Author Archives: John Samson

The Bible Created the Church

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It is not the church that gave us our Bible, rather it is our Bible the gave us the church. When the church made a list of the inspired Scriptures, these were already acknowledged to be so in the Christian community. The Church did not stand over the Scripture in authority but submitted to them, using the Latin phrase “Recipimus” meaning “We Receive.” That is vital to understand. The Scriptures are self authenticating, having their source in God. The church merely recognized and received the word of God. God created the world by His word and creates Christians the same way – “For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.” (1 Peter 1:23)

– John Samson

Compromise Positions

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An article by Ken Ham:

There are many different, what I call “compromise positions,” on Genesis such as theistic evolution, progressive creation, gap theory, day age theory, and many others. They actually all have one thing in common: trying to fit the supposed millions/billions of years into Scripture. Let’s look at one of these positions that has been fairly prevalent, progressive creation.

This position (popularized by Dr. Hugh Ross) allowed Christians to use the term “creationist” but still gave them supposed academic respectability in the eyes of the world by rejecting six literal days of creation and maintaining billions of years.

In summary, progressive creation teaches:

The big-bang origin of the universe occurred about 13–15 billion years ago.

The days of creation were overlapping periods of millions and billions of years.

Over millions of years, God created new species as others kept going extinct.

The record of nature (as interpreted by man) is just as reliable as the Word of God.

Death, bloodshed, and disease existed before Adam and Eve.

Manlike creatures that looked and behaved much like us (and painted on cave walls) existed before Adam and Eve but did not have a spirit that was made in the image of God, and thus had no hope of salvation.

The Genesis flood was a local event.

The big bang origin of the universe

Progressive creationists claim that the days of creation in Genesis chapter 1 represent long periods of time and that day three of creation week lasted more than three billion years! This assertion is made in order to allow for the billions of years that evolutionists claim are represented in the rock layers of earth. This position, however, has problems, both biblically and scientifically.

The text of Genesis 1 clearly states that God supernaturally created all that is in six actual days. If we are prepared to let the words of the text speak to us in accord with the context and their normal definitions, without influence from outside ideas, then the word for “day” in Genesis 1 obviously means an ordinary day of about 24 hours. It is qualified by a number, the phrase “evening and morning,” and for day one, the words “light and darkness.”

As their name indicates, progressive creationists believe that God progressively created species on earth over billions of years, with new species replacing extinct ones, starting with simple organisms and culminating in the creation of Adam and Eve. They accept the evolutionary order for the development of life on earth, even though this contradicts the order given in the Genesis account of creation. Evolutionary belief holds that the first life forms were marine organisms, while the Bible says that God created land plants first. Reptiles are supposed to have predated birds, while Genesis says that birds came first. Evolutionists believe that land mammals came before whales, while the Bible teaches that God created whales first.

Progressive creationists have stated that nature is “just as perfect” as the Bible and call nature the “sixty-seventh book” of the Bible.

Now God tells us in Romans 8:22 that “the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs” because of sin. And not only was the universe cursed, but man himself has been affected by the fall. So how can sinful, fallible human beings in a sin-cursed universe say that their interpretation of the evidence (nature) is as perfect as God’s written revelation? Scientific assertions must use fallible assumptions and fallen reasoning—how can this be the Word of God? It can’t.

Christians should build their thinking on the Bible, not on fallible interpretations of scientific observations about the past.

Progressive creationists believe the fossil record was formed from the millions of animals that lived and died before Adam and Eve were created. They accept the idea that there was death, bloodshed, and disease (including cancer) before sin, which goes directly against the teaching of the Bible and dishonors the character of God.

But God created a perfect world at the beginning. When he was finished, God stated that his creation was “very good.” The Bible makes it clear that man and all the animals were vegetarians before the fall (Genesis 1:29-30). Plants were given to them for food (plants do not have a nephesh [life spirit] as man and animals do and thus eating them would not constitute “death” in the biblical sense).

Concerning the entrance of sin into the world, progressive creationist Dr. Ross writes, “The groaning of creation in anticipation of release from sin has lasted fifteen billion years and affected a hundred billion trillion stars.”

The Bible,however, teaches something quite different. In the context of human death, the apostle Paul states, “Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin” (Romans 5:12). It is clear that there was no sin in the world before Adam sinned, and thus no death.

