Kind vs Species

Noah's Ark has been a vessel of ridicule for quite some time. One popular caricature is the impossibility of Noah taking two of every species aboard the Ark.  This entire issue is laid to rest by simply reading the text. 

First of all, only the land animals were taken on the Ark. That solves most of the problems because much of the animal kingdom lives in the water. Besides, though many marine animals were buried in the Flood waters, a large number would have been able to survive and procreate, thus they would have not needed the Ark.

Second of all, the Bible doesn't use the word species; rather, it uses kind. To understand what that is, we have to go back to Genesis 1.  God created the kinds to multiply after themselves.  This implies a set order that then produces many variations from those original created kinds.  Created kinds would then best be understood at the genus or even family levels (ie dog/wolf kind, etc.).

As for dinosaurs, most were quite small, and Noah probably took juvenile representatives for the larger ones, which ensures longer procreation. However, because the climate was different after the Flood, their ability to multiply and adapt was likely limited.  Those that did survive for a time were probably hunted into extinction, while the rest died off because of the climate, disease, etc.

The real problem is not the Ark; it is rather a biased worldview that is exposed by the text itself. Man hates God and can only develop straw men, which only magnifies the holes in his arguments against the Bible.

Liberty To Raise Your Children: Fight For It!

Today, the religious elite in the Church of Nanny Statism has enacted a massive amount of legislation that is incredibly intrusive in all facets of life, especially in the raising of children.  These institutional churches are everywhere, and their priests are as the sand of the sea. They want nothing more than the heart, mind, soul, and strength of your child. 

Where are they?  They are everywhere.  You can run, but you can't hide. 

These churches are government schools, and her priests are the educators and administrators.  You will find them in urban centers and in the far reaches of America's grasslands, farms, and mountains.  Now you are sorely afraid, and you should be.  These statists will go to great lengths to set their will against the family like spending about $8,000/child each year to pay their priests and maintain this massively expensive infrastructure.

However, you must fight for your children, and you can begin by taking them out of government education. Join the mass exodus and raise your child with the liberty that God gave you.  Raise them in truth and righteousness instead of in the gang and drug infested cesspools that we call public schools.  There will be sacrifice and you will have to give up a times of leisure, but the sacrifice is worth it.  God has given you the ability and resource, His Word, to raise your children and educate them yourself. 

Praise Him, for He is The God of Liberty that entrusts families to raise children and not priests of the state. He is the Creator and knows the best means to raise children, and that is via Mom and Dad under the instruction of God's Word.

New Year Scripture Reading

With the beginning of the new calendar year, I especially encourage you to read the Scriptures regularly.  Instead of simply reading through the Bible, meditate on the texts that you are reading throughout the day, and apply them to your life.  Don't just read it and forget it. 

Also, take time to memorize scripture, for this is actually one of the best ways to meditate upon God's Word.  If you know it, you will be far more likely to apply it.  Memorize a whole chapter or several verses in context.  Not only does this prevent interpretation out of context, but it helps in gaining the full picture surrounding the punchline of a text.

To Him be the glory!

More Than Luck: Consistency In Disciplining Your Children

Disciplining children can get old rather quickly, but it is a critical element of parenting.  Though it may not seem to bear immediate fruit, you will notice changes over time Lord willing.  For example, our oldest one is much quicker to obey than the younger ones, and both of the older ones can usually sit and behave in Church.  Wow, aren't we lucky! No, it's called work!

The Scripture is adamant that we neither provoke our children to wrath nor exercise too much leniency.  It does take time to discern when and how to be gracious, yet it can be done.  For example, when the child is seriously ill, we are quick to be gracious, though not condoning any particular sin.  However, when there is nothing provoking the child, the rod is always quick to its work. 

Will my children be afraid of me if I use the paddle?  No, if you do it right.  It actually builds respect, and children are out playing and hugging again in just a few minutes after a spanking.  It gets to the point quickly, and then the day goes on.  Bottoms were made for sitting and spanking; that's why they're padded.

Therefore, love your children by disciplining them when it is needed, and, remember, delayed obedience is disobedience.

To Him be the glory! Amen!

Praying for Pregnant Women

Many of us take for granted our own briths and all the hardships that our mothers went through to bring us to the point of birth.  Some women don't suffer as much as others, but many experience a tremendous amount of nauseau along with severe complications during birth.

Pain in childbirth is the result of the Fall as is clearly laid on in Genesis 3. Nonetheless, we are still empowered by the Lord to pray for grace during such times, which can be very grueling and difficult for pregant women. 

