Monthly Archives: June 2023

Law & Gospel (Quote)

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Scripture: Matthew 5:18

From: May 21, 1882, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Volume 28

C. H. Spurgeon:

“It has been said that he who understands the two covenants is a theologian, and this is, no doubt, true. I may also say that the man who knows the relative positions of the law and of the gospel has the keys of the situation in the matter of doctrine. The relationship of the law to myself, and how it condemns me: the relationship of the gospel to myself, and how if I be a believer it justifies me— these are two points which every Christian man should clearly understand. He should not “see men as trees walking” in this department, or else he may cause himself great sorrow, and fall into errors which will be grievous to his heart and injurious to his life. To form a mingle-mangle of law and gospel is to teach that which is neither law nor gospel, but the opposite of both. May the Spirit of God be our teacher, and the Word of God be our lesson-book, and then we shall not err.

     Very great mistakes have been made about the law. Not long ago there were those about us who affirmed that the law is utterly abrogated and abolished, and they openly taught that believers were not bound to make the moral law the rule of their lives. What would have been sin in other men they counted to be no sin in themselves. From such Antinomianism as that may God deliver us. We are not under the law as the method of salvation, but we delight to see the law in the hand of Christ, and desire to obey the Lord in all things. Others have been met with who have taught that Jesus mitigated and softened down the law, and they have in effect said that the perfect law of God was too hard for imperfect beings, and therefore God has given us a milder and easier rule. These tread dangerously upon the verge of terrible error, although we believe that they are little aware of it. Alas, we have met with authors who have gone much farther than this, and have railed at the law. Oh, the hard words that I have sometimes read against the holy law of God! How very unlike to those which the apostle used when he said, “The law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” How different from the reverent spirit which made him say,— “I delight in the law of God after the inward man.” You know how David loved the law of God, and sang its praises all through the longest of the Psalms. The heart of every real Christian is most reverent towards the law of the Lord. It is perfect, nay, it is perfection itself. We believe that we shall never have reached perfection till we are perfectly conformed to it. A sanctification which stops short of perfect conformity to the law cannot truthfully be Galled perfect sanctification, for every want of exact conformity to the perfect law is sin. May the Spirit of God help us while, in imitation of our Lord Jesus, we endeavour to magnify the law.”

Article: Delighting in the Trinity

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Article by Dr. Michael Reeves – source: https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/delighting-trinity

“It is not to be expected that we should love God supremely if we have not known him to be more desirable than all other things.” So wrote the great hymn writer Isaac Watts. And of course, he was quite right, for we always love what seems most attractive to us. Whether it be God, money, sex, or fame, we live for and love what captures our hearts.

But what kind of God could outstrip the attractions of all other things? Could any unitary, single-person god do so? Hardly, or at least not for long. Single-person gods must, by definition, have spent eternity in absolute solitude. Before creation, having no other persons with whom they could commune, they must have been entirely alone.

Love for others, then, cannot go very deep in them if they can go for eternity without it. And so, not being essentially loving, such gods are inevitably less than lovely. They may demand our worship, but they cannot win our hearts. They must be served with gritted teeth.

How wonderfully different it is with the triune God. In John 17:24, Jesus speaks of how the Father loved Him even before the creation of the world. That is the triune, living God: a Father, whose very being has eternally been about loving His Son, pouring out the Spirit of love and life on Him. Here is a God who is love, who is so full of life and blessing that for eternity He has been overflowing with it. As the Puritan preacher Richard Sibbes put it: “Such a goodness is in God as is in a fountain, or in the breast that loves to ease itself of milk.” Here in the triune God, in other words, is an infinitely satisfying God, one who is the very fountainhead of all goodness, truth, and beauty.

That means that with the triune God there is great good news. For here is no mean and grasping God, but a Lord of grace and mercy—one, in fact, who offers a salvation sweeter than any non-triune God could ever imagine.

Just imagine for a moment a single-person god. Having been alone for eternity, would it want fellowship with us? It seems most unlikely. Would it even know what fellowship was? Almost certainly not. Such a god might allow us to live under its rule and protection, but little more. Think of the uncertain hope of the Muslim or the Jehovah’s Witness: they may finally attain paradise, but even there they will have no real fellowship with their god. Their god would not want it.

