriment to the species for generations?”

A good ID book, but still an ID book

The book contains many solid arguments in favour of intelligent design and does a great job of exposing the unscientific nature of evolutionary biology. While it does rise above the standard ID offering by identifying the designer as a supernatural, transcendent creator, he provides a flawed distinction between historical and operational science. The book still contains the typical shortcoming of books on ID. By ignoring the identity of the Creator, this book will have a limited impact in spreading the Gospel.

UNDERSTANDING THE TIMES WE LIVE IN

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“If the foundations are destroyed what can the righteous do?” Psalms 11:3

God has raised up Answers in Genesis for a time such as this to re-establish the foundations of the true history of planet Earth. I am delighted to learn that Martin Isles has joined Answers in Genesis. Martin was previously with Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) and God used him mightily to preach the Gospel in all States of this country.

There is no doubt that Satan has used the big lies that the Big Bang was the cause of the universe and evolution (natural selection and mutations) as the mechanism for the existence of all that lives on this planet. And yet so many aspects of evolution are scientifically impossible (e.g. nobody has proposed a tenable natural way that any of the following could have occurred: the requisite proteins for the first cell, or DNA, or DNA arranged in a useful code, or structures that can read and act on encoded DNA, or single-celled organisms transitioning to multi-celled, or asexual reproduction transitioning to sexual, etc

Despite all the evidence for intelligent design in the Cosmos, God’s history for His cosmos and for the people He made in His image has been discarded as myth and fables. You destroy the foundations established in Genesis and there is no need for our Saviour, Jesus Christ:

  1. God created a perfect world with Adam and Eve made in His image to be in a relationship with Him.
  2. Adam and Eve disobeyed God bringing God’s judgement on the world – separation from God and death and suffering. This truth is foundational to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

“But we see Him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting that He, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.” Hebrews 2:9-10

The answers we need to understand the times we live in are found in Genesis hence Martyn is right where God needs him with Answers in Genesis.

PARENTS DEMONISING THEIR CHILDREN

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Children as young as 8 years old were dressed in drag and Teletubbies danced with a man wearing a skirt at a Los Angeles drag convention this past weekend.

Thousands of people were estimated to attend the DragCon LA event May 12-13 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, which featured over 180 drag performers, along with dance performances, wig and sewing workshops and, yes, even the popular children’s TV characters.

Sponsored by Teletubbies, Paramount+, Los Angeles Public Library, Postmates, Cash App and others, DragCon’s organizers described the convention as an “all ages event,” with children ages 8 and younger allowed in for free if accompanied by an adult with a paid ticket.

Videos posted on social media showed several underage drag performers on stage with adults, including one performer whose parent shared a video showing him wearing makeup and dressed in women’s clothing while he danced on stage.

The caption for the video reads in part: “To think ANYONE would say this child is FORCED to perform. ❤️ Your child wants to be an astronaut, mine wants to be an entertainer and she has said that from the moment she could formulate a sentence ❤️ PURE HAPPINESS ❤️ Thank you Drag Con for opening up the stage for a short time, so the kids could show the world their joy!”

Another video from the event included an interview with an independent journalist Right Now Views and a mother and her 8-year-old son dressed as a girl. When asked how he became interested in drag, the boy said “accidentally” before his mother explained, “I was watching drag and she kinda just got into it.”

We live in a world that is increasingly rejecting God and His values and they scoff at any suggestion that God has judged the world previously with the worldwide flood of Noah’s day and that God’s Word clearly spells out for us the judgement in store for the unrighteous.

“For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.” 2 Peter 2:4-10

“Knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.” 2 Peter 3:3-6