If your are married, take special care of your wife when she is pregnant, and be gracious when she is nauseous and can't do much.  Pick up the slack often. After all, you partook in bringing this about, glorious yet arduous at times.

In the New: Death of Christopher Hitchens

Prominent evolutionist Christopher Hitchens has died. He was an ardent anti-Christian, yet he was still a man made in the image of God.  Though we do not endorse his message, we do mourn his unrepentant heart, unless there was a recent unknown conversion to Christ.  Today is the day of salvation, and no man knows the number of his days.  Let each man take heed, for our days our numbered as well.

It is always a sad commentary to see great intellect used for the ills of an evolutionary worldview, and Hitchens had a passion for the evolutionary worldview.

Ironically, every false worldview must steal from the Christian worldview in order to argue against it.  How?   The Christian worldview is the only worldview that possesses the preconditions for intelligibility.  What is that?  Preconditions are those conditions that come beforehand and intelligibility is the ability to make something meaningful and understandable.

The Triune God is the bedrock of meaning, knowledge, logic, ethics, etc.  Apart from Him, there is no such thing as these concepts or even the concept of a concept; it would be an illusion at best, which itself is a concept.  In this, we see that the non-Christian assumes the Biblical God and all that He accounts for in order to then argue against Him.  Van Til once wrote that this is like a father who must put his child on his knee in order for the child to slap his father in the face.  This is no different.

Man is totally depraved, and his suppression of the truth in unrighteousness is magnified by his unwillingness to submit to Him who is the foundation of all things, for man would rather die in unbelief, judgement, and inconsistency than surrender to God in Christ. What foolishness!

To Him be the glory! Amen!

Children, Anxiety, and Idolatry

In Matthew 6:25-34, Jesus Commands us not to worry.  "25For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26"Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27"And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? 28"And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, 29yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. 30"But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! 31"Do not worry then, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear for clothing?' 32"For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33"But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34"So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

As a father, I am especially prone to have anxiety over my children, which is sin.   We live in a fallen world, and calamity is going to occur, and our love for our children can easily become idolatrous, which is why anxiety sets in.  Because we can set our love for them above our love for God, we do everything we can do preserve this idol.  However, our children are not our own, and, is not God more grieved at this fallen world than we are?

Sometimes we think that God is apathetic to our calamities, yet Christ experienced such things on a regular basis.  He was grieved over the death of Lazarus and the effects of sin in a fallen world.  Because the world is fallen, Lazarus would taste death (twice actually), and Christ wept over the ills that sin had brought into the world since Adam, even though He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead! 

In Romans, 8:28-30, we read "28And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. 29For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; 30and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified."  God is not going to forsake His beloved sheep, and when we experience hardship, He is not vindictive against us.  He does discipline us when we need it, but He does not hate His sheep.  He is the Good Shepherd, and laid down His life for the sheep (Jn 10:11-18).  

He not only loves His sheep, which don't deserve it, but He is also in absolute control of all things.  Even the hearts of kings are ultimately subjected to His divine will. Proverbs 21:1 states,"The king's heart is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He wishes."  God is Sovereign in all things, and we must rest in that.  We are commanded to do so, and we reflect that from the heart when we are not anxious.  God is God, and we rest in Him.

Therefore, we humbly bow before the Risen Christ, and submit to the will of our Triune God! Amen!  Anxiety stems from our desire to be in control, and that control stems from pride, and where pride is, the burden is immense.  Let us give Him the burden that we can't handle and thus the glory that we don't deserve.  He reigns, and we rest in Him! Praise Him who is in control of all things! To Him be the glory forever! Amen!

The Great Divorce Remarried Part 2: Geology

A lot of water over a little time or little water over a long time?  

That was the geological hot-button in the late 18th century through the beginning of the 19th. Before the advent of uniformitarian thought in the West, most geologic structures in the Western Christianity were interpreted through a Young Earth & a recent Global Flood lens.  Though the specifics were not known, this was the general way of thinking because the people, including the scientists (like Newton), took the Bible as the ultimate authority source, especially during and after the Reformation.  Now they knew that the Bible did not go into detail on such issues, but the historical reality of the Flood would leave reminders.

However, as the Scripture was being attacked by humanistic thinking on theologic and philosophic grounds, it was also being attacked on historical grounds.  When the history of the Bible in Genesis was denied, a wide range of emerging scientific philosophies took root. The predominant view popularized by Charles Lyell in the 19th century was uniformitarianism. Uniformitarianism is the scientific model that the present is the key to the past--i.e. most geologic structures are formed slowly over eons of time.  However, Lyell was no mere unbiased objector of the truth.  On the contrary, not only was he a rabid anti-Christian, he pushed his philosophy of uniformitarianism with great veracity, and many people bought into it. Alleged great eons of time was now theoretically available to then push the molecules to man evolution, and this is exactly what spearheaded Darwinian thought several decades later. Macroevolution (molecules to man) was already being propagated, but Darwin could popularize the teaching because of Lyell's time scale.  