Here and here alone is the God for whom our hearts were made, the God who can win our hearts away from the desires that enslave us, the God who is endlessly, unsurpassably satisfying.

But if God is a Father, whose very life has been about loving and delighting in His precious Son, then you begin to see a God who would have far more intimate and marvelous aims, aims to draw us into His life and joy, to embrace us with the very love He has for His dear Son.

Indeed, this God does not offer some kind of “he loves me, he loves me not” relationship whereby I have to try to keep myself in His favor by behaving impeccably. No, “to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12)—and so with the security to enjoy His love forever.

The eternally beloved Son comes to us to share with us the very love that the Father has always lavished on Him. He comes to share with us and bring us into the life that is His, that we might be brought before the Most High, not just as forgiven sinners, but as dearly beloved children who share by the Spirit the Son’s own “Abba!” cry.

In other words, the God who is infinitely more beautiful than all the gods of human religion offers an infinitely more beautiful salvation. Here is a God who can win back wandering hearts by the mere opening of eyes to who He is, who can give the deepest hope and comfort to the stumbling saint.

The Trinity, then, is not some awkward add-on to God, the optional extra nobody should want. No, God is beautiful, desirable, and life-giving precisely because He is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Only here can be found the God who is love and who shares with us His very own life and joy. Only here can be found the God whom it is eternal life to know.

John Calvin once wrote that if we try to think about God without thinking about the Father, Son, and Spirit, then “only the bare and empty name of God flits about in our brains, to the exclusion of the true God.” Quite so, and that means that if we content ourselves with speaking of God vaguely or abstractly, without the Father, Son, and Spirit, we will never know the life, beauty, and comfort of knowing the true God.

Here and here alone is the God for whom our hearts were made, the God who can win our hearts away from the desires that enslave us, the God who is endlessly, unsurpassably satisfying.

What Do These Stones Mean?

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Ken Ham (in a facebook post) writes:

What do these stones mean?

Millions of people, including those in Christian families, visit the Grand Canyon in America each year. As they stand on the edge of this stunning canyon, children and young people will ask their parents, “How did this happen? What formed all those rock layers and the canyon?”

Now, the signs and the park rangers will tell them that the layers of sedimentary strata (some with lots of fossils) were laid down slowly over millions of years. They will then tell the story that the Colorado River eroded the canyon over millions of years.

In essence, the question asked was, “What do these stones mean?” Sadly, most hear a story based on the belief in (religion of) evolutionary geology.

But how many fathers answer the question by saying, “This canyon is a relic of a past catastrophic event—the event of the Noah’s flood. The layers were laid down during the flood, and then at the end of the flood, God raised up the land surface forming mountains (Psalm 104), and in this area a dam formed that held back leftover waters from the flood. Then the dam was broken, and the water gouged out the canyon to allow the river (called the Colorado River today) to flow through it. The sediment was washed downstream into massive deposits called surge deposits.

“It’s all a reminder of the judgment God brought on the earth because of the wickedness of man. It should remind us that God’s Word is true, God judges wickedness because of our sin, and we all need to receive the free gift of salvation as all humans are sinners.”

Over and over again children have not been given the correct answers by their fathers, even Christian fathers, when they have asked questions about the origin of the universe and life, as so many of all ages have been indoctrinated by the world’s pagan evolutionary views.

One of my favorite passages in the Bible is in Joshua chapter 4, where we read the account of the Israelites miraculously crossing the Jordan River. God told Joshua to get the people to have 12 men gather 12 stones from the river and build a memorial so that:

“When your children ask their fathers in times to come, ‘What do these stones mean?’ then you shall let your children know, ‘Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground.” For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up for us until we passed over, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever” (Joshua 4:21–24).

What a reminder! Make sure you tell this younger generation about the Lord and his Word so they will know who the true God is. And let this also be a witness to the world concerning the only one true God.

