WE CAN KNOW THE TRUE HISTORY OF THIS WORLD

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The Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University released the latest installment of its American Worldview Inventory series, which documents Americans’ views on the Bible and the Trinity. The research is based on responses collected from 2,100 adults in January.

An overwhelming majority of Christians reject the basic Christian teaching of the Trinity, prompting new concerns that Americans are living without the influence of “the truths and life principles of God.” 

Overall, just 40% of respondents believe that God exists and affects people’s lives. That figure rises to 53% among self-identified Christians, 60% among theologically-identified born-again Christians, and 100% among Integrated Disciples. The latter term refers to those who have a biblical worldview. While a majority of those surveyed (59%) believe in the existence of Jesus Christ, a significantly smaller share of adults (29%) believe in the Holy Spirit. 

“These results are further evidence of the limited or lack of trust Americans have in the Bible, the limitations we place on the authority and influence of God, and our refusal to cooperate with God by living in harmony with His ways and purposes,” said CRC Director of Research George Barna in response to the survey results. “Even the statistics for the groups that are most in-tune with biblical teachings, such as belief in the nature and impact of the Trinity, are shockingly low for a nation in which most people claim to be Christian.”

Barna identified “these findings about America’s ignorance or rejection of the Trinity” as “simply another in a long list of examples of people living without the truths and life principles of God shaping their life.”

Why is this the case? The teaching of evolution and billions of years has been one of Satan’s most successful strategies. It totally undermines the foundational book of the Bible, Genesis, where the important doctrines are established.

  1. Man was made in God’s image to be in charge of the world God had made in six days. Why six days? It was a pattern for man’s working week: six days he will work, and the seventh day will be a sabbath rest day (Exodus 20:9).
  2. Woman was made out of man’s rib to be a help mate for him.
  3. God established marriage to be between a man and woman for life and to be the foundation block of society, the family.
  4. Genesis teaches that Adam and Eve rebelled against God, which resulted in their immediate spiritual death when the Holy Spirit (the third person of the Trinity) departed Adam and Eve’s spirit. Physical death followed some 900 years later.
  5. Genesis teaches that God had made spiritual beings called angels, and the lead angel, Lucifer/Satan, had rebelled against God and was instrumental in leading Eve and Adam astray.
  6. Satan was successful in leading one-third of the angels (now demons) to rebel against God. Some desired the beautiful women on earth and were able to come down and mate with them to produce hybrid beings called Nephilim.
  7. Because of these hybrid beings and the fact that lawlessness was rampant on the earth, God destroyed all mankind except one righteous and untainted man, Noah and his family. The flood of Noah’s day completely destroyed all mankind and the animals that were not on Noah’s Ark.
  8. Just several generations from Noah, mankind was in rebellion again, and God established the nations by confusing their language at the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9). The different language groups were scattered throughout the world.
  9. God established his own nation with one man, Abraham. It became the nation of Israel.
  10. Jesus entered the world at God’s preordained timing to provide a way back for mankind into a right relationship with God. Jesus literally changed history BC & AD.

God has given us the true history of this world in His revealed Word, the Bible, and its timeline to date is 6000 years. The proof of its accuracy is fulfilled prophecy. He has given us the entire history of this world from its beginning to its end, which is following Jesus’s Millennial reign, which is next on God’s agenda. The world is not billions of years old as Satan has led the world to believe with the theory of evolution. Its entire timeline is 7000 years.

THE BIBLE – IS IT TRUE OR IS IT TRUTH?

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“Is the Bible True? Or Is It Truth?” by Scott Pinsker The article pokes fun at those who read the Bible “literally,” specifically calling out the global flood account as “pretty farfetched.” But the reasons he gives for why “the story of Noah is a tough nut to crack” are the same skeptical objections Answers in Genesis (AIG) and Creation Ministries International (CMI) have addressed for years!

A picture of the life-sized replica of Noah’s Ark built at Williamstown, Kentuck by Answers in Genesis (AIG). It was opened in 2016.

Here are the objections author Scott Pinsker raises, followed by a short answer with links to AIG articles on these topics.

