Posts Tagged With: God

My Hitchhiking Adventure With God – More on Baptism

Posted on February 5, 2012 by Daniel

BaptismI chose to write a blog on baptism because I wanted to force myself to learn more and research this further. When I first started my research, I began to realize just how ignorant I was and, though I felt I was onto something with the few insights that I did have on the subject, I had to admit I did have some mistaken ideas. I also began to realize that this subject is a “can of worms” for many people. Churches and denominations have their lines drawn in the sand regarding baptism. Sometimes their beliefs land in agreement with Jesus and the apostles, but other times… not so much. I think also that there are some unfounded fears and superstitions regarding baptism. (see comments)

I found that the internet and Wikipedia are definitely not the place to go to research baptism if you want sound teaching (this probably goes for any important spiritual subject). The top two sites that came up in a search for baptism teaching, though well researched and presented, I believe, came to wrong conclusions.

The most important thing regarding spiritual matters, is to find out what Jesus and the apostles have to say on the subject and somehow manage to not misinterpret them. This is a huge task that I am not going to pull off (nor attempt to) in a single blog. Instead, I will share my experiences and a few thoughts and leave it at that. I am not the end all be all of spiritual truth – we have the word of God and the Holy Spirit for that.

My Experience With Baptism

I was maybe seven years old I was first “baptized” at Riverview family Bible camp. My mom asked me if I wanted to be baptized and I said yes. The pastor tried to explain baptism to me but I don’t think I understood a word of it. I probably had quite a puzzled look on my face as he explained baptism, but he baptized me anyway. I remember standing down by the river wearing the white robe with the other people about to get baptized and wishing I could go play on the water slide.

image007Many years later, when I was 18, my best friend Jacob was getting baptized through our church Calvary Chapel. He asked me if I would join him and I told him I’d be happy to. I had just come back to the Lord that year and I was excited about God. I was so excited about God that, as often as I could, I would go to every church service and college group that I could possibly find around Spokane Washington where I lived. I loved hearing God’s word and being around God’s people. I regularly went to Calvary Chapel and a church called Life Center, both excellent and wonderful fellowships where I sensed God was doing amazing things.

My friend Jacob and I went through a class about baptism at Calvary Chapel and then the day came for us to be baptized. The experience itself was unremarkable. A dove did not descend. I can’t say the experience changed anything for me.

I also remember something that happened at a church called Life Center about that same time. They had a big baptism service there every so often and they would encourage those who brought a person to faith in Christ to be the one to baptize them. They had pastoral staff there to guide the whole process. I had a friend named Claire who wanted me to baptize her. She wanted her sins to be washed away. So there I was, having just come back to God and to my faith, wearing a ying and yang t-shirt baptizing my friend.

A Few Thoughts on Baptism

Baptism is one of the few words in the Bible that has never been translated from the Greek into English. Baptism is from the Greek noun Βάπτισμα – baptisma. It means “to immerse”. So, I thought, why was this word transliterated instead of being translated? Why not use the word “immersed” instead of simply Englishifying this Greek word?

Up until last week I thought it was a conspiracy. I believed that the translators of Scripture didn’t translate the word just to accommodate already well established church practices. If the Greek word means “to immerse”, can you guess why the translators would hesitate to render its true meaning? Church practice for centuries was to sprinkle the foreheads, or pour water over the head, but not to fully immerse them. I am under the impression that there is a great deal of superstition around baptism as well. I believe some churches practice infant baptism thinking it best to do this as early as possible so as to save them from an eternity in hell… so they think.

Peter writes that baptism is not a matter of the removal of filth from the body (the physical act of washing) but about the spiritual reality that baptism represents. Just like the Jewish practice of circumcision represented a spiritual cleansing of the filth of the flesh – the removal of sin, so now baptism represents the death and burial of our old life and the resurrection to a new life by the Spirit of God. It truly is the spiritual reality that means something, and the physical act is pointless without this. So what significance does the physical act play?

Think about how differently certain commands of Jesus would read if this word had been translated:

“Go therefore into all the world and make followers of Christ, immersing them in the name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit. Teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

Immersing them in the name. Not immersing them in water per say, but in a name. What would this signify?

