Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Sunday School Class: Creation as Foundational Truth, Week 7

Following are some notes from week 7 of our Sunday school study of "Creation as Foundational Truth." 
 
"I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well" (Psalm 139:14, NKJV).
 
"By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible" (Hebrews 11:3, NKJV).
 
Section 6:  Icons of Evolution
 
The author of Icons of Evolution, Jonathan Wells, PhD, is not a young earth creationist and does not claim to be a born-again believer. Nevertheless, much of his book is good, because the scientific evidence has convinced him of the folly of evolution. He believes in “Intelligent Design,” which all open-minded scientists should accept, at a minimum. Not all Intelligent Design proponents are Christians. The next logical step after Intelligent Design is to become a young earth creationist and a Christian, but that doesn’t always happen.
 
An icon is a widely-known symbol, such as an icon on the desktop of a computer.
 
Even though these “icons” have been demonstrated to be false, they are still used as proof for evolution, since they have little else to support their flimsy idea.
 
Those who disagree are generally met with ridicule, mocking, and name-calling, which is the final tactic of those who have no legitimate argument for their position.
 
Information on the following “icons” is based partially on Wells’ book and partially on numerous other sources.
 
Miller-Urey Experiment
 
Charles Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life in 1859. Is there an agenda in that title? We usually just hear the book referred to as The Origin of Species.
 
When he wrote this book, the biological cell was viewed as a globule of protoplasm consisting of carbon dioxide, oxygen, and nitrogen. He knew nothing about DNA.
 
Even up until the 1950s, scientists believed that the building blocks of life could be produced by combining these chemical substances, such as carbon dioxide, oxygen, and nitrogen, in just-right proportions, under just-right conditions. Harold Urey and Stanley Miller produced a small yield of amino acids in a highly controlled experiment. In 1983, Miller discovered that if carbon monoxide is added, plus a large proportion of hydrogen, then glycine, the simplest amino acid, could be produced, but only in trace amounts.
 
Rather than demonstrating chemical evolution, all this really showed was that an atmosphere designed for life could be carefully guided to produce ONE of life's many building blocks. Their meager success depended not on a random and unguided process, but on an intelligently designed and managed experiment that started out with the necessary chemical components. While attempting to verify evolution by blind, materialistic means, they merely confirmed the need for an intelligent agent to create and control the conditions necessary for life.
 
This experiment does not pose any difficulties for the creationist. It actually strengthens our argument. “Life in the lab” would prove the necessity of an intelligent designer. “To claim this experiment as evidence for evolution would be akin to allowing water to flow over a bed of coal, and upon identifying a little ink-like substance, claiming the Encyclopaedia Britannica was produced by natural, random processes” (reference here).
 
Life is more than just chemistry.  A dead body has all the chemicals needed for life, but it is not alive. If life is just chemicals, and our brains just operate on chemical and electrical reactions, then how do we know we can trust our thoughts or conclusions?
 
One year after the experiment, other scientists unraveled the structure of DNA. With that, scientists learned that the instructions for life came from a code within the DNA molecule. As a result, the cell could no longer be thought of as a simple collection of chemicals reacting under the right environmental conditions. If evolutionists were truly honest, then the discovery of DNA should have forever ended the whole idea of evolution.
 
Darwin knew nothing of DNA. He based his conclusions on what he saw as similarities by looking at humans and various animals.
 
“Scientists speculate that life may have arisen as a result of random chemical processes happening to produce self-replicating molecules” (reference here). Speculation is not science, but it seems to be used a great deal in order to fit the agenda of evolutionists.
 
Most scientists have now concluded that “abiogenesis” (spontaneous generation of life) on earth is an impossibility. Two responses are offered in response to this:
 
(1)  “Life must have come from outer space” (reference here). This does not solve the problem, it just moves it.
 
(2)   “We don’t do origins” (see article here). In other words, “We don’t know how life started, and we don't care how life started. We just concern ourselves with what happened after it started.” Think about it. To now know and not care amounts to ignorance and apathy.
 
Both of these options amount to ducking the issue. We who believe what God has said face no such dilemma.
 