  • Objection: How could Noah bring “every animal on earth” onto the ark, including “1.05 million insect species, 11,000 birds, 11,000 reptiles, and 6,000 mammals”?
    Answer: He didn’t need to! Follow the link to the full story, but the short answer is he only needed land-dwelling, air-breathing animal KINDS (not species)—less than 7,000 animals total!
  • Objection: The fossil record proves there couldn’t have been a worldwide flood.
    Answer: Actually, it shows the opposite!
  • Objection: Regionalized flora and fauna prove there couldn’t have been a worldwide flood.
    Answer: To answer this objection you need to understand the biblical concept of kinds.
  • Objection: Noah would’ve had to bring freshwater fish into an onboard aquarium or they would’ve died out.
    Answer: This fails to understand the differences between the preflood world and our world and, again, the concept of kinds. Besides, the account in Scripture states only land animal kinds were on the ark.
  • Objection: Noah would’ve been required to take 2,000 species of termites on the ark, and surely the wooden vessel wouldn’t survive that.
    Answer: But Noah perhaps didn’t need to bring insects on the ark, and even if he did, he wouldn’t need all those species!
  • Objection: Noah could never have cared for so many animals.
    Answer: Well, he didn’t bring tens of thousands of animals onboard the ark! He easily could have cared for the few thousand he needed to bring.
  • Objection: Why didn’t Noah bring innocent babies onto the ark instead of having them perish in the flood?
    Answer: God offered a means of salvation, and everyone except Noah and his family rejected it and therefore kept their children from receiving it as well. Besides, only God determines what is right and wrong. How can a human being determine morality without a basis in an absolute authority?

It’s rather frustrating to see skeptics—Christian or otherwise—mock the Bible for so-called “petty flaws” that thoughtful Christians have addressed for years! Just a few minutes of research on AIG or CMI sites would’ve shown that there are plausible answers to these questions. And yet he just repeats the same tired objections he’s heard from equally uninformed skeptics.

Why does he raise all these objections? Well, it’s to supposedly bolster his main point:

There are infinite ways to interpret the Bible. The Bible is about God, after all, and everyone’s image of God is different: My mental image of God differs from yours. And if we can’t even agree on the starting point, it’s going to be next to impossible to agree on all the twists and turns in the Scriptures.

The historicity of the Bible is a tricky topic—one that’s rife with recriminations, allegations, and declarations of faith. . . . Couldn’t an all-powerful, all-knowing God just as easily create a Holy Book that’s historical AND moral? Then why must it be one or the other? Why not both? Only God Himself knows for sure.

If only God himself knows, wouldn’t it behoove us to look at what God has said about his own Word in his Word and take it as written? One verse in particular immediately comes to mind:

“For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me“. John 5:46

Jesus tells his skeptical audience that they would believe his words if they believed the history written in the Old Testament because it all points to him. God recorded history, not just to teach us some “special wisdom . . . that can transform your soul,” but to point us to the Lord of history, Jesus Christ.

He also gave us his Word—history—for our instruction, so, we can know right from wrong and how to think biblically. Consider that, after refreshing his audience on some Old Testament history, Paul writes:

“Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did“. 1 Corinthians 10:6

“Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come“. 1 Corinthians 10:11

God’s Word is both, historical and filled with spiritual truths—not because I say so, but because God himself says so! (And he would know—he authored it after all! See 2 Timothy 3:16). And besides, Genesis is written as a historical narrative and is treated as such in the New Testament.

In the end, the author asks the question: “Do you believe the Bible is true—that every word and every claim should be taken 100% literally? Or do you believe the Bible is truth—that there’s a special wisdom within the Scriptures that can transform your soul, but truth comes in many forms, and you’ll have to work at uncovering the meaning for yourself?” (emphasis original)

I’ll simply let the Scriptures answer that question: “Your word is truth“. John 17:17, “The sum of your word is truth“. Psalm 119:160, “Let God be true though every one were a liar”. Romans 3:4

God’s Word is truth because it is true—if it isn’t true, then God is a liar and therefore the Bible is not truth. You can’t have one without the other! And to clear up yet another misconception, we don’t take the Bible “100% literally.” We read the Bible naturally, according to genre, as it was meant to be read!