Since evolutionary radiometric dating methods have dated certain humanlike fossils as older than Ross’s date for modern humans (approx. 40,000 years), he and other progressive creationists insist that these are fossils of pre-Adamic creatures that had no spirit, and thus no salvation.

Progressive creationists accept and defend evolutionary dating methods, so they must redefine all evidence of humans (descendants of Noah) if they are given evolutionary dates of more than about 40,000 years (e.g., the Neanderthal cave sites) as related to spiritless “hominids,” which the Bible does not mention. However, these same methods have been used to “date” the Australian Aborigines back at least 60,000 years (some have claimed much older) and fossils of “anatomically modern humans” to over 100,000 years. By Ross’s reasoning, none of these (including the Australian Aborigines) could be descendants of Adam and Eve and so wouldn’t have souls. However, Acts 17:26 says, “And he has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings”. All people who have lived on earth are descendants of Adam.

In addition, the fossil record cannot, by its very nature, conclusively reveal if a creature had a spirit or not, since spirits are not fossilized. But there is clear evidence that creatures, which progressive creationists place before Adam, had art and clever technology and that they buried their dead in a way that many of Adam’s descendants did. They were fully human and actually descendants of Adam, and they lived only a few thousand years ago.

Progressive creationists will say they believe in a “universal” or “worldwide” flood, but in reality they do not believe that the flood covered the whole earth. They believe in a local flood. They argue that the text of Genesis 7 doesn’t really say that the flood covered the whole earth. But read it for yourself and you will find the language overwhelmingly speaks of a flood covering the entire earth and everything on it.

Now it is true that whether one believes in six literal days does not ultimately affect one’s salvation, if one is truly born again. However, we need to stand back and look at the “big picture.” In many nations, the Word of God was once widely respected and taken seriously. But once the door of compromise is unlocked and Christian leaders concede that we shouldn’t take the Bible as written in Genesis, why should the world take heed of it in any area? Because the Church has told the world that one can use man’s interpretation of the world (such as billions of years) to reinterpret the Bible, it is seen as an outdated, scientifically incorrect “holy book,” not intended to be taken seriously.

Beware of compromise positions that attempt to fit man’s evolutionary/millions of years beliefs into the Bible.

Can You Love Theistic Evolutionists?

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An article by Ken Ham:

I have been traveling around the world and speaking on creation-apologetics for over 40 years. I’ve also been on many media interviews and radio talk shows during that time. I’ve met thousands of people. You could imagine that during all this time I have been asked a lot of questions relating to what I teach concerning Genesis chapters 1-11, the authority of Scripture, and the gospel. Surely by now you would think I’ve heard every question possible. But no, I think almost every week I’ll hear a question I haven’t been asked before.

During one of my trips to Australia, a reporter with a Christian media outlet had some different questions for me. I think you’ll be very interested in these questions and how I did my best to answer them. Often, after answering certain questions, I said to myself, “I need to remember how I answered that for next time!”

I always pray for wisdom and ask the Lord to help me answer new questions, and I do believe he also helps me recall things I’ve heard or read.

I’ve been in apologetics ministry for more than 40 years. My first creation-apologetics talk was in 1975. Along the way, I’ve had so many media interviews, I can’t remember most of them—TV broadcasts, radio programs, and newspaper and magazine interviews across the globe!

In a sense, I have learned to deal with being thrown to the wolves in this Answers in Genesis ministry. I’ve had to learn how to answer the most-asked questions about Genesis, creation, evolution, Noah’s flood, moral issues, the gospel, biblical authority, and so forth and do it quickly. And we hear many of those questions over and over again. That’s why we complied the 5 Answers Books to answer these most asked questions.

Actually, being out of the office and teaching in churches and colleges and interacting with Christian and secular media certainly hones our ability to answer new and sometimes difficult questions.

Over the years, every time I hear a question that I don’t know the answer to, I follow up with research, sometimes meeting with our resident scientists/theologians at AiG. We discuss the topic to ensure I can answer the question even better next time.

But let’s get to the interview I had with a reporter for a Christian media group in Australia.

