As an atheist, I thought that Evolution had possibilities,
but saw flaws in the reasoning. I hadn’t
had any training in the church we attended about any proofs for God as the
Creator other than simply accepting what the Bible had to say about it. I wondered about that, too. Was God real? Was Jesus really who He said He
was? Could I trust stories about men
being swallowed by whales, walking on water, being taken up to heaven, and
more? There was no scientific or
archaeological forensic foundation laid for the youth of that church; about a hundred
of us. Like myself, most of them
eventually left the church and turned their backs on God. The Bible stories weren’t enough to keep the
majority in the faith. Simply telling us
stories, expecting us to believe them, and then leaving it at that was not
enough. I’ve since learned, through
statistics of the Assembly of God, ‘Focus on the Family’, the Baptist church,
and many others that eighty percent of all kids raised in a church leave the
faith when they “get an education”. This
fulfilled two ideas on the Communist Manifesto; destroy belief in God, and take
over what is taught in the schools. My
church was no different from most others.
More than eighty percent left the faith.
I remember the first time my shallow faith was tested. I’d already gotten bored of church and
left. The teachings on evolution in
elementary and high school had eaten away at most of what little faith I had concerning
God as Creator and Jesus being His Son. If
Evolution was true, and God was not the Creator of Adam, then Jesus was not the
sacrifice for sin that He and his apostles said He was. I was in college and a professor was belittling
one of the students for believing God created the earth and mankind just six to
eight thousand years ago. He had a swell
time putting the girl in her place and ultimately embarrassing her enough to
silence her forever while in school. The
whole class was laughing by the time he finished. It left an indelible mark on my soul. It wasn’t long before I became an
atheist. However, I never was really
sold on Evolution either. The idea of
aliens seeding life on this earth was also ridiculous to me. I put the question of Creation on the back
burner of my mind and went about living my life, or should I say dying
spiritually. I had no hope, no good eternal
future, no way of finding the truth.
That is, until David Holbrook came into my life. David was a caring guy, extremely well read,
and extremely intelligent. He had also gone
through what I had spiritually. However,
David was fortunate enough to find someone who taught more than just the Bible stories. His mentors had great wisdom and biblical teaching.
Since my days with David, there have been over one thousand more archaeological
discoveries proving many parts of the Bible as being true. The faith I gained through Biblical forensic
knowledge was incredible, but has grown enormously since. I later learned Hosea 4:6, which says “My
people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”
However, in Proverbs 11:9, God tells us how to remedy that; “With
knowledge the just shall be delivered.” Wow, how true that was for me! There’s now
no book of the Bible where I can’t prove at least one thing in most chapters as
provable, including some of the miracles of Jesus. Much can be proven by
archaeological, historical, or scientific discoveries; discoveries our parent
didn’t have. For example, the church now has evidence that Jesus did raise
Lazarus from the dead, that Goliath was a giant, the Exodus was real, and much
more. Sadly, many pastors don’t know about these finds and therefore cannot
pass them on to their youth. To date,
there have been a little over 6,500 discoveries in archaeology alone; not to
mention science finds proving God as Creator…not Evolution or the Big Bang. Most of these stories, people, places,
events, and other things in the Bible were once challenged by critics of the
Bible. This means the critics have been
absolutely wrong all of those times.
How’s that for God showing up? Please consider going to Amazon or Barnes
& Noble and buying my first book; “Learning the ABC’s; Apologetics, the
Bible, and Creation”. Get a copy for your friends or tell them about it too.
Have a good day.
In 1859, Charles Darwin drew his ‘phylogenic tree’ of life
in his book ‘The Origin of Species’. This ‘tree’ had a trunk, limbs, branches,
and twigs. The trunk represented the first living thing, and each time that a
new creature supposedly evolved from the first creature, they were represented
as either limbs, branches, or twigs; allegedly showing the progression of
evolution over billions of years. I was asked why I didn’t believe in evolution
as God’s tool to create all life. The questioner was under the impression that
a Christian could both accept the Bible and Evolution as being compatible. I
asked if they understood Darwin’s phylogenic tree. They did. I then began to
point out the differences between when
Darwin said certain creatures evolved from other creatures. I emphasized the
“when”, indicating that we should look at which creatures came first. I then
pointed out the following; The first ten words of the Bible state that “In the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth”. Evolutionists believe the Big
Bang created all things. This is our first discrepancy between the Bible and
Evolution. In the book of Genesis, chapter one, it says God created “light”
before He created the Sun and Moon. Evolution says the Sun and Moon were our
first light. Already we’re seeing that one or the other must be wrong. Evolution teaches that marine organisms came
first. However, Genesis tells us that land plants came first. Another discrepancy. Evolution says that land
mammals came before the sea creatures. However, Genesis says that whales and
fish came before land mammals. Evolution
says reptiles came before birds; Genesis says birds came before reptiles.