However, I could not ignore the fact that most of the instances that baptism is talked about or commanded, it is referring to the Christian rite of baptism. It seemed then to make sense then why the translators would not translate the word. If the word does in fact most often refer to the “rite” of baptism, then it may just add confusion to the subject to say immerse… unless that’s what God and the apostles actually meant to say. What do you think?

I came to see that I was not at liberty to spiritualize “baptism” into solely a mystical experience of being immersed in God. But, that the physical act also matters to God and is commanded by God. I have a lot more to learn but I’d love to hear back from you. Is there something you think I should know or am overlooking in this brief look at baptism? Leave me a comment!

Related articles
Categories: Baptism | Tags: , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

My Hitchhiking Adventure With God – Part 2

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Daniel

As with any story, it is best to start at the beginning:

Here is Part 1 of My Hitchhiking Adventure With God (not to be missed!)

PART 2:

too funny

too funny

The first ride, oddly enough, took me from the Colony, where we lived, and placed me just a few blocks away from the church where my mom was at her Bible study. I thought for a moment how easy it would be to give up and just catch a ride home with my mom, but I pressed on, walking down the side of Interstate 75.

(My mom told me later that some friends of hers from that Bible study drove past me as I was walking and thought I looked like an angel.)

The next person to pick me up swerved across a few lanes of traffic in his old beat up Volkswagen. He was nice enough to take me to the East side of Dallas to Hwy 80. Once there I didn’t have to wait long before a van stopped.

I had recently read No Compromise, which is the biography of Keith Green (Which I would recommend you read – it looks like you can pick it up for a penny at Amazon). Keith and his wife had started a ministry called Last Days Ministries near Tyler, Texas (about 80 miles East of Dallas). I felt that the Lord was telling me that this was my next stop.

Well, after asking directions I ended up at the place where Last Days Ministry used to be and where Teen Mania now is. This was the ministry I had mentioned where my friend Neal had found the Lord and freedom from drugs. I was turned away immediately at the front gate and was directed down the street to the YWAM (Youth With A Mission) Mercy Ships Ministry.

The YWAM Mercy Ships training facility was fairly empty at the time because all the students had just left for a mission. Two women named Marilyn greeted me. I thought this was funny because my mom’s name is Marilyn as well.

After explaining my story, one Marilyn thought I was off my rocker and needed to go home. The other Marilyn actually believed I was following God’s call, even as crazy as it seemed.

Finally they drove me over to the other YWAM Twin Oaks Ranch in Garden Valley and got me set up in a bunk house and introduced me to some of the guys in the Discipleship Training program.

We had some really great fellowship for the rest of the day. When I shared what I was doing they were excited for me and told me about the YWAM base in New Orleans. They called them up, told them I was coming, and gave me their address. Then they invited me to join them on a witnessing mission they were planning for that evening.  They were planning a trip to downtown Dallas to witness on the streets in Deep Elum.

I then called my mom. When she heard I was coming back to Dallas, she said, “Great, I will come and pick you up.” I told her that I wanted to see this thing through to the end and that I couldn’t back out now.

So there I was, back in Dallas, witnessing on the streets with my new-found friends. We had such amazing fellowship that night! Let me tell you that the friendships we can have with other believers are like no other friendships you will ever have. With Jesus as the bond between you, friendships can happen quickly just like when you made friends as children. It’s such an amazing thing when the Holy Spirit brings us together in perfect harmony!

The next morning I set out on the road once again. The first ride took me as far as Shreveport. But this was only after I walked a long time. As I walked, I talked with the Lord, and sang Christian songs. It was then, as I walked along that road that the Lord told me to buy a bus ticket and move to Wisconsin when I get back home.

Once I made it to Shreveport, getting a ride South out of Shreveport proved difficult. I walked for most of the day and I was exhausted. As the sun was setting, a man finally stopped to pick me up. He was on his way to an evening worship service at a Pentecostal church in Alexandria. I agreed to go with him and he said that he would do what he could to fix me up with a place to stay that night at the homeless shelter called the Grace House.