This experiment is much like Richard Dawkins’ “Blind Watchmaker” experiment. A computer was pre-programmed to produce the sentence, “Methinks it is like a weasel.” It produced it in a very short time. He called this the Darwinian method. He apparently thinks everyone else is stupid.
 
Big problem:  He cheated. He even admitted it was “a bit of a cheat.” He left another computer running totally by random chance, and he admitted that it never did, never could, and never would produce that sentence. However, he still called the pre-programmed computer the Darwinian method. Quite obviously, the totally random one that had no chance of success was truly the Darwinian method. This is a segment of an entire video which is found here.
 
Haeckel’s Emnbryos
 
Darwin and others have reasoned that descendants along various evolutionary lineages would demonstrate similar embryonic development during the earliest stages.
 
Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919), a German biologist, provided a series of drawings which conveniently demonstrated just this. These pictures appear even today in many textbooks with no statement that this “evidence” is a well-established blatant fraud. Even Darwin, who called this his “strongest single class of facts,” was duped. Photographs of the embryos Haeckel selected demonstrate virtually no resemblance to his drawings.
 
A big myth is the claim that human embryos go through their alleged evolutionary past, including a fish-like stage, in which they display gill slits. These folds are not gills. In humans, they develop into other structures entirely, totally unrelated to breathing.
 
It is important to always be skeptical of those endless “proofs” for evolution. They reflect over-enthusiastic and selective use of data when it appears to support a pre-conceived evolutionary mind-set.
 
Haeckel’s Embryos are a known lie. However, Eugenie Scott, one of the most outspoken advocates for evolution in the United States says the following:
 
“It’s clear that Haeckel may have fudged his drawings somewhat to look more like his ideal than they actually are. Now, does that actually take away from what we know about the relationship of embryology to evolution? Not a bit. The whole Haeckel’s embryos story has been greatly blown out of significance. It is a minor footnote in the history of science. And actually it’s been known for ten or fifteen years that Haeckel’s embryos are not to be relied upon. The reason why the diagrams are reproduced is because they’re easily available – there’s no copyright on them – it’s an easy way to illustrate a point. And I would argue that the basic point that’s being illustrated by those drawings is still accurate.” (Eugenie Scott’s statement, recorded on Icons of Evolution, Randolph Productions Inc, 2002.) Watch the video here.
 
It is not really a stretch to interpret her words as follows:  “The evidence is fraudulent, but the conclusion is consistent with my beliefs, so it is OK to continue to use the evidence, because it is convenient and available.”
 
Archaeopteryx:  The Alleged “Missing Link” between Reptiles and Birds
 
We so often think of THE missing link, meaning the single link between apes or ape-like creatures and man. The truth is, there would have to be a large number of  such links between every species that allegedly evolved from another, not just one. And we must not forget that there is a reason these alleged links are referred to as “missing.” They are not there, and the reason they are not there is that they do not exist.
 
When Archaeopteryx was discovered in 1861 (two years after Darwin had published his Origin of Species), it was widely heralded as a “missing link” predicted by Darwin’s theory — intermediate between reptiles and birds. However, most paleontologists now agree this member of an extinct group of birds is not the ancestor of any group of modern birds, nor is it a link between reptiles and birds.
 
Regardless of Archaeopteryx, where are the rest of those countless missing links required by the theory, had birds evolved from reptiles?
 
There have been many failed attempts by modern evolutionists to find fossil ancestors of birds. In 1999 there was the Archaeoraptor fraud. National Geographic had announced the discovery of this feathered dinosaur fossil in a blaze of publicity, but was left embarrassed when it was discovered to be a composite — a dinosaur tail glued to the body of a bird.
 
There have been other failed attempts to produce “missing links.” Wishful thinking (and sometimes outright fraud) is a key ingredient in these types of things.
 
Peppered Moths
 
The classic textbook example of evolution by natural selection says that most peppered moths were light-colored in the early 1800s. But with the Industrial Revolution, the proportion of dark-colored moths increased near heavily polluted cities because they could now camouflage themselves on soot-covered tree trunks. As pollution-reduction measures were introduced, the proportions reversed themselves. This has been used for years as the best example of natural selection in the wild.
 