Evolution says death and disease were here millions of years before mankind. However, Genesis says death and disease came
because Adam and Eve (mankind) sinned. Jesus came because He was to die for the
sins of man, to free mankind to enter heaven. If death and disease were not the
result of sin, then Jesus died for nothing and is not the Saviour of the world.
Evolution says the earth was all molten lava in the beginning, with no water on
it. Genesis says God separated the
waters and created the land mass out of it. It is noteworthy that the waters of
the “Fountains of the great deep”, as mentioned in Genesis, were likely recently
discovered; enough water, according to scientists, to cover even that highest
mountains if let loose on the earth…just like the Bible says happened in the
story of Noah’s flood. There’s an
article in the U.S.A. Today paper on this; dated June 4, 2014, I believe. The
upper waters became our vaporized atmosphere. I haven’t even got past the first
pages of the Bible in Genesis, and we see that Evolution and the Bible are not
compatible in any way. One must choose
one or the other. It shows a lack of knowledge to think that we can believe
both to be true. Even Jesus speaks of Adam and Eve, God as the Creator, and
life originating at the time of Adam and Eve. Almost all books of the Bible
mention God creating all things in six literal days. Moses wrote the first five
books of the Bible, including all of Genesis. Jesus gives a very strong warning
against not believing the writings of Moses. John 5:47, Jesus says this; “Do
not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuses you,
even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye
believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me. But if ye
believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?” How can one say
they’re a Christian believer and choose Evolution over the Bible, especially
the writings of Moses whom Jesus had every confidence in? Even the slightest
perusal of the Bible shows us that very many portions testify to God creating
all things as written in Genesis. Therefore, I believe one must choose one over
the other, abandoning whichever is trashed. One can’t believe in both. One
needs to go. Jesus warns us that we will one day answer as to which we chose to
believe. The book of Matthew 7:21-23 tells us of those who will not make it
into heaven. There are those who profess to have known the Lord and done many
wonderful things in His name, but Jesus will say he never knew them. Look for my book “Learning the ABC’s;
Apologetics, the Bible, and Creation” at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other
sources. It represents thousands of hours of my research and spans 45 years of
study.
I’ve been asked why I’m not a theistic evolutionist. A theistic evolutionist is a Christian who
believes that God is the Creator, but used billions of years of Evolution as
His tool to do so. They feel that those of us who believe in a literal six-day
creation period are not very scientific.
Let me explain why their evolutionary opinion does not stand up to
Christian Biblical principles. They say
that man, in the beginning of life, originated from non-living materials that
somehow came to life then evolved from one thing to another until we look like
we do, today. First, the Bible tells us
that we were created in the image of God.
God was not a pile of goo? Theistic
evolutionists call themselves Christian believers, but I must ask, “what is it
that they believe, and what do they base it on?” Certainly, not the Bible, Jesus, the Bible
writers, or the Apostles. These all
maintain a literal six-day creation. Jesus
said that if we can’t believe the writings of Moses, which includes all of
Genesis, then we won’t believe His words either. Jesus believed Genesis as written. Was He wrong?
Jeremiah 32:17 tells us that God created the heavens and earth with His
great power, and that nothing is too hard for Him. Why would God then use the pitifully poor
method of Evolution as his tool to create life?
Evolution teaches that all things evolved slowly over billions of years
by accidental mutations within our genes.
