Biblical Genealogies are Trustworthy Historical Records

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1 Chronicles 1 and Luke 3 take these genealogies to be completely historical. So theistic evolutionists who would relegate these genealogies to mythical status have to reckon not only with the plain teaching of the chronogenealogies, but how the rest of Scripture treats them as well.

Adam to Noah

The first genealogies we find in Genesis (in chapters 5 and 11) are called ‘chronogenealogies’ because the age of the father at the birth of the son are given. This allows us to know with a very high degree of accuracy (within a year) how much time passed during each generation. It also lets us know there is no gap between the names.

Shem to Abram

The most noticeable element of the genealogy is the steady decrease in lifespans. The antediluvians all seemed to live very long lives. But after the Flood, each generation lives shorter and shorter lives, until many children die before their longer-lived parents, and even before grandparents and beyond. By the time of Abraham, lifespans were only about twice what we experience in the modern-day world.

These genealogies are actually indications that Genesis intends to be taken as history, and not myth, because the chronology claims to set each person in a specific place in history. Many of the people in the genealogies are not mentioned elsewhere in Scripture, so their only purpose seems to be to link one important character with another (linking Noah back to Adam, for example). By the time Moses wrote Genesis, most of these names would not be otherwise significant to the Hebrews.

Matthew’s genealogy

The purpose of Matthew’s genealogy was to trace the legal line of rightful heirs to the throne of David. This of course included biological descent, but also some ‘adoptive’ relationships where a man had no descendant, or whose descendants were disqualified. Matthew’s genealogy used obvious ‘telescoping’ where less important people were omitted.

Matthew claims that his choice of names is significant because of the number of generations listed “So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to Christ fourteen generations” (Matthew 1:17). The most plausible significance for this is because the numerical value of the letters in David’s name added up to 14. God is in total control of history. After all it is HIS story.

Luke’s genealogy

When we interpret the genealogies correctly, we see that they are trustworthy historical records.

Luke’s genealogy looks a lot more complete, and was probably the biological genealogy of Mary, so we see Jesus’ biological ancestry from David, and from Adam. We would expect that Luke would want to give us a complete chain to link Jesus biologically with David. But from Adam to David, he uses the Old Testament sources which indicates his confidence in them as Jesus had total confidence in them – Mt 5:18.

Luke’s genealogy is unusual in that it starts with Jesus and goes back to Adam—all the other genealogies go from father to son. This allows it to end with, “the son of Adam, the son of God.” This means that the genealogy starts and ends with a “son of God”, and nicely makes the theological point that Jesus is linked to all of humanity via common descent from Adam.

Trustworthy historical records

When we look at the biblical genealogies, we have to appreciate the purpose behind each of them, and that helps us to interpret them correctly. And when we interpret them correctly, we see that they are trustworthy historical records.

Extracted from article by Lita Costner “Are There Gaps in the Biblical Genealogies” http://www.creation.com

Darwin’s destructive influence on the world.

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Apostate - The men

The fact that Christianity has lost an enormous amount of cultural influence in Europe, America and even Australia is without dispute. A recent book, Apostate – The Men who Destroyed the Christian West documents how and why the decline and fall of Western Christian civilization occurred.

Charles Darwin is of course the dominant person on the list of men who destroyed the Christian west.

Darwinian Evolution theories now dominate at least 99% of higher education in America, only 1% of all public and private universities maintain a God centered epistemology and metaphysics in the matter of origins. In 1850 (before Darwin and the Theory of Evolution) virtually all leading scientists and philosophers were Christian men. The world they inhabited was created by God. He had created wise laws that brought about the adaption of all organisms to one another and to their environment. The basic principles proposed by Darwin stand in total conflict with this worldview.