How does this prove evolution? It doesn’t. In reality, it is what we would expect to find.
 
This tells us nothing about where moths’ alternative colors come from or how a moth could have evolved from a non-moth. And the “facts” of the story, repeated in countless biology textbooks, are badly flawed. The photographs, showing camouflaged moths on tree trunks, found in virtually all standard biology textbooks, have been staged. Dead moths had been glued to tree trunks in order to simulate what they believe had happened. Such weak “science” undermines their ideas, at least in the minds of those with open minds.
 
Bottom line:  When it is all said and done, moths are still moths.
 
This is very much like the fact that the white rabbits tend to survive longer than darker ones when living in the snow. The white ones have a better chance to survive and pass on their DNA to their offspring, so the darker colors are selected out.
 
This is in no way evolution, but it is a real example of “natural selection.”
 
No matter how you look at it, rabbits continue to be rabbits. This situation cannot explain any alleged change from one kind into another kind.
 
Darwin’s Finches
 
Fourteen species of finches were found on the Galápagos Islands, distinguished mainly by beaks necessary for different foods. Most creationists view this as an example of genetic variety present in the DNA of an ancestor (a finch, not a reptile or a blackberry bush).
 
During times of drought, some of the beak sizes tend to survive because they are more able to get the smaller amounts of food available. Those with larger beaks have the ability to crack open the few remaining harder seeds once the softer ones are eaten, so they have a better chanced of survival and of passing their DNA along to future generations of finches.
 
After the drought, the selection was reversed. There was no evolution. Oscillation in population proportion does not justify extrapolations to explain how the 14 species arose from something else. This is much like the survival rates of the moths and the rabbits.
 
Rapid speciation is not a problem to creationists. In reality, it is a prediction of the Creation / Flood / migration model. Darwin trained for the ministry. He was not a scientist but a rebellious student of theology. He saw what he wanted to see and interpreted the data consistent with his rebellion.
 
As Ken Ham points out, “When Darwin arrived on the Galapagos Islands, he found big finches and little finches with big beaks and little beaks. When he left, there were big finches and little finches with big beaks and little beaks. What do we find today? Big finches and little finches with big beaks and little beaks.” They are all still finches. Nothing is changing into something else.
 
The same is true of human beings. As we look around in any group of people, we see a great variety of sizes, shapes, skin colors, etc., but they are all human beings belonging to the human “kind” or human “race.” Nothing about variation within human kind offers even the remotest evidence of evolution from another kind. Such an idea is pure fantasy and speculation based on what evolutionists hope to find.
 
Four-winged Fruit Flies
 
Radiation such as x-rays will produce mutations and various frequencies and strengths of x-rays have bombarded these insects in the laboratory, producing many mutations.
 
Since 1910 geneticists have documented over 3,000 mutations in this creature, yet science journals have not documented a single fruit fly evolving into something else.
 
A geneticist showed that three strains of laboratory mutant fruit flies could be interbred to produce four-winged flies. The evolution-oriented textbooks use this to claim random mutations provide some useful changes on occasion, which natural selection then favors. The extreme unlikelihood such mutations happening in the wild is never mentioned.
 
A very serious problem is that no muscles are attached to these wings and a hopelessly non-aerodynamic creature results, which could never survive or reproduce in the wild. Some had four wings, but the extra wings had no function. Some had no wings, and all sorts of other non-beneficial mutations occurred.
 
By destroying the normal function, new non-functional wings were generated.  However, destruction of a genetic network cannot be construed as evidence for its evolution by chance any more than destruction of a house by an earthquake would demonstrate these had built the house in the first place.
 
None of the experiments turned up a single mutation that would benefit a fly in the wild. A fruit fly that can no longer fly is an oxymoron and should not longer even be called a fly.
 
An evolutionist said that the fruit fly seems not to have changed since the remotest times. Fruit flies continue to be fruit flies. They always have. They always will.
 