The media outlet heard I was speaking at a conference in Sydney and contacted the church to ask if a reporter could talk to me. The reporter called me a couple of days later, and I spent nearly an hour on the phone with her. I wasn’t able to record the conversation, but I took careful notes and compiled them to the best of my ability.

I wasn’t surprised that it didn’t take long for her to ask a question about whether I believe someone has to believe in six literal days and a young earth to be a Christian. I emphatically stated that salvation is not conditional on the age of the earth or the six literal days, but on faith in Christ. I explained why it’s really a biblical authority issue, and I gave her many examples of how incompatible millions of years is with Genesis.

But then she asked a question that I must admit I had never been asked before, “Can you love theistic evolutionists?”

I told her I had recently spoken at a secular university (the University of Central Oklahoma) with many of the LGBTQ group from the university present. I told the crowd that as a Christian, I didn’t hate them, because I’m a Christian. And as Jesus tells us, we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. However, I told the audience that I disagreed with the LGBTQ worldview—but that should never be interpreted as hate. I then said to the reporter, “I can love LGBTQ people, and I can love theistic evolutionists.”

Sensing why the reporter might be asking the question, I added that because I speak boldly about what I believe, sometimes people will falsely interpret my beliefs as hate. I often find that those who don’t take AiG’s stand on Genesis will demand we agree that people can have different views. I told the reporter that Christians can have different views, but I’ll tell them why I believe those views are wrong—and how they undermine biblical authority! Sometimes people get angry when I respond like this, and they may even, ironically, show hate toward me! They want me to say their position is a valid one. But I can’t do if I do not believe it!

I explained to the reporter why such matters are biblical authority issues. In detail, I pointed out that adding man’s ideas to Scripture in Genesis is undermining the authority of the Word of God—that it undermines all Christian doctrine, even the gospel.

The reporter asked me many other questions, and she got to the topic of climate change. Now, I would say that this was the only time during the interview when I believe things became somewhat contentious with this Christian reporter. (Climate change can be an emotional topic.)

First, I told her there’s been climate change ever since the flood. I said I didn’t deny climate change, but the details as to why it’s happening and how serious it is (or isn’t) were matters that needed to be discussed. I referred to one of the articles in our Answers magazine where a scientist shows that there have been warming and cooling periods in the past and that our current (quite small) warming trend could be a normal fluctuation.

I further explained that we don’t have enough data to know for sure what has really been occurring. I added that scientists know the sun’s activity has a significant effect on climate change and that the main greenhouse gas is not actually carbon dioxide but water vapor.

Then it became a bit tense. I said that if you ask most people who are climate change alarmists (including most young people) to explain the data and give the facts behind what they’re claiming, most have no clue. They just regurgitate what they’ve heard.

She then said something to the effect that she didn’t need to do that. The reporter said that she could rely on the experts who have done the research. I replied that this is not the correct approach and that as Christians, we all need to search things out and be prepared to give reasons (1 Peter 3:15) for what we believe.

I told her my father wanted his kids to know why we believed what we did—and wanted us to be able to defend our beliefs. She then essentially accused me of refusing to accept what the majority of scientists are saying: that man-made climate change is a big problem.

I replied by saying that the majority of scientists say there’s no God and that life arose by naturalistic evolution. Should we then say we have to reject God because the majority of scientists say so? I emphasized that we are obligated as Christians to check things out.

I also explained that after the Flood, God told Noah, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22).

She responded with, “Are you saying we should do nothing then?” Well, of course I wasn’t saying that. I responded that God gave man dominion over the environment, not the environment over man, and that Christians should have a biblically based worldview in regard to environmental issues. We should responsibly use the creation for man’s good and God’s glory.

I gave an example that in the USA, trees are harvested for various reasons, but more trees are planted than are harvested. I also said that we need to understand how sin and the curse of Genesis 3:14-19 have affected the world.

I recalled the verse, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6).

Actually, that’s a major problem in the world and in the church! One of the reasons so many young people are being led astray by evolutionary ideas, climate change alarmists, abortionists, the LGBTQ movement, and so forth is that they have been told what to believe and not taught how to think about such issues or look at all the evidence available. And sadly, much of the church has not taught their congregations how to think about these issues from a biblical worldview perspective, and how to defend the Christian faith against the secular attacks of our day by equipping with apologetics.