The church was bizarre to say the least. There was a woman playing the keyboard with several other people dancing around on stage. As she played, there was another woman saying something about Ruth’s sister-in-law becoming the great-grandmother of Goliath while Ruth went on to be the great-grandmother of David (which is pretty ridiculous).

There were a large number of people at the front of the church all jumping up and down and yelling, supposedly speaking in “tongues”. Though “la, la, la, la” doesn’t really seem to say much of anything – not even for a toddler. Forgive me for saying so, but it just seemed like madness to me. While all this was happening on stage, there were many people in the back just looking on seeming disconnected. I went back to visit with them.

After the service another man drove me to Grace House. Along the way he asked me the details of how had I been baptized. He wanted to know what was spoken over me when I was baptized and I told him, “In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” He then went on to explain to me that this wasn’t good enough and that what needed to be said was, “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

He then offered to take me to get baptized right then and there so that I could get my salvation put in order. As I started to decline his gracious offer of salvation, he became quite hostile with me just as we were walking into the Grace House. I started to try to explain where I was coming from but he cut me off and started yelling at me. “If you don’t let me baptize you proper, then yer faith is worth less than a nickel!” he told me.

Exhausted from the day’s walk as I was, this confrontation put me over the edge emotionally. I pulled out my Bible and was starting to share with him what Peter had to say on the subject. “But Peter says, baptism is not the removal of filth from the body – about taking a dunk in some water – but of an answer of a clean conscience toward God.”

“…and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ…”  (1 Peter 3:21 NIV)

(Even as I write this I am struck with a new insight into the significance of what Peter has to say and what this means. I remember the apostle Paul talked on several occasions that he strove to maintain a clean conscience before God. It seems to me that this is the essence of healthy spirituality – maintaining a clean conscience.)

On the verge of tears, I finally found and read the Scripture verse in 1 Peter. I looked up, however, to see that the man had already left and that about twenty guys were staring at me wondering what in the heck I was ranting about. It was in that moment that the subject of baptism became very important to me.

To be continued…

Stay tuned for a blog on Baptism and then the continuation of the story. If you have enjoyed this story, feel free to share it and subscribe to this blog! Leave me a comment below!

Related articles
Categories: faith adventure | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

My Hitchhiking Adventure With God – Part 1

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Daniel

My new found friend Neal wanted to hear my story. He was interested in a particular story from my past about a hitchhiking adventure to New Orleans during Mardi Gras to share Jesus with people on the street. Neal and I had just met one week before at church and became instant friends. We were out for lunch with some other friends one Sunday and my journey to New Orleans had come up in conversation. A few details of the story intrigued Neal. First, that I had worked at Gospel for Asia, and the other was that one of the places I had stopped along my journey just so happened to be the same place where Neal had found the Lord, found freedom from drugs, and found his wife.

coffee-cup-kittensBefore meeting Neal for coffee, I was nervous about talking about this particular story. It had been awhile since I had even thought about it and I feared that this particular story would give this much younger brother in the Lord a false impression of how faith is fundamentally expressed. (God’s Word tells us that faith expresses itself through love.) And so, after a bit of soul-searching and thoughtful prayer, we met for coffee and I shared the following story:

It was 1998 and I was 21 years old. I had been serving full time on staff at Gospel for Asia’s home office in Carrollton Texas for the past nine months. I ran errands, worked in the mail room, and answered phones. Gospel for Asia is an organization that connects sponsors to native missionaries in India and the surrounding countries.

I was involved with a few other ministries as well. I played bass on the worship team at my church (Calvary Chapel of Dallas), and I had also just started playing bass with a band that played at nursing homes and prisons.

41oeS7FjeEL._SY355_It all started on February 15th, 1998. I was at the end of my rope and feeling the burn around my neck. I felt like there was no one who I could talk to or relate to. I was an outsider, disconnected. It seemed like everyone else knew how to be a Christian but me, and honestly, being a Christian seemed pretty lame.

I was growing desperate, and struggling with my identity as a Christian. I had no one to confide in – and certainly no one to help me through the issues every young man faces. What was the worst, however, was that I felt so disconnected from this God I was trying so hard to serve and to please.