Eliminating God from science enabled Godlessness to prevail everywhere, in classrooms, media, entertainment and politics. Charles Darwin’s naturalistic materialism has so changed the Western metaphysics that the average person hardly senses God’s providential interaction with the world, let alone His existence. The Southern Baptist denomination reports 88% of children raised in Christian families leave the church as soon as they leave home (p. 254)

Swanson concludes: “the impact that Charles Darwin has had on the lives of hundreds of millions of Christian families is overwhelming. It is an undeniable fact that the Christian faith was far stronger 150 years ago in Europe and America. Now their 21st century grandchildren are pagans, atheists, homosexuals, witches and atheist scientists. The sheer number that will be in hell because of Charles Darwin’s commitment to ‘murder God’ is too much – and too tortuous to fathom.” (p. 142).

The other men Swanson says played a role in the decline of Christianity, Hitler, Karl Marx, John Dewey, Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, , Friedrich Nietzsche were all powerfully influenced by Charles Darwin.

As stated in my last post, sadly leaders of the largest Church denominations have unwittingly accepted Evolution as fact and distorted Scripture to fit, with disastrous consequences. Fortunately, God has raised up organisations such as Creation Ministries to equip His Church with powerful resources such as the recent “Evolution’s Achilles’Heels” to counter this threat. Check out this valuable resource on http://www.creation.com.

 

Pope Francis leading Catholics astray on evolution.

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Sadly Pope Francis on October 27th, 2015 in the Pontifical Academy of Sciences address in Italian clearly indicated he accepts evolution and the billions-of-years timescale. This is not surprising, since the Catholic church has accepted evolution for about fifty years now.

The Vatican quotes Pope Francis:

“When we read in Genesis the account of Creation, we risk imagining God as a magus, with a magic wand able to make everything. But that is not so. (Pope Francis is saying here that God is not able to create ex nihilo as He so clearly claims). He created beings and allowed them to develop according to the internal laws that He gave to each one, so that they were able to develop and arrive at their fullness of being. …(through natural selection, survival of the fittest, pain and death). And so creation continued for centuries, millenia and millenia until it became which we know today, precisely because God is not a demiurge or conjurer but the Creator who gives being to all things……..”

The Bible clearly states that the world was perfect when God created it with Adam and Eve present at the beginning of creation. There was no death in the world until Adam and Eve sinned. Pope Francis however contradicts the clear reading of scripture by accepting evolution’s death and suffering before Adam and Eve.

Unfortunately for Catholics, their sole authority isn’t Scripture, but the Church, which is the only ‘infallible interpreter’ of Scripture according to their theology.

And yet when we look to Peter who they consider their ‘first pope’, we see that his attitude toward the biblical account of origins is very different to that of Pope Francis his supposed successor.

“…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 that 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 then 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 3:3-7.

In Peter’s proclamation we see first of all a complete acceptance of the biblical history of the world. And Scripture is his starting point, not other ideas in the culture. Peter points us to Genesis which states that the world was created from water by the Word of God. The world was destroyed by God with a world-wide flood. We know from creation geology models that a catastrophe of this scale would account for the geological layers containing all sorts of fossils with evidence of carnivory, cancer and thorns – because it’s a record of the post – Fall world. And if a year-long global catastrophe explains the majority of the fossil record, there is no room for millions of years of earth history.

In contrast to Pope Francis, Peter stands on the firm foundation of Scripture. I hope you and your church do so as well.

Extract from article by :Lita Cosner on The Pope on Evolution 1st Nov 2014, http://www.creation.com

GOD’S WISDOM versus SATAN’S/MAN’S WISDOM

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The problem with worldly wisdom is found back in the very first words of the Bible: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

God conceived, created, defined, rules, and judges the entire universe. God alone is ultimate. Therefore, creation and all creatures (including us!) are derived and dependent.

That is why Genesis 1:1 is the most offensive verse in the Bible. If this verse is true, then every premise and postulate of the world’s wisdom is a lie. This is why men respond in such fury against even the obvious – the universe demonstrates Intelligent Design. If there’s a Designer, then I am not ultimate—and if that is the case, everything collapses.

If we turn to the last pages of the Bible, we see this:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. (Revelation 21:1)

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” (Revelation 21:5)

God is Lord, on His throne. He designed and created the original universe, which was ruined by sin. God will design and create the new heavens and new earth. So we see here: God’s words (not Satan’s, not ours) that are faithful and true, and God’s deeds (not Satan’s, not ours) that are final and determinative. Worldly wisdom is false, temporary, and doomed.