When we opened the Ark Encounter attraction in 2016, the board members laid 12 stones next to the massive ship. I explained to the 8,000 in attendance that this life-size Ark is our modern version of the 12 stones—to remind coming generations that God’s Word is true and that the saving gospel in that Word is true. We built the Ark and the Creation Museum as our 12 stones, so to speak, to help parents pass on the truth of God’s Word and the saving gospel to the coming generations.

We read one of the saddest passages in the Bible in Judges about when Joshua died, and then all that generation with Joshua died:

“And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals” (Judges 2:10–11).

The children who were to ask about the meaning of these 12 stones rebelled and they worshipped false gods! What happened? When we read Scripture, we find the fathers did not pass on the spiritual legacy to the next generation

This should be a warning to us today.

Psalm 78 instructs fathers to train their children to know the true God:

“He commanded our fathers

to teach to their children,

that the next generation might know them,

the children yet unborn,

and arise and tell them to their children,

so that they should set their hope in God

and not forget the works of God,

but keep his commandments” (Psalms 78:5–7).

And then we read

“And that they should not be like their fathers,

a stubborn and rebellious generation,

a generation whose heart was not steadfast,

whose spirit was not faithful to God” (Psalms 78:8).

It’s obvious these fathers of old did not obey the Lord and did not train up their children to fear the Lord as they should have. As a result, they lost the next generation after Joshua.

In essence, this is happening in the church today. Statistics back in the early 2000s made it clear that 2/3 of young people in the United States were leaving the church by college age (with very few returning).

Pew Research in 2010 clearly showed churched attendance for millennials was down to 18%, and by 2021, Generation Z church attendance was down to less than 9%!

Research we have done at Answers in Genesis over the years shows clearly that parents and the church have failed to raise generations who know what they believe, why they believe what they do, and how to defend the Christian faith.

Sadly, we have not raised up generations to hold a truly Christian worldview. In many ways, fathers have abdicated their God-given responsibility to be the spiritual head of their house and to make sure the correct spiritual legacy is passed on to coming generations. Personally, I believe many fathers need to repent of not investing the time to train their children. They’ve largely handed them over to the world (e.g., public schools, worldly media), and the church (which by and large has not taught apologetics but has compromised God’s Word in Genesis) as the primary sources for education.

Thus, when children ask the questions about the evolutionary views they have been indoctrinated in at school and are not given the correct answers by their parents or church leaders, to point them to the literal truth of the Genesis history, many walk away from the church. If they can’t trust the history in the Bible at the beginning, how can they trust any of it?

Just like in the days after Joshua, we are now seeing the consequences of this lack of training as the secularization of generations has increased and an anti-Christian sentiment has grown in the culture. Yes, when we contemplate this reality, every day should be a sad Father’s Day.

As fathers contemplate Father’s Day each year, I challenge them to commit to doing what God has commanded us to do in the spiritual training of our children. After all, each child is a human being who will live forever and ever, in heaven or hell, which should convict each one of us concerning the time and resources we invest into each child.

Fathers need to be teaching their children to defend the Christian faith and giving them answers to the evolutionary attacks of our day! They need to be teaching Genesis chapters 1–11 as literal history, as it is the foundation of the rest of the Bible, of all doctrine, of the Christian worldview, and of everything. They need to be teaching against compromising God’s Word in Genesis as is happening in much of the church.

“The father makes known to the children your faithfulness” (Isaiah 38:19).

“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).

On Father’s Day (regardless of when it is celebrated in different countries), as well as every day of the year, let’s remember what God commands concerning our responsibilities to our children. (Father’s Day in the USA is this coming Sunday.)

The Supremacy of Scripture

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Quotes by Tim Chester from his upcoming published book “Scripture is Supreme”:

  1. “When Christians say that Scripture is supreme, we are saying that the Bible is the authoritative guide to God.”
  2. “Scripture is supreme because it is wholly trustworthy, and it is wholly trustworthy because God himself inspired its creation, acting through human authors to ensure Scripture’s complete accuracy.”
  3. “We accept Scripture as our supreme authority because we recognise God as our authority. By submitting to Scripture, we are submitting to God.”
  4. “We accept the supremacy of Scripture because we accept the supremacy of its author.”
  5. “The true Christ is the Christ we find in Scripture. And therefore, the supremacy of Christ becomes the supremacy of Scripture.”
  6. “Through the Holy Spirit, God himself speaks through the Bible as it is read and preached. That’s why Scripture is our supreme authority—because it is the voice of God.”
  7. “The supremacy which God-through-Scripture claims over us is the loving, liberating, life-giving rule of a loving, liberating, life-giving God. If ever we have reason to doubt this, then we can look to the cross, for at the cross we see the love of God in all its height, depth, and breadth (Rom. 5:8).”
  8. “Whenever we have to choose between what the Bible says and what anything else says, we choose the Bible every time.”
  9. “The supremacy of Scripture is not a dictate imposed on us by a faceless despot. The words of Scripture are the words of Jesus, the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for his people.”
  10. “God becomes supreme in our hearts not by battering us into submission but by gently changing our desires and fuelling our love. This is why we read the Bible every day: to hear God speak to us in love and so be energised to serve him.”

What About Cavemen?

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Ken Ham writes (n a facebook post):

Do I believe in cavemen? Of course I do.

Cavemen are people who lived in caves. Actually, there are people today who live in caves in certain parts of the world. For instance, in central Australia where opals are mined, it is so hot that people live in caves. Some of the American Indians used to live in caves in areas around the Grand Canyon. So there were ancient cavemen, and there are modern-day cavemen!

But despite popular opinion to the contrary, ancient “cavemen” were completely human and in need of a Savior, Jesus Christ, just like every other human being.

When many people hear the term cavemen, they usually think of primitive-looking, hairy (even ape-like), cave-dwelling brutes. That is how they have often been depicted in secular museum dioramas illustrating man’s supposed ancestors or ancient relatives. Neanderthal man was often depicted this way.

Because of this evolutionary type of propaganda, many people are confused about cavemen. However, as I stated above, there is a very simple definition for this term: “Cavemen” are people who live (or lived) in caves!

After Noah’s flood, eight people came off the Ark, and from Noah’s three sons and their wives came all the people who live or have lived on this earth. The genealogies in Genesis make it very clear that these eight people descended from the first couple, Adam and Eve. This means that every person who has ever lived is a relative of everyone else. We are all members of the one human race—Adam’s race—which means we are all sinners in need of salvation.

Now consider what happened at the time of the flood. A massive amount of technology was lost. Except for what Noah took on the ark, the pre-flood world’s technology, architecture, and other expertise were completely destroyed.

It took time for humans to restore knowledge and rebuild technology after the flood. For instance, the Bible tells us that Noah initially lived in a tent (Genesis 9:21).

As time progressed and the population increased on the earth, perhaps some people built homes out of stone. Some may even have taken pieces of the ark to build wooden structures to live in. Others may have found or dug caves to live in. If I had been one of those people, I would have found a cave to live in as I don’t have a talent to build things!

Throughout history, people have lived in different types of structures, depending on the available natural resources, the talents of individuals, and the amount of accumulated knowledge for technological advances.

Now, because of the indoctrination in evolutionary beliefs, many people believe that man evolved from slime, and as he did, he first learned to grunt and then eventually speak. Then he developed stone tools that gradually became more sophisticated as he supposedly evolved.

From a biblical perspective, however, man was highly intelligent right from the start. Adam’s immediate descendants were soon inventing musical instruments and working with brass. No doubt Noah and his family began reinventing some of the technology lost at the flood. As time went on, their descendants developed new technologies as knowledge about the elements and laws of nature increased.

Some people (such as the group we call Neanderthals) probably became isolated from other humans. They lived in caves, invented musical instruments, made jewelry, and buried their dead. Yes, they were “cavemen,” but they were our relatives—descendants of Noah.

They certainly had some external features that made them look a little different from people today, but they were still members of the human race. They may have looked slightly different on the outside, just as Australian Aboriginal people look different from northern Canada’s Inuit, but their genetics clearly show they are all members of the human race.

This brings us to the most important scientific point. In 2000, the Human Genome Project announced to the world that all humans biologically belong to one race. Although the people heading this project did not acknowledge it, they confirmed the Bible’s account of the creation of man—that all people are descendants of Adam and Eve and all belong to one biological race.