Well, that February night I was heading home after playing a concert at a nursing home and feeling so desperate that I knew I couldn’t go home. So I drove to my church and parked in the empty lot. As I sat there all the anguish and frustration boiled to the surface and I screamed and hit and shook the steering wheel in frustration, “God, please help me!”

Though the lot was empty I decided to walk to the church anyway. I needed to talk to someone. I knocked loudly and waited – not expecting anyone to come, but then someone did come. A man I had met before was staying at the church. I had remembered him from a Bible study and I felt I could trust him.

4b6c508eeab84c264b20954e598777a4He invited me in and we talked. I told him about all the stuff I was feeling and struggling with and about how desperate and depressed I felt. He encouraged me with a Scripture in John 3 about how those who come to the light love the truth, while those who hate the truth avoid the light. He said, “Daniel, you are coming to the light. This is good.” And then, he prayed for me.

Honestly, I didn’t feel any better at the time. I left still feeling depressed.

dcc285366742676e28ac32c0e7d12a61Later that night I was in bed and began praying. I prayed for a neighbor girl and a few others and then something amazing and miraculous started happening. The Lord’s presence come into the room. I can’t express to you how tangibly real this was. God was in my room! All my burdens lifted in a moment and I started praying in a different language. The praying grew more and more intense and it got so loud that I thought for sure I would wake my mom and brothers.

I then felt what I believe now to be the Lord’s presence (Holy Spirit) course through my body starting at the top of my head and moving to my toes and back again. It was in that moment that Jesus then commissioned me and gave me my calling, namely, “to proclaim his name.” With the commission came the understanding of what he meant. This was Jesus calling from Psalm 22:22 “I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters – I will praise you among your assembled people.”

This is all about glory – representing God in all his glory. Carrying His aura if you will. Living it. Moving in it. Breathing it in and out to the world. His glory.

It’s hard to explain if you haven’t experienced it. I just knew that His name was His presence and that is what my calling is. To share His name – His presence with others.

As I lay there he also told me that the next day I would be going to a certain building to make a delivery. He gave me a vision, a picture in my head, of a man standing outside the building smoking a cigarette. I was to give this man a simple message: “Tell him that I love him”.

Then the sad normal state of my self-conscious crashed back upon me like the Red sea on Pharaohs army and I went to sleep. I wished I could have stayed in His presence, it was so amazing.

The next day I didn’t remember what He had told me about the man and the message I was to deliver until I arrived at the building. I had never been there before but I recognized it from my vision. My heart began to race as it all came back to me. ‘Will he be there?’ I thought. “If he is here, I will do it”, I told myself. I parked the truck and approached the building excited and nervous.

Sure enough, there he stood smoking a cigarette just as the Lord showed me he would be. His name was Jacob and I said to him, “You will probably think I’m crazy, but I am a Christian and last night the Lord told me to tell you that He loves you.” Jacob seemed to take it seriously and I truly do hope it made a difference in his life. I then walked inside feeling a bit silly but also knowing that something quite amazing was happening here.

Later that same day my good friends Rob and Katie McCall invited me to join them for a road trip to New Orleans to share Jesus with people at Mardi Gras. “Wow!” I thought. “Of course I will go!” I was really excited and at worship practice that night I shared the news of my upcoming adventure with an older brother Rich that I served with on the worship team.

(How I started on the worship team: My brother was a talented keyboard player and since he didn’t have his driver’s license yet, I would drive him to worship practices. After a few times of just sitting out in the audience while they practiced, the worship leader finally says to me, “Why don’t you come up here and play bass for us?” So I came up, they hooked up the bass and handed it to me. I just stood there wondering what to do with the thing. I had just started playing guitar a few months before and didn’t know the first thing about bass.)

The next day Rob approached me and informed me that the plans had fallen through for the trip to New Orleans. Just after he told me this I heard the Lord whisper to me, “But I have called you to go.”

I was so excited! I didn’t know how I was getting there but I knew that in a week or so I would be in New Orleans. So help me God.

During that week I had some really wonderful times with the Lord. The day before I was to leave I was back at worship practice again. By this time I had decided that I was going to be hitchhiking. Without explanation I told Sandy, the worship leader, that I wouldn’t be playing that Sunday. Rich, still assuming I would be traveling with my friends to share Jesus took me aside and prayed for me and for God’s anointing on my journey.

