WHY YOU NEED TO SUPPORT C.M.I.

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In many ways, we live in a culture whose thinking is similar to those first century Greeks. Claiming to be wise, our society has become foolish (Romans 1:22); we have, by and large, traded belief in the Creator for the worship of evolution (and this has infiltrated the Church too). This is why Creation Ministries International (CMI), http://www.creation.com exists.

CMI’s ultimate goal is not to turn evolutionists into creationists (although that is part of it). Our vision is to see the Lord Jesus Christ honoured as Creator and Saviour of the world, yes, outside of the churches, but first inside the churches. How will others come to enquire about faith, if Christians in the churches do not believe their own book?

Once upon a time, many Western countries had at least some basic knowledge of the Bible. Our societies used to be predominantly Judeo-Christian. That is no longer so. With the advent of evolutionary ‘preaching’ at all levels of society and the ongoing suppression of biblical doctrine, all the heritage that was built upon Christendom is being eroded. Our countries have now turned into secular societies.

Just as we like to think we are enlightened here in the West, so the Greeks thought themselves wise. However, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight” (Proverbs 9:10). The Greeks, for all their interest in learning about new things, were blissfully unaware of who the Lord was, as we learn from the Apostle Paul’s trip to southern Greece (Acts 17:16–21).

Paul introduced Christ as the Creator and taught that all people stem from one man, Adam. Referring to statements by local poets, Paul demonstrated that all people are God’s direct offspring (Acts 17:28); not the most recent descendants from some evolutionary chain of being (compare Genesis 2:7)

Paul had to start by laying a biblical foundation for the people in Athens. They lacked the Genesis knowledge that was second nature for the Jews, Peter’s audience. Modern Christians often forget this critically important difference, so when they compare the results of Peter in Acts 2:41 (3,000 converts) with those of Paul in Acts 17:34 (“some … believed”), they wrongly think that Paul’s method and message were practically useless compared to Peter’s sermon. On the contrary. At CMI we realise that Paul’s accomplishment was an astounding result, miraculous even! Peter was sowing the seeds of the Gospel in good soil, but Paul had a huge challenge before him. He had to prepare the ground first, because, metaphorically speaking, it was hard (the Greeks had no Old Testament knowledge), overgrown with weeds, and littered with stumbling blocks (false knowledge, 1 Timothy 6:20)

Creation Ministries International is a missional Christian organisation. Their calling is to support the effective proclamation of the Gospel by providing credible answers that affirm the reliability of the Bible, in particular its Genesis history. Their magazines, website, and newsletters teach (make known) that other side. Our culture is biased when it comes to origins; everything must bow to evolution. CMI exists to try to balance the scales. You can help—by subscribing to, reading, and passing on Creation magazine.

This low-key form of (pre-)evangelism will help prepare people to be ready to receive—and understand—the Gospel. You could think of it as removing the weeds of evolutionary biology and the rocks of evolutionary geology! People need to realise that evolution and its millions of years are strongholds of false thinking that must be demolished (2 Corinthians 10:4–5). People will not readily understand the Gospel if they don’t know (and have confidence) that there is a Creator. He made a perfect world, but the universe was cursed because of Adam’s disobedience—it wasn’t full of carnivory and death millions of years before Adam’s existence. If people remain in ignorance (like the Greeks), they won’t grasp the key teachings of the origin of death and atonement for sin like the Jews did. They miss that biblical knowledge, so it’s ‘all Greek to them’!

Usually, it takes time for a firmly established (but false) evolutionary worldview to erode. It’s no good building the Gospel on top of the rubble of someone’s confused ideas—a solid foundation needs to be laid first.

Surprisingly, there are even some people who know and understand the foundation in Genesis, and believe it, but they have not surrendered their lives to Christ to be born again. They accept creation, but have not (yet) knelt at the foot of the Cross in repentance. It’s a spiritual matter. The last chapter in the Creation Answers Book explains how one can be saved. However, as the saying goes: “You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink”. We can and should earnestly pray for the lost. Why not pray for someone you care about right now?

DRAMATIC FALL IN BIBLE-BELIEVING CHRISTIANS IN THE U.S.A

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These findings come from The American Worldview Inventory 2023, conducted by the Cultural Research Centre at Arizona Christian University under the supervision of George Barna, director of research at the Cultural Research Centre. While born-again Christians make up about one-third of all U.S. adults and are considered “the backbone of local church activity because of their higher level of commitment to the Christian faith,” the study shows that between 2020 and 2023, the share of those who say they believe Jesus did not commit sins during his lifetime on Earth fell from 58% to 44%.

