Perhaps the biggest stumbling block to my coming to faith in Christ was accepting the Bible as true. I had always believed, to some extent, that Jesus really existed and that God really created the universe. But, having completed 16 years of education, from 1st-8th grade, high school and college, learning darwinian evolution as fact, I couldn't just naively accept the claims of a literal six-day creation just about 6000 years ago, which in plainly reading the Bible appears to be what it teaches. So if the Bible is not true in the first 11 chapters of its opening book, Genesis, then how in the world could I possibly believe that the rest of it is true?
I was introduced, just after completing some college-level geology courses, to Dr. Kent Hovind, a.k.a. Dr. Dino. Hovind heads a ministry called Creation Science Evanglism. Hovind didn't necessarily use gentleness and respect in his messages, but he offered plenty of evidence refuting my basic understanding of evolutionary origins. In other words, I watched a series of his videos refuting evolution, and I began to ask questions.
When asking questions, a person can either seek and find the answers or just push the questions aside. God blessed me with a desire to seek and find. And I found! Evolution is simply bankrupt of truth. And there is so much evidence that displays this truth that evolutionists themselves must strive to uphold their beliefs by refusing to believe the clear truth. And I was excited to learn this, because it's exactly what the Bible teaches:
Romans 1:18-25
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
2 Peter 2:3-9
First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, 'Where is this 'coming' he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.' But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
I won't go into the details of this evolution-refuting evidence today, but what great comfort it was for me that Scripture says that exactly what we see happening will happen. I wrote much more about this in my book, Biblical Glasses. The title of the book came from the founder (Ken Ham) of one of my favorite ministries, Answers in Genesis. The goal of AIG is "upholding the authority of the Bible from the very first verse." AIG has been instrumental in my own understanding of Scripture and science, showing that they are perfectly compatible. Indeed, Scripture told us long ago what science is just now confirming and will continue to confirm. How great is our God!
AIG is building a Creation Museum in Hebron, KY, near the Cincinnati airport, and just 75 minutes from Louisville. What a blessing it will be to have this museum as a learning aid for my children, as my wife and I attempt to raise them in the knowledge of the Lord in this generation of moral relativism and culture of post-modern thought.
There are several additional outstanding creation ministries located around the world, including The Institute for Creation Research. ICR's founder, Dr. Henry Morris, was also instrumental in my understanding of the scientific truth of the Biblical creation account found in Genesis. ICR is both sad and rejoicing today, as Dr. Morris passed away Saturday, February 25, at the age of 87. There is saddness due to the temporary separation that his earthly friends and family are experiencing. And there is rejoicing, because he has served the Lord in humility for such a long time and is now present with Lord in abundant glory.
I'll close today with ICR's statement regarding Dr. Morris' passing:
Thank you Lord for the ministry of this man, and all the creation ministries. And thank you for working through these creation ministries to bring people to salvation through Jesus Christ.Henry Morris was considered the 'father of the Modern Creation Movement', authoring well over sixty books on Biblical Creationism, Scientific Creationism and commentaries on the Bible. His most recent work was the New Defenders Study Bible (released last month) which contained several thousand additional annotations.
Dr. Morris was a brilliant scholar and theologian who was used by God in many marvelous ways to launch and encourage the Modern Creation Movement on a global scale. But for those of us who had the privilege of working with Henry Morris, he was a gentle, humble and faithful servant of God who modeled what it means to finish well as he consistently looked unto Jesus and ran with patience the race that was set before him (Hebrews 12:1-2).
2 comments:
You should visit 300 Creationist Lies. It shows that "Dr." Kent Hovind is a fraud and a liar.
Thank you for reading my post, Corey. I'll be the first to admit that Dr. Hovind has unfortunately made efforts to uphold refutable claims. While his efforts are honorable, he does, at times, go too far in that regard. In fact, I once called him to ask a question while struggling with some of what you might consider to be so-called evidences for the young earth creationist position, and he was downright rude to me. It's unfortunate, and I don't pretend to suggest that he's my hero.
That's why, as you read in my blog, I'll lean more heavily on AIG and ICR. Perhaps you're familiar with ICR's RATE Project, which deals with the truth about dating methods.
Evolution requires old age and long time frames, and the RATE Project has used OBSERVABLE science to show that dating methods have been misused by evolutionists to attempt to prove their theory. RATE also shows how reliable dating methods can and should be used in observable scientific methods to show the truth of thousands of years, rather than the millions and billions evolutionists claim.
I'd be glad to take up some of these issues with you provately, or perhaps publically on this blog. Let's see what tomorrow brings. Blessings, CHIP
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