Now, because of the immense variability God placed into the genome of each kind of creature, including humans, there is enormous potential for differences on the “outside”—e.g., physical traits. Sadly, many people see these outside differences as major and important—whereas in reality, these differences only reflect the genetic differences that God placed in the genes of each type of creature and humans.

Humans, however, have a difference inside that is vitally important. There are actually two “races” of people! There is only one race biologically, but there are two races spiritually. You are either for Christ or against him (Matthew 12:30); you either walk in light or in darkness (1 John 1:5).

The Bible makes it clear that the two spiritual “races” can be distinguished ultimately only by what is on the inside—the state of one’s heart.

In 1 Samuel, we read the account of Samuel going to anoint a king. He did not know God had chosen David. From the text, we are given the impression that Samuel saw one of David’s brothers and was convinced that he would be the king because of his physical characteristics. However, that was not to be.

In 1 Samuel 16:7, we read, “But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.’”

This reminds us all that it is not the outside that matters, but the state of your heart.

It is easy for us as humans to focus on the outside as we look at people—their physical characteristics, their clothing, their lifestyle—but God reminds us that the inside makes all the difference.

As we think about all this regarding the Great Commission, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15), we need to remember that the saving power of the gospel is for all our relatives—every human being.

So whether they live in apartments in New York City or in caves in Coober Pedy (real cave-people who even have TV sets) in Australia, or in caves in France, or in ice houses in the Arctic—all humans are descendants of Adam and are thus sinners in need of salvation.

The next time we hear the term “cavemen,”it will make a difference if we consider the fact that all humans are our relatives. What a reminder that, regardless of where people live or what they look like, they are all our relatives!

And everyone has a heart problem (sin) that needs attention. From what we know about most past cultures (including many cavemen), it would seem that many did not deal with their heart problem, and so they died as a member of the wrong spiritual race.

Let that remind us as Christians that we need to do our best to obey the Great Commission so that the good news of the gospel will reach the hearts of every human being. We need to lovingly challenge others to deal with their heart problem and become members of the spiritual race of the Lord Jesus.

Objection: Amazing how all the people in the Americas were killed by the Flood and yet their Indian cultures ancient mythology still mention the Flood.

Response: Actually there was no “Americas” before the Flood – mosts likely one continent that was totally destroyed by the Flood. Flood legends are changed versions of the original account that is preserved in God’s Word.

Gospel People

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A series of teachings by Dr. Michael Reeves

What Are Gospel People?

Revelation From The Father

Redemption By The Son


Regeneration Through The Spirit

The Importance Of Being Gospel People?

Gospel Integrity

The Church Fathers on Justification

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Four quotes:

Tertullian (c. 155-230): God will “impute righteousness to those who believe in him, and make the just live through him, and declare the Gentiles to be his children through faith.”

Basil of Caesarea (330-379): “The is perfect and pure boasting in God, when one is not proud on account of his own righteousness but knows that he is indeed unworthy of the true righteousness and is justified soley by faith in Christ.”

Marius Victorinus: “We know that a man is not justified by the works of the law but through faith and the faith of Jesus Christ… It is faith alone that gives justification and sanctification.”

John Chrysostom (c. 347-407): God’s grace “has allowed Him that did no wrong to be punished for those who had done wrong… Him that was righteousness itself, ‘He made sin,’ that is allowed Him to be condemned as a sinner, as one cursed to die, so that we might be, not just ‘righteous’ but ‘righteousness,’ indeed the righteousness of God.”

Who Do You Trust? Who Should You Trust?

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Ken Ham (in a facebook post) writes:

Who should you trust first? God or the scientist? God or the theologian? God or the Christian academic?

Many times over the years, I’ve had a number of conversations with Christians who won’t accept the days of creation as ordinary days and vehemently defend millions of years and other evolutionary beliefs. Often, the person talking to me has quoted various Christian academics, well-known theologians/Christian leaders, or certain church fathers claiming that I should give up my position on a historical Genesis because these academics/famous Christians do not agree with me.

My answer to them has been, “But what does God clearly state in his Word? I judge the people you quoted against God’s Word, not the other way round.”