Real Science – Real Scientists

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An article by Ken Ham:

I’ve often heard the claim from atheists that creationists can’t be real scientists! What they really mean is if you are a scientist and a creationist, we (the atheists) will do all we can to discriminate against you and not allow you to be published because we are totally intolerant of Christianity.

Answers in Genesis has a number of PhD scientists. One of them obtained his PhD from Harvard university. All of our PhD scientists actually obtained their qualifications from well respected secular universities.

Yes, they are real scientists and ardent (literal Genesis) creationists. I wanted to feature some of them for you and give you a summary of some of the research they are doing to show that observational science confirms the bible’s account of history.

To me, research can be both boring and exciting at the same time! Boring—because sometimes it seems to take millions of years for our researchers to meticulously carry out their investigations! Exciting—because after years of research, our speakers and writers (and others) can use the results to show people how observational science confirms the Bible’s account in Genesis and devastates evolutionary ideas.

Take the research of Dr. Gabriela Haynes. She’s a PhD paleontologist who came to work in AiG’s research department from Brazil. Here her explain some of her research:

“Soft tissue in fossils was always something interesting for me as a paleontologist. Then, during my PhD research on Hymenoptera (wasps, ants, and bees) while I was looking for pollens, I found something that looked like blood cells in an insect fossil. As a creationist, that brought me a lot of excitement!

“At first my secular colleagues were excited to do some research, but then they concluded that those blood cells could not belong to the wasp since it is dated to supposedly 120 million years. They told me, “It is contamination. Don’t bother.” I just thought that their answer was not very scientific, and, as a creationist, I believed that there was a chance those blood cells were not the result of contamination. I tried to make them study the material, but it was in vain. They had already settled the case in their minds.

“I did some research by myself, and all the results I had were pointing to soft tissue material and blood cells. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the support from my secular colleagues to use the laboratory and run more tests.”

She is now continuing her research at Answers in Genesis, and publishing papers in our technical publication, Answers Research Journal.

In fact, there are now many examples of soft tissue found in fossils supposed to be millions of years old. Much more research needs to be done in this vital area and our scientists will certainly be doing this.

Then there’s our Harvard-trained PhD scientist, Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson. He published his monumental book, Replacing Darwin. This ground-breaking book details his genetics research to clearly show that speciation, adaptation, and natural selection, when properly understood, devastate Darwinian evolution.

Dr. Jeanson has also been conducting research into human genetics. He’s looking into whether there’s evidence from human populations to confirm the biblical account of history beginning about 6,000 years ago. Dr. Jeanson’s research also has important things to say about the event of the Flood (i.e., all humans today are descendants of Noah’s sons) and the account of the Tower of Babel.

His research to date is blowing the evolutionary time scale out the window. Dr. Jeanson states:

“In our culture, few things provoke more ridicule than the idea that the earth is just 6,000 years old. As a biologist, I’ve witnessed my anti-evolutionary colleagues critique evolution—and deftly avoid the contentious and embarrassing age question—for decades. With the advent of modern genetics, this avoidance is no longer possible.

“For example, within each of our bodies, we have genetic “clocks” that have marked the passage of time since the dawn of humanity. If anyone wants to explain the origin of mankind, they must deal with these genetic clocks. My published research has found evidence that these clocks have ticked for only 6,000 years.

“I’m now exploring an even more powerful implication of this finding: if the global genetic differences among humans reflect 6,000 years, then they should also bear the stamp of the known history of civilization. If evolution were true, this stamp would be very difficult to detect. Instead, my initial results are showing that 6,000 years are indeed the hero of the plot. New funds would allow me to pursue this research further by obtaining new DNA sequences from other ethnic groups, further confirming this stamp of civilization—and underscoring the Bible’s accuracy on the age of the earth.”

Dr. Jeanson’s research also has some other interesting aspects. Known major events in human history actually show up in his genetics research! Incredible stuff!

He has now published a major book called, “Traced,” based on this research he is doing. He is also continuing to publish his results in Answers Research Journal.