We deny that the earth is billions of years old and uphold the Global Flood because of our commitment to Scripture.  Nonetheless, how has this theory of uniformitarianism stacked up in the scientific community?  Not to our surprise, many evolutionary scientists themselves deny that the earth has come to be slowly one sand grain at a time by one drop of water at at time.  Though most of them believe the earth is old, due to other philosophic assumptions they make, they do acknowledge that the geologic layers are filled with catastrophe.  Mass fossil graveyards are interpreted as occurring through catastrophic events.  

We should not be surprised when we see evidence for a global catastrophe because that is exactly what is recorded in Scripture, primarily through the Genesis Flood.  We interpret such catastrophic layering, fossil formation, mountain building, and canyon erosion through the lens of Scripture.  Much of the upper level topography that we observe today is best interpreted as being caused by the Flood or by post-Flood events like the Ice-Age and subsequent smaller local scale catastrophes.  

As for geologic structures like the Grand Canyon, we can best understand them through Biblical glasses. Only the Scriptures give us a reliable lens to interpret the world, and, though our scientific models are modified at times, the general creation model itself is sustained by Scripture.  Though it is difficult do delineate exactly what may have been formed during creation week and what has been formed after that through the Flood, we can get a general idea.  Much of the upper layers of the canyon are formed through rapid sedimentation laid down by water.  We can see this through 'bent layering', which is to say that we see many layers flowing together and then bent in one or many directions while still soft.  This must of have occurred rapidly while soft; otherwise, the layers would have been crushed upon themselves. 

As for the canyon itself, it is likely that it formed after the layers had been laid down during the Flood. Sometime before and at the end of the Flood or most probably after the Flood, giant inland lakes once existed in that area (as understood through topographical scars of such lakes).  There was a breached dam of some sort, it appears, and this could have occurred at the end of the Ice Age.  As the glaciers began to melt, large quantities of water would fill these lakes by means of rivers and such.  Eventually the lakes would have overflowed, and a water pouring out by means of a massive catastrophic breached dam would have carved out the Grand Canyon.  

The Bible had it right all along! Amen!

The Great Divorce Remarried Part 1: Sola Scriptura

Sola Scriptura

For the last two centuries, evolutionary old-earth thinking has blasted at the roots of Christianity, and this started in Genesis.  Sadly, the Church (being heavily influenced by humanist thinking beforehand) caved in and began to compromise the Word of God in numerous areas.  Truly, "If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?" (Ps 11:3)  Christ cannot be our Redeemer if He is not first our Sovereign Creator, which John 1:1-3 explicitly states.   

What happens when Biblical Authority is denied? Sin runs wild, and man plunges into further darkness as a result.  How did this occur in the West?  Sin took root through evolutionary humanistic old-earth dogma; this was brought upon us from atheists, agnostics, and deists of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries who hated everything Scriptural.  A Great Divorce then occurred between the theology of the Bible and how we interpret the natural world around us.  Sadly, the clergy caved in to this, lest they be considered outdated and un-educated. Instead of interpreting the natural world through a Biblical lens, the authority, sufficiency, inerrancy, and inspiration of Holy Scripture was denied. That is, we left Sola Scriptura as the framework for our worldview. In its place, old-earth evolutionary humanism erected itself as the new lens by which all things should be interpreted through. The ramifications took hold quickly, and the West plunged itself into moral anarchy and lawlessness.  

Nevertheless, God's Word is the Only True Authority by which to understand all of reality, for His Word never returns empty and always accomplishes its purpose (Is 55:11). Praise God for His powerful Word! Amen!  How then do we remarry the Bible with historical and scientific reality again?  Many Christians fight issues like abortion and rightly so, but they do so without the underpinnings of Biblical Authority from Genesis to Revelation.  We must begin by asserting all of the Bible as authoritative from beginning to end.  The Bible is not a physics textbook, but, when it speaks on matters of biology, geology, history, it is always absolutely  without error.

Therefore, we must begin to rebuild the foundations that have been beaten down as we raise God's Word to its rightful position of authority (Is 58:12)! Amen!  We are then able to box without our hands tied behind our backs.  Instead, we attack the root of godlessness, which is sin, however that is manifested, and then launch heavily against the fruits of godlessness at the same time! Amen!

To Him be the glory! Amen!