Continued next week with “Icons of Evolution – Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria.”
 
 
Following are some of the resources, in addition to the Scriptures, that have helped me a great deal as I have studied to teach this Sunday school topic. These include the following: 
·  Materials from the Institute for Creation Research, including the book The Genesis Record by Henry M. Morris.
·  Materials from the “Answers in Genesis” website, and the book The Lie: Evolution by Ken Ham.
·  Sermons by John MacArthur from the website, “Grace to You.”
·  Icons of Evolution by Jonathan Wells, a proponent of the Intelligent Design movement.
·  The “Got Questions?" website.
·  Various other resources, both printed books and websites.

Monday, April 18, 2016

Sunday School Class: Creation as Foundational Truth, Week 6

Following are some notes from week 6 of our Sunday school study of "Creation as Foundational Truth." 
 
Note:  I should mention the many resources, in addition to the Scriptures, that have helped me a great deal as I have studied to teach this Sunday school topic. These include the following: 
 
·  Materials from the Institute for Creation Research, including the book The Genesis Record by Henry M. Morris.
 
·  Materials from the “Answers in Genesis” website, and the book The Lie: Evolution by Ken Ham.
 
·  Sermons by John MacArthur from the website, “Grace to You.”
 
·  Icons of Evolution by Jonathan Wells, a proponent of the Intelligent Design movement.
 
·  The “Got Questions?" website.
 
·  Various other resources, both printed books and websites.
 
Continuation of Section 4:  Progressive Creationism
 
Following are a few of the positions of progressive creationists and brief answers to them:
 
Progressive Creationism says:  If God created a world that appears to be old when it isn’t, then He is a deceiver.
 
The appearance of age is an obvious interpretation of the evidence for those who desire the world to be old.
 
Evolutionary scientists look at things such as the Grand Canyon and think it is obvious that it took millions of years to form. They willingly ignore the after-effects of Noah’s flood (2 Peter 3:3-7). 
 
How would they, many years in the future, handle the catastrophic changes brought about by the eruption of Mount St. Helens? They would probably say it was “obvious that it took millions of years, but their bubble would be burst by the fact that pictures were taken of it while it happened. (Oh right, I forgot about Photoshop, but there were eyewitnesses to the event.) Mount St. Helens produced many changes comparable to the Grand Canyon, only on a smaller scale.
 
Much of what they call “appearance of age” is wishful thinking. As Scripture says, they are “willfully forgetting,” being “willingly ignorant,” or, as one creationist speaker said, being “dumb on purpose.” This should never be a replacement for real science, common sense, and belief in the Truth.
 
Adam was created as a man, not as a baby. That does not make God deceptive.
 
Did God create trees with or without rings? It doesn’t matter. He knows what He is doing. We can’t subject God and His ways to our human reasoning.
 
In reality, what would be deceptive of God would be to take billions of years to bring the universe into existence and then tell us in His Word that He did it in six days. “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day…” (Exodus 20:11, NKJV).
 
Progressive Creationism says:  There were man-like animals long before Adam and Eve. They did not have spirits and were not created in God’s image.
 
This is used to explain the fossil evidence for so-called “ape men” (“hominids”).
 
Imagination seems to be a big part of the idea of “ape men.” Following are just two examples:
 
Nebraska Man – It was discovered to be nothing but the tooth of a pig. From that one tooth, they built up an ape man, his wife, and his children, including the color and length of his hair. This was probably not an intentional hoax. Rather, it was the product of a strong desire for evolution to be true and wishful thinking.
 
Piltdown Man – This was a total, intentional hoax.
 
It was a human skull paired with the jawbone of an orangutan. The teeth were filed down to make them look more human, and acid was used to stain bones and make them appear to be very old.
 
Regardless of the fact that it was a hoax, it fooled the scientific community for about 40 years. Why? Because they WANTED it to be true.
 
It is interesting that evolutionists will say, "You creationists always bring up Piltdown Man." Why shouldn't we. It is the evolutionists who pushed this hoax out there in hopes that faked evidence would somehow "prove" them to be right.
 