I’ve asked these people if they believe that God is going to create a
new heaven and a new earth one day, and that we will be allowed to live
there. They almost always answer
yes. I then ask if God’s going to use
the same process as evolution over billions of years to build the new heavens
and earth. In other words, do we have to
sit around a billion years or so waiting for a planet to live on? Almost all opt for God building the new
heavens and earth quickly. Think of it. If God can create a new heaven and a
new earth immediately, then what makes them think He couldn’t have done it in
the beginning? Why limit God’s power to having
to use an extremely cruel “survival of the fittest” system to build? Think of all the trillions of accidental
transformations that evolution says had to happen in order to create all living
things over billions of years. When God
pronounced all things to be very good, after Creation was over, was death and
disease part of that very good? It had
to be, if Evolution is correct. Evolutionists
believe death and disease would have been here millions of years before mankind
finally evolved onto the scene. Was God
wrong? Were things not very good and He
missed it? Death and disease then could
not be the result of sin by man as the Bible dictates. If death was not the result of sin, then why
did Jesus have to die. Our Bible says He
died because of the sins of mankind to give us a chance at a new life in
heaven. Jesus teaches that Adam and Eve
sinned, and that He had to die because sin entered the world through them. Was Jesus wrong? These are a few of the reasons that I’m not a
theistic evolutionist. It’s noteworthy
to recognize that even genetic research is now showing that mankind gains about
100-150 genetic mutations per generation, with each generation passing on
mutations to the next. Scientists
quickly realized that there had to have been a time when mankind had to be free
of all mutations; genetically pure. Simple
math told them that man has only been around for about 7-8,000 years; based on
the known number of mutations in the average human. Genetic research has also now shown we all
descended from just one set of original parents. This runs contrary to evolution stating
different races evolved from different sets of monkeys, separated by as much as
100,000 years, and that some races were “lesser evolved”. Darwin wholeheartedly believed in lesser
evolved races of people, especially the black race. Therefore, people enslaved the black race,
and other so-called lesser evolved people.
We’re learning we all are of the same race, and that’s a proven fact
from science. The genetics (DNA) for
each race was in that first parents; Adam and Eve. Instead of science proving its point about
evolution, Genetics is proving the Bible to be right, instead. This is why I’m not a theistic Evolutionist
but rather a Creationist. The evidence for God as Creator is overwhelming.
Charles Darwin began studying pigeons to explore the possibility
of using them to explain and show evolution.
He feared that his Theory of Evolution would not be accepted because it
ran contrary to the belief that God created the world. This can be verified by the quote from the
Natural History Museum of London: “Darwin was worried about how his theory of
evolution would be received. It
challenged the widely-held belief that God created the world”. Darwin hoped to show evolution in progress by
cross-breeding as many kinds of pigeons that he could find. Many said that Darwin’s work with pigeons
gave clear proof for evolution. He
looked for specific features in each kind of known pigeon and crossed these
features with other kinds of pigeons. To
his delight, he found that he could ‘manufacture’ a different variety of pigeon. So much so, that ornithologists of his day
were shocked. To them, he seemed to have
sped up ‘natural selection’ processes so necessary to prove that creatures
evolved slowly over many millions of years.
Today, we know that man can crossbreed many types of animals to get
different kinds of the same animal. This
is clearly seen mostly in dog varieties.
Other scientists soon wondered if he wasn’t right about evolution, and a
theory was born. Darwin’s theory took
off. Does this prove evolution? Today we understand that the genes of many
kinds of the same animals can be selected and used to create other varieties of
the same animals. Darwin had no concept
of DNA, cellular structures, or genetics.
It wasn’t known in his day.
Genetics has proven to be a burr in the saddle for evolutionists. The more we understand it, the more evolution
is proven wrong. Please note that Darwin
never made a monkey out of any pigeon.
They remained pigeons, did they not?
Genesis chapter one tells us that all creatures remain stubbornly “to
their own kind”. A dog is a dog, a cat
is a cat, a bird is a bird, and no dog is going to have a kitten, and no cat is
going to give birth to a dog. All the
genetic information for each kind of animal needed to create multiple varieties
of its kind was within that animal from the beginning. Notice also, that Darwin selected which
characteristics he wanted in each of his birds.
This is not ‘natural’ selection; it is intelligent selection, something evolution says is not part of
evolution. He became the ‘designer’ of
what he wanted. Design is also another
foreign word for evolutionists. They do not believe in design in nature because
it evokes a designer being needed. Evolution
is believed to only act upon changes in food sources, habitat, nature, and so
on. What evolutionists do not see is
that all those things only bring out the variety of kind best adapted to those changes.
This is due to the genetics within the kind, and each “kind” never
changes to a different creature. A dog
remains a dog, and a cat remains a cat.
We get no birds from reptiles, as suggested by Charles Darwin, for
example. Darwin believed dinosaurs
evolved into birds. In his day, some
believed that a dinosaur scratched itself so much that the skin shredded and
feathers were the result. This theory
was once widely accepted by evolutionists.