AGE OF THE EARTH

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This is such an important topic as a Cosmos that is billions of years old undermines the authority of God’s Word. For me now, fulfilled prophecy, just of Jesus first coming to earth is sufficient proof of the inerrancy of the Scriptures. Nevertheless, I did pharmacy at Sydney University and evolution was the stumbling block for me to doubt the Scriptures. It was not until the age of 46 that I attended a Creation Ministries weekend conference that I realised that evolution does not explain the origin of you and me and the Cosmos. I was General Manager of Abbott Laboratories Hospital Products Division at the time and the only thing that got me along to the conference was Professor John Rendle-Short who at the time was Foundation Professor and Head of the Department of Child Health at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. was on the program. He was also Chairman of Creation Ministries. I knew Prof. Rendle-Short as he was doing work for the Paediatric Division of Abbott Laboratories. I admired the man and if he was talking about creation versus evolution I wanted to hear what he had to say. Well! I came away from that conference annoyed with myself and our educational establishment for believing such nonsense. There is no scientific plausible mechanism that can explain how we go from “goo to you”. Natural selection only works with what is already there it does not create anything new and mutations all go in the wrong direction they lose information. They do not generate complex new information that is required for the functioning of anything, let alone a human brain that can create all of the technology we have today.

Whilst there are billions of dead things buried catastrophically all over the world, because the world had excepted Lyle’s and Darwin’s slow gradual change (uniformitarianism) and evolution which need billions of years, the worldwide flood of Noah’s day had been put into the myths and fables bin.

What about today with all the technology that we have is the Earth really 4.5 billion years old? How can we measure age with certainty? What about radiometric dating methods—don’t they prove millions and billions of years? Does the age of the Earth even matter? Dr Mark Harwood discusses these topics and more, focusing especially on why an old Earth sits in conflict with the Bible, while also providing evidence for a younger age of the Earth.

Go to http://www.creation.com/age for 101 documents of evidence for a young earth


⏳ TIMESTAMPS ⌛ 0:00 Introduction 0:48 Mark’s story: How origins affected his faith (An old Earth undermines the Gospel narrative) 11:11 How do we determine the age of something? (You can’t measure age!) 13:32 The dripping tap example (Dating methods rely on assumptions!) 16:17 Radiometric dates aren’t definitive – assumptions rule 19:51 The importance of witness testimony 23:36 The importance of worldview / starting assumptions 26:24 So, how old is the Earth? 28:58 Evidence from radiometric dating / rocks 36:04 Evidence from sedimentation / erosion 37:41 Evidence from our solar system 40:09 Evidence from Earth’s population 41:43 Evidence from carbon-14 in fossils 43:28 Summary: You can’t measure age! (Everything depends on your assumptions!) 46:29 An old Earth calls God’s character into question 48:47 An old Earth calls the inerrancy of Scripture into question 50:38 Conclusion: Three reasons the age of the Earth matters to a Christian

DEFENDING BIBLICAL FAITH

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Only churches that can defend Biblical faith will survive. The Bible clearly presents the following as historical events that we need to defend as miraculous events of God’s making:

  1. God created the universe in six twenty-four-hour days simply as a pattern for how man is to live. Six days we are to work and the seventh day is a day of rest and a day to worship our Creator God.
  2. Adam and Eve were created in God’s image to be in a relationship with Him. Death and separation from God were God’s judgment as a result of Adam and Eve’s SIN (rebellion against God’s command).
  3. Just 1600 plus years after creation sin had become such a problem that God judged humankind’s SIN again this time with a worldwide flood destroying all humankind and animal kind except those on Noah’s Ark.
  4. God established the nations when He confused the languages at the Tower of Babel.
  5. God established His nation; Israel was established for God’s purposes and it is yet to fully achieve those purposes. The fact that it was rebirthed as a nation in 1948 is a sign God is in control of His Story.
  6. JESUS enters history (B.C. and A.D. ) to provide humankind with a way back into a right relationship with God. He paid the price for our rebellion against God. The penalty for rebellion was death and Jesus died on our behalf so that all those that accept Jesus as their Lord and Saviour are born again with the Holy Spirit to enable them to live a Christian life and be assured of resurrection to eternal life. First, the resurrected Saints will serve with Jesus for 1000 years (Millennial Kingdom) on this earth. Then the White Throne judgment, after which, there will be a new heaven and new earth where only the righteous dwell.
  7. God has given us His Word by inspiring His prophets and apostles to write the Bible. Its authenticity is proved by the fact that much of it is now fulfilled prophecies and we are now seeing many end times prophecies being fulfilled in our time.