All of the evidence can be interpreted either in light of God’s Word or in light of man’s bias.
 
Christians should never fear that any evidence will ever be discovered that will undermine God’s Word.  ALL truth is from God. Truth cannot contradict truth, especially including the Truth of God's Word.
 
Our inability to explain every new idea brought up by skeptics does not mean there is not an explanation that will yet be found.
 
The Scriptures make it very clear that Adam was the first man and Eve was the mother of all humans.
 
This Progressive Creationism idea of pre-Adam men puts the entrance of death in the world before the creation of Adam and Eve and before the fall of man into sin.
 
Death before sin destroys the penalty for sin and also destroys the gospel message.
 
We must not and cannot rely on the conclusions of sinful man based on his observations of a sin-cursed universe.
 
All such observations must be interpreted in light of the fallen nature of the entire creation and in light of the truth of God’s Word.
 
“Answers in Genesis” offers the following:
 
“This is perhaps the biggest problem created by each of the compromising views. The Bible makes it very clear that there was absolutely no death before Adam sinned … it is also clear from Romans 8 that sin affected all of creation ... Each of the old-earth views places death, bloodshed, disease, and suffering before Adam’s sin. However, the Bible teaches that all was ‘very good’ (Gen. 1:31) when God made it … Would God have called everything that He had made ‘very good’ if it were full of death and suffering? Absolutely not!”
 
Progressive Creationism says:  The flood was “universal” (meaning “local”) but not global.
 
The claim is that Noah built an ark that carried him, his family, and the animals on an inland lake that was big enough to drown all of the humans who lived at that time.
 
This is what they mean by a “universal” flood – it was just as widespread as humanity had migrated by that time, and there was no necessity for it to be any larger.
 
If the flood was local, why did Noah need to build an ark? Could he not have just moved?
 
God is neither stupid nor is He inefficient. He knows what He is doing.
 
Why take animals on the ark when there would have been large numbers of most, if not all, of the same species of animals outside the area of the flood?
 
How could a local flood cover the tops of all the mountains? (Genesis 7:19-20).
 
Would not a local flood make God a liar when He said he would never again flood the entire earth as He had done? There have been many local floods since Noah’s time, and each and every one of them would underscore God’s dishonesty if they were like Noah’s flood.
 
If Noah’s flood was only a local flood, every time we see a rainbow, we should consider that to be a sign of God’s dishonesty. “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?” (Numbers 23:19).
 
Both evolutionists and progressive creationists need a local flood, because a truly global flood explains the many fossil-containing rock layers without any need for millions or billions of years.
 
A global flood would make the Bible true, and we obviously can’t have that because it would destroy evolution and progressive creationism.
 
So “scientists” who are willing to accept a global flood on a planet with little or no water (Mars) are not willing to accept the possibility of a global flood on a planet that is covered 70% by water. Why will they not believe it? Because it would make the Bible true?
 
Conclusion of Section 4
 
We must place our faith in the Truth as God has revealed it in His Word rather than trusting in fallen men who observe a sin-cursed universe through eyes that have been tainted by sin.
 
Section 5:  The Lie of Satan:  Evolution
 
Six meanings of the word evolution:
 
(1)   Cosmic Evolution – The origin of time,    space, and matter from nothing but the “big bang."
(2)   Chemical Evolution – All elements evolved from Hydrogen.
(3)   Stellar Evolution – Stars and planets formed from gas clouds.
(4)   Organic Evolution – Life came from non-living matter.
(5)   Macro-evolution – Animals and plants change from one type into another. All life is related and came from a common ancestor.
(6)   Micro-evolution (variations within kinds) – This is the only one that is real science. The others are pure fantasy.
 
If it weren’t for this variation within kinds (“natural selection”), all people would look the same, all of the dog kind would look the same, etc.
 
Creationists accept “natural selection,” which is variation within kinds. They did so long before Darwin tried to say that natural selection results in macro-evolution.
 
There must be something to select. Natural selection cannot produce new information. It selects from information already present.
 