Now evolutionists often use astronomy in an attempt to prove their billions of years/evolutionary history of the universe. There is so much more research needed in astronomy, and we praise the Lord that our PhD astronomer, Dr. Danny Faulkner, is involved in all sorts of such fascinating research. Dr. Faulkner states:

“I have been working and publishing in the field of eclipsing binary stars for four decades. Two other creation astronomers who are close associates of mine also have studied eclipsing binary stars for years. We often have wondered why all three of us ended up in this field, and we may now know the answer to that question. Due to magnetic interactions of close binary stars, their orbital periods change. We are seeing evidence that these systems are changing far faster than previously thought.

These orbital changes place constraints upon the maximum possible ages of such systems, and it appears that their maximum ages must be far younger than the billions of years typically thought. This is very difficult to resolve with the evolutionary paradigm, but it is quite consistent with recent creation. Therefore, it is important that we continue to study this very interesting possibility.”

And then there’s the ongoing research conducted by Dr. Andrew Snelling, who has been leading research on the massive folding of sedimentary strata in the Grand Canyon. This is the project that the Grand Canyon National Park and secular scientists tried to stop. It’s that intolerance of anything Christian they have. But a legal challenge was lodged on our behalf by the religious freedom group, Alliance Defending Freedom. Because of clear and obvious violations of our First Amendment rights (discrimination, because we were Christians) by the federal government, Grand Canyon officials were forced to settle, and all the necessary specimens were collected.

Dr. Snelling’s ongoing research at the Canyon is being published in a series of papers in our free Answers Research Journal. Dr. Snelling explains more about this research:

“Evolutionary geologists claim the flat-lying sedimentary layers exposed like a stack of pancakes in the walls of the Grand Canyon were deposited grain by grain over 300 million years. Then some 150 million years later those layers were bent as the area was pushed up by earth movements to form a plateau. By that time, those layers were hard and brittle, so when they were bent, the rocks should have cracked and shattered. Or, because of the burial of these layers under a two-mile thickness of other layers above them, the pressure and heat may have made the rocks plastic enough to bend them smoothly as well.

“What we find is the layers are bent smoothly without any major cracking or shattering. So the layers had to have been bent while still soft. Thus, I have collected samples from these layers where they are bent and from well away from the bent layers for comparison. The laboratory and microscope examination results so far show no differences in either the minerals or the textures present in these sedimentary layers.”

What this research shows is that those layers could not be millions of years old—they couldn’t have been bent millions of years after they were laid down. The evolutionary story doesn’t fit at all. Dr. Snelling has found a lot of intriguing evidence he is now publishing.

Now, it only took you a few minutes to read this article. But the research I’ve outlined for you can take many months—or even a few years—to complete. And yet, such research is vital for the Answers in Genesis apologetics ministry.

I sometimes smile in my public talks as I share a particular piece of powerful evidence, but I take just a minute to do it! I know it may have taken two years of painfully meticulous work for a researcher to complete the work.

Yes, I am passionate about our research team and their work

The ongoing research by our PhD scientists is so important in today’s anti-Christian culture. It’s crucial that Christians have the tools and the information they need to help refute the many attacks on the Bible.

“O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called “knowledge,” 1 Timothy 6:20.

Understanding Culture – Past & Present

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An article by Ken Ham:

Using Bible references and secular sources, I want to help you understand cultures—past and present—and where they stood spiritually and morally. It’s a reminder that the sin nature of man has not changed!

Let’s consider the past.

•Idolatry: The Israelites were warned about idolatry over and over again. For instance, we read,

“Who say to a tree, ‘You are my father,’ and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’ For they have turned their back to me” (Jeremiah 2:27).

•Child sacrifice: Many examples are cited in the Old Testament about this evil (2 Kings 16:3; 2 Kings 17:17; 2 Kings 21:6; Ezekiel 20:31; Jeremiah 32:35). Of course, it is well known that thousands of years ago, the Canaanites conducted human sacrifice, using children. There’s much evidence the Aztec, Mayan, and Inca societies were conducting child sacrifice just a few hundred years ago.

•Euthanasia: It appears that ritual euthanasia was practiced by numerous ancient cultures. The Phoenicians were known to poison their older individuals. Both the Spartans and the Romans would leave children that they deemed disabled out to die in the elements. Also, ancient Indian cultures were known to throw elderly adults in the Ganges River to drown.