Jesus being sinless is central to the hope Christians have in Him as Saviour explains the apologetics website Got Questions because, “If Jesus were not sinless, there would be no sacrifice for sin.” The apostle Peter stated it clearly: ‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in His mouth.’ (1 Peter 2:22) Indeed, as Jesus Christ is God, He has no capacity to sin,” the Christian website explains.

This shift in belief among born-again Christians was among six that showed a significant decline in the past three years that Barna characterized as “indefensible.”

Fewer than half of born-again Christians also now believe they have a unique, God-given calling or purpose. The share of those who held that belief fell from 88% to a staggering 46% during the pandemic.

A downward trend was also observed among those who say the Bible is unambiguous in its teaching about abortion. That belief fell from 58% to 44%. Those who say human life is sacred fell from 60% to 48%.

The number of born-again Christians who say God is the basis of all truth fell from 69% to 63% over the period. The share of born-again believers who say they are deeply committed to practicing their religious faith fell from 85% to 50%, while the share of those who say they read or study the Bible at least once a week fell from 60% to 55%. When it comes to the general population of U.S. adults, Barna said the share of the population that claims to hold a biblical worldview fell from 6% to 4% in the last three years, while less than half now claim to be “deeply committed to practicing” their religious faith. That measure fell from 60% to 48%. Barna also found that only 33% of adults now say they attend church service during a typical week which shows “a decline representing the loss of about 15 million churchgoing adults each week.”

The veteran researcher said the findings on the drastic shift in Christian belief over such a short period of time are “highly unusual” because “religious beliefs and behaviors have typically been a hallmark of consistency.” “Most religious beliefs change over the course of generations, not a few years,” Barna said.

Barna noted that a significant driver behind the decline in Christians holding on to a biblical worldview is syncretism, an ideology described as “the worldview that merges otherwise incompatible philosophies of life, particularly evolution and a Cosmos that has existed for billions of years, into a made-to-order worldview that incorporates enough biblical elements to be minimally Christian in nature.”

These statistics highlight how successful Satan’s strategy to undermine the foundations of God’s Word has been. Thankfully God has raised up ministries such as Creation Ministries International (CMI) and Answers in Genesis to show that evolution and its history of billions of years for this Cosmos is not defensible. In fact, the audacious claim by secular scientists in the New Scientist book How Evolution Explains Everything About Life (2017) cannot be substantiated. On page 69 they claim ” The only thing we know for certain is that life must have popped into existence sometime between Earth’s formation 4.5 billion years ago and the appearance of the first undisputed fossils about 3.4 million years ago.” Living cells require information (DNA) and decoding machinery. Even the simplest living cell has an enormous quantity of information on its DNA (about 600,000 letters) and it has the decoding machinery to read these letters. Also, the instructions to build this decoding machinery are encoded on its DNA. DNA can’t be decoded without the machines, but the machines can’t be built without the DNA coding for them. An impossible vicious circle for chemical evolution. There is simply no way “life must have popped into existence“.

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.

WHY ARE YOUNG PEOPLE DEPARTING FROM A BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW?

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Why are younger people departing from a Biblical worldview? How did this happen?

Satan developed a strategic plan to destroy God’s Word and he took aim at the foundational book of the Bible – Genesis.

Take God out of the creation story and you destroy the Biblical foundations: man and woman made in God’s image, marriage, supernatural beings, angels, including enemies of God – a fallen angel called Satan and his demons, The Fall of mankind, a worldwide flood of Noah’s Day, confusion of languages (Tower of Babel) that established the nations, and God established His nation, Israel for His purposes. All leading to God, JESUS, entering history at the appointed time.

Evolution has been Satan’s most successful strategy. If Darwin’s evolution is true, God is not necessary to explain the existence of the Cosmos. It evolved over billions of years. To do that you have to make Noah’s Flood a myth and yet just about all people groups around the world have a flood story in their foundational history and numerous geologists of today recognize that there is abundant evidence in the rocks and fossils that speaks of water-related rapid catastrophic deposition, just as would be expected with Noah’s Flood. Sadly, the growing number of neo-catastrophists still cling to millions of years by assuming many sequences of catastrophes separated by millions of years.

Schools and universities now teach evolution and the Big Bang as fact. The U.S. District Court on December 20, 2005, charged that even teaching intelligent design (ID) was an unconstitutional establishment of religion. Even many theological schools have now accepted evolution and billions of years as scientific fact which has destroyed Biblical history and belief in an inerrant Bible.

Once God was removed from history then it was only a matter of time before God’s commandments were also jettisoned from every area of life: government, law, sex, marriage, family, life (abortion and euthanasia), and finally lawlessness abounds.