Fortunately, God has established the following ministries to equip us to defend all of these seven historical truths:

  1. Creation Ministries International (CMI) http://www.creation.com
  2. Answers in Genesis http://www.answersingenesis.com
  3. Creation Research http://www.creationresearch.net

In particular, I personally recommend and use the Creation Magazine when I talk to a non-believer who raises evolution as an objection to accepting Biblical truth. Become a subscriber; go to http://www.creation.com

Can I suggest you watch out for a post I intend to do entitled Answering the Skeptics: No Evidence for God.

KNOWING GOD BY KNOWING HIS WORD

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Knowing God, as He is presented in scripture, is a non-negotiable for Christians. Theology offers an eternal well of joy and a shield of protection from the enemy. Any Christian who thinks they can continue with a “no creed but Christ” is setting themselves up for failure. Anyone with this paradigm should truly self-evaluate if they really love the Lord at all. A denial of the need for theology is a denial of the Lord Jesus.

“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.“ Hebrews 4:12

It is impossible to know doctrine, love, or God without the scripture. This is where the oracles of God and His gospel are contained. It is this special means by which God has chosen to reveal Himself to us.

Psalm 119 is extraordinarily helpful here. I do not think it is a coincidence that the single longest chapter in scripture (176 verses) is dedicated to loving the law of God. The psalmist reminds us over and over how his true delight and protection are only found in knowing God, via His word. He writes:

“How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. Blessed are you, O LORD; teach me your statutes! With my lips, I declare all the rules of your mouth. In the way of your testimonies, I delight as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word.” Psalms 119:9-16

A pursuit of theology is fundamental and vital to our makeup as human beings. Because we bear the Imago Dei (made in the image of God), we’re designed with a natural inclination for the spiritual and divine. We are wired to pursue theology – if not formally, then certainly informally. Even atheists, by their own self-admission, are going out of the way to classify themselves by an a-theological position. The great efforts made to publicly deny God are, in and of themselves, admissions of the great importance God plays in our world. It’s for reasons like these that statements that deny the need for theology are so absurd.

In Australia, WordLive from Scripture Union is a free, online Bible reading guide, to help you meet with God devotionally through the Bible. It is just one of the many Bible reading guides available free online for your use.

GOD’S HISTORY BOOK

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The first book of the Bible, Genesis is the book of beginnings, the opening sentence reads:

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1

and the last book of the Bible, Revelation is the book of consummation. It truly is the end of the story for this world:

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away” Revelation 21:1

Despite the fact the Bible is the only book in the world that accurately prophesies future events, few, and I include a lot of Christians in the few, treat it with the respect and honour it deserves.

Major events in God’s dealings with mankind are treated as myths.

geologic-timescale-converter
The geological column is a general order of Noah’s Flood, but with many exceptions. Most of the column represents rocks deposited/emplaced as the floodwaters were rising on the earth, about 4,500 years ago. Thus the ‘dates’ of millions of years shown on the left side are not correct but are retained to allow conversion between the column and real-time Biblical history.
Article from Creation Ministries International (CMI) “Geology documents dinosaurs fleeing Noah’s Flood” by Tas Walker

The worldwide flood of Noah’s day when God destroyed all life on this planet with the exception of those He preserved on Noah’s Ark.

“And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.” Genesis 6:13

God created the nations by confusing the language.
“Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth.” Genesis 11:9

These two catastrophic events demonstrate God is in control of His world and that He does judge it. To believe otherwise is foolish. In addition, God has revealed in His Word, the Bible, that He will pour out His wrath again upon an unrepentant world. In fact, God gives us incredible detail on the “end times” before Jesus returns, particularly on what He allows Satan to do through his Antichrist. God tests His church. It will be refined with tribulation even great tribulation prior to God rapturing the church and He pours out His wrath with the Trumpet and Bowl judgements.

“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” Matthew 24:9-14

BIBLICAL ILLITERACY ‘UTMOST PROBLEM’ FACING GLOBAL EVANGELISM

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The biggest crisis facing the evangelical, global church today is the growing lack of biblical literacy worldwide, according to Thomas Schirrmacher, the newly elected secretary-general of the World Evangelical Alliance. I agree with him.

“Our biggest problem is that Bible knowledge is fading away,” Schirrmacher told The Christian Post. “This is the utmost problem we have beyond all theological differences, financial problems, and political questions.”

According to the State of the Bible 2020 report released by the Barna Group and the American Bible Society, U.S. adults who say they read the Bible daily dropped from 14% to 9% between early 2019 and 2020.