•Sexual Sin: Homosexual behavior—Scripture teaches against such behavior (Leviticus 20:13) and records examples as warnings for us (Genesis 19:1–14; Judges 19:15–30; Romans 1:26–27). Homosexual behavior was a running theme in the literature of the ancient Greeks and Romans. And you’ve heard of the judgment God meted out on Sodom and Gomorrah!

Bestiality—This behavior was known in ancient cultures, and the Bible warned the Israelites against this evil (Leviticus 18:23 and 20:15). Bestiality seems to have been a form of punishment in ancient Rome, used in the arena to humiliate a prisoner before death. Ancient Egyptians also appear to have engaged in it based on their hieroglyphics. In addition, bestiality appears in the mythology of numerous cultures.

Prostitution—God warns against this sin in many places in Scripture, including Proverbs 5:3–14, Proverbs 9:13–18, and Exodus 20:14. Prostitution was amazingly common in the ancient world. Athens was a hotbed, and its well-known statesman Pericles was notorious for keeping one as a mistress. Herodotus wrote of temple prostitution in Babylon. Ancient Chinese emperors are said to have employed prostitutes to service their armies. In Hinduism, temple prostitution is associated with their goddess of fertility and is still practiced today (even though it was outlawed in India decades ago).

Pedophilia—This sin was also a common practice in the ancient world. Greek and Roman men were notorious for taking boys as their “lovers” (though in the Roman world it was limited to slaves, not freeborn citizens).

Transgenderism—There appears to be references to transgenderism in the ancient world. Apparently, ancient Assyria had transgender prostitutes. Ancient Greece and later Rome had a cult religion that was transgendered (at least in the priesthood). Transgenderism is found in Roman poetry as well. The Roman Emperor Elagabalus is known to have identified as a woman and requested primitive gender reassignment surgery.

What’s my point in listing all of these terrible things?

Well, Ecclesiastes 1:9 states, “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.”

People have often described our Western world as having civilized cultures, whereas many of the past societies have been described as barbaric or degenerate.

The Bible makes it clear that the nature of sin has not changed. Jeremiah reminds us that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick” (Jeremiah 17:9).

God also warns us in Romans chapter 1 that as people rebel against God, he turns them over to their depraved natures—and a sexual revolution, homosexual revolution, and gender revolution will follow.

My point is this: because of sin, if we don’t work and pray hard to raise up generations on the foundation of God’s Word and its life-changing gospel message, their naturally depraved sin natures will again exhibit the same behaviors as those listed above. That’s why God warned the Israelites over and over again, and why he instructed them to raise up godly offspring.

Now consider the present.

We now see that all the perverse behaviors above are permeating our “civilized” Western culture. Just like the Israelites of the Old Testament, parents have failed to raise up godly generations, so now we increasingly see young and old behave as described in Judges 21:25: “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

Actually, Romans 1 is happening before our very eyes.

•Idolatry—The teaching of evolution/millions of years (which many church leaders have condoned for the next generation to believe) is no different from Jeremiah 2:27. People are really saying, “Matter—you are my father; you gave birth to me.” Coming generations are no different from past generations who “worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25), thus “God gave them up” (Romans 1:26).

So, we are observing all the following behaviors again:

•Child sacrifice—It’s called by different names in our culture, such as abortion, “health care,” and women’s reproductive rights. But they are just hiding the fact that abortion is nothing less than sacrificing children to the “god of self.”

Over 65 million have been murdered in the USA since 1973. Now I ask you this: which is the more barbaric culture? Those of the past or the present?

•Euthanasia—This practice is also becoming another prominent issue in our Western world with more and more countries making this freely offered to adults—and even children!

•Sexual Sin—Homosexual behavior: In the last few years, this has become a dominant issue in our culture. The pressure to welcome and accept such behavior has become all-pervasive in the media, schools, and government.

Bestiality: We’ve even seen some recent news articles of this happening in our culture. One article gave an example of an atheist’s refusal to label bestiality as an immoral act illustrating what happens when there are no objective moral standards.

Prostitution: We know this exists in various ways in our culture.

Pedophilia: Recent calls have gone out to legalize pedophilia. Some people even try to justify such behavior in academic articles. Again, what would we expect when a culture lets go of any objective moral standards?