Our only hope lies in the wisdom of God, which centres in the cross of Jesus Christ. We must turn from the pipe-dream of our own ultimacy, bow before the ultimacy of the Lord God. It is only when we start from God’s ultimacy, and the sufficiency of His Word, that we have any hope of true wisdom and knowledge (Proverbs 1:7; 9:10).

see complete article Competing Wisdom’s by Dan Phillips on http://www.creation.com

A GOOD GOD & A WORLD OF DEATH & SUFFERING?

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One of the most common questions asked of Christians is some version of: “If God is so loving, why are there bad things in the world?” The implication being that if God created this world in the state it is in, He can’t be ‘very good’ Himself. This is sometimes used as a reason to reject belief in God.

If God created everything in 6 days when exactly were ‘bad things’ created?

The first thing we need to understand is that God wasn’t surprised by the Fall of Adam. God is all knowing and so knew that a punishment would have to be meted out following Adam’s (and his offspring’s) rebellion.

According to Scripture, at the time of the Fall the environment changed and there were changes in the physical construction of some things as well. For example thorns appeared where there were none before. Some might ask ‘Doesn’t that mean God must have created new genetic information for these things at that time where there was none before?’ Not necessarily, because ‘hidden’ genetic information can lie dormant within living things and be activated under certain environmental conditions.

For example up to the 1920’s, scientists used to classify grasshoppers as a separate species to locusts. However, researchers have since determined that they are actually the same creature. Under certain (laboratory reproducible) circumstances they exhibit a sort of Jekyll/Hyde transformation that is truly startling!

Behavioural differences happen immediately at the transformation, with physical changes appearing in subsequent generations. The difference in behaviour (grasshoppers are solitary, locusts swarm), and morphology (locusts have smaller legs, wings and bodies but have a 30% larger brain than grasshoppers) is significant and changes neural, muscular and exo-skeletal expression. And the transformation from grasshopper to locust can also be reversed back again. Yet the DNA of the two creatures is identical.7

This ability for DNA to express different programming from the same source code under different environmental conditions is actually fairly common. The epigenetic code, a set of switches that turn genes on and off (e.g. in response to environmental stimuli) is a main contributor to this ability of the ‘finished product’ to vary despite the same DNA ‘instructions. This is known as ‘phenotypic plasticity’.

Not only is the discovery of latent genetic information an incredible challenge for evolution to account for, and a tremendous evidence of design (because it exhibits all of the characteristics of foresight and pre-planning in the genomes of creatures around the world), but it also helps answer the supposedly unanswerable question of how ‘bad things’ appeared after the Fall if God’s creation was completely finished by the end of the sixth day of creation.

God’s word is true

Foreknowing the Fall of man,9 God created the features of a post-Fall world in latent form within His very good world. They only became activated when God cursed the creation as punishment for Adam’s transgression. And the entire creation groans because of that Curse and is evidence that something is desperately wrong with this world. If God had not caused our physical environment to change at the time of the Fall, we would be lost without Him, bound for Hell but still in a virtual paradise. How would we know there was anything wrong and that we were in need of our Saviour

extract from article “The good, the bad and the ugly ….” by Calvin Smith on http://www.creation.com

 

EXCITING DOCUMENTARY – EVOLUTION’S ACHILLES HEEL

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This 96-minute documentary interviews 15 Ph.D. scientists about the greatest weaknesses of modern evolutionary theory. The public generally only hears one side of the origins debate, but with stunning animations and dramatic footage, Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels presents a powerful ‘warts and all’ critique of textbook evolutionary orthodoxy. You’ll also discover just how much this debate impacts your view of yourself and the world around you.