And so, instead of participating in the worship practice, I got alone with God. I read the book of Acts and talked with God. It was then that the Lord told me to leave the next morning at 4:00. I told him, “Lord, if you get me up at four in the morning I will go.” I didn’t set an alarm that night.

My mom woke me up the next morning – sun shining through the window. She told me she was going to a bible study at church. Church was across town and would be a much better place to start hitchhiking from so I told her of my plan and that I still felt the Lord wanted me to go and asked for a ride to church. She told me, “No, God has closed that door. You can just pray from here if you feel that strongly about it.”

That took the wind out of my sails. I sat there in my room not knowing what to do next. I looked over at my alarm clock and it was blinking 3:45. Apparently sometime in the night the power had gone out and the clock started over. Oh my goodness, 15 minutes to go.

I looked in the mirror after brushing my teeth and knew I just couldn’t face myself in the mirror again if I did not join the Lord in this adventure. So I picked up my New King James New Testament and flipped through it looking for some encouragement. I finally stumbled on a verse that simply said, “You are Christ’s.” – 1 Corinthians 3:23

That was all I needed. If I belong to Christ – then he has the right to do whatever he pleases with what is his. Even if it means to send them on dangerous missions to dangerous places… all alone. But I wouldn’t be alone would I? Christ was with me! The clock was now blinking 3:55.

kitten-rainI wrote a hurried note to my mom that read, “Where God closes a door, he opens a window.” I then took my bible, a map, an apple, and all my money (all 11 dollars) and to avoid questions from my brothers who were in the living room, I left out the window.

(to be continued…)

If you have enjoyed this story (or the kittens), please share it!

Read next post for Part 2! Be sure to subscribe, and leave a comment below!

Here is the video version of this story:

Categories: faith adventure | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Creation, a historical and scientific truth?

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Daniel

I had a conversation with someone last night. He says to me, “So, don’t you believe in evolution? Couldn’t God just have set everything in motion and just been the cause of evolution? Couldn’t he have just “created” using the evolutionary process?”

I had to disagree. If you see my post: “Creation Science: Oxymoron” I talk a little about how the authority of God’s word is at stake here. If we can’t believe that God created the world in six literal days, then how can we believe that this same God then becomes a human being who then somehow mysteriously pays for our sin by his death on a cross, and then rose from the dead? How can we believe the message of salvation revealed to us in Scripture? The same Scripture that tells us God created… in no more than 6 days?

The Bible is the source of all truth. It is true historically, scientifically, geographically and in every other way you can think of.

Do you agree or disagree? Why or why not? Leave a response below!

Categories: Creation Science | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Creation Science. Oxymoron?

Posted on October 11, 2011 by Daniel

Is Creation Science an oxymoron? It depends on how you look at it. I would say, that in one sense it absolutely is. But if looked at another way, perhaps not.

Think about it. How “scientific” is it really that a Creator God simply spoke the universe and our world into existence? How scientific of him was it to create all plant life a day before creating the sun? Or creating light before the sun, stars, and moon? How scientific is that? Given all that we “know” through science, (and we know so much don’t we?), couldn’t God have made it just a bit more logical and scientific in all his creating?

Let’s face it, God seems to be flaunting just how “out of the realm of science” the act creation really is, and how out of the realm of science God himself is.

Perhaps it would seem more “scientific” to believe in the big bang and 13.75 billion years to explain all we see today, rather than to believe that God created it by just speaking it into existence.

I know that to accept the creation account as true is a huge worldview paradigm shift and a huge leap of faith. It certainly seems unscientific. Doesn’t it?

A Believers Responsibility to Believe

I confess I believe in a literal interpretation of Scripture. I believe in a literal six days Creation (around 6000 years ago), and a worldwide flood (4300 years ago). I believe these things because Jesus did and Scripture (which Jesus verified as absolutely and very literally trustworthy) makes these things clear.

Why should we believe Jesus or the word of God? Short answer: Because Jesus has been proven to be the Son of God and the Messiah, having fulfilled over 300 prophecies, lived a sinless life, worked miracles (all of which went unquestioned – people could have verified the facts by interviewing eyewitnesses), and finally the clincher – he rose from the dead.