There are limits to natural selection. Example:  The mule. There is no Papa Mule and Mama Mule… only Baby Mule – the offspring of a horse and a donkey.
 
Such limits illustrate the absurdity of macro-evolution.
 
Evolution = no God = no one to whom I must answer = no absolute standards = I can do as I please.
 
Satan is the originator of the idea of evolution. He is a liar, and evolution is a LIE.
 
“…And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie…” (2 Thessalonians 2:11).
 
What is the lie?
 
It closely parallels evolution.
 
Satan first told the lie to himself.
 
“I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High” (Isaiah 14;13-14).
 
The lie is that the created being can become (“evolve into”) the Creator.
 
Satan told the same lie to Eve.
 
“Then the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil’” (Genesis 3:4-5).
 
The same lie is being told today. “You have a spark of divinity within you.” “You can become a god.” “Man can evolve into something better.”  Etc., etc. and other such foolishness.
 
The anti-Christ will tell the lie during the tribulation. “Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God” (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4).
 
Men have been and continue to be deceived by Satan’s lie, as evidenced by the blind faith people have in the idea of evolution.
 
People believe in evolution because they have been brainwashed and because they want to believe in it.
 
Click here for a video of an evolutionist college professor who finally came to grips with the Truth.
 
Continued next week with “Icons of Evolution."

Monday, April 11, 2016

Creation as Foundational Truth, Week 5

Following are some notes from week 5 of our Sunday school study of "Creation as Foundational Truth." 
 
Note:  I should mention the many resources, in addition to the Scriptures, that have helped me a great deal as I have studied to teach this Sunday school topic. These include the following: 
·  Materials from the Institute for Creation Research, including the book The Genesis Record by Henry M. Morris.
·  Materials from the “Answers in Genesis” website, and the book The Lie: Evolution by Ken Ham.
·  Sermons by John MacArthur from the website, “Grace to You.”
·  Icons of Evolution by Jonathan Wells, a proponent of the Intelligent Design movement.
·  The “Got Questions?" website.
·  Various other resources, both printed books and websites.
 
After the Flood
 
There were a number of physical changes to the earth as a result of the flood.
 
“…The waters stood above the mountains. At Your rebuke they fled; at the voice of Your thunder they hastened away. They went up over the mountains; they went down into the valleys, to the place which You founded for them. You have set a boundary that they may not pass over, that they may not return to cover the earth..” (Psalm 104:6-9, NKJV).
 
Examples of physical changes:
 
1)    The oceans were much more extensive, since they now contained all the water which once was above the atmosphere.
 
2)    The land areas were much less extensive than before the Flood.
 
3)    The waters above were now gone, so that large temperature changes began, leading to a gradual buildup of snow and ice in the polar latitudes, rendering much of the extreme northern and southern land surfaces basically uninhabitable.
 
4)    Mountain ranges uplifted after the Flood, with many of these regions becoming unfit for human habitation.
 
5)    Winds and storms, rains and snows, were possible now, thus rendering the total environment less friendly than it was before.
 
6)    Harmful radiation from space, no longer filtered out by water above, resulted (along with other contributing environmental factors) in gradual reduction in human longevity after the Flood.
 
7)    The crust of the earth was in a state of general instability, reflected in recurrent volcanic and seismic activity all over the world. 
 
8)    The lands were basically barren of vegetation, until such time as plant life could be reestablished.
 
9)    The fossils were laid down in layers. The great fossil graveyards must for the most part have been buried by the Flood and its after-effects. The record in the rocks is not a testimony to evolution, but rather to God’s sovereign power and judgment on sin. 
 
10)  Ken Ham  likes to say, “If there were a flood, we would find ‘billions of dead things, buried in rock layers, laid down by water, all over the earth.’ And what do we find?  ‘Billions of dead things, buried in rock layers, laid down by water, all over the earth.’”
 
Section 4:  Progressive Creationism
 
Progressive creationism is a form of old earth creationism which attempts to harmonize the Bible account of creation with the conclusions of modern science while still leaving God in the picture.  That is called compromise.
 
Hugh Ross is a chief proponent of progressive creationism. His website is “Reasons to Believe.”
 