“Never before have this many scientists been brought together for a project of this type. … Visually stunning 3D animations and dramatic footage help to show how the theory’s supposed strengths are, in fact, its fatal flaws—Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels.”
CFDb (Christian Film Database)

“If we could award Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels more than five Doves, our best rating, we would! … the fifteen experts in this film blow open the door for God’s foot, the Grand Designer, to walk in boldly.”
The Dove Foundation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEkJezGRJPc

You need to get the video when it becomes available in November from http://www.creation.com

Professor’s atheistic pulpit—his classroom

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David-Barash

Professor David Barash

Biology Professor David P. Barash from the University of Washington now thinks that his biology class is the proper forum for explicitly attacking his students’ religious convictions, as he shamelessly announced in his recent New York Times op-ed.1

Barash says, in a class on animal behaviour, Evolution proves that (a) living things were not designed, (b) humans are not exceptional, and (c) God cannot be both all-powerful and all-good.

This religion-bashing seminar is a severe abuse of power. As a public university professor, Barash’s role should not be to proselytize, but to educate—fairly informing students about all sides of legitimate academic disputes. Sadly, however, Barash’s approach to education is nothing more than a prejudicial, intellectually dishonest attempt to indoctrinate students into his own anti-Christian worldview.

If Barash’s New York Times summary is truly representative of his teaching, he hardly even acknowledges, much less addresses, arguments that challenge evolution or support biblical creation. Instead of dealing with the best creationist arguments, he presents caricatures that informed creationists are careful to avoid (e.g., denigrating evolution because it is called a ‘theory’).

Instead of allowing students to hear from all sides of the controversy, Barash tells them evolution is beyond question. He insists, “Teaching biology without evolution would be like teaching chemistry without molecules.”1 His statement would clearly have been news to leading chemist and member of the National Academy of Sciences, Philip Skell (1918–2010), the ‘father of carbene [CH2] chemistry’, who pointed out: ‘Certainly, my own research with antibiotics during World War II received no guidance from insights provided by Darwinian evolution. Nor for that matter did Alexander Fleming’s discovery of bacterial inhibition by penicillin’.

Furthermore, are Barash’s students prompted to consider how men like Linnaeus, Pasteur, and Mendel founded sub-disciplines of biology without any help from Darwin? Are they told that Dr Marc Kirschner, founding chair of the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School, has admitted, “Molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology, have not taken evolution into account at all”? Have they heard how evolutionary assumptions have often hindered scientific investigations, encouraging scientists to write off so-called ‘vestigial organs’, and ‘junk DNA’, for example, as non-functional by-products of the evolutionary process? Perhaps Barash himself would do well to learn about how creationists accept rapid adaptation and even speciation, and yet recognize why these types of changes are precisely the wrong sort of change needed to turn microbes into men.

In the centres of intellectual power today, creationists and other Darwin dissenters have a hard time maintaining their positions even when keeping their heads down, and they often get expelled anyway. But an evolutionary professor can openly proclaim that his lectures will argue against basic truths of Christianity, and there is hardly a public outcry.

If creation is disqualified from public education because it is too ‘religious’, then why isn’t Barash called on the carpet, for getting too ‘religious’ as well?

  1. Barash, D.P., God, Darwin, and My Biology Class,New York Times, 27 September 2014; nytimes.com.

Abbreviated article, “Darwinist Professor David Barash gets ‘theological’ in the classroom” by Keaton Halley and Jonathan Sarfati on http://www.creation.com

SCIENTISTS COPYING DESIGN IN NATURE (Biomimetrics)

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Prof Stuart Burgess & intricate design of the Envisat ESA satellite drive shaft – nothing compared to the design in nature.

A world expert on biomimetrics (imitating design in nature),  Prof. Stuart Burgess, BSc, PhD(Brun), CEng, FIMechE, is Professor of Engineering Design, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Bristol (UK).

Dr Burgess is the author of over 40 papers published in secular science journals, and another 50 conference proceedings. He has also registered 7 patents.

Is it more difficult for engineers—who spend so much time considering designed objects – to embrace Darwinian evolution than it is for biologists?

Stuart explains: “Yes, for two reasons. Firstly, since the design by human beings is not limited by the step-by-step change that evolution is limited by, human engineers should produce designs which are far more sophisticated than those found in nature. Yet the opposite is true. Nature has by far the most sophisticated designs. A second reason is that engineers know that you cannot design by making random mistakes. If you randomly change a single parameter in a car engine it will always result in a retrograde step. Design improvements always require careful planning and careful changing of many parameters at the same time.”