Jesus believed in creation:
“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’” Matthew 19:4

He also believed in the flood:
‘Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man.People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the Ark. Then the Flood came and destroyed them all.’ Luke 17:26–27

To cling to a belief that Creation or the Flood is not true is to say that Jesus was a liar.

If we are believers in God, and the truth of his holy Scriptures, then we don’t have the luxury of just believing whatever we want, do we? We don’t have the luxury of only believing the empirical evidence that only science can deliver (Empirical is defined as: “originating in or based on observation or experience.” Incidentally there is nothing empirical about the theory of evolution). This will never lead you to God in and of itself. We need revelation from God. Thankfully we have 66 books of revelation from God.

Are you a believer in Jesus Christ? Then, as “believers” we are obligated to believe what God reveals. Aren’t we? But why? And do we have to throw our brains in the trash to believe the Bible? Certainly not!

It can be proven that the creation story happened the way it is recorded in Scripture, but you must first accept that Jesus can be trusted. And why can he be trusted? Because he can be proven to be all that he says he was, the Messiah, Savior, and God in the flesh by his resurrection from the dead and appearance to more than 500 witnesses. Jesus can be trusted on the basis of the overwhelming evidence.

Is there room for doubt? The disciples to whom Jesus revealed himself after his resurrection doubted… at first. But they didn’t stay in doubt. We shouldn’t stay in doubt either about things that God has clearly revealed. Our confidence in God’s word is based on the resurrection of Christ.

I admit, the creation account isn’t quite as clear as we might want it to be. But should we trust science instead of God? It really is a matter of faith… and believing the evidence presented to us.

The Role of Science

Science is not the enemy. It is a system of thought whereby human creatures try to make sense of the Creators world.  But don’t you agree that science can become such a part of your worldview it leaves no room for God? I imagine that those who put their faith in science would read about all these crazy miracles on nearly every page of the Bible and, simply by default, think it just couldn’t have happened. The Bible talks about a God speaking a world into existence, and a world wide flood with an ark filled with all the animals, and resurrection from the dead. Admittedly from a scientific viewpoint, this all begins to sound absurd! To those whose faith is science, those who believe in God and creation and a flood have lost all common sense.

Miracles sound absurd only to someone who doesn’t believe in God. We must choose: follow the religion of science, or follow the God revealed to us in Scriptures and actually believe what he says and put science in it’s proper place.

Some in the Christian faith have capitulated to the Darwinian brainwashed culture around them. After all, evolution is a widely believed and accepted fact. Right? Who wants to look stupid? Its easy to see how Christians started to give in and think that God must have just used evolution to “create” the world as we know it.

I know some Christians who say that the creation account is little more than just a myth, a story that simply has one point to make, God was behind it all. They say that Genesis doesn’t speak to areas of science at all. They say that the days of “creation” in Genesis chapter one must have meant eons of time and certainly not literal days. The problem with this thinking is that this isn’t what the word of God says.

Moses spells it out for us in Genesis, “And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day…the second day… etc…” Genesis 1:5

And the again in the Ten Commandments,  “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.  Six days you shall labor and do all your work,  but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God… For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” Exodus 20: 8-11

So what do we do with that? The revealed word of God compels us to believe that which God reveals as true. If we are believers than we must believe this too… right?

Maybe Creation Science isn’t an oxymoron after all. Maybe it’s just a way to look at the world with an all powerful Creator God as the foundation for understanding the world… his creation. It means looking at history and science and conforming our entire worldview with the foundation that God is the Source of all that exists and that his word is true in every way. Yes, even in the realm of science – though even science must submit itself to this above-the-realm-of-science God (Just think about all the miracles of Christ and the prophets).

As I see it, this really becomes an issue regarding the authority and reliability of Scripture. As you may have deduced by now, I hold it in high regard. I believe that what we have in the Bible is the very word of God. We have completely accurate and trustworthy reconstructed original documents from Moses, the apostles and prophets, from which all the various translations have their basis. (Maybe I’ll write more on this in a future post). These Scriptures are the very words that God himself has led the authors of Scripture to write.