The study found that the proportion of Americans who read the Bible daily also fell to fewer than one in 10 (9%), the lowest number on record during the 10 years of the State of the Bible research study.

We are talking about God’s Word, our Creator’s Word, that He wants to convey to His creation. To those, He made in His image. What could be more important? It contains the message of who we are, why we are separated from our Creator, why the world is like it is, and more importantly what God has done and is doing to put it right. The Bible gives us an accurate history of this world so different from the godless evolutionary view inspired by the god of this world, Satan.

I use NKJ, ESV and New Living translations and can recommend Logos Software

Schirrmacher, who studied theology in Switzerland and the United States, and serves as the WEA’s Associate Secretary General for Theological Concerns, said that in the Western world “more and more kids that come from evangelical families are not really rooted in the Bible,” and many of them leave the faith.

In an increasingly polarized society, Schirrmacher also emphasized the importance of unity, stressing that the “biggest obstacle” to the spread of the Gospel are divisions within Christianity.

“We need to discuss much more and long for what is the DNA, I would say not only of evangelicalism but of Christianity,” he said. “What we have together is the Bible, Jesus, and the Gospel.” We cannot allow these central teachings of Christianity to fade away together with minor topics. Then, there will be nothing left.”

Fortunately, the good news is, God is active in His world. He will accomplish His purposes and it will unfold exactly as He tells us in His Word. As I have mentioned countless times before on this website, there are more prophecies about Jesus soon coming return then there were about His first coming to earth and there were more than 300 of those. It should be reason enough for everybody on this planet to want to spend time in His Word and for those who know Him to want to share the good news with others.

DOES GENESIS HAVE GAPS IN THE GENEALOGIES?

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OT scholar: Genesis teaches a short timescale

More from Dr Travis Freeman. He serves as Professor of Old Testament at the Baptist College of Florida in Graceville. He is a graduate of Ouachita Baptist University (B.A.) and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (M.Div., Ph.D.). He has been a young-earth creationist for over twenty years and is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society Creation Fellowship. He chats with Dr Jonathan Sarfati of Creation Ministries. Go to http://www.creation.com for more from Jonathan.

Sadly, many Christian colleges teach that there are gaps in the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11. Dr Freeman points out that there can be no time gaps, because: The biblical text gives the number of years between the births of the descendants of Adam in the line leading to Noah. By adding these numbers together, we can calculate the number of years from Adam to Noah. These numbers would be superfluous, even misleading, if generations are missing between fathers and sons. In fact, one strains without success to even imagine why the author of Genesis would include these numbers unless he meant to tie the generations together in a continuous sequence without chronological gaps.

“This type of genealogy seems to be designed for chronological purposes and never contains gaps, at least none that anyone has ever demonstrated. In fact, every biblical genealogy of this sort has been shown to be without gaps.Thus we can calculate that Genesis 5 and 11 record that about 2008 years passed between creation and Abraham’s birth around 1996 BC, thus rendering a creation date of about 4004 BC.”

Dr Freeman also pointed out that this understanding is hardly a novelty. Rather, “nearly all Bible scholars, Jewish and Christian, from the first century BC to about AD 1800 understood Genesis 5 and 11 as setting forth a no-gap chronology of ancient history. So, unless we are prepared to show how all of these scholars were wrong, we should reject the idea of gaps.”

Why was this clear understanding doubted from around AD 1800? Dr Freeman reminds us this is when old-earth ideas started to become popular in ‘science’, due to the Flood-rejecting uniformitarian dogma of Hutton and Lyell, explicitly designed to “free the science from Moses.” Long-age beliefs almost invariably come from such outside ideas being imposed upon the text, rather than anything in the text itself.

But don’t other genealogies, such as the Matthew 1 genealogy of Jesus, have gaps? Dr Freeman points out that this is a different genre, and a key difference is that “Matthew 1 does not record the number of years between generations. This type of genealogy often contains generational gaps, that is, some names are omitted for the sake of brevity or symmetry.”

The doctrine of creation

One of Dr Freeman’s most popular classes is his ‘The Doctrine of Creation’, which he summarises in three statements:

  1. God created all things in six twenty-four-hour days about 4004 BC in mature form.
  2. God created all living things according to distinct kinds that were programmed to produce only their kinds but able to adapt to their environment within their kinds.
  3. God ravaged the earth with a catastrophic flood which began about 2348 BC, lasted about a year, covered the entire world, destroyed and rebuilt Earth’s crust, left behind millions of fossils, left behind vast coal and oil deposits, and permanently altered Earth’s environment.