The institutional church has abandoned God’s word and lost its power. It is no longer relevant and in fact considered a danger that must be controlled by legislation.

Most parents still try to teach Christian values to their kids: how to be kind and generous and hardworking, etc. They have disciplined their kids in life skills like keeping a clean room and working hard at school and being polite. But at school, they are taught evolution and therefore the Bible and the God of the Bible are myths. The Bible and its God are no longer relevant, and “SIN” what is that? We can make up our own rules. Hence, abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, gay marriage, and transgenderism are all acceptable lifestyle choices.

Unless parents tackle the creation/evolution issue and therefore the historical accuracy of God’s Word they will have little to no impact on their children’s evolutionary worldview which allows them to live the life they choose. Why would they choose all the constraints the God of the Bible requires? However, God’s Word is true; fulfilled Biblical prophecy proves it to be an accurate record of God’s dealings with His world. Parents need to teach this truth so their children will submit to their Creator and reject the lies of their enemy Satan who is out to destroy them. To help parents teach biblically, God has raised up ministries like Creation Ministries International (CMI – http://www.creation.com) and Answers in Genesis both with Ph.D. scientists who can clearly show evolution as a failed theory and that the Bible’s “young earth” history is supported by scientific evidence. They have excellent resources for Christians to use. Also, discipleship must be daily, and not just in life skills, but apologetics, theology, prayer, the power of God, and missions.

Also, Children need to be taught how to become born-again Christians with the Holy Spirit indwelling their spirit. We cannot live the Christian life without the Holy Spirit. We are told the Holy Spirit is the one who produces the fruit of the Spirit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, faithfulness, gentleness, goodness, kindness, and self-control. He is the one who will make us Christ-like (sanctification). He is the one who provides all nine gifts (1 Corinthians 12:4-11) of the Spirit for ministry. Much of the institutional church teaches that God the Father sent Jesus to provide the way back to the Father by His sacrifice for us on The Cross but they do not teach that Jesus made it possible for the Father to send the Holy Spirit to enable us to live the Christian life and all that entails. It is the power of God.

PRAYER

Father, we thank you for ministries like CMI that are addressing the attack on the inerrancy of your Word. Bless them we pray and show us how we can play our part in supporting their efforts, particularly with churches in our area of influence. We pray for Christians in schools and universities that they may be able to bring your truths to light in their sphere of influence. Equip them with the correct materials to use by guiding them to websites like http://www.creation.com. Heavenly Father we ask you to raise up churches that will operate like the early churches described in the Book of Acts in the power of the Holy Spirit to do what you called us to do:

“Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age” Matthew 28:19-20

“ You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.” 2 Timothy 2:1-2

“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6

WHY THE CHURCH NEEDS CREATION MINISTRIES

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Listen to Dr Mark Harwood tell you why the church needs Creation Ministries. Let me commend this ministry to you. It played a large role in my conversion at age 47. Evolution being a major stumbling block to my acceptance of Biblical inerrancy.

Many church denominations and their associated Bible Colleges have accepted evolution and billions of years of earth’s history. As a result, they have rejected the Genesis account of creation. This is devastating, as Genesis is the foundational book of the Bible where most of church doctrine is established.

EVOLUTIONARY AGE OF EARTH INVALIDATES BIBLICAL INERRANCY

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The original creation, which was declared by God to be “very good” (Genesis 1:31), did not contain such aberrations as death and suffering. Evolution claims, without any mechanism that could accomplish it, goo turned into you as a result of natural selection, survival of the fittest and therefore death, suffering and disease. Mutations don’t help, as they involve loss of DNA information not an increase, which is what would be needed to go from goo to you by way of the zoo.

The Bible provides the true reason for death, suffering and disease, the historical event of “The Fall” caused sin and death to enter and corrupt the created order (Romans 8:20–22). This can only be true within a ‘young-Earth’ framework.

Sadly, many Christian apologists who accept the evolutionary long-age paradigm of earth history are unaware of the massive inconsistency. Old-Earth belief directly undercuts the biblical defence against objections posed by death and suffering. The secular paradigm is built upon ‘dating’ methods and assumptions which place death, suffering, disease, cancer and carnivorous activity long before the Fall of man. Thus, pointing to the Fall as the terminus a quo2 for death and suffering is logically inconsistent, and many thoughtful sceptics have picked up on this.

Here is a typical sceptic question: “ … knowing the world as we see today, if extrapolating back millions of years, we have millions of years of death (as the engine of evolution), suffering, cancers, parasites and diseases. How is all that equated for if “The Fall” is responsible for it?”