Peter writes: “Above all, you must realize that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophet’s own understanding, or from human initiative. No, those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God.” (2 Peter 1:20-21 NLT)

Since Jesus authenticated all the various prophets, especially Moses who wrote the first five books of the Bible – including Genesis – the real issue becomes, can we trust Jesus? As already discussed, we indeed can and must for Jesus is God. The author of life and everything that’s ever existed or will exist.

But even just thinking through this practically, assuming we have the words of Moses in the first five books of the bible, can we trust Moses? Who was Moses?

Moses was a reluctant prophet, and aside from Christ, the most humble man who ever walked the planet. He was in the house of Pharaoh to the age of 40, no doubt tutored by the finest scholars of Egypt and well trained in all the sciences. He then spent the next 40 years in Midian, tending sheep and raising a family until one day God appeared to him in a burning bush and sent him to rescue the people of Israel.

By the time he started writing Scripture he was God’s best friend. They spoke face to face. He spent time in God’s presence on a regular basis. Everything he wrote about God, (including the creation story) he received first hand from God who was there to tell about it.

So would an educated man who is now God’s right hand man and his voice write a myth? Would he write a story that wasn’t absolutely true? Think about it.

I have thought long and hard about Creation and I must say, there are things about the Creation account that still baffle me. But with all my heart I believe what God says is true. Why? Did I check my brain at the door? No.

In my experience with the study of creation science, the information I have encountered takes the Bible seriously and literally as Jesus did, believing what Moses wrote and seeing the world as if Creation happened exactly the way it says it happened. It also takes into account that the flood happened exactly the way it says it happened. Why doubt the One who was there to tell about it?

I admit that believing in Creation science is not cool. You may be shunned and ridiculed by your friends. I once happened to see an episode of the Duggers, “19 kids and counting” on TLC (the only one I’ve seen, I promise!) when they went to a creation science exhibit in Kentucky. The producers of this episode mocked them and made them look really silly. The contributors to the wikipedia page also ridicule Creation Science and those “fundamentalists” trying to promulgate their “religion”.

If you were to do a search for creation science on Youtube, most all the comments on these videos are hate filled and spiteful. I was researching one well known creation science advocate and could hardly locate one of his videos among all the videos created by others to mock and ridicule him.

So people hate the Creator? What else is new? People have been hating God ever since he decided to create them.

But just because something isn’t cool, doesn’t mean it isn’t true… does it? Since when has following Jesus or believing in him ever been cool in the worlds eyes? So you must choose. Choosing to stay in doubt is also a choice.

ps. One of the things that have baffled me is that God created stars and galaxies with their billions-of-light-years-away light beams already visible on earth, even though these were said to be created on the 4th day of creation (Genesis 1:14-19) and yet the history of mankind (as revealed in the holy Scriptures) only allows for not more than 10,000 years since creation (genealogical records). What’s up with that?

I have had a few thoughts about this.

  1. The easy answer: God made it that way. He created all the stars with their light beams already hitting earth. Yet another miracle. Chalk another one up for God.
  2. The heavens and earth were created in Genesis 1:1 and then there was a very long time (13.75 billion years as the farthest visible galaxies would suggest) before he prepared the earth for humanity and creating the sun and moon and closest stars on day 4… but there are loads of scientific problems with this theory as well.
  3. Or as this website suggests, light is not a constant speed and was millions of times faster at the dawn of time (admittedly this sounds really far fetched, but who knows?) http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/FAQ13.html
  4. None of the above and it is absolutely foolish to scientifically evaluate the miracle of creation, just as it would be foolish to try to scientifically evaluate any of the thousands of miracles elsewhere in the Bible. They are miracles! Creation was a miracle people!

UPDATE: After much thought, it occurred to me that God’s first word in creation was, “Let there be light!” and light flooded the farthest reaches of the universe (which might well be infinite – ever thought about that?). All the paths of light from every star in every direction were laid out with those first words.

Here is another helpful website:  http://www.answersingenesis.org/get-answers

So what do you think about all this? Anyone else want to come out of the closet as a believer in Creation as told by Scripture? Leave a reply!

Related articles
Categories: Creation Science | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 28 Comments

Create a website or blog at WordPress.com