Transgenderism: This has also become a dominant issue in our society. Drag queens are now giving children talks in public libraries. Some parents are stating that they are bringing up their children to be “gender fluid.” A few government agencies (and other groups) are adding alternatives to male and female on various forms and documents. In some places (as has happened in one instance with a committee in California recently), people are being told not to use he, she, her, or him in referring to people.

Our culture is no different from those of the past that we call barbaric!

And we also see polyamory (males, females, children in all sorts of combinations of immoral relationships) growing in popularity. And there are calls to legalize polygamy.

But I must make this point clear: our culture is no different from those of the past that we call barbaric! And that’s because the sin nature of unregenerate man hasn’t changed. And that’s the problem.

Now, the solution has never changed, and that solution is the truth of God’s Word and the saving gospel. I often remind people that what we see happening around us today is the consequence of a battle that began 6,000 years ago in a garden.

It’s a battle between God’s Word and man’s word. It began when the devil came to Eve and asked, “Did God actually say?” (Genesis 3:1).

As I’ve shown, the basic attack in this battle is on the authority of the Word of God. The nature of the attack has never changed, but the means by which the devil carries it out has changed. We need to understand how this battle manifests itself today so we can be effective soldiers for the King.

A “Private Prayer Language” – Is It Biblical?

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Article by Justin Peters – original source: https://www.forthegospel.org/read/is-having-a-private-prayer-language-biblical?

“For one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God, for no one understands, but in his spirit he speaks mysteries.” — 1 Cor. 14:2 (Legacy Standard Bible)

One of the most often employed and most convincing arguments marshaled for the charismatic position of a “private prayer language” is 1 Corinthians 14:2. The Apostle Paul says that one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God, supporting the charismatic belief that the gift of tongues is a private prayer language. The fact that “no one understands” seems to support that this language is not a human language at all but rather a heavenly, angelic one.


Are all “tongues” the same gift?
For this position to hold, it must first be assumed that the gift of tongues in Acts 2 is fundamentally different than the gift of tongues described in 1 Corinthians 12-14. There is complete agreement between charismatics and cessationists that the gift of tongues in Acts 2 involves known human languages. Those languages, 16 of them, are conveniently listed in the text. The argument that the gift of tongues listed in 1 Corinthians does not refer to known human languages is a hard sell, however, given that Luke wrote Acts five years after Paul wrote 1 Corinthians. If the gift in 1 Corinthians was fundamentally different from the gift in Acts, why would Luke, a traveling companion of Paul’s, use the same word for tongues as Paul (glossolalia) and ascribe to the gift the same source (the Holy Spirit) as Paul? It stretches credulity that Luke would not make such a fundamental difference known. The reason he did not is that it is the same gift.


Who is Paul referring to?
So, if the person speaking in a tongue is speaking in a known human language, why would “no one understand”? The “no one” does not refer to all people throughout the world, but only to those in the local Corinthian assembly. No one in the church of Corinth would understand what was being spoken because the message would be in a known language but one unknown to them. This person “speaks to God” because only God understands what is being spoken (He does, after all, know all human languages). This is precisely why Paul stresses the necessity of an interpreter. Paul says that if there is no one to interpret, “let him keep silent” (1 Cor. 12:28). An interpreter, or translator, must translate so that the church can be edified.


What is the purpose of spiritual gifts?
Remember that the purpose of the spiritual gifts is for the edification of the church (1 Cor. 12:7), not for our own private use! We cannot carve out an exception for the gift of tongues and say, ‘This one I’m using for myself.’ That defeats the entire purpose for which the Holy Spirit gives His gifts. There is no record anywhere in scripture of anyone speaking to God in anything but a known human language. We should hasten to point out that this includes the angels and Jesus Himself! So when you pray, pray like the Apostles and Jesus prayed — in a language you actually understand.

Two Worthwhile Quotes:

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“I have long felt that, whereas I stand foursquare on the evangelical faith, I have no patience with those people whose supposed fundamentalism consists in watching for heresy and indulging in wicked self-satisfaction because they have an idea that they alone ‘hold the truth’–hateful expression! Whereas in many ways I agree with their theological position I abominate their spirit.” – G. Campbell Morgan (1863 – 1945)

“Denominations are good, not bad, because they allow each church to follow Jesus according to conscience, and they keep strife between Christians of different convictions at bay… Keep clear fences but keep them low and shake hands over them often.” – Dr. Mark Dever