Many of the arguments for progressive creationism are exactly the same arguments used for atheistic evolution, with the main difference being that they would say that God did it through new creative acts along the way.
 
Progressive creationism is one step away from theistic evolution, which can naturally lead to atheistic evolution, and ultimately to atheism.
 
"O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge (“science” ) — by professing it some have strayed concerning the faith" (1 Timothy 6:19-20, NKJV).
 
Following are a few of the positions of progressive creationists and brief answers to them:
 
Progressive Creationism says:  "Nature is the 67th book of Scripture and carries equal weight with the written Word."
 
There is an element of truth in this. Nature, the creation, speaks of the glory of the  Creator. “The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork”  (Psalm 19:1).
 
Since God is not a deceiver, the “book of nature” must be consistent with His written book, the Bible.
 
The problem comes when humans decide to place nature above the written Word.
 
Men look at the creation, and instead of saying, “There is obviously an all-powerful God who created all of this, and I want to know Him,” they instead ask, “Where did this all come from?” and then proceed to try and find a naturalistic explanation for what God already told us He did. (See Romans 1:18-23.)
 
The big problem is that fallen, sinful man looks at a fallen universe, which is under the curse of sin, and comes to faulty conclusions about the original, perfect creation.
 
All of creation is in complete harmony with the Bible, but attempts to harmonize the Bible to the conclusions of men, no matter how educated they may be, will only lead to disaster and ultimately to denial of God’s written Word.
 
While nature (“the creation”) can teach us a great deal about God if we view it through the lens of Scripture, we cannot give a fallen creation equal status with the 66 books of Scripture, nor can we consider it as reliable as Scripture.
 
We must always interpret our observations and conclusions in light of Truth, not the other way around. God’s word never change. Man’s knowledge of science does.
 
Progressive Creationism says:  "The universe started with the 'Big Bang.'"
 
The general consensus is that this event took place between ten and twenty billion years ago.
 
No one offers an explanation of where the matter came from, except, of course, the progressive creationists would say that God made the matter.
 
Atheists desperately want it to be true in order to remove God from the picture.
 
Progressive creationists are compromising with it because they actually believe that legitimate science has proven it to be true.
 
Those who accept the literal account of Genesis will not have to change anything.
 
“Forever, O Lord, Your word is settled in heaven. Your faithfulness endures to all generations; You established the earth, and it abides” (Psalm 119:89-90, NKJV).
 
Progressive Creationism says:  "The universe is billions of years old.
 
A progressive creationist stated that God could not have possibly put life on an earth that is less than 14 billion years old.
 
Limiting God like that is dangerous ground. The only limits on God are those placed on Him by His own nature. "But our God is in Heaven; He does whatever He pleases" (Psalm 115:3, NKJV).
 
Evolutionists can’t explain miracles done by no one.
 
We do not have to explain miracles done by a miracle-working God.
 
Progressive Creationism says:  The creation days were long periods of time, not 24-hour days.
 
A straightforward reading of Genesis leads one to believe that the writer (Moses) intended to convey that the universe and all that it contains was created in six literal 24-hour days and that the flood was global.
 
Exodus 20:11 certainly reinforces this. There is no reason to believe it means anything other than what it says. "For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day."
 
If the days had indeed been eons of time, and if the universe is billions of years old, does it not seem extremely likely that God would have told us so?
 
Many if not most Hebrew scholars, even those who do not accept the Genesis account of creation as literal history, tend to agree that the plain meaning the writer intended to convey is that the creation week consisted of seven literal 24-hour days, a young earth, and a worldwide flood.
 
Those who choose to interpret it in another way almost always have accepted a very old earth ahead of time.
 
It is impossible to come to the Bible with an open mind and conclude that the Scriptures teach the days were long periods of time.
 
The original intent is plain — a day was a day, from the very first miraculous day. “Yom” means a literal day, especially when placed with a number, like “the first day.”
 
 
Continued next week with "Progressive Creation says:  'If God created a world that appears to be old when it isn't, the He is a deceiver.'"