Stuart has ample experience of this, including working on the design of a solar array for the hugely expensive Envisat ESA satellite, as he explains:

“The Envisat satellite cost £1.6 billion4 and has hundreds of thousands of components and several million separate pieces of design information, like dimensions and material properties. It would only have taken one or two errors in the design information and the whole mission would have failed. This kind of project illustrates how difficult design is and how design does not happen by chance.”

This brings us to the nub of the issue—whether or not we are the purposeful Creation of Almighty God?

Stuart explains how his Christian faith connects with the work he has been involved in all these years.

“Engineering is a great profession for a Christian because it involves creativity. Man’s ability to create is one aspect of our being made in the image of God. The difficulty of designing and building things that are relatively simple makes you realize how great is the wisdom and power of God who has made all things.”

What would he say to those who argue that one’s Christian faith and convictions about the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ are largely separate from the issue of origins, and separate from the meaning of the text in the early chapters of Genesis?

“The doctrine of Special Creation is important because it helps remind people there is a personal Creator who was involved in the detailed design of man. Believing in Special Creation also helps people to appreciate God’s skill in creating such a vast array of intricate plants and creatures. I think it is very important to believe in a historical Adam and historical Eve. If you start to compromise by, for example, accepting evolution and ape-men, then the theological problems are very serious. If Adam and Eve were descended from an ape-like creature, then you have to argue that their immediate ancestors, though looking completely like humans, were not actually made in the image of God. This goes completely against what Genesis teaches and it also goes against the fact that God has the supernatural power to create in an instant. When Jesus turned water into wine and gave sight to the blind, He used His supernatural power to do this in an instant. I think the key to accepting Genesis as a literal account is to remember that God is infinite in wisdom and power. When you really grasp this, then you realize that creating the world in six days was never a problem for God.”

Go to http://www.creation.com for the complete article on Professor Stuart Burgess by Phillip Bell.

 

Worldviews – battle rages

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GIANT’S CAUSEWAY & CAUSEWAY COAST

No matter what part of the world you live in, there will be rocks in your locality that were formed during the Flood of Noah’s day. It is time to increasingly ‘take them back’, renouncing the millions of years and the naturalistic interpretations attached to such formations, and explaining their true origins and spiritual significance. Obviously this will require careful study of the local rocks from a biblical geological perspective, but for those who are serious about making the effort, Tas Walker’s ‘Biblical Geological Model’ is a good place to start.

The Giant’s Causeway, Heritage Site in Northern Ireland has been subject of much debate in recent years concerning how and when the 40,000 interlocking basalt columns were formed. The debate regularly sees calls to censor any creationist interpretations of the site, and attracted world attention in July 2012 when the new Causeway tourist centre included a small reference to the existence of this alternative viewpoint. Secularists were quick to mount a noisy objection. CMI has published a number of articles explaining, for instance, how the Causeway would have formed during Noah’s Flood and the significance of the reddish inter-basaltic beds at Giant’s Causeway.

In the current battle of worldviews we need to take back the history of these stones. As with all rocks that were formed during the Flood they are not just a ‘pile of stones’, but have a huge spiritual significance. As a visible demonstration of God’s judgement on mankind’s sin, the stones give us the opportunity to tell our children and many other people of God’s actions in history.

Such real life geological examples can then be used to orientate and point people to the truth of the Bible and the need for their salvation which can only be found in the Lord Jesus Christ—see Acts 4:12. There is overwhelming evidence found in the stones all around us, consistent with a worldwide Flood at the time of Noah; for examples see polystrate fossils, fast octopus fossils, hundreds of jellyfish fossils, flat gaps and much more at Geology Q&A’s. God has not hidden from view the evidence of His previous judgement of sin. It is also an important reminder of God’s coming final judgment of sin at the prophesied end of this cursed earth and heaven.

Extract from article by Phil Robinson http://www.creation.com