This feather feature, supposedly, was then passed down to the next
generations until dinosaurs eventually learned how to fly. Today, we consider this to be nonsense. If I were to lose an arm, does that mean all
my children would be born without that arm?
Even if a dinosaur did scratch itself so much that a feather-like skin
was produced, the dinosaur’s genetics wouldn’t allow that feather-like feature to
be passed onto its children. Darwin
started with pigeons and ended with pigeons.
Now, that is truly a fact. Look
for us at evidenceforthehope.org. My book Learning the ABC’s; Apologetics, the
Bible, and Creation should be about ready for purchase on the market. I’ve
already received my first ten pre-copies. Look for it at Barnes & Noble,
Amazon and others.
I love contests where the host announces “and the winner
is…” Here’s a contest that the
Christians won. It’s been held by some
that the Temple of Solomon never existed; that it was a fictional place. This view has been held (and taught) by
higher education critics, as well as other critics of the Bible. This is just one of the attacks against the
Bible that millions of students had to suffer while in college or a university. Consequently, nearly eighty percent of all
young Christians attending a college or university will, per many statistics,
lose their faith and never to return to the church. A few years ago, a tiny ivory pomegranate was
discovered, and has now been validated to be part of the staff of the high
priest used in the Temple of Solomon. That
would be the temple the critics said never existed. God is good.
However, that’s not all that’s been found. Archaeologists were working in Khirbet
Qeiyafa and discovered a miniature model
of the Temple of Solomon. It looks
exactly like the Biblical description of the real temple. To make matters worse for the critics of the
Bible, a second miniaturized copy of the temple has also now been found. These were dated back to the time that the
temple still stood. You can’t have an
exact copy of something that never existed.
The Temple of Solomon can no longer be contested by the critics. That’s not all that’s being found. The Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement
decided to convert a portion of the original temple grounds in Jerusalem (known
as Solomon’s Stables) into an Islamic Mosque, despite the archaeological laws
forbidding such digging. They illegally
removed 9,000 tons of archaeological-rich soil to a dump, thumbed their noses
at the law, and built their mosque.
Archaeologists decided to sift through all 9,000 tons and look for
ancient artifacts. They found many. One was a tiny bulla (an impression used to
seal scrolls or letters) that belonged to “Lyahu son of Immer’. The Immer family lived before and during the
days of the prophet Jeremiah and were in control and care of the Temple of
Solomon. Two other seals were found a
few years ago in the recently discovered palace of King David discovered in
Jerusalem (the one critics maintained as fictional). These belonged to Gedaliah son of Pashur, and
Jucal son of Shelemiah (whom critics said were fictional). These are two of the
four princes that threw Jeremiah into the miry pit, according to the book of
Jeremiah. Pashur is mentioned in the
Bible as the son of…Immer. Pashur is the
one who punched (smote) Jeremiah in the mouth. What an amazing tie-in this
is! The same Immer family as on the
recently found seal on the temple grounds. The Bible tells us this family held
sway over Solomon’s Temple. Since Lyahu,
son of Immer, worked in the temple, one should expect to find his seal on
temple grounds. It was. Since Gedaliah and Jucal were princes in
Judah, one would expect to find their seals in the palace. They were.
Pashur, as a son of Immer, ties the palace and the Temple together. All these people lived during the days of
Jeremiah. There are more. I’ve enjoyed watching one find after another proving
the critics who berated people, places, and events in our Bible to be
disproven, but am also saddened. I’m
aware of the statistics of how many tens of millions of young students have
lost, and will eventually lose, their faith and leave the church because they’re
unaware of the discoveries proving their Bible can be trusted. This loss of students is totally
preventable. A good pastor would keep in
touch with young parishioners while they are in college. A great pastor is one who’d have someone
designated in their church to learn Christian Apologetics (evidences for the
Bible), and to keep in touch with young parishioners. This person would also oversee teaching the
whole congregation evidences. If there
are churches out there that would like to have me help in that, I am now
available. I’m an Assembly of God
minister with a background in Apologetics. Look for us at evidenceforthehope.org ( update note) when I first wrote this for
the newspaper, they hadn’t discovered king David’s palace in Elah. It was
discovered in 2016, and evidence for king Saul and his son Eshbaal was inside.
Shortly before that, they found Goliath’s home of Gath and pottery with his
name.
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