I have certainly been scoffed at and mocked at over the years because of my position. Now don’t get me wrong. I respect scholarship. But regardless, we need to recognize that we could have 100 PhDs from Harvard university, but compared to what God knows we would still know nearly nothing.

When I teach children about dinosaurs, creation, and evolution, I like to ask them these questions:

•“Has any human being always been there?” They answer, “No.”

•“Has any scientist always been there?” They answer, “No.”

•“Does any human being know everything?” They answer, “No.”

•“Does any scientist know everything?” They answer, “No.”

•“Who is the only one who has always been there?” They shout out, “God.”

•“Who is the only one who knows everything?” The shout out, “God.”

I then ask:

“Who is the one we should always trust first? God or the scientist?” They call out, “God.”

And I could add, “Who should we always trust first: God, the scientist, the theologian, the teacher, the pastor, the professor?” And the answer will always be God.

In a way that sounds rather simplistic. In fact, I’ve had people who oppose my position claim that I have too simplistic a belief to just take Genesis 1-11 as it is written. Now when someone claims it’s too simplistic, I believe this is showing up a problem we all have to battle with because it’s a part of our nature, the sin nature we have, because we are descendants of Adam. The problem is pride.

God’s Word has a lot to say about pride:

“When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom”(Proverbs 11:2).

“Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him” (Proverbs 26:12).

And God’s Word tells how to gain wisdom and knowledge:

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7).

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10).

I would rather stand before the Lord and say that I’m guilty of simplistically believing what his Word states in Genesis than to trust the word of fallible humans and reinterpret God’s Word.

I’m reminded about this so-called “simplistic” approach when I read what Jesus said about children:

“Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3–4).

It is so much easier for children who have not had years of indoctrination from the world to believe God’s Word as written. Reading Genesis for them is just like reading a history book. Well, it is history, and history as God had it recorded for us. Sadly, the more educated people become, many find it harder to believe God’s Word as written in Genesis. And it’s not because Genesis is literal history, but I believe it’s because of pride.

And a reason for that is we all have an underlying problem.

It doesn’t matter who we are, we all have sinful hearts.

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

The origin of sin is found in Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve were tempted by the devil to disobey God. Now consider two elements of the temptation that help us understand our sin nature:

“He said to the woman, ‘Did God actually say . . .” (Genesis 3:1).

Note the first attack by the devil was on the Word of God to get Adam and Eve to doubt God’s Word so that doubt would lead to unbelief.

“For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5).

The second part of the temptation was really to offer them to be their own god.

We know Adam took the fruit and disobeyed God and brought sin and the judgment of death into the world. God’s Word states:

“Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come” (Romans 5:12–14).

So we have that sin nature. And Genesis 3:1 and 3:5 sum up that nature.

Our propensity will be to doubt the Word of God, as we would rather trust the word of man. I see that over and over again with Christian leaders/academics who would rather trust man’s word (beliefs) about millions of years and evolution instead of God’s Word as it’s clearly stated in Genesis 1-11.

Also, we have this propensity to be our own god. We want to decide truth for ourselves. We see ourselves as being proud of what we know. We think we can reason correctly by ourselves, so we have that problem of intellectual pride wanting intellectual respectability.

I believe this is why there is so much compromise in the church when it comes to God’s Word in Genesis. Our heart is such that we would rather trust man’s word than God’s Word, so we have a problem with intellectual pride and thus we cave to peer pressure. We must guard against this. However, none of us like being called anti-intellectual or anti-academic. And we will be called that if we believe in six literal days of creation and a young earth and universe.

But I often think about those in Hebrews 11 and the Christian martyrs of the past. They were sawn in half, thrown to lions, burned alive, lived in caves, were destitute and suffered many atrocities. And yet, so many Christians today cave because they are belittled by secular academics for believing the “simplistic” account of creation, the fall, the flood, and Tower of Babel as related in Scripture.

I wonder how many in the church today would have stood with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Would you? Who do you trust first: God or the scientist?

“‘Now if you are ready when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, to fall down and worship the image that I have made, well and good. But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace. And who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands?’

“Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, ‘O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up’” (Daniel 3:15–18).