The point made is that you cannot use “The Fall” as a response to why we have death and suffering if you also accept the evolutionary time scale, because they contradict each other! If you want to accept the old-earth view then you must acknowledge the history that goes with it, i.e. millions of years of death, disease and bloodshed before the Fall. But once you accept that, you have no option but to say that God did in fact create these things and even pronounced them “very good” (Genesis 1:31).

Long age Christian apologists will invariably say, “the effects of “The Fall” are a spiritual issue rather than a physical one”. And yet, the description of the effects of the Fall clearly includes physical elements: the serpent is cursed above all livestock, women will experience unpleasant pain in childbirth, the ground is cursed and will bring forth thorns and thistles, and growing food will be a laborious task (Genesis 3:14–19). Also, and most importantly, man was to die a physical death; ‘dust to dust’ (v.19). These unquestionably are physical changes.

The age of the earth is not a secondary, peripheral issue, related only to the creation-evolution debate. It is absolutely pivotal in determining how we answer fundamental questions relating to death and suffering. If we are inconsistent, astute sceptics will pick up on it. It also demonstrates the irrational fear that so many Christian apologists have over the age issue, causing them to repeatedly make these types of contradictory statements. This fear seems to be driven by the incorrect assumption that deep time has been irrefutably demonstrated. However, such an assumption is unwarranted given the abundant evidence available today that the deep time paradigm is flawed.

The solution really is quite simple: rather than trying to invent different explanatory models or interpretations of Genesis that can accommodate millions of years, we need to realise that the Bible can and should be taken at face value. Its explanation for the origin of suffering and death needs no alteration and the problem only appears when secular evolutionary assumptions are imported into our theology (see Plumbing and paradigms). It is those compromising assumptions that need to be thrown out! Only then can we present the biblical explanation of death and suffering without contradictions.

Excerpts from another great Creation Ministries article by Thomas Fretwell, “Christian apologists trip over the age of the earth … again“

OUR UNIVERSE – UNINTELLIGENT DESIGN?

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Despite the overwhelming evidence for design in the universe, Intelligent Design’ (ID) is virtually outlawed in academia. They recognise that it must mean that there is an intelligence behind the design, an intelligence outside and above the design itself; and in the context, the design of living things. The term ID is mocked at school (pupils who espouse it have been humiliated by teachers) and universities and it is dismissed in the media.

unintelligent-design

INTELLIGENT DESIGN is not really a very intelligent term, because it is tautologous: design must by its very nature be intelligent. Perhaps this can be best explained by looking at the other side of the coin. Could there be such a thing as ‘Unintelligent Design’?

It is incongruous that popular TV presenters of the “natural” world  such as David Attenborough, continually make references to ‘design’. Many features are referred to as ‘a wonderful design’, or it is said that they are ‘designed to’ accomplish some specific end, such as keeping warm, attracting a mate, enabling flight, or whatever. And yet, David Attenborough is utterly opposed to any idea of an outside intelligence.

If ID is not an acceptable concept, but the fact of design is acknowledged, then the only alternative is ‘Unintelligent Design’. Now this does not mean ‘bad’ design (good design and rubbish design both qualify as design), but the absence of any intelligence behind the design.1 Let us give a little thought to what this means. Design’ carries with it the idea of purpose—indeed it is essential to the very concept of design, which must be a teleological act. If it isn’t purposeful, it is no longer design, but merely accident. If something is designed it must be the product of intelligence, whether low or high-level intelligence.

The only alternative to design by an intelligent agent is design by evolution—which, one assumes, must be ‘Unintelligent Design’. But we have already determined that design is not logically possible without intelligence, at some level. How are we to resolve the paradox? According to most dictionary definitions, evolution is a blind stochastic process, simply a description of what allegedly happened in the past without any intelligent input. A process cannot design anything, thus evolution cannot design! But perhaps evolution is more than a process? Although a non-material entity, maybe it has mysterious powers to direct and select. If so, the same powers that theists ascribe to a Creator God are simply being ascribed to evolution. This rather gives the game away.        For its proponents, belief in evolution is a faith, a creed, just as surely as any other faith. We might even say that evolution has become ‘god’ as far as its adherents are concerned, able to do anything ascribed to it. The question needs to be asked. How come evolution is being taught as fact in our schools and universities?

In conclusion, if we refuse to accept the concept of Intelligent Design in the natural world, we have to conclude that our existence is merely the result of countless random events and is utterly meaningless. The presenters of popular science programmes need to take note: nothing is designed to work, and the fact that it does is just an accumulation of billions of accidents. There is one philosophical problem, however. We are creatures who design incessantly. Where did we get our concept of design if there was no such thing?

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

Extract of article by  published by Creation Ministries International,  8 March 2018.