Since Dr Freeman teaches at a school that affirms the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture, I asked how all that is supported by the Bible. He pointed out that Genesis 1 declares that God created all things in six days. He explained that when modified by a number or by the phrase ‘evening and morning’, the Hebrew word for ‘day’ always means a solar day, not an indefinite period of time, in the Old Testament.

Also, the same chapter describes Adam, Eve, fruit trees, and other living things as mature at the time of their creation, and it says that they would reproduce after their kinds. That is, one created kind did not evolve into another, leading eventually to a group of human-like creatures.

Dr Freeman also stresses that Genesis 7 and 8 describe the Flood of Noah’s day as year-long, worldwide, earth-devastating, and deadly to all land vertebrates but those on the Ark. These things would be responsible for the formation of most of Earth’s sedimentary rock layers and fossils. Moreover, it is encouraging that more geologists now recognise that catastrophism provides a better explanation for the geomorphology we observe today than uniformitarianism.

THE BIG PROBLEM WITH EVOLUTION OVER MILLION OF YEARS

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O.T. scholar: Genesis teaches a short timescale

Johnathan Sarfati of Creation Ministries chats with Old Testament professor Dr Travis Richard (‘Rick’) Freeman

Dr Travis Freeman serves as Professor of Old Testament at the Baptist College of Florida in Graceville. He is a graduate of Ouachita Baptist University (B.A.) and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (M.Div., Ph.D.). He has been a young-earth creationist for over twenty years and is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society Creation Fellowship

Many people in the church think that it’s OK to believe in evolution over millions of years. Dr Freeman points out severe problems. One of the most important for Christians is surely that “Jesus contradicted evolution and millions of years when he said that God created Adam and Eve at the beginning of creation (Mark 10:5–9), not billions of years after a big bang.”

Genesis-is-real-history

He further points out that a straightforward understanding of Genesis indicates that God created humans, animals, trees, and so on in mature form, and only a few thousand years ago.

Dr Freeman explains that real archaeology opposes long-age dogma, revealing no civilisations or historical documents older than a few thousand years. Geology also opposes this dogma, because creatures must have been buried quickly to form fossils, so the layers must have been deposited catastrophically. Also, there must be little time between the layers, because the contact lines are flat and largely erosion-free, and they have other features such as footprints that must have been preserved quickly.

How does creation matter to Christians?

Many in the church think of creation as a side issue. Naturally, Dr Freeman disagrees, and explains why it is actually foundational:

“God has placed in every person the desire to know the answer to some basic questions about life, such as who am I, where did I come from, why am I here, where am I going, and how should I then live? The biblical doctrine of creation answers those questions and thus helps us understand the need for obedience to our Creator, including belief in the Gospel. The doctrine of creation also helps us believe in the accuracy of the Bible, because we see that its opening chapters are compatible with history and science.”

Indeed, it was very important to Travis personally. First, as a young man, he was an agnostic: “I did not know the answer to those questions, especially, how I should live. I was confused about the meaning of life, or if there even was a meaning. The confusion showed in my behaviour.”

However, when he was 32, a pastor shared the Gospel with him. Like many people, Travis “objected that the Bible and its Gospel could not be true because we humans came into being through billions of years of blind evolutionary processes.” Many would-be evangelists would try to change the topic. Fortunately, not this pastor, who was well informed:

“In God’s providence, the pastor was also a biology teacher at a nearby university. He informed me that evolution was not even a good theory, and certainly had not been proven. His comments spurred me on a journey to find out the truth for myself. I soon came across several books, including The Genesis Flood by John Whitcomb and Henry Morris, which exposed the flaws in evolution and showed how the Bible and empirical science actually agree. Once I saw the accuracy of the Genesis account of creation, I knew instinctively that the rest of the Bible must be true. So, I repented of my sins and believed the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Now my life has meaning and direction—and may I add, great joy!”

We know of literally hundreds of people whose faith was ‘shipwrecked’ on the jagged reef of biblical compromise, but who, like Dr Freeman, were restored thanks to consistent biblical creation teaching. We trust that his encouraging testimony will help many more.